Authors: Keir Alexander
S
UBJECT:
The Great American Picture Show
A video file is attached. Curious, he clicks it. The head and shoulders of a man materialize on the screen. ‘Hi, ahm Kenny.’ The same see-saw voice from the phone, out of a sallow face, the eyes dulled with disaffection. He could be twenty-five; he could be forty-five, with his lank thinning hair and dirty orange T-shirt. ‘You better be ready for this,’ the voice slithers in again. ‘This is ma secret store.’ The image scrambles and then rights itself to focus on the rust-scabbed door of a lock-up. Then it all goes giddy again as Kenny’s other hand reaches in to grab a handle and the door scrapes open to black. ‘One moment . . .’ A strip-light goes on, showing the interior grimy and bare, apart from a heap of broken plasterboard in the middle of the floor and a row of metal racks running down one side. ‘Now, come right along here . . . just over here . . .’ Kenny pans the camera along a dusty shelf where there are grease-black tools and dingy cracked storage tubs crammed with rust-fused screws, and brings it to rest on a rectangular heap, neat and symmetrical among the decay – six old-fashioned khaki shoe boxes in two stacks of three. ‘Just look at this,’ says Kenny, and his hand enters the frame, removes a box and sets it apart. ‘Now, ah can’t tell you every detail right now, like as to where this all come from, but imagine if you will ma surprise’ – the hand peels off a rubber band holding the lid to the base – ‘when first ah set ma eyes’ – the hand now fumbling at the lid – ‘on these little beauties.’ A layer of tissue is teased aside, revealing a pair of ruby slippers. ‘Prime condition,’ oozes Kenny, as though he is trying to offload a second-hand car. ‘And, believe me, genyu-wine.’ These last three syllables as long as a train. The camera focuses on the label on the end of the box. ‘Ruby Slippers,’ it reads,
‘Wiz of Oz
. MGM ’39. Prac. Mod. Feldman’s Bespoke Footwear.’
‘And what is more,’ Kenny lilts as he arranges the other boxes side by side and removes their lids to expose to view five more pairs of the exact same appearance, ‘six pairs, my friend. Each one good as the last. Cool, don’t you say? V cool.’ Now the camera comes back to Kenny’s wasted face. ‘Hang around,’ he says and, just as the screen goes blank, adds, ‘Ah’ll get back to ya.’
James has viewed all this in total silence, and so he continues for a while after the video has ended, his face as blank as his thoughts. It takes time for it all to sink in, and it is only the ringing of his cell that stirs him sensible. Kenny again: ‘Ah see you got ma li’l picture show.’ Still James says nothing. ‘You there, James McBride? You hearing all this?’ Kenny is getting annoyed now, but before he can redeliver his question, out of James’s mouth comes a shuddering, spluttering sound. ‘Mr McBride, you OK?’ he whines, but James is oblivious, having begun, heartily, to laugh, abandoning himself to the sheer joy of it. Even with Kenny yelling down the line for him to ‘listen up!’ and ‘get serious now!’ James pays no heed and simply ends the call, first presses the key to disappear the man, then throws the phone to the ground and continues to laugh himself silly.
I
T
is a Saturday night and she stands at the balcony, between the drapes lifting and falling in the breeze, gazing out at the fortress silhouette of the city with the summer sun sinking below the battlements. It gives her a sad sweet pleasure to sense the never-ending cycle, the death of a day and the dawning of another. But when a cold lick in the breeze sends her shivering back into the living room, she finds her father sitting forward in his chair, and in front of him, in the middle of the floor, a plain metal security box. ‘I never did get around to showing you these,’ he says, turning the key and flipping the lid. She watches, fascinated, as he reaches inside and comes up with the pair of them nestled still in cotton. She goes over and takes them from him. ‘Where were these?’ she asks and sinks down to the floor, cradling them as if they were living things. ‘Don’t laugh – they’ve been under my bed ever since they released them to me,’ he says, mischievous and embarrassed at the same time.
‘But, how come?’
‘The auction. It turned out the hammer
did
come down before the policeman stopped everything. Your grandpa won! They had to be paid for out of his estate so, to cut a long story short, here they are.’
‘I still don’t get it. What about the Ruby Million thing?’
