The Last Projector

by David James Keaton

  Jack remembers once when he had to explain to a classmate how crucial it can be to rationalize the necessity for a blatant continuity error in his student film. This explanation would come five years before his film was made, but no one in the class would get the joke.

  Fuck ‘em, he decides. Most continuity errors were as important as this voiceover narration, meaning no one should hear it or even want to.

  The sounds of the revelry behind him finally neutered, Jack pulls a single key from his pocket, unlocks the door, and steps inside.

  It’s still empty. Walls, webs, and brown carpet.

  Jack blinks slowly. The hollowness of this place has a calming effect on him. He tugs the living room light-bulb chain and opens a window to let in the night sounds of crickets and locusts. Then he carefully rolls the green bag off his shoulder and lays it on the floor like a body.

  Something metal rattles inside.

  He checks every room, flipping every light switch he can find. The hallway, the back bedroom finally yanking the last chain in the closet.

  A stone-washed jean jacket scares him, and he catches his breath, thinking how that’s a relatively simple name for such a mystery fabric. For years, Jack would be unable to duplicate the pattern, even with the sharpest driveway stones and entire afternoons of snow angels. But his confidence that such a beautiful ‘80s creation would never go out of style will always give him comfort.

  Then he sees them.

  From the floor to the ceiling are photographs of attractive, dark-skinned girls, every snapshot revealing a girl asleep in a hospital bed.

  Two-thirds of the pictures have black X’s through their faces. Shadows pulse over them with the swing of the light bulb.

  Jack steps into the closet all the way until the knot on the end of the chain taps him gently on the forehead. It’s soothing at first, like the drumming of thoughtful fingertips on a table. Ten minutes later, still staring at the photographs, the tap of the chain feels like a wrecking ball rebounding off his crumbling home.

  “Hospital garage. Next day. Jack and Rick are both taking turns foaming and scrubbing the chrome on their ambulance. Even though it was great to take advantage of the free vehicle for the movie, Damon is annoyed at Jack’s attempts to make the back of an ambulance erotic. Thinks it’s ‘distasteful.’ Tries to pawn off one of those pathetic Limey van versions you see around, the ambulances without the box in the back, but Jack talks him out of it…”

  “Who? Is this part of the movie?”

  “Jack was pretty sure he was just upset because the siren was fucked.”

  “What page are you on?”

  “Oh, sorry. Okay, Derek shuffles over and lowers his sunglasses to survey their work with a sneer, ‘Hey, I thought this was my job.’ ‘I don’t mind,’ Jack says. ‘Hear that? We don’t mind,’ Rick echoes. ‘Hey, did you guys hear what happened last night? With the cops watching that big guy in Room whatever it was?’ ‘Nope. But you don’t have to tell us either.’ And at this, Derek stops his story, glaring. ‘No, seriously, you don’t have to say anything at all,’ Rick smiles. ‘Like he said, we don’t mind!’ Then Rick will take a swig from a bottle as Derek squints and walks over to look at it closer. He’ll seem angry and be like, ‘What the fuck you drinking? That’s not from my lunch bag is it?’ But Jack and Rick don’t look up, Rick just shaking his head and sighing as if he’s had this conversation hundreds of times before. Then, ‘Hey, you know what that shit looks like?’ Derek giggles. Rick sighs again and holds it up in the light. He’s drinking a white Piña Colada-type soft-drink with a lizard on the bottle. ‘Why don’t ya tell us, chief?’ ‘You have to ask?’ Derek scoffs. ‘It looks like a goddamn jizz sample, man!’ Rick smiles at Jack and reaches behind his back to produce a sealed envelope with the name ‘Derek’ scrawled on it. Derek, he’s still laughing at his own joke and barely fucking notices, right? ‘How can you drink that shit?’ he sputters in mock horror. ‘What the fuck is wrong with-’ Then Derek stops when he sees the envelope. He snatches it away, opens it and frowns as he reads it out loud, even though the joke’s on him. It’s the way he reads everything, out loud, but real loud:

  “‘Derek will comment on my sperm-looking drink exactly seven seconds after he sees it, thus proving that he is an expert on this subject, as well as a connoisseur of the shit sandwich.’

