Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

But then they’re in the open again and the space is lit by two hanging plastic lanterns throwing bluish light and she’s standing staring and not believing the vision in front of her: In this brick-and-stone cave, this crater-like hollow, this dank earth floor chamber, covered with silt and dust and ash, but still recognizable, there’s a classic Quinsigamond Lunch-car Company diner, one of those little boxy restaurants that look like stationary train cars. It has no windows and parts of the barreled roof are missing and the walls are cracked, but it’s sitting there like some petrified museum piece. And it’s underneath the street.

She looks to Propp for an explanation and he looks pleased.

“I told you we were heading home,” he says.

“This,” she says, “is where you live?”

He points to the ceiling. “We’re directly below the lower level of Gompers Station. Where the tracks broke left, the handcarts would have been coming up into the station.”

She nods and stares at the diner and waits. He pushes his hands into his pockets like some barely shy date, self-impressed but trying hard not to show it.

“It’s called St. Benedict’s,” he says. “It sat for years down on the lower level of Gompers. Owned and operated by a family named Guttman. It was mainly frequented by the trainmen and the freight crews. The passengers, the travelers, they all ate upstairs at the Grand Pavilion.”

He walks up to the structure and brushes at the outer wall with his hand.

“It’s a small diner comparatively. Could only seat forty-nine bodies at full capacity.”

He turns and faces her. “In ’53, when the quake hit and the fault opened, the old wooden columns just buckled, snapped like twigs, the flooring beneath the diner gave way and the whole thing fell through and came to rest down here.”

“Which is?” she asks.

“Some kind of subcellar vault the rail company had built. For storage, I suppose. There are dozens of them under the station.”

She looks past him to St. Benedict’s. “It’s amazing the thing wasn’t completely destroyed.”

“A testimony to their construction. The damage you see, I don’t even think it happened during the quake. I’m fairly certain it was during the attempt at salvage.”

“They tried to pull it back up?”

He nods. “A logistical nightmare. How do you get a crane inside Gompers?”

She shrugs.

“You don’t,” he says.

“I can’t believe,” she says, “I didn’t know about this.”

“You didn’t know about me either.”

“But this must have made the papers and—”

“The Spy did a huge spread. Amazing photographs. But this was what, Sylvia, a good fifteen years before you were born.”

“Still, you know, over the years, a feature article or something.”

He shakes his head and mimes a laugh.

“The Guttmans took their insurance money and left town,” he says. “I’ve heard they thought the city was cursed. The P&Q Company cemented over the hole and then the rail line took another painful twenty years to rust over and turn into a freight service. Everything gets forgotten, Sylvia. Your first important lesson of the night. And that fact can be as wonderful as it is horrible. But I don’t mean to offend a history major—”

“Fine arts,” she corrects him and then freezes. “Jesus Christ, what else do you think you know about me?”

“There’ll be time for all that,” he says. “C’mon in. I’ll make some coffee.”

Inside is beautiful and somehow cleaner than she expected. There’s a marble counter running the length of the diner and a half dozen mini-booths attached to the front wall. Above the counter hangs a mesh hammock strung from wall to wall and beyond it, in what was the open kitchen space, are crates and cartons of what must be supplies piled on top of grills and steam tables and cutting boards. Propp steers her to the first booth and clears clutter from the table by sweeping it to the side with his arm. Then he moves behind the counter and squats down till he’s out of sight and in a second she hears the soft machine-purr of an engine.

His head pops back into view and he says, “Portable generator. Makes all the difference. There are still a lot of gas lines running down here that I could tap into, but why worry.”

He starts to work at what it takes her a second to recognize as an espresso machine. And not one of those home models but a traditional, ornate, industrial job.

“I don’t believe this,” she mutters. She brings the camera up and pans around the place once, then puts it down on the table and stares at Propp.

With his back to her he says, “They don’t let you live in the Zone without an espresso machine. It’s a law.”

“How did you—”

“It nearly killed me, getting it down here. But it’s been worth it. Good espresso is such a small pleasure in the end, right?”

“How does the generator run?”

“Gasoline,” he says. “I do a little siphoning about once a week.”

“Siphoning?”

“Dupin Boulevard’s the best. I try to stay as far away from Bangkok as possible. But these days—”

“Wait a second. You steal the gas? Out of people’s cars?”

He turns around holding two coffee cups in his hands and with a smile on his face. “I’m sorry, Sylvia, does that offend you?”

“Forget it,” she says.

“I’m just curious,” he pushes. “My stealing a couple gallons of gas bothers you. But Hugo Schick and his vile little circus down on Watson Street give you no problem.”

She stares at him and when it’s clear he’s not going to continue, she tries to keep her voice even and says, “Okay. So you know everything about me. And I know nothing about you. Are you enjoying this?”

He gives her a slow shake of his head that says no, turns back to the espresso machine and says quietly, “Stay away from Schick, Sylvia. You have no idea what he can do to you.”

His words come out more as a plea than a threat and she stares at his back, unsure of what to say. But then her eyes drift to the stainless steel shelves above his head and she sees a line of ragged books. She reads some spines— The Phantom of the Poles. Soleri’s Arcology. The Journals of C. R. Teed. On the next shelf, she spots what look like old-time silver film canisters stacked side by side and bearing their titles in black ink on what looks like white adhesive tape. And she wants to laugh as she reads them off.

“Get out of here,” she says and he turns with a surprised look, then follows the focus of her eyes.

“Yes, of course,” he says, sort of relieved, “the film fanatic.”

“This is ridiculous,” she says. “There’s no way …”

He folds his arms over his chest and widens his eyes, then reaches up without looking, pulls down a canister about the size of a fat pancake and frisbees it to her. She grabs for it and makes an awkward catch, runs her finger over the tape that reads Greed — von Stroheim (1924).

“I’ve got all twelve hours,” he says.

“Ten,” she says. “It ran ten hours.”

“Trust me,” he says. “It’s twelve.”

“This is impossible. It doesn’t exist.”

“You’re holding it in your hand, Sylvia. ’Course it’s been reduced to sixteen millimeter.”

She’s just shaking her head and he clearly loves this reaction, so he throws another canister and she catches it and reads The Other Side of the Wind — Wells (1984).

She looks up. “But he never finished it—”

“He finished it, Sylvia.”

“—and what prints there were are in some bank vault in Iran.”

“Not anymore,” he says.

Sylvia is stunned. She looks up to the shelf and reads Further Ecstasy — Machaty, (1934), The Godless Girl’s Daddy — de Mille (1930), Berlin Melody of l936—Reifenstahl, Norma Jean & the Camelot Kids — Hoover (Compilation), The Day the Clown Cried II–Lewis (1972), Last Love Scenes from the Bunker — Braun (April, 1945).