The Last Projector Read online

  People would say, “Hey, remember that book, The Man Who Loved Women?”

  “Yeah, the movie with Burt Reynolds?” most people would ask right back, or “Yeah, the movie by Truffaut?” as Larry would have said to score points back in film school.

  “Well, swap the word ‘women’ with ‘breakfast.’” Or, “You ever see When a Man Loves a Woman?”

  “We get the point, dude.”

  “Would a breakfast tattoo on someone’s head make a woman (or man) hungry if he went down on them?” Glengarry once asked Larry. “Might be worse to have a sandwich. Bad form, you know? But swirling toast around those egg yolks? Nasty. Maybe he should have put a crossword puzzle up there instead…”

  But besides his head tattoo being kind of hilarious, it was also easily covered up with a skully cap and forgotten. Head Breakfast was something else entirely. A quirk. An anomaly. Larry could forgive the kid. But everywhere else, it was an epidemic. Larry could not believe he was the only one who found it unusual that every one of his performing monkeys was sporting a veritable road map of bullshit across its tanned, sinewy hide. Time to read them all?

  Indecipherable Chinese characters and their even more confusing cartoon characters, lightning bolts and Frankenstein bolts, lower-back sunrises and sunsets, gift-wrap bow above the ass crack, tombstone or two on the hip bones, every phase of the moon, a man on the moon, the man in the moon, all the pretty insects (some asshole even had a fly tattooed on the head of his cock once, causing Larry to ask, “Why? No, seriously, why?” Then he shouted “Cut!”), and all the scary spiders, the essential Virgin Mary, of course, this one on a motorcycle, even an ashtray right above the left cheek, ‘cause Christ knows that joke never gets old, even if she does, and all the weapons you could think of, usually covering the L5-S1 rupture scars that ran down to their tailbones (more bad backs than warehouse workers in this business, and Larry never understood why workman’s comp didn’t cover it), gold porn “stars” everywhere like grade-school stickers, all the trendy music-scene bullshit like nautical everything and those swallows everyone called “sparrows” by mistake (particularly funny considering the industry), a noble tree that turns into a goldfish or a tidal wave, whichever is more Zen, and finally, without fail, the ol’ stand-by, a tribute to some dead family member, who may not have said it out loud but was certainly relieved in the afterlife that their last wish to be immortalized as an angry rash of cherry blossoms next to their niece’s vulva had been granted.

  How the fuck was no one seeing this shit? Larry would wonder.

  But all of those skin scribblings may have been ignored. If it wasn’t for the names.

  Sure, getting punched in the face very first thing in the morning was gonna throw off your day. So he expected every little thing to get on his nerves before he burned the first foot of film.

  But those fucking names.

  Not their porn names. Not the real fake names. Those were all suitably ridiculous. The tired joke among civilians is that your porn name is the name of your first pet plus the name of the street you grew up on. Wrong. Maybe a decade ago, back in the swingin’ dick ‘70s. Now it was much simpler. Now, at least for the men, it was a name that sounded like genitals, then whatever rhymed with that.

  And Freddy Frigg, forever known as the Head Breakfast, was a good example. The “Frigg” part being particularly unusual because it represented only getting to third base.

  But the other kid, Cuban, Italian, Greek or some shit (broken English falling all over his movies like dead leaves, just another example of the ridiculous surge of cheap Middle Eastern men in porn, satisfied to be paid in chickens and track suits), he just went with “Joe Fuck.” That one made Larry smile a little. Either something was lost in translation, or he just got lazy. He was a pain in the ass on top of it, sometimes a little too rough on the ladies, thinking it was cute (“Joe Fuck should be in jail, not in porn” was the most common reaction from the neighborhood adult vendor), but worse, without fail, asking the girls in the scenes with him, always in that horribly distracting accent, “Are you coming again? Are you coming again already?” Typically when they were never close to begin with.

  Maybe if Joe loved women as much as, say, Freddy loved breakfast, he might have a chance at getting this done for the females. But, sadly, working in the porn industry, with the women consistently blurring the line between real and fake orgasms for the sake of the scene while the men had no disconnect from the moment at all, it made fuckwits such as Joe the worst sexual partners in history. Coins flying everywhere when they dropped their pants too fast.