‘That had nothing to do with it. We lost and that was that. It was all pledges anyway, so it was quits in the end.’
‘And you just had them under your bed? But they must be worth . . .’
‘Yeah, I know. I was told to put them safe away, but somehow I just . . . Anyhow, turns out they are no longer worth anything
like
that any more. So, anyway, whaddya say?’
‘Like, what about?’
‘Like, do you like them?’
‘What, like, as if I could have them?’
‘Maybe,’ he says, smiling wistfully at her, wondering if she has any kind of feeling for the slippers. She considers: these shoes are gorgeous in their own way and wonderfully made, but are they in any way magical or fantastical to her? She picks up one of them, turns the rounded upper heel in her hand and sniffs at the kid-leather inner. It smells musty, although she can see that it is practically unused. In the end she speaks her mind, almost apologetic for it: ‘Well, these are cool in their own way, but they don’t do it for me. I never really got off on
The Wizard of Oz
. They would end up going mouldy under my bed instead of yours, which is kind of a waste of a million dollars or whatever. You could always give them to Mom to sell at the Newton Harbour Market.’
He laughs. ‘You know, I had a funny feeling you would say something like that.’
‘So what are you gonna do with them?’
‘Well, up to now I wasn’t too sure, but since you don’t appear to want them, well, now I can do what I damn well like.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning come on, let’s go.’
■ ♦ ■
For the past few weeks he has been wondrous quiet. Aunt Crystal takes it for the grace of God, the scourging of the body leading to the elevation of the spirit. And in truth something cleansing has occurred in Harrison, as if the baser parts of him have been smelted down and purified. From the moment he stood up from his seat at the auction sale, once everything had gone crazy. There has been no satisfaction in what came after, no sweetness in his revenge and nothing come back to him that was good. He has seen the grocer and his wife, back in the deli, just going about their business; he has passed by his old friends Floyd and Dale on the other side of the street, unspeaking because he had shunned their company and become so secretive. And he has stood outside the Tabernacle, twice seeing his lovely girl go in and wondering if he could ever give himself to the bearded, white-robed white man in the old painting on the wall. It leaves him with the knowledge that if he wants for something real in life, he has to change maybe and find something new inside himself. So when Crystal asks him if he would like to accompany her to Tabernacle again, he really does think twice before answering, ‘Sure,’ and a few days pass in which not once does he call her crazy or refuse her when she brings him cakes, and in which he goes out but once to take a hit.
They go the Tabernacle together. He walks in with her, slow and correct, and takes his place beside her. And when the minister calls on all who would shed their sins to come and receive the Holy Spirit, he consults what is in him and feels drawn to go, but then decides that the light is not truly in him. And so he stays in his place, keeps his eyes down and away from the lovely girl on the other side of the hall (not even allowing himself to know what colour dress she is wearing) and keeps quiet and inside himself, even when the chanting and wailing is like heaven and hell under one roof. And all the time he prays that maybe something good in him will show itself to her.
After the service he goes to the coffee place again. He has dreamed of looking into her shining face – it would be joy enough in itself – but now he cannot lift his eyes to hers. She, though, has her own questions: ‘May I speak to you outside again, please?’ she asks sternly, and he follows her dumbly to the street, not knowing if she will raise her hand to him again. But nothing of the kind awaits: ‘Do you love God?’ she asks.
‘I want to,’ he says.
‘Do you wanna put aside money and possessions and everything of the kind?’
‘I don’t care about any of that no more.’
‘And what about Jesus?’
‘I don’t really know Jesus.’
‘You have to give yourself. Let go of everything – money, possessions, drugs, everything.’
‘I know that. I can do that. I want to do that.’
‘You don’t know how hard that might be.’
‘I wanna try.’
‘Good,’ she says. ‘Good.’
She says this knowing everything he has already told her about himself. Deep down, she knows how it will go. In the span of a second. They will get together in all kinds of tricky ways, bringing heartache to both their families. She will see his good side and ignore the bad. They will love each other and be sufficient to each other for a time. And then some crazy, stupid thing will happen in some seemingly random way that has everything to do with him and nothing to do with her. He will be vulnerable again and get into all kinds of scrapes and will test her love to the limit and cause her pain. And she will be there to save him over and over, and he will love her and will swear on his life he will never let her down, and then go ahead and let her down. It will go on and on, the pain always growing and her never knowing which Harrison will be there for her. And even if he comes to know Jesus, he will just as easily fall away from him again.
