B-Movie Reels

by Alan Spencer

  “It’s better than unemployment, Andy-boy.”

  The living room was barren of items except for the black and white tiles and the cherry oak cuckoo clock posted under the staircase. The walls were bare of decoration or paintings or any signs someone had lived here before.

  Ned directed him through the empty dining room, and they entered the kitchen where all of the cabinet shelves and drawers were wide open and empty.

  “I’ve been cleaning the place up for you.” Ned bent down and reached underneath the sink for the hidden bottle of scotch. He retrieved two highball glasses from a box in the corner and poured them each a drink. “Each of your relatives turned the place down. It’s not a bad piece of property if you fix it up. It’s the stigma over the place that’s made it absolutely unmarketable. Like trying to sell Jeffery Dahmer’s old place or Ed Gein’s house. I wonder how towns fare against such prolific serial killers.”

  Andy perked up. “It’s an interesting question. Very interesting, actually. I guess Anderson Mills is living it. How do you feel about it?”

  Ned turned his heavy eyes up to him. “Like absolute shit.”

  Andy decided not to comment and kept observing the place. He took in the smell of bleach and old wood. The white wallpaper peeled in “V” sections and uncovered the panels beneath. The ceilings were cracked in random forks and certain spots were stained the color of urine.

  “How old is this place?”

  “Over a hundred years old.” Ned swigged down the contents of the glass and poured himself another drink. “The man who lived here before us died in this place. His name was Edgar Hutchinson. He apparently hung himself from the fan in the upstairs bedroom. James bought it cheap. Dead men’s houses come that way, it’s a real estate secret. When you’re far enough from the city, anyone who dies in town kicks up a big ruckus, especially when it involves murder or suicide. I guess this house has a bad history altogether.”

  “So you want me to take this place over, huh?” He pondered the idea of owning a house straight out of college. “You told me the utilities are paid up for a month, and there’s no mortgage. Sounds like a good deal, but the repairs are overwhelming. I can’t imagine how old the plumbing is, and is there a wood-burning furnace in the basement?”

  Ned filled up Andy’s glass higher even though he hadn’t taken a drink yet. “Yes, that’s all true, and I’ll help you with those problems later on, but I can’t stay here. Everything about it reminds me of James. I helped him survive and regain his confidence when he was unemployed for five years, but I only visited on the weekends since my job and my house were closer to Wichita. James was by himself during the week practicing his tricks and God knows what else in this place. He didn’t put much care into the house. None at all, actually.”

  Andy leaned against the sink counter, peering out of the kitchen window to the lavish garden. A white gazebo was built in the center of tall rows of squash, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, watermelon, and along the perimeter of the garden, daisies and gardenias. A pond decorated with lily pads glimmered behind the garden, modest in size but still impressive.

  “Wow, I didn’t see the backyard. It’s beautiful.”

  “I was going to save that for last, Andy-boy. It’s not all that bad. I really want you to take over the place. The house needs young blood to keep it going.”

  He couldn’t avoid the incoming guilt-trip. His uncle was reaching out to him. He could unload a burden from a man who’d seen his brother accused of murder and die. The house was wearing him down. Given the grim fatigue that aged Ned beyond his years, Andy’s choice was obvious—at least for the meantime. He didn’t have plans beyond finding a place to crash and watching his reels. “I don’t know what my job situation will be months from now. I can’t make any promises.”

  Ned smiled. “Then live in it for two weeks. Sleep on it, okay? I’ll be in Hayden City, while you relax here. You being here will at least give me a chance to get away. Can you do that for me?”

  He hugged his uncle, happy to give the man a reprieve from his stress. “Sure, I’ll house sit. And maybe I’ll take it. I’m not sure yet.”

  He viewed the garden again, this time catching three white-tailed rabbits hopping out of a cabbage patch. Andy considered the history of the place. It was calling out to him to film a documentary. He could easily market a haunted house film. He could interview the people in town and answer Ned’s question about how hardcore murderers affected small towns.

  Andy worked around the subject, but now that they’d been talking for awhile, he couldn’t resist returning to it. “Do you think James really murdered those people?”

