First, the highly anticipated viewing, a buildup of expectation and excitement preceding our visit to the Uptown Theatre. We walked together to purchase our tickets and waited in line, a legion of fans in hopes of an epic, the proud parade smoked and smoldered and we talked of literary greats, twice we deposited ourselves to the back of the line to smoke another cigarette, unawares of our nervous tactics we continued a meaningless dialogue on forgettable subjects. Inside the historic theater, we found solace in the balcony besides, our arms dangling from the railing we gawked and awed at the screen below as a film unraveled in our hearts and mind a simple story of evil unkind to humanity and yet relatable because of our shared hatred for the way things were. We saw in Chigurh a glimmer of hope someday maybe unrelenting and forever focused on our world view and as the desolate landscapes tumbled by, the camera fixed on an unknown point along the horizon, the sheer scope of heat and humidity hanging in the air along the waft of scented popcorn, we stared blankly at the projection before us wondering about the nature of beauty and mankind. Our walk home after the story’s ending was coded in silence as we talked and rambled about the stunning film we just viewed, each elucidation erring on the side of misguided theories and possible explanations, secretly seeking to conceal our shaken shallow cores we smoked more cigarettes once home, again repeating a reenactment of before the door unlocked we would return to the back and smoke again a cigarette for delayed conversation, the movie leaving an open sore.
Second, she was in town for the weekend and we’d been unable to curtail our meandering discussions, we had launched little of note in the days that proceeded our first viewing always finding time to converse generally about themes and moods and she desperately wanted to understand our mania. The three of us, he and I again accompanying her for her first, we visited our presence upon Uptown Theatre once more waiting in line this time shorter we quickly stubbed out our cigarettes as we approached the ticket booth and found ourselves to the balcony beckoning for an encore. In shifts and shapes the Texas terrain travelled near our eyes, we stared and stumbled once more for two hours honoring our fallen heroes on the silver screen, Chigurh reminded us of the vaulted values we veered to advance we said to ourselves, “He is not a hero, he is a friend.” She in the midst made eye-contact again and again understanding fully our full blown obsession. The climatic coalescence of death at the hand of a roving band of Mexicans, a muddled party murdered without much regard for past history and superior motives. We thanked again our purveyors of pictures, a petulance is an end to something so secure.
Third, high and mighty we danced and danced discovering in datum a daring escape is soundless as the dry baked desert watches us by. Accompanied this time by menly friends forever we four found time in our like-minded ways to sit still for a few hours finding on the screen again and again the beginnings of something beautiful. I begin to obsess over the stark slow steps of Llewelyn across the way our camera felt far away and he is a small man traversing a long patch of dirt for a second before the scene is cut and we are transported beyond. I continue to stare at the little man walking his way across the frame our loved ones gone from the forefront and replaced with a resemblance to plot, I wonder what happens if you leave it be at that, a dark dot doting daring the audience to withstand two minutes of tedious travel. Later, I begin to wonder what it all means to know the words before they are spoken a sensation like watching Pretty in Pink a dozen times maybe? The four of us frown and furrow we toke and mumble and find a bit of laughter in the short walk home from Uptown Theatre we welcome with warm arms the indoors from a cold night and we bake our heads together for discussions discerning the quality of our viewing experiences once more.
Fourth, a visit is visited upon our entrants a bottle of Jameson jams our circuits as we again, he and I, are joined by friends and foes alike, his high school mates matter and we decide that the night is best spent viewing at Uptown Theatre a fourth time the wonderous film of Chigurh and his curious collisions with the human nature of our brothers and sisters. We stink of sminking gin and whiskey and we watch belatedly always the action unfolding. I can nearly taste the blood spilling from the cast colluding to determine our mindset and mood. I can feel my spirits lifting at the nearing apex, our arch ascending such great towers of height to find at the top a spellbinding performance of background and minimalism. Our fleeting forever feelings fade with sobriety and we find our car afterward covered in snow. The quiet conversation that follows in his schoolmates vehicle validates the inferiority of drunken depictions and a daring disguise for likely entertainments, our talk centers on he and I’s fourth viewing of such solid foundations under the influence of various substances and we vow next time to partake in fungal shenanigans just for simply selective sake.
Fifth, long forgotten, a home theater setup precludes the Uptown Theatre arrangement as arrangements are made to subject those missing friends to gasping gauging reactions reflect the tone of evening, we darken the living room of the Garfield Common Lofts and sit with fright at the beguiling menace of Chigurh chasing Llewelyn leaving Carla Jean and we come to memorize entirely the gentle missives of Tommy Lee Jones unable, he and I, to pass a day without citing a line from the film we wrangle with separation anxiety as we smoke cigarettes and attend to our duties as employees of some companies we find ourselves finding meaning everyday in our lives as it relates and we’re glad to finally have this .AVI file forever on loop as a screen saver selected it projecting on the windows it dances across the space between houses and flits freaky flicks on the walls next door. The leftover relations regale us tales downstairs on the porch at the pleasure derived from viewing such insane delights on the living room screen, we the residents of the Garfield Common Lofts take turns telling each other about long moments of grace, a murdered perfection and we celebrate together the crowning achievement attained yet again, he and I add another badge of merit and ponder, “Might we dare watch a sixth?”
Sixth, a seclusion of senses emanates, his responsibility of book house basement stock manager has enabled his returns on a book and we skim scantily the passerbys and altogether alarmingly similar sentences uttered under oath we get a feeling of sparse nothing impregnating the space in margins mounting a coup d’etat copping with the singular notion of death deceiving he does not indeed murder in the end and we have a fall of place peeling from the canvass each scratch suffered we watch together for a final time vetting the insides of the intricate deceit dangled for our consumption we begin to weary and waver in our uncompromising cadavers until finally a break through the walls of our overly analytical assumptions we reach the top of this casts collective charisma melting under the sun and we stand at the precipice wordless without doubt, we bow down lastly again for the sixth time in a two week span found sight asunder and lately we believe that such things are best represented undone.
