This Book Is Not Yet Rated
Page 7
I looked at the stage lights above me. They were buzzing in the quiet of the small auditorium. I was already seeing blue spots at the corners of my vision. I wondered if this was what doing a death scene was like. I could see the appeal of that kind of acting. How amazing would it be to come out on stage and die every night, only to be reborn in the next performance?”
“He’s not moving,” said Vanessa.
She was standing over me now, examining my face with no discernible pity. I could kind of see up her skirt. Her underwear was blue.
“Is he conscious?” asked Mrs. Salazar.
“Yes!” she yelled. “He’s conscious. But I think he’s crying. Ethan, are you crying?”
ETHAN’S GLOSSARY OF FILM TERMS
ENTRY #99
TEAR STICK
This is a wax tube that looks like lipstick. It has menthol and camphor and if you put a small amount in your eye, it creates real tears.
Actors use it to cry if they can’t cry for real.
I have never needed a tear stick.
13
Whoever came up with the rule that men can’t cry was a real dick-bat in my opinion. I guess maybe it was valuable to be stoic back when we had to keep feral warthogs from running off with our children. But seriously, we’re not supposed to cry when life is frustrating and tragic? Our forefathers were idiots. Emotionally stunted idiots. And I intend to dishonor their legacy with my salty man tears.
I do most of my crying in my car. It’s a good place for it, I find.
It doesn’t take me very long either. I just kind of sit there and let the tears stream down my face. Then I wipe my nose on my sleeve (like a man) and get on with my day. Going to see Raina brought a lot of emotions back, I guess. The dual abandonment of her leaving and my father dying. And the way she looked, all thin and defeated. I didn’t know what to do or say, so I left like a weakling.
Leaving: that was the weak part. Not the crying.
When I finished, I walked around to the back of the Green Street, where we share a couple Dumpsters with the corporate Noodle place next door. I’m not sure why I went back there. Maybe I didn’t want to walk in the front door with a runny nose and puffy cheeks, even though Lucas probably wasn’t here yet. Or maybe I was nostalgic for the smell of baking trash. But I just stood there for a moment looking around the alley at the backs of all the old buildings in our row.
The view was even worse than the front. A mess of tangled electrical cords and rusted gutters. Chipped brick and touch-up paint that didn’t match the original coat. The theater wasn’t open yet, so there was no sign of civilization. Just me: a lanky dude in an alley. Well, just a lanky dude in an alley, and the Oracle, watching me out of the sole window of the projection room. I heard a tapping on the glass, and when I looked up, there she was, shrouded in darkness. She cracked the window.
“Afternoon, boss,” she said.
She looked around the alley, just as I had. If she thought much about the view, she didn’t say. She just blinked through her glasses and then spoke again.
“What do you know about a man named Henri Langlois?”
She pronounced the name in a very French-sounding way.
“I’m not really sure what you just said,” I answered.
She nodded. It was hard knowing everything. She dropped something down to me. It fluttered through the air and landed at my feet. It was a five-dollar bill folded into an origami crane. I picked it up and cupped it in my palm.
“I don’t think this will cover our debt,” I said.
“I’m out of Almond Milk,” said Anjo. “Go pick some up at the co-op and we’ll talk.”
I unfolded the crane and turned it back into money, the root of all our problems. I looked up once again to find Anjo, but she was gone.
* * *
• • •
I returned with the milk about fifteen minutes later, and found her threading the projector for the first show of the day. She moved across the room with purpose, pulling the film from one part of the oversized projector to the next, lacing it over the sprockets and through the gates. It was like watching a dance: you knew it had been practiced a thousand times, but it looked so effortless in front of you. While she threaded, she began the story of that French guy she spoke about.
“Henri Langlois,” she said, “was the director of the Cinémathèque Française. Ring a bell?”
I shook my head. She clucked her tongue.
“And you call yourself a cinephile.”
“Do I call myself that?”
“It was a film organization,” she said. “And it had a small, sixty-seat movie theater in Paris. Mr. Langlois was the manager, like you.”
She breezed by me and winked.
“But he wasn’t just an ordinary theater manager,” she added. “He was a revolutionary!”
She let that sink in a moment.
“How?” I asked.
“He dedicated his life to preserving movies, and he kept his theater running during the Nazi Occupation of Paris. He saved films from being destroyed, hiding them in his bathtub until they could be screened again. And after the war, his theater became one of the most famous in the world. It’s where the French New Wave was born.”
She made some adjustments to the projector, switching it on to advance the film. My breath came easier. Seeing Anjo work made the whole universe feel like it was in order. Like she was secretly the one setting the whole thing in motion.
“Okay,” I said, looking away. “This French guy was a hero. And I don’t mean to be selfish, but how is that supposed to help us?”
“I’m not done yet,” she said.
Satisfied with her work, Anjo walked over to her little fridge and poured herself a bowl of flaxy granola. She went heavy on the almond milk.
