(a version of this was originally published on Garfield’s Crossing)
Stash rolled the stolen Chevy Nova off the edge of the forgotten state highway and cut the engine in the shadows of the “Welcome to Garfield’s Crossing” sign. He cut the engine and wondered why—even in the shade—he could still feel the sun’s rays boring into his eye sockets.
After taking a long overdue piss among the waist-high weeds and wondering which of them would leave a rash in an uncomfortable place, he zipped and returned to his car to study his map, which he laid out across the hood of the car. He waited for the paper to ignite.
Nothing.
He’d passed nothing on the northern side of this town for at least 40 miles. Rednecks and tractors. Rednecks on tractors. He hadn’t yet seen a tractor on a redneck, but he welcomed the potential. The need for sleep had begun to erode the stores of adrenaline somewhere in the Carolinas. Nothing but folksy small towns. They made him uncomfortable. Always wanting to know the outsider – not because they were friendly or showering him with that legendary southern hospitality. Far from it. They don’t know you; they don’t trust you. A guy, looking like Stash, secondhand military jacket with a pack of cigarettes sticking out of his pocket, shaggy hair. They’d want to know him for nothing longer than the unfortunate moment it took to usher him back on his way out of town. He’d seen the look as he pumped gas, as he grabbed a burger, as he passed slowly through town, minding each speed limit sign and subtracting five from each.
This town didn’t even look like it wanted to be found. In fact, he didn’t see a gas station or even a convenience store – just more road. His map supported this observation. He finally spotted the pinhead dot labeled Garfield’s Crossing. The distance between here and anywhere else was far enough that he didn’t even need to consult to map’s key to know he was fucked.
After a shake and a zip, he lit a cigarette and took in the landlocked, stagnant country air filtered through menthol stench. The prior owner of this blue Chevy Nova loved cats and smoked menthols. So he smoked the menthol and watched as the tchotchke feline on the dashboard bobbed its head idly and in perpetuity. He’d boosted it somewhere back in West Virginia and swapped the hot plate for something more upstanding. While he didn’t have a Georgia plate in his collection, he had one from Mississippi and figured it would have to do. In many ways he was right back where he started. West Virginia. Georgia. Two-horse mountain towns. In his experience they were all the same. Only the accents changed.
He sat himself down on the hood to finish his cigarette. He’d put some distance between his immediate problems and his future problems, but in that horrible moment it occurred to him that he could be calling Garfield’s Crossing home for the foreseeable future. If the town couldn’t locate itself, where better to disappear? The thought filled him with equal measures disgust and hope. He pulled his drab, green military-style jacket closer around his body, fingering the envelope in his pocket, which he did every fifteen or twenty minutes. Just to make sure it was still there. Just to make sure he still had something to live for.
Garfield’s Crossing. Named after a president nobody remembers and barely happened. 20th president of the United States. Assassinated in office on March 4th, 1881 (or was it the 6th?) after serving only six months and change. Garfield wasn’t even from Georgia. He was an Ohio man and fought as a general in the Union Army and Georgia would have most definitely voted for the Democratic opponent, Hancock, if memory serves. Yes, his name was definitely something something Hancock. Stash just remembered these things, and not being able to remember Hancock’s first name irritated him. He had an affinity for facts even if he didn’t know what to do with them besides answer questions on TV quiz shows. Things just stuck in there and he couldn’t get them out.
A wheezy cacophonous rumble increased in volume and agitation. He glanced behind him. A blue pickup with rusted out wheel beds and a rope tying the grill into place. It’s like he’d stepped inside a Flannery O’Connor short story. And now this Samaritan would pull up next to him and ask him if he needed any assistance as if driven by good intentions instead of xenophobia.
“Good morning, sir. Are you in distress?” the driver bellowed over the truck’s clatter. The exhaust fumes were overwhelming.
Stash pasted on his ten-dollar smile and turned toward the man. Nothing more than a boy, hardly a man at all. The early morning sun caused a glare on the driver’s Pomade slicked hair, and the cantankerous truck gave enough fumes so that his eyes watered over, choking out the haze.
“Good morning! I decided to stop and enjoy the sunrise just up over that ridge there.” Stash pointed off into the distance and the boy glanced, like he’d never bothered to acknowledge the ebb and flow of days, the sun and the moon. Sunrise. Sunset.
“Why I suppose it is a wonderful morning for a smoke. Mind if I bum? I’m fresh out and my daddy says I ain’t old enough so I can’t have none of his.”
Stash eased off the hood of the car. He rapped the pack across his palm and up popped a single cigarette. The driver reached across the seats and snared it through the open window.
“Menthol,” he said, a little taken a back. “Well, alright. I only ever heard of these.”
Stash bit his tongue and reinforced his smile.
“The name’s Earl,” the driver said, as he brushed back a single, loose strand of hair that had, against all odds, popped out of place. “Of Earl and Son Towing, but we do a little bit of paint and bodywork on the side.” Earl lit the cigarette with the plug from the truck, inhaling the cigarette to life. The vehicle rumbled and kicked. Earl wiggled the gearshift in and out of Neutral like a jockey whipping a horse.
“Your daddy’s name is Earl and your name is Earl,” Stash said.
“Even my sister’s name is Earl, but we call her Imogene because she just likes the name Imogene.”
“Imogene didn’t get a say in the whole Earl and Son bit?”
Earl laughed a little. “You definitely ain’t from around here are you? That Earl in the name is my pap and the Son is my pa.”
