This Book Is Not Yet Rated

by Peter Bognanni

  He was pushing his way toward the front, and when he was almost there, he tripped over the leg of a folding chair and fell across a sparse row of them, finally barreling into Raina. She had been watching from her seat as all of this went down, but she wasn’t expecting the contact. It knocked her over, and she landed flat on her back in the alley.

  The gasp that went through the crowd was almost simultaneous. Everyone saw her fall. Everyone stared at the guard in disbelief. Had he really just harmed a celebrity? Could he do that? Somebody reached down to help Raina up, and she seemed okay. But the crowd had already turned. The guard got up to see if Raina was all right, and a large goth guy in a Batman T-shirt stepped forward and blocked his path. But before goth Bruce Wayne could do anything, Raina was back in the mix.

  She looked unnaturally calm as she approached the guard. I thought she’d be angrier after her fall, but it looked like she just wanted to talk. Just when she had reached him and opened her mouth to say something, the crowd lurched forward. Someone must have pushed from the back, but Raina, the goth guy, and everyone near the officer moved in a wave, gradually pushing the bewildered officer outside the circle of viewers.

  “Hey,” said Raina. “Knock it off!”

  But it was too late.

  There were a few other guards on the scene, checking to see what was going on. One of them asked who these “weirdos” were and was promptly pelted with a box of Sour Patch kids, to a roar of approval from the crowd. Another guard reached for his pepper spray and that’s pretty much when all hell broke loose. Someone ran toward the guard, knocking the spray out of his hand. Others ran away. Candy soared through the air. It was almost like a Parisian riot.

  Almost.

  I covered my head and charted a path to Raina. As I waded through the fray, I was hit with at least two Milk Duds and a cup of something that might have been Sprite. Soon the wail of actual police sirens went up and people started fleeing for real. The guards chased them through the alleys, dodging candy boxes and insults. It all happened so fast, it was shocking when the alley was nearly clear. There were a few hangers-on watching from behind the Dumpsters, but everyone else was pursued or pursuing somewhere on the civilian streets of campus. Which left Raina and me in the first row of folding chairs, the white light of the projector shining in our eyes.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “That happened fast,” she said. “I never got to pick a winner.”

  “Eh,” I said. “Winning things is overrated.”

  She gave me a skeptical look.

  “Think about it. When you win, you don’t get to be an underdog anymore. What happens at the end of every movie where the good guys win? They all smile and congratulate themselves and then the story is over. There’s nothing left to do except sit around feeling good about yourself forever, or until someone dreams up a sequel. Who wants to do that? At least when you lose, you still have something to care about.”

  We both looked up to a stray festival-goer running down the alley with his shirt off screaming. I waited for him to stop and talk to us, but he just kept going.

  “Ethan,” Raina said when he passed. “I know this has got to be hard for you.”

  “Not really,” I said. “Everything’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

  “No you won’t,” she said.

  I wasn’t expecting that answer, but she didn’t qualify it.

  “What the hell kind of thing is that to say?” I asked.

  “The truth,” she said.

  She got out her phone, and I watched as she looked up the number for Yellow Cab. But while she dialed, she still looked me in the eyes.

  “I know what it’s like to lose the thing you care about most. It feels like you’ve lost your center of gravity. Like you’ve suddenly come loose and there’s nothing to hold you down. So, I’m not going to tell you that you’re going to wake up tomorrow and everything is going to be fine. It’s just not true. But lucky for you, I know what helps.”

  She paused for a second to order her cab, slowly explaining to the dispatcher where she was and where she needed to go. When she was done, she opened something else on her phone. She kept tapping and I waited patiently for her to finish her thought. But she wasn’t looking up.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  She handed me her phone and then started walking out of the alley. I stumbled behind her, looking down at the screen. It was an airline company. It was a flight reservation for me. To LA.

  “It’s already paid for,” she said.

  “But . . .”

  “I got some info from your mom,” she said. “You leave in a month.”

  I stared down at the flight information. I had a seat number. It was real.

  I followed Raina out of the alley, looking up at the window of the apartment building as I went. Anjo was no longer there. Just the light, and the rectangle on the wall. The police sirens were getting closer.

  I walked out onto the street, where Raina watched in the distance for her cab, unbothered by the potential of more police.

  “But won’t you be in Greenland or something?”

  “Filming starts in LA. They’re doing the first part on a soundstage. Movies aren’t real, remember, Ethan?”

  “Raina . . .” I said.

  “Just take it,” she said. “Take the flight in a month.”

  I heard her voice give a little, and I could see that her decisive attitude was just a facade.

  “It’s not just for you,” she said.

  Down the street, I saw the hint of a yellow cab pointed in our direction. It pulled over, and the driver rolled down his window. Raina smiled at the driver and held up her hand, then she looked at me.

  “Either you come see me or I stay here now,” she said. “Your choice.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “What?” she said.