  “The police didn’t care what I thought.” He sipped his scotch. “You ask me, James wasn’t a killer. You said it yourself, Andy, over fifty people were murdered. I was there. It’s impossible. But James was successful for twelve years. He traveled to Vegas, Chicago, New York, Atlantic City and overseas. He replicated Houdini’s drowning tank escape bit and the straight jacket escape—he even walked straight through a wall once. James made hundreds of thousands doing his work. He appeared on television and radio. James was a regular celebrity. He wasn’t a psycho. Hell, even kids thought he was a hero. I remember they had an action figure based on him for a short time. He had such a good time doing all of it.

  “It was that show about ten years ago that forced him into early retirement. He was performing at a club in New Jersey, a bar with musicians and comedy acts—The Zebra Club, I think it was called. He was doing his bit with a tall standing box where he’d make someone step into it and then disappear. James chose a ten year old girl. When he put her in there and showed the audience she was gone, that’s where everything went wrong. The girl didn’t reappear. James couldn’t bring the girl back. No one knew what had happened to her. Even today, I haven’t heard anything about Rachael Welsh ever turning up. He was sued, but he settled out of court.

  “The police couldn’t prove foul play, so he wasn’t tried in court. There was no evidence of why or how that girl went missing. Rachael just vanished into thin air. James quit the business and shut himself up in this house. And then eight months ago, he decides to perform again. He cursed the business, and then suddenly he was motivated again. It was strange.”

  Andy ingested the story. “I guess I’ll unpack my stuff and try this house on for size. It’ll be interesting. Like a camping trip.”

  “The place is all yours.” Ned hammered back the rest of the drink. “I’m glad you’re giving it a shot.”

  Ned dug into his back jeans pocket and handed Andy a thick envelope. “This was the last money in James’s account. I was the beneficiary, so I wanted to give it to you. Call it a graduation present. Iowa State’s a prestigious college, not bad. You’re doing the Ryerson name proud. We need all the help we can get these days.”

  “No, I can’t take this. You stayed with James and helped him out, you deserve it. You’re the beneficiary, not me.”

  “You’re doing me a bigger favor than you think,” Ned insisted. “Now take it, boy. I won’t hear no for an answer.”

  Andy accepted the money, though grudgingly.

  “I have to rush off, Andy. I’m sorry there’s not much time to catch up. I appreciate you coming out at a phone call’s notice. You’re a good boy. I’ll see you in two weeks, and then you’ll tell me your verdict on the place.”

  His uncle gathered up his set of keys and removed two silver ones from the ring. “This one’s to the front door and this one belongs to the shed out back. The lawn could use a good mow, I suppose. It’s up to you, Andy-boy. I’ll be seeing ya. Thanks again for everything. I’ll call you later this week and check in.”

  Andy followed him out the door, having to move fast, his uncle hurrying to the navy blue truck and starting it up in a flash. He waved goodbye, but as Ned drove up the gravel drive with a rise of dust obscuring the way, he didn’t wave back.

  2

  Andy unpacked boxes of clothes, a black leather arm
chair and a Dell laptop computer from the trunk of his car. He set up most of his belongings in the living room. During the work of unpacking, he couldn’t shrug the strange feeling he got when Ned drove off so quickly. Andy had been in town for two hours, and he was already alone.

  Shrugging off the loneliness, he retrieved a metal carry-case for the film projector and film screen along with the metal box containing the countless reels of film. He then placed the bin inside the living room. Catching his breath, he noticed the room opposite him, the door half open. Inside, bare shelves and spider webs lined the walls. A leather armchair on wheels faced him behind a desk. The window behind the desk filtered the afternoon sun. The panes were grimed over and in desperate need of cleaning.

  “This strange room is where the real magic happened,” Andy announced in a cheesy dramatic voice. “James Ryerson removed rabbits from hats. He went through dozens of hats and bunnies to perfect the illusion. It’s a costly affair, ladies and gentlemen, but bunnies and hats are a small price to pay for perfection.”

