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

He waited. He was aware no one would move or speak if he didn't, and that they'd suffer until he broke it. He was aware, but he didn't care, or if he cared, it was to burn them a little with this pained silence. Hank knew for whom law and order in this town came natural. He'd start with them. One by one, all alone. In a group, they sometimes got confused about things. Like in here, for example. Others if he had to, if finally he really needed more help, he could cajole into a kind of temporary cooperation on some pretense or other. The rest, the goddamn cabbageheads of this town, had to have their arms bent. But it was easy to bend them, soft as they were, only providing the overarching structure looked solid and sure of itself. United. So that was his job now. "I'm comin' back here in fifteen minutes. I want alla you men t' be here waitin'. I want you t' have your shootin' irons strapped on and be ready t' go with me." He gazed hard at their weak faces. They looked down or away. The bartender quietly mopped the bar with a rag and avoided Hank's eyes. No one said a word. The Sheriff turned and pushed out through the old swinging doors.

(All the world are laughing, the bar she is in a roar-up. The Mexican from behind the sad old man he is twisting on the ears of him so until they are bleeding. "Eh, amigo! Why you no laugh, eh? We all happy here! You laugh!" But still the man sits himself there, pallid and miserable, as though he no hears nothing or even feels his ears not coming away now from his head. "Pedo say: YOU LAUGH!" The soft brown fingers of the Mexican bandit they insert in the sides of the mouth of the melancholic widower. The turning-down mouth is becoming into a wide and scaring grin. All the men in the saloon they laugh with big eyes to see it. Oh! Oh! Qué susto. It is so funny! The weeping man with the prodigious grin he is a most very funny man to see! Ah…! The flesh she is breaking. She is cracking down across the face from the white hair to the white throat and then away she is tearing from the skull with a peculiar very sucking sound. Only are remaining the big wet eyes in their mournful sockets. Very funny, yes, of course, but, eh… macabre. Yes, of truth one would say, I think, macabre. The round brown Mexican he is giggling as a young boy with the teared-away flesh bunching up like bar rags in his fat hands. He looks at one hand and he looks at the other hand. He laughs in himself and his grand balloon of a belly she shakes and shakes. Ay! How comic is she the grand balloon of a belly of the Mexican! Laughing and laughing! Hee hee hee! Now all the persons laugh! There is a sound of little firecrackers and the aroma of carnivals and rodeos. Hee hee hee hee! Who could but help not laugh with Don Pedo the Mexican, eh? Ah, happy indeed is the life in the town saloon!)

The big roan stood waiting in the sun. No shadows now in Gentry's Junction under the high hot sun. Sheriff Harmon unhitched his horse and swung smoothly up into the saddle. Nearly 11:45. Had to move. He struck sharp spurs to his big blotched chestnut and rode at a swift easy gallop out south and west toward the ample spread of old man Gentry, the town banker. There was no time to lose.

Lean in the saddle rode the tall Sheriff, the hooves of his sturdy roan popping up thick spurts of dry yellow dust. No wind to tease the raised dust. Idly it settled. Dry. A heavy still dry day, and Sheriff Henry Harmon was pounding through it, hoping to stir it alive.

At Gentry's ranch, Hank pulled up, dropped quickly out of the saddle, leaving his roan ground-reined. "He ain't here, Hank, he's up at the saloon," said the small weary woman who stood in the door.

"Just come from there, ma'am," said Hank coldly, and stepped on by the woman into the house. She tried to block him, but the Sheriff moved too fast for her. Thick carpets, best ones west of the Alleghenies, muffled his tread, but his silver spurs rang with alarm, sounding off the bright-polished furniture, gilt-edged mirrors, and hung portraits of the Gentry line. Hank threw open the bedroom door, revealing the chickenhearted banker cowering pale and damp-eyed behind it. "Awright, let's go, Gentry."

"Let the M-Mex be, Hank," he whimpered. "Don't do no g-good botherin' him — "

Harmon spat in disgust, rug or no. "I'm goin' after that Mex, Gentry. And you're goin' with me."

The banker didn't answer. Just quivered in a pale squat in that frilly bedroom there, licking his dry pinkish lips.

"Now, you listen t' me, Gentry! This town's in trouble. Real trouble. And hidin' behind women's skirts and pretendin' it ain't the case ain't gonna get us outa trouble!"

"I–I know, Hank, b-but — "

"Gentry, for God's sake, stand up!"

The banker scrambled, flushing, to his feet. Still wouldn't meet the Sheriff's eyes though. "Hank, believe me, I do want t' help, G-God knows — why, we worked together a l-long time now, and, but — Hank, it ain't the same, this ain't the same!" And now he was looking, he was looking up at Hank's cool gaze, his pink eyes were pleading — "Hank, I'm tellin' you, it just ain't no use!"

