the last picture show
Lilith & Jordan
Jordan has the balcony all to himself. We watched him slip rather slyly past the red velvet rope blocking off the entrance
to the upper floor.
We had asked the bored-looking boy sitting within the booth to sell us a ticket. He wore a red vest and bow tie, along with
an usher’s cap strapped to his chin.
“Two dollars,” he said. When he handed us our stub through the booth’s window, our fingers touched—and now we were pouring
forth, finger to finger, flooding this man’s body.
We abandoned our seat in the box office, finding our way inside the theater. Itching already. A sour vintage. This boy tasted
like vinegar. High acidity, fermenting into himself.
We sensed the presence of another worth drifting within.
Look at her. A young woman selling popcorn. Her dress speaks to us. How it shimmers in the dim light. We like it. Want it.
She’s fashioned in the style of a bygone era that calls to us.
All the people working here are fashioned after flappers.
Sequins and beads. There’s a pearl choker wrapped around her throat, and we picture it cinch, the beads tightening, pressing against her flesh so hard, it leaves an even row of indentations along her neck.
Her ink black hair is cut so short, it clings to her forehead.
An ostrich feather headband lined in silver rhinestones crowns her temples.
She has taken a pencil and painted a beauty mark on her upper lip.
How stunning she is. We remember this era. Miss it.
Her body will do nicely, we thought. Such suitable flesh.
“Don’t let Tim see you,” she said as we drew near. “He’ll be pissed if you’re not—”
We touched her hand before she could finish and drifted, careful not to spill.
One pitcher poured into another.
Much better. The shiver of new skin sent a rustle of sequins across our body. Scales on a snake. Our serpentine dress clings
to our body, so snug. This vessel would suffice. A Sauvignon Blanc. Juicy and crisp. Passionfruit aromas. Very herbaceous.
Very untamed.
Shall we?
We abandoned the concession stand, wandering into the crowd. Jordan may have believed he was alone, but he never truly is.
Up the steps he went, heading for the balcony.
We heard him calling. Half the city did. Probably all of Purgatory heard him hollering. Such a melodramatic display, shouting
out into the night. Shattering glass. Breaking automobiles.
Jordan has come here, perhaps to see if we would follow him in.
Why here? Of all places? We are accustomed to his travel patterns, his endless sojourns through the city, losing himself,
wandering its streets as if he were seeking some secret message embedded amongst its buildings. The bricks hold nothing for
him. There is no truth. The world is burning all around and his body will burn with it, his flesh nothing but ash soon enough.
This is the only truth. The only secret worth revealing. These buildings will be in ruin. Empty temples. Bitter winds. A black
sun. We can show him, if he lets us.
If only he’d let us.
If only we’d let ourselves. Have we been nervous? Afraid? Is that why we’ve been avoiding him?
I needed to hear him say he needs me. How silly. And now that he has, look at how I come running. This is how he calls for
me, breaking windows, then beckoning us to follow him into the blackness, this shadowed venue, where people sit in the dark
and bear witness to fictions. Fantasies, all of it. The dreams mankind captures. The alchemy of these moving images has always
moved me. What might this evening’s screening be?
Now that we have followed Jordan up the steps, into the closed-off balcony, we are careful to keep our distance so not to
draw attention. The beads wrapped around our throat keep clinking. The sequins on our dress scrape. We step through the doors
and . . .
Our breath halts.
It’s stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. A palace of cinema. A gilded cavern of flickering images. Etched frescoes of cherubs cover
the walls, as if this is a church. Something so holy. A place of miracles. Suspended at the very center of the ceiling is
an enormous chandelier dripping crystal. The light weeps diamonds, the sparkle of each tear creating a prism of colors. We
hear the faint tinkle of glass, a brittle shiver, even from this distance.
This is a house of worship. A temple for celluloid. We want to fall to our knees and weep, beseeching this manmade god whose
image is cast across the screen below.
This is the only holiness we understand. Here is a god worth worshipping.
Jordan sits at the very edge of the balcony, in the row overlooking the audience below. The movie has yet to begin. We don’t
know what film we are about to venerate.
There is a din of voices below, the low murmur of a dozen different conversations blending together. All those bodies beneath
us, in the dim shadows of the theater. A pit.
This is the abyss.
Home again, home again . . . The audience may as well be burning. And here’s Jordan, watching it all from up high, bearing witness to their agony.
A devil himself.
The entire balcony is empty, save for him.
Now us.
