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Just then Colleen comes and leans over the couch. “Sit tight, Ben. We’re not going anywhere until I’m sure Luci is okay.”

Jax watches her walk away. “Man, she could totally dance at the club if she wanted to. What a bangin’ bod she’s got.”

“I’ll tell her you said so. She might want to put that on her college application.”

“Wow, I didn’t know Colleen was going to college.”

Somebody drifts by and hands Jax a joint. One hit and he passes it toward me, but I wave it away.

“You sure? It’s good shit.”

“I’m cool.”

He holds the smoke in but talks, anyway, in a high-pitched falsetto. “You’re the dude with the thing on YouTube.”

“Yeah,
High School Confidential.
Part of it, anyway.”

He digs in a pocket and comes up with what has to be Beyond BlackBerry Supremo. His fingers dance across the keypad, and all of a sudden, there’s Oliver.

Jax watches, barely chewing, washing everything down with beer, eyeing the brownies when he isn’t looking at the little screen in his hand. Behind us, Randy yells, “What? What? A week ago you said two days.”

“Bro,” Jax says, tapping his phone, “this guy is gay.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that shit is sick. Why put that sick shit on YouTube? Little kids watch YouTube.”

That pretty much propels me onto my feet. I find Colleen and say, “We’re out of here.”

“I know. You’re right. I just want to get Luci on her feet.”

“I’ll be outside.”

It’s chilly on what I guess is the balcony, except it runs the length of the building. An outside hall, maybe. Anyway, I wish I’d worn a jacket. There’s a deli across the street with a table and a big umbrella. Inside, all the lights are off except one. Under that, somebody is working on a computer. Working and not smoking dope.

I hear a door open. A woman holding a baby walks to the railing, talking on a cell phone. When she sees me, she turns her back.

Music leaks out of the apartment behind me. Hip-hop stuff. Thug life: get rich, go to jail, die.

A big black car stops right underneath me. I like the way the exhaust turns red when it curls past the taillights. I wish I had my camera.

Just then the door behind me opens and Colleen steps out. She shivers and leans into me. “What a fucking mistake this was,” she says.

“Is Luci okay?”

“I leave her alone for one minute, she does a line of coke, and now she wants to dance on the table.” She shudders and holds my arm with both hands. “What’s on at the Rialto?” she asks.

“Creature Features.”

“Let’s go, okay?”

Colleen drives slowly, one hand on the wheel, the other on me. Every block or so, she shakes her head and swears under her breath. “What was I thinking?” she finally says out loud.

And I know she’s not really looking for an answer.

We park across the street from the Rialto, next to the Blockbuster store, and wait till it’s safe to cross. When the light changes and we reach the other curb, she stops. “This is where we met,” she says.

“We met inside. We came out here afterward.”

“But this is where I threw up.”

“You threw up out the window of Grandma’s Cadillac.”

“It’s all so romantic. We should come here every year on our anniversary.”

We’ve missed Lon Chaney Jr. in
The Wolf Man,
but we’re in time for
Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Mrs. Stenzgarden has gone home. Reginald, the manager, sells us tickets at the door and chants, “‘Not since the beginning of time has the world beheld a terror like this.’” Then he points to the poster where the Gill-Man cradles the lovely Kay.

“She’s scared of him, right?” asks Colleen.

“Oh, yeah,” Reginald says. “The monsters never get the girl.”

“Poor fuckers.” She nudges me. “Give me a couple of bucks, Ben. Since I don’t get to smoke about a pound of hash, I’ll settle for a Pepsi.”

Reginald watches her walk away. “She’s actually your girlfriend?” he asks.

“We met here,” I tell him.

“No way.”

“We’re going to name our first man-child Rialto.”

“Lucky you.”

I watch him watch Colleen. “How’s business?” I ask.

“Terrible. Too many DVDs, too much Netflix and movies on demand.”

Colleen comes back, links her arm through mine. We’re semi-alone. Reginald has to sell another latecomer a ticket. A few lost souls wander the shabby lobby.

She whispers, “That could be me on that bed at Amber’s place.”

“No, it couldn’t. You’re smarter than that.”

“I’m not. I’m reckless and stupid.” She kisses me like I’m about to leave for Afghanistan. “I’m going to call over there one more time, okay?” She points. “I’ll just be, you know, in my office.”

She glides toward the steps leading up to the balcony and sits down. While she talks, I peek inside. Thirty people, maybe, in the whole place. Some of them read. Most just stare at the huge screen, pristine and perfect as a field of snow.

Any minute now, that screen will be full of life. A beautiful girl, a handsome ichthyologist, a loathsome missing link with webbed hands and feet who can still fall in love.

Impulsively, I pull out my phone and call my mother. Who picks up.

“Mom? It’s Ben. Your son, yes. I’m just . . . Colleen and I are at . . . She’s here, but she’s . . . Wait, she was just talking to somebody, but now . . . Sure.”

Colleen whispers, “Amber took Luci home.”

“Good.” I hold the phone against my chest while I say, “She’s my mother, but she wants you.”

“Well, yeah,” Colleen says. “Who’d want to talk to a resentful little crippled urchin boy?”

“Since you put it that way.” I hand her the phone, and she takes a second to lean in and put her tongue in my ear, so that every drop of blood charges through my body.

“Delia,” I hear her say, “what’s happening in Azusa? I know it. Working just sucks. My feet are killing me, too.”

I look at those dangerous shoes of hers, that little skirt holding on to her hips for dear life.

Just then the lights go off, on, off, on. Reginald still treats this place like it was a real theater. The lights are to warn his patrons that intermission is over.

I push back the heavy, dusty curtains and let a couple of people file by me. I look at Colleen, who stands up. I hear her say, “We’ll talk tomorrow for sure, Delia, okay? I have to go now. The movie’s about to start.”

THE END

RON KOERTGE
is the author of many celebrated novels, including
Deadville,
Strays, Margaux with an X, The Arizona Kid, Where the Kissing Never Stops, The Brimstone Journals,
and
Stoner & Spaz.
He says, “My wife works with the learning disabled and the physically disabled. One night she came home and told me about a young man with C.P. — and a terrific sense of humor. Coincidentally, that day I talked to a former student of mine who’d recently been in rehab for substance abuse. What would happen, I wondered, if those two knew each other? Two months later — the first draft of
Stoner & Spaz.
” Ron Koertge lives in California.