ON MONDAY MORNING, I got in the Beetle and drove to the library. Mom had phoned ahead and spoken to her former colleague, who smiled secretively and pointed me toward the photocopier. It was a huge white behemoth, with in-trays and out-trays and all the latest scanners and features.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how . . .”
She sighed and left her little book trolley parked at the end of a row, and then came over to help. She was a tall lady in her fifties, I guess. She wore lots of natural fibres and smelled nicely of mint. I stood back and twiddled my thumbs.
“So, movie posters, right? How many?”
“Is twenty okay?”
“Are you sure?” she said severely.
“Ten?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. How are you going to tell the whole town? I’ll do you fifty. But don’t tell anyone. Our budgets are being slashed left, right, and centre, and they make us use these cards so they can track who uses the machines the most. Who knew Big Brother cared about copier budgets?”
She slid three different cards from her pocket and chose which one to use. “I think the town planning department can pay for these,” she added with a smirk.
Ten minutes later she shoved the pile of posters into my arms and shooed me away, heading nonchalantly back to her book redistribution task.
“Oh, Peter,” she called as I neared the exit. I turned. “Your mother said something about putting me down for a couple of tickets.”
I grinned and left, stopping only to stick up my first poster on the library notice board. As I did so, I noticed that Dad had added a little something over the weekend. In the top corner, set in a bold star, were the words: Meet the superstar: DOC BROWN.
I sighed. I couldn’t have that on the poster. What if people turned out to see him? What if they got angry that the Hollywood star wasn’t there?
I thought of heading back into the library and telling the nice lady I’d dropped all my posters in a puddle and could I have some more please. And then colouring in the star so it just looked blank on the next batch of copies. But that was all a bit far-fetched. Besides, it wasn’t even raining.
Surely nobody would notice.
Next stop, the supermarket. I stocked up on juice, water, and soda. We didn’t have a soda machine, so we’d have to sell it out of bottles, by the cupful. I bought the biggest cups they had. We also didn’t have a booze licence, so I rolled the trolley past the beer section without a second glance. I figured if people wanted to bring booze, they would just sneak it in like people have always done at cinemas. I threw in candies of all shapes and sizes, filling the trolley with stuff. I knew I was being reckless with money, but I was so close to my goal that none of that mattered anymore. Besides, cinemas tend to charge about quadruple what shops charge for candy, so as long as people showed up, surely I would make my money back.
I put a couple of posters up around the parking lot at the supermarket and then, with the Beetle fully loaded, I headed back to the Atlas to unload.
On my way there, I stopped at Kim’s to leave a poster for him to put in his window.
“Can’t I have two? One for the window, one for my memorabilia collection? This is history in the making, dude.”
The market square was half deserted. Some of the vendors had already left, and the ones still there had started to pack up their tents and caravans. On the same side where the taxi drivers wait was a big notice board, and I taped up two posters there.
I was on my knees with a roll of tape in my mouth, about to stick another poster on an electric utility box, when I felt somebody tap my shoulder. I struggled to get up, but before I could see the person behind me, I recognized her voice.
“Drop everything! You’re in violation of the town code, paragraph forty-one, subsection twelve.”
It was Sara, in her police uniform again. I took the poster down with the hand that was behind my back, away from her.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Not many days left now. I saw the story in the paper. No mention of you being a time traveller, though.”
“No,” I said. I didn’t want to elaborate.
“Let me see the poster,” she said, and grabbed the one in my hand. I didn’t struggle, given that she was a cop.
“This is awesome. Did you draw this?”
“Dad did.”
“But you never told me Doc Brown is going to be here. That’s huge! It’s probably the biggest thing that’s ever happened to Kumpunotko,” she said. “A real Hollywood star—are you kidding me? You might even get the network channels here!”
I swallowed. Sara noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
I sighed and shook my head.
“Doc Brown is Dad.”
“What?”
“The Doc Brown that’s going to be at the premiere is my father. Not Christopher Lloyd, the award-winning actor. I wrote to him, but he never responded. It’s Dad. My dad,” I said, with enough panic in my voice for Sara to pick up on. “Let’s hope the networks won’t be here.”