  But they were pros at doing what Larry and Damon needed them to do, when they needed them to do it. And he saved the day in Romancing the Bone, Rocky Whore Picture Show, Lawrence of a Labia, and one day, God help us, in Kindergarten Cock. See, few things were as frustrating as all the tight close-ups and angles when a money shot threatened but never came. When there was the crescendo but no orgasm, it was as traumatizing as a lost sneeze. It reminded Larry of when Journey’s “Loving, Touchin’, Squeezin’” came on the radio with no “City of the Angels” afterwards. Or when they split up those two Zeppelin songs off Physical Graffiti. Actually, that might be worse.

  And the only thing worse than that, Larry decided, is when the LP on the radio is skipping and a DJ is forced to change it halfway through. Thank Christ for cassettes.

  Then Larry remembered the punch that broke his stereo’s jaw, and the black tongue that now rolled out of its mouth sometimes. Maybe that was the worst.

  But for the women, their monikers were usually just those fake real names they’d give you at a party anyway, when you were trying to chat them up. Always a lot of alliteration, and usually something cute, something that sounded a lot like the name of a car. And today, the two girls Larry was eyeballing in the stable, preening and pointlessly flirting with their co-stars (has there ever been more wasted effort than that?), were known in the business as “Suzie Starrr” and “Roxy Renault.”

  Plus there was the copyright issue. Larry was convinced that as his adult films inevitably crossed over into the mainstream, displaying tattoo artists’ distinctive work without compensation might become more of a concerning gray area. Not as concerning as the gray area around Joe Fuck’s urinary meatus, but still its own harbinger of a future problem.

  Larry couldn’t fault them for it. Hell, he’d changed his name, too. At least twice. Ironically, his last fake real name (all three parts of it) was a lot like a noble, bearded director’s name, just waiting to adorn a tasteful, understated, Oscar-bait kind of poster. Something with a rose on it. Which meant it sounded more like a porn name than anyone.

  Lawrence Bridge Kensington III. The third? Yeah, probably. His real given name, Jack Grinstead, was too loaded with history to bear. And people always thought he was saying, “Just grin instead!” Way too heavy with memories that name, just like the job he’d carried on his shoulders along with it. His character arc was so backwards, it sounded sideways. He went from America to England to America, from Jack to Lawrence to Larry, from “paramedic” to “professional student” to “pornographer.” And all of them were the most natural journeys of his life.

  No, aliases weren’t the real problem. It was the real names his performers had written on their bodies that were the real problem.

  He thought of the movie hidden in his car, a real movie on a reel. The movie he’d always wanted to make. Not some 8 millimeter bullshit. 35mm. Big, beautiful 35mm, wrapped around one of those brushed-steel, 15-inch Goldberg reels. This movie was mostly true and filmed on a shoestring budget, mostly Damon’s shoestrings to be honest, even though Damon had no earthly clue. All Larry had to do was ride along with some friends on their day jobs to get a real movie done. It was the 80s when he started, the season of the Cinéma Vérité, a style that suited cheapjack filmmaking. If he could find the right distributor, he would no longer be the only one to ever see the film with a light bulb behind it. Hell, if he could find the right p
rojector.

  Someone was tapping his shoulder. It was time to pay the bills. He opened his mouth to say it, but today Larry actually feared the word that was every director’s best friend. He’d been on set for five minutes, and the pulse that still lingered in his split lip told him he wasn’t gonna be able to keep it together for long, not after that bastard’s alarm clock at the stop sign.

  He feared the word today because it felt less like a friend and more like someone flicking his earlobe in church, daring him to fuck up everyone’s sermon. And when he finally said the word, it hung out there in the air between him and his lens, taunting him so bad he almost tried to suck it back through his teeth like spaghetti.

  “Action!”

  “Well, before we do that, you know, before we do that other thing, I think we should start thinking about the dog.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it’s a cop dog. It’s probably been tagged or numbered or tattooed or got a microchip in it or something. That’s how they keep track of ‘em, you know.”

