"Wow," he whispered, and his expression of naked wonder had been all Stu could have hoped for.
"I did this three summers at the Starlite Drive-In over in Braintree," Stu said. "I hope I ain't forgot how to fix one of these bastards if the film breaks."
"Wow," Tom said again.
"We'll have to wait in between reels. I wasn't about to go back and grab a second one." Stu stepped through the welter of patch cords leading from the projector to the Honda generator in the electrical closet, and pulled the starter cord. The generator began to chug cheerfully along. Stu shut the door as far as it would go to mute the engine sound and killed the lights. And five minutes later they were sitting side by side, watching Sylvester Stallone kill hundreds of dope-dealers in Rambo IV: The Fire-Fight. Dolby sound blared out at them from the Convention Hall's sixteen speakers, sometimes so loud it was hard to hear the dialogue (what dialogue there was)... but they had both loved it.
Now, thinking about that, Stu smiled. Someone who didn't know better would have called him dumb - he could have hooked a VCR up to a much smaller gennie and they could have watched hundreds of movies that way, probably right in the Holiday Inn. But movies on TV were not the same, never had been, to his way of thinking. And that wasn't really the point, either. The point was simply that they had time to kill... and some days it died goddamned hard.
Anyway, one of the films had been a reissue of one of the last Disney cartoons, Oliver and Company, which had never been released on videotape. Tom watched it again and again, laughing like a child at the antics of Oliver and the Artful Dodger and Fagin, who, in the cartoon, lived on a barge in New York and slept in a stolen airline seat.
In addition to the movie project, Stu had built over twenty models, including a Rolls-Royce that had 240 parts and had sold for sixty-five dollars before the superflu. Tom had built a strange but somehow compelling terrain-contoured landscape that covered nearly half the floor space of the Holiday Inn's main function room; he had used papier-maché, plaster of paris, and various food colorings. He called it Moonbase Alpha. Yes, they had kept busy, but -
What you're thinking is crazy.
He flexed his leg. It was in better shape than he ever would have hoped, partially thanks to the Holiday Inn's weight room and exercising machines. There was still considerable stiffness and some pain but he was able to limp around without the crutches. They could take it slow and easy. He was quite sure he could show Tom how to run one of the Arctic Cats that almost everyone around here kept packed away in the back of their garages. Do twenty miles a day, pack shelter halves, big sleeping bags, plenty of those freeze-dried concentrates...
Sure, and when the avalanche comes down on you up in Vail Pass, you and Tom can wave a pack of freeze-dried carrots at it and tell it to go away. It's crazy!
Still...
He crushed his smoke and turned off the gas lamp. But it was a long time before he slept.
Over breakfast he said, "Tom, how badly do you want to get back to Boulder?"
"And see Fran? Dick? Sandy? Laws, I want to get back to Boulder worse than anything, Stu. You don't think they gave my little house away, do you?"
"No, I'm sure they didn't. What I mean is, would it be worth it to you to take a chance?"
Tom looked at him, puzzled. Stu was getting ready to try and explain further when Tom said: "Laws, everything's a chance, isn't it?"
It was decided as simply as that. They left Grand Junction on the last day of November.