“The plot thickens,” she said, “when the French government thinks Langlois’s movie collection has become too valuable to be managed by the famous curmudgeon. In 1968, after fighting over the direction of the theater for years, they fired Langlois and changed the locks on his building.”
“Damn,” I said. “What happened to him?”
“Within the span of a single day, filmmakers from across the globe withdrew the rights to have their films shown at the Cinémathèque Française. Charlie Chaplin. Orson Welles. Half a week later, three thousand people showed up to protest and were beaten by the police. Truffaut was wounded!”
She took a teeming mouthful of granola, and smiled through her bite.
“Meanwhile, the list of artists protesting the firing kept growing. Pablo Picasso signed a petition. Alfred Hitchcock. Demonstrations kept forming. Police violence continued. The boy who played the lead in the 400 Blows gave a speech at one rally. Finally, months later, the government surrendered. Langlois was reinstated. His funding was cut, but he had won back his kingdom.”
She set her bowl of granola down and fired up the projector.
“Later that year, there were massive protests against the government. Some people think the desire to save Langlois started it all. A cultural revolution began with a fight for movies. In a theater smaller than this one.”
She motioned me toward the opening to the theater. I got up and stood next to her. Down below, an image leaped onto the screen. It was a black-and-white shot of a crowd making a run against police in riot gear. French teenagers kicked at the shields and put their arms up to keep the truncheons from landing on their heads. Flyers denouncing the government rained down over the heads of the protesters. The sound of sirens echoed through the streets.
“Can you imagine it?” she said. “People fighting the police to save the movie theater they loved. To save their right to watch the movies from Langlois’s bathtub.”
I looked next to me at Anjo. Her expression was solemn. She reached out and turned my head back to the screen. In the foreground of the shot
now was a gangly guy with a nest of dark hair, holding his arms up in the air and screaming his lungs out. He was wild with revolt, defending what he believed in.
But he didn’t look like a revolutionary. His was not an imposing physical presence. His skinny arms flailed in the night. He looked like the last guy to get picked in gym class. But here he was actually doing something, putting his body on the line. He looked like a man who had discovered what he really cared about.
He looked, on closer inspection, kind of like me.
14
It’s probably about time I introduced the regulars.
Because as much as I was heartbroken about everything going on, they were going to be affected by all of this, too, though they didn’t know it yet. They were relatively few, the regulars, but they made for a memorable bunch. And they broke down into a handful of recognizable categories. So, if you’ll permit me a quick break, here’s a who’s who of the people who actually paid to come to the Green Street.
First, may I present:
The Collectors. These are the people who seek the unseen gems and rarities of the cinema because they need to complete their personal filmography. Like bird-watchers crossing a red-throated loon from their life list, they come to the Green Street for a rare film sighting in the wild. Whether it’s a showing of an obscure horror movie like Rats: Night of Terror (which is a real movie and comes highly recommended), or a rare pristine print of Pather Panchali by Satyajit Ray they come simply to check it off their list. A list, lucky for us, that can never be completed in one lifetime.
Next we have:
The College Hepcats (do I have to say hipster?). I’ll admit right away, I am less fond of this group. You know them by now. Those glasses. Those sneakers. Those loud, often wrong opinions. I really want to give them the benefit of the doubt. They’re trying to like interesting things. They’re making an effort. But do the guys always have to bring a girl that they’re trying to impress? Do they have to mumble a running commentary in her ear during the entire film? Do they have to bring their own bags of lightly salted pistachios and crunch them at maximum volume? The answer, of course, is yes. They have to do all these things or else you might mistake them for an average person just trying to live life and be happy: their worst nightmare.
Oh, and speaking of nightmares, next are:
The High-Art Perverts. They claim to be here for the art, but they only seem to show up to French films with prostitutes and prominent three-way sex scenes. They always sit in the back; they never buy snacks. And sometimes, when they’re acting particularly bold, they’ll ask for the movie poster on the way out. “I became a bit smitten with the leading lady in that one!” I heard once. And though I wanted to say “Sir, I am not going to give you a vintage Vivre Sa Vie poster so you can go home and make it your new girlfriend,” I couldn’t say anything, though, because you can’t kick someone out just for asking about a poster. I keep my eye on them, though. Even when I didn’t want to.
And lastly, we have:
The Escapists. The ones who can only feel emotions when they’re watching a movie. Lucky for us, they like classics, so they come to repertory theaters like ours when we’re showing old stuff. They’re the ones who cry like babies at the end of The Bicycle Thief, and come out of Bringing Up Baby completely renewed in their own absurd search for love. They come here to feel every emotion that is probably missing from their lonely, daily lives. You can recognize them by the profound changes they go through from the time they enter the theater and the time they leave. And, of course, they always come alone.
Guess who’s a member of that category?
I’m not just a member; I am their president.