  “Derek throws down the note in disgust, suddenly realizing those are my director’s notes! Then he goes, ‘What the fuck is he drinking, coconut milk and sea monkeys?’ Derek still wants to know. ‘Seriously. What else looks like that?’ Then Rick suddenly leans forward and reaches out to touch the green plant bulbs he noticed sticking out of Derek’s shirt pocket. Derek flinches and quickly walks off. ‘Hey, wait. What was that?’ Then he asks Jack. ‘You see that shit? Fucker’s been here so long he’s actually got weeds growing out of his pockets!’ ‘I didn’t see it,’ Jack says, Jack being me, remember. ‘You know what he is?’ Rick will say. ‘He’s like the Birdman of Alcatraz, the guy with the mouse in his pocket? In the movies, the guy with the mouse or bird or bat in his pocket is supposed to mean he’s the cellmate with the heart of gold, right? The problem is, you never hear about the prisoner with the dead mouse in his pocket.’ ‘Or the cactus!’ ‘See? Now that’s our boy...’ But Jack turns away, not really listening as he scrubs hard on a stain on the side of the ambulance. His hand slows, distracted by his own eyes in the rear-view mirror. Spooky, right? ‘Why do you keep picking on that sorry bastard?’ he’ll ask, blinking off the chill. ‘Huh?’ Then Rick takes a big drink! ‘Fuck him. Every day it’s the same jokes, the same shit. If I don’t fuck with him, who’s gonna make the effort?’ ‘I’m just saying,’ Jack says, ‘Who sits down to write a note like that? You’re telling me you didn’t deliberately grab that nasty egg-drop-soup-looking fluid from the vending machine to get a reaction? I mean, what came first, the chicken or the egg? His jokes or your bizarre choice of refreshments? It’s like the worst duel of all time up in this motherfucker.’ At this, Rick stares hard, then they both start laughing as Rick finishes off the rest of the bottle and taps the end of it against his nose. ‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘I’d watch your lunch. You’re gonna give him ideas.’ ‘That cocksucker? Impossible! Best idea he ever had he stole from me.’ And that’s it.”

  “What’s the point of that scene?” Glengarry asked him.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we just introduced the villain? Some red herrings.”

  “Some red snappers!”

  “And what else are we going to do with this bottle of semen?”

  “Good point.”

  “Most people just steal pencils from their jobs, boss.”

  “Another good point.”

  “Where’s the script, boss? How do you remember all this without looking at a script?”

  “I’m afraid to admit it, but now I’m hungry,” Larry said, ignoring that last question. “Dry that thing off and let’s get rolling.”

  Ambulance. Later that night. Jack and Rick are on their way to the scene of an accident. Jack is eating a burger as fast as he can and is relieved when traffic bunches up at a red light so he can work on it. Rick jiggles the siren to try to shake the cars out of his way, but gridlock is tight.

  “Goddamn it. I hate when people only scoot a couple feet over, like that’s enough to show they tried. Then they give you that stupid ‘sorry!’ look.”

  Jack puts the burger in his lap, looking around at the cars next to them, unwrapping a limp fruit roll-up from his shirt pocket.

  “These things never cut it,” he says, wadding it up and eating it in one bite. “They’d have to be the size of a parachute to satisfy.” He slinks lower.

  “What are you doing?” Rick asks him, elbow on the horn.

  “Waiting to go.”

  “Eat your goddamn burger. You have about two minutes. You’re not eating at the scene again.”

  “I can’t eat with people watching.”

  “Nobody gives a shit about your hamburg
er.”

  “It’ll look weird with the sirens on.”

  “What?” Rick laughs. “You’re not joking are you?” He looks around them. “You’re fine. No one has an angle to see you eating anyway.”

  “Yeah, but they could see my hands...” He holds up the hamburger quick, then tucks it away again. “…which means they’ll see a burger go up then come back down. With half of it missing.”

  “Who cares?!”

  “It’s just weird.”

  “They’ll think you’re feeding our Dalmatian.”

  “That’s firemen, asshole,” Jack says as he ducks in the back to finish eating. Traffic starts loosening up, and the next time Rick turns around, Jack is frozen like he’s been busted. He throws the rest of his hamburger out the window, and there’s a scream and a car horn honks. Jack spits a metal spring out the window after it.

