Joe Lansdale - The Complete Drive-In

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.

“Taken over again,” Crier said. “But there isn’t any food left. Those Banditos had already cleaned it out. Did I tell you I found a third of a bag of popcorn under a car a few movies back? Over at North Screen too. Just lying there, and hadn’t nobody seen it. Kind of in the shadow of a tire, part of the way under the car. I ate that sapsucker on the spot… Man, you boys got it made in this section.”

“Right now,” Bob said.

“Why don’t you stay over here then?” I asked.

“Got to keep moving. It’s my way. Besides, I don’t know that your neighbors would want me moving in. I’ve been coming and going as I please so long, they let me do that, but I don’t know about moving in.”

“A word from us wouldn’t do you no good,” Bob said. “We’re sort of low man on the totem pole here.”

“Don’t need a word. No matter what happens, got to keep moving. I used to drive a beer truck, you know. Always on the road… Got divorced twice because I couldn’t stay still. Had to stay on the go. Get home and I wanted to drive around. One reason I liked drive-ins. You came and sat in a car, and when you watched the movie it was like you were driving through a new world or something. All you had to do was put your hands on the steering wheel and imagine… Sure you boys haven’t got a thing to eat?”

“Nothing,” Bob said.

“Then I’ll hobble on. Take care. Hope the next time I see you ain’t neither one of us so bad we want to eat one another.”

“Same here,” Bob said.

Crier climbed the hoe handle and started off again, moving down the row of speakers, heading for the pathway between East Screen and North.

“We should have fed him,” I said. “He looks bad.”

“Everyone here looks bad, Jack. It ain’t practical to go feeding folks. Even Crier. He gets good and hungry, he might conk our noggins and take what we got. He’s all right, but he ain’t nothing more than a human being.”

“Which as a group you don’t nave a lot of respect for, do you?”

“It’s damn near got so I don’t have a drop,” Bob said.

I thought about the Christians, their meetings, their faith. It gave me moral strength. Their attitude assured me that there was more to humanity than a good meal, a cold beer and a roll in the hay. There was something strong and noble there too, something that, like a seed, needed fertilizing, and I told all that to Bob, and he said he thought beer, a good meal and a roll in the hay were just fine, and as for the seed that needed fertilizing, he had a strong suggestion for the type of fertilizer that would best be suited for such a seed.

You just couldn’t talk to Bob. He was too narrow-minded.

And so we got worn down and went to sleep, the speaker rattling movie dialogue and sound tracks through the camper as we drifted into nocturnal lands of cold shadow and dark dreams. And it was then that the Popcorn King came to us over the speaker, oozed into our brains and outlined his plans for us, told us how we fit into the scheme of things. And I will admit, they sounded inviting, these plans. He would be there to watch over us, feed us, give us a point on which to fix our wretched lives. And finally there was that voice, that lovely voice that was kind of Randy’s and kind of not; that other voice that was kind of Willard’s and kind of not, the one that hummed softly, shucked and jived, put a word in edgewise in just the right place. Those voices, those honey-poison, hot and cold voices of the Popcorn King.