Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner
by
John O'Connor
Disclaimer: Victorious and its characters are the property of Schneider's Bakery and Nickelodeon. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. No profit is intended or wanted for this story. Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner was written by Warren William Zevon and David Eric Lindell. The song is copyright Universal Music Publishing Group. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. No profit is intended or wanted for this story.
Summary: Jade gets to make the movie of her dreams.
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Roland was a warrior
From the Land of the Midnight Sun
With a Thompson gun for hire
Fighting to be done
The deal was made in Denmark
On a dark and stormy day
So he set out for Biafra
To join the bloody fray
Through '66 and 7
They fought the Congo War
With their fingers on their triggers
Knee-deep in gore
The days and nights they battled
The Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living
And to help out the Congolese
Roland the Thompson Gunner
Roland the Thompson Gunner
His comrades fought beside him
Van Owen and the rest
But of all the Thompson Gunners
Roland was the best
So the CIA decided
They wanted Roland dead
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen
Blew off Roland's Head
They can still see his headless body
Stalking through the night
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson Gun
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson Gun
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
(Time Time Time for another week of war)
Norway's bravest son
(Time Time Time for another week of war)
Time stands still for Roland 'til he evens up the score
(Time Time Time for another week of war)
Roland searched the continent
For the man who'd done him in
He found him in Mombasa
In a bar room drinkin' gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun
He didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body
From there to Johannesburg.
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Talkin' about the man
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
The eternal Thompson Gunner
Still wanderin' through the night
Now it's ten years later
But he still keeps up the fight
In Ireland, In Lebanon
In Palestine and Berkeley
Patty Hearst
Heard the burst
Of Roland's Thompson Gun
And bought it.
"Holy crap, Vega! I gotta get your dad a present for this."
With a hint of worry, Tori asked, "A present?"
"Yeah! The man's a genius!"
"My dad's a genius?"
"No! Warren Zevon." She lifted the old 1977 album, Excitable Boy, featuring a closeup of the artist, a good looking young man wearing glasses with longish blond hair, towards Tori as she added, "Try to keep up, Vega."
"I… Whatever! I'm…sorry?"
"God this man is…was a fucking brilliant storyteller! And his music worked so well with the stories he was telling. Everyone knows Werewolves of London but then he has the title track, Excitable Boy! Before slasher movies became the norm!"
"The others are awesome too! But Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner… Oh man, I wanna make a movie about him!"
"Roland the…"
"The headless Thompson gunner. Try and keep up Vega. It's a story about a mercenary in the Congo fighting the Bantu during the Biafra Crisis in the mid-1960s."
"Biafra?"
Jade sighed heavily, "You were never good with history, were you?"
"Jade, I never really cared about those days… I'm more interested in the music…"
"Whatever. Look at these lyrics! Don't these scream a story to you?"
Tori looked at the sleeve of an old LP. All the songs on Excitable Boy were there with their lyrics. She focused on the song about Roland. Meanwhile, Jade was googling Warren Zevon on her tablet.
After a minute or two, "Wow, Jade, this is good. It's a war story, an adventure story and a ghost story. All in one!"
"I know!"
"But wait! At the end of the song, Roland kills Patty Hearst. Now I know I don't know a lot about the '60s or '70s – outside of the music… But I don't think Patty Hearst died."
Another tired sigh, "Vega, she didn't die. But the song says she bought it."
"Yeah. She bought the farm…"
"No, I think he meant she bought her fate. Alright, she was freed from the SLA and finally was broken from her Stockholm Syndrome mindset with therapy. I think…well, I imagine he meant her alter ego Tania died after the SLA was broken."
"Okay. Now, about the story, you have the plot and… How will your finance it?" Jade smiled at Tori who held up her hands, saying, "No, no, no… I'm not going to pledge anything! I don't want another Mrs. Lee after my ass!"
Jade sighed, "Alright… Lemme see what I can do… Didja know this song was his last live performance? He did the song on The Late Show With David Letterman before he passed away in 2003."
"You still want pizza?" Tori asked, changing the subject. She knew Jade would go on about something she was this fixated on. Like that damned stupid slasher movie, The Scissoring. One night, before Tori felt comfortable enough to easily stand up to Jade, the dark girl went on for a couple of hours about the movie. At least she was eloquent and not a repetitious preacher type of fan.
"No, I just came over to raid your father's albums… Pepperoni, sausage, onion and green pepper."
"But I don't like green pepper on my pizza," Tori complained.
"Then just get it on half of the pizza," Jade countered. "You really have to broaden your horizons…"
"But what about spill-over?"
"Vega…" Jade said in a warning tone.
"I'm calling the pizza place." As Tori pulled her phone out, she asked, "Remind me why you're here?"
"Because we're friends," Jade sneered. Then, in a slightly less snarky voice, she added, "And…I…I like it here."
Tori grinned and spoke into the phone, "Yeah, I have an order for delivery…"
The singer didn't see the appreciative glance Jade gave her as she ordered their dinner.
Ten years later…
"How come we don't have a reunion?"
Jade groaned painfully, "Aaaugh… Vega, the same reason we didn't have a prome. Until you screwed me and forced one on the school."
