Quentin Tarantino - The Man, The Myths and the Movies. Wensley Clarkson
was anxious. She didn’t mind him knocking around with kids from all sorts of backgrounds, just as long as she knew precisely who they were.
In the end, they both compromised and Quentin attended a more middle-of-the-road, state-supported school called the Norbonne, on the edge of Torrance. He had difficulties from the beginning and soon started playing truant, often watching films at the two-dollar afternoon matinee performances at local movie theatres. Connie, frequently preoccupied by her high-powered job, was often the last person to discover her son was skipping classes.
When she did eventually find out, she was furious, but concluded that Quentin just wasn’t cut out for school. Connie decided to deal with the situation before he got himself into big trouble wandering the streets of Torrance. She preferred him to get a job rather than continue to play truant. So Quentin quit school before he had completed the tenth grade. He had, in effect, dropped out at just 15 years of age.
By this time, Quentin was well over six feet tall and mature for his age. He had taught himself how to survive on the mean streets of Los Angeles, and the few friends he had tended to be a couple of years older. He had even developed a taste for beer, but could barely afford the bus ride to meet his pals, let alone a round of drinks in one of their favourite dives.
Quentin started to get reckless. There were lots of things he wanted but couldn’t afford. He had read every book and comic in his room at least twice and he felt increasingly bitter about his lack of income. Connie still paid him an allowance, but she made it crystal clear that she would not support him for much longer.
So, one day when he was browsing in a local K-Mart near the family home in Torrance, he found himself tempted into committing a crime. The Elmore Leonard novel The Switch caught his eye. It was the writer’s latest work and Quentin – a keen fan since the age of 12 – could not resist the urge to take it. He snatched the brightly coloured paperback and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.
But, unlike the heroes of his films 15 years later, Quentin did not get very far. A store detective collared him just as he stepped outside into the bright Californian sunshine.
Thirty minutes later, a black and white Torrance City police cruiser – motto ‘To Protect and Serve’ – rolled up outside Connie’s house. Neighbours peeked from behind their drapes as the gangly youth was escorted to the front door in handcuffs.
Connie was infuriated because she had always been incredibly generous about allowing Quentin any books and records he wanted. And she was doubly annoyed when she found a $5 bill in his room that he could have used to buy the book.
To Quentin it was just one of those things… ‘I think I’ll do it. I’m here and I want to do it. I don’t have the money on me so I’ll just take it.’ The police officers were very understanding and informed Connie that her son had been so nervous after his arrest that he had burst into tears, and they’d decided to give him a warning rather than charge him. The policemen were concerned when they heard there was no father at home, but as soon as they met Connie they decided she more than made up for the missing parent.
Connie was so angry she grounded Quentin for the entire summer of 1979. She would only allow him out for specific activities, like attending the Torrance Community Theatre Workshop he had only just enrolled in. He also said he had been offered a part-time job as an usher at a local theatre. Connie was relieved. Quentin’s arrest seemed to have shaken some sense into him.
At the workshop, Quentin got one of the lead roles in the progressive play, Two and Two Makes Sex. No one actually realised that he was only 15 at the time. Quentin played the husband in a twenties couple who swapped partners with a couple in their forties. Connie attended the first night and was impressed by her son’s performance. ‘He was very believable as an actor and I forgot he was my son within minutes of seeing him up there on the stage,’ she explains.
There was also the obligatory interpretation of Romeo and Juliet during which Quentin made a less-than-comfortable attempt at the male lead role.
At this point, Quentin went to the trouble of renaming himself Quentin Tarantino after his teacher at the Torrance Community Theatre Workshop said it sounded ‘really cool’. Quentin told Connie that he did it because he was seriously planning a career as an actor. His mother was just pleased that he wasn’t getting into any more trouble. As far as she was concerned, Quentin could call himself Jack the Ripper as long as he kept himself on the straight and narrow.
As Quentin later wrote in a Pulp Fiction scene between boxer Butch and the dishy Colombian cabbie Esmeralda, who helps him flee from a fixed fight, ‘In America, honey, names don’t mean shit.’
Crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavour’
Louis Calhern in The Asphalt Jungle, 1950
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
THE PUSSYCAT PORNO THEATRE, TORRANCE, SUMMER 1979
Looking considerably older than his 16 years, Quentin had managed to land a job as an usher in Torrance’s only surviving theatre, which had been converted into a porno palace. Surrounded by the cinema’s motley patrons, Quentin’s already dampened interest in sex now took a complete tumble when he became exposed to non-stop celluloid orgies.
Back home, Connie had absolutely no idea that her son was working in such an establishment until she found a book of matches on the kitchen counter.
‘Where’s this come from, Quint? The Pussycat Theatre?’
‘That’s my job, Mom. I told you I work at a theatre.’
Connie was flabbergasted by his matter-of-fact tone. It was as if Quentin was saying, ‘It’s only a place of work. No way am I interested in all that seedy stuff.’
Quentin later insisted to his mother that the sight of all that celluloid flesh put him off porn for life, but at least it was a regular kind of job which involved working normal hours.
In a strange way, Connie completely understood what her son meant. And she was relieved that he was no longer wandering the streets penniless and being tempted to break any more laws.
Working in the Pussycat porno theatre was tough on Quentin because it challenged his ability to cut himself off from the degrading movies on show, as well as the theatre’s extremely sleazy and aggressive clientele.
Most customers presumed Quentin was older than he was and treated him accordingly. Fights would regularly break out in the auditorium and Quentin was expected to sort out every disturbance. At six feet two inches, the management saw him as a big guy who knew how to look after himself. But Quentin was not exactly fit. He regularly drank beer, adored eating vast quantities of fast food, and had grown quite a belly in the process.
Connie was actually more worried about what her son was getting up to when he wasn’t at work. She knew he was a self-sufficient kid, but she worried about who he was hanging out with and whether he was involved with drugs.
Quentin would regularly brush off his mother’s concern, telling her not to worry. But his demeanour was becoming increasingly laid back and that bothered Connie enormously. She had been told that kids with drugs problems were lethargic and sleepy. While Quentin was still able to transfix anyone with a dose of hyperactive machine-gun conversation, the rest of the time he certainly seemed to be living in another world. He did not even wear a watch, even though he had finally bothered to learn how to tell the time when he was in fifth grade at school. And he was always oversleeping.
Connie tried to guard against any possible involvement with drugs by keeping Quentin to a fairly strict schedule. She knew there was more temptation during the evening hours so she made