And one day, even she will lose her saintly patience and tell him truths he does not wish to hear, and then, despite his adoration, he will hit her, like he has been hit himself so many times. He will hit her and be damned, and the more he is damned the more it will be her duty to save him. Because a bad person needs a good person to save them, and a good person has to have a bad person to save.
And so, because nature has created an undeniable attraction between them, and because her heart senses that it is meant to be, she denies what her head is telling her and tells him that she will see him again.
■ ♦ ■
Why has he brought her here, wonders Siobhan, tramping along at James’s side, the streets becoming more cramped and gloomy with every step. He refuses, in a daddy-knows-best kind of way, to tell her where they are headed, and eventually they arrive outside the boarded-up store across from the Sunrise. She registers astonishment: ‘I came here that first time,’ which throws him a little, because he’s been in charge of surprises up to this moment.
‘Really? Then you met the guy that runs this store.’
‘Sure I did.’
‘Well, it was him who had the shoes in the first place.’
‘Really?’
‘You know, it just occurred to me that he could be long gone,’ he goes on. ‘I mean, he could’ve retired by now, on the money from the slippers – should’ve done if he had any sense.’ His hand already on the door handle, James peers through, and there he is, Michael Marcinkus, his old friend. Siobhan recognizes the old man who had smiled when she asked such dumb questions, and offered her moutabubble or whatever he had called it.
When they step in the door to the same breezy ring of the bell, the shapes and colours and smells swarm all over James’s senses to confirm that nothing has changed – except the old man himself, who is not in his customary place at the counter, but in the window sipping coffee; and who is not wearing his usual old apron, but a rather snappy suit; and who is not chatting to customers, but sitting talking to a pretty little girl sitting on the stool alongside him, planted there like a kiddie’s dolly. When he sees them enter, Michael jumps up, beaming magnanimously: ‘James! How the devil are you?’ he calls out.
‘Good,’ says James, meaning it, and stands back to fully take in Michael’s transformation. ‘You’re looking pretty good, too.’
‘Well,’ says Michael, somewhat cryptically, ‘who wouldn’t, who wouldn’t?’
When James introduces his lovely daughter, Michael greets her as a familiar face recognized. ‘Well how about that,’ he says, warmly. ‘The girl who asked if we sold Chinese oranges and chewing gum.’ She smiles sheepishly as he goes on: ‘We still don’t stock ’em, I’m afraid.’ James looks at him a little nonplussed, so Michael moves things on. ‘This is my granddaughter, Sylvie; her mother Jenny is out back somewhere.’
‘I think we met already,’ says James, a note of apology in his voice. He has a faint memory of this little cherub being in the Sunrise that dark time he had called on his way to the hospital.
Sylvie folds in on herself under James’s uncertain gaze, but Siobhan brings her straight back out of her shell: ‘Hi, beautiful,’ she says, and produces, as if she has placed it there for the purpose, a lollipop from her pocket. Sylvie, at once alive to fresh-faced Siobhan, gives a gorgeous smile that instantly replicates itself on each watching face.
Michael signals to a young man standing over at the cash register – a chiselled man, smart and dark and together-seeming, in his own sharp suit. With a solemn nod back at Michael, he goes to the coffee machine, his hands fluttering deftly to conjure the perfect blend. James looks at him: a new employee, a manager, a relative perhaps? He turns back to Michael. ‘So how you been all this time?’
‘How many hours you got?’ replies Michael. ‘It’s such a long and crazy story. How ’bout you?’
‘That also is long and complicated,’ says James. ‘And how about Mrs Marcinkus?’
‘Ah wonderful! In Miami at this very moment, and laying in the sun every hour God sends. She and our other two girls went together.’
The man arrives with a tray and quietly unloads it. James waits until he has moved away again. ‘But listen,’ he says, and swings up onto the window counter the security box he has carried all this time. He unlocks it and opens the lid, allowing the old man a glimpse inside and noticing a certain trepidation come over his face, which gives way to a sad smile. ‘So they came to you,’ he says wanly.