The Complete Drive-In

3

We weren’t too worried about the Popcorn King noticing us. We were a good distance away, and hey, it wasn’t like there wasn’t something strange going on all the time anyway.

But the closer we got to the little fence that led out to the stretch of concrete where the Orbit symbol was, the more nervous I became. My courage began to falter, and I wanted to go back to the truck and get into the sardines and eat those, and just hope for the best.

Still, I kept running, and Sam was staying up with me. We saw the Christians here and there, standing around, watching, wondering, I suppose. None of them waved. Stuck up.

I looked toward the concession. It glowed beautifully against the blackness, like some exotic gem on black velvet. One of those little winds that kicked up out of nowhere from time to time started going and it carried the stink of the no-longerused toilets to me, and the smell was as hard and mean as a head-on collision.

In the window of the concession I could see the bodies hanging, like big fish in a market. Some of them were little more than skeletons.

We came to the wooden fence and Sam got up there and straddled it, and I pushed the dolly up where he could get hold of it and twist it over, lower it to the other side.

Sam followed after it and I took his place, straddling the fence. I looked out at the great tin fence surrounding the drive-in (except this area that led out to the Orbit symbol), and saw the cruel blackness beyond. I saw some of the screens and their movies and wondered how they had gone on so long without being destroyed. But then I knew. They were light. They were holy shrines to a mad god. I wondered how it would be if we managed to destroy the concession here in Lot A and the three movies went out. Once in darkness, would it all end, like bad dreams tumbling down the throat of sleep?

Nope. Lot B would be the center then, for however long that lasted. Lot B with its empty concession and its manned film room, carrying on with or without the King until there was mass murder and / or starvation and finally over there the lights went out as well.

I could see people moving around the drive-in, a number of them moving toward the concession. Probably time for the next meal of popcorn vomit. I figured some of the patrons could see me up there, but it most likely wouldn’t excite them much. Many had gone over the fences and out into the blackness, and in their eyes I’d just be one more quitter.

“You gonna lay an egg up there, or what?” Sam said.

I went on over and took hold of the dolly and started pushing it out on the spur toward the symbol. It was brighter out there because of the lightning, and the ozone was so thick it smelled like a wound being cauterized.

The spur narrowed as we went and the ebony pudding was close on either side of us, and I thought about how easy it would be to end it all. I mean it was right there taunting me, inviting me to freedom. But I kept pushing.

When finally we made the tall, tapering pole that held the symbol, I looked up at the tentacles (liked to think I could see suckers on one side of them, like on an octopus) and the lightning coming out of them, watched the bolts strike the symbol, spin off and engulf the concession. Looking up at that great light, those tentacles, made me feel small and weak and hated.

Sam tried to arc a spark on the torch, but wasn’t having much luck. He talked to it. “Come on, now, be good. Come on. Hot A’mighty, that’s the way.”

A spark jumped to the torch and he turned it up and the flame licked out and he put it to the pole, began to cut through. “Might as well get comfy,” he said. “This is going to take a while.”

I remembered it was not wise to look at a torch without goggles because a spark could jump to your eyes, and I didn’t want to watch Sam work without goggles. The way he was squinting at the flame made me ache. I turned and looked at the blackness, but that was too dreary and it had a siren’s call, so I turned and looked at the fence and the back and top of the concession. I could see the upper half of one of the screens beyond that and I tried to watch the movie, Night of the Living Dead, but it seemed too much like reality and I knew all the lines by heart. I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing, but there was just too much in my head for that. I wondered what Bob was doing and how he felt sitting there in the bus, waiting for our signal. I wondered if he really would jump. I figured he might have already turned the bus toward the concession, and he would be watching the symbol, waiting for our flare. God, I hoped the bus would start.

Then I didn’t think about that anymore. I thought of Randy and Willard and I felt pity, something I was afraid I might have lost, then there were tears in my eyes and they might have been for Randy and Willard.

“Getting there,” Sam said.