  Billy and Bully sat on the curb, sometimes staring at each other’s shoes, sometimes hypnotized by the glow of the restaurant’s back door and the flurry of plate-scraping dishwashers in the steam.

  Billy curled his leg to wipe the green toe of his boot on the back of his jeans, and shook his head when the sticky glaze didn’t come off. He would have curled his tail if he had one.

  “You still got that spit on you? Nasty.”

  “It’s not my fault.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, maybe they’re evolving,” he shrugged .

  “Who?!” Bully was little, but she was loud as shit.

  “Them. Us,” Billy stood up to be more dramatic. “Maybe human beings spit so much that it’s turning into something else, something like glue you can’t just wipe away...”

  “Shut the fuck up and sit down. How much longer do we have to wait?”

  Billy looked at his Nelsonic Space Attacker game watch and started pressing buttons until Bully slapped it down.

  “I’m bored. I’m going to get him.”

  “No!” Billy pleaded. “Just wait, please. He’s doing us a favor.”

  “Fine,” Bully said, slumping in defeat. She took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go over it again. Pretend we’ve already stolen the dog, and Officer Bigbeep…”

  “It’s Bigby.”

  “How are you spelling that? Like Big-Bye?”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. So Officer Bigby is chasing us through these alleys right now. Where the hell would we hide?”

  “A movie theater? Like in the back row, trying to keep the dog quiet. You know, just like Oswald.”

  “Right. Just like Oswald and, uh, his dog,” Bully scoffed.

  Billy pouted.

  “You know, you shouldn’t feel safe in a movie theater.”

  “Why not?”

  “They fuck with people’s heads,” Bully said. “People react different, but most lose their shit. That’s why they had to invent drive-ins. You can’t put too many people in a room to watch a movie together. They’ll fuckin’ explode. They had to move that action outside.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No shit. Have you ever heard how you’re not supposed to yell, ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater? That’s nothing compared to yelling, ‘Movie!’ in a fire.”

  “You’re high,” Billy laughed, starting to turn away.

  “No, wait! I have a theory!” she said, smiling and grabbing.

  “Of course you do.”

  “Okay, think about it for a second. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever experienced in a movie theater?”

  “You. Talking my ear off.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “Well, it’s a matter of opinion.”

  “No, never opinion!” Bully stomped her foot. “There are right answers.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ll just say this, if we are ever in a ticking-time-bomb type situation, or a lit fuse or the gas tank on a car is gonna blow, whatever you do, no matter how tempting it is, no matter who may be watching, do not walk slowly away from the explosion.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t tell you how much I’m worried this is gonna be a problem in movies some day.”

  The thing about Bully that Billy sometimes forgot was how she could see the screen of a nearby drive-in from her bed. This meant she silently watched about a hundred movies a year. That’s a lot of movies to ponder in bed every night. Expectedly, patterns began to emerge. And theories.

  “What are you talking about?” he sighed.

  “In the movies! Haven’t you seen this? There will be an explosion, and someone walks away from it trying to be cool. I saw it in Apocalypse Now last week, and thought that was annoying enough on the beach with the cowboy, but then I saw it in Get Mean last night, and was like, ‘Come on!’ Then, the other day, I take my little brother to see The Adventures of ‘Reno’ Williams…”

  “Ooh! Is it good? I heard it was good.”

  “Yeah, it’s all right. Except the part where he walks away from the explosion.”

  “I think you need to stop using a drive-in as a nightlight. Or be more forgiving.”

  “It’s gonna be a problem,” she nodded. “This walking-away-from-fire thing is infectious. And it’s fucking up my sleep, not good.” She got up on her toes to grab Billy’s face in her hands, deadly serious. “Trust me on this.” Then she grimaced at something green on the tip of his nose and let him go.

  “You’re nuts,” he decided.

  “Point is, there’s no way we’re hiding in a theater. The drive-in maybe…”

  “I think you’ve had enough of the drive-in. What’s showing at the Butch Cassidy tonight anyway?”