  Suspicious, Rick turns on the light in the box to see Jack holding the defibrillator paddles up to the sides of his head.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” Rick asks, alarmed. “What were you eating?”

  “Nothing. Just locking this crap down so it doesn’t slide on your turns.”

  “Well, I would keep those away from your head. Unless you want to lose your multiplication tables. Don’t you read warning labels?”

  Jack flips over a paddle and sees a childlike drawing of a stick figure holding what looks like huge cymbals to his ears and jagged lines of electric Z’s coming off his head.

  “Jesus Christ. Look at that drawing. You made that, didn’t you?”

  “Nope. Came with the equipment,” Rick says. “It’s for stupid fuckers like you who can’t read.”

  “What the hell. You know, I saw that a while back and just thought it was a warning not to wear headphones while you drive.”

  “Funny. You about done back there?”

  Jack ignores the question. He likes it in the back.

  “Or maybe it’s like those cartoons of babies going through windshields.”

  “What are you talking about now?” His elbow is back on the horn.

  “Those cartoon things. You’ve never seen ‘em? They show a baby crashing through a windshield. They’re on the sun visors in most cars now. Like airbag warnings.”

  “No idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Do you not drive?” Jack finally climbs into the passenger’s seat. “C’mon, you’ve seen them.”

  “I’ve seen a warning to correctly put the baby in the baby seat. Is that what you’re talking about? Or a warning to turn the baby seat facing the back. But I’ve never in my life seen a cartoon of a baby’s head cracking the windshield of a-”

  “You’re nuts. They’re everywhere. They come standard on like every car now.”

  “I’ve seen the warning, in words. I’ve read it hundreds of times when I put my CDs up on the visor.”

  “That’s not words you’re seeing,” Jack explains. “That’s a cartoon. You’re just so used to seeing cartoons everywhere that you think you’re reading.”

  “Wait, you’re telling me that on every new car, there’s a cartoon of a bloody baby crashing headfirst through a fucking windshield?”

  “Sort of. Not bloody. Just ready to hit the glass.”

  “Next you’re going to tell me that every pop bottle comes with a drawing of the jagged end of it sticking in a baby’s neck...”

  “I can show you if you want,” Jack says, exasperated.

  “...or you’re going to turn over your shoe and show me a sticker that shows a foot punting a baby through the uprights?” Rick goes on, taking a turn hard enough to sit Jack back down. “With a red circle and a line through it, of course, so there’s no confusion.”

  “Dude. This sticker shows lightning bolts shooting out of this fuckers face and you-

  Never mind.”

  Jack grabs one of the paddles again.

  “Maybe they warn us not to put these next to our heads so that…”

  “They’re warning us not to put them on a patient’s head!” Rick yells.

  “…so that we don’t try it just out of curiosity. Just to see what would happen.”

  “Who would try that?”

  Jack moves toward Rick with a paddle.

  “Maybe it’s harmless. Maybe it just changes the color of your eyes or something.”

  “Stay the fuck away, Frankenstein,” Rick says, low, serious.

  Jack flips a switch, and the machine powers up with a whine, then he creeps closer, ready to attack.

  “You know what drives me nuts?” Jack is saying. “When people think ‘Frankenstein’ is the asshole with the bolts in his neck. That’s Frankenstein’s Monster. Frankenstein is the doctor.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Rick says, squeezing the steering wheel so hard he almost turns it into a balloon animal. Jack backs off and laughs.

  “But you got it right! And it just saved your life. Hey, what are you flinching for, dude? Maybe it just makes you smarter.”

  “Oh, in that case, give me a jolt.”

  Jack fakes a lunge and the ambulance swerves slightly as Rick swats at Jack with one of his catcher’s mitt-sized hands. Jack laughs, flicks off the machine, then climbs back into the seat.

  “So, you’re pretty much the worst paramedic of all time, right?” Rick says. “How did that happen? I heard it wasn’t always like that.”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Jack stares out the window.

  Rick feels bad for bringing that up.

