Читать книгу Klick, the Dick - Milam Smith - Страница 3

AS A KID I heard it said we all see a light at the end of a tunnel, and our past when we die. Dying for me, the light was flickering, not in any tunnel. The only past I saw was from movies, the ones I’d seen growing up, the ones with my idols. Sitting alone like always in the middle aisle, the silver light of make-believe washing over me.

The Time Machine the first I can remember understanding a theme. I was instantly hooked on the fighting for ideals, saving the world, trying to make others save themselves, as much as I was the violence. But man, Rod Taylor smashing those monsters, the gook coming out their eyes.

Tarzan movies, too, the Jock Mahoney one, articulate and intelligent, nothing like Weissmuller on television. Made me go out and read the books, finding the real Tarzan at too early an age. I was climbing trees for a year in nothing but cut-off jeans, butt and balls hanging in the wind.

Then mom died. Not long after that I saw Hombre. Cool loner shunning society (humanity it seemed to me). But in the end he blew the bad guys away even though it killed him. That year I went around with a death wish, smirking at everyone, fighting bad guys, taking up for everyone.

Blend those ideals together, no wonder I was so screwed up.

I lived those memories again, the soft touch of silver light a comfort. But I wouldn’t die.

When I woke up in the hospital the television was on. Over the nurse’s head I saw Tim Hutton crying to his shrink in ‘Ordinary People’, me crying with him, the nurse pumping more dope in me ‘cause she thought I was in pain.

But before I sank back into that blackness I remembered, remembered it all, the movies, and that last one ‘Ordinary People,’ and knew what I had to do.