  “You can’t stay,” I said.

  “Why not?” she said.

  “I can’t believe I have to explain this to you,” I said.

  The cabdriver looked back at Raina, impatient. She didn’t seem to notice. She was still looking at me. I tried to smile.

  “If you stay,” I said, “then the bad guys win.”

  She smiled back. Then I handed the phone to her. Raina finally moved toward the cab and opened the door. I briefly wondered how many emotional good-byes this driver had seen. How many times he was forced to wait as the show went on as if he didn’t exist.

  “I’ve never flown anywhere by myself,” I said.

  Raina gave me a frustrated look I recognized from another time.

  “You go to the airport and get on a plane, Ethan. C’mon, I can’t hold your hand forever.”

  She sat down in the taxi then and I reached out to close the door. But before I could, she stood up and gave me a hug.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She held me tight, her arms like a vise against my back.

  “For what?” I said.

  She smiled.

  “For helping me out. For distracting me. For being my friend again, even if I didn’t really deserve it.”

  “I’ll always be your friend,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “I love you, Ethan,” she said.

  “I love you, too,” I said.

  She let go of me. Then she gave me one last look, and closed the door. I watched the cab drift down the street, finally disappearing around a corner. There wasn’t much traffic then, and even though I knew I shouldn’t, I walked back to the alley to see what was left.

  The light from the projector had gone out, and there was only a single policeman looking at the folding chairs, trying to make sense of what had happened. He looked up at me when I entered, and I was sure he was going to come over and slap a pair of cuffs on me
. But of course, he had no idea who I was or that I had even been there. He looked confused more than alarmed. He picked up a box of candy and shook it.

  “Do you know what this was all about?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I did what I always do when I don’t know what to say: I quoted a movie.

  “Never you mind,” I said. “Never you mind.”

  42

  We all met on Washington Street.

  Three weeks had passed and we stood behind the green plastic fence covered in Caution signs. Lou, Griffin, Lucas, Anjo, and I. It was one of those early fall days where the sky just seems to get bluer the longer you look at it. There were no clouds. Not even a bird. And underneath it all, a tiny movie theater stood in the shadow of a towering red crane with a wrecking ball attached to the end. For now, the ball was motionless, just hanging there like a moon in orbit.

  It was eight a.m. and in the last week, the weather had turned cool. All of us had coffee, steam curling out from the little escape hatches in our to-go cups. Lou had a new electric wheelchair and she had taken it through a drive-through and come bearing the five cups in her basket. She doled them out with a calm efficiency.

  “Is there any cream?” Griffin had asked.

  Lou shook her head.

  “’Fraid not,” she said. “Today we drink it black. Like our souls.”

  No one complained.

  In the last few weeks, we had all kept in touch by text, brainstorming ideas about what we could do when this was all over. Anjo suggested a nonprofit Film Arts organization. Lucas thought we should stage more pop-up cinemas. Maybe on the walls of multiplexes. Show them what real movies were. Griffin was still spouting conspiracy theories about Ron Marsh, and Lou mostly sent dirty jokes. Out of all of us, she seemed to be enjoying her forced retirement the most.

  As of yet, no real plan of action had been decided. There were times when I made myself get excited about what this crew could do next, but now that we were all standing together here in the light of day, it felt like those texts had just been late-night ideas. Waking dreams born of desperation. The truth was that we were all probably going to move on with our lives in some way or another.

  Anjo and I had talked just a few days ago. She was thinking of teaching English abroad. Seeking her second destiny.

  “I’ve always liked Czech films,” she’d said. “Maybe I’ll go to Prague.”

  I’d been sitting in the backyard at the time, taking in some rare sunlight on my skin. It wasn’t the worst feeling in the world, I had to admit. It was possible I could get used to this being outside thing. In small doses at least.

  “What am I supposed to do without an oracle?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you read the Greeks?” she said. “No one listens to oracles anyway. We all make our mistakes no matter what.”

  It was silent on the line for a moment.

  “I’ll leave you my e-mail,” she said. “There’s no reason oracles have to meet face-to-face these days.”

  She hadn’t told the others her plans, but she didn’t say much today as we watched the scene in front of us. She just took small sips of piping hot coffee like the rest of us.

  “I think it’s moving,” said Griffin.

  It was the first thing anyone had said in a while.

  “No it’s not,” Lucas said. “You’re moving.”

  Which was true. Griffin was swaying side to side in a little melancholy shuffle.

  “Those options aren’t mutually exclusive,” said Griffin.

  Which was also true. Because now the crane really was moving.

  The demolition had been slated for eight fifteen, and here they were starting right on time. I’m not sure we ever started a movie on time during my entire tenure at the Green Street. But on its last day, there would finally be punctuality. The neck of the crane moved back and forth until the ball built some momentum. Then, when it was really swinging, the line dropped and the wrecking ball went crashing through the top of the gray brick facade, sending a storm of century-old bricks raining down on the ground below.

