The Last Projector

by David James Keaton

  “It’s not real, asshole,” Rick says, finally snagging it and screwing it back on his head.

  “I know it’s not real. But why would it have teeth and a beak?” Derek asks them.

  “He’s got a point,” Jack shrugs. Everyone had a point today. Rick glares at him.

  “Anyway…”

  “I mean, if you have teeth inside a beak, what’s under each wing? Fingers?” Jack and Rick are suddenly as unsure as the orderly.

  “Think about it,” Derek says. “Where does it end? Under each wing a spread of fleshy, human fingers.”

  He stares for a second too long, then pops a handful of sunflower seeds in his mouth, spitting a couple masticated shells at their feet before he stomps off.

  Jack turns to leave, too. Then, over his shoulder:

  “Stick around, Rick. I’ll be back and we can get rolling.”

  A couple more turns and Jack finds a relatively quiet wall to lean against. He rubs his temples to soothe his brain, thinking about the last girl from his last car wreck more than he should. But it’s like someone unseen keeps insisting.

  There is a poster high on this wall of the huge, smiling face of a cartoon dog. It seems to be watching everyone. A comic balloon over the dog’s head reads:

  “Be Careful, Kids! I May Look Friendly But Not All Dogs Are Friendly Like Me!”

  He thinks about the other girl, too, sometimes, the one from six years ago, but never about what he did to cover up that crime.

  “Cut!” Larry yells, causing Jack to hit the deck.

  “Fuck, man. Yelling that in a hospital is like yelling ‘bomb’ in an airport.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Tell you what, Larry. We don’t need anybody to play Derek the asshole orderly. You got that part down.”

  Hospital examination room, same day. Jacki and her daughter, Toni, are sitting on the same side of a metal table. A doctor and Larry are leaning against the wall, going over their lines. Larry claps his hands, and the doctor starts tip-toeing closer to the little girl, a sucker in his outstretched hand. He’s a real doctor, and Jacki clutches Toni’s hand, nervous, then rubs a bite on her own wrist. Back at the school where she taught, she thought it was a brown recluse spider at first. They were common enough in her building, so common that one of the other instructors actually collected the dead ones, and she did, too, for awhile. Until some kid caught her counting the tiny carcasses in the dark during final exam week, hiding in her office from the parade of excuses from her worst students.

  “What’s that?” the kid had asked.

  “A brown recluse,” Jacki had answered.

  “Like you!” the little fucker had laughed.

  It had taken her a few minutes of blinking to realize this was a racial slur. Sometimes she forgot she worked in a red state.

  “A red state! Like you!” she would laugh to herself after that, whenever she felt the blood rushing to her face.

  The doctor is so close they can both smell the nervous sweat and aftershave, and his hand is swimming closer and closer to Toni with his sucker. Jacki doesn’t know why, but his exaggerated hand movements infuriate her, the dishonesty of the motions making her want to swat the sucker to the ground. She resists the urge to smack the doctor open-handed across the face for overdoing it, making the whole act even more threatening because of his shitty performance.

  Toni opens her mouth and reaches out. But at the last second, the doctor turns the sucker over and pushes the stick into her mouth. He rubs the stick against the inside of the little girl’s cheek while she struggles against her mother. He removes the stick and she starts crying.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  The doctor puts the sucker in a jar, then pulls another object from the pocket of his lab coat. He holds it behind his back.

  “That was my fault,” he says. “I got confused. Try this one instead, baby. It’s strawberry...”

  Jacki continues holding Toni’s hand while the doctor approaches the child with a needle behind his back. The doctor holds out his other hand clenched in a fist, as if he is hiding something a child would want to see. Toni looks at the hand and smiles, reaching to find more candy. Then the doctor suddenly jerks his fist away, and Toni screams as she realizes that she’s been stuck with the needle instead.

  Larry lays low in his corner, afraid to remind them it isn’t real. The scene is going too well.

  “Sorry honey,” the doctor says. Then, whispering to Jacki as if the whole thing is hilarious, “She’ll never trust a man again.”

