This was it. The other shoe had dropped, the call had gone out; it was time. The elder gray wolf, with white-tipped fur and ratty old boots, leapt out of his sedan and walked towards the metal door.
It was embedded at the base of the cliff, behind it the wolf-made cave which housed exactly what he needed in this desperate hour. Feebly he worked his hand upon the dial, twisting the knob back and forth an ear cocked and waiting to hear the lock click into place. He ran through it five times, trying to get it right, but at long last, his click came and the door opened.
“Heavy sumbitch,” the old hound grumbled as he swung the massive metal door open and walked through the threshold.
The tunnel grew dark as he descended below the earth, each footfall echoing louder and louder until, at last, there were the lights he left behind when he first discovered and established this hallowed hall. When he reached the sprawling bunker at the end, he knew just what to do.
“Hey Peggy, it’s Sean again. We still got Reels 3-6 of Kiss Me Deadly?”
The black-furred receptionist smiled her knowing smile and pointed him straight down the hall. Row upon row, shelf atop shelf, of nothing but silver film cans. Every motion picture ever etched upon celluloid (at least in the Southwestern United States), preserved in the near-hermetic privacy of a salt mine.
“Po’ thing burn up on ya again?” Peggy quizzed in her thick Cajun drawl.
Sean shot back with a wink. “Yaw-n-naw, sweetheart. Just old age. Folks love that flick too damn much is the problem. Done repeat screenings every week for three months, poor thing’s bound to conk out. How them dupes coming?”
“Sho’nuff got most of the F catalogue backed up again.” Peggy nodded. “How’s the screen itself up at the drive-in?”
“Pretty as a peach and twice as spotless.” Sean nodded, stuffing the film cans beneath his arms.
Peggy nodded, parting her long black locks as she grabbed the log book. “Thank God ‘Manda comin’ on the weekend though. Chilled enough down here to give ya a good old cold.”
“Hey naw,” Sean grinned. “Least we don’t keep ya here overnight.”
“You got DAT right!” she shot back playfully. “Mark ‘er for me.”
Sean scribbled all the details down on the page, from the serial number to the length of time they’d be withdrawn: “UTB.”
When Peggy saw the marking, she broke out into snorting laughter.
“What’s funny?” the old gray snapped. “I thought that’s the best way to put it. ‘Until They Break.’” When Peggy leaned in and whispered one of its alternate (and rather crude) meanings, the projectionist stopped mid-pen-stroke.
“Christ, that’s nasty.” he guffawed. “Saved me from a real fuck-up, huh honey?”
“Just doin’ my job, handsome.”
With that, he turned the T to an I, gave his favorite desk jockey a kiss on the cheek and soldiered back up the tunnel and towards his car.
“Keep ‘er warm for me, beautiful. Just not too warm, eh?”
The black-furred clerk grinned “Yessir.”
With that, the old gray closed the vault door and drove back to his paying public.
A wolf after my own heart.