Datsunland

by Stephen Orr

  ‘What are they asking?’

  ‘What are you offering?’

  ‘I’m willing to pay a fair price.’

  ‘But it’s been for sale for twenty-five years.’

  Trevor had smiled. ‘I know. How much are they asking?’

  As he stood looking across the asphalt, he felt proud. That something more than a house or car was his. That he finally owned this Super Duper Saturday-sized field of dreams. That he’d reclaimed his, and every kid’s, history: every movie he’d ever seen on every Saturday night he’d come as a child: from Willy Wonka to Kelly’s Heroes, E.T. to Freaky Friday. Each film a chapter of his own life, summarising the chronology (and sad and happy bits) of his own Barmera childhood.

  It’d been a Citizen Kane, San Simeon kind of thing. Decades of passing the drive-in on his way to school or work, always remembering, always saving, always hoping the ‘SOLD’ sign wouldn’t appear. Planning for this day. The first of many. When he’d start the process of reclaiming his childhood by reclaiming the drive-in.

  He walked into the cafeteria. Again, the walls had been kicked out and there was wood and asbestos everywhere. Old signage, parts of the ice cream machine, chip racks and the deep-fryer that had deep-fried his childhood. Everything. Hot dogs and bananas, Chiko Rolls and Mars bars.

  ‘What are you seeing tonight?’ he asked a boy, standing, waiting.

  ‘Rocky,’ he replied.

  ‘You like Stallone?’

  ‘Not really. I wanted to see The Omen tomorrow night but Mum said I was too young.’

  ‘For The Omen? Rubbish.’ He stopped to think. ‘Although … there are other ways.’

  The boy just looked at him.

  ‘You know the willows, over there,’ he indicated. ‘You can sit and not be seen, and you can hear the sound from the cafeteria speakers.’

  The boy smiled. ‘But they won’t let me out.’

  ‘Well, tell ’em you’re going to a mate’s place.’

  ‘They’ll find out, they always do.’

  ‘Not if you arrange it with Keith.’

  The boy seemed shocked. ‘You know Keith?’

  ‘Of course. He’s everyone’s best mate.’

  Trevor walked out to his car and drove across to the projection room. He studied the slab where the projector had once been bolted down. Even now there were shards of film on the ground. He picked one up and studied it: a horse, and some hills, still searching for lamplight decades after they’d been trimmed from the reel. There was an old canvas seat the projectionist (an old man, his grandfather’s friend) sat on working on his crosswords as the film hummed and spoke and sang beside him. Trevor used to watch him, sitting outside, leaning against the door licking his pencil. He’d wonder why he was more interested in his book than the film. How could it be? A film was the best of the world: the history, the drama, the songs, the costumes. Perhaps, he’d guessed, the old man had seen it too many times to care. Or perhaps he was only interested in solid, real, dependable things: two across and one down.

  ‘What’s showing tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Jaws. Again. Two months straight.’

  ‘Scary, eh?’

  ‘Not particularly. It’s all shit. Next week it’s Convoy, then Revenge of the Pink Panther. We were offered The Deer Hunter, but they turned it down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Said no one would come. Like we’re all idiots. Thing is, you keep it up, people will stay away. You’ve got to challenge your audience.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Absolutely. This is like throwin’ Christians to the lions. People’ll get sick of it eventually.’

  Trevor went out to his car. He opened the boot, took out a card table and projector and a dozen extension cords that had been joined together. He unwound the cords as he walked across the drive-in towards the gate, along a hundred metres of highway and into the carpark of the deserted Cobby Fruit Mart. He inserted the plug into a wall socket he’d noticed fifteen years ago, when the plan was only half-formed in his head. Then he returned to the projection room and set up his equipment.

  He walked back into the night and stood looking at the screen. Despite being grey and faded, and bird-shat-on, it was intact. He wasted no time. He untied a ladder from the roof of his car, found a brush and tin of white paint in his boot and began. Soon he was six metres up, hovering above the playground for the young kids who’d got sick of the film. There were still monkey bars, and a slide that burned the back of their legs on hot summer nights, but the weed-mat had yielded to the fat-hen and caltrop.

