Special Olympics

3/'06

She grappled his tiny frame and hoisted him in the air like the five-pound barbells she played with as a toddler. Not bothering to notice the look of comfortable terror spreading across her lover’s face, she swung him around, circling her dressing room. She tossed his middle-aged body like a sack of onions onto the catering table. His frail body landed nicely between the pitcher of protein shake and the pot of Creatine-stew.
“Marv! We’ve done it! The last day of shooting is over!” she exclaimed, her excited cheerleading routine looked off coming from a woman whose body was so toned it would make Sgt. Slaughter shit his depends. Well, Sgt. Slaughter in 1985.
Marv’s feet, unable to touch the floor, pointed inwards. He sat on his hands and looked at the ground, summoning an eight-year olds’ disposition. “You’re gonna be huge…” he said with a humble smile, “Wait till people see you on the street and start asking “Hey! Weren’t you the
Gigantress from the Dark Amazon!? Honey, let’s…let’s get a picture”
Marv had meant to end his impression of the Great American tourist with “Honey…HIDE THE FUCKING KIDS! BEFORE SHE DEVOURS THEM WITH HER SEVERAL ROWS OF SHARK-TEETH!!” but feared that Eva may take his cunning Hollywood wit too seriously, and shove his head directly up his ass.
Marv hopped off the table and began cleaning his glasses. He stared through fuzzy vision towards her. She was bent over, looking through her make-up bag. Without seeing the somewhat-threatening contours of her body, her bronzed skin made her look like a large male Elk eating some grass. As he put his glasses back on, he was momentarily blinded by a flashing light.
“Oh! Sorry, hon!” Eva said. Marv tried to find her face despite the black square that floated through his vision. “I just had to get a picture. Remember this old one, from the first day we met? Can you believe that was three months ago!?”
Marv stumbled and almost knocked over the Creatine-stew as he began to get his bearings back. “What picture?”
“This one!” She said, tossing the Polaroid over her shoulder. Marv ducked as it shot through the air and became embedded in the dry-wall behind him. This woman really
didn’t know her own strength. As he pulled it free, he saw that the photograph had been taken the day he had met Eva. At that time, Marv was casting for a movie about retarded teenagers finding love and breaking free from the stereotypes the world had made for them. It was to be called “The Special Olympics” and they already had Elijah Wood starring.
When Marv saw her duck through the door, bleached-blond hair pulled back tight, covered by a hat sporting the logo of the Mighty Ducks, and matched with bleached-white teeth that each shown forth like well-established islands in the sea that was her mouth, he began to choke on his egg salad sandwich.
He came to seconds later in her gigantic arms. She had saved his life. Heimlich maneuver. Egg salad still smeared around his mouth he yelled “She’s perfect! She’s got the part!”
Eva was surprised as anyone that she got the part of a paraplegic teenage girl starring opposite Elijah Wood, but it was her first acting job and she decided to take what she could get.
In the dressing room, these three months later, Marv rung his sweaty hands. After all the nights he’d spent falling in love with Eva, going to her house in the
Hollywood hills to make extensive rewrites to the script for “The Special Olympics”. After two weeks, the script had changed completely. It was now about a gigantic woman from the Amazon who falls in love with a man sent to capture her and bring her back to the United States. The man is understandably very attracted to Eva’s character, Olga, but decides that he must think with his brain, not his heart, and fires twenty horse tranquilizers into her. The story proceeds as the man becomes more and more uneasy about his decision. Finally, he releases her from her shackles and the two of them run away together.
The script was crap, and Marv knew it. He had gone to a technical college and his degree was in computer technology. The directing thing was just something he did on the side; along with potato sack racing and debate. He had become attached to Eva, though, and could not imagine surviving without her.
The project’s working title was still “The Special Olympics,” even though it was about a woman from the Amazon. Marv had been forced to fire nearly everyone involved with the project originally. Marv had taken out several loans to pay for the picture’s production. At the end of shooting he was completely broke, and living with Eva.
“Honey-“ Marv said, pouring himself a cup of protein shake.
“Yes?” Eva said after a few seconds, still distracted by her makeup bag.
“I wanted to talk to you about something…”
“Sure, babe, whatever you want,” she said as she began wiping off the makeup from the shoot.
“Well, as you know, it hasn’t been easy making the movie, and…well, I’m afraid since I’ve basically been financing the whole thing…that I’m out of money,” he said into his cup of protein.
Eva spun around quickly, her triceps flexing menacingly- though he was pretty sure she was always flexing- and bounded towards him. Marv reeled back in fear and threw the shake right into Eva’s face. She stopped and smiled through a dripping mask at him. She began to laugh, so much so that she had to bend over.
“I’m sorry, sweetie!” Marv said, grabbing a towel and wiping off her face, “I thought you were going to kill me!”
She took the towel from him and muffled her laughter.
“Honey! No!” she said, finally, “I wanted to hug you…because no matter what, we’re in this together…”
Marv dove down to his hunched over lover and embraced her around the waist.
“‘The Special Olympics’ is going to be a blockbuster, Marv, no matter what! We’re gonna be rich! I’ll do whatever it takes to help you get more money- I’ll work, I’ll call my uncle- he owns a pretty successful chain of party stores, or-“
“Honey, I’m glad you said that, because I need your help. When you were preparing for the Ms. Universe competition, did anyone ever ask you to take pictures?”
“Pictures?”
“Well, yeah…I mean, you have this amazing body, you know!? I would think you’d want to show it off!”
“Marv Sandleback!” Eva said, closing her robe and covering up her hulking pecks, “You know this body is only yours…”
“I know! Believe me, I know that! But, I was just thinking…it’d be the easiest way to make some quick cash, and if we put them on the internet, who knows how much we could make?!”
“Marv!” she exclaimed, standing above him as he bent down. Her shadow engulfed his frame completely.
“Eva! You know I love you! I’m doing this for us!”
“You’re not doing anything! And neither am I. I would never stoop so low-“
“Well, actually, hon- that’s just it. We’re gonna need you to stoop a little bit. You know Gary, the grip? The midget? Well, I was thinking, we could really tap into that sicko-market if we got some racy pictures of you guys-“
There was only darkness followed by extreme heat and a feeling that his flesh was dripping down his face. He screamed quickly and jolted forward, releasing himself from under the pot that the creatine-stew had been in.
“Eva! Why?!” he said, but she was already gone. The only image he could make out was the promotional poster mock-up he had made for the film sitting in the corner.  The poster depicted Eva decked out in her brown jungle rags, wearing a friendly smile and standing proudly with her hands on her waist above the words “The Special Olympics - THIS SUMMER!”.
Marv reeled and grunted sadly,“Really should have changed that title.”