There it was. The prodding you ain’t from around here line. Stash shook his head, tossed the smoke and stubbed the cigarette out with the heel of his boot. “Nah, son, I ain’t from around here. I would appreciate a nudge in the direction of a pay phone and a warm breakfast, however.”
“I know just what you need. Head on over to May Belle’s. I believe her phone’s working again after Big Jim went a quick round with it. He was having an argument with his Mrs. and—”
“The phone saw the worst of it.”
“That’s right—now don’t you mind Miss May Belle. She’s a character alright, but she’s mostly harmless. Mostly. Took Big Jim out and beat him for what he did to her phone, though.”
“And where might I find this ‘Miss May Belle’s’ with her telephone and warm breakfast and questionable character?” he interrupted, before the character witnessing spun out of control.
Earl gestured at nothing in particular with his cigarette. “Just head straight on into town. You can’t miss it.”
Stash shot a glance down the empty road.
“Alright,” he said.
The driver tipped a hat that doesn’t there. “Maybe I’ll see you around, Mister. I don’t believe I caught your name,” he said and shot him a grin that suggested he noticed more than he let on.
“Hancock,” Stash said.
Earl nodded. The rust blue Ford belched cancer, lurched into first gear and jumped back onto the road.
Stash slid back into the seat of his Nova and exhaled. What was he even doing here? He was told to drive south until he found it. He interpreted his directions as drive south until the winds stopped talking and he’d escaped the death that hunted him at home. This one job wouldn’t redeem him. For however long it took he’d be looking over his shoulder waiting for two in the back of the head and a shallow grave.
Stash turned the key in the ignition.
He tossed the menthols into the middle of the road and aimed to crush them with his tires. Stash glanced into the rear-view mirror to check on his success, but the cigarettes sat unharmed on the shoulder of the road.
Damn. Winfred Scott Hancock – that’s it. They called him The Superb. The Superb! He slammed his hands on the steering wheel. Once upon a time nicknames supposed excellence or largess, hyperbole. These days you became synonymous with the first time you got pinched. Stash had a dimebag on him during a routine traffic stop. Cokie, an eight ball. BJ—well, let’s just say he found himself in the position of needing some quick cash and leave it at that.
Earl the Third needed a good eye check or a head examination. After more than a mile of nothing, Stash finally parked along the quiet main drag and surveyed the names on buildings. The only thing open in those early hours just after sunup was a diner, but the sign didn’t read Miss May Belle’s, it read only “Diner” in all capital neon block letters. After determining he could indeed miss Miss May Belle’s he wandered inside assuming that whomever ran the DINER could serve an egg over easy and toast.
“Three eggs over easy. Rye toast. Coffee,” he said to the waitress before she had a chance to hand over the laminated menu.
“Good morning, sir,” the woman said. An elegant plumpness suited her carriage and complete disregard for the words approximating an order that had already come from his mouth. There was no need for conversation. “Would you like to try one of our specials,” she continued. “We have—”
“Three eggs. Over easy. Rye. Coffee.”
“Sausage-hash cass. Cheesy sausage cass. Sausage and crescent cass. Sausage and grits cass.”
“Cass?”
“Yes, sir. Casseroles. You look like a sausage and crescent man. You look hungry. I bet you are.”
“Your specials are all casseroles?”
“That’s right. Fresh out of the oven. Just like my momma used to make.”
“Three eggs. Over easy. Rye. Coffee. Thank you.”
She scribbled on her pad and punctuated it with a quick tap of her pen, which she then tossed behind her year. “Crescent and rye!” she hollered. An unseen cook called back “Sludge and Curl. Coming right up.” She looked down at Stash with a smile, “If you need anything else, my name’s Miss May Belle – just give me a holler.”
When she returned a moment later, she slapped the plate on the table and poured him a cup of coffee. The plate contained a gelatinous block, one piece of rye toast and a sprig of parsley garnish. May Belle smiled. Dimples became craters. “I’ll come back to check on ya.”
“Do you have a pay phone?”
May Belle nodded and pointed to a cubby at the back of the restaurant. “Won’t dial none, so you’ll have to call the operator because the only button that works is the ‘Oh.’”
“Much obliged,” Stash said, betraying almost none of his frustration. He left his plate and wandered through the tables and around a wall of booths to the back. Everyone in the place looked sad, tired or sad and tired. Three old men sat together in a booth, each silently reading a different section of the paper and drinking coffee.
He picked up the phone and listened to the dial tone while he fished in his pockets for a dime. Nothing but small change. He heard the voice of a woman. Low and steady, almost a whisper, but something about this woman suggested she wasn’t capable of hushed tones. “Pop, you can’t go on like this anymore. Nobody’s going to movies. And you don’t have any movies the people want to see.”
“I’ve got movies, darling, and the whole world wants to see them.”
“Just because you got movies from Italy don’t mean the whole world wants to see them. Not even the Italians wanted them – that’s why they sent them to you is what I believe. Why they never asked for them back, anyway. And for godsakes, Pop you’ve got to start putting your money in a bank.”
“You said yourself nobody comes to my movies. Nowhere could be safer than the place where nobody goes guarded by a senile old man with an antique musket.”
Stash made a show of fishing around in his pockets some more without luck. He turned around and smiled awkwardly at the woman. The words caught in his throat and before he could them out, she asked, “Do you need something or you just like eavesdropping on personal conversations?”
