Free Confessions of a Transylvanian by Kevin Theis, Ron Fox

joining the Rocky cast involved on-the-job training. We were going to learn how to swim, but the teaching method this cast employed was to throw you in the deep end of the pool, lob an anvil at you and wish you good luck.
    Needless to say, when we realized that we would be improvising as we went along, the blood froze in our veins. The very idea was utterly terrifying. Terrifying and exciting, perhaps. But definitely equal parts of both.
    I checked in with Steve to see if he had been given any sort of guidance or advice to which I remained ignorant. “Do you have a clue what to...you know... do ?” I asked him. “I mean, once the show begins? Anything?”
    Steve looked about as shit-scared as I was. “No way,” he said. “I guess we just...figure it out, huh?”
    Our eyes must have been as big as saucers when the lights went down.
    Donny spotted the two of us huddled off to the side and corralled us just as the projector flickered to life.
    “Hey, listen,” he said. “Yo u’ re gonna be fine. Just find a few other Transylvanians and follow their lead. And try not to get in anyon e’ s way. Understand?”
    Steve and I bobbed our heads up and down vigorously. “Absolutely,” I stammered out. “No problem.”
    “Great. Have fun.” Donny stalked away.
    Steve and I looked at each other, each attempting to look calm.
    “Here we go,” he said.
    The lights had faded entirely. The projector was alive. The crowd roared.
    It had begun.

4
    Unconventional Conventionists

    O h, you thought the Rocky movie was going to start right then, did n’ t you?
    Not quite. I mean, whenever you go to the movies, just before the feature begins, yo u’ ve got to have coming attractions, right? Things were no different at the Rocky show.
    Well, things were slightly different. See, before this movie began, you did n’ t watch previews for movies that were about to come out. You watched previews for movies that came out years and years ago.
    The coming attractions at the Deerfield Ultravision midnight movie were all classic trailers. They ran previews for “The Blues Brothers,” “Animal House,” the Beatle s’ “Help!”; films that most of us had already seen a dozen times. The audience went crazy for them. It put them right in the mood.
    All during the previews, cast members scurried around in the dark getting ready. I did n’ t really get a sense that the main event was about to begin until, at last, everybody stopped fussing and finally settled down. Half of the cast was making their way to the ramp under the screen so they could look up at the two girls performing the opening number. Steve and I, lemmings that we were, joined them. Donny himself was perched dead center. His approach to this ritual was almost religious, the way he sat cross-legged at the bottom of the ramp staring placidly up at the screen, a contented smile plastered across his face.
    All of a sudden, the screen went black and the crowd started chanting, “ We want lips! We want lips! We want lips! ”
    Then the opening music kicked in, and the bright red lips appeared, very small, on the screen. They continued to swell in size until the smile was fifty, sixty, seventy feet across. The audience was howling their approval.
    Very slowly, the spotlight came up on the two girls center stage. At that moment, the lips on the screen parted…and started to sing.
    The previous week, I had seen this pair go through their rendition of “Science Fiction / Double Feature” from about halfway back in the theater. It was a sight to behold, even at that distance.
    But now, practically sitting in their laps, I could hardly stand it. They had sexual vibes pouring off them in waves and I was sitting at the epicenter of this erotic tsunami.
    As before, they were sharply in sync with each other. They seemed to sense the othe r’ s precise movements, down to the last detail, even before either of them moved. And it was n’ t simply that they were performing pre-arranged