Down Jersey Drive-shaft

Chapter Nine: Your Life In Pictures

Fenwick Theatre is open, its cozy seats rest under the fluttering light of a projector. Crank is sitting in one of those seats, staring at a silver screen presenting one still image. A black, white and gray picture of a baseball player, swinging his black metal bat at a shiny diamond ball. She scratches her head, looks around at the few folks in the theatre, and wonders why they're staring at it as if Clark Gable was about to burst out of the screen and dance the foxtrot.

No one complains. That figures. As usual, she'll have to do things herself.

"Hey!" Cupping ebony-laced hands about her lips, she whisper yells at the projector room, "Roll the film!"

The projector begins its clickety performance, but the image remains, growing clearer. The player wears the eight-legged 'D' insignia of the old Delaware Spiders. The diamond ball really is a heck of a gemstone.

Something inside her gut says not to watch this anymore. But as the still image continues to dull the onlookers' minds, Frederica gets a tad miffed. Where's the movie? Where's the popcorn? She toys with her navy blue circular skirt with the bold peach border at the bottom. It matches her tight peach button shirt with navy blue cuffs and collar. Crank stitched the outfit herself from scratch. She loves this outfit.

She loved this outfit.

"Wait a minute..." her eyes expand in the darkness. "I made this dress for the dance in high school." She tugs at the shirt, it stretches not unlike elastic. The real shirt was cotton. Crank stretches the material further, watching it go out and out until her arm is perfectly straight. Strands of the material begin to droop down, melted wax on her lap. Peach puddles form on the floor.

"Cos'è questo?" Her audible question echoes in this shrouded chamber, a fact her sharp ears pick up on.

She's up on her boot-loving feet, fingers dripping tacky spaghetti strings, lungs grasping at short breaths. A woman enters the theatre, walking down the aisle and turning into the row of seats wary Frederica stands in. She walks right up to the young miss, who is too frightened by her circumstances to take notice.

"Excuse me miss," the woman inquires. Crank writhes back, a coiled serpent. She looks at this new woman in the checkered wool dress with wide red belt on her hips. Crank raises her hands. This woman, this interloper, has gorgeous wavy blonde hair. But, this is unlike any female she's ever seen.

Woman lacks a face. What makes for eyes are camera lenses, four of them, the two in the middle huge, the other two at the outside of the larger ones are miniscule black dots. It gives the center of her face an appearance like a wolf spider. The lenses zoom in and out at random. Her nose is long and slender, but lacks nostrils, only a line running down to and under the chin. No mouth is visible, but she sure is speaking. Aside from the nightmare appearance, she comes off as very mannerly.

"Is this seat taken?" She motions at the seat next to Crank's, her open palm displaying tiny working, moving black gears that spit oil and have stained the fingers an oleaginous gray. Her nails are painted a lovely olive green.

Crank takes three steps back until her back slams against the curtained wall. The woman cocks her head to the right while her multiple eyes zoom out several inches.

"Don't come near me!"

"Why not?" The woman talks like a little girl trying to sound adult, a light voice that every now and then remembers to increase in pitch. "It took a long time to find your frequency. Benny's was easy to gain, but isn't that the way with men? Shouldn't we talk, like ladies do?"

"Diabola, you stay away from me!" Crank is too smart to question the cornucopia of crazy going on. It is what it is and let's leave it at that. She shifts her fear into first gear and bolts. Up over the seats she goes, vaulting like she was trying for the blue ribbon at Field Day in grade school.