B-Movie Reels (3 page)

Andy followed him out the door, having to move fast, his uncle hurrying to the navy blue truck and starting it up in a flash. He waved goodbye, but as Ned drove up the gravel drive with a rise of dust obscuring the way, he didn’t wave back.
 

2

Andy unpacked boxes of clothes, a black leather armchair and a Dell laptop computer from the trunk of his car. He set up most of his belongings in the living room. During the work of unpacking, he couldn’t shrug the strange feeling he got when Ned drove off so quickly. Andy had been in town for two hours, and he was already alone.
 

Shrugging off the loneliness, he retrieved a metal carry-case for the film projector and film screen along with the metal box containing the countless reels of film. He then placed the bin inside the living room. Catching his breath, he noticed the room opposite him, the door half open. Inside, bare shelves and spider webs lined the walls. A leather armchair on wheels faced him behind a desk. The window behind the desk filtered the afternoon sun. The panes were grimed over and in desperate need of cleaning.
 

“This strange room is where the real magic happened,” Andy announced in a cheesy dramatic voice. “James Ryerson removed rabbits from hats. He went through dozens of hats and bunnies to perfect the illusion. It’s a costly affair, ladies and gentlemen, but bunnies and hats are a small price to pay for perfection.”

He scavenged the desk drawers for interesting relics. Five of the six were empty, but the bottom one contained a pine box. Four individually wrapped cigars were inside. He smelled one, the tobacco stale. He un-wrapped it and lit it with a Bic. “James Ryerson endorses…” he checked the sticker label, “…Havana cigars. After a long day of defying illusion, a good cigar takes the edge off.”

After two puffs, the tip’s cherry brightened and smoldered too fast, alarming him. Scared, he tossed it across the room, where it exploded with a bottle rocket’s
crack
!
 

“What the fuck?”

He slammed the drawer closed and walked past the strewn remains of the cigar. The smell of gunpowder stalked him as he made his exit. “That could’ve blown my face apart. They should put a warning label on those things. Damn trick cigars.”

Andy caught a gleam from a darkened room nearby. He crossed the threshold and brushed his hand along the wall for a switch. The light flickered on from a plastic dome heaped with dead flies. The bathroom furnishings were of fine quality. The sink was gray marble. The vanity mirror was gold-lined with four lights across the top like the kind in an actress’s dressing room. The Jacuzzi was large enough to fit four people. He couldn’t wait to bathe in bubble jets and warm water.

He turned on the water in the Jacuzzi, and it spat out cold. “Don’t tell me Uncle Ned doesn’t have hot water. Maybe that’s why he fled the place so Goddamn fast.”

The water was ice cold, and it wasn’t changing for the two minutes he held his hand under the spout.
 

“Abra Cadabra—hot water!”

The pipe coughed out a thick jet of water.
Schwap
! It scalded him, and he yanked back his hand in pain.
 

“Christ! What the hell was that about?”

He hesitantly turned on the fixture again and doused his hand in cold water. He wasn’t sure why the water grew so hot without a moment’s warning.
 

Quirks of an old house
, he thought.
As long as the walls don’t bleed, I’m good.

There was a knock at the door. He rushed down the staircase and caught the figure waiting at the door. It was a young woman in her late twenties. She wore tattered blue jeans and a button-up flannel shirt. Her auburn hair was styled in pig tails. Her face was soft with an honest smile. She was well-endowed too, a D-cup and change.
 

“Are you Andy Ryerson?” She offered him a wicker basket. It was heaped with blueberry muffins, a loaf of wheat bread and an apple pie wrapped in tin foil. “Ned told us about you. He said you were moving in today.”

“He said I was moving in today,” he repeated. “How long ago did he say that?”

“It’s been weeks he’s talked about it.” She extended her hand for him to shake, and he accepted it. “I’m Mary-Sue Jennings. I live a mile down the road. My dad owns the two-hundred acres down the way from you. We run a dairy farm. We helped Ned move a lot of his stuff out of the house. Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood. Anderson Mills is a small town.” She winked. “But we’re close-knit if you let us be.”

