Read Online That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Annie Proulx
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money for popcorn. And a paper. Bring me a Post when you come back.”
Deducting fifty cents for the paper left fifty cents for popcorn and there was, Bob knew, no popcorn on earth for such a minuscule sum. But outside, Orlando, who had been watching, said, “I’ll treat. I asked you. Anyways, I can get all the money I want. My dad drinks and when he comes home soused after he’s asleep I get in his wallet and take a twenty or whatever and I got a kind of job thing.” (Later Bob learned that Orlando’s job thing was begging tourists for money on the Sixteenth Street Mall, a skill he had learned from a ragged man who lived comfortably in an expensive LoDo loft and who only plied the begging trade in evil weather, for it was then that pity moved passersby to dig deep. The best times were stormy afternoons before Christmas.)
The Cliff Edge was awful and the movie was awful and Bob Dollar enjoyed them both. In addition to the tickets, Orlando bought popcorn and quart containers of no-brand cola. The “theatre” was a converted storeroom behind the liquor store, the ramped floor made of bare, cheap plywood that boomed with each footstep. The wooden seats were not upholstered. The place smelled of urine and scorched vegetable oil. There were only fourteen people in the audience.
The film began with dozens of rats scurrying along a filthy waterfront street in an unidentified city. There were close-ups of rats eating garbage, rats crouching, groups of rats sleeping together in rat nests, close-ups of rats eating gristle and one lapping at a viscous substance that looked like decayed banana pudding. Then the rats scuttled around a corner and disappeared. The camera followed rather slowly. There were no rats around the corner, but eight or ten blond women leaning against a warehouse wall, voluptuous, heavily lipsticked, dressed in tight long dresses that sparkled with sequins. The women smoked and stared through dark glasses into the night. They wore shoes with sharp-pointed toes and unbelievably high heels. The camera moved closer and closer, gliding over satin haunches, shadowed cleavage, catching the wet shine of eyes and greased lips. It moved slowly down the back of the most buxom blond, her dress cut low enough to hint at the shadowy cleft of buttocks, down over the swelling rump, down the shining fabric tight over the thigh, down the full leg to the lower calf and, for a split second, there it was, hanging just below the satin hem of the dress, a muscular rat’s tail that twitched suddenly like a lewd wink.
“Gross!” said Bob Dollar, but he hadn’t seen anything yet. He hadn’t seen the rat women on the beach in their bikinis, enticing a lifeguard under their striped umbrella where they strangled him with their tails (until then coiled in the bikinis) and devoured him, tossing the bones into the surf. He hadn’t seen the nameless city’s chief of police turn into a vampire and try to force the rat women to become his sex slaves. Nor had he yet seen Orlando, who had eaten the popcorn and swallowed the cola, matter-of-factly and noisily piss on the plywood floor without leaving his seat.
At the end of the film Orlando insisted they stay for the trailers of coming attractions, Blood Feast and Scum of the Earth . On the way out he pointed at a lurid poster for The Corpse Grinders (“In Blood-Curdling Color”) and said, “That’s a fucking great film,” and told him about the theatre in Kansas City where he had seen it. As the audience had entered, the ticket taker had handed everyone a barf bag imprinted with THE CORPSE GRINDERS and some people had used theirs.
“I tried to, but I couldn’t make anything come up. I still got the bag. It’s like a collectible now. Maybe your uncle can tell me what it’s worth.” The Kansas City theatre, he said, had had buzzers rigged under the seats. The buzzers went off at the moment the nurse’s mad cat sprang on Dr. Glass and everyone in the audience screamed.
Bob
Deducting fifty cents for the paper left fifty cents for popcorn and there was, Bob knew, no popcorn on earth for such a minuscule sum. But outside, Orlando, who had been watching, said, “I’ll treat. I asked you. Anyways, I can get all the money I want. My dad drinks and when he comes home soused after he’s asleep I get in his wallet and take a twenty or whatever and I got a kind of job thing.” (Later Bob learned that Orlando’s job thing was begging tourists for money on the Sixteenth Street Mall, a skill he had learned from a ragged man who lived comfortably in an expensive LoDo loft and who only plied the begging trade in evil weather, for it was then that pity moved passersby to dig deep. The best times were stormy afternoons before Christmas.)
The Cliff Edge was awful and the movie was awful and Bob Dollar enjoyed them both. In addition to the tickets, Orlando bought popcorn and quart containers of no-brand cola. The “theatre” was a converted storeroom behind the liquor store, the ramped floor made of bare, cheap plywood that boomed with each footstep. The wooden seats were not upholstered. The place smelled of urine and scorched vegetable oil. There were only fourteen people in the audience.
The film began with dozens of rats scurrying along a filthy waterfront street in an unidentified city. There were close-ups of rats eating garbage, rats crouching, groups of rats sleeping together in rat nests, close-ups of rats eating gristle and one lapping at a viscous substance that looked like decayed banana pudding. Then the rats scuttled around a corner and disappeared. The camera followed rather slowly. There were no rats around the corner, but eight or ten blond women leaning against a warehouse wall, voluptuous, heavily lipsticked, dressed in tight long dresses that sparkled with sequins. The women smoked and stared through dark glasses into the night. They wore shoes with sharp-pointed toes and unbelievably high heels. The camera moved closer and closer, gliding over satin haunches, shadowed cleavage, catching the wet shine of eyes and greased lips. It moved slowly down the back of the most buxom blond, her dress cut low enough to hint at the shadowy cleft of buttocks, down over the swelling rump, down the shining fabric tight over the thigh, down the full leg to the lower calf and, for a split second, there it was, hanging just below the satin hem of the dress, a muscular rat’s tail that twitched suddenly like a lewd wink.
“Gross!” said Bob Dollar, but he hadn’t seen anything yet. He hadn’t seen the rat women on the beach in their bikinis, enticing a lifeguard under their striped umbrella where they strangled him with their tails (until then coiled in the bikinis) and devoured him, tossing the bones into the surf. He hadn’t seen the nameless city’s chief of police turn into a vampire and try to force the rat women to become his sex slaves. Nor had he yet seen Orlando, who had eaten the popcorn and swallowed the cola, matter-of-factly and noisily piss on the plywood floor without leaving his seat.
At the end of the film Orlando insisted they stay for the trailers of coming attractions, Blood Feast and Scum of the Earth . On the way out he pointed at a lurid poster for The Corpse Grinders (“In Blood-Curdling Color”) and said, “That’s a fucking great film,” and told him about the theatre in Kansas City where he had seen it. As the audience had entered, the ticket taker had handed everyone a barf bag imprinted with THE CORPSE GRINDERS and some people had used theirs.
“I tried to, but I couldn’t make anything come up. I still got the bag. It’s like a collectible now. Maybe your uncle can tell me what it’s worth.” The Kansas City theatre, he said, had had buzzers rigged under the seats. The buzzers went off at the moment the nurse’s mad cat sprang on Dr. Glass and everyone in the audience screamed.
Bob
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