By Mike Lee
When we entered through the roof entrance, the interior of the abandoned Deluxe Theater was as dark as an Egyptian night. Our flashlights beamed like lasers while we descended the spiral stairs to the balcony on the left side of the stage.
The metal creaked with each step.
Price shrugged and said, “Look at the bright side of the abyss. Once you fall in, you won’t be here anymore.”
Hearing that sentiment is an excellent way to start the adventure. Price is fun like that. His favorite song is Beyond Belief, by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. He constantly plays it on the cassette deck of his gold Camaro.
Sometimes, he’s kind and rewinds to play it again. It’s like he’s always looking for the Alice mentioned in the song.
He once had a girlfriend named Alyce. She left him for better pastures.
In these ruins, he found his wonderland instead.
My first visit to the Deluxe was when I was in seventh grade. On school holidays, Mom would take me to her job at a surgeon’s office across from St. Joseph’s Hospital on Biltmore Avenue. She would set me loose, giving me bus money and an extra dollar.
On that day, I went straight to Pack Square, and after stealing cigarettes from the corner store, I saw some kids breaking into the just-closed movie theater on Patton Avenue. I joined in, and we trashed the place until a couple of cops walked in on us. We scattered through the rear exit into the back alley and got away.
That is when Price and I met.
The stench of urine and rotting wood permeated the landing. Jill Greene, a slight, freckled girl who habitually wore halters and track shorts in the summer and went heavy on the patchouli, yelped when the flooring cracked as she stepped into the balcony.
“Step lightly, people,” said Price. “Down this way.”
We followed him down the marble stairs. The carpeting was long gone, and the steps were slippery from water leaks.
The seats had been pulled out years ago; the floor was bare except for teenage and druggie debris. Jill immediately found a nickel bag of what turned out to be skunk weed when she unrolled it.
“Somebody just took a shit on the floor,” said Price. “No, really. Fresh shit.”
“Yeah, I smell it,” I said.
I turned my flashlight toward where the stench originated and spotted a figure behind the frayed rose curtain on the edge of the screen.
Jill flashed on something on the ground in front of her. “Somebody’s discarded works.”
“Probably who ran,” I said.
“Shouldn’t we leave?” Jill said.
“Nah,” said Price, scanning the floor with his flashlight. “Maybe the junkie left his roll somewhere.”
We joined him, wandering through the old theater, looking for anything like a bedroll or a backpack. I found nothing except more discarded needles and the remains of rotting half-eaten food in Styrofoam containers.
“He’s probably hiding behind the curtains or the stage,” Price said.
“I’m not going back there,” Jill said.
“Suit yourself, man,” Price said with an edge of confidence. He went behind the curtain.
We could see the light behind the curtain, moving like a giant firefly before disappearing behind the stage.
Jill moved closer to me and whispered, “I want to get the fuck out of here.”
“He’s our ride, so we stay.”
When we returned to the roof, we split the money. Price said he found the junkie on the nod, curled up under the stage. He told us he found 36 dollars in the junkie’s jeans pocket, folded—12 for each of us.
We shimmed down the ladder, moved furtively down the alley, made our way to Pritchard Park, and got in the Camaro.
Jill took the back seat. I sat shotgun, mulling over a few questions I wanted to ask Price. There was something not right about this.
Price pulled out on Patton Avenue and drove us into West Asheville. He made a left on Heywood Road.
Jill rolled a doobie and passed it to me. Took a drag and felt seriously zoot.
I offered it to Price. He nodded no, cracked the windows and pushed in the Elvis Costello cassette.
I slid to elsewhere, and passed the doobie back to Jill.
* * *
Mike Lee is a writer and editor at a trade union in New York City. His work appears in or is forthcoming in Bright Flash Literary Review, Wallstrait, The Opiate, Roi Faineant, Brillant Flash Fiction, BULL, Drunk Monkeys, and many others. His story collection, The Northern Line, is available on Amazon.