In Sunlight or In Shadow

by Lawrence Block

  Mr. Lowenstein, he’s sixty-five if he’s a day, was standing with me back at the candy counter one time, and I’m getting a hot dog and a drink to take up to the projection booth. That’s my lunch and dinner every day ’cause it’s free. So this time, right when the theater is opening, just before noon, we see Sally come out of the dressing room across from us, same room the clowns and jugglers and dogs use. She comes out in one of those red dresses and some heels, her blonde hair bouncing on her shoulders, and she smiles at us.

  I could feel my legs wilt. When she walked into the auditorium part of the theater to start work, Mr. Lowenstein said, “I think Maude maybe ought to loosen that dress a little.”

  I didn’t say anything to that, but I was thinking, “I hope not.”

  Every day I’m up in the booth I’m peeking out from up there at Sally. She stands over by the curtains where there are some red bulbs. Not strong light, enough so someone wants to go out to the bathroom, or up to the concession stand, they can find their way without breaking a leg.

  Sally, her job is to show people to their seats, which is silly, ’cause they get to sit where they want. She’s an added expense at the theater, but the way Mr. and Mrs. Lowenstein saw it, she’s a draw for a lot of the teenagers. I figure some of the married men don’t mind looking at her either. She is something. It got so I watched her all the time. Just sat up there and looked. Usually, I got bored, I looked down into the back row where there was a lot of boys and girls doing hand work and smacky mouth, but that always seemed like a wrong thing to do, watch them make out, and it seemed wrong what they did it in the theater. Maybe I was just jealous.

  It got so I’d peek out at Sally all the time up there, since she had her that spot where she stood every night, that red bulb shining on her, making her blonde hair appear slightly red, her dress brighter yet. I’d got so caught up looking at her, that once, damn if for the first time in a long time, I forgot to change a reel and the picture got all messed up. I had to really hustle to get it going again, all them people down there moaning and complaining and stuff.

  Mr. Lowenstein wasn’t happy, and he gave me the talk afterward that night. I knew he was right, and I knew it didn’t mean nothing. He knew flubs happen. He knew I was good at my work. But he was right. I needed to pay more attention. Still, it was hard to regret looking at Sally.

  Right after this talk, things got shifted. Mrs. Lowenstein had long left the ticket stand out front, and had gone home ahead of Mr. Lowenstein. She had her own car, so it was me and him behind the concession counter, and I’m getting my free drink I got coming as part of my job, and Sally came out of the dressing room. She had on a worn, loose, flower-dotted dress, and she saw us and smiled. I like to think it was me she was smiling at. I knew I tried to stand up straight when she looked in my direction.

  It was then that two men came in through one of the row of glass doors, and walked over to the stand. Now, I usually lock those doors every night, thirty minutes before the time they came in, but this time I’m messing with the drink, you see, and I hadn’t locked the door yet.

  After it was locked up, me and Mr. Lowenstein, and sometimes Sally, though she usually left a little ahead of us, would go out the back and Mr. Lowenstein would lock the back door. Every night he’d say, “Need a ride?” And I’d say, “No, I prefer to walk.”

  If Sally was there when we were, he’d ask her the same thing.

  Sally, she walked too. In the other direction.

  We did this every night.

  I did prefer to walk. I took a ride once, but Mr. Lowenstein’s car stunk so heavily of cigar smoke it made me sick. Dad used to smoke cigars and they smelled just that way, cheap and lingering. That smoke got into your clothes it took more than one run through the laundry to get the stink out.

  But these guys came in because the door was unlocked when it should have been locked. Doesn’t matter. They were they kind of guys that were going to come in eventually.

  One of them was like a fireplug in a blue suit. He had a dark hat with the brim pushed back a bit, the kind of style you saw now and then, but it made him look stupid. I figure it wasn’t all looks. He had that way about him that tells you he isn’t exactly lying in bed at night trying to figure out how electricity works, or for that matter what makes a door swing open. The other guy, he was thinner and smoother. Had on a tan suit and a tan hat and one of his pants legs was bunched up against his ankle like he had a little gun and holster strapped there.

  They came over smiling, and the tall one, he looks at Mr. Lowenstein, says, “We work for The Community Protection Board.”

  “The what?” Mr. Lowenstein said.

  “It don’t matter,” said the short stout one. “All you got to do is be quiet and listen to the service we provide. We make sure you’re protected, case someone wants to come in and set fire to the place, rob it, beat someone up. We make sure that don’t happen.”

  “I got insurance,” said Mr. Lowenstein. “I been here for years, and I been fine.”

  “No,” said the tall one. “You don’t have this kind of insurance. It covers a lot that yours don’t. It makes sure certain things don’t happen that are otherwise bound to happen.”

  It was then that me and Lowenstein both got it, knew what they meant.

  “Way we see it, you ain’t paying your share,” said the tall one. “There’s people on this block, all these businesses, and we got them paying as of last week, and you’re all that’s left. You don’t pay, you’ll be the only hold-out.”

  “Leave me out of it,” Mr. Lowenstein said.

