by Nikkolas Nelson

This is a love letter!
This is a love letter!
This is a love letter!
This is a love letter!

-The Murder City Devils, “Grace that Saves”, R.I.P.

I credit my grandmothers for my love of movies. Like many children of the 80’s and 90’s, the television was very often my babysitter. And for whatever reason, I think because I had an older brother, there was very little supervision over what I watched. I think the general parental consensus was something like, ‘Whatever older brother watches is okay for little brother and if little brother gets scared then big brother is there to comfort him.’ But how it worked the majority of the time was my brother would put a movie on, and after about five minutes, he would get bored, and go trade baseball cards and play Nintendo with our cousin, leaving little Nikki on his oddy knocky to watch whatever.

Many people don’t have memories from when they are three or four years old. I blame movies, more specifically horror movies, for ‘bringing me online,’ for lack of a better term. Some of my earliest memories, at three and four years old, are of laying on my Grandma Dee’s living room floor and watching Critters, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Creeps, and Return of the Living Dead. Grandma Dee recorded just about every movie that appeared on HBO and shelved the VHS tapes for me to comb through during every visit. Not every collection was complete. I thought The Empire Strikes Back was the only Star Wars movie until around first grade.

Grandma Nelson was the same way, though a Betamax lady. She was never a fan of horror movies so her shoeboxes full of Betamax tapes were sans the genre. What she did put on for me on an almost constantly rotating basis was Stand By Me. I think, again, the general feeling was ‘kids are in it therefore it’s a kid’s movie.’ Very much not a kid’s movie. But I am forever thankful that she did. The other movies I’d seen to that point were pivotal in my psychic-emotional awakening but Stand By Me was the first film that imprinted on me.

The most telling proof of this came one Fourth of July out at Fall River, Kansas when I jumped off the dock and into the lake. Still in diapers. Could not swim. I remember it vividly. The boards of the dock over the lake reminded me of the train tracks in the famous ‘TRAIN!!!’ scene. I would stand at the foot of the dock, kneel down and, imitating Gordie, hold onto a board for a few seconds, stare contemplatively into the distance, bolt up, scream “TRAIN!!!” and run to the end of the dock. I did this constantly. For hours. One time, I remember running and thinking something to the effect of ‘Wait. Gordie tackles Vern off the side of the tracks to avoid the train. I am missing a pivotal step to this dance.’ Accuracy in reenactment may have been the first principle I ever developed. So, the next time I ran to the end of the dock, I didn’t stop, and went right off the side and into the water.

I remember that I didn’t panic. It was gross because moss and mud but other than that? Pretty comfortable on a hot day. A family friend named Slade ran out to the dock and pulled me out of the water by my diaper. The one thing I don’t remember, that became one of Slade’s favorite stories to tell for years of get-together’s from then on, was that when he pulled me out of the water, expecting me to start screaming my head off, I instead yelled, “YEE-HAW!” and when he set me down proceeded to stamp my feet chanting, “Sick Balls! Sick Balls! Sick! Balls!” which back then was my word for anything ‘cool, hip, and/or happening’ to the chagrin of many a babysitter.

Rarely does a month go by where I don’t re-watch Stand By Me. I think if I ever met Wil Wheaton in person, I’d scream and faint. I grew up a Gordie. A little smarter than the average bear, sensitive — dreams of being a writer. And there’s never a moment of writer’s block or out and out ‘Fuck writing. I don’t want to be a writer. It’s stupid. It’s a stupid waste of time…’ that I don’t almost immediately after hear River Phoenix’s plea, “It’s like God gave you something, man. All those stories that you can make up. And he said, ‘This is what we got for you, kid. Try not to lose it.’”

Two years ago, the night Grandma Nelson passed away, the first thing I did at three in the morning after my grandpa called to tell me, was go downstairs and watch Stand by Me. Thanks, Grandma. I love you. I miss you. And I promise. Everyday. I’m trying not to lose it.

Love,
Nikki