“For fuck’s sake.” I lean over and put my head between my knees. “I don’t feel good,” I tell her.
She hauls a bottle of water out of the back and hands it to me. I groan. Drink. Breathe.
“You’re never going to get out on the other side of this thing if you don’t confront some of it,” she says. “You know I’m right.”
I look around. It would take too much effort to run away.
“All right.” She climbs out of the car, comes to my side, and opens the door. “M’lady. Let us sally forth.”
The Weirdo Video exterior is a mosaic of broken glass—green Heineken and Ale-8 shards rendering Godzilla, a brilliant, plummy tongue, sparkling quartz for an eye. A bench studded with RC Cola and Nehi caps. Two boys are parked on it. The one in the Dinosaur Jr. shirt gestures to the one in aviator sunglasses holding The Definitive Herzog. A few cars line the employee lot, all European—a dented BMW, two newer-model Volkswagens with rainbow decals. A swath of bumper stickers reading STOP MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL. Beyond: head shops, thrift stores, an old-school storefront catering to cotillions, white gloves and crinoline in the window displays.
I feel a strong, sudden affection for Louisville. It’s too much city for where it is, stuck between the South and the Midwest, metropolitan pheromones forging a force field around its borders. It has no choice but to go off the rails and become its own entity, a mishmash planet spinning off on its lonesome.
We open the door and a blast of cool air greets us. A guy with dreadlocks sits at a counter, a container of noodles in front of him. He gives a little wave and stuffs in a mouthful. “Welcome to Weirdo Video,” he chews. A television behind him plays something loud and stuttery. Rodney Dangerfield’s face blinks.
A bald, lanky kid who looks about sixteen bounces out of the back room, throwing a wad of paper at Dreadlocks. “Dude, your dinner smells like ass.”
“Shut up.”
That’s when I spot the trampoline by the door. It’s a small version of the large one we had as kids—black base, blue liner. Someone’s rigged an electric Domo doll, purple and ham-faced, to jump, getting about a foot of leverage before sailing back down.
“Psst.” Mel is next to New Releases. She wags a DVD at me. It’s Nashville Combat. “Check it out, baby,” she sings.
Dreadlocks swallows before saying, “You should get that. It’s awesome.”
Mel and I grin at each other.
He stares. “What.”
“It’s awesome because we made it,” Mel says.
He looks confused. “You made it?”
“We made Nashville Combat. Me and skinny over there. This is our movie.”
“No shit,” the guy says. “You’re Mel Vaught.”
“I know.”
“Wow.” He pushes his noodles aside. “I’ve watched your cartoons for, like, ever. Like since middle school.”
Mel leans over, shakes his hand, bobs her head. The switch has been flipped. “That’s really cool to hear,” she says. “That’s great. So you’re into animation?”
I hang back. It doesn’t happen much, but when we’re recognized, at a party or a convention, Mel always handles it more smoothly than I ever would. Providing she’s not tanked.
The bald kid reappears from the back. “Ryan, we need to know where you strategically misplaced the invoices.”
“Dude, I dunno. Ask Ted.”
Ted. I feel my stomach surge.
Ryan gestures at us. “Look. They made Nashville Combat.”
The bald kid perks up. “Really? That movie is incredible.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He points to Mel. “Wait, are you Mel Vaught?”
“I am.”
“Wow. You look just like her.”
“Hey, thanks.”
“So did all that really happen?”
“Yeah. Mostly.”
“Even the Grand Ole Opry Riot?”
“Oh yeah. None of that’s made up.”
“Wow.” He shakes his head. “That was a mindfuck to watch.”
Mel shrugs. The wrinkles around her eyes bear in a little deeper. “It was a mindfuck to be there.”
“So what are you all doing in Louisville?”
Mel points to me with both hands. “She’s Kentucky-born and raised. Sharon, what the hell are you doing? Come over here.”
They ask me where I’m from. I tell them Faulkner. “That’s close to Morehead, right?” Ryan says. He turns to Baldy. “Didn’t Ted live around there when he was a kid?”
At this, a tall, wiry man strides out of the back room. “Ryan, we really need those invoices, man,” he says. “I don’t want to have to perform voodoo to track them down.”
Later I would realize that of all the good things my stroke did—sealing Mel and me back together, returning me, as much as was possible, to my family—giving me the ability to see Teddy clearly was the best.