I thought, no, the tears are not for Randy and Willard, they are for all the good dreams I’ve dreamed, for all the good gods, who do not exist, for all the good in man that is only social conditioning to keep the bigger man from breaking his head. Yes, that was what I was weeping for: mankind. The fact that man is not kind at all. But then I knew that was malarkey and that I was weeping for myself, all my loneliness, disappointment, the awareness of my mortality, the realization that the universe was a dark, empty place and life was nothing more than a carnival ride and that when the bell sounded to end the ride and you got off, you stepped out into nothing. It was all over then, all there was was ended, flesh and soul might as well have never been.

Even the B-movie gods could not be proved except in my dreams. Maybe they were not gods at all but some sort of life-form that was far enough advanced that they served the purpose of god counterfeit deities. Alien filmmakers. Youthful aliens who have had an interesting accident with their chemistry set. Or nothing more than my need for there to be reason and design where there was none; I so desperately wanted there to be gods and magic, even if they were bad.

“Timber,” yelled Sam.

I turned and looked up and the pole was starting to go, dragging its lightning after it.

“The flare,” Sam said.

I pulled the flare gun, lifted it and fired at an angle, not knowing the height of our sky. The flare went bright red and pretty against the dark and the strands of blue lightning. I dropped the gun and started running for the fence, Sam behind me, wheezing. Before we made it there, the symbol came down, and it lost its lightning; it was like the lightning was bubble gum and it had been stretched too far and had popped free. The symbol came down on the concession with a crunch, and there was a momentary crackling and sizzling that hurt my ears and made my flesh feel warm, then debris flew and the lights of the projectors went out.

I got hold of the fence and pulled myself up, straddled it. There was still plenty of light from the lightning overhead, and I could see that Bob had gotten a late start, but was coming. The old bus whined like an unpleasant child, the lights shone like miniature suns. The bus hit the concession with a screech and a blast, and a rush of flame went through it, blew the windows out and wrapped around the roof, kicked the back door open. All manner of crap propelled out the open door and went sailing, including the bed Mable was strapped to. It skidded across the asphalt, twisted sideways and struck a Volkswagen, ricocheted back toward the burning bus, stopped spinning halfway there, sat smoldering like a cheap cigar. The blanket had been torn partially free, and Mable’s arm with the plumbing-pipe hand came out from under it and struck the ground, lay there like a stiff white spider unable to run. The recipe cards had also escaped from beneath the blanket and they were fluttering down. Some had been flame-kissed and were nothing now but blackened wisps.

I saw Bob. He had jumped. He was on his feet and limping toward me. He had the shotgun and he was still wearing his hat. I felt like cheering but before I could celebrate, the debris shifted, boards lifted and dropped as the Popcorn King stood up out of the rubble. He was charred from head to foot. That part of his head that was the popcorn cup had a lick of flame fluttering out of it like a feather in a fez. A board had gone through his top chest. Glass poked out of his flesh. He looked very unhappy, and he was looking directly at me.

He reached up with his top right hand and pulled the board out of his chest and tossed it aside. He started walking out of the debris, toward me.

“Get away from there,” Bob yelled. “Run.”

But I was frozen, watching the King. He was moving slowly, staggering. He no longer had the blue glow. He looked more like a bad acrobat act, a little guy on a big guy’s shoulders.

The King opened his mouth and coughed out smoke. He fell to his knees and the tattoos dripped off him like melting licorice and formed a dark pool on the ground. The King lay face down and quit moving.

I got down off the fence and went over there. I could hear Sam calling to me to help him over, asking what was happening. I could hear Bob telling me to run, but I didn’t pay either of them any mind.

I bent down to the King and whispered, “Randy?”

The head lifted slightly. The single eye looked at me. I couldn’t tell if there was recognition there or not. Maybe it was just confusion. A tooth fell out of his mouth and clinked on the asphalt, was followed by a little lake of vomit in which one of the cyclopean popcorns floated; the eye was dead and filmed over.

“Eat and be fed, brother,” the King’s upper mouth said.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Turning down a sick man,” the King said, and it was the lower mouth this time. “That’s a hell of a note.”

He laid his head down gently, his face in the vomit. His head was turned so I could still see the single eye. He opened his top left hand and there was a crumpled paper skull in it. “Second-rate materials. Second-rate effects,” Randy’s voice said. “I could have done better with household supplies.”

The one eye closed. The Popcorn King was dead.

But Mable wasn’t. About that time she screamed.