The Stamford Pistachio Trail, Part V

2001: A Space Odyssey

After dinner they piled into the station wagon, and Aunt Ann drove them through the dark, glowing night toward Stamford proper and the cineplex.

“Check it out,” Ronnie said to the others, a leaning one-eyed car behind them. The cousins were in the rear third while the back seat was taken by a couple of neighborhood teenagers.

“One headlight -- that means something. Criminals usually drive jalopies.”

“Maybe it’s the strangler,” Andy said.

“May-be...” Ronnie gave a menacing look to Rosie, who cast a sly glance at Merri. The passing street lights lit the wagon’s interior with a delayed yellow strobe.

“Seriously, I think it means something,¨ he said. ¨There goes another one! Why do they all have one headlight? Why tonight?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Merri said.

“Everything means something.”

One of the older kids turned to them with bloodshot eyes and elbow over the seat.

“It’s true,” he concurred. “This dude you have to meet will be there tonight. I know you’re gonna dig him.”

“Right on, man -- solid!” said Andy.

“What’s so great about him?” Merri asked the kid.

“He knows about consciousness, and planes of being. The earth’s axis, in relation to evolution, and our purpose…”

“Sounds like a lot of hogwash,” she answered.

“I guarantee you’re gonna dig him.”

“I guarantee I will not dig him. You like the reefer, huh?”

“You should try some,” he said.

“No, thanks.”

“Hey man, what’s his name?” Andy said.

Just then Barbara turned to them from the far front. ¨This movie is about evolution, guys.¨

“TURN AROUND!” Rosie blasted at her, and she did so, silently. 

The cousins broke down in a fit of subdued giggling, and Merri kicked Rosie hard.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” she called feebly to the back of Barbara’s still head.

In the lobby before the movie, they ran into the diggable dude, who, with his long unkempt blond hair, stoned expression, and large shiny buck-teeth, wasn’t particularly impressive. Andy, simply because of the hype, stood at the kid’s side as they all waited in the midst of the milling crowd.

“Someone told me they meet God in this movie, and he’s a man. What else would he be -- a monkey? You’re probably wondering: ‘Why is his hand still in my popcorn?’ Well, I’m just kidding. I only take a little, but make it seem like I’m taking a lot.”

“Get it out of there, dude.”

Aunt Ann took Rosie by the hand and then ushered the group into the large, ultra modern theater. They found seats in a section near the middle, and as the lights went down most people went right on talking. Then the previews came on, and finally the movie.

Barbara was right: there were apes. Then Rosie woke to grand symphonic music, the loudest music she’d ever heard, and up on screen was a giant womb-baby floating in space beside a planet of nearly equal size.

The music soared to a crescendo, and the movie was over.

Back in the lobby, Rosie stayed close to the tall and sturdy presence of Aunt Ann, who ably rounded up the others and led them outside to the cold and then into the car.

They gave only one dude a ride home. He lived in “the cursed house,” according to Merri.

“Why is it cursed?” Rosie asked, mostly out of obligation, as they headed home.

“Why else? Murder. There’s been two there this century -- isn’t that incredible? The most recent was a double murder, a husband-and-wife sort of thing.”

“Sounds like some people we know,” Ronnie said lowly.

“Oh no, there was a lover involved who shot both the husband and the wife.”

“Well, believe it or not, just the other day I overheard Jerry talking on the phone, and he was saying some strange things. Nice things…”

“Like what?” 

Rosie tuned them out. She’d seen and heard enough horror stories lately to last a lifetime.