She had short brown hair, cropped above the shoulder and pinned up with a bobby. She held her hand gently against her cheek, unconsciously guarding what looked like a scar just below her eye. Part of it cascaded out from behind her fingers, a river delta carved by someone else’s madness.
“I’m so sorry, miss,” he finally said, putting on his finest folksy smile. “I seem to be out of calling coins. Do you happen to have one?”
“I’m out,” she said, gesturing towards the waitress. “I don’t carry change. Get some change from May Belle.”
“I’ve got some,” the old man said and fished around in his pocket. Stash’s gaze remained fixed on the woman.
“Do I know you?” he asked her. “Because it seems like you’re flexing some awful familiar disgust, like I’ve wronged you in a past life.”
“Mister—I have no doubt in my mind that I have never met you. In this or any other life. I just don’t know you and I don’t like the look of men I don’t know.”
“Here it is!” the old man blurted out, having found the quarter in his bottomless pockets.
Stash held out his hand; the man placed a large, red button in his palm. He glanced from the button to the man and back to the button and after a prolonged moment of contemplation, Stash decided the old man really did believe he’d handed him a quarter. He held the button up. “Thanks,” he said, and then returned to his seat. He heard the old man giggle like a schoolchild from across the room.
“Do you think he noticed I gave him a button?”
“Pop,” the woman scolded. “He was being kind. He thinks you’re a loony.”
May Belle appeared and began cleaning away Stash’s plates.
“I haven’t started eating this yet.”
“You had time for fraternizing with Pop so I assumed you’d had time to eat.”
“Put it down, May Belle. I haven’t eaten in two days and I don’t even care if I did order three eggs over easy and rye toast – but I’m damn sure going to eat this block of egg now that you’ve given it to me.”
He stabbed the egg with his fork – even though May Belle held it a foot over the table – and shoved a hunk in his mouth. May Belle withdrew, returning the plate to the table. “This ain’t half bad May Belle,” he said through some partially chewed egg block.
“I know,” was all she said in return.
Stash took some time to finish his plate and drink his black coffee. Pop and the woman left; the door chimes jingled. After May Belle cleared away the dishes, he got another pour of coffee. Truth was he didn’t know the woman, but he needed her to remember him, however this was about to go down. He didn’t want to make trouble, but sometimes jobs required trouble. He needed to escape and if it meant trouble he’d open the door willingly. Most importantly, he had to keep Xavier away from Garfield’s Crossing. Xavier brought more than trouble. Xavier left the kinds of scars that didn’t heal. In order for that to happen he had to keep the boss happy without giving up his location, not yet. Not until the deal had been done.
“Closing time,” May Belle said. “Coffee’s gone. Everyone else is gone, too, because there’s no more coffee.”
“What time is it?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that there’s no coffee. No coffee means no people. No people means May Belle’s is closed.”
“That’s an awfully peculiar means of doing business, May Belle.”
“Seems right by me.”
“Say, May Belle, I’m looking for something to do this afternoon. Something like a movie? Maybe a bowling alley? Something inside and cool because I’m already sick of this heat.”
“You blind and stupid?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The theater is next door. Don’t know what Pop’s runnin’ this week because nobody goes unless they’re showing one of those Jerry Lewis pictures. The ones with Dean Martin. Whole town turns out for Jerry and Dino.”
He didn’t think it possible, but this town had turned out worse than expected.
Stash tossed down a five-dollar tip and exited May Belles. As soon as he was out the door, May Belle locked the door and pulled down the shades. The neon “Open” sign fizzled and then extinguished. The hum remained. He looked up. Right next door – a marquee for Pop’s theater. Stash crossed the street to get a better look at the place. He wasn’t much for theater shopping, nor did he expect to be in the market, but fate has a way turning that on its head.
The building couldn’t have been build after the 1920’s. The marquee remained in perfect condition. The black letters read “Fellini’s Casanova 1 4 7.” The sign above the marquee said only “Theater.” No name. Stash checked his watch. He had a little time to kill so he walked back to the Nova, and put up the sun shade he’d found in the back seat. Not even noon and the sweat had already begun pooling at the base of his back. His mind lingered on the woman from the diner, presumably Pop’s daughter – but when everyone called a man “Pop” that could muddy the more obvious familial lines. He checked beneath the seat for his gun. Having found the still cold steel where he’d left it, he threw his seat back into full recline and closed his eyes – just for a minute.
Stash awoke in a violent sweat. The cracks he’d left in the Nova’s window insufficient. He’d dreamt of being found, of being tossed into a kiln and becoming a part of a large ceramic flower vase, in which one of the Brothers’ wives would put her daily red roses. In the moment of waking he’d felt disoriented, out-of-body, but the reality of the stifling car had explained away nightmare. He rolled his body out of the car and even though the outside temperature had to be near 90’s it felt breezy, almost refreshing.
Pop sat inside the ticket window in a yellow-piped red velvet jacket and a bellboy cap, next to him a wheel of tickets. While Pop’s dedication should have been impressive, the frayed clothes and attachment to the past looked desperate. And yet Stash couldn’t help but admire the man’s persistence. The town demanded Marin and Lewis and he gave them Italian art films, specifically Casanova directed by Federico Fellini. His most recent film. Donald Sutherland and Tina Aumont. Nino Rota score. Nominated for a couple of awards. He couldn’t remember which ones. Nor had he seen it, but that’s beside the point of knowing things.