  He painted the part of the screen he figured he’d need. As he worked he was aware of Gregory Peck beneath his bristles. He felt like Michelangelo on his scaffold, tackling the Sistine ceiling, honouring his own gods in paint. But these were fleeting gods, flickering for a few hours before vanishing into the night. Like the bell for the end of recess; little worlds surrendered to active verbs and Oliver Cromwell.

  As a child he felt the world was imperfect; still did. There was little colour in it (except citrus-orange and red-and white-grape), little music, little poetry. But these were things he liked: Oliver Twist on his balcony watching soldiers march down Mayfair; Peter Sellers at the sort of party he never went to (just fat uncles telling him about botrytis). He felt the drive-in was the only way to escape his own world of ever-darkening freckles and never-resolving long division. In a way, these were the only hours he was alive. Maybe, by watching movies, you could escape the real world. Maybe not. Maybe school and mashed potatoes were the only things to look forward to. But why would people choose this life when there were Manhattan galleries and African safaris? Why? Even now he didn’t know.

  The fear struck him again. What if by doing this, nothing was better? Would that mean he was wrong? Would it mean that life was just a succession of mortgage payments and toasted sandwiches?

  He saw lights at the gate. A patrol car drove in and stopped. He waved. ‘Over here.’

  The car continued. He climbed down and walked over to greet the sergeant. The car stopped and a middle-aged man with a pot belly got out. ‘G’day.’

  ‘How are yer?’

  ‘I haven’t seen anyone in here for years.’

  Trevor was half-worried, half-proud. ‘Well, I’ve bought it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The drive-in.’

  ‘The whole thing?’

  ‘Yep.’

  The sergeant looked around. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You gonna reopen it?’

  Trevor wasn’t sure himself. ‘Perhaps. But for now, I wanna do it up, get it working again.’

  The copper didn’t get it. ‘So you can reopen it?’

  Trevor shrugged.

  ‘You’ll fix the whole thing, so …?’

  ‘So I can sit and watch movies.’

  The sergeant noticed the extension cords, the projector, and smelt the paint. ‘Couldn’t you just hire a DVD?’

  ‘I could, but this is the real McCoy. Didn’t you come here when you were a kid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you love the drive-in?’

  ‘No. It’s either raining or too hot. That’s why people stopped coming. You either froze yer tits off or sat sweatin’ in yer car. I think yer better off at home.’

  Trevor guessed that drive-ins were something you either got, or didn’t. Like rock climbing, or growing orchids, they didn’t bear analysis.

  ‘Come on, Sergeant, there must be something a bit wild you like to do.’

  ‘Wild?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The sergeant was a practical man. ‘This place would cost hundreds of thousands to get goin’. You’re tellin’ me …’

  ‘I’ve been saving for twenty years.’

  ‘For this dump?’

  ‘It’s not a dump. It’s where I grew up.’

  The policeman shook his head. ‘Well, good luck to yer.’ He got back in his car and drove off, avoiding a minefield of
smashed speakers.

  Trevor returned to the screen. He reached as high as he could and soon had a three-square-metre patch painted. He climbed down, resealed his paint and returned to his car.

  Then there was the folding chair, the esky (with its Choc-top and cold Coke) and the chips. He ordered a pizza and the delivery man didn’t understand his directions. ‘But that place has been closed for years.’

  ‘I’ve reopened it.’

  ‘No shit?’

  As he waited for his Meatlovers he loaded the DVD into the projector, aimed it onto his white patch and focussed it. The pizza arrived. He paid, and tipped, and at last, settled in to watch.

  It was after eleven, and he was eight years old again.

  The Eiger Sanction.

  Clint Eastwood. George Kennedy.

  ‘Dad, he’s in the middle!’ his sister called out.

  ‘Trevor, move your bloody head,’ his father said.

  His mum opened her door. ‘Righto, who wants some hot chips?’

  And they all agreed, hot chips would hit the spot.

