I didn't know her but even in death she was very good-looking, her body especially. What else is a twelve-year-old to think? There it all was in one living dream in front of me – sex (I'd never seen the real thing before), death, honor, excitement Who she was isn't important nor is how she got there. The point of this is to tell you how disappointed I was when Geoff came back and I began to hear the wail of a police siren. For one of the only times in my entire life, I had everything I wanted in front of me. Everything I knew, wanted – was – had reached consummation here. In a few minutes (I can still hear Geoff Pierson's sneakers running hard across the grass toward me) life would take it – take her – back into its hands and I would be only me again; twelve, confused, hot, thrilled.

If possible, freeze that moment in your mind. Freeze the look of greed and desire on my face. For the only time in my life, I knew the greatest secret of all – the dead love you.

We'd been on the set of Burn the Gay Nuns! for only an hour before I'd had enough and went for some coffee. If Strayhorn had been alive, what we were doing would have been a good subject for his Esquire column. The people on the set of the film were named Larry and Rich, Lorna and Debbie. They were professionals and went about their jobs with brisk efficiency. When Debbie was about to have her clothes (and head) ripped off by a samurai-sword-wielding priest (recently back from the dead), she stood patiently for minutes in her underwear while two chatty women sewed a rip-away habit around her scrumptious figure. Phil's article could have been about a day in the life of the filming of a Grade D horror/sex film. Or an interview with "star" Douglas Mann, who walked around with his second head under his arm, eating one gooey French cruller after another.

Since films like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street became such smashes, people have been trying to make similar low-rent slash-and-gore junk that sells like potato chips to the crowd that fucks at the drive-in or rents four films a day at the video store.

The motion pictures I'd made were certainly not calm affairs (especially the last one), but looking at the script for Burn the Gay Nuns! made me feel like I'd done The Pinky Linky Show.

A few nights before on television, we'd watched a program about the popularity of horror movies. They began by showing stomachable clips from the most popular video in the United States at the time. Titled Faces of Death, it was a badly put together feature-length documentary of people actually dying in front of a camera: suicides jumping out windows, a man being eaten by an alligator (his dropped camera took it all in), firing squad, electric chair. An out-and-out snuff film you could rent for – bucks most anywhere.

Later in the program, a twelve-year-old girl who had just seen something called I Spit on Your Grave was asked why she watched things like that. She beamed and said, "I love all the blood!" That was really her answer. When I was a kid, seeing The Tingler with Vincent Price had given me big nightmares for months.

Speaking of Finky Linky, his arrival on the set caused a happy furor. Actors with melted eyeballs like lava running down their faces or hatchets buried in their backs came up for autographs or only to say hello.

Wyatt was Finky's charming, wacko self and, as a big favor to the director, even did a five-second cameo appearance in the inevitable "walking dead" scene.

What were we doing there? My excuse was it happened to be the only horror film being made in Los Angeles at the time. I hadn't directed a movie in over two years. If my next work was going to be horror – Phil and Pinsleepe's wish fulfilled – I wanted to see what these guys did. Wyatt said he was along because he'd always wanted to see how shit was made.

What I'd seen in our hour on the set was disappointing. They were using a new, more sophisticated camera from Austria, but other than that the scene was a thoroughly familiar one. It reminded me of why I'd left this life.

Movie people, even the most invisible gaffer or best boy, have a self-importance that is understandable because everyone seems to want to be in the movies. It's an interesting phenomenon: Ask ten people if they want to be President, and surely some of them will say no. Ask them if they want to be in the movies in some capacity, and you can bet most if not all will say yes. The irony is, filmmaking generally has to be one of the most boring ways to spend a day. Nothing is done quickly, and everything is done four, five, six . . . endless times. There is not much sense of community either, because everyone's task on a set is so specific and time-consuming that you do your job right up until a shot is made, then run like hell to get going on the next one.

But as is true with so many jobs, the consumer only sees the final product, and that is so glamorous and exciting it's hard not to want to have a go at it.

Standing with a coffee in hand, I looked back at the set and remembered my last set: how, when filming Wonderful, I frequently had the feeling I was watching my life more than living it. It was a haunting, ominous thing to experience and took time to go away. Part of it returned the day I heard Phil was dead. As mentioned, some of my first thoughts after I had the news was to picture his death cinematically. That could be attributed to shock, but not many months before, I was seeing everything I knew through the lens of an inner camera. I Am a Camera is a wonderful title, but isn't healthy when it's your life. Looking at the set of this film made me remember my last days in Hollywood.

"Mr. Gregston? Weber Gregston?"

I turned around and saw a nice-looking thirtyish woman. "Yes?"

"You don't know me, but I sort of know you. My name is Linda Webster. I did wardrobe for Phil Strayhorn on the Midnight films?" She put out a tentative hand to shake. Without really looking, I reached for it but a second later yelped. Looking down, I saw a big needle sticking into my thumb.

She snatched it out and stuck it back into a pin cushion she was wearing on her wrist – the giveaway sign of a person doing costumes. "I'm so sorry! I always forget . . . I'm sorry."

"It's okay, it's okay. Really!" Her expression was so stricken and concerned I felt more protective of her feelings than my beaming thumb. "Come on. Let's have a coffee." I held up mine.

"You were in Europe awhile, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Europeans say 'Let's have a coffee.' Americans say 'Let's have coffee.' Singular and plural, depending on which side of the ocean you're from. How long were you there?"

"About a year."

"Tha-a-at's right, I remember! Phil talked about you a lot and was always wondering where you were that day. He used to bring your postcards onto the set to show us. They were really funny.

"What do you think of his stunt? Did he tell you what he's doing now?"

"What he's doing? He's dead."

She smirked and shook her head. "That's not what I hear."

"Lol . . . Linda, is it? Linda, I'm staying with Sasha Makrianes. She found the body. He's dead, you know?"

"I know Sasha. She found a man with his head blown off, but that's all."

"Linda, what are you telling me? He was my best friend."

She had the eyes of someone who thinks they're more cunning than they are. Yet those eyes also said she knew something, maybe a secret, that I didn't. Her expression said she was going to stretch it out as far as it would go.

Finky Linky came up from behind and put a hand on my shoulder. "Hi, Linda! I didn't know you were working on this."

She made an exaggerated pout and stuck out her bottom lip. "I saw you before and said hello, Wyatt, but you were too busy with Debbie and the others."

He made a Finky Linky laugh and, speaking in the famous voice, said, "I saw you, but I told you: We've got to stop meeting here like this."