When we last left our hero he wasn’t speeding towards Capone’s vault, but instead in a dangerous sustained free fall since the last time he saw the woman that bewitched him so much he couldn’t stop thinking about her. All of the unpleasantness of the past week, the asshole father resurfacing after a lengthy absence (something our hero knew far too well), the broken down cars, rainstorms, and drug addled dying mothers, seemed to pale in comparison to the light he focused on as he was racing towards the ground.
Her voice over the phone for the past few days was like a choir of angels singing down from the perch he had just thrown himself off of. Her smile like the beam of light he focused on as he hurtled towards the Earth. Despite the fall he felt hopelessly weightless to the point where he might shoot back up into the sky and land amongst the stars, but it was far too late. He was falling. Hard. Besides, if he shot back up into the atmosphere the sun would probably pull him in due to the force of sheer gravity. He already felt too close to the sun as it was. He could smell the burning…
“Shit.”
I awoke from my daydreaming in the upstairs popcorn room to realize that I had left the batch I was watching to burn. Normally, such things wouldn’t have gotten past me, but I was listening to music and constantly looking at my watch. It was the rare Friday where I had the evening off. Other than daydreaming about the girl I had developed a rather large crush on, I had been popping corn for the past eight hours non-stop to get the theatre ready for the weekend. It was the last thirty minutes of my shift. My brain honestly checked out two hours ago when I fulfilled my quota of large yellow garbage bags full of salty snacks and instead spent the time joking with the projectionists, drinking Dr. Pepper, listening to Outkast, and hoping no one walked upstairs.
“Parker! What the fuck? You burning the place down again?” One of my bosses, and that day’s projectionist, Marc came peering from around the corner drinking from his enormous Pepsi mug.
“Don’t you have a movie to start?”
“Nah. Everything is threaded. If it’s late, fuck ‘em.”
It’s hard to believe that shortly after I would quit my job that Marc would become the man running the theatre. To this day, he still is. Marc was the ultimate in appearing professional to the outside world and then being a jokester as soon as everyone else dropped out of the picture.
“Besides, I know you’ve been done with your job for about three hours now. I sit around just as much as you do.”
He had me on that one.
“You want to walk and talk? I’m fuckin’ bored and I only have to hit start on two movies in the last hour I’m here.”
I did a half assed cleaning job on the popper since they had me inexplicably coming in the following afternoon to do the same thing. The only checking of my work when I was popping popcorn was looking to see that there was, in fact, popcorn. I wiped the kettles out with a paper towel and the inside down with a cloth and walked away. The leftover oil and grease residue gave off more of an impression that the popper was clean than if I followed proper cleaning procedures. That asshole Lippman (I’ll get to him in a moment) always managed to call me out whenever I bothered to follow the rules, even after demonstrating to him that I followed instructions. He demanded that it shined. Well, fuck him, then. It will shine from the grease. Dipshit.
I followed Marc around the projection booth, which was far more sanitized than the last one I worked in as a manager before my spectacular burn out. Hospital white and more brightly lit than probably healthy, it was older than the last theatre I worked at, but had better people taking care of it. Not Marc. He was just there because it was mandated by this company that every manager had to have one projection shift a week regardless of status or pay grade.
Marc always asked me why I never rose above being a supervisor and went for management. He was one of the few people (other than another manager named Ken, who used to work with my mother decades ago) who knew what my family was like and that I felt comfortable talking to. He was a grand conversationalist with a knack for discretion; a person that makes a great manager because the buck seems to start and stop with him when it comes to sensitive information. He knew I was pushing myself pretty hard in school, but he always thought I could have used the extra cash. I couldn’t have used the extra stress.
“You know, I know about you and K, right?” Marc said as he sipped from a molded blue straw far too big even for his oversized cup.
“Is it that obvious even though we aren’t going out?”
“Well, considering she has come by just to say hi to you while seeing movies three times this week, I would say yes. It’s pretty obvious.”
“I do like her.”
“You know I don’t give a shit what you do as long as you show up for work, but you know some of the other managers and supervisors – COUGH! LIPPY! COUGH! – they’ll try to get you bumped down if they find out.”
