and closed the door. And Bob went out of the back of the camper, sneaky-like, cranked the truck, turned right, bumped over the dead biker and his bike, worked us to the far end, turned right at the fence, found a front row in what was called the East Screen of Lot A. We parked in a slot next to a big yellow bus with CHRIST IS THE ANSWER IF YOU ASK THE QUESTION, THAT’S WHAT I’M TRYING TO TELL YOU written messily on the side in what looked like rust-colored paint. And underneath in dirty-white letters, much smaller, was AIN’T BEING A BAPTIST GRAND?
On the other side of us was an old Ford. It looked empty. The occupants were probably dead, or had joined up with some others and gone to a new location.
Bob got a speaker off the post, more out of habit than anything else, put it in the window, turned the dial high as it would go, and we watched, or rather looked at, The Evil Dead. Ash, the character in the movie, was sticking his hand into a mirror, and the mirror had turned into some kind of liquid.
We sat there feeling numb until Bob said, “I don’t think coming over here is going to help much, but I’m sort of in the mood for a change of scenery… Maybe out of sight, out of mind… And I don’t think his tattoos can come this far… too much distance between the concession and us.”
“Agreed,” I said.
It wasn’t much, but comparatively, this was the best part of the drive-in for us to hide out. For some reason, East Screen had had a lot less badness going on. There had certainly been some stuff happening over there; Crier, who knew everything had told us about it, but compared to the rest of Lot A, and certainly B, it was pretty tame business.
The movies changed as usual, and I could imagine the Popcorn King in the film room, going from projector to projector, switching them as needed. (Didn’t he need sleep?) That part of Willard that had been a projectionist was coming into play; he knew how to keep things going.
Bob and I dozed a lot, and when we were so hungry we couldn’t take it anymore, we’d go to the camper and lie down and eat, chewing slowly, sometimes talking if we had something to say, listening to the movies filtering into the camper from the speaker in the cab window. It got so I was having a hard time remembering what life was like before the drive-in. I could remember Mom and Dad, but couldn’t quite see their faces, recall how they moved or talked. I couldn’t remember friends, or even girlfriends whose faces had haunted my dreams at home. My past was fading like cold breath on a mirror.
And the movies rolled on.
At certain intervals, the old yellow bus next door to us would crack its back door, and out of it would come this rail-thin man in a black coat, white shirt and dark tie, and with him was this bony, broad-shouldered, homely woman in a flowered housedress and false leather slippers. She walked without picking her feet up much.
They’d walk toward the center of the row, and there would be others there, and they would form a crowd, and the man in the black coat, white shirt and dark tie would go before them and talk, move his arms a lot, strut back and forth like a bantam rooster. He’d point at the movies now and then, then at the group. He’d hop up and down and stretch his facial muscles and toward the end of this little exercise he’d be into much hand-waving you’d think he was swatting marauding bees.
When he tuckered out, everyone would gather around him in a team huddle, and stay that way for some time. When they broke up, they all looked satisfied. They’d stand around while the rail-thin man bowed his head and said some words, then each went on about his limited business.
Every time this little event occurred, the couple coming out of the bus, I mean, and Bob saw them, he’d say, “Well, gonna be a prayer meetin’ tonight.”
It got so it irritated me, him making fun of them, and I told him so.
“They’ve got something,” I said. “Faith. It’s been ages since any of these folks have eaten… not since the King took over the concession, and look how they act. Orderly. With strength and faith. And the rest of the drive- in…”
You could hear screams and chainsaws frequently, and not just from the screen. Now and then a shot would puncture the air and there would be the sounds of yelling and fighting. But not here at East Screen.
“They’ve got food somewhere, Jack. Faith ain’t gonna take care of an empty belly. Trust me on the matter.”
“You’d have to have faith to know anything about it,” I said.
“And I guess you do?”
“No, but I’d like to.”
“It’s all a lie, Jack. There ain’t no magic formula, no way to know how to go. Astrology, numerology, readings in tea leaves and rat droppings, it’s all the same. It don’t amount to nothing. Nothing at all.”
Crier came by to see us.
We were out leaning on the front bumper of the truck, watching the people over at North Screen running around like savages, killing one another, wrecking cars. Bob had his faithful twelve-gauge companion by his side, just in case radical company from over there should come by and want to kill or eat us.
None did.
I figured the reason for this was threefold. Each screen had sort of become its own community, and strange as it was, each tended to stick together; they liked killing and eating their own. Least at this point. Two, Bob had the shotgun and he looked like a man who would use it, and there was the fact that the Christians, as I had come to think of them, had formed their own patrol. The patrol walked around the perimeters of East Screen regularly, armed mostly with tire irons, car aerials and the like, but also a gun or two. The third reason they left us alone was just a surmise on my part. I figured they were patient and were saving us for dessert.
Well, anyway, as I was saying, we were out leaning on the bumper of the truck, and along comes Crier. He looked bad. His lips were cracked and his eyes had a hollow look, as if they were shrinking in their sockets. He was using the hoe handle to keep from falling over. He seemed to concentrate heavily just to put one foot after another. I wanted to give him a piece of jerky bad, but Bob, anticipating my thinking, looked at me quickly and shook his head.
Crier came up and sat on the bumper next to Bob, let his head hang, got his breath. “I hope you boys aren’t going to kill and eat me,” he said almost pleasantly.
“Not today,” Bob said.
“Then you wouldn’t have anything I could eat, would you? I feel like fly-blown shit. You boys look pretty good. Maybe you got some food.”
“Sorry,” Bob said. “We did have, but we ate it. We saved a little of what we got at the concession each time, but now that’s gone. No more stash.”
“Well,” said Crier, “I always ask. It don’t hurt to do that. Getting so there ain’t no use my doing this anymore, this walking around to report the news. Everyone is news now, and no one wants to listen anymore. They just want to kill or eat me. This hoe handle has saved my life a dozen times. Maybe more. I did get beat up pretty bad, though. My ribs are cracked, I think. Hurts when I breathe too deep or walk too fast.”
“What can you tell us about the Popcorn King?” I asked.
“He went in there and he hasn’t come out. Nobody can get in there neither. That blue light around it would fry an egg. I know, I seen an old boy get his hand burned off trying to go in there after the King and some food.”
“Then why doesn’t it kill the King?” I asked.
“Don’t get me to lying. I ain’t got the slightest,” Crier said. “Maybe conditions were just different then.”
“So, that’s it on the King,” Bob said.
“Well, almost,” Crier said. “Those bodies his tiger dragged inside
… He’s eating those. Got them hung up in the window there, and every time you look, there’s less meat on them.”
That would be right, I thought. Willard and Randy showing their power, showing that they have food, that it’s behind glass, hung up nice and neat, and that the rest of us are lowlifes scrounging for popcorn kernels, killing one another and tearing the flesh off the bones like hyenas. But not him, not the Popcorn King. He’s got it all fine and clean and well lighted, and he probably slices his meat off with a knife. Has soft drinks to go with it. Maybe some chocolate almonds for dessert.
“The concession at B?” Bob asked.
