Tara Darby presents a short story with her stunning photograph of an abandoned cinema
Nancy Clutter went to the State cinema on the night before her death, to a special Friday 13th spook show. Because the following night was a full moon, her boyfriend Bobby Rupp asked if she’d like to take a drive to Lake McKinney, or to go to the cinema in nearby Garden City. Her father asked her not to as she had stayed out late the night before. It was November, 1959, the 1950s were coming to an end, a serpent lay in wait. The flickering flame of the briefly lived American Dream was imminently to be extinguished.
The cinema lies abandoned now – a sign on the door says Memory Lane. If I half closed my eyes, it wasn’t hard to picture Nancy and her friends gathering outside. It haunts me that Perry talked to Nancy in her bedroom, that he protected her from Dick’s advances, that he scrabbled underneath her bed for a solitary one dollar coin.
JM and I saw the crime pictures in the Sheriff’s office, the horror of the killings in unrelenting monochrome. Perry climbed the stairs, re-entered her room and took aim. Nancy turned her head towards the wall.
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Tara Darby is a photographer based in Hackney, London. She is a regular contributor to Another, Dazed & Confused and many other international publications. She is currently working on a short film and exhibition
JM Lapham is a musician based in Austin, Texas. He has recorded albums with the band, The Earlies, for Names/679, and collaborated with Micah P. Hinson on The Late Cord for 4AD. He is currently finishing an album for an as yet untitled new project
