of circular tins, opens these up and unwinds the first few feet of the film inside each, holding the strip up towards the light so he can see what’s on it.
“Can I help?” she asks him.
“Do you know how to feed film through a projector?”
“Well … sure,” she says, figuring she’ll work it out.
“Stick this one in, then,” he tells her, handing her a tin. “I’ll just go take a leak.”
And he’s off. So: there are two things which kind of turn, and one of these already has the plastic spider on it, which must be for gathering the film as it comes out – so probably the reel should go on this front one. But then all this shit in-between is a real fucker because there’s any number of ways it could go round all these little rubber fingers. Why did she pretend in the first place? Is Roger not going to want to know her if he finds out she can’t load a projector? She bends down to pretend to look more closely at the turning thing, to make anyone looking at her think she’s thinking “Is it an x-type turning thing, the type that feeds from underneath, or a y-type turning thing, that feeds from above?” The stoners are still wailing in the antechamber:
Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee, it’s good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I’m back in the USSR …
Heidi’s sure by now that everyone is looking at her thinking
She can’t thread a spool: she must be just an English teacher!
A bubble breaks across her face, as though Nick were pissing on her from on high: she’s gone so red that to be anally exact about it the bubble doesn’t actually break
across
her face, i.e. strike her skin and break as a result: it pops a couple of millimetres from it, from the heat she’s giving off. An object touches her chin from behind; she turns round to find a tall, spindly black man has put his arm around her shoulder. He’s dressed in a white toga, and has a pistol in his hand, and he says to her:
“My dear, I think you’re doing it all wrong.”
His voice is high and theatrical, or kind of operatic even, like he was singing. And he’s got, that’s right, a fucking
pistol
in his hand. But he’s smiling. He’s quite old, like maybe forty plus or even fifty, and his thin face has deep creases in it as he smiles. He’s got his other arm around a beautiful blond boy whose eyes stare out serene, or dazed, or stoned.
“You like my weapon?” he says, then the creases in his face contract as his eyes narrow and his mouth pulls open. He throws back his head and whoops out a long, loud laugh. “Karel
loves
my weapon. He just
loves
my tool. My piece. Isn’t that so, Karel?”
The blond boy smiles and answers:
“
Krásná
, Tyrone. Big black weapon.”
The black man throws back his head and whoops again.
“Here, let me show you how you do it,” he says when he’s finished laughing. “You understand a little English?”
“Yeah. I’m from Vermont,” she says.
“No! Oh my God! Ver-
mont
!”
Heidi notices his eyeballs are huge and white amidst all that black skin. A vein has burst inside the right one, daubing the white with red. She asks him:
“You too?”
“My dearest,
dearest
friend is from Vermont. Veronica. We call her Vermont Veronica. She’s got a
great
act back in San Francisco. A drag act, you know. If you’re ever over in San Francisco go to The Pink Pollen Box and look for Vermont Veronica. You do that. She loves to meet people from home. She’ll take you everywhere in town.”
“OK,” she tells him, smiling nervously and looking at the creases in his skin and thinking that she’s never seen a black guy of his age from this close back home: of course she’s
seen
them, but they were cab drivers or postmen or gas-pump attendants or just generally people whose faces you didn’t really clock – but here she is now with an elderly black queen who’s alluding to a world of drag bars and intercity hopping
“Can I help?” she asks him.
“Do you know how to feed film through a projector?”
“Well … sure,” she says, figuring she’ll work it out.
“Stick this one in, then,” he tells her, handing her a tin. “I’ll just go take a leak.”
And he’s off. So: there are two things which kind of turn, and one of these already has the plastic spider on it, which must be for gathering the film as it comes out – so probably the reel should go on this front one. But then all this shit in-between is a real fucker because there’s any number of ways it could go round all these little rubber fingers. Why did she pretend in the first place? Is Roger not going to want to know her if he finds out she can’t load a projector? She bends down to pretend to look more closely at the turning thing, to make anyone looking at her think she’s thinking “Is it an x-type turning thing, the type that feeds from underneath, or a y-type turning thing, that feeds from above?” The stoners are still wailing in the antechamber:
Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee, it’s good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I’m back in the USSR …
Heidi’s sure by now that everyone is looking at her thinking
She can’t thread a spool: she must be just an English teacher!
A bubble breaks across her face, as though Nick were pissing on her from on high: she’s gone so red that to be anally exact about it the bubble doesn’t actually break
across
her face, i.e. strike her skin and break as a result: it pops a couple of millimetres from it, from the heat she’s giving off. An object touches her chin from behind; she turns round to find a tall, spindly black man has put his arm around her shoulder. He’s dressed in a white toga, and has a pistol in his hand, and he says to her:
“My dear, I think you’re doing it all wrong.”
His voice is high and theatrical, or kind of operatic even, like he was singing. And he’s got, that’s right, a fucking
pistol
in his hand. But he’s smiling. He’s quite old, like maybe forty plus or even fifty, and his thin face has deep creases in it as he smiles. He’s got his other arm around a beautiful blond boy whose eyes stare out serene, or dazed, or stoned.
“You like my weapon?” he says, then the creases in his face contract as his eyes narrow and his mouth pulls open. He throws back his head and whoops out a long, loud laugh. “Karel
loves
my weapon. He just
loves
my tool. My piece. Isn’t that so, Karel?”
The blond boy smiles and answers:
“
Krásná
, Tyrone. Big black weapon.”
The black man throws back his head and whoops again.
“Here, let me show you how you do it,” he says when he’s finished laughing. “You understand a little English?”
“Yeah. I’m from Vermont,” she says.
“No! Oh my God! Ver-
mont
!”
Heidi notices his eyeballs are huge and white amidst all that black skin. A vein has burst inside the right one, daubing the white with red. She asks him:
“You too?”
“My dearest,
dearest
friend is from Vermont. Veronica. We call her Vermont Veronica. She’s got a
great
act back in San Francisco. A drag act, you know. If you’re ever over in San Francisco go to The Pink Pollen Box and look for Vermont Veronica. You do that. She loves to meet people from home. She’ll take you everywhere in town.”
“OK,” she tells him, smiling nervously and looking at the creases in his skin and thinking that she’s never seen a black guy of his age from this close back home: of course she’s
seen
them, but they were cab drivers or postmen or gas-pump attendants or just generally people whose faces you didn’t really clock – but here she is now with an elderly black queen who’s alluding to a world of drag bars and intercity hopping
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