“You don’t need the theater and you don’t need prints,” she said.
I just listened. It had taken three consecutive calls, but she had finally picked up.
“Where are you?” I asked. “I thought you were leaving.”
“Still here,” she said. “Midnight tomorrow I turn into a pumpkin. Did you hear what I said?”
“I did. You want people to make their own films, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”
“Just a guess.”
“I’ve seen these festivals in LA,” she said. “We give the public twenty-four hours to make a one-minute film. Then we screen them tomorrow.”
She sounded excited. I think I was, too, but it was weird to be talking to her again. It seemed like this morning had never happened.
“Do you think people are actually going to do it?” I asked. “Are they going to enter this festival with such short notice?”
“They will if there’s a celebrity judge,” she said.
I couldn’t help but smile a little.
“Are you sure you can make it?” I asked. “I mean, with your flight.”
“It’s gonna be tight, but I think so. Maybe this will give you some attention. Change some minds. I’m not going to miss that.”
I wanted to tell her about what I’d been told at the president’s office, but I didn’t have the heart. Not when she had already put in so much effort.
“Yeah,” I said. “I hear you. It’s exciting.”
She was waiting for me to say more. But I couldn’t.
“So, you’re flying out at midnight?” I asked.
“Mom booked us on a red-eye.” She sighed. “It was the soonest we could get seats in first class.”
“How is your mom?” I asked.
“Not happy with me,” she said. “But happy to be leaving here, I guess.”
“How about you?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“Are you happy to be leaving?”
I waited a few seconds, but she didn’t answer. I heard her typing something at her computer.
“I’m about to send out instructions for the festival.”
When I didn’t answer, she said:
“How was your dad’s film?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was so weird to see it. I think it was good. It was good he did it. I’m happy about that. But it was too much to process right now.”
Another pause.
“Listen,” I said, “about this morning . . .”
“Ethan,” she said, “I know there’s a lot to get done for the festival. But I might not be back in town for a while.”
I could hear her take a couple of breaths, the light sound coming through the phone.
“Okay,” I said. “What do you want to do?”
“I thought maybe we could watch a movie,” she said. “Your pick.”
I went to Box Office Video alone, and it was as dark as ever. Despite the sun outside, it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the light. It was similar to the feeling of going to a matinee on a hot summer day. When the lights went down, you could magically create that nighttime feeling in the middle of the day. An erasure of all that daytime order. It opened up your mind to new possibilities, new realities. Box Office Video was a testament to that feeling. They gave you permission to extinguish the day.
Either that, or they were too cheap to pay their light bill.
The same clerk was behind the counter as last time. He sort of nodded at me when I entered, his eyes only unfastening from the screen for less than a second. I wandered through the store, past the familiar racks of cult classics and experimental shorts and down into the basement where I knew they had the entire Criterion Collection on a wall at the back. Lucas claims to have seen four hundred of the total nine hundred volumes. But I think he’s rounding up.
I searched for the film I wanted, number 549 in the series.
The Last Picture Show by Peter Bogdanovich.
What can I say; it just seemed right.
And there it was, next to a couple of films I’d never heard of (though I would never admit that to Lucas). I grabbed the case and forced myself not to browse. I made my way back to the front of the store and placed it on the counter. The clerk with the piercings looked at me and then picked up the case.
“Do you actually want to rent something this time?”
I hadn’t been sure that he recognized me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just a standard rental please. Unless you’re inviting me . . .”
“I’m not,” he said.
I handed him my card with the barcode nearly eroded. He scanned it and went off to get the actual disc. Up until now, I had paid no attention to what he was watching, but when he left, I looked up at the screen and, of course, there was Raina. Again. Surrounded by evil cats. On the screen, she was standing at the door to a glowing portal. She had the chosen kitten in her arms, and a look of steely determination on her face. She was standing between two worlds, deciding which one to stay in. You could see the agony on her face.
“Don’t go,” I said to myself. “The cats need you.”
“Go!” said the clerk, who had just reappeared. “Save yourself for the sequel!”
There was almost a smile on his face as he handed me my disc.
“I can’t believe you’re friends with her,” he said. “I mean, I knew she grew up here, but it’s hard to see her as a real person, you know? Is it weird being friends with a celebrity?”
“A little,” I said.
The clerk kept talking.
“The next time you see her,” he said. “Tell her she can rent here for free. I talked to the manager and he’s cool with it.”
“You can tell her yourself,” I said.
His eyes turned to slits.
“There’s something happening at the Green Street tomorrow. You can find the details online. It might be something you’re interested in.”
Raina screamed out from the screen above us, and we both cocked our heads to watch as she jumped headlong into the portal, disappearing into another dimension, not knowing if she would ever see her home planet again.
“Thanks for the movie,” I said.
