He pauses beneath the marquee, which advertises: EXOTIC MIDNIGHT SPECIAL THE KISS OF DEATBPuffing his cigar, he regards a series of photos within a glass case. A long-haired, acne-dotted medical student comes over to see the still shots, innocuous yet titillative on the wall. "Thought they'd never get to show it," he mutters.
"Beg pardon?"
"This snuff film. Just won a court decision. Didn't you hear?"
"No. I did not know. This one?"
"That's right. You going to see it?"
"I don't know. What is it about?"
The student turns and stares at the man, cocks his head to one side, smiles faintly. Seeing the reaction, the man smiles also. The student chuckles and shrugs.
"May be your only chance to see one," he says. "I'm betting they get closed down again and it goes to a higher court"
"Perhaps I will."
"Rotten weather, huh? They say so ho was an old hunting cry. Probably from people trying to find each other, huh?"
He chuckles. The man returns it and nods. The calm of controlled passion that holds him as in a gentle fist pushes him toward the experience.
"Yes, I believe that I will," he says, and he moves toward the ticket window.
The man behind the glass looks up as he passes him the money,
"You sure you want to spend that? It's an oldie."
He nods.
The ticket seller sets the coin to one side, hands him his pasteboard and his change.
He enters the lobby, looks about, follows the others.
"No smoking inside. Fire law."
"Oh. Sorry."
Dropping his cigar into a nearby receptacle, he surrenders his ticket and passes within. He pauses at the head of an aisle to regard the screen before him, moves on when jostled, finds a seat to his left, takes it.
He settles back and lets his warm feeling enfold him. It is a strange night. Lost, why had he come in? A place to sit? A place to hide? A place to be warm with impersonal human noises about him? Curiosity?
All of these, he decides, while his thoughts roam overthe varied surface of life, and the post-orgasmic sadness fades to tenderness and gratefulness.
His shoulder is touched. He turns quickly.
"Just me," says the student. "Show'U be starting in a few minutes. You ever read the Marquis de Sade?"
"Yes."
"What do you think of him?**
"A decadent dilettante."
"Oh."
The student settles back and assumes a thoughtful pose. The man returns his eyes to the front of the theater.
After a time, the houselights grow dim and die. Then the screen is illuminated. The words The Kiss of Death flash upon it. Soon they are succeeded by human figures. The man leans forward, his brow furrowed. He turns and studies the slant of light from the projection booth, dust motes drifting within it He sees a portion of the equipment. He turns again to the screen and his breathing deepens.
He watches all the actions leading to the movements of passion as time ticks about him. The theater is still. It seems that he has been transported to a magical realm. The people around him take on a supernatural quality, blank-faced in the light reflected from the screen. The back of his neck grows cold, and it feels as if the hairs are stirring upon it Still, he suppresses a desire to rise and depart, for there is something frightening, too, to the vision. But it seems important that he see it through. He leans back again, watching, watching the flickering spectacle before him.
There is a tightening in nis belly as he realizes what is finally to occur, as he sees the knife, the expression on the girl's face, the sudden movements, the writhing, the blood. As it continues, he gnaws his knuckle and begins to perspire. It is real, so real...
"Oh my!" he says and relaxes.
The warmth comes back to him again, but he continues to watch, until the last frame fades and the lights come on once again.
"How'd you like it?" says the voice at bis backHe does not turn.
"It is amazing," he finally says, "that they can make pictures move on a screen like that."He hears the familiar chuckle, then, "Care to join me for a cup of coffee? Or a drink?"
"No, thanks. I have to be going."
He rises and hurries up the aisle, back toward the fogmasked city where he had somehow lost his way.
"Say, you forgot your package!"
But the man does not bear. He is gone.
The student raises it, weighs it in his palm, wonders. When he finally unwraps the folded Times, it is not only the human heart it contains which causes his sharp intake of breath, but the fact that the paper bears a date in November of 1888.
"Oh, Lord!" he says. "Let him find his way homel"
Outside, the fog begins to roll and break, and the wind makes a small rustling noise as it passes. The long shadow of the man, lost in his love and wonder, moves like a blade through the city and November and the night.
THE LAST DEFENDER OF CAMELOT
I wrote this one for The Saturday Evening Post and they asked me to cut it to 4500 words. It is 9000 words in length. Crossing out every other word made it sound funny, so I didn't.
The three muggers who stopped him that October night in San Francisco did not anticipate much resistance from the old man, despite his size. He was well-dressed, and that was sufficient.
The first approached him with his hand extended. The other two hung back a few paces.
"Just give me your wallet and your watch," the mugger said. "You'll save yourself a lot of trouble."
The old man's grip shifted on his walking stick. His shoulders straightened. His shock of white hair tossed aa he turned his head to regard the other.
"Why don't you come and take them?"
The mugger began another step but he never completed it. The stick was almost invisible in the speed of its swinging. It struck him on the left temple and he fell.Without pausing, the old man caught the stick by its middle with his left hand, advanced and drove it into the belly of the next nearest man. Then, with an upward hook as the man doubled, he caught him in the softness beneath the jaw, behind the chin, with its point. As the man fell, he clubbed him with its butt on the back of the neck.
The third man had reached out and caught the old man's upper arm by then. Dropping the stick, the old man seized the mugger's shirtfront with his left hand, his belt with his right, raised him from the ground until he held him at arm's length above his-head and slammed him against the side of the building to his right, releasing him as he did so.
He adjusted his apparel, ran a hand through his hair and retrieved his walking stick. For a moment he regarded the three fallen forms, then shrugged and continued on his way.
There were sounds of traffic from somewhere off to his left. He turned right at the next comer. The moon appeared above tall buildings as he walked. The smell of the ocean was on the air. It had rained earlier and the pavement still shone beneath streetlamps. He moved slowly, pausing occasionally to examine the contents of darkened shop windows.
After perhaps ten minutes, he came upon a side street showing more activity than any of the others he had passed. There was a drugstore, still open, on the comer, a diner farther up the block, and several well-lighted storefronts. A number of people were walking along the far side of the street. A boy coasted by on a bicycle. He turned there, his pale eyes regarding everything he passed.
Halfway up the block, he came to a dirty window on which was painted the word READINGS. Beneath it were displayed the outline of a hand and a scattering of playing cards. As he passed the open door, he glanced inside. A brightly garbed woman, her hair bound back in a green kerchief, sat smoking at the rear of the room. She smiled as their eyes met and crooked an index finger, toward herself. He smiled back and turned away, but ...
He looked at her again. What was it? He glanced at his watch.
Turning, he entered the shop and moved to stand be-fore her. She rose. She was small, barely over five feet in height.