  “Well, knock that shit off,” he tells Jack, trying to stay angry. “We’re almost there.”

  Roadside in a suburb. Minutes later. Jack and Rick walk up to see their rivals, Mike and Mike, stepping out of their debilitated former ambulance.

  “What the fuck are they doing here?” Jack asks.

  “Ten bucks says they’re here to barbecue the meat,” Rick says.

  “Ten bucks says they’re still talking about that tooth showing up in Mike’s shit,” Jack says.

  Rick doesn’t dare try to solve that riddle. As they get closer, the two Mikes’ latest debate becomes clear. Jack’s guess is in the ballpark.

  “There’s just something very unnatural about a turd smiling up at you from the toilet,” Big Mike is saying. “You feel like you shouldn’t flush it, you know? Maybe even name the goddamn thing.”

  “You owe me ten bucks,” Jack says.

  “Statistically, the most common bet is fifty,” Rick says, reaching around to his back pocket and unsnapping it as Little Mike pushes past him to yell at a nearby fireman.

  “Hey! We’ll take care of that carcass! That meat is still good!”

  “And… we’re even,” Rick mumbled, slapping two fives into Jack’s hand and snapping his pocket closed. Big Mike and Little Mike walk towards the side of the road where a dead deer lies twisted in the ditch, its back legs crossed behind its head.

  “My dog was walking down the street, minding his own business. Then this fucking car came and ran him over! Have you seen my dog playing round and round?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? And why do you suddenly have a British accent?” Rick asks.

  “Saigon Kick, baby,” Little Mike announces. “Part of the second British Invasion, coming soon! Their future is probably just another no-hit wonder actually. That country is fucked.”

  “You know, when I was in school,” Big Mike says. “We all had to write us a story for English class, and this one girl showed up with a fable about a boy who looks into his toilet bowl to see the future.”

  “Ha!” Little Mike barks. “When I look into the toilet, all I see is the past!”

  “That’s what I said!”

  Jack and Rick walk over to a hatchback Mustang where the firemen are working with crowbars to remove the door and get at the dog trapped inside. Rick shakes his head when he sees the animal’s wet nose pressed against the back window.

  “The hell? Was the dog driving? Where are all the people?!” Rick is furious.
>
  “They’ll be here soon enough,” Jack says, nodding at some rubberneckers coming out of their houses.

  “That’s right!” Little Mike shouts, laughing. “You’re on our turf now, motherfuckers!”

  But then Rick walks around the car and sees the boy. He’s in the front seat, nose against his own window and crying. His right arm is broken in dozens of places, wrapped around his own neck like a scarf. Sparks from a firemen’s “jaws of life” fly around Jack as he pushes past the responders to get close.

  “Stay off the vehicle until we’re done!” a fireman shouts.

  Jack ignores him and crouches down to talk to the child. The sparks stop.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” he tells the boy.

  “Is the horse dead?” the boy sniffles.

  “Naw, horses are tough. It ran away. They don’t die so easy, little man.”

  Rick frowns and turns to watch Big Mike and Little Mike struggling to cram the huge deer into their ambulance. The boy turns to watch and flinches in pain. Jack knocks on the glass to get his attention back.

  “Hey! Look at me, kid. Everyone is fine. The horse is fine,” he repeats over and over. The sparks start flying again.

  From inside the car, the boy watches Jack’s fevered, spark-covered face mouthing words at him, voice muffled from the fireman’s buzz-saw. Over Jack’s shoulder, the deer’s head bounces off one of the real ambulances then falls loose to the ground. It bounces twice. The boy cries even harder.

  “No! It’s fine,” Jack goes on. “That’s just the special ambulance for horses.”

  The boy is hysterical, now starting to realize his limbs aren’t working.

  “Shhh! It’s okay! They’re just taking it to the woods so it can run away!”

  Rick grabs Jack’s arm and yanks him away from the vehicle.

  “What are you doing?!” he asks him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do me a favor. Stop helping.”

  “I’m just trying to calm the kid down,” Jack says.

  “The kid was calm, until you started screaming.”

  Another fireman appears and starts hollering.

  “What the fuck! If you don’t hang back until my man cracks that door, I’m going to send you off the scene and use them two instead.”