  He scavenged the desk drawers for interesting relics. Five of the six were empty, but the bottom one contained a pine box. Four individually wrapped cigars were inside. He smelled one, the tobacco stale. He un-wrapped it and lit it with a Bic. “James Ryerson endorses…” he checked the sticker label, “…Havana cigars. After a long day of defying illusion, a good cigar takes the edge off.”

  After two puffs, the tip’s cherry brightened and smoldered too fast, alarming him. Scared, he tossed it across the room, where it exploded with a bottle rocket’s crack!

  “What the fuck?”

  He slammed the drawer closed and walked past the strewn remains of the cigar. The smell of gunpowder stalked him as he made his exit. “That could’ve blown my face apart. They should put a warning label on those things. Damn trick cigars.”

  Andy caught a gleam from a darkened room nearby. He crossed the threshold and brushed his hand along the wall for a switch. The light flickered on from a plastic dome heaped with dead flies. The bathroom furnishings were of fine quality. The sink was gray marble. The vanity mirror was gold-lined with four lights across the top like the kind in an actress’s dressing room. The Jacuzzi was large enough to fit four people. He couldn’t wait to bathe in bubble jets and warm water.

  He turned on the water in the Jacuzzi, and it spat out cold. “Don’t tell me Uncle Ned doesn’t have hot water. Maybe that’s why he fled the place so Goddamn fast.”

  The water was ice cold, and it wasn’t changing for the two minutes he held his hand under the spout.

  “Abra Cadabra—hot water!”

  The pipe coughed out a thick jet of water. Schwap! It scalded him, and he yanked back his hand in pain.

  “Christ! What the hell was that about?”

  He hesitantly turned on the fixture again and doused his hand in cold water. He wasn’t sure why the water grew so hot without a moment’s warning.

  Quirks of an old house, he thought. As long as the walls don’t bleed, I’m good.

  There was a knock at the door. He rushed down the staircase and caught the figure waiting at the door. It was a young woman in her late twenties. She wore tattered blue jeans and a button-up flannel shirt. Her auburn hair was styled in pig tails. Her face was soft with an honest smile. She was well-endowed too, a D-cup and change.

  “Are you Andy Ryerson?” She offered him a wicker basket. It was heaped with blueberry muffins, a loaf of wheat bread and an apple pie wrapped in tin foil. “Ned told us about you. He said you were moving in today.”

  “He said I was moving in today,” he repeated. “How long ago did he say that?”

  “It’s been weeks he’s talked about it.” She extended her hand for him to shake, and he accepted it. “I’m Mary-Sue Jennings. I live a mile down the road. My dad owns the two-hundred acres down the way from you. We run a dairy farm. We helped Ned move a lot of his stuff out of the house. Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood. Anderson Mills is a small town.” She winked. “But we’re close-knit if you let us be.”

  He was stuck on the fact Uncle Ned told her he was moving in weeks ago. How could he be so sure he’d accept the offer? He was angry despite Mary-Sue’s cheerful green eyes and brown freckled face.

  “Thank you for the basket, Mary-Sue. What else did my uncle tell you about me?”

  “Not much.” a man spoke from outside, studying the blackened circle in the yard. He wore faded overalls, brown leather boots and a straw hat. The skin of his face was sunburned and peeling. The rough growth of his beard lent him a hobo’s air. Pipe-cleaner strands of white hair jutted out from under the brim of his hat. “Ned said he detested the house. It broke up his marriage, he said. I’m sure you know about it. The cops kept interrogating them, and the reporters were worse, and poor Angie couldn’t take it anymore. Anyway, this house can’t be sold. Never seen a house go to shit so fast. This used to be worth close to two-hundred and thirty thousand. Now—”

  “Dad!” Mary-Sue scolded, talking over him. “You’re being rude.”

  Andy flagged both of their attentions. “The house isn’t mine as of yet. Ned said I could live in it for two weeks and try it on for size first.”

  “Nah.” The man spat out a stream of brown juice. The wad between his yellowed teeth was the shape of a thumb pressing against the inside of his cheek. “Ned claimed you were the new owner indefinitely.”

