Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

Sometimes a line offers clear direction: I seek you in constant carnival, masked Crivano, along the waterline. More often not: Omphale’s husband has rendered his judgment! You sully your hands with occult burrowing, but the goldmaker’s shame still whispers from the reeds! Sometimes a passage seizes his attention for no reason he can name—

Aqua alta: Crivano’s feet

fuse with those of his watery double.

Look not upon your confederates,

the knaves hung from the columns!

Two-headed, in two worlds,

your facedown likeness

finds his silent image in the sea.

— and lures him in, propelling him to the final page, the final lines. 17 February 1953 , followed by two names: this town, this state. The map that guided him here.

Whenever Stanley and Claudio become bored with reading, bored with each other and themselves, they go to the movies. The first-run theaters in Santa Monica are the best place to see the lush and earnest melodramas that Claudio favors, but Stanley prefers the Fox on Lincoln: it’s nearby, half the price, and its B-grade westerns and horror movies are more suited to his taste.

But the Fox isn’t safe in the rain. Stanley and Claudio visit it a few days after their run-in with the Dogs, crossing Abbot Kinney and Electric, following Fourth to Vernon, seeking shelter under the crowns of eucalypts and rubber trees, still soaked to the skin by the time they spot the theater’s neon sign. Stanley shivers in his seat as the first reel begins, distracted as always by the projector’s machinegun stutter, the quick drip of images splashed on the screen.

It’s a monster movie: a volcano releases giant scorpions from their underground lair, and they attack Mexico City. Stanley picked this one because it has lots of Mexican actors in it that Claudio probably knows; also, he wants to see how the scorpions work. He doesn’t generally have much patience for sitting in theaters, but giant movie monsters like the Ymir in 20 Million Miles to Earth and the dinosaur in The Beast of Hollow Mountain fascinate him. The first time he saw one — it was Mighty Joe Young at the Lido on Fordham Road; Stanley was eight years old; his father had left him there while meeting a girlfriend around the block — he’d understood immediately how it was done, could sense the invisible hands reaching between the frames to imbue the figures with life, and he knew he’d discovered something important, a small secret that opened onto bigger secrets. The trick wasn’t in the fake monsters, or even in the riffling spool of film, but right there in his own head the whole time. The eye that tricked itself.

This movie begins with a corny fake-newsreel opening — stock footage of volcanoes — and then the two heroes take the stage: a wisecracking American geologist and his handsome Mexican sidekick. Stanley finds himself drawn in by their cool daring and easy banter, and for a while he’s caught up in the story, because after all aren’t he and Claudio just like these guys? Two explorers in a dangerous land, with only each other to fall back on? Stanley half-wishes the movie could go like this forever: the men taking turns at the Jeep’s wheel, passing gnarled jungles and smoldering ridges under the weird light of an ash-laden sky; the killer scorpions always sensed but never named, never visible, and the whole landscape vivid and mysterious in their uncast shadows.

Soon, of course, the leading lady shows up — followed by the inevitable little kid with a dog, acting cute and making trouble — and Stanley’s interest gutters. Things don’t get any better when the scorpions finally make the scene. They look pretty good at first, creepy and realistic, but the filmmakers don’t have much footage, so they keep repeating shots: one goofy closeup of a popeyed scorpion head drooling poison ooze gets reused so many times that Stanley loses count. The producers must have run out of money or something, because by the last reel they’re not even using models half the time, just a black scorpion silhouette laid over shots of Mexicans panicking in the streets.

Stanley’s barely even watching the movie — he’s trying to remember if the guy playing the American geologist is the same guy who played the geologist in The Day the World Ended , and wondering whether this is a coincidence, or if maybe the actor has some geological expertise in real life — when a lit cigarette stings him in the back of the neck. He slaps his skin and turns around, but no one’s behind him. As he scans the half-empty theater, shielding his swelling pupils from the bright screen, a second butt strikes his seatback and sends a spritz of orange sparks past his arm, and now he can see them: six Dogs, seated across the aisle a few rows back. Whitey’s hair glows in the projector’s pulse, but Stanley can’t make out any faces. Some have their dirty All-Stars propped on the seats in front of them, and they’re all smoking or lighting up, readying their next broadside.

Stanley swats Claudio’s knee and jerks a thumb, and the two of them walk to the front, cross below the screen, and exit the theater in the opposite corner. They wait in the lobby long enough to see whether the Dogs will follow them out of the movie; they do, but evidently aren’t carrying enough of a grudge to give chase in the rain. Stanley blinks drops from his eyes, looks over his shoulder as he waits for a break in traffic: the Dogs huddled under the marquee, vague and shapeless through the downpour, clouding the air before them with their spoiled breath.

From this day forward, Claudio says, I believe that we should see films only in Santa Monica.

He’s naked now, candlelit from below, standing tiptoe in the backroom of the shop on Horizon. Stanley has strung a length of twine between two wallmounts with a midshipman’s hitch; Claudio is draping his soaked clothes over it. Stanley leans in a corner, peevish and aroused, wrapped in his father’s Army blanket: his cock chafes against the rough fabric. Don’t let those jokers rattle your cage, he says. Today was just bad luck. Back in the neighborhood, that’s what we always did in bad weather — we saw bad movies. I should’ve figured those punks would be hanging around the Fox.

They will give us more trouble.

I don’t think so. We made ’em mad the other day, but we made ’em look pretty silly, too. If we steer clear, they’ll let us alone.

How will we do your con? How will we get money?

Money? Stanley laughs and shakes his head, like he’s talking to a child. Money’s the biggest con of all, chum. It’s only good for making more money. Anything you can pay for, you can steal.

Claudio gives him a skeptical look, wipes his damp palms across his hollow stomach.

What’s the matter? Stanley says. If you don’t believe me, just name something. Anything you want, I’ll be back here with it in less than an hour. I’ll get you two of ’em. Go on and try me.

You will be caught.

I ain’t gonna get caught. C’mon, what do you want? A watch? A fancy watch? I’ll get us a couple of fancy watches. A matching pair.

You should not even go outdoors in the daylight. You need your hair to be cut. You look like a criminal.

Like hell I do, Stanley says. I look like an honest American boy. He pats his matted curls with an involuntary hand.

You look like a monkey. A dirty American monkey.

Claudio grins slyly, steps forward. He tugs a handful of Stanley’s hair; the blanket slips. Stanley flails at Claudio’s arm, shoves him away, pulls him back in, wriggling.

It’s another two days before the rain blows through, by which time Stanley has grown stir-crazy, desperate to wander. He walks Claudio to the traffic circle through the cool morning air, sharing a stolen breakfast of Twinkies and oranges. The bus to Santa Monica pulls up as they arrive; Claudio shoves what’s left of his fruit into Stanley’s sticky fingers and runs ahead. He turns and smiles once he’s crossed Main, and Stanley smiles back. The fleeting dialogue of their faces across the busy street conveys many things, trust not foremost among them. Claudio vanishes behind the coach, reappears in shadow through its windows, settles into a seat. Stanley watches the kid’s sharp-nosed profile — eclipsed by the irregular beat of passengers in the aisle, cars on the street — until the bus rolls away.