The Burnt Orange Heresy

"No, not always," he replied seriously. "But it is no matter. These Bowery Boys are too wonderful comedians-the Surrealist actors, no?' I like M. Huntz Hall. He is very droll. Last week there were the three pictures one night with the bourgeois couple and their new house, Papa and Mama Kettle. I like them very much, and also John Wayne." He shook his fingers as if he had burned them badly on a hot stove. "Oh ho! He is the tough guy, no?"

"Yes, sir, he certainly is. But you've surprised me again, M. Debierue. I had no idea you were a movie fan."

"It is pleasant to see the cinema in the evenings." He shrugged. "And I like also the grape snow cone. Do you like these, the grape snow cones, M. Figueras?"

"I haven't had one in a long time."

"Very good. Fifteen cents at the snack bar'

"That's quite a long walk down there and back every night, M. Debierue. And as long as you haven't seen these old movies anyway, why don't you buy a television?' There are at least a half-dozen films on TV every night, and-"

"No," he said loyally, "this is not good advice. M. Price has already explained to me that the TV was harmful to the eyes. The little screen, he said, will give one bad headaches after one or two hours of watching."

I was going to refute this, but changed my mind and lit a cigarette instead. Debierue excused himself and left for his bedroom. I stubbed out the cigarette in the sticky remains of the imitation cranberry sauce well in the TV dinner plate. My mouth was too dry to smoke.

"Have you got any tranquilizers in your purse?"

"No, but I've got a Ritalin, I think." Berenice untied the drawstring and searched for her pillbox.

"O.K., and give me two Excedrins while you're at it."

"I've only got Bufferin-"

I took two Bufferin and the tiny Ritalin pill and chased them with the remainder of my orange juice.

"It looks as though things are going to break for us after all," I said softly.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean?"

She looked at me with the blank vacant stare that always infuriated me. "I don't know."

"Never mind. We'll talk about it later."

Within a few minutes Debierue returned, wearing his moviegoer's "costume." He had exchanged the shortsleeved poio shirt for a long-sleeved dress shirt, and it was buttoned at the neck and cuffs. He wore long white duck trousers instead of shorts, and had pulled his white socks up over the cuffs and secured them with bicycle clips. With his tennis shoes and Navy blue beret he resembled some exclusive tennis club's oldest living member. In his left hand he carried a pair of cotton Iron Boy work gloves. It was a peculiar getup, but it was a practical uniform for a man who was determined to sit for six hours in a mosquitoinfested drive-in movie.

Debierue locked the front door and dropped the key into a red pottery pot containing a thirsty azalea, and trailed us to the car. Berenice sat in the middle, and as I drove cautiously down the grassy road toward the highway she and the old man discussed mosquitoes and mosquito control. His beloved M. Price had a huge smoke-spraying machine on a truck that made the circuit of the theater before the films began and again at intermission, but Debierue had to take the gloves along because the mosquitoes were so fierce on his walk home. She told him about, and recommended, a spray repellent called Festrol, and I was repelled by the banality of their conversation. But with his mind on the movies, it was too late for me to ask him any final questions about his art.

I pulled over in the driveway short of the ticket window and waved a car by. I gave the old man one of my business cards with the magazine's New York address and telephone number, and wedged in a parting comment that if he changed his mind about letting me see his pictures he could call me collect at any time. He nodded impatiently and, without looking at the card, dropped it into his shirt pocket. We shook hands, the quick one-up-and-one-down handshake, Berenice gave him a peck on his beard, and he got out of the car. By the time I got the car turned around, he had disappeared into the darkness of the theater. Music and insane woodpecker laughter filled the night suddenly as I turned onto the highway. Berenice sighed.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, I was just thinking," she said. "We held him up too long and now he'll have to wait until intermission to get his grape snow cone."

"Yeah. That's tough."

I drove into Debierue's private road, stopped, and switched off the headlights. Before she could say anything I turned to Berenice and said, "Before you say anything I'm going to tell you. Then, if you have questions, ask them. I'm going down now to take a look at Debierue's pictures. He said he had painted a few, and now that I know there are pictures in his studio I can't go back without one for Mr. Cassidy'

"Why not?' He doesn't know that there are any."