The Last Picture Show by Peter Bogdanovich.
What can I say; it just seemed right.
And there it was, next to a couple of films I’d never heard of (though I would never admit that to Lucas). I grabbed the case and forced myself not to browse. I made my way back to the front of the store and placed it on the counter. The clerk with the piercings looked at me and then picked up the case.
“Do you actually want to rent something this time?”
I hadn’t been sure that he recognized me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just a standard rental please. Unless you’re inviting me . . .”
“I’m not,” he said.
I handed him my card with the barcode nearly eroded. He scanned it and went off to get the actual disc. Up until now, I had paid no attention to what he was watching, but when he left, I looked up at the screen and, of course, there was Raina. Again. Surrounded by evil cats. On the screen, she was standing at the door to a glowing portal. She had the chosen kitten in her arms, and a look of steely determination on her face. She was standing between two worlds, deciding which one to stay in. You could see the agony on her face.
“Don’t go,” I said to myself. “The cats need you.”
“Go!” said the clerk, who had just reappeared. “Save yourself for the sequel!”
There was almost a smile on his face as he handed me my disc.
“I can’t believe you’re friends with her,” he said. “I mean, I knew she grew up here, but it’s hard to see her as a real person, you know? Is it weird being friends with a celebrity?”
“A little,” I said.
The clerk kept talking.
“The next time you see her,” he said. “Tell her she can rent here for free. I talked to the manager and he’s cool with it.”
“You can tell her yourself,” I said.
His eyes turned to slits.
“There’s something happening at the Green Street tomorrow. You can find the details online. It might be something you’re interested in.”
Raina screamed out from the screen above us, and we both cocked our heads to watch as she jumped headlong into the portal, disappearing into another dimension, not knowing if she would ever see her home planet again.
“Thanks for the movie,” I said.
* * *
• • •
My mom was still at work when Raina reappeared in my kitchen. We had the place to ourselves. We didn’t say much to each other as I made some microwave popcorn and Raina melted the butter, stirring it slowly with a spoon. We decided to watch the movie in the living room on the good TV, and when we got to the couch I finally spoke up.
“My dad had these rules when we went to the movies. Do you want to hear them?”
“Okay,” she said.
“There are just two. Number one, when it’s over, you have to tell me the image from the film that you just can’t shake. And then, number two, you have to tell me what you think of the last line.”
She nodded and took a bite of popcorn, and I knew I was supposed to start the movie, but I snuck a look at her. She looked different to me now that she was going back. She was wearing slightly nicer clothes, for one, a dress today with green and blue stripes. And her hair was in a new style. A few long strands covered part of her right eye. I felt like she had been in disguise as a normal person the whole time she was back, but now she was preparing to reenter a world where she had to stand out again.
I didn’t know where to sit, so I chose the cushion on the far right. She sat on the left side and put the popcorn in the middle between us.
“Listen, Ethan,” she said. “I know we need to talk. But right now, can we just watch this movie together. Is that okay?”
I relaxed my shoulders and picked up the remote.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s okay.”
Then I pressed play and The Last Picture Show started. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t. It’s kind of slow and moody. It was made in 1971 and it’s the kind of movie the Green Street shows. But it kills me every time.
It’s about these high school kids in North Texas in the 1950s, and there’s really not much of a plot in a traditional sense. It’s a poor town, and there’s nothing to do except go to the movies or shoot pool before you grow up and work as a roughneck in the oil fields. But most of the people in the movie just get their hearts broken over and over again. There’s nothing else to do. Except go to the movies.
The film begins and ends with the same shot of the movie theater. Only they call it the “picture show.” In the beginning, someone’s climbing up a ladder to put letters on the marquee by hand. And by the end of the movie, the man who owns the theater has died and it’s shuttered in the middle of a sandstorm. The movie is in black-and-white, and the main character, a kid named Sonny, is just trying to make sense of it all.
But there’s a part I love where it’s the last night the movie theater is going to be open and two old friends decide to go. Sonny is one of them, and his friend Duane is another. Duane has joined the army and he’s about to get sent to Korea. It’s his last night in town before he catches the bus in the morning. They got in a fight the last time he was in town because they were in love with the same girl, but now she didn’t choose either of them and she went off to college.
So they do what they always do: go to the movies. Only now it’s the last one ever. And it’s Duane’s last night, and they might never see each other again. But they go and they watch a Western in a nearly deserted theater. And when we see them, they’re eating popcorn and staring at the screen, completely lost in the film. The theater’s a little smoky and you can see the light pouring out of the projection booth above them like something divine. And then the houselights come on and they stumble out into the lobby, and if you look closely at the frame, there are signs that say “Coming Soon,” and “Starts Saturday,” but there are no movies listed.
When it ended, Raina and I just sat on the couch watching the black screen.
“I didn’t think today could get any more depressing,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s not super uplifting.”
I looked at her across the couch. She smiled.
“Okay,” she said. “I know the answers.”
It took me a second to catch up.
“To your dad’s questions.”
“Let’s hear them,” I said.
“The image I can’t shake is of that kid who can’t talk.”
“Billy,” I said.
“Billy,” she said. “It’s the image of Billy sweeping off the street in the middle of a sandstorm. It was so haunting. And I think I know what that feels like. Like it’s all swirling around you, and you just have to keep your little patch clean somehow. Right?”
“Right,” I said. “I know what you mean.”
She stared at the blinds I had closed to get it dark enough in the living room. Then she looked back at me.
“And the last line?” I said.
“Never you mind,” she quoted in a perfect Texas accent. “Never you mind.”
I waited as she thought about it.
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“Why not?” I said. “It sums up the whole movie! These characters don’t have a choice. They just have to put the heartache behind them and move on. Never mind.”
“But they should mind!” she said. “Even if it hurts. They should mind. You can’t just check out and give up on everything at the age of eighteen. Sonny should have left. Or tried to make things better. I get what it was supposed to mean, but I think it’s bullshit. You can’t just stop trying because all these forces are against you.”
I didn’t try to fight her. I had always thought of the line as a survival strategy. You just put the pain out of your mind and find a way to get by. Never you m
ind. But I didn’t want to say that now. As always, Raina’s ideas seemed more compelling.
“They’re tearing it down no matter what,” I said.
Raina was off the couch now, walking over to the window. She pulled open the blinds and the harsh light of the afternoon poured in.
“You’re not talking about the movie anymore are you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“I kind of figured,” she said.
I walked over and looked out the window. The sun had dipped behind a thin cloud, giving my boring neighborhood a backlit glow.
“Do you want to call it off?” she said. “I get it if you do.”
“No,” I said. “We can’t go out with a whimper.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Because then the bad guys win,” I said.
36
The two last problems we had to solve for the festival were technical. We had to find a way to show the films even though they would now be digital, and we needed to find a way into the apartment building next door to act as a projection booth. There was, of course, the other problem, which was that we might not get any people or films, but that was out of our control, Raina said. We had to focus on the stuff we could actually do something about.
The first problem was the easiest to solve. Even though Raina was supposed to consult with her mother before making major purchases after she gave away a chunk of her fortune to her father, she bought us a state-of-the-art digital projector and speakers that Anjo helped her to select. She also donated her laptop to the cause because it was the newest of all of ours. The filmmakers could bring their one-minute films on flash drives and load them onto the computer. Simple enough, we hoped. So, we left Anjo with the manual for the projector and set our sights on the next challenge.
The apartments next door.
And here was the thing with the apartments next door: No one had ever been inside them. Like: ever. And we hardly ever saw anyone coming or going. They were as run-down as the Green Street and twice as old, it seemed. At some point, they had been a long-stay motel, but then they were turned into apartments. As far as we knew, the place was full of ghosts that had just stayed on from the original hotel in the seventies. But time was running short, and there was no choice now but to go in and try to convince someone to let us into their home for the evening. Or else, we all might be watching films the size of a cereal box.
Apartment 3C. That was the unit with the straight shot to the wall. It looked out directly onto the alley and the Green Street. But first we had to get inside. Raina and I stood outside of the building. She looked at the intercom buttons and then reached out a finger. She pressed the one for 3C. There was immediately a sharp buzz and then a crackle from the small speaker.
“Just leave it in the lobby,” came a barely audible voice, and then the signal went dead.
Then some silence. I could hear the sound of someone playing the violin off in the distance. Raina and I looked at each other. I pressed the button again.
“Wine delivery, right?” came the voice. “Just leave it in the lobby like last week. I’m watching The Price Is Right.”
I pressed the button one more time.
“What part of leave it in the lobby don’t you understand?”
“Well,” I said, and my voice broke a little. “There was a problem with your order. I . . . uh . . . I need to speak with you about it. Or you’ll never get anymore wine. Ever again.”
There was a long pause and then a low hum came from the door. I reached out and pushed it open. Raina looked at me, stunned. I shrugged.
The lobby looked worse than the Green Street’s. The black-and-white laminate floor was peeling and there was a boarded-up fireplace just inside the doors. We took the old creaky elevator to the third floor and got off in a hallway with green carpet that smelled like it held one-hundred years’ worth of cigarette smoke. I swear I saw little clouds puffing out with each step I took. Almost every other building in this area had been taken over by college kids; this one had to be really bad if they hadn’t colonized it yet.
“What exactly is your endgame here?” asked Raina right before I knocked.
“We’re actors,” I said. “Classically trained. We can improvise, right?”
I knocked on the door, and we both listened to the all-encompassing silence. There was no sign of life inside or out. I waited for the sound of creaking floorboards, and for the gruff old guy to open the door so I could warm his cold heart with stories of his neighborhood cinema. But nobody answered. I knocked again, a little louder this time.
“Are you sure you rang the right buzzer,” I asked.
“I think so,” said Raina.
I looked up at the door. It was definitely 3C. I knocked again, as loud as I possibly could.
“Sir,” I yelled. “I am suspending your wine account unless you open up!”
Raina grabbed my arm.
“Hey, easy there!” she said. “Dial it back a notch.”
“We need this place!” I said.
I was about to give the door another pummeling, when a different door opened down the hall. And a man wearing boxer shorts, and a full beard came out, looking red-eyed and angry.
“Will you knock it off down there! For God’s sake, some people are trying to sleep.”
I froze in place. I’m not sure all the acting training in the world could have prepared me to improvise in this situation. The man down the hall was not in his usual clothes, and his beard had grown out a bit since I last saw him, but even in his state of disarray, he wore a relatively clean polo over his boxers.
“Ron?” I said.
His face looked just the way I imagined mine did.
“Wendy,” he said.
He turned around as if to go back into his apartment, but I ran down the hallway to him before he could duck inside. He was halfway through the door, and I peered around him at the dim, empty space. Most of his possessions still seemed to be in boxes. There wasn’t much furniture. Just a couple of nice suits on hangers in the window.
“Wait a minute. You live here?” I asked.
He turned around. Then he puckered his lips like he was tasting something sour.
“My wife got the house,” he said.
“But out of all the other places in town . . .” I said.
“I wanted to keep an eye on my project,” he said. “It’s kind of all I have going on if you want the truth.”
Raina was behind me now, and we were still standing in the hallway. Ron was in his doorway, guarding it now with the bulk of his frame. He seemed to remember, suddenly, how unkempt he was. He ran his fingers through his shaggy beard like a comb.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked.
“I took some time off,” he said. “At the request of my employer.”
His eyes darted from me to Raina.
“You’re that actress,” he said. “The one who got arrested.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what we Hollywood elites like to do.”
Ron stroked his mustache.
“Why were you bothering Mr. Mulvaney,” he asked. “He’s almost totally deaf. And a mean drunk. What did you need from that guy?”
I looked down at the green carpeting. Then back into the cave of Ron’s apartment.
“Yeah,” I said. “About that . . .”
* * *
• • •
Then, somehow, we were drinking grape soda out of coffee cups with Ron Marsh. When I told him what we needed, he had stared at me for a good twenty seconds before inviting me inside. Now we all sat on boxes. Well, except him. He was planted in a lawn chair with a built-in cup holder. He was currently listening with an inscrutable expression as I told him everything I possibly could about my situation. I told him about my dad, and the film I’d found, and the idea for the festival. I
had never explained all of this at once, and the more I told him about my story, the more I realized that my entire life had been defined by the place outside his window.
It was either kind of sad or kind of amazing, depending on how you looked at it. I stood at that window now, staring at the Green Street below me. I had never seen it from this perspective before. It looked so small. And really it was. The projection booth was a hovel. The theater itself only held a couple hundred seats. It was such a tiny place to spend a life in.
“Okay, keep going,” said Ron.
I snapped myself from my reverie.
“. . . and so our projectionist thinks Mr. Mulvaney’s window is the best angle for getting a straight shot at the wall. But, it sounds like he’s not going to be so receptive to our plan, so maybe we could make this work . . .”
“This,” he said. “As in: my home?”
I stopped and took a sip of my soda, which was quite good. When was the last time I had had grape soda? Ron watched me. I spoke again before he could say no.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Ron, except that you won. The building is being torn down. It’s toast. We just want to celebrate it and the people who loved it one last time. And maybe get the community excited about filmmaking. And if I can show my dad’s film, that will feel like something. I’d like to think he’d be happy that a few people saw it. But, obviously I can’t make you do anything. And I’m not going to yell at you or make a scene, or stalk you while you’re singing karaoke anymore. I’m just going to ask you one time if we can put the projector up here, and then I’ll go and you probably won’t ever see me again after tonight. I don’t know why you would.”
I was facing the room now. Raina was on a box to my side, nursing her soda, looking at Ron. Ron was in his lawn chair, his ankles crossed, with squinty eyes. Suddenly, he looked at Raina.
“So, what’s the story with you two?” he asked finally.
“What?” I said.
Already, I could feel myself turning red. It was pathetic. Raina looked cool and calm as always.
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