  Trevor watched her walk back to the cafeteria but when he looked, ten minutes later, she was standing under the porch sharing a fag with one of her girlfriends.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’ his father asked, looking back.

  His sister pushed him aside, but he was small, and could only see Clint when he edged round the headrests (his dad had tried to remove them, but they wouldn’t come out).

  Eventually the chips arrived, and there was Coke (brought from home, by now warm and flat). The film was so-so. He became bored. He watched the old man work on his crossword, and all the little kids fall from the slippery dip and bang their heads on the concrete. He felt happy. He tried to stop and dissect this happiness, but couldn’t. It just was. For all the shitty bits, and his parents arguing over poor reception, and his sister kicking him—he was happy. The screen was big, the faces broad. It was them, up there: his Uncle Brian, who refused to talk to him because he’d once hit him with a broom; his Gran, who’d been asked to come, but wouldn’t go out after dark; Mr Meus, his teacher, who was always telling them about the Bee Gees and other tins of paint.

  Trevor settled into his chair. He started thinking about how much paint he’d need, and how much scaffold he’d have to hire, and how much glass he’d have to replace in the cafeteria. Then there was the fencing, and the box where the ticket men stood. That would have to be rebuilt completely. All of these things could be done, of course. He was forty-five, and might live another forty years, and by then it would be a grand place—somewhere for mums and dads to bring their kids again.

  The ticket man came along. ‘One ticket, one film. Tickets please.’

  He reminded Trevor that he only had a single, and would have to leave before the late feature. Trevor wanted to remind him, about what had happened, and how he was in charge now—but he didn’t, couldn’t. He’d have to play by the rules: one ticket, one film.

  His sister punched him in the arm. He complained and his dad managed a grunt, but as far as he was concerned, it was every man for himself in the back seat. The windscreen was fogging up. His dad opened a window and turned on the demister. His mum started wiping the glass with her hanky. It cleared, but five minutes later it happened again. Then it rained, and they had to put on the wipers, and his dad had to turn on the engine because he was afraid of flattening the battery. And when he did this his lights flashed the screen and everyone tooted. Then his sister kicked him again, and his mum said, ‘This is as boring as shit,’ and got out to go for another fag. And it went on like this, summer, winter, autumn and spring. Nearly every Saturday night (except for when someone died, or there was a wedding to go to).

  They were all gone now, which meant, in a way, there was no rebuilding the drive-in. No point even trying, perhaps. But the alternative was letting it all go, and that was a shame beyond description.

  So he priced the hardware, the wood, the steel, in his head.

  He looked out of his side window. It was so hot, and there was nothing they could do but sit and sweat. He took off his shirt and his sister gave him a nipple-cripple.

  ‘What’s on next week?’ he called to his dad. He didn’t reply. Perhaps he didn’t hear, or perhaps it didn’t matter. They’d come anyway.

  The Confirmation

  January 1976

  THE MINIBUS HELD EIGHT, but the short man with the missing tooth had been off sick. So, Patrick Bowen had two seats to himself. He stretched out, his arms across the headrests, and watched familiar country: a dry-stone wall that ran most of the length of this stretch between Gilford and Banbridge; low-grazed pastures; a wind-chimed cottage containing a dreadlocked, naked arse tribe of wild Scots who they’d often see washing in a dam; fat cows; rain.

  The seven men were returning from a building site. They’d spent the morning raising frames for a row of flats on the outskirts of Gilford. They’d be the usual, dreary, can’t-swing-a-cat, hear-everything-your-neighbours say sort of homes. They’d put up most of the walls, and braced them, but then the rain had started, and stayed, and now they were heading home early. Coughing; someone laughing; someone reciting in their best Richard Burton: ‘“Twice every day the waves efface of staves and sandalled feet the trace.”’