“I’d kind of like to see that: your father giving interviews, signing things, waving to crowds, kissing babies.”
Sara paused.
“Look, the poster doesn’t say that the actor, what’s his name—”
“Christopher Lloyd.”
“—Christopher Lloyd is going to be there, just that Doc Brown will be. And he will!”
“But if the networks come . . .”
“So what?”
“Then when he’s not here, they’ll go away again.”
“So? You’re not doing this for the fame, are you? It’s not even about the money, as far as I can tell, is it?” Sara looked me straight in the eye.
I cleared my throat and started to fiddle with my backpack, hoping for a change of subject. Sara gave me one.
“Listen,” she said. “I just came from the Atlas because I was looking for you. I wanted to give you this, as a good luck charm—or something.”
She handed a small red box to me. It had a golden ribbon around it. I opened it quickly.
“I wasn’t sure if you already had it but . . .”
“I don’t! I actually never owned this,” I replied and took the Back to the Future soundtrack cassette from the box.
“Something for you to listen to on your headphones while you ride . . . although as a police officer I should warn you that riding on the road without due care and attention—”
“I love it! It’s perfect, thank you.”
“So . . . friends?”
“Of course,” I said, stunned by her question.
“I know I said some harsh things over at your place, and that was probably stupid. Sorry, but it’s part of the training; I don’t really do small talk and tend to just get to the point. So I’m sorry for calling you crazy,” Sara said. “Even if you clearly are,” she added with a grin.
“No harm done. I know you mean well. And I probably do need to be told. I appreciate it, I really do.”
“Good luck with the show. Truly. I hope you get whatever it is you want. And, well, I’ve enjoyed bumping into you around town . . .”
“We can still . . .” I started. “Wait, you’re not coming?”
“I’m not sure if that’s a great idea.”
“You have to be there. I’ll give you two tickets, on me. Please come?”
She smiled.
“Well, if you insist . . .”
“I do.”
“Great! See you there.”
I waited until Sara’s cruiser had disappeared around the corner before I taped the poster on the box. I was lightning quick with them, taping one on La Favorita’s door, two outside the bookstore, several on the various bus stops around the town centre, and a few on the posts holding up traffic signs. The man at the appliance store wasn’t interested, he told me, in promoting other interests, but the lady at the coffee shop was happy to put one up, as long as I bought a hot chocolate. I put two up in the movie poster frames outside the Atlas, on either side of the door. I unloaded the drinks and candies into the foyer, and spent a while writing up a price list on a large sheet of paper.
No Rexi.
I drove around Kumpunotko, stopping here and there and wandering around neighbourhoods, putting posters up on community notice boards and bus stops. I went and knocked on Rexi’s door. No answer. I went around the pubs of Kumpunotko, and though the staff were all happy to put up my posters, none of them had seen Rexi.
As it got dark, and I ran out of posters, I headed home.
I lay in bed that night, pondering the imponderable: if Rexi didn’t show up to teach me how to work the projector, would I compromise everything and use a digital projector, laptop, DVD?
It was an agonizing decision, but I knew the answer.
The screening must go ahead.
THE NEXT MORNING I woke up early, too early, and felt like I hadn’t slept. I tried to get back to sleep, chasing the slumber deep under the pillows, but I couldn’t find it.
I showered and dressed and left the house quietly, Dad’s snores punctuated by the tick of the kitchen clock.
There was barely anyone about as I rode along the cycle path, through the town, and up the hill to the hospital. I barely had to change down a gear now, and I made it to the hospital parking lot with my heart thumping but not trying to explode out of my chest. I stood on the wall and looked down at my sleepy little town, delivery vans chugging about, the earliest commuters heading out of town for jobs elsewhere.
I got back on my bike and rolled down the hill.
First job: investigate digital projectors.
I walked my bike around the corner to the Atlas’s side door. A man was standing there, leaning against a car, his hands in his pockets, bald head shining in the sun.
“Okay, kid, let’s do it.”
“Let’s,” was all I could say. I opened the door and followed Rexi up to the projection booth.