  This joke makes Jacki livid. Toni is crying loudly now, and Jacki imagines the deep pain from a needle into an arm that small.

  “Was all that creepy shit really necessary?” she asks the doctor.

  “It depends,” the doctor says, now defensive. “Most kids are scared of needles.”

  “Well, now she’ll be afraid of getting stabbed with suckers, too, asshole.”

  Hospital hall, same day. Jack stood under the “Beware Of Dog” sign and rubbed his eyes like a toddler. He watched a young Hispanic woman come out of a nearby room and quickly walk towards him, Larry trailing her with a handheld camera. Through his watering eyes, he let his mouth drop, to indicate to an audience that he remembered her from the crash six years ago. She didn’t notice him at all, and continued past, towing her little girl aggressively behind her by the hand.

  “Jack is so shocked to see her again after three years that he bangs a knee on a cart marked ‘biohazard’ being wheeled past by Derek the orderly,” Larry yelled from behind his camera.

  “Who the fuck is Derek? Three years? Three years isn’t long enough for how you have the kid acting.”

  “I meant six years. But, yeah, Derek, he’s just me for now. I haven’t cast him yet. Hopefully, there’s an orderly here named Derek already, but if I really was Derek, the cart would tip, and Derek would grunt and catch a falling bag of blood in his hands. He’ll squeeze it too hard with his ragged nails, and the bag will burst between his fingers! Jack, jump back to avoid getting splashed.”

  “Who’s gonna play Jack?”

  “For now I’ll do Jack, too. Until Jack gets back. Anyway, ‘What the fuck?’ Derek will snort, trying not to touch anything.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Larry as Jack said, rubbing his knee.

  “Ewwwwww!” Toni squealed from behind her mom’s leg.

  “I should rub this shit in your fucking face,” Larry-as-Derek hissed.

  “C’mon dude,” Jack pleaded. “It would have been funny if it was a cart full of fruit. Like in the movies? Or basketballs!”

  Derek-as-Larry stared at his red hands as Jack turned away, still rubbing his knee, then quickly held out an arm to stop Jacki from walking past.

  “‘Wait. Hey, do I know you?’ you’ll say, Jacki. Then Jacki will stare into his eyes for a second, not liking what she sees. Derek will bang the cart into the wall as he turns it around and rolls through some doors. Then she’ll stare at this thick, hairy arm that’s blocking her path until he slooooowly lowers it. She’ll instinctively move a protective hand in front of her child, then start to move past him… try it…”

  “I remember you. You fixed my cable, right?”

  “No, it was years ago. I saw you at, I mean, I, uh, I brought you in after-”

  Jacki interrupted him as Toni started to cry from the idea of the blood Larry had conjured up in her mind. Jacki leaned down to sooth her, still hiding between her legs.

  “Years ago, huh? You hear that, baby? That was before you got hatched!”

  The little girl peered out, and Jack reached down to shake her hand. Toni shook her head and pushed her face into the back of Jacki’s knee. Jack pointed to the bandage on Toni’s arm when she peeked out again. Toni saw him looking and suddenly spit angrily on the floor.

  “Is she okay?”

  Jacki hesitated, looking embarrassed and impatient. Larry motioned for her to keep going.

  “She’s fine. She had to get a shot. For real.”
>
  “Where? In the mouth?”

  The little girl spit again, and Jack jumped back.

  “No, in the arm. I’m sorry, it’s not you she’s spitting at. She ate a bad sucker.”

  “Well, that’s why they call ‘em suckers! Hey, can I ask you if-”

  “We have to go, I’m sorry.”

  She walked off, and her child stared until they disappeared around a corner. Jack stared off into space, trying to seem deep in thought until a nurse came bursting through a nearby door and almost knocked the camera from Jack-as-Larry’s hand.

  “That could work,” Larry said. “You stop a nurse as she walks past and lean in close to whisper a question in her ear. She thinks for a moment, then will answer him a little too loud, ‘Paternity suit?’ Get it? Then you’ll run after them, crash through several doors until you’re standing in the garage, looking up, down, left and right, catching your breath! You’ll finally spot Jacki and her child looking for their car and run some more!”