  We all watched in silence.

  The crane jerked again, and the ball met the top story head-on, bursting through in a giant hole. Everyone looked at Anjo. It was clear that her former home had just been trashed. I put a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t tense. She just wiped the lenses of her glasses for a better look.

  “I thought it would be louder,” she said.

  “Or more explosive,” said Griffin.

  “These assholes can’t do anything right,” said Lou.

  We watched as a few more strategic hits sent the right side cascading down in a slow avalanche of old cement, wood, and Sheetrock. The dust cloud was impressive, like the aftermath of a small bomb. A few students stopped to watch, taking videos with their phones, then scurrying along to class. A cyclist buzzed behind us, cursing the protective fences that kept him from his usual route. Everything was crashing down, but life went on as usual.

  “Whoa,” said Griffin. “Check it out. The marquee’s still up.”

  He was right. Despite all the other damage, it still stood perfectly straight, like a flag still planted in the soil.

  How many times had I climbed up a ladder, a slight sense of vertigo kicking in, to change the letters of whatever feature was coming soon? How many times had Griffin or Lucas added a joke in poor taste beneath the title that Randy made us take down? It must have been something in its day. Full of blinking lights and neon. It hadn’t lit up properly in years, yet it stood to the last, clutching on to the remains of the building, avoiding the crane like a squirrelly kid in gym class, waiting out a game of dodgeball.

  “Hey,” I said. “Let’s go, guys.”

  “What?” said Lucas.

  Everyone else turned toward me.

  “If we leave now, we never see the marquee go down. Look at it.”

  We all stared.

  “If we go right this minute, then it’s still standing. In our minds, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” said Griffin.

  “Wendy’s right,” said Lucas. “We don’t need to see it. Let’s let it live.”

  Lou shrugged and turned her wheelchair around so she was facing away. Then Anjo turned, too. It was only a matter of moments until the ball made contact with it. But it hadn’t happened yet. Slowly, Lucas and Griffin turned around. I took one last look and turned the other way, too.

  “What happens to the Lost Boys at the end of Peter Pan?” said Griffin. “I don’t remember.”

  “They leave Neverland,” I said. “They grow up.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” said Griffin.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” said Lou.

  “How so?” said Anjo.

  She seemed genuinely interested.

  “I don’t know,” said Lou, smiling now. “You meet some interesting people.”

  From behind us came the loudest crash yet, like the sound of an entire structure collapsing. I wanted so badly to see if the marquee had come down, but so far everyone else was holding strong. I thought maybe if I took one step, I could walk away clean, keep moving forward. I closed my eyes and tried one. It was a little easier to breathe. I took one more, and soon I was walking. I heard a few footsteps behind me. I had no idea if I was walking forward, but at least I wasn’t looking back.

  ETHAN’S GLOSSARY OF FILM TERMS

  ENTRY #999

  FADE-OUT

  The last image slowly fades away. Then there’s black.

  If it’s done well, it leaves you breathless. Sometimes it’s just a relief. Most of the time it’s somewhere in the middle.

  No matter what it always makes me a little sad, though. It’s like a Sunday night with school the next day. You know the credits are going to start rolling soon. And after the credits,
you have to walk out of the theater.

  Then there’s life again, waiting for you.

  It hasn’t gone anywhere. Your quick plunge into another existence is over.

  What used to make me feel better was knowing Dad and I would have a conversation afterward. We’d keep the feeling going by talking through what we’d seen.

  Now it’s up to me. The lights are on again. It’s my choice if it’s an ending or a beginning.

  AFTER THE CREDITS

  If I was in a movie, I would be on this plane to start a new life.

  People only buy one-way tickets in movies.

  There are no return flights. No one ever goes back to who they were. Sometimes I think this is true. Other times I don’t. I’ll save you the drama and tell you right off that I have a return ticket. I’m not moving to Los Angeles. I’m coming back to Minnesota in a week. Still, I suppose my old life is over whether I like it or not. Whatever comes next, good or bad, can never be what it was before.

  Mom and I went to see my dad’s grave this morning before we left for the airport. It’s been a year since I was last there. I don’t feel like I really need to go there to think about him, but Mom wanted to visit, and she’s letting me jet off to LA unsupervised, so I said okay, and we took a drive to the place just outside of town where we buried him three years ago.

  We didn’t bring flowers.

  He never liked them in life, so why would he like them now? Mom brought food. It was for us, but she thought he might like to be in close proximity of her cooking. It was one of her regrets that she only became a good chef once he was gone. I brought him an article about the destruction of the Green Street, and another copy of his film that I made on my computer. When we got there, it took a while to get to his plot. It’s out in the latest part of the development, near some young trees that will someday be tall and old. He’s on top of a hill, and you can see a lot from up there. The duck pond. Some weeping willows. And even a stretch of highway heading back to town.