The theatre has always had a very strict non-fraternization policy dividing the staff and management. I had signed an agreement with the promise of a whopping dollar more an hour that I would never date, drink, or hang out with any of the employees. It was something widely know to exist and something to promptly be ignored except when Richard (the GM) or Lippy were around. While Richard seemed content to simply let fraternizing go unabated provided that it didn’t lead to theft, injury, or death, Lippy was such a by the book pencil pusher that even saying hello to someone in a supermarket checkout line would be deemed to be grounds for immediate dismissal or demotion.
Lippy was a former bank manager, which would account for his anal retentive attention to all things anal retentive in nature, and he looked like a consummate douche. Even on his off days he wore three piece suits to really play on the fact that he’s dead serious about everything in his life. Slightly receding hairline at the age of 26 made up for with an immaculately trimmed goatee that made him look more like a guy going for his doctorate in film studies than a guy slinging nachos and prefab frozen Uno’s pizzas. Square framed glasses and shoes like those worn by Menachem Begin, he looked like Millhouse pushing thirty, or worse, what I would look like if I stayed in such thankless jobs and took them too seriously.
Lippy was always looking for an excuse to write me up because everyone looked to me on the floor for solutions to their problems instead of him. I would give answers and suggestions, while Lippy would throw up his hands, insist that he had to go count money in the office, not come out again for several hours, and then be pissed that the problem was never solved. The staff also knew that (to an extent) I was one of the few people willing to stand up to him
When I first became a supervisor there was an issue with an employee’s cash balance arising from a dispute with another employee who quit that same night. The two had been in an argument and when one went on a break, the other (shortly before leaving on break to never return) logged into this person’s register and rang in 47 large popcorns as a prank. When Lippy went to cash out at night, I was called into the office with the employee in question to account for the fact that the cash was a few hundred dollars off. Lippy called the police on the employee insisting that they were stealing. Marc (who was in the office at the time) and myself insisted that an itemized accounting of the evening’s sales would shed a light onto this discrepancy. Lippy flat out refused until the two of us took the issue to Richard, who was now on his way downstairs from doing real work to deal with the police, and said this wasn’t fair. Marc and I found the discrepancy, the police were sent home feeling pissed they got called down there in the first place, and Lippy never once apologized for what he did. That’s the kind of guy he was.
“Marc, I really don’t give a shit what Lippy thinks. I hate that guy, and if he wants to fire me, fine.”
“But that’s the thing! I know you’re valuable to this place. Those kids down there look up to you. All I’m saying is be careful.”
At that moment, Lippy made his way around the corner. He couldn’t have been listening in, but that didn’t stop him from being a full fledged asshole about seeing me talking to Marc.
“Why are you in the booth?”
Marc piped in before I could even say anything. “He’s helping me out for a bit. I needed him to help move some stuff.”
“He’s not supposed to be up here. You should have called me. Only management in the booth.” Lippy said as he made a smarmy hand gesture shooing me back to my popper room.
“You are the only manager scheduled to be working on the floor right now. You shouldn’t be up here now.”
“The shift switched over at four today, Marc. There are three other people downstairs right now and I need to speak with Mr. Parker about something that doesn’t concern you.”
Marc was pretty licked on this one. We obviously weren’t doing anything important. He had no play, and Lippy superseded him in the chain of command.
“Mr. Parker, come with me.”
Lippy walked me back to the stock room where no one would be able to walk in on us without knowing the door code (1-5-1-5, the building’s street address).
“I’ve been hearing some rumblings that you have been contacting and potentially flirting with K.L.L. Now while this is completely unsubstantiated, I felt it necessary to remind you about the fraternization policy we all had to sign when we accepted this job. You are not special or above the law in any way, and if Richard finds out that you two have begun fraternizing, he will have no choice but to demote you and possibly terminate the both of you. I hope you understand the actionable position that you are in right now.”
It killed me to have to start what I said next with “Mr. Lippman” because in this chain of theatres everyone in management is supposed to be referred to with a title rather than by their first name. I save titles for people I respect or doctors. Not for someone known for constantly needling others.
“I assure you, there is nothing going on, and if there was, I would most assuredly step down from my position. I know how much you would hate it if such a relationship were to arise.”
