Robert Coover - A Night at the Movies Or, You Must Remember This

He stood wearily, hitched his pants, wiped his parched mouth with the back of his broad hand. He was a big man with bullish shoulders, a tall man who stooped through doorways, peered down with severe blue eyes over lean cheekbones at the folks of Gentry's Junction. Henry Harmon. Hank. A tough honest man with clear speech and powerful hands, fast hands, fair hands and sure. There was no sun in his eyes, here in his office, but still he squinted as he stared toward the old screen door, toward Main Street of Gentry's Junction. Out there somewhere. If he was here yet. Hank knew what he had to do. A man makes his own life, okay, but once it's made, it's made.

(The wanted unwanted Mexican he stands himself at the bar. He laughs and laughs and he drinks. He is short to the extremity, nor is he lean. Squat. Squat she is the word, and dark with brown eyes like liquid. No severe. No honest. Hee hee hee! The Mexican laughs and laughs. Honest! He carries his pants and his belt of the gun low, under his marvelous world of the bouncing belly, and when he laughs he reveals teeth of the purest gold. There is much humor and much confusion in the old saloon. The Mexican he is very adored by all the world and when he tells stories with his teeth of gold and fat lips the saloon she explodes with great laughings. More than nothing, the Mexican he tells of two things: of calentitas and putitas. Calentitas — - how you say? little hot ones, no? — — and putitas comprehend all the womans he knows. And the Mexican, Don Pedo the Mexican bandit, he knows very much womans. Si, senores! He knows all the womans of the men in the saloon and many many more. The men in the saloon they are not ignorant of the knowledge of Don Pedo, yet it may be seen that they laugh in felicity with him. Perhaps it is that the men of the saloon they laugh with a bitterness that is not revealed — - ? Who can know? Certainly it is full of doubts, for Don Pedo is he not the very same master of revelations? One man, but, he is not laughing. He sits alone at a table and he drinks and he does not laugh infelicity when the Mexican laughs, when all they laugh. Well, it may be that the ears of this discontented man are no good. May be he is too old. The Mexican he goes to behind him and plants soft brown hands on the miserable shoulders. The old man does not respond, in absolute, but looks at some distance very far. "Ah, amigo mio, that you are so sad!" exclaims Pedo the Mexican with a big fat smile. It is told by an anonymous one present that the wife of the man she is expired in the night. "Hey, shuddup you!" greets the Mexican. "Who you telling? Pedo he sabe bien, no?" The laughter augments itself. "Don Pedo always savvies!" a thin voice cries. It is Seńor Gentry the rich banquero. Seńor Gentry he is white as an unplumed chicken and with red wet eyes. All the men in the bar they assent themselves with big laughs, for it is assumed, you know, that all the womans die beneath the Mexican later or sooner. It is the, how you say? the legend.)

Hank Harmon clumped across his sheriff's office to the hat rack. He took down his belt and holster, buckled it around his hips. Hand moved lightly: gun was in it. He spun the silver cylinder, peered into it. Three shells, three empties: three dead badmen. Fit three new silver bullets in, eased the hammer into place, slipped the gun back gently into its warm sweet-smelling hollow. He lifted his hat off the rack and, swinging it at his side, strode out tall and lean-legged onto the old weather-bleached wooden porch, batting the screen door open and then closed behind him with his hard-polished boots.

Cold blue eyes squinting against the midday sun, Hank surveyed his town of Gentry's Junction. Main Street was empty. Painted wooden buildings aglare in the sun's relentless blast, but the windows all shut and curtained. A dry unwonted silence. Haze of hot dust skimming off toward the shimmering horizon that encircled the town like the edge of a hot coin. A child's curious nose pressed against one window across the street. Nothing else. Empty street. Stillness. Yeah. Probably here, all right.

Where to first? Flem's general store looked empty. Door half-closed. Damn it, Harmon liked to see activity. He liked to see men at work, or riding sweaty into town with their pay, or lounging between chores on Flem's front porch. He liked to see women in the streets, buying things, or showing off a hat, or walking their small kids. He liked to see kids playing, getting up ballgames, chasing around with toy guns, or singing together in church. Harmon knew he was not himself a profoundly religious man, but he went to church. Things didn't seem complete unless he did. He liked that, he liked order and completeness. At church, he sang the songs and dropped coins in the plate. He knew that the profoundly religious man kept faith in the middle of things and looked out on everything else from there. There was something troublesome about that notion for Hank, something womanish and spooky. Sheriff Hank Harmon was a man, to put it plain, who had both feet on the ground.

He looked over toward Gentry's bank. Locked up. Yeah, Hank was sure now, the Mex was here. The stage was due in soon with the Judge and the Marshal. But would it make it by 12:10? Or whenever? He could only hope. Their arrival would liven the place up some. As it was now, the emptiness and the silence were oppressive. Unnatural. They were hid. The whole goddamn town. Buncha babies. Hank spat out into the dust of the street. They all knew what he had to do, but they were leaving him to do it alone. That's how it always was.

The Sheriff shrugged, clamped his big hat down over his brow. He glanced at his watch. 11:35. Any time now. Yet Hank couldn't get 12:10 out of his mind. He had put it there for some goddamn reason, and now he couldn't get it out. Well, by God, he'd meet that Mexican at 12:10 even if the sonuvabitch had been here for a hundred years. Or if he didn't come for another hundred. 12:10. Harmon made his own life. He stamped down off the porch, his spurs ringing clearly in the weighted noonday hush.

(And where is the Mexican that infamous one? He is in the office of the Sheriff. He is crumbling cowchips into the humidor. On the desk of Sheriff Henry there is a photograph of his — - cómo? sí! his calentita! the guapísima calentita of the Sheriff who names herself Belle. The Mexican with a fat stump of a pencil he traces upon the photograph his own esplendid self, Don Pedo the Mexican bandit, in a posture not to be misunderstood. Festive carcajadas intrude themselves from outside the screen door where are coming together many very laughing persons of Gentry's Junction. The Mexican now he empties all the cubicles and drawers of the desk into a grand mountain in the center of the office, and to this mountain he puts a match. While the papers burn themselves, he with consummate art escribes filthy words on all the walls. He will not permit of course that the papers they burn themselves completely, oh no! He makes water on them when they are but half consumed. Hee hee hee! Now the Sheriff will always ask himself what was on the other half of each fragrant piece! The little round brown Mexican bandit he is wobbling all over with delicious laughing. He makes pipi and laughs and wobbles and his golden teeth they shine gloriously in the obscure office of the Sheriff of Gentry's Junction.)

"Awright, men, now I want you t' listen t' me!" His voice rang out clear and resonant. They stared back, blankly, irresolutely. They were scared of him, Hank knew that. He stood tall and lean as a pillar, just inside the swinging doors of the old town saloon, his wide-shouldered frame silhouetted against the glare of the outdoors. They were scared of him, but they also didn't like him. They didn't want him in here. Hank wasn't surprised, and in a way he enjoyed it. In the end, he knew he'd have to go it alone anyway. But first he had to give them their chance. They had to know afterwards where they'd failed, feel guilt for it. If they couldn't be heroes, they anyway had to learn to be men. He settled his right hand down easily on the butt of his gun. "I'm meetin' the Mex at 12:10, men. I need your help." He gazed narrow-eyed around the room at their dull flat faces. Some turned away. Or stared past him. "If we go as a group, we can take him. He'll get a trial, fair and square. Gentry's Junction will be free of him." He paused. "Otherwise, it's likely to get pretty rough. Lotta people apt to get hurt. Hurt bad."