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

Her hands are trembling as she tries to figure out where to put the key in (she can just hear her girlfriend saying, "Honey, put it anywhere it feels good!"), and she realizes, as though it's just dawning on her, that she hasn't got the dimmest notion how to fly one of these clunkers. She doesn't even know how to drive a car, and on bicycles she's the town joke. Even walking is not easy for her. Still, those head-hunting goons are already clambering up on the wing with blood in their eyes, so what choice has she got? When she finally does locate the slot, everything happens violently at once: she's suddenly gunning madly down the field at full throttle, bouncing and careening, shedding startled assassins, probably there's a clutch or something she should have used, but too late now, all that's ancient history, right now she's got only one problem and that's how to get this gazunkas up in the air before she hits something — like those camel barns, for example, coming straight at her. She seems to have got spun around, and all those guys in the pajamas who were chasing her have stopped in their tracks, gaped a moment in wild-eyed shock, and are now racing each other for the barns once more.

She pulls, punches, twists, kicks, flicks, slaps, and screams at every doobob on the panel in front of her, but nothing works, so she finally just closes her eyes, hugs the steering gidget between her legs (maybe she's thinking about one of the old chewed-up dolls she still sleeps with on lonely nights, which is to say, most all the time, or else maybe that scrawny ginger cat she used to have, may he rest in peace), and shrinks back from the impending blow. Which doesn't come. She opens her eyes to find the old clatter-trap miraculously rattling straight up into the moonlit sky, the palace and then the oasis itself disappearing into the darkness behind her. Startled, she pushes the control stick away and — woops! — she's diving straight back to where she came from! All right, she's not completely stupid, a little pushing and pulling on that gizmo, and pretty soon the rollercoaster flattens out to something more like a horse race with hurdles.

Not bad for a jellybean, as her friend would say; in fact she'd be pretty proud of flying this contraption, first time like this, and by the seat of her pants as it were, if, one, that seat weren't so wet (listen, it was pretty scary back there for a while — who knows if all those terrorized movie heroines do any better, they don't show you everything), and, two, there were some way of parking it and getting out without having to go all the way back down to the ground again. She pokes around for instructions, or even a bag of peanuts to calm her nerves, and comes on a sort of clockface on the panel in front of her with the minute hand pointing to EMPTY. Oh boy, that's all she needed. Even now, the motor's making a funny choking noise like it's got something stuck in its windpipe, and what the little lights way down below seem to be telling her is "Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight."

She fumbles in her seat, under it, behind it, finds a pack of cards, a cigar butt, a jar of hair oil, a thumbworn Western, an empty gin bottle (just not her night: even the smell is gone), a plastic ring with a secret code inside, a used bar of soap coated with dustballs, and finally what she's looking for, a parachute. The old crate is wheezing and snorting like a sick mule by now and has already started to take a noser, so she harnesses herself in the chute, flicks the cockpit open, and launches herself out into the starry night, amazed at her own aplomb at such an altitude since even sitting up in the balcony at the movies makes her dizzy.

She's not sure where she's going to land or who's going to be waiting for her or what kind of impression she's going to make, dropping in on them in a cloth cap, moist undies, and a few streamers of bleached-out blouse, but she's hoping the element of surprise will give her the lead time she needs to vanish before they figure out what they've seen. She does wish she had her lost lashes back, though, or at least a tube of lipstick and maybe some deodorant, not to mention the common comb. As though triggered by that thought, the cap flies off and she glances up through her streaming tangle of hair to watch it vanish into the night sky, thinking as she gazes up into the starry dome: wait a minute, something's wrong — where's the parachute?! Don't these things open by themselves?

Then she remembers something from all those old war movies about a ring. It's like a window shade or a wedding, you have to put your finger in a ring, then pull. She scrabbles around for it but she can't find it. She can't find anything with this dumb thing strapped on her back, she's getting a crick in her neck from trying, so she peels it off and searches it. Nothing. It's like a pillow. Should she just hold it under her and hope for the best? She's dropping so fast! Then she discovers a placket and buttons like' a man's fly. She fumbles with the buttons, regretting tearfully, not for the first time in her life, her lack of practice. What she finds inside is a kind of nozzle with a nipple on the end. What? Is she supposed to blow this thing up? This is crazy! She jerks irritably on the nipple, there's a windy hissing sound, and — pop! — she finds herself suddenly afloat under a gigantic gas balloon.