“I wouldn’t hate it. The company states…”
“The company or you, John?”
“You will refer to me as Mister and you will check your tone with me even when there is no one around, understood. You’re lucky the popcorn room is immaculate or I would write you up right now for insubordination.”
“What I am trying to say is, what difference does it really make what I do outside this building?”
“Your actions can be seen as conspiracy to defraud this corporation out of money. No one is above corporate policy.”
“No, no one is above the law and if I conspire to rob this place blind with anyone, I’ll be sure to answer to them once you’re done lecturing me on the employee handbook I’ve already read.”
“Do you really want to be flip with me about this? This is serious.”
“And I am serious when I say that I honestly don’t give a shit. You guys don’t pay me enough to give one, either.”
“That’s it. You watch yourself. Your write-up will be downstairs and waiting for you…”
“What about that roll of complementary passes that disappeared so you could make the payment on your nice new car out there?”
Lippy stopped for a moment, but only briefly. If he was going to turn to the rumour mill for his information, I would stoop just as low.
“I didn’t do that.”
“Word on the floor is you did. You think the other members of management are airtight and not prone to starting rumours?”
“Just like I have no proof of your relationships outside of work, you have no proof of anything I do outside of work.” He put his hand on the door handle and quite literally pushed me out the door. “You come to the office before you leave.”
I followed behind him down the hallway making various obscene gestures before going back into the popcorn room to sit down on a used up can of coconut oil. The guilt of violating the fraternization policy was nothing compared to the nerves I was feeling on the night of my first date with K. I was a ball of nervous energy, but one that felt like he could take on the world. I never would have told Lippy otherwise.
The nerves were compounded by the fact that our first date was going to be at a party amongst her friends, none of whom I had ever met before, and not a one on one encounter. Does that even really make it a date? It’s more of a gathering, really. But she called it a date when we talked about doing it. My mind was cluttered with a million different things.
We had been talking ever night since the first night we were thrust together, often for hours on end, never while I was at my house for fear my mother would chew me out for not going to get her beer and spending more time with someone other than her. I would call her from the car or on my break from work. She would also keep things somewhat secret from the grandparents that she lived with, not because they would necessarily disapprove of me, but because they are generally more speculative about any kin of theirs dating after K’s father turned out to be such a raging asshole.
She had a talk with her grandparents once about some guy she liked and they immediately freaked out and called this poor kids house and started asking him all sorts of uncomfortable questions about his grades, his parents, his family’s income. These are things she wanted to shield me from. If it wasn’t for her grandparents, we probably would have hung out even longer that early morning that I dropped her off back home. Apparently they were waiting up for her, and they were ready to ask me why I was so keen to help her out.
Plus, you know, both of our jobs relied heavily on not saying anything if we were going on a date. Unfortunately, you tell one of your colleagues there anything and the rumour mill starts up, leading to that unfortunate confrontation that led to me getting my first ever write up at work.
After Lippy went downstairs, Marc and I played soccer in the projection booth until our shifts were done and we made our way downstairs. It was one of the few times I didn’t bother to change out of my work uniform and into street clothes since I was just going to go home and look as nice as possible for the party later that evening.
I said my goodbyes to Marc in a brief manor because I knew K would be coming in to work any moment now. I hoped to see her if only for a moment before I left. You know, just to say hi.
When I enter the lobby, I am stopped by Richard who tells me I need to sign my write-up before I leave.
“What did you say to Mr. Lippman? What’s this I hear about you dating one of the employees?”
Before I can answer, out of the corner of my eye I see Lippy leading K into the office, and she seems to be on the verge of tears. What did he say to her? Even worse, am I going to have to confront Lippy and Richard at the same time about this with her in the room?
“Richard, I’ll be honest and say that I was upset by the accusations made by Mr. Lippman, but I assure you that if I had been dating someone this whole time or was thinking about it, you would know it.”
“And are you thinking about it?” He noticed me watching the office door intently.
“Yes. And all you had to do was ask.”
“Well, just be careful. That’s all I’m going to say and I am going to put that out of mind. Don’t let it affect your job or else this talk will be more serious. Also, when you sign your write-up, I want you to apologize to Mr. Lippman.”