  “Then what?”

  “Then you’ll say, ‘Hey, I know I don’t know you but can we go get a beer’…”

  “What is this movie about, Larry?”

  “And the music on the jukebox stopped.”

  “There’s no jukebox in a hospital, dude.”

  “So, you’ll glance down at the child who’s back between Jacki’s legs, ‘cause that’s the answer to everything, right? And you’ll say to the kid, ‘Or an ice-cream cone or something?’ And the brat will stick out her tongue and go, ‘A beer and ice cream! Gross!’ And the kid will be smiling for the first time after the shot and won’t be hiding behind her leg anymore, so you’ll get brave enough to finally tell her my name.”

  “Your name? Don’t you mean my name?”

  “Yeah, your name. ‘Jack Grinstead.’”

  “But that’s your name, isn’t it, Larry?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing. It might be Jack again some day, depending on what kind of movies I can make.”

  “I like it a lot better than ‘Larry.’”

  “Only in an airport.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the only place I can still hear, ‘Hi, Jack!’ without hitting the deck.”

  “Cut!”

  They all laughed.

  Over lunch, they talked about names some more, and everyone assumed that Larry had changed his name because of the new jobs he was taking. But in fact, it was his old job he was running from instead, he told them. It was inversely as mysterious as he tried to make it sound.

  Then an orderly rolled past them with a mop bucket, and they traded a look. Larry decided to film the garage scene later. This sorry son of a bitch was exactly who they’d been looking for.

  Weaving through traffic down the hospital hallway, Derek stops rolling his mop bucket to linger next to a circle jerk of police officers infesting a doorway. Inside this room is Ron Flowers, soon to be “39-year-old Mr. Ronald J. Flowers from Fort Knox, Kentucky,” and all over the news for soaking up about 35 Taser barbs, a half-gallon of pepper-spray, and a dozen forearms sunk deep into his throat. The cherry on top was the butt of a sergeant’s shotgun to the back of his head, right where he stored his memories of an almost reciprocated crush he’d had on a fifth-grade teacher. The pressure of all these arms on his unconscious brain had caused Mr. Flowers to stroke out. Which is a lot like striking out, except you don’t get a chance to spike your helmet for the cameras.

  Instead, the cameras, cellphones and dash cams alike, had caught every twitch of Mr. Flower’s nervous system as the impotent rage of so many boys in blue crackled and pulsed through his body. Derek had already seen this apocalyptic beating on the internet today, and couldn’t help but marvel at the way the winds of public opinion were already blowing. In fifteen minutes, 30,000 hits by calm, cool-headed, arm-chair lawyers were pretty sure Mr. Flowers deserved it. A trial would be unnecessary. About 50 or so amateur scientists wondered if Mr. Flowers was immune to electricity. Maybe he’d been Tasered too many times? And the other 60,000 hits sidestepped any procedural debate and jumped straight to this certainty:

  Fuck him. This was the Bardstown Rapist.

  Why else would he resist like that? Only a guilty man soaks up enough electricity to power a city block, pulling fishhook after fishhook of Taser wire from his torso, all while cuffing any cop that got too close with fists the size of Thanksgiving turkeys. A man only does this when he knows justice has caught up with him.

  “Immune to compassion, too,” those amateur scientists decided, “likely due to his upbringing.” How else could anyone explain such an endless trail of victims left broken and bleeding at rest stops along the famous Kentucky Bourbon Trail?

  But even though it seemed unnecessary in the eyes and fingertips of the online public, the police wanted a confession. They knew how they were going to look when those cellphones and dash cams hit the 11:00 o’clock news, and they were equally worried Mr. Flowers, a huge, raggedy man who had sort of resembled a black Meat Loaf before his beating (now looking more like actual meatloaf) would either survive or be forever martyred by their assault.

  Either way, a hospital-bed confession was crucial.

  Derek surveys the sea of blue suits and Batman utility belts surging in closer to the broken pile of tubes, blood, and bandages with every stuttering beep of the machines. He isn’t sure how many cops are gathered, but it’s too many, and they all seemed worried and furious, watering eyes and trickles of blood glistening toilet brush mustaches, random bleats and sputtered profanity about how someone should pull the goddamn plug on a piece of shit like 39-year-old Mr. Flowers, born and raised in Fort Knox, Kentucky, how he was a waste of hospital resources.