Tori glared at her wife, "Okay, remind me…"
"Because reunions are stupid and you're you."
"What does that say about you?"
"Huh?"
"Well, you married me."
Jade was thrown for a moment then she said, "Hey, order a pizza!"
Tori stared at her wife and Jade said, "Pick up the phone and call Italiano's."
"I know what to do…" Tori said as she angrily punched the screen on her phone. Under her breath, she grumbled "Italiano's was Trina's scam.."
"What was that?" Jade asked. Then Jade's phone rang and she glared at her wife. "I said call the pizza place, not me!"
"I didn't! I mean I did!"
Jade was about to say something else when she glanced at her phone. "Holy chiz!"
Identifying herself to the pizza parlor, Tori said, "Yes, the usual. And… Um…hold on for a second…" Then she turned her attention to Jade, "Babe?"
"Vega, shush!" Then she spoke into her phone, "Yes? I am… Well, I have an episode of King's Nightmares I'm finishing. It's the Captain Trips story he included in his first anthology. Yes…I am working on a new book but… You want to… Really? No, of course not. I didn't mean… Oh, yes, a joke. I… Oh! You really want to produce it? Oh my God! That's awesome! Yes, this is the best number to reach me… No, thank you. I'm looking forward to meeting you and… Monday? Great! You can text me the address and I'll be there. Or, I mean, your people can… Or, um… Thank you again. This is a dream project so I… Yeah, I know you understand. Okay. Thanks again. Goodbye."
Jade stood frozen for a long moment then shrieked, "YES! FUCKING A YES! VEGA! I CAN FINALLY DO IT! I CAN MAKE THE MOVIE!"
She pulled her wife into a firm hug, "I'm going to make my movie!"
"Oh Jade, I'm so happy for you! When? And where? And what movie?"
"That's up in the air right now. I'm meeting Steven Spielberg on Monday."
"Steven…Spielberg? The Steven Spielberg? Jaws? Close Encounters? Lincoln? The Post?"
"Yes, Ms. IMDB! That Steven Spielberg! And you forgot his early classic, Duel. Not to mention the goofiest war movie ever made, 1941. Or the Indiana Jones movies, Poltergeist, Christian Bale's introduction in Empire of the Sun. And, of course, Saving Private Ryan. And Tintin, Ready Player One, Bridge of Spies, Falling Skies and, of course, Schindler's List…"
"OH MY GOD, JADE! THIS IS HUGE!" Tori screeched, interrupting Jade's list of movies.
Unheard by the two, Tori's phone said, "And I suppose the usual payment… Thank you for calling Paisano's."
A few minutes later, after the giddy high died down. Jade asked, "You up for a Spielberg binge weekend?"
"Of course! I love his movies!"
"Given my story, I wanna focus on his few horror or thrillers and his war movies."
"Okay. I'll make sure we have plenty of nuker corn…"
Jade was scrolling through the legendary film-maker's IMDB profile and muttered, "Better get a bigger microwave…"
Tori rolled her eyes at the intentional misquote even as she smiled at her ecstatic woman.
After a long, but enjoyable weekend of Spielberg movies, Jade felt she was ready to meet the great man. Fortunately, she had been so obsessed (Jade claimed she was only focused) that she had a lot of the presentation ready, including proposed location sites long before The Call.
As she finished prepping for her meeting, Tori said, "Good luck, sweetie! I know you'll knock him dead!"
"Thanks babe. I really hope so."
Tori held a DVD box and asked, "Can you get him to sign this?"
Jade simply said, "No."
"But…"
"But, I'm going to meet this man to convince him to produce my movie. I'm not going in there all fan-girlie and ask for an autograph."
"It's for my dad," Tori replied meekly.
Sighing, Jade grabbed the BluRay of 1941 and said, "I don't promise anything."
Inside her mind, Jade was already trying to figure out a way to get this movie autographed. She loved her father-in-law and would go so far as to throw herself on a live grenade for he and his younger daughter.
Later, in a tense day for Tori, she got a text from Jade. Her heart almost exploded in her chest.
Got it!
"Good for you Jade! I knew you could do it."
Later, as Jade walked into their home, she called out, "Hey Babe!"
"Right here," Tori said, holding out a filled champagne glass.
Jade took it even as she hugged her woman. Then Tori said, "To Roland and his Thompson gun!"
"To Steven Spielberg, the smartest man in Hollywood!" Jade countered.
After the toasts, Jade pulled out the BluRay. On the paper cover, under the plastic sleeve, the great man's signature was there:
'To David,
'Thanks for all the work you and the other blue shirts do for us. I'm happy you like this movie!
'Steven Spielberg'
"Oh my God, Jade! You got it!
With a smug look, Jade responded, "Yeeeaahhh... I have the touch!"
Seeing the look on Tori's face, she added, "I waited until the end of the meet and then asked him. I told him about your dad and he was happy to sign it. He was even a little giddy that someone loved this movie as much as he did."
"Really?"
"Alright, he said a lot of people love the movie but too many were born after the movie premiered. Still, he was proud to sign a movie to a police detective. He may be more into war heroes – hot and cold wars – but he loves and respects all First Responders."