  “Well, I’m not. I haven’t signed papers or paid any bills. Who knows where I’ll be months from now?”

  “For now, you’re in Anderson Mills,” the man said. “I’m Jimmy Jennings, and you’ve met my daughter. My wife’s not here. Divorced my old ass and moved to Maryland with some tow-truck driver. Mary-Sue wasn’t even eight at the time.”

  Mary-Sue jabbed him in the gut with her elbow. “He doesn’t want to know that.” She apologized to Andy under her breath. “He’s not always like this.”

  Andy smiled at her. “Hey, thanks for the basket. You guys know this town very well. How do you get around? I’m sure you guys know what’s fun around here. I know I could use some.”

  Her eyes brightened at the opportunity. “I’ll show you around Anderson Mills, if you have time?”

  Jimmy spat, the circle of tobacco juice striking a cobble in the path with a pat sound. “You want dinner tonight? We don’t eat until eight o’clock. Any Ryerson is welcome in my home. I knew your poor Uncle James, and he got a bad rap. He’s a good man. None of the shit they say about him is true.”

  “Eight o’clock, huh?” Andy asked. “Sure, which way down the street do you live?”

  “Make a left out onto the road outside your house, and you’ll find our red farmhouse pretty easily,” she explained. “It’ll be nice to have a guest. You can see our farm from your back yard.”

  She winked at him again, and he felt himself blush. Was she flirting with him? Maybe she has a thing for college boys, he thought. I don’t mind. Sandy broke up with me two weeks ago.

  Sandy Brown was a film student like him, and they dated four years during their stint at Iowa State. When she received an offer to film a Sonic fast food commercial in Milwaukee, Sandy broke off their relationship. The break-up ruined his graduation day. His parents coerced him to walk the stage despite his gloomy mood. Then Ned called him up shortly afterward to come down and check out the house. It was actually a good idea. He could complete Professor Maxwell’s job and move on to the next gig, whenever and whatever that would be.

  “Thanks for the invite,” Andy said. “I’ll see you guys at eight sharp. Sorry, I don’t have any groceries or I’d bring something.”

  “Just yourself is fine,” Jimmy said, his eyes coasting up and down the closed shutters and the perimeter of the house. “I guess Mary-Sue will show you around after we eat. Town’s pretty simple. Small too.”

  They waved goodbye and drove off in their red Toyota truck, a model from the eighties, Andy guessed, the bed corroded with rust and stocked with hay bales.

  With the neighb
ors gone, Andy marched back into the house and decided it was time to work.

  3

  He plugged in the single-reel sixteen millimeter film projector and stood it up on a TV tray beside the lone reclining chair. The audio system was two speakers and a sub-woofer; nothing that could facilitate a movie theater, but instead a class room, or in his case, a living room. The Orion projector was on loan from Iowa State’s film tech laboratory. The rental fee was waved due to Professor Edwin Maxwell’s influence.

  Andy aimed the projector onto the white screen he’d already set up. He returned to the kitchen and retrieved the bottle of scotch that was a quarter empty. He cradled it under his arm and returned to the living room. From his backpack, he gathered a notebook and his good ink pen to jot commentary notes.

  About to settle down, he took a step backward and unwittingly caught the projector’s cord against his calves, yanking it and forcing the projector to slam onto the floor. Crashing down, the light coming out of the lens faded to black.

  “Fuck!”

  He picked it up and discovered it had broken in half. Components rattled inside, ruined and rendering the device a piece of junk. “Professor Maxwell will have a shit fit. Damn it.”

  Andy paced in front of the damage like it was a dead body needing to be buried. What could he do? This meant he’d have to call Professor Maxwell and admit what had happened.

  He took a slug from the bottle and enjoyed an alleviating breath. “Think this through, maybe you can fix it.”

  The cuckoo clock went off, the yellow bird’s piercing whistle caused him to yip in surprise. “Jesus!” The house loomed around him in that moment, gigantic for one person to occupy. It made him uncomfortable to breathe too loud. Was he afraid someone would hear him?

  The picture frames propped against the wall nearby attracted him. He bent to his haunches and studied them.