  This suited Patrick Bowen. Tonight was his son’s confirmation. It was to be a big night with family and friends, Father Gilman and even a few neighbours gathering at their home beforehand for fish and chips, beer and Coke (for his tall, shaggy-haired son, Michael, the reluctant Catholic). It would be chaos, he imagined, as he sat in the bus watching the sky clear. There would be running, shouting, the Bay City Rollers rattling windows, wet wood smoking in the fireplace, his brother arguing with his dad, dogs barking, drink spilt on the carpet and maybe even a prayer or two muttered in the relative quiet of their lean-to laundry.

  Confirmations were always a big deal in his family. ‘Send forth upon the sevenfold Spirit the Holy Paraclete,’ he could remember Father Gilman half-singing at his own ceremony. He could still see himself standing in short shorts on the altar of their local church, his bow legs shivering; the sleeves of his suit (freshly pressed) hanging down past his fingertips and his tie pinching his neck. His bright, red and yellow silk sash (as he watched Jesus melting on the wall). His mum and dad in the fourth row, grinning, his sister sticking out her tongue. He could recall every smell, every clunk of the organ keys, every genuflect and forehead wet with chrism.

  And this, he hoped, is how it would be for Michael.

  Father Gilman’s voice hadn’t changed in the intervening years. ‘I mark thee with the sign of the cross and confirm thee.’ He could still feel the priest’s hand brushing his cheek, and smell the beer on his breath as he mumbled, ‘Peace be with you.’

  Back in the bus, he turned to Aidan Hay (Saint Aidan, as they all called him), their foreman, boss and motivator (and sometimes, when the company was working them too hard, or paying them too little, their spokesman and peacemaker) and asked, ‘What about your weekend then?’

  Aidan pinched the tip of his nose and said, ‘Still helping my uncle—painting.’

  ‘Glen?’

  ‘He could afford to pay someone, but why would he do that when he’s got me?’

  ‘And what’s he do in return?’

  The bus came to a sudden stop. Aidan half-stood and saw a car parked across the road in front of them. ‘What’s this?’ Then, in a moment flooded in light reflected off the wet road, four men in black balaclavas emerged from the car, spoke among themselves and turned to face the builders.

  ‘Fuck,’ the bus driver, an old man, moaned.

  All seven men were standing, their heads bowed under the low roof. ‘Okay, boys, just keep calm,’ Aidan said. ‘They just want to show us how brave they are.’

  Each of the men on the bus had a vacant expression—as though they’d just cut a piece of expensive timber to the wrong length. One, an apprentice, dropped back into his seat, put his head in his
hands and said, ‘Jesus …’

  Of the four men in balaclavas, two had semi-automatic rifles and two had pistols. One of them, the tallest, came towards the bus and hammered on the door.

  The driver looked at his passengers. ‘What should I do?’

  There was silence, then Aidan said, ‘What’s the point, you’re going to have to open it.’

  The driver opened the door and the tall man in jeans and boots stuck his head in and said, ‘Okay, boys, everyone out.’

  They looked at each other, and then Patrick said to the man, ‘We’re just builders, heading home to Banbridge.’

  ‘Out!’

  They stumbled out—tripping over each other, knocking their heads—and were told to line up beside the bus. ‘Bremer Coaches’, in blocky letters, splattered with mud. To a casual observer it might have looked like a holiday snap. The four men stood in front of them, silently, almost nervously, squeezing, releasing and playing with their weapons. The tall man said, ‘Any of you fellas belong to the Holy Roman Catholic Church, would you be so good as to take one step forward.’

  ‘What do you want from us?’ Aidan asked.

  ‘All in good time.’

  Patrick froze. All he could think about was the confirmation. Would it go ahead without him? Tonight, next week, next year, never? He saw Michael’s face, smiling, and could see how he played with the sash that had been his. He could see his own brother’s face, two or three weeks previously, and remembered asking, ‘So, do you want to sponsor your little nephew then?’

  ‘I don’t have to say no fuckin’ prayers, do I?’

  ‘You just gotta nod.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘It’s meant to be an honour.’

  ‘I didn’t say no, did I?’

  There was silence along the line of eight men. The driver said, ‘I got nothin’ to do with this. I work for Mr Bremer.’

  ‘Shut up,’ one of the other four men said. ‘Or you’ll be first.’