My mom was still at work when Raina reappeared in my kitchen. We had the place to ourselves. We didn’t say much to each other as I made some microwave popcorn and Raina melted the butter, stirring it slowly with a spoon. We decided to watch the movie in the living room on the good TV, and when we got to the couch I finally spoke up.
“My dad had these rules when we went to the movies. Do you want to hear them?”
“Okay,” she said.
“There are just two. Number one, when it’s over, you have to tell me the image from the film that you just can’t shake. And then, number two, you have to tell me what you think of the last line.”
She nodded and took a bite of popcorn, and I knew I was supposed to start the movie, but I snuck a look at her. She looked different to me now that she was going back. She was wearing slightly nicer clothes, for one, a dress today with green and blue stripes. And her hair was in a new style. A few long strands covered part of her right eye. I felt like she had been in disguise as a normal person the whole time she was back, but now she was preparing to reenter a world where she had to stand out again.
I didn’t know where to sit, so I chose the cushion on the far right. She sat on the left side and put the popcorn in the middle between us.
“Listen, Ethan,” she said. “I know we need to talk. But right now, can we just watch this movie together. Is that okay?”
I relaxed my shoulders and picked up the remote.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s okay.”
Then I pressed play and The Last Picture Show started. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t. It’s kind of slow and moody. It was made in 1971 and it’s the kind of movie the Green Street shows. But it kills me every time.
It’s about these high school kids in North Texas in the 1950s, and there’s really not much of a plot in a traditional sense. It’s a poor town, and there’s nothing to do except go to the movies or shoot pool before you grow up and work as a roughneck in the oil fields. But most of the people in the movie just get their hearts broken over and over again. There’s nothing else to do. Except go to the movies.
The film begins and ends with the same shot of the movie theater. Only they call it the “picture show.” In the beginning, someone’s climbing up a ladder to put letters on the marquee by hand. And by the end of the movie, the man who owns the theater has died and it’s shuttered in the middle of a sandstorm. The movie is in black-and-white, and the main character, a kid named Sonny, is just trying to make sense of it all.
But there’s a part I love where it’s the last night the movie theater is going to be open and two old friends decide to go. Sonny is one of them, and his friend Duane is another. Duane has joined the army and he’s about to get sent to Korea. It’s his last night in town before he catches the bus in the morning. They got in a fight the last time he was in town because they were in love with the same girl, but now she didn’t choose either of them and she went off to college.
So they do what they always do: go to the movies. Only now it’s the last one ever. And it’s Duane’s last night, and they might never see each other again. But they go and they watch a Western in a nearly deserted theater. And when we see them, they’re eating popcorn and staring at the screen, completely lost in the film. The theater’s a little smoky and you can see the light pouring out of the projection booth above them like something divine. And then the houselights come on and they stumble out into the lobby, and if you look closely at the frame, there are signs that say “Coming Soon,” and “Starts Saturday,” but there are no movies listed.
When it ended, Raina and I just sat on the couch watching the black screen.
“I didn’t think today could get any more depressing,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s not super uplifting.”
I looked at her across the couch. She smiled.
“Okay,” she said. “I know the answers.”
It took me a second to catch up.
“To your dad’s questions.”
“Let’s hear them,” I said.
“The image I can’t shake is of that kid who can’t talk.”
“Billy,” I said.
“Billy,” she said. “It’s the image of Billy sweeping off the street in the middle of a sandstorm. It was so haunting. And I think I know what that feels like. Like it’s all swirling around you, and you just have to keep your little patch clean somehow. Right?”
“Right,” I said. “I know what you mean.”
She stared at the blinds I had closed to get it dark enough in the living room. Then she looked back at me.
“And the last line?” I said.
“Never you mind,” she quoted in a perfect Texas accent. “Never you mind.”
I waited as she thought about it.
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“Why not?” I said. “It sums up the whole movie! These characters don’t have a choice. They just have to put the heartache behind them and move on. Never mind.”
“But they should mind!” she said. “Even if it hurts. They should mind. You can’t just check out and give up on everything at the age of eighteen. Sonny should have left. Or tried to make things better. I get what it was supposed to mean, but I think it’s bullshit. You can’t just stop trying because all these forces are against you.”
I didn’t try to fight her. I had always thought of the line as a survival strategy. You just put the pain out of your mind and find a way to get by. Never you mind. But I didn’t want to say that now. As always, Raina’s ideas seemed more compelling.
“They’re tearing it down no matter what,” I said.
Raina was off the couch now, walking over to the window. She pulled open the blinds and the harsh light of the afternoon poured in.
“You’re not talking about the movie anymore are you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“I kind of figured,” she said.
I walked over and looked out the window. The sun had dipped behind a thin cloud, giving my boring neighborhood a backlit glow.
“Do you want to call it off?” she said. “I get it if you do.”
“No,” I said. “We can’t go out with a whimper.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Because then the bad guys win,” I said.