“One, please,” he said to Pop, whose eyes lit up with uncertain recognition. Pop tore the little red ticket and pushed half through the arched opening in the glass. “You—did you ever make your phone call?”
“I opted against it. At least for now.”
“The best calls are sometimes the ones we don’t make.”
“I’m not sure that’s the takeaway there, Pop.”
“Are you a Fellini fan?”
“I saw Cabiria a few years ago,” he said. “I’m not sure it was my thing.”
“There’s a little bit of Cabiria Ceccarelli in all of us. Dare I suggest that maybe Le notti di Cabiria hit a little too close to home. I don’t know much about you, but you look like a man in search of something, perhaps a little betrayed.”
“That’s enough out of you, Pop.”
“I see these things. I’m a keen observer of the human condition,” he said with a laugh. “That’s the movies and this theater has been in the family as long as it’s stood. My grandfather always said you have to play what the people need to see and not what they want.”
“Again, I’m not sure that’s the takeaway of running a business.”
“It was something like that anyway.”
“It doesn’t sound like your daughter wants you to keep this up.”
“Oh, Sylvia? Sylvia doesn’t care a wit about this place. She wants to leave town. Always has, ever since she was a wee girl. Thought this was a two-bit piece of redneck heaven but I kept telling her that we can make a difference, we can make this town something special. Name me one other place in the entire South that’s playing Fellini or Michelangelo Antonioni!” he said before sending himself into a coughing fit, the mere thought of Antonioni’s Red Desert causing apoplexy.
Stash had spent some time in Atlanta and figured that at the very least they’d care to exhibit European art films, but point made and taken, and he didn’t feel like arguing semantics with Pop. Instead Stash just thanked him for the ticket and wandered in through the formerly glorious and velvety lobby. Once plush and blood red, the carpet showed through to bare spots. The draperies along the walls, similarly red, had faded into a Texarkana pink, bleached of their prominence and covered in years of neglect. But the smell, my God, the smell was enough to send a man back to his misspent teenage years. Popcorn and the sneaky smells of mildew that become one with the cavernous dark.
Behind the concession counter stood a boy, no more than sixteen. Old enough to dishevel, pretend he didn’t bathe and purposefully distress the lick of blond hair. He too wore the red jacket with the yellow piping and cap, albeit far more begrudgingly than pop who suggested a pajama level of comfort in his. The suit propped the boy up, all angles and awkward, as he leaned against the counter and doodled away on a sketchpad.
“What say you about serving me up a popcorn and a Coke?”
The boy went rigid before pocketing the phone. “Of course, sir.”
Sir. Pop had at least taught him some manners.
Popcorn and Coke in hand, Stash wandered back through the swinging double doors into the musty darkness of the grand old movie house. A couple of seniors sat at the end of the back row, a cane leaning on the wall behind them. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Stash noted the threadbare carpeting, broken seats without armrests, and a small brown bird flying from wall sconce to wall sconce, never satisfied with his viewing angle.
Stash assumed a seat in the fifth row, second from the end with a clear view of the exit through emergency doors in the front right of the building. He’d learned to always have an escape plan. Some lessons require seventeen stitches.
The lights dimmed. The projector whirred to life behind him. Stash glanced back to see Pop leering through the small window next to the lance of flickering images. The sound popped and crackled through the speakers. A 1960’s era call to the concession stand backed by a brassy marching band flourish.
“Yum yum it’s time for a tasty snack!” A bag of popcorn doused itself in butter, a hot dog performed flips for a bun in some kind of food service mating ritual. Ice cream bars danced across the screen like majorettes. The echoes from a drive-in movie Stash snuck into as a kid flooded back. He never had money of his own, but he and Jimmy could always push in through a loose piece of fencing along the wooded end of the parking lot. They’d hang out at the concession stand, like they had other places to go, cars with families, cars with girlfriends if they only knew how to drive. He would return to those days in a heartbeat if he could.
The title “Il Casanova di Federico Fellini” advanced aggressively to the center of the screen. A Venice street scene, a religious rally of some notoriety. Some blue guy slides down a rope into the water. Harlequins and religious rituals and Donald Sutherland as the world’s greatest lover. Fantastical indeed. Stash hoped Pop wouldn’t mind if he took in only ten or fifteen minutes of this before again dozing off. His earlier rest had been fitful. There wasn’t anyone around to concern about his snoring at least. No offense, Federico, but it’s been a long goddamn few days.
Stash started awake when the end of the film unspooled and thwack thwack thwacked until Pop began the respooling process. The lights did not come on. In that moment he felt very conscious of the gun he’d left beneath the seat of his car and decidedly not tucked into the back of his jeans.
“I was beginning to think we’d be here through another screening,” the all-too-familiar voice marbled through the darkness. “And honestly that was fucking terrible.”
“Not a Fellini fan, Xavier?” Stash said, trying against all his instincts to sound like him being here in Garfield’s Crossing was all part of the plan. Well, it was. It just wasn’t part of his plan, if such a thing had even occurred to him in any formal context.
Xavier shifted his reed-like body in the seat. “Movies are an opiate for sheep. Sheep that can’t get from Point A to Point B without anesthesia.”
He said these words with an air of pride, like he’d just started a chapter on a biography in defense of Mussolini and couldn’t help but champion the dictator’s worst ideas. Full name: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini. His signature looked like an EKG readout and he stood only 66 and a half inches tall – only a half inch taller than Napoleon, though Stash always presumed the half inch to be a fabrication, a personal assertion of physical dominance over the diminutive Frenchman.