  The tall one gently shook his head. “That might not be such a good idea, you know. Stuff can go wrong overnight, in a heartbeat. Nice theater like this, you don’t want that. Tell you what, Mr. Jew. We’re going to go away, but we’ll be back next Tuesday, which gives you nearly a week to think about it. But after Tuesday, we don’t get, say, one hundred dollars a week, we got to tell you that you haven’t got our protection. Without it, things here are surely going to ride a little too far south.”

  “We’ll see you then,” said the stout one. “Might want to start putting a few nickels in a jar.”

  Sally had stopped when they came in. She was standing there listening, maybe ten feet away. The stout one turned and looked at her.

  “Sure wouldn’t want this little trick to get her worn-out old dress rumpled. And I’m going to tell you, girlie, what you got poured into it is one fine bon-bon.”

  “Don’t talk about her like that,” Mr. Lowenstein said.

  “I talk like I like,” said the stout one.

  “This is your only warning about circumstances that can happen,” said the tall one. “Let’s not have any unpleasantness. All you got to do is pay your weekly hundred, things go swimmingly.”

  “That’s right,” said the stout one. “Swimmingly.”

  “Hundred dollars, that’s a lot of money,” said Mr. Lowenstein.

  “Naw,” said the stout one. “That’s cheap, ’cause what could happen to this place, you, your employees, that fat wife or yours, this nice little girl, the retard there, it could cost a lot more to fix that, and there’s some things could happen money can’t fix.”

  They went out then, taking their sweet time about it. Sally came over, said, “What do they mean, Mr. Lowenstein?”

  “It’s a shake-down, honey,” Mr. Lowenstein said. “Don’t you worry about it. But tonight, I’m taking you both home.”

  And he did. I didn’t mind. I sat in the backseat behind Sally and looked and smelled her hair through the cigar smoke.

  In my little apartment that night I sat and thought about those guys, and they reminded me of my dad quite a bit. Lots of bluster, more than bullies. People who were happily mean. I worried about Mr. and Mrs. Lowenstein, and Sally, of course, and I won’t lie to you. I worried about me.

  Next day I went to work same as usual, and when I was getting my lunch, my hot dog to take up into the booth, Sally came over and said, “Those me
n last night. Are they dangerous?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think they could be.”

  “I need this job,” she said. “I don’t want to quit, but I’m a little scared.”

  “I hear you,” I said. “I need this job too.”

  “You’re staying?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Will you kind of keep a watch on me?” she said.

  That was kind of like asking a sparrow to fight a chicken hawk, but I nodded, said, “You bet.”

  I should have told her to take a hike on out of there and start looking for other employment, because these kinds of things can turn bad. I’ve seen a bit of it, that badness.

  But thing was, I was too selfish. I wanted Sally around. Wanted her to be where I could see her, but another part of me thought about that and knew I might not be able to do a thing to protect her. Good intentions weren’t always enough. Bert used to say the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

  That night after work, as Sally was starting to walk home, I said, “How about I walk you?”

  “I’m the other direction,” she said.

  “That’s all right. I’ll walk back after I get you where you need to go.”

  “All right,” she said.

  We walked and she said, “You like being a projectionist?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Decent pay, free hot dogs.”

  She laughed.

  “I like it up there in the booth. I get to see all those movies. I like movies.”

  “Me too.”

  “It’s kind of weird, but I like the private part of it too. I mean, you know, I get a little lonely up there, but not too much. Now and again I’ve seen a picture enough I’m sick of it, or don’t like it, I read some. I’m not a good reader. A book can last me a few months.”

  “I read magazines and books,” she said. “I read The Good Earth.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You’ve read it?”

  “No. But it’s good you have. I hear it’s good.”

  “It was all right.”

  “I guess I prefer picture shows,” I said. “Doesn’t take as long to get a story. Hour or two and you’re done. Another thing I like is being up high like that, in the booth, looking down on folks, and seeing those actors in the movies, me running the reels. It’s like I own those people. Like I’m some kind of god up there, and the movies, those actors, and what they do, they don’t get to do it unless I make it happen. That sounds odd, don’t it?”

  “A little,” she said.

  “I run their lives over and over every week, and then they move on, and for me they don’t exist no more, but now I got new people I’m in charge of, you see. They come in canisters. I can’t keep them from doing what they do, but without me, they wouldn’t be doing nothing. I got to turn them on for them to actually be there.”

  “That’s an interesting perspective,” she said.

  “Perspective?” I said. “I like that. Like the way you talk.”

  She seemed embarrassed. “It’s just a word.”

  “Yeah, but you got some words I don’t have, or don’t use anyway. Don’t know how. I’m always scared I’m going to say them wrong, and someone will laugh. I was afraid to say canister just then, and I know that one.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I can’t say aficionado right. I know I say it wrong, and I don’t know how it’s actually said. I need to hear someone that knows.”

  “I don’t even know what that word means,” I said. “Or how you would come about working it into a sentence.”

  “I try a little too hard to do that,” she said. “I’m taking a few courses on the weekends. They got classes like that over at the college. I’ve only seen the word in a textbook.”

  “College, huh?”

  “You should sign up. It’s fun.”

  “Costs money, though.”

