Beetlejuice at the Hour of Lead

By Evan Leslie

After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372) BY EMILY DICKINSON

Four are packed in a hatchback at Tulsa’s Admiral Twin Drive-In:

1 – the recently rescued, muzzle-trained (mostly), 

pit bull, who couldn’t be left in Houston with friends, 

so suddenly, unexpectedly; and 

2 – his rescuer reading Proust, the son-in-law, 

eight-months unemployed, but not really looking right now; and 

3 – his husband, me, the son, 41, home again, feeling … what? 

Chill? Stupor?*  hardwired numb; and 

4 - my one-week-a-widow, Tim-Burton-fan mom, 

who washed her hair today, gassed her own car, stuffed it with cold 

Shiners and Ziplocs of sweet, home-mixed mess – Reese’s Pieces, 

walnuts, chips, and pretzel sticks (plus a box of Milk-Bone) – 

because this comedy/horror classic is playing, one-night-only, 

on Oklahoma’s grandest screen, with stars she loves – the morbid/hysterical 

Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Winona Rider (“so young”), Catherine O’Hara 

(her “favorite”), who mimes, mechanical, possessed, the “Banana Boat Song,” 

and Alec Baldwin (“still just devastating, even in glasses”), 

a ghost, who says to his wife, 

“Maybe this 

is heaven.” 

About the Author

Evan Leslie grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma and now lives in Houston, Texas with his Husband, Ryan, and his rescue pit bull, Rimbaud (formerly Rambo). Evan is a cellist, arts educator, and the director of the University of Houston’s Community Arts Programs. Evan is the former Artistic Producer at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Evan is grateful for the support and guidance he has received in workshops at Inprint Houston. This is his debut publication.