The Rumors of My Demise

By William Renken

Before Russell heads off to Southern California for college in the Fall, he must get through the summer of 1999 while working at a movie theatre in Charleston, South Carolina, where it's anything but just tearing tickets and shoveling popcorn. It's a wild world of sex, drugs, and 35mm film that the charismatic and enigmatic Shaw is more than willing to provide to the soon-to-be freshman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Renken
• Release date: Oct 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386224891

Book preview

Author's Note

I remember first writing The Rumors of My Demise in its first incarnation about a year out of college when the wave of nostalgia was beginning to hit me. I knew at its heart it was going to be the story of an up and coming projectionist in a movie theatre who definitely had a future beyond his summer job at the movie theatre. But I also knew there had to be a simultaneous mentor and foil for the Russell character. That was where the Shaw character came from, and I didn't have to go too deep into my memories and experiences to create him.

Dave Dickey, in short, is Shaw. He is that man. Maybe a few aspects are idealized but the heart of that character is in the man I considered not only a mentor as a projectionist but one of my best friends. And I couldn't be more pleased to have him writing the foreword for this novel.

Foreword

Man O man, the movies. Something that has always been a desire of man. From the first hunt as a pack, one turned and grunted to the other Oggid rawr! Clag tic mondish!? which roughly translated means you see me jump that deer and slit its fuckin throat!? I got it's soul and everything!

Movies evolved from those tales the grunts would, well, grunt to one another. The rest of the pack would want to know the tales, forcing prehistoric man to recount those stories to a large audience. And that's why It always comes back to the cave drawings. One of our noble feral ancestors figured that out instead of telling all these needy little shit pups and women stuck in the cave all the time about having to hunt the herds and of his glory, he'd just draw it on the cave wall.

Why do I tip my hat to this genius? Because the man with cave drawings had vision.

Those drawings sat on that cave wall all day. Inhabitants of said cave looked at them all day. Wondering. Imagining.  What new tale would the tribe bring home?

When the tribe returned, there would be an eagerness to the tales of what had happened. Food would be produced and prepared as the talk would go around. They would craft still images of sabretooth tigers trapped on a wall ready to pounce and kill the tribe who stood ready to defend. Will they come home today? Would the tiger win? Or the tribe? They built suspense for the audience despite the fact that the presence of the tribe meant that they, indeed, did come home. Perhaps the first attempt at willing suspension of disbelief?

The sun would go down and then they would light the fire. The sabretooth tiger moved. It pounced and killed a grunt while taking on spears itself. The fire made the drawings on the walls come alive with shadow and light. The pups shuddered and cried and cheered as they saw the fire make their imaginations come alive on that wall. They would be there one day.

The first projectionist.

Zoetrope with a bonfire. One of the grunts would get loud because his spear was the biggest to kill it and didn't like one of the others not telling the story right. In my mind, he was the first critic.

And that first grunt to stoke the fire just right, for maximum movement, shares a chromosome or two with the character Shaw in this cinematic novel. The true projectionist union is a small one. The creed is to be unseen. Assassins of film, if you will.

There's a lot of ushers that think they can project, and there are managers that pray they don't fuck up. In the middle, you get John Huston's professionals. The last lines of defense to the audience.  A bunch of skilled yet barely caring bastards out for their own agenda that don't want anyone to see how hard it is to make things look effortless. That's where we equated. A curator of dreams. That fit into my way of thinking. The world has always wanted to see without distraction cause life is full of distractions. Movies don't have to be. A great projectionist was one that was never given a thought by the audience when they left the theatre because they didn't create any distraction for the audience to enjoy the movie.

Being a projectionist was like studying at a ninja academy. We sniffed our noses at the idea digital would come and sweep us off the board. But celluloid has now gone the way of disco. Digital is the only way and when you talk about projectionists, you might as well be talking about 8-track tapes and your favorite goldfish.

