January 29, 2010

Falling in love with a teenage vampire cardboard cutout

Trying to understand the Twilight phenomenon on a Forks, Washington tour.

After eating breakfast adjacent to an enormous elk's head in the Forks Coffee Shop the next morning, Rich, Wendy, and I head outside -- through a door reading "Add your name to the Twilight wall of fame!" -- jump into our Twilight road trip minivan, and drive toward Olympic National Park. We're standing, in the pouring rain, at the trailhead for Cape Alava Trail, a 9-mile loop that takes hikers through dense, temperate rain forest to the Olympic Peninsula's shore. In rain jackets and pants, we walk under a canopy of 200-foot tall, moss-covered Douglas Fir trees, until we reach a break in the forest. A powerful, freezing sheet of rain pounds us in the face, and we look out at untouched, prehistoric-looking coastline, with rocky, white sand beaches littered with dark, massive old-growth driftwood and a restless ocean surface broken by rain-drenched sea stacks sprinkled with green grass.

Waves crash onto First Beach in La Push, Washington.

In Twilight, the Olympic Peninsula's constant rain plays a major role, reinforcing Bella's consistently dour mood. As Bella yearns for Edward's attention, she describes Forks as "literally [her] personal hell on Earth" and complains that the rain "[makes] it dim as twilight under the [forest] canopy and [patters] like footsteps across the matted earthen floor." She describes the Pacific Ocean as "dark gray, even in the sunlight." She finds that the only way she can escape the dismal weather is through her lust, and eventually her love, for Edward. As the rain continues to pelt us and Wendy and Rich get ahead of me, I find myself empathizing with Bella. I can imagine how hiking in the rain could be a lot better with a devastatingly sexy female vampire. Well, minus the vampire part, I guess.

Bella's red, 1953 Chevrolet pickup truck sits outside the Forks Chamber of Commerce.

After our hike, we stop for dinner at Pacific Pizza, where I eat Bellasagna -- which, you might be able to guess, is lasagna with a Twilight-themed name. Everything we see in Forks is Bellasagna: everyday objects rechristened in a half-assed attempt at a Twilight tie-in without any meaningful follow-through. I wonder if maybe these superficial attempts are a more accurate reflection of the book than I realize -- I feel like I'm surrounded by perfunctory effort and teenage malaise.

After we eat, we decide to visit the Mill Creek Bar and Grill, where a Scottish singer-songwriter sings Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," Johnny Cash's "Riders in the Sky," and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves in London," all with changed, Twilight-themed lyrics. His new lyrics are underwhelming. But, by the end of the night, I'm embarrassed to admit that Rich, Wendy, and I are humming the chorus to "Werewolves in Forks."

On the way back to our bed and breakfast, Wendy explains the plot of Breaking Dawn in the car: "After Bella and Edward get married, Edward has sex with Bella so violently that she is knocked unconscious," Wendy says. It appears that she has become a diehard Twilight fan overnight. "Suddenly, Bella is pregnant, and her girl vampire-human baby becomes so strong that she breaks Bella's ribs and spine. Edward decides to rip open Bella's stomach with his teeth to save Bella and the baby. When the baby's finally out, Jacob, who was previously in love with Bella, falls in love with Bella's baby instead."

A sign marks the start of the Quillayute Indian Reservation in Forks, Washington.

"Jacob falls in love with a baby?!" I ask in disbelief. "That is the most insane piece of abstinence-only education that I have ever heard."

The next morning, the three of us, a family with a 12-year-old daughter, and a Twilight-obsessed 22-year-old woman named Jenny with her husband in tow, meet for a guided Twilight tour outside Dazzled by Twilight, the town's largest Twilight souvenir shop. Travis, our guide, directs us to a Dazzled by Twilight tour bus (license plate: "DAZZLE1"). Gloomy songs from the Twilight movie soundtracks emanate from the bus's speakers while Travis tells us that Forks residents used to be mostly loggers. But these days, he says, the town's economy is kept afloat by the nearby Clallam Bay and Olympic Corrections Centers and tourists visiting to see Twilight sights and the Olympic National Park. Then, he takes a passenger poll to find out who is on Team Edward and who is on Team Jacob. (Twilight fans tend to divide themselves into two camps -- pro-vampire or pro-werewolf -- though some choose to remain on Team Switzerland.)