We made our way to the office after I silently nodded in response to Richard. Inside, K was crying as Lippy was handing her a write-up. Richard seemed to be out of the loop on this bit of disciplinary action.
“What seems to be the trouble here?”
“She forgot to bring in her visor to work behind the concession stand, her socks aren’t black, and her shoes are not all black.” He said pointing to a dark grey stripe that ran around the sole of her shoes. “Furthermore, she doesn’t have the ten dollars necessary to buy a new visor, and she must be sent home.”
Richard picked up on what was really going on. “This is only her third scheduled shift. Don’t you think a verbal warning would’ve sufficed? She could borrow a visor from someone or I would be willing to write a note stating to take the ten dollars out of her cheque next week.”
“I don’t feel comfortable discussing this with another employee in the room.”
I didn’t say anything, but I handed K my visor and handed it to her.
Lippy gritted his teeth. “That doesn’t change the shoes.”
“I’d loan them but her feet are smaller than mine. I could give her my socks, though if that would make everyone here feel better.”
Richard could see Lippy about to burst a blood vessel, and quickly interceded. “I think that will be all Ms. L. I think for now we just need to give you a verbal warning, but know that you have been issued this warning. I will have something for you to sign tonight.”
K thanked me and quietly left to not arouse any sort of suspicion.
“Why didn’t you ask her if you would see her later tonight, Andy?”
“Enough!” Richard piped up. “I’ve just about had it with this. John, you need to calm down and stop jumping down everyone’s throats or we won’t have any employees left. Discrection, John. Christ.”
Lippy slumped back into his chair, almost petulantly. He wasn’t about to fight his own boss no matter how wrong he thought he was.
“And you…” Richard pointed to me and pushed my written warning to me on the table in front of him. “Sign this. I don’t want to lose you, but you need to understand that it takes all different kinds to make this place work. Just because John here is a bit harsher than most, doesn’t mean you can mouth off to him because you disagree. He has a valid point, but I make the final decisions around here. Keep your nose clean and I don’t want to hear of this ever happening again.”
I signed, left, and made my way to the parking lot thinking about what Richard said. Maybe if he was more of an actual presence as a GM the rest of the floor managers wouldn’t be so insufferable. There was no consistency and Lippy was the only real disciplinarian of the bunch, which would be fine if he didn’t instil abject fear in the hearts of the staff.. I felt a certain moral victory back there, but I knew it wouldn’t be the last run in I would have with him about this.
I reclined the front seat of the car, rolled the windows down, and breathed in the summer air. The theatre was in the middle of a former industrial park and down the street from an industrial dry cleaner that always left a hint of fresh laundry in the air. I thought back to that night I chauffeured her around town to take her mind off a rotten day. I remembered holding her and breathing her in. A very typical and seemingly ordinary scent, some sort of Bath and Body Works lotion I couldn’t place, but I would resolve to ask about at a later time. I thought about all of our texts and phone calls over the past week where we exchanged stories about our lives and complained about work, school, and parents. I thought about the few nights at work she brightened my day by coming in to see movies, sometimes by herself.
On the two occasions she wasn’t with friends, I sat next to her for thirty minutes during my breaks. The theatres were relatively empty, but the room always felt positively electric, like I wanted to put my arm around her or kiss her, but I never felt that a thirty minute work break would be a prudent time to do it.
I went over the mental itinerary in my mind. Go home, avoid mother as best as possible, shower, procure booze through neighbours (vodka, rum, Smirnoff Ice for the lady), drive to previous engagement that I had forgotten about until just that second, pick K up from work, drive to the outskirts of Leominster thirty minutes away, party, and don’t fuck this up. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, jerked the lever to put the seat up, put the keys in the ignition and set about my evening.
Everything went more or less swimmingly that evening except for the whole avoiding my mother part. When I went to make dinner, she drunkenly insisted on helping. I certainly didn’t give her the money for the beers she bought and the credit cards I had co-signed for her were maxed out. It would be a few days before I noticed she had stolen a bunch of my DVDs and had my Uncle Billy pawn them for her drinks and his heroin. Her idea of helping with dinner was insisting on making me a frozen chicken pot pie after I had already made pasta.