  “It’s worth it, I can get a better job if I get an associate degree. I thought I might get married, but then I thought I’m too young for that. I need to do something, see something before I start wiping baby butts. Besides, the guys I’ve dated, none of them seem like husband material to me.”

  “Having a family may not be all that good anyway,” I said. “It ain’t always.”

  “I think I’d like it. I think I’d make a good wife. Not now, though. I want to live a little.”

  Right then I got to thinking maybe a family would be all right. Maybe I could do that with her. But it was just thinking. We passed by the drugstore on Margin Street, and I seen our reflection in the window glass. She looked like some kind of goddess, and me, well, I looked like a few sticks tied together with a hank of hair. Like I said, I don’t think I got an ugly face, but I sure knew in that moment, I wasn’t in her league. I saw too that the shop was closing down, and there were a couple guys and their girls coming out, arm-in-arm, and they were laughing and smiling.

  I seen one of them guys look over at us, see Sally with me, and I could tell he was thinking, “How’d he manage that?” And then they turned and were gone.

  We finally came to where she lived, which was a two-story brick building. It wasn’t well lit up, but it was brighter than my place. At least there was a street light and a light you could see through the door glass into the hallway that led to the stairs.

  “I live on the top floor,” she said.

  “That’s good. High up.”

  “Oh yeah. You said you like being high up, at the theater.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I look out the window at the people sometimes.”

  “I watch people too,” I said. “It’s not as good as the movies, but second or third time one plays, I start to watch people down in the seats, unless the movie is really good. Sometimes I can watch a movie every night and not get tired of it. Nothing is going to happen in it that I don’t know about by then, and I like that too. I know who is who and who messes up and how it all ends. Real people. They can’t do anything I can figure, not really. I like the movies ’cause I like knowing how it’s going to come out.”

  “That’s interesting,” Sally said.

  I wasn’t sure she thought it was really all that interesting, and I wished then I’d talked about the weather, or some such, instead of how I was a god up in the projection booth. I can be such an idiot. That’s what Dad always said, “You, son, are a loser and a goddamn idiot.”

  “All right,” I said. “Well, you’re here.”

  “Yes, I am. And thank you.”

  “Welcome.”

  We shuffled around there for a moment. She said, “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Sure. I can walk you home again, you want.”

  “We’ll see. Maybe. I mean, it depends. I’m thinking maybe I’ve blown it all out of proportion.”

  “Sure. You’ll be okay.”

  I opened the glass door for her and she went inside. She turned at the stairs and looked back at me and smiled. I couldn’t tell how real that smile was. Whatever she meant by it, it made me feel kind of small.

  I smiled back.

  She turned and came back. “It means someone who is a fan, who appreciates.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Aficionado,” she said. “Or however it’s supposed to sound.”

  She smiled and went back inside. I liked that smile better. I watched her through the glass door as she climbed up the stairs.

  I showered and looked at my chest in the little medicine cabinet mirror while I dried off. The mirror was cracked, but so was my chest. It was all cracked and wrinkled from where I’d been burned.

  I turned off the lights and went to bed.

  Next morning I got up and went over to Bert’s house. Missy was gone to do shopping, and though I would have been glad to see her normally, right then I was happy she was out.

  Bert let me in and poured me some coffee and offered me some toast, and I took it. Sat at his table in their small kit
chen and buttered the toast and put some of Missy’s fig jam on it. They had about an acre of land out back of the house, and it had a fig tree on it, and they had a little garden out there every spring and part of the summer.

  I ate the toast and drank the coffee, and we talked about nothing while I did.

  When I finished eating, Bert poured me another cup of coffee, told me to come out and sit on the back porch with him. They had some comfortable chairs out there, and we sat side by side under the porch overhang.

  “You want to tell my why you’ve really come over?” Bert said.

  “There’s some people come by the theater,” I said. “Mooks.”

  “All right.”

  “They threatened Mr. Lowenstein, me, and Sally.”

  “Who’s Sally?”

  I told him all about her, and everything they’d said, what they looked like.

  “I know who they are,” he said. “But I don’t know them, you understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Look, kid. This isn’t like in the old days. I’m seventy-four years old. Do I look like a tough guy to you?”

  “You’re tough enough.”

  “That time . . . That time there was no way out for you. Now, you got a way out. You quit that job and get another.”

  “I like it,” I said.

  “Yeah . . . All right. Yeah. I liked it to. I miss it sometimes, but I like better being home. I like being alive and being home to watch Gunsmoke. Me and Missy, we got it all right here. She put up with some stuff, and I don’t want her to put up with any of that again.”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  “Not that I don’t care, kid. Not that I don’t bleed for you. But again, I’m seventy-four. I was younger then. And well, it was more immediate, and you being really young . . . You needed the help. You can walk away now. Or tell Lowenstein to pay the money. What I’d do. I’d pay the money.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t.”

  “Your skin, kid, but I’m telling you, these guys are bad business. There’s those two, and there’s the three that run that place. Five, I think.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I ain’t as connected as I once was, back before I started running the projector, but I still know some people and I get word from them now and then. Look, how about this? Let me ask around.”