“You said you’d call, Stash.”
“What’s your excuse?”
“So you roll into town in a hot Chevy Nova and what, you decide to catch a movie?”
“A boosted Nova’s still better than that Oldsmobile fatback of yours.”
“You want to be a nobody you drive the most nobody car on the planet,” he said, an edge suddenly present in his voice. Xavier, despite his everyman camouflage, remained quick to temper when anyone poked him about his shitty car. He changed direction. “I don’t need to tell you what’s at stake.”
Stash didn’t need to listen to the laundry list again. The bottom line – if he didn’t come up with a soft target, an easy mark, quick cash strike to repay his debts to the Brothers, he’d be erased, and the world wouldn’t miss him because the world didn’t know he existed. A blight, a speck, a wart. He didn’t forget details. Unfortunately, neither would the Brothers, and sitting behind him was their sniveling lap dog to remind him.
“I’m not the bad guy here, pigeon. You’re the bad guy in this particular story. The way I see it and the way the Brothers see it, your lips slipped and now we’re out 300.”
There was no use arguing because the truth meant nothing. The truth had been erased the minute Jimmy put his nose where it didn’t belong. Stash couldn’t help but think that in a Hollywood movie it would have been a girl that had gotten him into so much trouble. A femme fatale or a vamp, the boss’ woman, looking for another angle. That would have made a more interesting story. And then the idea struck him, an open-handed slap across the cheek for sneaking around on Lana Turner with Lizabeth Scott. The Hollywood version sounded so much better than rotating on the spit because Jimmy tried to get out.
“There’s a clunker of a safe in the projection booth. I don’t know how much inside, but it’s at least a start. An old Brain, easy to crack. I could do it in my sleep.”
“Now you’re starting to talk straight, Stash. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“The plan?”
“Just a banana split followed by a speedy divorce.”
“Speak English, Stash.”
“Crack the safe. Take the money. Leave town. You get yours. The Brothers get theirs. I get another chance.”
Stash didn’t have a plan, but he had the next best thing. Hope drives a desperate man further than fear, further than Xavier with the 9mm he hid underneath the back of his shirt. Down here in backwoods Georgia no one would miss the man passing through on his way to somewhere else. They wouldn’t miss him when they found his stolen Chevy Nova and they definitely wouldn’t bother to unravel the mystery behind a body found by teenagers dicking around in the woods.
Stash had told Xavier to meet him behind the theater on the other side of the emergency exit forty minutes after the last showing of Casanova. He’d have opened the safe – a safe he’d identified to Xavier as a turn handle from W.E. Brain and Co. of Birmingham – and pilfer the “independently wealthy” theater owner’s hard-earned life savings, which he refused to keep in a financial institution. He’d learned about this job in the diner as he idled at the pay phone. The only truth to be found in the whole conversation. Xavier raised a skeptical eyebrow, but the draw of a potential life savings stored in a creaky old safe tickled the hardened man’s only weak underbelly. Money, but not just any money – cash. Untraceable cash he’d pocket for himself after eliminating Stash. He’d report back to the Brothers about Stash’s wrong turn at Garfield’s Crossing, how he’d tried to disappear into the foothills. And he’d been dealt with accordingly. None of the risk, but all of the reward. Ghosts don’t stay ghosts by taking unnecessary risks. Stash gave Xavier a risk-free pension plan.
The only question in Stash’s mind was how much (or little) Xavier trusted him. He would believe Stash’s story because greedy men always believed in outcomes that most benefitted them, but just because he was blinded by potential didn’t mean he was dense. He had to count on Xavier’s greed to overcome his devotion to the Brothers. If he thought he could take all the money for himself he wouldn’t call in and report Stash’s location until after the job. In the meantime, he’d be watching Stash every second from the moment he left this theater until the moment he returned this evening – but that was the key. He couldn’t leave the theater. Although this meant he wouldn’t have the gun he left beneath the seat of the Nova and that was less than ideal.
Stash found an old receipt for a Kit Kat and an Atlantic Monthly in his wallet from somewhere in North Carolina. He borrowed a pen from the kid at the concessions counter and scribbled “meet me in the projection booth at 6:15.” To the note he taped the red button Pop had given him at breakfast.
“Give this to Pop when he comes down.”
The kid stared at him blankly.
“Everything’s a hustle these days, isn’t it? What’s your name, kid?”
The flop-haired teenager responded, “Call me Cubby.”
“Cubby? What the fuck—whatever. Cubby,” he said again, handing the kid a crisp ten, “make sure Pop gets this or I’ll kill you. I really will.” The ice in the words caused Cubby to sit up and shift uncomfortably in his chair. Until that moment, Stash figured, Cubby had never had skin in the game. He had skin in the game today. The real world dented Cubby’s backwoods Babylon.
“One more thing—”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need to use your phone.”
“Phone’s in the booth and the office.”
“That won’t do, Cubby.”
“Pay phone outside the men’s room.”
Stash hesitated for a moment. “Cubby, I’m going to need you to give me a dime to call for a tow.”
“Car trouble?”
“Sure,” he said.
As Stash waited in the darkness of the projection room, he went over the plan again and again. He’d picked the lock with a simple flick of a hairpin and settled into a folding chair behind the swing of the door.