"Okay, so the detes! When, where and…you know…"
"He's going to see about locations in Africa. Fortunately, most of the places are fairly stable – outside of Boku Haran territory which is nowhere near my proposed locations. Europe's a piece of cake and studio time won't be a problem – here or in England.
"So, a few months for me to polish the script. He doesn't want to change a thing. He loves Zevon.
"He even said, he was surprised no one had made a movie of Zevon's songs. He even suggested I might want to write a few more…"
"Oh, Jade! Oh God, this is awesome!"
A year and a half later…
Casting was actually brief. Most of the roles went to relative unknowns with a very few noted actors for choice, if brief, roles. Jade loved the idea when Steven (by then, they were on a first name basis) said, "It worked so well for George when he made Star Wars."
After months of location shooting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – with heavy security - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, as well as shorter location shooting in Copenhagen, production moved to England. Sets were constructed at Shepperton Studios outside London for interiors and for rerecording the audio where necessary. Shepperton was also where the post work was completed.
The Congo shoots had been brief one or two-day affairs due to the new relative instability in the political climate. Mainly certain locations made somewhat famous during the Biafra Crisis from news reports at the time.
Most of the jungle fighting and other wilderness shoots were in southwest Kenya and the rainforests along the Uganda-Tanzania border. A seasonal torrential rain almost ruined a day of shooting but Jade pressed on. The only losses were some lighting equipment that shorted out and the actual sound recording from the overbearing sound of rain. She actually added a shadowy image of the headless Roland stalking through the rain-filled forest that became the image for the movie one-sheet and the BluRay and DVD cover upon release.
Many of the exterior off-duty scenes Jade created, beyond the limited range of the song lyrics, were filmed in Nairobi and Mombasa showing Roland and Van Owen as friends and colleagues, drinking, gambling and whoring when they weren't in the jungle killing. Several other scenes, including Van Owen reluctantly agreeing to do the CIA's wet work, were filmed in Nairobi as well as a Shepperton soundstage. Jade wanted to heighten the effect of Van Owen's betrayal of Roland to the CIA.
Using many remaining structures from the colonial period in that region helped for the realism Jade desired. Jade was specially thrilled to find an old colonial era barroom and hotel actually in Mombasa for the showdown between the headless Roland and Van Owen.
Tori came to Mombasa to see her wife. She really needed to see Jade. And Jade needed Tori. They were not seen for two days, outside of the room service people.
The singer got to see some of the intricate work involved in location shooting, especially in the jungle. Before she arrived, Tori was worried about going into the jungle but, once she was with Jade, she knew she'd be safe.
Before she headed to the former Dark Continent, she had taken the time to read up on the Congolese Wars – not that there was a lot out there in comparison to the larger struggles of the era, so she knew more so she could talk to Jade intelligently about the movie's background. In fact, she actually found the old colonial bar and hotel in Mombasa Jade used for the final showdown.
"Vega, what about your album?" Jade finally asked as she held Tori's sweaty body to her own sweaty body as they lay in a Nairobi bed. Jade may not sweat but sex was a different matter.
"I put it on pause and we'll resume when I come with you to England. If that's okay with you," Tori said, looking up at Jade with a calculated mix of innocence and sex.
"What do you think?" Jade whispered in a husky voice. More sweaty sex ensued.
The work at Shepperton took a lot of Jade's time but she managed to get a few free days, including Sundays, that she used to take her wife sightseeing all over London. In the two months they were in England, most of the sites were places Tori wanted to see like Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, the Palace, Parliament as well as Limehouse and less notable locations. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Harrod's, Battersea and the Isle of Dogs. Jade managed to get a couple of her own places in their itinerary including the Imperial War Museum, Stonehenge (which was a huge disappointment given they couldn't get close to the ancient stones) and Woking to see the Martian Cylinder and the Martian Tripod War Machine memorials erected in honor of H.G. Wells.
"Steven will love these!" Jade gushed at the pics she took and the notated edition of Wells' classic novel she bought in a Woking bookstore.
Tori was excited that she had the scale models of a Messerschmidt Me-109 and a Supermarine Spitfire from the War Museum gift shop for her dad, a World War Two history buff.
Less than a year later, Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner, a Sundance winner, premiered at the famous Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Spielberg came out before the silver screen to introduce the movie and the woman who wrote and directed it.
The red-carpet crowd seemed to love the movie. Jade, usually flanked by her wife, was congratulated by the people invited to the post-premier, which included a lot of the Hollywood glitterati.
Later, Jade told Tori, "Tom Hanks loved the movie! Tom Hanks! He's…"
Tori laughed, "I know. And Jennifer Aniston cornered me – she loves my music by the way – to say the movie was great but it needed some women who weren't whores…"
Jade laughed with her wife, "I know. I agree, but mercenaries in Africa in the '60s?"
"She admitted the same thing…" Tori replied with a chuckle.
Rolling over onto her naked, sex-sweaty wife, Jade exclaimed, "I DID IT! TORE, I DID IT!"
"Yeah, you did. Now kiss me you fool!"