Wow! Here she comes, hanging on desperately by one hand and whooshing down over lit-up Main Street, causing cars to screech and crash, dogs to yap hysterically, pedestrians to stumble all over one another in gap-mouthed amazement. She's still too shaken to revel in all this attention, her heart's hammering away in her chest like the drum of a restless native and her nose is either running or bleeding, all she really wants right now is to go sit down somewhere for a few years, even her appetite seems to have failed her. And it's not over yet! She doesn't know how long she can hang on to the nozzle, and the balloon, sweeping down the street toward the movie theater now, seems if anything to be rising again.

Just when all seems lost, her hand sweaty and slipping its grip, the balloon itself caught in a sudden updraft of hot air from the movie lobby which might take her off who knows where, she spies the awning out over the hardware store next door and lets go, dropping onto the awning as though onto a haystack and sliding down it into a pile of rubbish on the curb — not the prettiest of all landings maybe, and a canvas burn or two to remember it by, but she's an all-in-one piece, as her girlfriend would say, she still has her ticket stub, and in the theater the intermission buzzer is just this moment sounding its final warning and everyone is rushing back to his seat.

Luckily the usher is looking the other way as she goes streaking past, the doors swinging closed behind her, the auditorium already dark, some children's cartoon starting up on the screen: loud screeching and banging noises, tinkling music, one animal stomping another one, the usual thing, and distracting enough, she's pretty sure, that no one notices how she's dressed, or rather, not. Her friend has crawled into the row behind and is curled up with the cowboy, her hand in his lap, and just as well because she's too poohed out to put up with any wisecracks just now about all-night suckers or pimple specials or what has she been doing in the ladies' so long, was it fun, can we all do it, who'll bring the buns? Her friend sometimes can be a pain, especially when she's trying to ring some guy's bell.

She scrunches down in her seat, feeling a strange chill and wishing she'd brought along a sweater or something, not to mention some spare bluejeans and an extra pair of shoes. Her teeth start to chatter and her flesh goes all shivery, but it can't be that cold in here, probably it's just nerves (she's never sat this close to one of these seats before, so to speak), so she tries to focus on the cartoon to calm herself down. But there's something odd. One of the animals has been twisted into a kind of coiled spring and is boing-boinging around in a way that usually has people hooting and yipping and rolling around in the aisles — but no one's laughing. No one's making any kind of sound whatsoever. She twists around uneasily and peeks over the back of her seat: the auditorium, lit only by the light from the projector, is full of people, all right, but they're all sitting stiffly in their seats with weird flattened-out faces, their dilated eyes locked onto the screen like they're hypnotized or dead or something. Uh oh. She reaches back and taps her friend to ask her what she thinks is going on, and her friend, jostled, slides lifelessly off the guy's lap onto the floor between the seats. There's a soft bump, clearly audible under the tinny whistle and crash up on the screen, the burlesque rattle up there as of things tumbling down a thousand stairs. The guy's not looking too great either, just sprawled out there with his cowboy hat down over his nose, his slobbery mouth hanging open, his belt buckle undone, his hand cupped rigidly around a skinny behind that isn't there anymore. She's about to let out a yell, when she feels this icy clawlike grip on her shoulder, and she can't even squeak. The claw twists her around in her seat until she's facing the screen again and holds her there, peering up in the creepy silence at all that hollow tomfoolery and wondering how she's going to get out of this one. If how is the word. It's like some kind of spell, and there's probably a way to break it, but right now she can't think of it, she almost can't think at all: it's like that hoodoo behind her has stuck one of those bony fingers deep in her ear and pushed the "OFF" button. So what can she do, she stares up at the screen and pretends to watch the mayhem (one of the animals, having been pressed into an ice-cube tray, is now being emptied out in cubes: there are exaggerated pops and clunks as various bodily parts tumble from the tray), wishing only that she'd at least picked up that soft drink on the way in, or better yet, a tub of popcorn and a half-dozen chilidogs, it might be a long night. Like her friend would say, if she were still alive: "Sometimes, sweetie, you just have to hunker down, spread your cheeks, and let nature take its curse." Anyway, as far as she can tell, the claw only wants her to watch the movie, and, hey, she's been watching movies all her life, so why stop now, right? Besides, isn't there always a happy ending? Has to be. It comes with the price of the ticket