John Huston's curse got us. I did get to work with one last ninja before I put down my sword. Your author. Old Man Renken. An uplifting, smart, kind and way too fuckin' earnest guy. Everything that's looked upon in the projection circles. He thrived. We worried about the mechanics. He worried about the picture. He still remembers smells and feels, even names of the customers from that place.

This piece is pure ‘90s. You've seen the movies. Watch ‘em again. Look at ‘em through the fun ya sat through in the theatre and relive it through the hot xenon glow of William P. Renken's vision of the fun going on when the popcorn was swept up and movies had to be screened. The man has vision.

-D.C. Dickey

Chapter One

Russell sat in the meeting room, eyes locked on the various movie posters that layered the walls like patchwork wallpaper. He wasn't quite sure what room this was used for in the movie theatre. Maybe it was a break room. Maybe it was just simply a meeting room as the first sentence indicated. Whatever it was used for, it was obviously kept out of the public eye. None of the seats matched, the floor had broken or missing linoleum and random boxes of concession supplies laying around. Maybe that was its use. Maybe it was just an unkempt storage room.

Russell had never seen that room throughout the seven-plus years he had been coming to the theatre. He had wondered, of course, just as he had wondered about the man he would see up in the projection booth when he'd turn his head from his seat as a kid. That made this a dream job of sorts.

Honestly, it was a win-win for Russell. He was heading off in a few months to California to start college and needed to build a bankroll of spending money for his freshman year. His parents had split for a summer-long European vacation that he was conspicuously omitted from, and thus the job would be a welcome release from the boredom of an otherwise empty summer. And he loved movies. What better place other than the local Blockbuster could fulfill that need than the movie theatre?

Russell pulled out his pocket-sized notepad and pen, as he was known to do, and started jotting notes.

COLIN: Is there a test?

Russell looked over at the only other person in that room. Colin was tall, rusty-haired, and rather underdressed for what seemed to be a job orientation of sorts.

RUSSELL: What do you mean?

COLIN: You're writing like there's a test. I didn't study.

Russell smirked.

RUSSELL: Writing just to write, man.

COLIN: Well, throttle back. You're making me nervous. I'm Colin.

RUSSELL: Russell.

He set the notepad and pen down.

COLIN: Here for a summer job?

It certainly wasn't Colin's first summer job and probably not his last either. Once his bartending gig had fallen through in the spring, he regrouped and applied at the theatre to pull some part-time hours while washing dishes at a dive bar on Sullivan's Island. Hustler. Colin was a born mover and shaker with only the short term in his scope of relevance.

COLIN: Just looking for an easy gig with pretty chicks.

He seemed to relax in his seat and put his hands behind his head with that line.

RUSSELL: What does that mean?

COLIN: Means I've been out of high school a while and worked plenty of shitty jobs. I'd rather have an easy gig with hot chicks than tar a roof all day.

RUSSELL: You're a roofer?

Colin sat back up in the chair.

COLIN: Well, no. But I've heard...

He trailed off quickly. He had no idea what he was talking about.

The door opened to the room. The first to enter was Monty Rhodes, a greying, grizzled, black gentleman in a shirt and tie. He was the boss of the place. Well, at least the manager, which was all Russell and the others needed to know. Behind Monty, two girls entered. They were modestly dressed, similar looking, both around 19 years old. But one was definitely the overall looker of the two. That was Kim. The other, who also happened to be her friend, was Ashley. They took their seats alongside Russell and Colin, who couldn't resist giving a look to Russell to confirm his previous statement.

Another guy trailed behind all of them. He was built like a defensive lineman that wasn't too far removed from his playing days. His thick dark mane of hair stood up in different directions as if he had just run his hand through it once and let it go as it may. His mustache and goatee were also full and complete. This man was Shaw, the head projectionist of the movie theatre. He shut the door behind him and started reading an issue of Garth Ennis' Preacher comic book.

Monty looked at a clipboard of names and scanned the room of four people before setting it down along with his reading glasses.

