833: I shuffled along . . .
At Home with the Glynns, Chapter 23
23
I SHUFFLED ALONG with the line. Silently I rehearsed saying “Three, under twelve,” so that I wouldn’t screw up when my turn came. I had found, and I still find, that when I’m on line, shuffling toward one of those situations that require me to make a functional statement like “Coffee to go, dark, no sugar,” I’m quite likely to forget it by the time my turn comes, and stand there at the counter, suddenly at the head of a line of impatient grumblers, wondering what I’m up to. In this case, in addition to merely remembering what I wanted, I had to remember to advance the proposition that the Glynns and I were under twelve, and do it with a clear, forceful, unhesitating voice. I was getting considerable interference from their complaints about their father’s failing to recognize that having turned thirteen they were “nearly fourteen,” so there was a terrible possibility that I might say “Three, nearly fourteen,” when my turn came at last. As a precautionary measure, I had placed in my left-hand pocket the money required for admission for three under-twelves and in my right-hand pocket the additional money required for one twelve and two thirteens. If I blundered and made us older than children, I planned to hide my error from Margot and Martha by shelling out the difference. (“Shelling out,” by the way, has a particularly Babbingtonian resonance for me, since it derives, I think—well, I guess—from Native Americans’ use of clam shells as wampum.) I had advanced to within a few people of the ticket booth when, suddenly, Martha was at my side, tugging my arm. “Peter,” she said, whispering, but with urgency.
“Under twelve,” I said.
“Come on,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I said. “I’m almost there.”
“We’re going around the corner.”
“Around the corner?”
“Yeah. To the Fine Arts.” She meant by that the Fine Arts Theater, a tiny theater attached to the rear of the Babbington Theater, in a kind of shed. It shared the facilities and equipment of the larger theater, but catered to an entirely different audience. For one thing, the films shown there were foreign, with subtitles, so the audience had to be able to read.
“Really?” I said. “What’s playing there?”
“It’s that foreign film. L’Amour, La Guerre, La Poussière.”
This was a notorious film at the time. It starred Colette Quenelle, who was making an international reputation for having her clothing torn off in rainy, shadowy films.
“Wow,” I said, patting the additional admission money in my right-hand pocket. “Let’s go.”
The route to the Fine Arts led down a narrow, uneven alley. The three of us stood at the foot of the alley, hesitating. Overhead, at the entrance to the alley, a small unlit sign hung from a rusted metal arm and creaked in the wind. Clouds passed before the moon, and the alleyway darkened and seemed to constrict. A cat ran screaming from the shadows, the clouds parted suddenly, and the cat stood frozen in the light for a moment, then screamed again and ran into deeper shadows, avoiding the puddles. From somewhere came the sound of breaking glass. A door slammed. A mephitic exhalation drifted down the alley and over us. I drew back.
“Peter,” said Margot, tugging at my arm.
“You know—we’re not really old enough,” I said.
“Oh, Peter—” said Martha, and Margot finished her sentence for her, with, “—grow up.”
[to be continued]
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