Jesus Freaking with Frankenhooker
I hadn’t thought about Patty Mullen in well over twenty years, I’m sure. When I saw her name listed as a guest at the Full Moon Tattoo and Horror Convention in Nashville, I failed to put name to face. The biggest draw for me this year, aside from the fact that talentless hack, Billy Zane, wouldn’t be in attendance, was a rare appearance of Vernon Wells. That name may be difficult for you to match with a face, but pop culture enthusiasts such as myself, know him better as Wez, the red-mohawked, assless chaps clad dog of war serving the Ayatollah of Rock n’rolla, Lord Humongous from Mad Max 2, better known in Trump’s America by the title The Road Warrior.
Growing up in the industrial blight of Hammond, Indiana, I related more to the Mad Max trilogy even more so than I did Star Wars. As a child, it was difficult to imagine myself as a callow farm boy yearning for adventure in the far reaches of outer space. But it seemed like a goddam certainty I’d eventually be called upon to dress up like a punk rocker and steal gasoline from the meek and the square. So, meeting Vernon Wells was akin to entering the presence of Mark Hamill for those people who view light sabers as a viable form of self-defense.
First thing I noticed about Vernon Wells once I entered the convention center, he’d gotten so much older. He still rocked a headful of hair, though. Fucking actors (except for Billy Zane, and, I guess, Jada Pickett Smith) With Vernon Wells, you have to look at his eyes to see the remains of that savage intensity that made him such an iconic villain.
“What do you think about Billy Zane?” I asked him.
“I don’t know who she is. I don’t listen to pop music.”
“All right. We can be friends.”
We engaged in the sort of conversation pop culture philosophers should be able to have with celebrities forty years past their prime. He intimated that George Miller allowed him to construct the Wez character from the ground up. He regaled me with stories of how George decided on the fly that Mad Max’s dog needed to die since he feared the dog would be unable to keep from leaping from the doorless rig during the climatic chase with so many moving vehicles. This seemed reasonable. And I told him about the blonde buddy, Darren, and how I tried to hit him in the head with a boomerang six times to no avail.
“Those things aren’t so easy to throw,” I said.
“Yeah… I guess not.”
I only winced once and that was when my wife, overselling per usual, told the Aussie bastard that I had all his dialogue from Road Warrior memorized.
I suppose this was true considering the motherfucker barely spoke except to scream inchoately at the sky. Occasionally, he’d holler “Go. Go. Go,” or “Kill. Kill. Kill.” Also, “Losers wait,” and, finally, “You can run but you can’t hide.”
Still, Vernon grinned graciously. The old perverts love my wife. She’s one of the only females in the entire building lacking facial tattoos and leather collars around the throat. Her tight jeans and Panama City T-Shirts are like Viagra to these geriatric fucks. Don’t get me started on Tom Atkins or Ray Wise trying to sip on my Kool-Aid. The only guy who didn’t acknowledge her existence was Billy Zane and that’s because he was too busy prattling on about his “abstract” art.
So, I figured turn about was fair play when I saw Patty Mullen sitting off to herself under the Frankenhooker banner. She was dolled up like a Cal City whore which is to say pushing sixty, slutty, and sexy.
Patty Mullen is a fairly obscure actress, having only starred in two movies in her career. Doom Asylum, forgettable garbage which I can’t remember watching, and the absolute cult classic Frankenhooker. Directed by Frank Henenlotter of Basket Case fame, Frankenhooker tells the heart-warming story of a medical school dropout who loses his fiancé played by Patty Mullen to a freak, lawnmower accident. He manages to save her head and attempts to build a body for her from the parts he salvages from prostitutes he’s blown apart with a super crack drug of his devising. Mayhem, as it often does in these sorts of circumstances, ensues.
Patty was also the 1988 Penthouse Pet of the year…
Patty dressed the part. Of Frankenhooker, that is. She wore a flowing, purple wig which must have itched something fierce given her vehement scratching which only enhanced her Cal City streetwalking vibe. She wore a purple, satin dress slit up to her crotch. It was a view that competed mightily with the glacial expanse of the cleavage she flashed whenever she bent forward, or hell, whenever she didn’t bend forward. I was smitten. My eyes bounced from her breasts to her crotch to my wife bemusedly side-eying me.
I felt instantly transported to the age of sixteen, again, renting Frankenhooker for the eighth time, mumbling to the clerk about how much I appreciated Brian Yuzna’s practical effects work.
I figured Patty didn’t need to know about that. I suspected my wife was fairly certain of the history, though.
I decided to start the conversation off with something completely innocuous. “You sure look like you’re dressed up and ready for Easter.”
This was the day before Easter, mind you, so it wasn’t like I was just being a dick.
“It is almost Easter,” she agreed. “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?”
“What?”
Ah, shit, I saw it, now. The batshit crazy gleam in her eyes. So much like my wife’s sister when she tells me the Chinese are spying on her through her smart phone.
Now, if you know me, you know I’m a stone-cold atheist. Except when that idiot Trump posts AI pictures of himself as the Messiah. Then I feel blasphemed against. My wife, however, is a believer. Her faith is so strong, she believes that I believe. I cannot disabuse her of this notion. Not if I’m to know another moment’s peace moving forward.
“You pray to Jesus,” Patty asked me.
“I done prayed six times today, already.” I prayed that skirt would ride up her thigh just a little higher.
“Amen. Well, I know God exists,” Frankenhooker said, as though I sought to contradict her. “Back in 2017, I was going through some rough shit. About that time, my car ran off the road. With me in it. They didn’t find me for like two hours. By the time paramedics brought me in, I was DOA. You know what that means?”
I hoped Down for Oral Always, but I had a feeling she meant the other thing.
“No pulse. No heartbeat. Nothing. And yet they managed to revive me. The Lord wasn’t ready to take me just yet. And I’m here to tell you there’s something after this.”
It was difficult to tear my eyes away from Frankenhooker’s cleavage, but I sensed my wife was egging her on. Patty went on to describe a fairly typical near-death experience. Bright light. Feeling of serenity. Surrounded by the presence of loved ones who had passed on. An Egyptian fella who barred her entry to the afterlife. So, apparently, no special considerations were made for Penthouse Pets. They got the same near death experience we all do.
Right before my wife could launch into her own Jesus diatribe, Patty Mullen continued.
“There was another time…”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. This convention was so sparsely attended there was no one within fifty feet hankering for a Frankenhooker autograph. Maybe everyone had already been clued in she was crazier than a box of squirrels.
“There was a pusher operating in the subway. He’d already pushed four people to their deaths on the track, and he thought he was going to push me. And he did. But I felt the hand of God hold me still. My purse and all my shit dropped onto the tracks. But I was held in place. And then I turned around and lit his ass up with some industrial grade pepper spray.”
Her eyes blazed. My wife agreed likely that was God’s hand that kept her out of harm’s way. I scoffed. Yet after twenty more minutes of the God talk, when I finally got her to take my money for an autograph and a selfie, I tried to put my hand on her ass, and something held me back. Maybe that was God, looking out for somebody.
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