  “Butch Cassidy is dead. The only one left is The Spotlight Kid, remember?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Well, last night at The Spotlight Kid, it was still the Rowdy Roddy Double Feature, Hell Comes to Frogtown and They Live.”

  “You wanna sneak in?”

  “Why would I bother to sneak in?” she scowled. “I’ve seen ‘em three times each.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. To actually hear a movie for once? It might be a whole different experience.”

  “Maybe,” she said, unconvinced.

  Billy allowed a rare three minutes of silence between them. Then:

  “I still think you’re scared of cops,” he declared.

  “I fear no man.”

  “Okay, how about besides men?”

  “I only fear one thing these days.”

  “What’s that?” Billy was on the edge of his curb waiting to hear it.

  “If you must know, I believe that insect populations have based their growth on a constant culling from car windshields,” Bully explained. “And one day soon, they’ll all learn to fly just three feet higher over the roads that circle our planet. And as a result… we will be forever covered in them from head to toe.”

  She loved talking about bugs. And it was times like this when Billy was reminded how much he loved her.

  Then the summer locusts in the chestnut trees suddenly seemed deafening. Billy frowned, scared, trying to remember if they’d started out soothing or if he was just noticing a continuous shriek. Maybe their call was like those new alarm clocks that got louder and louder, supposedly to ease you into the waking world. He’d heard that the panic they’d induced in consumers necessitated a recall, and now he knew why. Once, Bully swore she was involved in the class-action lawsuit against the company that made them, and hopefully the settlement would at least pay for the aquarium she’d smashed the first morning it went off. She was full of shit. She loved the sound. They were her Sirens.

  Some gravel popped under a shoe, and they looked up to see their back-alley restaurant connection, a hollow-chested dishwasher who was sorta friends with Bully’s brother. He stood in the kitchen doorway with a black garbage bag over his shoulder, one
headphone plugged into his ear, twirling the other headphone like a lifeguard whistle and grinning. They both hopped up.

  “It’s okay,” Billy whispered to her. “I fear one thing, too.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  He angled a thumb back at the cop car across the street.

  “I fear looking up one day and seeing a dog’s head hanging out the window of every car. Why do people think that shit’s normal?” he tried to high-five the dishwasher, who left him hanging.

  “Is that him over there?” Bully whispered. “I thought we were following his ass!” Then she seemed to process what he’d just said.

  “Wait! No fair! I want to change my answer. I take it back. I’m afraid of three things now. Spit turning green forever, you eventually covered in that shit, and bugs learning to dodge cars. And people no longer respecting explosions! And this motherfucker with the bag…”

  The dishwasher walked past them, pretending they weren’t there, but doing it badly. He dropped his garbage bag on the ground in front of a dumpster, then without a word went back into the restaurant, kicking the brick away from the door and letting it swing slowly closed behind him. They caught a last glimpse of him leaning over a burner, one loose headphone bobbing in and out of a steaming pot of jambalaya.

  Billy and Bully ran to the bag like it was Christmas morning, but Bully got to it first to shake it open. Then the bag suddenly jumped and squirmed in her hand, sharp snaps and pops scaring her low to the ground like a cat. Billy took the bag away, laughing as she shook off her embarrassment.

  “Asshole,” she mumbled.

  “He gotcha! How can anyone resist setting mousetraps?” Billy laughed, shaking the bag hard like he was trying to get the final popcorn kernels to pop.

  “Not mouse traps, fuckface. Rat traps.”

  “Same thing.”

  They walked to her car, a yellow hatchback Mustang, glancing nervously at the cruiser across the street. Bully popped the back, then lifted the flap that hid the spare tire.

  She dumped the rattraps in with the rest of the junk she’d hoarded, trying not to flinch when the last trap sprung. Tucked in around her tire jack were walkie-talkies, telephone receivers, crumbling Lego structures, a couple gnarly dreamcatchers, all feathers and turquoise with the gas-station price tags still on them, a bunch of D-size batteries, and the keypad she’d torn off her diminutive “big” brother’s electronic toy tank, this lumbering thing called a Big Trak that he’d gotten for his birthday. He’d be crying once he noticed it missing.