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Gambado put two fingers together and gave a long, shrieking whistle. Like a pet bird, Walter came right back down, slowing as he got closer to earth. A foot from the pavement, he swung up like birds do and landed with the gentlest touch and hitch on his sneakered feet.
"Pinsleepe sent you?"
The kids snickered.
"Shut up, you guys. No, she didn't send us, but sort of. You want to come with us now." It wasn't a question.
"All right."
"Good. It's not far. Come on."
There were nine of them on bikes – ten, including Walter. They rode slowly but kept spurting forward like young dogs on leashes. I walked along behind them, Gambado always right beside me.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see in a minute."
One of the others, a boy with a skinhead haircut and no shirt on, turned and said, "To the movies, man!"
That set the others off hooting and catcalling, but Gambado got mad and told them to shut up or he'd turn their faces into dog food. More yelling and insults, but none of them said any more to me.
Eleven-year-old boys on bicycles ranking each other out, right before di
"Are you supposed to tell me anything else?"
"No, just take you over to the place." He said no more, and we continued on our way.
I was so thrown off by what had been happening that it took me awhile to realize there was no traffic on the street. We were moving along Third, which is always busy and buzzing, but not then. No traffic, no cars, nothin'.
A moment after that realization struck me, one by one the kids began weaving their way out onto the empty street, where they began performing again. Only now the repertoire included bikes floating in the air, riders lifting off them to fly alone, like Walter had done, and other variations.
It was a child's dream, a child's drawing. You see them in crayon colors on the walls of any kindergarten class. Me on my bicycle, flying. Everyone's favorite scene in E. T.
I looked at Gambado. He gestured at his friends. "You don't like it? They're doing it for you. You're the guest of honor tonight."
"At what?"
The Ruth Theater was flanked by a take-out Mexican restaurant on one side and JUNE AND SID'S EXQUISITE CATERING on the other. In the window of the Mexican restaurant was a wilted, sun-bleached sombrero. For some mysterious reason, in June and Sid's window was a stuffed Pekingese dog. The kids noticed that and crowded around the window talking about it.
The theater interested me more. It was one of those small, pre-World War Two neighborhood theaters that were built when going to the movies was still a major event. Scalloped walls, brass on the doors, and miniature pillars made you feel like someone special on Saturday night, two tickets in hand and your girlfriend close by in her new high heels, walking across the red plush carpet. The place had seen better days, but it was in decent shape and, like so many smaller houses, was now reviving old films. On the billboard it advertised a 1954 film, New Faces.
"Go on in."
"This is it? We're really going to the movies?"
He nodded. His friends wheeled their bikes up to the door of the lobby and leaned them against whatever wall was nearest. None of them locked or did anything at all to protect the bicycles. Trusting souls.
"Are we seeing New Faces?"
"No, you know everyone there."
We walked through the glass doors together, past a copper stand where the ticket taker usually gave you back your stub. There was no ticket taker, but there were posters up on all the walls: posters of my films, posters of Phil Strayhorn's films.
Walking by Wonderful, Gambado pointed to the poster and said he liked that one best.
"What's your name?"
"Gambado's good. Call me that."
Two of the others stood at the doors, holding them open. When we passed, they both bent at the waist and beckoned us in with long sweeps of the arm.
The lights in the theater were already dim, so it was almost impossible to make out anything besides the fact there were others in the audience, seated in different places around the room.
"Where do you like to sit? How about in the middle?"
"Fine."
We walked past a woman sitting in an aisle seat. I looked at her as carefully as I could but she was unfamiliar.
"Here. Yeah, go in here, to the middle."
We sidled our way into the middle of a middle row. I was trying to count the number of heads in there and could make out maybe twenty.
There was music playing, the theme song to Midnight.
When we were seated, the music stopped immediately and the curtains parted in front of the movie screen.
The lights came up on a familiar setting: Phil Strayhorn and his dog sitting on the couch in his living room, looking at the camera.
Oddly, what was most disturbing about it, in the midst of all these other disturbances, was seeing Phil large like this. I'd watched him again and again on the video screen and grown accustomed to his face TV size, not a face that covered a wall, a hand as big as the chair I was sitting on.
"Hi, Weber. Here we are, and today you get the whole story." Hearing something off-camera, he turned to it. A moment later, Pinsleepe appeared and sat down beside him on the couch. They smiled at each other. She handed him a dog biscuit, which he gave to Flea. They both watched the Shar-Pei for a few seconds, then looked back at the camera. Phil smiled.
"I lost a bet because of you, Gregston. What do you think of that? Poor old Flea just ate his last dog biscuit." He scratched the dog's head. "Pinsleepe and I thought about making a big production of this, but then I remembered how much you hate Dimitri Tiomkin music and credits that go on forever, so we cut it right to the bone. If you want, after I'm finished telling you this, we have movies of everything and'll be happy to show you things as they actually happened. The last home movie, sort of.
"Okay." He took a deep breath and sat forward. "A long time ago, Venasque told me in his oblique way this would happen. The only thing I could do was prepare for it, so when it did come, I'd at least be ready. I did what I could, but as you know yourself, who can ever can be prepared for the miraculous?
"He told me to make the films and see what I'd find there. The only thing I found making Midnight was money and fame for the wrong reasons."
One of the kids in a row behind us whistled and screamed out "Bo-ring!" Strayhorn smiled and nodded.
"You're right. What do you think of those little shits who brought you here, Weber? Figure out who they are yet?"
Gambado gave the screen a big raspberry. "You were better as Bloodstone, man! Nobody's go
"Do me a favor, Weber. Reach over and touch him on the arm or someplace. Anywhere'll do."
I looked at Gambado. His face in the theater dark was close enough to see he was very frightened.
"Should I do what he says?"
The boy licked his lips and tried to smile. "You have to. We're out of it now. Do it, huh? Just do it, man!" The last sentence came out trying to sound tough, but it was a scared boy sounding tough which didn't work. "Do it!"
I put my hand out and touched his face.
Remember what you see in the theater when you turn around and look toward the projector while the film is ru
"It's never like you expected. Even angels! You'd think they'd have a little class. Not necessarily wings or harps, but at least well-behaved and i