And there you have it. The basic roster of our patrons. How many were they total? Fifty? A hundred if you turned on all the lights and watched them scatter? We complained about them to be sure. They were odd ducks. Out of step with the world outside. But they were also extended family, so we cut them some slack. And, most importantly, they had all chosen the Green Street as their place.
Just like us.
Outside of this theater, they probably never would have crossed paths. The only thing that united them was their strange loyalty to this building and the flickering lights within. And as you might have guessed already, I was quickly hatching a plan to put that loyalty to the test.
* * *
• • •
“I don’t understand,” said Lucas. “Where would we even march?”
“I’ve mapped out a route,” I said, pointing to the back of my flyer. “We walk down Green Street, through the quad, and eventually to the president’s office, where we stay until our demands are heard. We may or may not have to chain ourselves to his door and urinate in a bucket.”
In front of me on the counter of the concession stand was a stack of freshly copied flyers that read, “SAVE THE GREEN STREET!” Then below there was a date and time and a sign-off, “VANQUISH THE PROFITEERS!”
“Are we really going to vanquish anyone?” asked Griffin. “That seems kind of harsh.”
“You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves,” said Lucas.
“Who said that?” asked Griffin, “Was it Gandhi?”
“Joseph Stalin,” said Lucas.
Griffin took this in. He jammed his hand into an enormous bag of “Flavor-blasted” Goldfish crackers, and stuffed a few in his mouth.
“It has to be a peaceful protest,” he said, mouth full. “Or it won’t fit my new ethos.”
“I don’t remember your new ethos kicking in yesterday when you laughed at that shark movie where the guy got ripped in half. How many times did you make me re-watch that?”
Griffin stuffed more fish in his mouth.
“That was fake,” he said. “At least I’m pretty sure it was. Was that fake?”
“Relax, guys,” I said. “It will be metaphorical vanquishing. As much as I feel like launching Molotov cocktails, I’m not sure that’s going to get much done except put us on some kind of university watch list. We need people on our side. And some positive media attention wouldn’t hurt.”
“Jesus, Wendy,” said Griffin. “Listen to you. You’re like Sean Penn from Milk, or Denzel Washington from Cry Freedom.”
“Do you know any actual activists? Not just the actors that played them?”
“I’m gonna need one of those scooters,” came a croak from behind us.
Lucas startled.
“Jesus, Lou, you can’t sneak up on us like that!” he said.
Lou asserted herself into our circle.
“I’m just sayin’,” she said. “Realistically, I can’t really walk your whole route. But if you want me there, I’m gonna need some transportation. Probably a Rascal.”
Griffin crunched a Goldfish, lost in thought.
“Rascals are superexpensive, even with an insurance rebate,” he said.
“How do you know that?” asked Lucas.
“My aunt has a mobility scooter. It took her two years to pay that thing off.”
Sweet Lou just watched him for a moment. It was hard to tell if she was incredulous or just zoning out.
“Maybe you should sit this one out, Lou,” I said. “What if things get ugly? I saw these French kids . . .”
“That’s exactly why you need me!” she shouted. “If the campus police want to tango, they’ll have to go through an old lady. Plus I was protesting when you guys were still wetting the bed.”
“Griffin still wets the bed,” said Lucas.
Lou put an unlit cigarette between her lips. Then she made her way toward the door.
“I need some wheels, boys,” she said. “Deliver and I’ll ride beside you.”
ETHAN’S GLOSSARY OF FILM TERMS
ENTRY #83
MODESTY PASTIES
The flimsy little coverings that actors wear during sex scenes.
Lucas has made a game of spotting them in movies, and he’s been known to shout them out in the middle of a scene.
“Tan thong!” he yelled once during a European film. “Tan thong!”
Once you start looking, it’s not hard to find them. I’ve always found them reassuring somehow. A little reminder that movies aren’t real no matter how much you want them to be. And that people’s genitals aren’t touching.
15
At home that night, I holed up in my room and watched a movie called The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci. While I watched, I stuffed envelopes full of flyers. Anjo had told me to watch the film for inspiration. It’s where she had gotten the documentary footage of the rioting teens. And sure enough, early in the movie our American hero meets an alluring French brother and sister at the Cinémathèque Française. They flee the protests together. From there, however, it pretty much turns into a High Art Pervert film, which I didn’t entirely mind (movie sex is, obviously, the only sex in my life). Except when my mom walked in in the middle of the most graphic scene.
I tried to hit stop, but instead I hit pause right as our hero’s butt cheeks were flexed in extreme close-up. My mother, however, did not look at the television when she came in. She looked at me and the envelopes scattered across my bed. I had been working from an outdated list of “Friends of the Green Street,” that I found in Randy’s office, and there were probably forty poorly folded flyers surrounding me like paper boats on an ocean of unwashed sheets.
“Ethan,” she said, “you’ve been in here for hours. Your dinner is beyond cold. What are you doing?”
I looked at the large buttocks on the television. Then I looked at the flyers and envelopes spilling over the edge of the bed and onto the floor.
“Well,” I said. “It’s simple, really.”