These were the facts: Xavier would keep the front of the theater and Stash’s car in front of him at all times. There would be no disappearing into the Georgia backwoods. He had to push those idle Thoreau dreams into the back of his mind. The Brothers and their lapdog would not give up until he repaid his supposed debt. If he didn’t compensate, he’d be eliminated. When he did compensate, he likely knew too much anyway. These facts didn’t paint a rosy picture for Stash’s future.
But he had some suppositions that might possibly play out in his favor. He supposed that Xavier thought himself one step ahead. And as long as Stash played the dim card he had the upper hand. But one more thing had to fall into line. Pop. And he had no reason to believe that it would. Just a hunch.
A key jostled in the lock and the door swung open. A hand started toward the light switch.
“Touch that light and we’re both dead,” Stash said.
“You could give an old man a heart attack.”
“That would also be detrimental to both of us, Pop.”
Neither man spoke for a long moment. Only a car driving along the main strip interrupted the silence.
“You should probably shut the door because I have a business proposition that I think you’re going to want to hear.”
“You’ve been talking to Sylvia haven’t you? How am I going to do business with the lights off? I can’t even tell if you’re looking me in the eye when you’re talking to me.”
“The light stays off.” He paused. “My name is Alexander Adam Cole and I’ve never given my full name to anyone. There’s someone outside this theater that wants me dead and plans to steal the money in your safe. I think I can stop him from doing both but I need your help.”
“You’re in debt.”
“Someone decided that I owe them a debt.”
“Gangsters?”
“We’ll call them vertically integrated.”
“This is straight out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film. There’s a bad guy – that’s you – you’re the anti-hero in this production. You’ve done wrong, but you maybe regret or maybe you just came into the wrong business. Then there’s the real bad guys. The villains.”
“If you’ve got this all figured out—how do you fit in?”
“I’m the trusted friend with a hazy backstory who may or may not be helping you pull a heist on the really bad guys.” Pop’s enthusiasm escalated the more he forced himself into 1950’s French crime films, but Stash wasn’t about to dampen the enthusiasm, he needed Pop whether he was fully in touch with reality or not. “But what’s the score?”
“That depends on what’s inside your safe.”
Pop’s rat-a-tat-tat ceased at the mention of his safe.
“We’re going to need a different mark. No way around that.”
“Why’s that, Pop?”
“There’s no money in that safe, that’s for true.”
“Don’t hold out on me, Pop. I need to know what we’re working with.”
“Son, I’ve got nothing of – what would the kids say? – ‘street value’ in that safe.”
“Pop.”
“I spent everything on film prints. My ‘safe’ is a cooler filled with vintage Nitrate film prints.”
“So you don’t have safe.”
“If you’d turned on the lights you’d have seen for yourself!”
Stash felt the floor fall out from beneath him. Nitrate film. Used for most every film print before 1952. In 1952 Kodak began converting the Nitrate prints to acetate or safety prints due to the hazardous flammability of the stock. Last year both the George Eastman House and the United States National Archives had their films spontaneously ignite. Pop’s life savings could go up in flames at any moment.
“Okay. Okay. We can work around this,” Stash said finally, if anything to reassure himself that he could think of a way out of this mess. “Pop—what would you say if I told you that I can front the money to refurbish this theater to its original state? All new carpets. All new seats.”
“I’d say, ‘Don’t tell Sylvia.’”
“Do you trust me?”
“I like the cut of your jaw, Alexander Adam Cole. A little Alain Delon. A little Klaus Kinski minus the sociopathy. What I’m saying is that I trust you, but I’m not sure I have an option. When you become embroiled in these cons, you’ve got to hope that you stay on the right side of their relatively morality.”
Stash fingered the envelope in his jacket pocket one more time before standing, removing the jacket and laying the jacket over a table filled with fragments of film and splicing tools. Stash sat back down in his chair, and the two men sat in comfortable silence, listening to the other breathe.
“Pop—what happens at the end of that Melville film?”
“What happens at the end of Le Doulos?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Everyone dies.”
“Blaze of glory?”
“Somewhere between blaze of glory and quiet dignity.”
“That’s unfortunate for us—hang on,” Stash said. “I’ve got a terrible idea… and this will sound absolutely crazy, but do you have any decomposing prints?”
“What can you possibly know about film decomposition? You know—never mind. I don’t need to know anything else. This is a terrible idea.”
“Unfortunately. It’s my only one.”
“And unfortunately… or fortunately in this instance… I do actually have a print of Angel and the Badman that needs to be put out of its misery. I store it in a water barrel in the basement. I haven’t been able to bring myself to burn it.”
“1947. John Wayne, Gail Russell. Directed by James Edward Grant.”
“You know your movies, Alexander.”
“I just remember things.”
Stash made his way through the dark and empty theater, a few wayward popcorn pieces crunching beneath his boot. The last of the 7pm crowd had long escaped the clutches of Fellini’s Casanova and headed out into the Garfield’s Crossing nightlife—which apparently offered more for the fun-seeking partygoer than Stash had assumed. As they left through the lobby, the distant sounds of blues music and discordant merrymaking could be heard from a nearby bar. It had been the first happiness he’d heard since arriving in this sweltering hole. Maybe he’d been too quick to judge this town and with its curious moniker and attraction to an assassinated president. Hancock’s Folly would have been a more appropriate name. Literally anything would have been a better name for a Georgia town than Garfield’s Crossing.
