Chapter 420: Danny XLIII—Game Room
With Peter being the ladies man, the party man, the cool guy on the team, Dan felt it seemed like a pretty good idea to let him pick the movie. The cab dropped them off at a twenty four screen multi-plex and Peter went straight to the box office, hands on his hips as he stared at the screen list. “Yeah that looks like a good one.”
“Which one?” Danny asked, thinking of the tidal wave, earthquake, hurricane disaster movie that had just opened, featuring as people said, some really great special effects, the centerpiece being the cataclysmic destruction of the Golden Gate bridge. Now that sounded cool!
“I’ve wanted to see it,” Peter said softly. He pulled out his wallet and leaned into the window. “Three adults for Contemplation.”
“Contemplation?” Dan frowned and looked at Alex, “What’s that?”
Tangers seemed a little worried. “Don’t know, never heard of it.”
“Hey, Pete, what’s Contemplation about?” Dan asked keeping in stride alongside Peter going into the lobby. He took his ticket from him and peered at it, unrated, interesting. It couldn’t be porn though, could it? Not in a general cinema. Dan felt a little safe.
“I’m getting concessions,” Alex said, “Want anything Danny?”
“Naw,” Dan said but then as he watched Alex go towards the popcorn counter he held up his hand, “Wait, Alex! Get a tub, and a pretzel, oh and I want a coke, and, and nachos with jalapeños if they have them!”
“Right,” Alex said waving back but not turning around.
“So Pete, tell me about Contemplation,” Dan grinned.
Peter smiled and his voice was quiet and soft, “Oh it has Irina Mirinova in it, she’s real great, you’ll like her.”
Uh oh, “Mirinova? What is she a Russian or something?”
“Swedish, actually,” Pete replied, “Ingmar Bergman film, it’ll probably be his last. He’s amazing Danny, really. He can just take a psychological study of a crumbling human mind and portray it as pure art. Art! It’s subtitled though, but I think you should be alright if you can read right?”
Ooookay. Danny could already feel gnawing panic, boredom, terror and he could already tell that this film would probably be more than two hours. Cecile made him watch these fancy, art house European films sometimes, and the saving grace for them was usually the good looks of some exotic French or Italian actress. “So Mirinova right? Is she pretty?”
Peter shrugged. “Well in her younger days, she’s about sixty I think.” He winked and sauntered happily towards the ticketman.
Dan grimaced feeling afraid, so very afraid.
“I got the food,” Alex said brightly and Danny looked at him staggering under two over flowing trays of concessions. “And I asked the guy at the popcorn counter about the movie and he said that we were in for some torture so I got us some Twizzlers, Snicker Bits, Milk Duds, and Nestle’s Crunch. That should hold us over for the next three hours.”
“Three?!” Dan exclaimed in horror.
Alex nodded. “I coulda told you not to let Peter pick the movie!”
Ass asleep, left eye constantly watering, Milk Dud’s stuck to the sides of his teeth, twizzler melting in his mouth, popcorn stuck to his fingers, Coke finished, mouth dry, thirsty, thirsty, and the will to live fast ebbing, and trickling. Dan gulped. He couldn’t blink. He just couldn’t blink. Not only was the movie filmed in hand held gray and white, and only sporadically subtitled, but the cast consisted of three people, the lead actress, a frail, bird like European woman who had the look of once being attractive in her time, a young woman with a faint mustache who played her deaf mute maid and a weird pale man in a black cloak who represented death or something.
“Stop squeaking Danny!” Alex whispered.
“What?” Dan replied.
“You keep squeaking every now and then, you sound like a baby bird or something.”
“Yeah fallen from the nest!”
“Shhhh!” Peter hissed.
Dan sunk lower into his seat and sucked on his empty soda cup, realizing that another dream sequence was commencing, in which the leading lady was beset by the man in black telling her that her life has been wasted, there was no point she should drink the pale tea cup of death and admit her own failures in ignoring the passions of her heart. No, not even Cecile would like this, and why did the maid have to keep frolicking naked around the swimming pool?
“Well that was fun!” Pete said as they trudged out of the theater, almost crippled, mentally battered and Dan was sure he couldn’t see out of his right eye. “Thanks for inviting me guys, hey wanna see another movie?”
“No!” Dan said at the same time as Alex.
“Oh?” Pete said, blinking, “You guys didn’t like it?”
“Oh no, we’re just hungry,” Dan said quickly realizing that he was overfilled with candy and popcorn that he didn’t want to eat anything solid for the rest of the day. “Wanna go out to lunch instead?”
“Why not,” Peter said. “Hey since you guys didn’t like the movie I’ll buy lunch too, just pick your place, before I say expensive Sushi.” He pulled out his wallet and peered at the thick roll of cash bulging within. “Yup, just pick the place.”
“Well I could go for hamburgers,” Alex nodded.
Dan’s mouth
watered eyeing that wad of bills. “Or a nice Filet Mignon, or
Peter’s smile widened. “Now you’re talking guys.”
“Oo that does sound good.” Alex said.
Lunch went real well. All of the nausea afflicting Dan from the movie theater junk food left his body and turned into gnawing ravenous culinary lust once the glistening, aromatic; dripping plate of steak and lobster was set before him. He rubbed his hands together and grabbed his fork. “You’re pretty cool, Pete.” Dan grinned and Peter winked back, holding up a glass of red wine.
Lunch lasted a couple of hours, they spent the whole time talking and eating slowly, enjoying the nice atmosphere, drinking wine, and having dessert. They even felt good enough to talk over the movie some with Peter who obviously found deep meaning in it. Dan still didn’t understand it but by his fourth glass of wine he began to delude himself that he was fond of that old actress and her deaf mute maid.
Leaving the restaurant, Pete suggested playing pool but the billiard rooms they stopped by were all congested with people. As a last resort they found a restaurant/game room. Fun! Dan felt like a kid and he laughed with Alex as they played an elaborate fireman virtual reality game but for the better part of the evening, he could tell Peter wasn’t too into it. He didn’t say anything about it though; he even tried his hand at a shooting game, and did real bad.
“Hey, Peter,” Tangers said around nine in the evening. “You want to go play pool now or something? I bet some of the crowds have cleared if you’re bored.”
Forsberg smiled calmly. “No you guys have fun, go on, I think I’m just gonna get myself back to the hotel now, get to bed. I’m beat, thanks for hanging around with me guys though, hey?”
“Sure,” Alex said brightly.
“I’d hug ya, Pete,” Dan said, “For that awesome lunch if you’d let me?”
Forsberg’s smile widened. “Fag, see ya later.” He rubbed his pale hands together and blew out a breath air before he turned and left them.
“Well there he goes,” Dan said. “It’s just you and me Tangs, what do ya wanna do?”
“Bubble
hockey! I’m team
“I don’t
wanna be