“You look nice.” She was smoking in the kitchen since my aunt was out for the evening.
I grunted and nodded. “Thanks.”
“You have a date tonight?”
“No. I don’t have time for those things. Just a party. Nothing special.”
“Whatever happened to Sara?”
“We broke up two years ago, mom.”
“Oh… Well, you never tell me these things. How am I supposed to know? I’m just mom, you know?”
I walked away from the dinner table without saying anything. I had one battle today that I would’ve rather avoided.
“Your father called today. Wanted to know if you were still going to see him tonight.”
“Yeah, I almost forgot about it, but I said I’d go.”
“Is that who you’re looking so nice for? So you can prove him wrong? Tell me that’s what you’re really doing.”
I kissed my mother on the forehead. “Good night, mom.”
“Aren’t you going to eat that pot pie?” I was already on my way out the door. “I’m not gonna eat it!” The door shut, but I could still faintly hear her. “I don’t even like pot pies.”
The only Denny’s in town, my father’s de facto hangout, is located in the worst possible neighbourhood on the outskirts of Attack the Block style tenements known simply as The Valley. The kind of neighbourhood where one wouldn’t go in after dark with anything less than a SWAT van if you didn’t want to get jumped. It was the perfect place for a homeless man like my father to hide out and lie low because no one would ask him any questions and he wouldn’t give police any answers.
I hid the liquor under my seat even thought it was still light outside and made my way inside. Even though gentrification had found its way to the neighbourhood in the form of a Target taking over the empty lot where a movie theatre used to be, it was still a far way from safe. A news report earlier in the week marked that Target’s parking lot as a major hub for car thefts in the city.
I found my father outside, sleeping in the Oldsmobile Cutlass he had been living out of for the past two years. It was an upgrade over the Subaru he had been living in prior to that. This car had room for all his stuff. What that stuff was, I had no idea. I knew he had his fishing poles in there. A bunch of paperwork in bankers boxes. A case of Coca-Cola to make up for the fact that he somehow astoundingly stopped drinking in the midst of being homeless.
I knocked on the window of the car. He woke with a start and reached over to unlock the passenger side door. I sat down in his small mobile apartment that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and sweat.
“Hey, buddy.” He mustered the same sheepish smile he had whenever he had some money in his pocket. If he wanted money, he wouldn’t have bothered asking to meet me anywhere. He would have come and found me to borrow whatever he could get.
“Hey dad. How goes it?”
“Well, you know…” He trailed off not knowing how to finish the sentence. “You want to go get something to eat?”
“I’m not that hungry, but if you want to go in and grab a coffee or something, we could do that.”
“Nah, I’ve had my fill of that today. All I do all day these days is drink coffee.”
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“Your mother. That fucking…” He got an angry look on his face. “She calls me up, drunk, asking me to give her a ride to the hospital. And I go over there, because fuck it, you know? I’m not doing anything and I have no fucking clue why I’m being nice to her. And I can’t fucking see her not sober and I get over there and I gotta wait four fucking hours talking to that asshole Billy who can’t speak anything but fucking gibberish because he’s high all the fucking time.” He calmed down and stared off into space for a moment. “You gotta tell her I can’t give her any fucking rides anywhere anymore. I’m fucking done. It just can’t happen.”
“Where does she need rides to? Why is she calling you?”
“I dunno. Hospitals mostly. I dunno I think she might be taking drugs or some shit. Does she seem more fucked up to you than normal? I know every time I pick her up, late as shit again, she makes me take her to the fucking package store.” (For those who don’t speak Bostonian, that means liquor store.)
“Did she ever tell you what was going on?”
“Ahhh, she tried to, but I didn’t give a fuck.” I was furious, but he ended his pause before I could fully unleash my fury upon him. “You gotta car, why don’t you take her places.”
“Why don’t I take her places? Fuck you. You don’t have a fucking clue, do you, dad? I’m out there working my ass off every day so I don’t turn into either one of you assholes. The homeless wonder who blows his social security cheque on his car and the woman who gets so drunk she forgets how to use her bowels. Yeah, I feel pretty prized to have you guys as fucking parents.”