His hand clutched the strap on Pop’s weighty, canvas shoulder bag that must have approached 40 lbs., careful not to jostle the contents too much – at least not before it was necessary. So he didn’t have cash. He didn’t even have the safe to crack that he promised Xavier. He didn’t have a gun. If this were to be his last night on Earth, it could have been worse. He’d felt at least a taste of freedom as he lost himself momentarily to the dreams of cinema. Partial ownership of a movie theater had not been something he’d ever imagined – but in the last few hours the thought had kept him going. This crazy old man and his European art cinema had given him a reason to try. He hoped for his sake – and Pop’s he could make these dreams a reality.
Stash kicked open the exit door. He heard nothing but an old moaning bluesman and the distant frogs. He stepped outside and felt the muzzle against the back of his head.
“I was beginning to worry,” Xavier said. “I was beginning to think you fell asleep in there and weren’t ever going to come out. You wouldn’t hide from me would you, Rapunzel.”
“I’m definitely sure the reference you intended to make was ‘Rumpelstiltskin.’”
The gun pushed further into his skull. “Fuck you is what I meant to say, smart ass. Now hand over the bag and step away from the door. You’re going to come with me so we can make this deal civilized.”
“There’s at least 80 thousand, maybe more than 100 in there. That’s got to buy me some time with the Brothers.”
“I said step away from the door, Stash, or should I just collect payment in full right here?”
Stash took another step and the steel door slammed behind him. Another nudge from the pistol and he found himself descending the steps, one hand on the rusty metal railing and the other stabilizing the shoulder strap. One step at a time. He could feel heat building in the backpack, but he needed to put that out of his head. When Stash reached the front of the theater, he saw the Nova right where he’d left it, parked diagonally along the main street in front of May Belle’s.
“Take the car keys out of your pocket slowly. Hold them up in your hand where I can see ‘em. You’re going to get in the front seat. Once you’re in the front seat, hand over the bag of money and drive north out of town. I’ll tell you when to stop. I’ll tell you when to talk.”
“What happened to your car, X?”
“Some fuckshit named Earl towed it because I was in a two-hour zone.”
“You’ve got to pay attention to those signs.”
The butt of the gun slammed into the back of Stash’s head. The white flash of pain. The dim blackness of main street on a Thursday returned to focus. A flicker of movement in front of the movie theater as they approached.
“I told you not to talk,” Xavier said. “So, shut your mouth.”
The pump of a shotgun. The lurch of a silhouette onto the sidewalk from beneath the illuminated marquee – much too nimble for Pop – the lights casting the man in shadow and without further ado, one blast—followed by another. The blast knocked Stash backward to the ground. Pain radiated out from his chest, a kick to the heart. He’d rolled down onto his side. Had his back hit first? Had the jar broken? He couldn’t remember, but it would be over much sooner if it had. Jesus how it hurt. He’d almost forgotten that whether the jar broke or not the chemical reaction on his back would continue to fester. A return gunshot, the glass of the poster case shattered and rained down on top of him. Xavier ripped the keys from his Stash’s quaking fingers. Another gun shot. The sound of more glass. Xavier ripped the bag over Stash’s head.
Stash clutched his chest; he felt the blood. What the hell had hit him? Pop had promised blanks. What the hell had gone wrong? Who had shot him?
The Nova roared. The 275 horses, 4-barrel quadrajet carburetor with four-speed Saginaw transmission sounded much better than it actually drove. Jesus—he couldn’t even keep the facts at bay as he lay here – what – dying? Bleeding out on a goddamn sidewalk, double-crossed by an old man who found himself roleplaying his favorite French crime movies.
Another volley from the shotgun disintegrated the Nova’s rear window. It swerved to avoid an oncoming car before steering back into the right lane. Just as the car barreled through the stop light it veered off the road, striking a telephone pole. The interior of the cab ignited; flames poured out of the shattered back window. Xavier screamed, threw open the driver’s door as the hand of fire reached out and grabbed him, pressing him to the ground. The man flailed and rolled on the pavement for just a moment before the screaming stopped. Fire engulfed the body, the funeral pyre giving off enough heat that Stash felt it where he’d collapsed on the sidewalk some thirty or forty yards away.
Stash looked up at the silhouette standing over him, still backlit by the blinding marquee.
“Wow—it looks like you did shatter the jar when you fell. Lucky for you he was quick on the getaway or you’d have been the toast.” It was a woman’s voice. And though he’d known the gunman had been too spry for old Pops, he still expected his fragile old drawl. “Are you ready to get up, or are you going to roll around in that broken glass some more?”
“Sylvia? Where’s Pop?”
“Did you really think that when Pop came looking for a steel wool and vinegar, I wasn’t going to ask a few questions? That was pretty ingenious creating a Nitrate bomb. Had that all gone to plan, the guy would have been miles away before that thing created enough heat to ignite the film. Had it all gone to plan.”
Although the sirens had finally ceased outside, the flashing lights indicated that the last of the incident had not yet been cleaned up outside. Sylvia had given Stash tweezers, gauze and antibiotic ointment to take care of his own wounds because, as she claimed, she wasn’t “the mothering type.”
“Jesus—with what did you shoot me from that hand cannon? And do you have anything stronger than herbal tea?” Stash pulled another shard of glass from his forearm. He’d already pulled a dozen shallowly-embedded pieces of glass and shrapnel from his chest and arms. He couldn’t stand the site of blood, but a doctor right now was out of the question, like Xavier he had to disappear.
