Page 306 - What They Did to the Kid

294 Jack Fritscher

“Darling, I’m Maya Deren in Meshes of the Afternoon.”
“Never heard of her.”
“I’m Pussy on a Hot Tin Roof.”
“Very funny. That’s not Tennessee Williams.”
“That’s the Kuchar brothers.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Darling, underground film. Experimental cinema. Don’t you
know anything about the avant garde?”
“At Misery, I was the avant garde.”
“Darling, I must take you to the Cinematheque.”
“Don’t make me feel ignorant.”
“This is how the world opens up. New words. Discotheque.
Dancing to records, discs. Cinematheque. Cinema, movies. Like
Bibliotheque. Library, books. You told me you loved words. You told
me you love movies.” She handed me a sheet of screening dates and
times, with photos, and titles like Little Stabs at Happiness and Fire-
works and Scorpio Rising. “Wonderful films by artists, not studios.
Flaming Creatures and The Sin of Jesus...”
“You can’t scandalize me.”
“I’m practically on the selection committee at the Cinematheque.
You’ve seen Second City? Yes? No? Oh. In fact, I’m polishing up
shooting notes, as an appendix to my dissertation, for an improvisa-
tional film of Orlando, a novel by Virginia Woolf...”
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
“...that’s something else again, that play, but my film, I mean,
will this graduate faculty ever catch up? I want to direct, but a film,
even an underground film, takes money. Do you have any money?”
“Me?”
“You look rich.”
“I just spent $480,000.”
“Don’t kid a kidder.”
“Why are you at this school?” I asked.
She sipped her wine. “Virgins.”
“Virgins?”
“Catholic boy virgins. Like you.”
“I’m not a virgin. Stop trying to scandalize me.”
“I have a fetish for Catholic boys.”

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK