Read Online Harris and me : a summer remembered by Gary Paulsen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gary Paulsen
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bartender could bring them.
"Hell pee hisself later/' Harris said, noting that I was watching Louie. "Just comes in the top and goes out the bottom like a pipe ..."
Presently three men separated themselves from the rest and without speaking or further ado mounted the platform, picked up the instruments—the smaller of the men hoisting the accordion with a short grunt— and began playing.
It was barely music—sounded more like cats fighting inside a steel drum—but it was very loud and had a steady rhythm, and soon couples were dancing.
Harris ignored the adults and kept watching the back door—or what I took to be the back door—with a steady intensity.
We had gone through our pop and been given new ones, and as soon as Clel handed us our pop he started walking down the bar aimed for that door.
"Come on." Harris grabbed my arm. "We want to get good seats ..."
It was not a back door but the door to a storeroom. I followed Harris in—blinded by more darkness yet—and could vaguely make out a room full of beer crates stacked around the sides. In the middle on a rickety wooden table was an old motion picture projector and on the wall a sheet had been hung.
Harris dragged me to the center of the room and pulled two beer crates up to sit on, directly to the side of the projector, then waited impatiently, holding his pop with both hands, while Clel and a dozen or so other young people came into the room.
In the dim light from the door, Clel went to a box of what seemed to be car batteries on the side of the room and hooked two wires to the terminals with alligator clips. The projector came on and its beam of light hit the sheet with a dazzling glare.
Clel worked in silence while we sat waiting, feeding film from the old reel through the projector with many clicks and jerks, hooking it to the take-up reel.
Then he hit a switch and the projector started up with a noise not unlike the old truck that had brought us to town and on the screen was a picture of Gene Autry riding and shooting.
It would be wrong to call what we were watching a movie. I had been to many films by that time and recognized that there were problems with this one. The credits and probably the first fifteen or twenty
minutes of the film were gone, lost over years of showing. The picture just jumped into the middle of the story with Gene riding Champ and shooting at somebody, and when the reel ran out—some thirty minutes later—he was still riding Champ and shooting at somebody. Though it was a talking film there was no sound equipment, so it remained silent and any idea of story line from dialogue was lost. The whole film was devoted to Gene riding Champion and shooting at something, with one scene where he played a guitar and sang and another where he jumped off a saloon roof onto Champion and rode away, either escaping some men in the saloon or trying to catch some other men who had run off.
Then the reel ended with the screen going flash white again.
"Damn." Harris snorted. "I just hate it when it ends that way . . ."
As if on cue Clel came back in carrying a dozen bottles of orange pop in a wooden case. He handed us each a bottle, then rewound the film and started it over and went back out front where the music was getting louder and more incoherent all the time.
And the children all sat and watched it again as if seeing it for the first time.
I leaned forward to whisper in Harris's ear: "Isn't there another reel?"
"What?"
"You know—of film. Isn't there another reel?"
"Not unless you want to watch the news about the war. ClePs got that one but it's really short."
"The war?" The Second World War had been over for nearly five years.
"Yeah—with the commie japs and all. They're fighting like dogs over there. But it still ain't this good. Now shut up and watch the picture show ..."
He turned back to Gene and we sat through another showing of the film.
When it was done Clel reappeared with orange pop, rewound the film, and
"Hell pee hisself later/' Harris said, noting that I was watching Louie. "Just comes in the top and goes out the bottom like a pipe ..."
Presently three men separated themselves from the rest and without speaking or further ado mounted the platform, picked up the instruments—the smaller of the men hoisting the accordion with a short grunt— and began playing.
It was barely music—sounded more like cats fighting inside a steel drum—but it was very loud and had a steady rhythm, and soon couples were dancing.
Harris ignored the adults and kept watching the back door—or what I took to be the back door—with a steady intensity.
We had gone through our pop and been given new ones, and as soon as Clel handed us our pop he started walking down the bar aimed for that door.
"Come on." Harris grabbed my arm. "We want to get good seats ..."
It was not a back door but the door to a storeroom. I followed Harris in—blinded by more darkness yet—and could vaguely make out a room full of beer crates stacked around the sides. In the middle on a rickety wooden table was an old motion picture projector and on the wall a sheet had been hung.
Harris dragged me to the center of the room and pulled two beer crates up to sit on, directly to the side of the projector, then waited impatiently, holding his pop with both hands, while Clel and a dozen or so other young people came into the room.
In the dim light from the door, Clel went to a box of what seemed to be car batteries on the side of the room and hooked two wires to the terminals with alligator clips. The projector came on and its beam of light hit the sheet with a dazzling glare.
Clel worked in silence while we sat waiting, feeding film from the old reel through the projector with many clicks and jerks, hooking it to the take-up reel.
Then he hit a switch and the projector started up with a noise not unlike the old truck that had brought us to town and on the screen was a picture of Gene Autry riding and shooting.
It would be wrong to call what we were watching a movie. I had been to many films by that time and recognized that there were problems with this one. The credits and probably the first fifteen or twenty
minutes of the film were gone, lost over years of showing. The picture just jumped into the middle of the story with Gene riding Champ and shooting at somebody, and when the reel ran out—some thirty minutes later—he was still riding Champ and shooting at somebody. Though it was a talking film there was no sound equipment, so it remained silent and any idea of story line from dialogue was lost. The whole film was devoted to Gene riding Champion and shooting at something, with one scene where he played a guitar and sang and another where he jumped off a saloon roof onto Champion and rode away, either escaping some men in the saloon or trying to catch some other men who had run off.
Then the reel ended with the screen going flash white again.
"Damn." Harris snorted. "I just hate it when it ends that way . . ."
As if on cue Clel came back in carrying a dozen bottles of orange pop in a wooden case. He handed us each a bottle, then rewound the film and started it over and went back out front where the music was getting louder and more incoherent all the time.
And the children all sat and watched it again as if seeing it for the first time.
I leaned forward to whisper in Harris's ear: "Isn't there another reel?"
"What?"
"You know—of film. Isn't there another reel?"
"Not unless you want to watch the news about the war. ClePs got that one but it's really short."
"The war?" The Second World War had been over for nearly five years.
"Yeah—with the commie japs and all. They're fighting like dogs over there. But it still ain't this good. Now shut up and watch the picture show ..."
He turned back to Gene and we sat through another showing of the film.
When it was done Clel reappeared with orange pop, rewound the film, and
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