Edge767

I have to say it: I've enjoyed your work in film for many, many years and think your acting is always amazing. It doesn't hurt that you're one of the most beautiful women alive. Thanks for being you.

The question: Do you ever get tired of the Showgirl questions? You've done so much more, in much better films, yet Showgirls always comes up. Are you okay with it, or do you sometimes wish you never made the film?

I was in a similar situation.

I was driving home one night with my family in my VW Vanagon. It was dark, and I was driving on a road North of Houston called FM1960 near Humble. At the time, there was a small town called Bordersville that had a lot of poor people living there. The area was also unlit and trees were on both sides of the four-lane road. There was a small section where there were a few shops and a palm reader shop (I remember the neon sign) and this is where someone stepped in front of my van as I was driving about 50-55 mph. The first thing I noticed were the two white shoes. Then there was a huge CRASH and the man's body came in through the windshield and his arm hit me in the chest. I thought his head came off. I pulled into the center lane of the road (what we call a suicide lane here) and jumped out of the van, thinking his head was in there. It wasn't. I looked back to where his body was laying in the road just in time to watch another car run over his body and rip his leg off. He was clearly dead. I waited for a few minutes in shock as another person called 9-11. Within minutes, the local police, Sheriff's Deputies, Constables, and DPS officers were all on scene. They came over to me to comfort me. One of the officers told me that the person had no ID but had a crack pipe in his pocket. Later, they called to tell me that they ruled it a suicide, as witnesses in the area said they saw him look like he was waiting on a vehicle to step in front of.

My wife broke her ankle in the accident from the force of the van hitting his body. The energy transfer between the frame of the van and her ankle actually broke it. My kids had glass all over them, but aside from some minor cuts, they were okay. I made sure they never looked back at the body in the street. The van was probably repairable, but I let it go. Since the van was old, it was totaled.

I was cleared of any wrongdoing by the police. Toxicology of the deceased showed he was on five different drugs on top of being twice the legal limit of alcohol intoxication.

One interesting thing to note was that this happened in a rural "hood," and as a white man who had just killed a black man, I was expecting the locals to be somehow bitter or angry at me. To the contrary, a big muscular guy came up to me and offered me a Sprite, and some women came over and asked me if I needed anything and they told me they'd pray for me so that we could get over the pain and anguish of having gone through that. All the people there were completely amazing, friendly, supportive, and just plain good people.

I know how you feel. I've been there, and it does get better. There will come a time when you won't even think about it. As someone who works with the suffering of others, as you learn to compartmentalize, so will you learn to compartmentalize this incident. I am a former police officer and traffic accident investigator. My training helped me compartmentalize this incident so that I didn't dwell on it and think about it. For the first year, it was rough. The second year was better. By the third year, it was something I remembered but didn't think about often. Now, it's been over 14 years, and I only think about it every few weeks. That may sound like a lot, but it's not. Not compared to how it used to be when it happened. I only expect it to get better.

If you want to talk, PM me. If not, talk to someone else. It helps to talk it out. That's how I was able to compartmentalize it. Rationalizing what happened will go a long way to allowing you to sleep better at night.

I just realized that in asking if you're sick of Showgirls questions, I asked you a Showgirls question. SORRY!!!

For what it's worth, I really enjoyed "The World, Then The Fireworks." There's not enough Billy Zane in movies.

Great report. It was interesting and insightful. You didn't mention much about the tribesmen's view on the US. Do they also see the US as an enemy?