Sylvia poured herself a cup of chamomile, placed one opposite Stash and sat down at the table. “You’ll want to blow on that,” she said before taking a long, loud sip of her steaming beverage. “Pop’s on the wagon again. Nothing but tea and Diet Dr. Pepper. The sparsely attired kitchenette attached to Pop’s apartment above the theater boasted the essentials but nothing more. A working stove, a kettle, running water and a takeout rotisserie chicken in the small refrigerator.
“How’d you know what to do that with that bomb jar?”
“High school chemistry. I remember things like how to create an exothermic reaction from common household goods. I just never expected Dr. Marklevitch’s lessons to save my life even though he always said you never know when a chemical reaction could save your life.
“By torching a man and his Nova, knocking out telephone communications and—”
“Since that’s what needed to happen, yes.”
“You’re lucky Pop likes you. I don’t like you. I wanted him to let you die out there tonight because you and that guy – you’re both the kind of lowlifes we’ve been trying to keep out of this town. We’ve seen too much of this as it is. If we let you go on your way, we’d never see either of you ever again. And now? Well, I certainly don’t know.” Another sip. “And I know you don’t know, so I’m not sure where that leaves any of us.”
“If Pop sticks to the story, we’ll all be fine.”
“Fine—sure. But from what?”
“Who or what are you afraid of?”
Stash couldn’t answer her. Not now. Maybe never. He picked up his tweezers again and prodded the wound on his chest. “I swear there’s something still in here.”
Sylvia sighed and put the mug down on the table with some force, short of a slam, but the kind of placement used to let someone else know they’re mad as hell, but they’re probably going to continue to take it.
“Give me these,” she said, ripping the tweezers out of his ineffective hand. “This is what Pop told me. Correct me where I stray.” For the first time their eyes met. Stash felt a toxic attraction, just as he had earlier in the diner, that was definitely not returned. It caused her to pause, and that at least was something more than indifference. “This other bigger asshole will be found dead with your gun and the car that you stole, you’ll also be presumed dead.”
“I’m hoping.”
“I’m not finished,” she said and pointedly dug deeper. “As compensation for his assistance and his indefinite safe-haven in the form of this theater you’ve promised money to completely renovate Pop’s theater. And here’s where I’m immensely skeptical. People run for many different reasons. My ex-husband was a runner. He was a different kind of runner from you, unless I’m completely mistaken. The sight of blood makes you squirmy.”
Sylvia pulled the tweezers out clutching a piece of glass the size of a dime and dropped it onto the ashtray along with the rest.
“Which means you ran because of money.” She sensed Stash’s need to talk but pre-empted anything he might want to say in his defense. “And if you ran because of money it’s not likely that you’ve got the money to pay anyone the sum required to completely renovate this money pit.”
“Can I talk now?”
“Oh, by all means. I’m just dying to hear how you’re not full of shit and just trying to save your skin.”
“I am not blameless, but I believe that man should be able to pay debts when they’re owed and keep what’s his when it’s not.”
Stash leaned forward over the table. He the bandages tug at his frayed skin. He winced and brought the hot tea up to his lips. He swallowed and felt the hot liquid rolling down his throat and into his stomach. He’d burned his tongue. She’d warned her, but he almost welcomed this pain. The pain of being alive and still a stubborn kid from the wrong side of Massachusetts. Even though he’d come out a little beaten and none of this had gone the way he’d hoped when he’d rolled into town, he couldn’t help but think he’d won by losing. Sure, he was still alive, but at what cost? Hancock. Good goddamn, he was Winfred Scott Hancock. Even though he’d lost the election, he wouldn’t be assassinated because he wouldn’t be president. If this had gone to plan, he’d still be on the run, but now he had a chance to start over again.
“That’s it? That’s what you have to say for yourself?”
Stash shrugged and let all left unsaid hover in the air between them.
It was in that silence that Pop pushed open the door, his wide eyes greeting first his daughter with a ferociously, if largely unrequited hug, before turning toward Stash, losing none of the warmth in the transition. “Alexander,” he said, “I’m so glad you’re okay. I heard Sylvia let loose with that volley and I thought she’d gone overboard – captain of the rifle team. GC High, class of 1962 – I’ll have you know.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You should be,” Sylvia added under her breath.
“The jacket I left in your projection booth contains and envelope with 250,000 dollars in traveler’s checks—are you sure you don’t have a bottle of whisky or something around here? Anything?” Stash went around opening cabinets and drawers with no success. “Pop, I know you’re holding out on me. I want to make a toast. To us. To you. I know you don’t really know me and the trust thing is more or less just blind faith—
“Alright. I’ll toast. Enough,” Sylvia said. She opened the cabinet beneath the sink and reached in behind a few cans of Drano and a box of steel wool pads. Pulling out a half-finished bottle of Rebel Yell bourbon. In another moment, Pop procured two glasses. Sylvia had poured a shot in each.
“Sometimes I crash here. What about you, Pop?” she asked.
Pop lifted Sylvia’s mug of tea.
Stash and Sylvia lifted their glasses of bourbon.
“I won’t believe it until I see it, but let’s celebrate despite ourselves,” she said.
“I’ve always wanted to redo the marquee. No great theater ever bore the name ‘Pop’s Theatre’ atop its grand visage.”
“So, what should it be called, Pop?”
Stash cleared his throat. “I hope I’m not being too bold, but I think I have the perfect name,” he said.
