text: It’s May 5th, 1987 on a drizzly Saturday night in Houston, Texas. Cars drive by on a busy city street. On the narrow sidewalk, Lance, a thin 30 year old man with long brown scraggly hair, walks at a hurried pace. His life isn’t filled with much. Mostly he just likes to sit in his apartment and drink malt liquor. But today is big, today he gets to see Eraserhead on the silver screen, and he is rushing as fast as he can to the River Oaks Theater on West Gray, worried he’s going to be late. Lance is what many would call a cinephile. He devours movies in his spare time, and spare time is pretty much all he’s got. He lives in a squalid little studio apartment in a not so great part of Texas City. There he watches old horror movies and reruns of The Love Boat on a tiny black and white TV, often into the wee hours of the morning. He goes to bed, usually wasted, on a twin sized sheet-less mattress. He pays the bills by delivering pizzas. He makes more money than he thought he could doing such an easy job but he knows he’s going nowhere. He’s stuck in what feels like a black hole, not aiming to get any better. Just existing and filling his needs. His needs for booze and his needs for cinema. But today’s special. Today’s an escape from the drudgery of the day to day. Lance gets to go to the city and see one of his favorite films in a cinematic church. On a big screen, in a dark room surrounded by strangers, all brought together to see something beautiful. He finally arrives at the River Oaks theater. The theater is very old and was built in the 1930s, but is full of history. It’s a beautiful Art Deco movie palace, but recently the balcony was converted into 2 micro theaters. A lot of things have been changing at this theater, they’ve installed new projectors, and more first run films are being show as opposed to repertory programming, mostly because the new and rising popularity of VHS has been keeping people at home to watch older movies. Regardless though, the River Oaks, at least in Lance’s opinion, is still his favorite place to see classic films and cult oddities. The first time he ever went to River Oaks was in 1982 to see Salo. A film he heard was full of torture and literal shit eating. His mind was blown that a movie like this could actually be shown in a theater, and while he was kind of terrified to see it he drove his beat up 1973 Pinto into town, and had an experience he wouldn’t soon forget. The movie was shocking and disgusting, but also quite boring. Much to his shock though, at the end of the film, police raided the theater and arrested the manager for promoting obscenity. He couldn’t believe what he had walked into, and decided he had to give his business to a cinema who regularly risked it all, as much as possible. Eraserhead starts at midnight and it’s 10:53pm. Lance is terrified of being late to movies and often arrives way too early. So he goes into a back alley, sits on the ground and breaks out a flask of dark spiced rum, he starts to chug it. An old man walking his German Shepherd passes by and sees Lance. “What tha fuck ARE you doin’?” the old man stammers out. Lance nervously glances over not wanting to deal with this... “Mind your own fuckin’ business!” The old man gasps in shock. “This is a nice goddamn neighborhood! Stop with that degenerate shit, and get out of that alley!” The dog sternly and loudly barks, almost as if in agreeance. The old man walks away and Lance is happy to see him go so he can get back to his drinking. Lance stumbles into the theater with more than a heavy buzz and sees Howard, the manager who got arrested for showing Salo back in ’82. Lance and Howard have formed a weird friendship over the past 5 years that Lance has been coming to the theater. Lance begged him for a job soon after he discovered the theater and for a while Lance was an apprentice to the River Oaks projectionist... for about a year. He would lug film cans up and down the stairs, clean the equipment. But eventually he was laid off and while he could've pursued this path further at another theater for some reason he didn’t. He became content working in restaurants, and enjoying the theater purely as a customer and not an employee. He certainly didn’t blame Howard for the lay off, the theater was struggling at the time, and they remained friendly. Mainly because both loved booze, and Howard would often take him into his back office to enjoy moonshine with Lance that he regularly bought from his alcoholic mad scientist cousin. Of course this night was no different and Howard and Lance snuck off to the back to drink and shoot the shit. “You were a good fucking worker man!” Howard blurts out as the two lounge in his office. “I wish I could bring you back on, but you know we can’t afford a second guy up there anymore and Dale’s not gonna leave until he’s fucking dead... this job is everything to him. But why don’t you just go somewhere else, pursue being a projectionist, I really think you could be great at that!” Lance teeters back in forth in his old wooden chair not knowing quite what to say. “I don’t know man... I mean all of the theaters near me are these shitty little corporate places where movies don’t mean shit and it’s all about slinging popcorn between Coke commercials and showings of Three Amigos and Crocodile Dundee. I just don’t like the vibe. I mean I liked being here and if that’s not in the cards then I’m fine where I am.” “Ah Lance...” Howard sighs dejected. “You know I would always have you working at concessions or whatever, but I know it’s not worth it for you to come all the way up for that.” “No I totally understand, but everything’s cool! I’m fine where I’m at! I’m having fun, living life, and I get to come out here and see awesome fucking movies with you guys!” At this point Lance is well past buzzed and into drunk and it’s 10 minutes before showtime. He stumbles out into the lobby and sees Jane at Concessions... she’s beautiful and has fiery red hair and is covered in freckles. Every time Lance sees her he makes weird small talk and the two awkwardly laugh together, but he really just wants to ask her on a date. He wants to take her out to the Pizza Hut buffet and bring her home and watch The Love Boat with her. Today’s going to be different. Today’s going to be special. He’s really going to woo her this time. “Hey!” Lance blurts out. “Hey.” Jane says meekly “Can I help you?” “You know... I come here a lot, and I always see you! And you’re... and you’re... so freakin’ cute.” The air is sucked out of the room. “You know... you’re just beautiful. And... don’t you remember me?” “Yeah... I’ve seen you around.” Jane says through a pained smile. “We always talk about the white chocolate and the milk chocolate and you hate white but I love it!” Lance belts out laughing. “Anyways... I just wanted to say what I really want to say. And that’s would you like to go out with me sometime soon? You know we could go anywhere we could eat, we could go to a park, whatever I’m down with anything!” Jane sits in silence for a painfully long time... until she finally speaks. “You know... I’m really just trying to work. And there’s people behind you.” Everybody looks disgusted at what is happening here. “Can I get you anything?” Lance’s smile disappears. “Uh no... I’m just going to go in.” The moment has arrived. Eraserhead is playing on the screen in all its glory. Only Lance isn't enjoying it because he has an aching pit in his stomach. He thinks about why he can’t keep a decent job, he thinks about why he puts himself into embarrassing situations. Jack Nance’s face floats back and forth across the screen throughout space. The rocky planet like object. The billowing industrial smoke. The images wash over Lance but he can’t take them in. All of the sudden a German Shepherd starts barking. Lance’s attention snaps over immediately. It’s the old man. He’s sitting in the theater with his German Shepherd sitting in the chair next to him, barking. Lance leaps up. “YOU! What the fuck are you doing here?!” Everybody in the audience is in shock as Lance runs towards the old man. The old man starts cackling. “I wouldn’t get any closer boy Eva doesn’t really like you!” Eva the German Shepherd growls. As the film flickers across him and the soundtrack drones Lance continues to scream. “Goddamnit DAD! Why the FUCK do you have to ruin everything! I just wanted to enjoy this FUCKING movie!” Eva attacks Lance. She tackles him to the ground and viciously rips at his arm. Blood flies as Lance screams horrifically. The Old Man laughs hysterically.