  Electricity especially, Derek thinks as he notices the spaces in the belts where the Tasers used to be.

  But as Derek attempts to mop around the rivers of black, spit-shined shoes, he notices there are two cops a little different than the rest. One big, one small.

  This is not uncommon, and Derek knows immediately, just from being alive on this planet past the age of 18, any clear physical distinctions means they will be the worst cops ever.

  And, sure enough, they’re the only two faces anywhere near an after-hours emergency room that are smiling.

  “Is it the guy?” Big Cop asks.

  “Gotta be the guy,” someone scoffs.

  “Where’s the girl he was with?”

  “We just booked her,” Small Cop says.

  “Did he rape her, too?”

  “Naw, she was in on it. She’s always been in on it. White girl like that? How else is someone like this gonna get that close to so many females?”

  “Why were they dressed like that?”

  “Fuck if we know,” Big Cop says. “She claims they were on their way to a costume party. But she’s lying.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You didn’t see her smile when we took her picture? That’s all she wanted. To get one of them sweet old-time mugshots. Like you get at Frontierland. Wannabe actors. All of them.”

  “I don’t know. What if this isn’t the guy?”

  “She’ll talk,” Big Cop says. “And if she don’t talk, he’ll talk.”

  “Why?” Small Cop asks.

  “Because he reported finding the last victim.”

  “And?”

  “And she found the victim before that, too.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. That’s a pretty big fucking coincidence.”

  “Really?” Small Cops shrugs. “Seems like once the number of rapes gets this high, it gets more likely someone would stumble across two victims in their lifetime, hell, maybe even three. Shit, one time this little kid found two ears on the same day!”

  “He’s the guy. DNA will prove it.”

  A nurse orbits the mob of police, not able to muster the courage to tell them to leave. She is able to push through and squeeze the bag of plasma fee
ding Mr. Flowers’ massive forearm. Suddenly awakened by the tug of the needle, the baseball-glove-sized hand connected to this arm begins scratching at the handcuff locking it to the railing.

  “Look out!”

  “Don’t worry. They said something in his head popped. That’s all he can move. That one hand.”

  “That’s one hand too many after what he did to you assholes,” Small Cop laughs.

  “Well, he ain’t gonna move anything ever again.”

  “How do you know it’s the guy?” Big Cop asks again.

  “I said, forensics are gonna prove everything. You know, the blood.”

  “The blood, huh?” Big Cop looks at Small Cop, who finally laughs loud enough for them all to start glaring. Big Cop says to no one and everyone:

  “Man, don’t you hate those movies where someone says something like, ‘Well, Joe, we checked the perpetrator’s vehicle and found DNA and possible latent fingerprints,’ then someone else goes, ‘Whoa! Speak English, Copernicus!’ ‘Sorry, Joe. I mean we got the guy.’ Gotta love when movies assume the audience is jam-packed with idiots.”

  “Who are you calling idiots?” a cop in the back asks, popping a wad of red tissue out of his nostril in anger.

  “Exactly,” Small Cop laughs.

  Derek mops a little slower, but he knows better than to believe these cops are actually considering the innocence of the brain-damaged man locked to the bed. He leans against the wall and watches Mr. Flowers’ finger stop scratching the rail and strain toward one of the officers near the door instead. The finger raises higher, higher, until it’s pointing straight at the cop’s chest. The officer looks down to his shirt pocket to see a stack of parking tickets and the pen holding them together.

  “Did you write him a ticket?” someone asks.

  “Yeah, started to, until he went ape shit.”

  “Hey, watch the slurs,” someone says, quite serious. “We might be recorded.”

  “I think he wants your pen,” Derek offers, head down as he slides a snail train of soapy water to the bathroom.

  “DNA is overrated,” Big Cop goes on. “Juries love it, but all those numbers? It’s sort of like astronomy class. Doesn’t mean shit.”