The lights in the palace dim. The colors within the chandelier slowly recede, sapped of their blood, until the entire theater
is now nothing more than a darkened cavern. A grotto.
The screen—so massive, so white—opens to us all, a portal to another world.
I want to dive in. Enter the screen. I want to live within its pictures.
Within him.
Violins seep out from some unknown chasm. A symphony begins to play, creeping out from speakers we can’t see. The screen presents
a black-and-white vista. A mountain.
Superimposed over its snowy peak are the words:
VISTAVISION. MOTION PICTURE. HIGH-FIDELITY.
A pair of lips manifest across the screen. A woman’s. Full, plump and painted. Such a towering mouth, so enormous, it could
swallow us all. Devour everyone in this audience. It offers no smile, no warmth. Just a simple sensuality.
We want to be that behemoth of a mouth. Possess that towering flesh.
If only.
The camera slowly rises, scaling her upper lip, her nose, until settling upon her eyes. They gaze out at us, then slide to
the side, then the other. What is she searching for?
Names we don’t recognize materialize across her face. Actors, perhaps. Liars, all.
The camera closes in on the woman’s right eye, until it fills the entire frame. That black-and-white eye, saturated in shades
of gray, blinks, but won’t stop staring out at us.
At me.
I feel as if it can see me, gazing back from the screen. Reaching in deep. All the way to the core of this host, where I settle.
What I am.
It provokes me. Stirs me. I nearly lose my grip, lose my sense of self, slipping free from this suitable flesh. I have to
tighten my grip on this skin, or I’ll lose myself completely.
Then the screen goes red.
Her eye bleeds.
It can’t be. The celluloid itself saturates, transitioning from black-and-white to vivid color—only one. Red. Red, everywhere.
The entire image, skin and all, is immersed in the most brilliant hue of blood, it must be blood, look at it glow, how it
shines, we are drowning now, drowning in so much blood, where does all this blood come from?
A sliver of white—a splinter—emerges from deep within this woman’s iris. The white band expands, then breaks into smaller
shards.
Letters. A single word reaches out from her eye, drawing near . . .
VERTIGO
And yes, yes, we feel it now, feel the word rise out from the screen and enter this flesh, until we are possessed, overwhelmed by the
plucking strings, the film’s opening theme spinning through our thoughts, only to find a dizzying spiral emerge from the eye,
a whirlpool of white, a vortex that expands and eclipses this woman, now gone, consuming both her and ourselves, we are lost,
all lost, devoured by this endless eddy of colored light.
This movie has possessed us. We feel nothing but vertigo now.
The world spins.
I knew she’d find me.
Join me.
All I had to do was cast myself out there. Call for her. My body’s still trembling from the adrenaline, shattering half a city block’s worth of cars. I feel like a fucking tuning fork. Everything in me resonates, bones vibrating. I must sound so loud. A church bell ringing.
What does the nun in Vertigo say at the end of the movie?
I heard voices . . .
I walked straight here after golfing with Deak, then putt-putting through Richmond. I left half a city block of broken windows
in my wake, heading right for the Byrd Theater.
All those faces. On the street, in the theater. Devils drifting by me. Even now, I feel like their eyes are on me. Staring.
Melting.
I’m losing it. I can’t stop shaking. I need someone to take the trembling away.
I need Lilith. Where is she?
Find me . . .
Going to the movies seemed like the right spot. The Byrd Theater is a second-run movie palace that’s been a Richmond staple
ever since I was a kid. I remember my mom taking me here for the first time when I was little. I got to see The Never-Ending Story on the big screen, the two of us sitting together. Mom always loved to take me to the movies. The Byrd was always the best.
Two bucks for a flick. The popcorn was fresh. There was a history to this place. You could just feel it in the walls. Not
like the cineplexes at the shopping mall.
Here was majesty. They honored films here. It’s the heart of this city, beating with screenings. The theater itself was built
back in 1928 in the fashion of the vaudeville palaces. The very first film to fill its screen was called Waterfront, a silent film that had a soundtrack provided by the one-person orchestra in the pit—The Mighty Wurlitzer Organ.
I haven’t been back in a while. Feels like ages. The place still holds onto its bygone luster. The seats are uncomfortable
as hell, but for a couple bucks, you can catch movies on their way out. The midnight screenings are programmed for the college
crowd. You’ll get Rocky Horror, you’ll get Evil Dead. But tonight’s selection is something special . . . Vertigo.
I wonder if Lilith will get the message.