“Remember who raised you…”
“Oh, fuck you, neither of you fucking raised me. Mom didn’t do shit and you just fucking yelled and beat the crap out of me all the time. Great fucking parenting.”
“You wouldn’t be in college right now if it wasn’t for me, you little shit. You’d’ve been fucking nothing without me.”
“No! I wouldn’t be in college right now if I wasn’t fucking out there working and paying my own way. I got to a point where I realized it wasn’t about either of you around ninth grade when I realized if I didn’t get my shit together I would become you two. So fuck you very much for nothing.”
“Just like your fucking mother. I don’t know why I fucking talk to you. Get the fuck outta my car.”
“She’s dying you fuck. She’s fucking dying. Eat shit.”
I got up with great fury, slammed the door, and kicked it shut so hard I thought I broke me foot. The last I saw looking back at him, he seemed stunned. He really didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t tell him or maybe he really didn’t care. Neither of them was ever terribly honest with each other.
I drove off just as the night was getting sort of dusky. I was a bit ahead of schedule, but then again it’s impossible to tell just how well things are going to go with my dad. I should’ve learned that no real good would have come from visiting him. He was a bastard to me, but when my mother started hitting the bottle heavily and we lost our apartment in my senior year of high school, my dad was the only one who really gave a shit. He became the one helping me out with extra money at the expense of his own well being. He wouldn’t shy away from talking about the situation with me. He almost became an actual father to me. Maybe I was the reason he was living out of that car and I brought this all on myself.
I pulled over into a nearby high school parking lot and just sat there to kill time. I almost couldn’t move. I was shaking from what had just happened. I had to clear it all from my head. I broke up with my last girlfriend in the worst way possible because I felt the need to shield her from my family. There were other reasons, too, but primarily that one. Was I in the right frame of mind to be dealing with a potential relationship? Don’t even think about it. Just put it out of sight and out of mind. Put the car into drive and move to another parking lot to wait.
I didn’t want to go inside the theatre. It looked pretty busy in there. Pearl Harbor and Shrek were still doing considerably well, and Moulin Rouge had come to town tonight and was apparently selling out shows hours in advance. Memento was continuing to do strong business despite having been at the theatre for close to a month now. It sure wasn’t The Animal or What’s the Worst That Could Happen? that was packing them in. I paced the rear exit starting at about ten when her shift was supposed to end.
About ten minutes past ten, K came bounding out the door of the theatre and running towards me. Her hug was so heartfelt that I had to brace myself from keeling over. The kind of hug where someone latches on and warps their legs around a person.
“That. Was. Hell.” She buried her head into my shoulder and dropped her work clothes on the ground in bid to not let go of me.
I chuckled. “Wow. You haven’t even seen the worst this place has to offer yet.”
“Good thing I’m only here temporarily, then.” She dropped down to her feet and picked up the mess. “I don’t think I could deal with that kind of crowd year round.”
“Well, it’s not like that year round. Just during the summer. The time when you’ll most likely be here.”
“Um… yay?”
We walked back to the car. I thought I saw my dad’s car in the rear lot. It was definitely similar from a distance. I briefly got a worried look on my face.
K looked over her shoulder to try and see what I was looking at. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
K knew something wasn’t quite right. On the drive to her friend Jacob’s house she asked several times about my day. Prodding for me to give up any sort of information about what transpired at work earlier in the day or what I was trying to see when we left the theatre. I didn’t think she needed to know just then, if at all. I wasn’t about to ask her how things had gone since she had last seen her father.
She decided the topic of discussion was due for a change.
“Andy?... You know I like you, right?”
I was taken aback at first, but the need to play it cool took over. “Yeah, I kinda gathered that.” Stupid answer brain! Think of a better one. “You know I like you, too?”
She smiled “Yeah, I was pretty sure of that. No one else probably would have done as much for me that night considering… you know.”
I nodded.
“I just want you to know something before we get there. I do like you. But no matter what happens tonight I’m not sure if I can do anything, you know, serious.”
“Serious like what… how serious, you mean like sex?”
She laughed. “No, that wasn’t really what I was getting at, but now that you mention it, there is one other thing. This party that we’re going to is being thrown by the first guy I ever slept with. I hope that’s not weird or anything.”
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