He was stuck on the fact Uncle Ned told her he was moving in weeks ago. How could he be so sure he’d accept the offer? He was angry despite Mary-Sue’s cheerful green eyes and brown freckled face.
 

“Thank you for the basket, Mary-Sue. What else did my uncle tell you about me?”

“Not much.” a man spoke from outside, studying the blackened circle in the yard. He wore faded overalls, brown leather boots and a straw hat. The skin of his face was sunburned and peeling. The rough growth of his beard lent him a hobo’s air. Pipe-cleaner strands of white hair jutted out from under the brim of his hat. “Ned said he detested the house. It broke up his marriage, he said. I’m sure you know about it. The cops kept interrogating them, and the reporters were worse, and poor Angie couldn’t take it anymore. Anyway, this house can’t be sold. Never seen a house go to shit so fast. This used to be worth close to two-hundred and thirty thousand. Now—”

“Dad!” Mary-Sue scolded, talking over him. “You’re being rude.”

Andy flagged both of their attentions. “The house isn’t mine as of yet. Ned said I could live in it for two weeks and try it on for size first.”

“Nah.” The man spat out a stream of brown juice. The wad between his yellowed teeth was the shape of a thumb pressing against the inside of his cheek. “Ned claimed you were the new owner indefinitely.”

“Well, I’m not. I haven’t signed papers or paid any bills. Who knows where I’ll be months from now?”

“For now, you’re in Anderson Mills,” the man said. “I’m Jimmy Jennings, and you’ve met my daughter. My wife’s not here. Divorced my old ass and moved to Maryland with some tow-truck driver. Mary-Sue wasn’t even eight at the time.”

Mary-Sue jabbed him in the gut with her elbow. “He doesn’t want to know that.” She apologized to Andy under her breath. “He’s not always like this.”

Andy smiled at her. “Hey, thanks for the basket. You guys know this town very well. How do you get around? I’m sure you guys know what’s fun around here. I know I could use some.”

Her eyes brightened at the opportunity. “I’ll show you around Anderson Mills, if you have time?”

Jimmy spat, the circle of tobacco juice striking a cobble in the path with a
pat
sound. “You want dinner tonight? We don’t eat until eight o’clock. Any Ryerson is welcome in my home. I knew your poor Uncle James, and he got a bad rap. He’s a good man. None of the shit they say about him is true.”

“Eight o’clock, huh?” Andy asked. “Sure, which way down the street do you live?”

“Make a left out onto the road outside your house, and you’ll find our red farmhouse pretty easily,” she explained. “It’ll be nice to have a guest. You can see our farm from your back yard.”

She winked at him again, and he felt himself blush. Was she flirting with him?
Maybe she has a thing for college boys
, he thought.
I don’t mind. Sandy broke up with me two weeks ago.

Sandy Brown was a film student like him, and they dated four years during their stint at Iowa State. When she received an offer to film a Sonic fast food commercial in Milwaukee, Sandy broke off their relationship. The break-up ruined his graduation day. His parents coerced him to walk the stage despite his gloomy mood. Then Ned called him up shortly afterward to come down and check out the house. It was actually a good idea. He could complete Professor Maxwell’s job and move on to the next gig, whenever and whatever that would be.
 

“Thanks for the invite,” Andy said. “I’ll see you guys at eight sharp. Sorry, I don’t have any groceries or I’d bring something.”

“Just yourself is fine,” Jimmy said, his eyes coasting up and down the closed shutters and the perimeter of the house. “I guess Mary-Sue will show you around after we eat. Town’s pretty simple. Small too.”

They waved goodbye and drove off in their red Toyota truck, a model from the eighties, Andy guessed, the bed corroded with rust and stocked with hay bales.
 

With the neighbors gone, Andy marched back into the house and decided it was time to work.
 

3

He plugged in the single-reel sixteen millimeter film projector and stood it up on a TV tray beside the lone reclining chair. The audio system was two speakers and a sub-woofer; nothing that could facilitate a movie theater, but instead a class room, or in his case, a living room. The Orion projector was on loan from Iowa State’s film tech laboratory. The rental fee was waved due to Professor Edwin Maxwell’s influence.
 

Andy aimed the projector onto the white screen he’d already set up. He returned to the kitchen and retrieved the bottle of scotch that was a quarter empty. He cradled it under his arm and returned to the living room. From his backpack, he gathered a notebook and his good ink pen to jot commentary notes.
 

About to settle down, he took a step backward and unwittingly caught the projector’s cord against his calves, yanking it and forcing the projector to slam onto the floor. Crashing down, the light coming out of the lens faded to black.

“Fuck!”

He picked it up and discovered it had broken in half. Components rattled inside, ruined and rendering the device a piece of junk. “Professor Maxwell will have a shit fit. Damn it.”

Andy paced in front of the damage like it was a dead body needing to be buried. What could he do? This meant he’d have to call Professor Maxwell and admit what had happened.
 

He took a slug from the bottle and enjoyed an alleviating breath. “Think this through, maybe you can fix it.”

The cuckoo clock went off, the yellow bird’s piercing whistle caused him to yip in surprise. “Jesus!” The house loomed around him in that moment, gigantic for one person to occupy. It made him uncomfortable to breathe too loud. Was he afraid someone would hear him?
 

The picture frames propped against the wall nearby attracted him. He bent to his haunches and studied them.
 

The first read:
 

GIDEON: THE GUIDE TO GRAND ILLUSION

APPEARS AT THE LUXOR HOTEL FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY

NIGHT SHOWS ONLY

GIDEON BREATHES FIRE!!!

GIDEON WALKS THROUGH WALLS!!!

GIDEON HOLDS HIS BREATH FOR TEN MINUTES LOCKED IN A WATER TANK!!!

GIDEON SENDS KNIVES THOUGH HIS BODY!!!

GIDEON DEFIES GRAVITY AND CLIMBS INVISIBLE ROPE!!!

AND MANY MORE DEATH-DEFYING FEATS!!!

Uncle James looked like a cartoon caricature in a black Valentino suit, top hat and red tie. He clutched a knife in each hand with a self-satisfied smile, his eyes darkened with mascara and pancake make-up. A caption read in flame lettering: MAY BE TOO GRAPHIC FOR CHILDREN UNACCOMPANIED BY ADULTS OR THOSE INDIVUDUALS WITH HEART CONDITIONS, PREGNANT, OR ELDERLY. His signature was next to his photo in gold marker in large cursive writing.

Where else was magic lucrative besides Las Vegas or Atlantic City? The man toured the United States and even parts of Europe, he remembered. His fame lasted twelve years, and now he was infamous for murder. There was no court hearing for a dead man. The strange episode was swept under the carpet and left a cold case. It surprised him to receive an open-armed invitation from Mary-Sue and Jimmy Jennings, knowing how hard the deaths hit the small town. They knew what his uncle was accused of, and the two neighbors had lived it down. It saddened him to realize the neighbors were more acquainted with his uncle than he was.
 

He scanned other posters, more of the same hype with new captions boasting more death-defying stunts: SEE GIDEON SMASHED BY A STEAMROLLER, GIDEON MAKES A BENGAL TIGER DISAPPEAR, GIDEON DERAILS A MOVING TRAIN, GIDEON READS MINDS AND FORTUNES, GIDEON ESCAPES A FLAMING BOX, GIDEON MAKES AN AUDIENCE MEMBER VANISH, and GIDEON TURNS WATER INTO WINE. The pictorials grew more outlandish; some depicted James with a chiseled abdomen at a muscle-bound one hundred and eighty pounds, and others gave him a Dracula resemblance with gelled back hair and pale skin. It showed him bending steel rods and breathing fire. It was hard to believe this was the same man who was at family picnics, hard on his luck and surviving on dwindling savings.
 

The intake of scotch urged him to run upstairs to the bathroom to ease his bladder. While pissing, he admired the Jacuzzi. After washing his hands, he observed his face in the mirror. His reddish-brown beard and head of curly hair had grown out to scraggly proportions. He wondered if Mary-Sue was serious about giving him a tour. He didn’t look his best today. Something about her allured him. The size of her breasts, he easily admitted, but there was something else he couldn’t place. A good first impression, he supposed.

He splashed cold water onto his face, remembering the problem downstairs.
I’m a dead man. Professor Maxwell’s going to have my ass on a platter.