MONTY: Alright, I'll make this quick. I'm Montgomery Rhodes. You call me Mr. Rhodes. You all are working in a movie theatre. This ain't fast food. You're going to have downtime. Sometimes lots of downtime. Sometimes you'll even find yourself working hard for only 45 minutes out of a six-hour shift. But during that 45 minutes, we expect a lot. We expect politeness, courtesy, and above all else an up-sell when the situation presents itself. But we will go into that we get you behind concession. Now, I will have my associate, Mr. Shaw, have the floor. Shaw?

Shaw put the comic book down and walked to the center of the room, fumbling about his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. He found the pack of Winstons and pulled out a stick, offering it first to Russell, who declined.

Shaw looked at Colin.

SHAW: Smoke?

COLIN: Absolutely.

SHAW: No smoking in the booth.

Colin looked at Shaw perplexed, especially when Shaw lit a cigarette himself.

He took a quick drag and scanned the room himself.

SHAW: If you want to smoke, you do it out back.

COLIN (Looking at Russell): You sure there's not a test?

Shaw broke in.

SHAW: Test? What makes you think there is a test?

COLIN: Well he's writing.

Russell felt all of the attention on him at once and didn't like it. He kept quiet.

Shaw looked at him curiously like he was some kind of anomaly.

SHAW: What are you writing?

The kid kept it cool and played it off.

RUSSELL: Nothing in particular.

SHAW: Give me the pad.

Russell hesitated briefly but knew there wasn't anything significant he was surrendering.

Shaw flipped through a couple of random pages. Russell was an anomaly to him. This wasn't something he had come across in a while. It was random bits of dialogue indicated by quotation marks and two sentence loglines of ideas for stories. Now Shaw was the one who was curious, but he played it off to not give it away to anyone else.

SHAW: Not bad.

He threw the pad behind him and launched back into his gimmick.

SHAW: Anyway, when I started in this business, Jodie Foster was hot and George Clooney was Booker on Roseanne. Back when I started we ran reel to reel. A lot has changed since then. Clooney is a bankable actor, and Jodie Foster looks, well, homeless. Now we have platters in the booth, but the more shit changes...you get the idea. Popcorn's a cheap profit, soda is a soda, and God help us the day we start actually serving real food in this place. But none of that would be possible without...?

He trailed off purposely and looked at Colin, expecting an answer.

COLIN: I knew there would be a fuckin' test!

Shaw kept his gaze on Colin.

SHAW: A projectionist. Projectionists are snipers. Doin' it right the first time. One start, one kill. No one knows he's there unless the movie starts late or stops.

Russell decided to speak up.

RUSSELL: And if it stops?

Shaw looked at him with almost a half smile.

SHAW: Then you're fucked.

And then almost on cue came a loud thunderous explosion from down the hallway. Shaw, without hesitation, took off with Monty right on his heels.

The two girls were startled and stayed in their chairs wondering what happened. Russell thought the same thing, but he calmly stood up instead.

COLIN: Shouldn't we stay?

Russell shrugged his shoulders.

RUSSELL: I think I'm going to have a look.

He exited toward where Shaw and Monty went. Colin, out of an urge to tag along, followed. The hallway was dark and only illuminated by the bulbs of each projector running into their respective auditoriums. There were 12 of them in all, and when they ran all at once, it was the sound of a factory in full motion for the next hour and forty-five minutes to two hours.

Russell had never seen anything like it. Now he knew what the all-powerful Oz was doing when he turned his head from his chair in the auditorium. This was the look behind the curtain. He saw the platters Shaw was talking about. Large almost tops of ballroom tables that had the movie laying in its 35mm film roll state spooling toward the projector to play in theatre then back to another platter where it wound up for the next show. Not too dissimilar from a VHS tape. But honestly, Russell didn't know what the hell he was looking at. It felt like a whole different world.

He happened upon the projector where Shaw and Monty were hovering around. The canopy lights were on, and there was a definite marked difference in how this projector looked in comparison to the other Christie projectors.

The side panel was open and a thin haze of smoke hovered toward the exhaust vents. Shaw had his head inside as he maneuvered around the damage unseen to Monty, whose tie quickly had loosened as his right hand was pressed his face.

MONTY: Tell