“No. There was actually less than that, because it was silent film, which runs at more like eighteen frames per second, and they corrected the speed. So, about three hundred frames, which means we have about a quarter of the original stock.” Leonard hesitated. He glanced up. “Lock that door, would you, Robbie?”
Robbie did, looked back to see Leonard crouched in the corner, moving aside his coat to reveal a metal strongbox. He prised the lid from the top.
The box was filled with water-Robbie hoped it was water. “Is that an aquarium?”
Leonard ignored him, tugged up his sleeves, then dipped both hands below the surface. Very, very carefully he removed another metal box. He set it on the floor, grabbed his coat, and meticulously dried the lid, then turned to Robbie.
“You know, maybe you should unlock the door. In case we need to get out fast.”
“Jesus Christ, Leonard, what is it?” exclaimed Emery. “Snakes?”
“Nope.” Leonard plucked something from the box, and Emery flinched as a serpentine ribbon unfurled in the air. “It’s what’s left of the original footage-the 1901 film.”
“That’s nitrate?” Emery stared at him, incredulous. “You are insane! How the hell’d you get it?”
“I clipped it before they destroyed the stock. I think it’s okay-I take it out every day, so the gases don’t build up. And it doesn’t seem to interact with the nail polish fumes. It’s the part where you can actually see McCauley, where you get the best view of the plane. See?”
He dangled it in front of Emery, who backed toward the door. “Put it away, put it away!”
“Can I see?” asked Robbie.
Leonard gave him a measuring look, then nodded. “Hold it by this edge-”
It took a few seconds for Robbie’s eyes to focus properly. “You’re right,” he said. “You can see him-you can see someone, anyway. And you can definitely tell it’s an airplane.”
He handed it back to Leonard, who fastidiously replaced it, first in its canister and then the water-filled safe.
“They could really pop you for that.” Emery whistled in disbelief. “If that stuff blew? This whole place could go up in flames.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Leonard draped his coat over the strongbox, then started to laugh. “Anyway, I’m done with it. I went into the photo lab one night and duped it myself. So I’ve got that copy at home. And this one-”
He inclined his head at the corner. “I’m going to take the nitrate home and give it a Viking funeral in the backyard. You can come if you want.”
“Tonight?” asked Robbie.
“No. I’ve got to work late tonight, catch up on some stuff before I leave town.”
Emery leaned against the door. “Where you going?”
“South Carolina. I told you. I’m going to Cowana Island, and…” Robbie caught a whiff of acetone as Leonard picked up the Bellerophon. “I am going to make this thing fly.”
“HE REALLY IS NUTS. I mean, when was the last time he even saw Maggie?” Robbie asked as Emery drove him back to the Mall. “I still don’t know what really happened, except for the UFO stuff.”
“She found out he was screwing around with someone else. It was a bad scene. She tried to get him fired; he went to Boynton and told him Maggie was diverting all this time and money to studying UFOs. Which unfortunately was true. They did an audit, she had some kind of nervous breakdown even before they could fire her.”
“What a prick.”
Emery sighed. “It was horrible. Leonard doesn’t talk about it. I don’t think he ever got over it. Over her.”
“Yeah, but…” Robbie shook his head. “She must be, what, twenty years older than us? They never would have stayed together. If he feels so bad, he should just go see her. This other stuff is insane.”
“I think maybe those fumes did something to him. Nitrocellulose, it’s in nail polish, too. It might have done something to his brain.”
“Is that possible?”
“It’s a theory,” said Emery broodingly.
Robbie’s house was in a scruffy subdivision on the outskirts of Rockville. The place was small, a bungalow with masonite siding, a cracked cinder-block foundation, and the remains of a garden that Anna had planted. A green GMC pickup with an expired registration was parked in the drive. Robbie peered into the cab. It was filled with empty Bud Light bottles.
Inside, Zach was hunched at a desk beside his friend Tyler, owner of the pickup. The two of them stared intently at a computer screen.
“What’s up?” said Zach without looking away.
“Not much,” said Robbie. “Eye contact.”
Zach glanced up. He was slight, with Anna’s thick blond curls reduced to a buzz cut that Robbie hated. Tyler was tall and gangly, with long black hair and wire-rimmed sunglasses. Both favored tie-dyed Tshirts and madras shorts that made them look as though they were perpetually on vacation.
Robbie went into the kitchen and got a beer. “You guys eat?”
“We got something on the way home.”
Robbie drank his beer and watched them. The house had a smell that Emery once described as Failed Bachelor. Unwashed clothes, spilled beer, marijuana smoke. Robbie hadn’t smoked in years, but Zach and Tyler had taken up the slack. Robbie used to yell at them but eventually gave up. If his own depressing example wasn’t enough to straighten them out, what was?
After a minute, Zach looked up again. “Nice shirt, Dad.”
“Thanks, son.” Robbie sank into a beanbag chair. “Me and Emery dropped by the museum and saw Leonard.”
“Leonard!” Tyler burst out laughing. “Leonard is so fucking sweet! He’s, like, the craziest guy ever.”
“All Dad’s friends are crazy,” said Zach.
“Yeah, but Emery, he’s cool. Whereas that guy Leonard is just wack.”
Robbie nodded somberly and finished his beer. “Leonard is indeed wack. He’s making a movie.”
“A real movie?” asked Zach.
“More like a home movie. Or, I dunno-he wants to reproduce another movie, one that was already made, do it all the same again. Shot by shot.”
Tyler nodded. “Like The Ring and Ringu. What’s the movie?”
“Seventeen seconds of a 1901 plane crash. The original footage was destroyed, so he’s going to restage the whole thing.”
“A plane crash?” Zach glanced at Tyler. “Can we watch?”
“Not a real crash-he’s doing it with a model. I mean, I think he is.”
“Did they even have planes then?” said Tyler.
“He should put it on YouTube,” said Zach, and turned back to the computer.
“Okay, get out of there.” Robbie rubbed his head wearily. “I need to go online.”
The boys argued but gave up quickly. Tyler left. Zach grabbed his cell phone and slouched upstairs to his room. Robbie got another beer, sat at the computer, and logged out of whatever they’d been playing, then typed in MCCAULEY BELLEROPHON.
Only a dozen results popped up. He scanned them, then clicked the Wikipedia entry for Ernesto McCauley.
McCauley, Ernesto (18?? — 1901) American inventor whose eccentric aircraft, the Bellerophon, allegedly flew for seventeen seconds before it crashed during a 1901 test flight on Cowana Island, South Carolina, killing McCauley. In the 1980s, claims that this flight was successful and predated that of the Wright brothers by two years were made by a Smithsonian expert, based upon archival lm footage. The claims have since been disproved and the lm record unfortunately lost in a fire. Curiously, no other record of either McCauley or his aircraft has ever been found.
Robbie took a long pull at his beer, then typed in MARGARET BLEVIN.
Blevin, Margaret (1938-) Influential cultural historian whose groundbreaking work on early flight earned her the nickname “the Magnificent Blevin.” During her tenure at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American Aeronautics and Aerospace, Blevin redesigned the General Aviation Gallery to feature lesser-known pioneers of flight, including Charles Dellschau and Ernesto McCauley, as well as…