That winter, at one of the city’s theaters, the movie is about a boy who is only two years older than Arthur. Even though Arthur is there with his parents and his sister, he is excited and interested, no longer regretting he is not with his friends at a movie where everyone lives on another planet.
The boy on the screen lives in the suburbs just like Arthur. There are malls and fast foods and video game parlors, but soon the boy is unhappy with all of those things. Half way through, the boy renounces God and tosses an empty bottle onto a highway where it shatters, Arthur understands, like his firm, but fragile, former faith.
By the time that boy lights a cigarette and snarls its smoke as a figurative sneer, Arthur’s father is hissing in his sister’s ear while his mother is drumming her fingers on her armrests. Even before his sister repeats, “We’re leaving,” his father is on his feet just as the boy on the screen curses the clear, star-filled evening sky as he walks the center line of the two-lane road.
Arthur’s mother hesitates, still watching as if she needs to learn a version of the future she’s already imagined. She whispers, “Bill, Bill” like a small, hoarse bird as the boy on the screen looks as if he is daring traffic. Music meant to be ominous rumbles as if a speeding car is barreling toward him.
Arthur’s mother, at last, tugs his arm. Because he is fourteen, he follows her to the side exit near the screen. He pauses, the winter air at his back, to stare at the enormous shadow of the boy that must have been cast by headlights.
On the sidewalk, a discussion between his parents flurries into argument. His mother says, “That’s what happens when you pick your movies out of a hat.” His father, as always, rebuts by turning his back. Surrounding the nearest stoplight, the wind-swept snow looks weightless. The intersection empty, Arthur’s father and sister cross in tandem.
Arthur’s mother waits for him. She begins to reach for his hand, but he keeps his at his side, accepting only her “It’s ok, Art.” His father and sister stride so far ahead they seem to be strangers from a future where he is already refusing his mother’s consolation, the snow impossibly echoing his name.