"Gentry, you're scared!"

"W-well, so what? So what if I am? If y-you're so all-fired fu-fulla guts, why don't you just go g-g-g-git him yourself?" The banker's eyes dropped away again, falling on an envelope stuffed full of money on the French dresser. He cast a sly quivering glance up at the Sheriff. It made Harmon sick to his stomach.

"Keep it, Gentry," he snapped. "If I have t' go after that Mex alone, goddamn it, I will. But when I'm done, there's apt t' be a few changes made in this town!" Gentry's watery eyes winced as he looked up at the Sheriff and his hand clutched at his collar as though he were cold. Harmon didn't like to make that kind of threat. Smacked of taking things into your own hands, and that wasn't the way of the law. But sometimes you had to do that. Sometimes the so-called men of this town were a bunch of stuttering goddamn crybabies. "Let's face it, Gentry, that Mex has got this town so's it's forgot what law and decency is. Everbody's layin' everbody else's women and daughters, kids and old folks is stealin' the town bare, why, it ain't safe t' cross the damned street no more. It's all fallin' apart, Gentry, and so long as I'm around here, by God, I don't mean t' let it! Am I speakin' plain enough?"

The banker nodded and dropped his eyes. He was chewing miserably on his lower lip. Pale skinny man with permanent bluish circles under his weak eyes. In crisis, as now, his nose ran and his lips pulled back, showing his incisors.

"Awright, now strop on that there gun! You be at Flem's store in fifteen minutes or you can go packin' — you and all your wife's half-breed brats!"

"Okay, Hank, okay. I–I'll be there," Gentry stammered. Bastard was nearly bawling. "D-don't rub it in. I'll be there."

Hank swung around and shoved out the door. Guys like Gentry always got him sore, broke his composure. Going out, he caught a glimpse of the missus, huddled in a corner, dressed in black, wearing a veil. What did she mean by it? Stupid woman, he couldn't stop to worry about it. Outside, the solid earth felt good beneath his stride. He mounted his roan on the run. "Come on, podnuh, we got work t' do!"

(Don Pedo the most contented Mexican he is in all the parts at once. He is burning the prairies and stealing the catties and derailing the foolish trains. Don Pedo finds great pleasure in the life. He is never never sad. Here he is in the schoolhouse demonstrating for the little childrens the exemplary marvels of his private member. Ay, the childrens! How they all love Pedo! One whiff of the coming of the bandit and Olé! Out of their seats they leap! Out with the books! Out with do this and do that! Don Pedo! Don Pedo! More! More! The schoolteacher — or, how you say? ah, yes, the schoolmarm — - the schoolmarm she participates herself too in an inprecise manner of to speak. She is gagged and bound to her desk. The Mexican he lifts the petticoats which the schoolmarm has brought in all vanity from the East, and the little childrens crowd eagerly around to discover that what she has been hiding in there. Arre! Arre! they cry out in childish excitation as the Mexican he with the grand punzón is destroying a I-don't-know-what that the schoolmarm has been keeping in that place for years and years: POP! There she goes! Olé! The children roll about in imitative postures to the monumental delight of their looking elders, who press around at the doors and windows, wishing only to be possible to be childrens again. The Mexican noisily he consumes the schoolmarm's bright red apple — chomp! chomp! chomp! — to the rhythm of the conclusion of his demonstration. Or perhaps the Mexican he is rather or also in the saloon playing cards. Yes, yes, see him there! There are five aces revealing themselves on the table. Three of the aces are spades. All three of the aces of spades they lie beneath the clever fingers of the smiling gold-toothed Mexican. Seńor Gentry, the rich banquero, who has lost his wife, his mother, and three of his female childrens in the disastrous wagering, he suggests with a timid smile that, ah, the Sheriff, he's been told, he has, eh, just overheard, the Sheriff is perhaps out to, p-p-pardon the expression, extuh-tuh-tuh-terminate our good friend, Seńor Don Pedo, heh heh. Don Pedo the grand Mexican bandit his laughter she is exploding. Hee hee hee! Kill Pedo? Hoo haw hee! The Mexican he laughs with abundance and emits thunderously that for which he is famoso. Hooo-eee! Mercy, Don Pedo! Mercy! All the world stagger out laughing into the street fanning their noses. Or it may be that the Mexican he is in the little church to instruct the young boys how to find happiness in their choir robes of silk and elsewhere. Hee hee, así es, nińos! Now, all togedder! In the loft, the plump preacher he is lamenting softly for their lost and losing souls. "Dear Father! Forgive them, for they know not how they do!" Ah, the childrens! How they all adore their Don Pedo! For Don Pedo he is indeed adorable! True, true! To the extremity!)