A cardboard cutout of Edward Cullen (a.k.a. Robert Pattinson) stands behind a restaurant menu in Forks, Washington.

"Team Edward!" I yell, because, well, I'm trying to fit in. I don't really know what team I am on, or should be on, but I decide that I don't want be on the team with a dude who's in love with an infant. Twilight super fan Jenny looks at me, disgusted. Apparently she's on Team Jacob -- and feels very strongly about it.

Then, Travis stops the bus outside a small, nondescript house.

"This is Bella's house," he says. Except, it isn't, because Bella is a fictional character and never actually lived in Forks. Even the Twilight movies weren't actually filmed in Forks. The only reason we're stopping at this house is because the Forks Chamber of Commerce designated it Bella's house.

It's Bellasagna.

I notice that ice skates are hanging next to the door, and I say that this seems strange, since Bella's character is famously clumsy and nonathletic. Jenny, who previously decided that she hated me for being on Team Edward, suddenly heartily agrees with me. Somehow, I've won her over.

Our tour continues in this manner, with Travis taking us to "The Cullen House," "Jacob's house," Forks City Hall ("Where Charlie, Bella's dad, works!"), the Forks Community Hospital ("Where Dr. Cullen works!"), and Forks High School. We even visit the Forks Timber Museum, where the Forks Chamber of Commerce has parked a replica of Bella's red 1953 Chevrolet pickup truck (license plate: "BELLA"). The delighted teenage girl and Jenny have their photos taken in front of every attraction. Rich, Wendy and I do too. I feel like I'm in a college semiotics seminar, in which a professor blows every student's mind by explaining that we live in a postmodern world filled with floating signifiers. Meanwhile, Travis keeps driving our tour bus to signifiers -- but when we get out of the bus to look around, I realize that nothing means anything. Bellasagna is everywhere. The rain continues, drenching us, with no signs of sunshine. I feel like a confused teenager, disconnected and lost. I start to wonder if Travis's Twilight tour is working on me in a way I had never expected.

Tourists walk outside the Dazzled by Twilight store in Forks, Washington.

Travis drives us to the (real) Quillayute Indian Reservation, with Anya Marina's melancholy song Satellite Heart, from the The Twilight Saga: New Moon movie soundtrack, oozing through the tour bus. (Don't miss this totally emo video for it.)

I'm a satellite heart Lost in the dark I'm spun out so far You stop, I start But I'll be true to you.

As I listen, the song makes me think of the hundreds of women, camped out on a Los Angeles sidewalk in November, flirting with me. I think that maybe I'm starting to understand Twilight better. Adults mock young love lust because it seems so overwrought, so unsophisticated, and so naked. But Twilight seems to suggest that maybe adults are wrong -- maybe love is the exclusive playground of the young and unjaded. Maybe Edward and Bella have to stay teenagers forever because that's the only way love can exist forever.

Souvenir T-shirts hang in the Dazzled by Twilight store in Forks, Washington.

(Then again, maybe Stephanie Meyer is just trying to remind teenagers that if they have unprotected sex, they may end up creating super babies that break girls' spines. Her message is not totally lucid.)

When Travis drives us across the Treaty Line, where the Quillayute Reservation's land begins, we all get out of our tour bus and go into a small restaurant, which has cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate waiting for us. Inside, standing next to the restaurant's "Twilight Menu" (which includes the Bella Banana Split), we see cardboard cutouts of Edward Cullen and Jacob Black (represented by Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner). Jenny grabs the cutout of Edward, squeals, brings him over to her table, and demands to have her picture taken with him, I mean, it. I watch, in utter shock, because I'm positive she was a member of Team Jacob.

"I felt bad for Jacob, because no one went with his team," she explains apologetically. "But, really, I'm in love with Edward."

Then, in my weekend's strangest moment, I see her gaze deeply into the golden eyes of the cardboard cutout of a teenage vampire.

You know that glow of longing you only see behind a young woman's eyes when she really, really loves someone? That's what I saw. For a moment, they were two teenagers.

Maybe the glow was ironic.