by Julie Prince.
The deep drawer on the bottom right was handy for stashing a six-pack. That’s what Diane and I had in there that Tuesday night—“Dollar Movie Night” at Sunflower. I usually pulled cashier duties; Diane was the concession gal. We manned the kiosk quite efficiently, and busy nights they were.
Sunflower Cinemas was the local independent movie house in our southern city. The ophthalmologist-owner ran two buildings with seven theaters, plus a movie lounge and a bar. We showed foreign films and “small” films—films you couldn’t see anywhere else within a fifty-mile radius. But Dr. Bradley was savvy enough to score some top releases over the chain theaters when the bidding was hot. He spent a king’s ransom, and Sunflower was the only theater in the city for over a year where you could see E.T. He secured his retirement and the tuitions of any future grandkids from that move alone, or at least it was rumored.
Sunflower was the “cool” place to see a movie, and a “cool” place to work. You didn’t have to wear black pants and red vests or any polyester. Morton could wax his hair straight up and regale customers with his edgy humor (“You want some lube on that corn?”) Pam’s stoic personality could hold forth, as long as she occasionally punctuated it with her staccato laugh and continued to bring in her Warhol-esque paintings of Frankenstein to hang in the Cinebar. Free Springsteen and John Trombone could be as normal as they wanted to be, because they had awesome names.
There was room for a little of everyone at Sunflower.
Of course, they didn’t “condone” drinking on the job. But Diane and I never started until after the first-show customers were settled in, and we stopped when new customers started to come in for the second shows.
Andy Bradley, Dr. Bradley’s son and the manager on Dollar Night (Dr. Bradley’s grim daughter Caroline was a manager, too, and his son Hank, a projectionist), certainly didn’t care. And if he did, he couldn’t say anything. Andy spent most of his time drinking in the Cinebar until it was time to come back across to the main building to lock the front doors, collect the money, and take it to the office downstairs.
Diane and I polished off the rest of the beer as she counted up the candy inventory and cleaned out the popcorn machine. I tallied the evening’s ticket sales and put it all in the lock box. Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life played in Sunflower Cinema #1—one of those “fifty-mile radius films.”
Diane was done. Only one person was scheduled to stay on until the last movies let out, and that was me. “Goin’ down to Lohan’s,” she said. “See ya later, maybe?”
“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see.” Diane had a pleasant little buzz she understandably wanted to nurture, while I was out of beer. My pleasant buzz would deteriorate into a low-grade headache after an hour, and I might decide to just go on home to bed.
It was a hot night; I kept the front doors open. They were all glass and wrapped around the front, which afforded kiosk denizens a clear view down Northridge Street to Wendy Avenue, up Northridge to the McDonald’s (a godsend if you were at work and starving and didn’t want a Mars Bar for dinner) and across the street to Antonio’s Trattoria (which none of us lowly theater workers could afford, though we watched Dr. Bradley take his wife over there often).
Sunflowers were Mrs. Bradley’s favorite flower.
Andy wobbled in, took the lock box, and told me to go to the back to bring up some more cups. I sniffed and tossed my head.
Yeah, right. Andy was barely older than I was. He wasn’t going to come through like that and give me make-work. He wouldn’t even remember tomorrow, anyway.
He started to pull the doors shut to lock them. I asked him to leave them open. I didn’t want to lose the breeze.
I leafed through the morning paper someone had left behind from the early shift. I heard snippets of The Meaning of Life from #1 and thought about slipping in there to watch for a few minutes, but since the front doors were open, I didn’t.
Oh, look. Diane missed some popcorn there on the floor. I got a broom to sweep it up.
I saw three young men come down the ramp from the sidewalk. People occasionally came in at odd hours, wondering if there were any movies starting at whatever time they happened to arrive. We sometimes made fun of them amongst ourselves, because they were just assuming, in that arrogant way people can have. “There has to be a movie starting now because—hey—we want to see a movie. Hey. What do you mean everything started over a half an hour ago? What do you mean the box office is closed? What? Hey.”
They stopped to confer before they came in.
Why are they talking outside?
They weren’t looking at the sign with the movie schedule in little plastic push-on letters. Changing that sign every week was one of my favorite fiddly jobs to perform.
What were they talking about?
They came in the middle doors, the ones facing Antonio’s.
“Hi, can I help you?” I asked, broom in hand, my voice a half-octave higher than it usually was, especially after three beers. “I’m sorry, but the last movies have already started, and I’m afraid the box office is closed,” I jumped back in before they could say anything, but I said it extra nicely.
They looked at one another. They went back outside to talk again. They faced the sign this time, though they weren’t really looking at it. They were looking at me.
Why did they go back outside? Why are they still here? I told them all the movies had started. I told them we were closed.
Why are they looking at me?
I kept sweeping even though the floor was clean.
They came back in.
They muttered something. A question? I couldn’t quite make it out.
Why did the guy on the left just step back?
The gun was blue.
Had I ever seen a handgun before? A pedestrian question, especially considering it was the first thought that sprang to mind when I found one pointed at my face. I looked back at the young man holding the gun, and the man next to him. The man on the left had stepped even farther back, I saw from the corner of my eye. I dared not turn my head, not even an inch.
I was no longer in charge.
“Take us down to the office.” He tossed his head toward the back.
He knew where the office was.
I turned, obediently, still gripping the broom.
“Put that down!” he barked.
Where could I put it? I couldn’t take too long. I didn’t want to lay it on the floor; that would take too much movement. I didn’t want to lean it in the half-doorway of the kiosk; it might slip over and clatter onto the tile floor and startle him. Startle that gun.
Am I going to die tonight?
Eric Idle’s funny, reedy tenor warbled out of Sunflower #1 as we passed the closed doors…
“And our galaxy is one of only millions and billions in this amazing and expanding universe…” With a hat and a cane, I knew, from seeing it so many times. I’d almost gone in there, to see it again. Almost.
Is this the last song I’ll ever hear?
I wet my pants.
Great, as if things aren’t going badly enough.
I kept walking, but the warm soaking of my dark jeans snapped me back from the surreal. The fact I noticed it at all. The fact that “too much fucking beer,” passed through my mind while a gun was in my back. The fact that I worried—even for a second—if anyone would be able to tell.
They’re not going to kill me. I’ll take them down to the office. Andy will give them the cash box. They’ll take it and they’ll leave, and…
…Andy.
While I’d had enough beer for a buzz (a buzz which was but a memory now…)
…Andy’d had much more to drink than I had. Andy had wobbled through the doors I’d asked him to leave open; Andy had hassled me just for the sake of doing so. I had given Andy a solid “harrumph,” and ignored him.
He was going to see me coming down the stairs and carry on.
I stopped at the closed office door. My hands were over my head (Just like the movies…)
…Now stay calm; don’t get shot. My silent mantra as we’d walked to the back and as I swiveled my head…slowly, carefully…to meet his gaze. I wasn’t going to budge a finger to that doorknob without his permission.
“Open the door.”
I did as he said. I led the way.
They were open stairs leading down to the outer office, no backs behind each step. Normally, I would have held onto the railing, especially after having had a couple. Andy was at the foot of the stairs.
I could see Andy’s legs, see him place his hands on his hips as he saw me come down, step by step. He was wondering what the hell I was doing coming down there when there were still movies running upstairs.
Don’t start with me, Andy. Please don’t start with me. Please don’t do anything stupid….
Step by step.
Our eyes met. I glared at him. The ugliest, most threatening look I had ever mustered toward anyone, never mind my boss. He only had a second to see; I had to make it clear…
He saw.
“Oh, hi! Go right through there, heh, heh, heh!” he said, pointing them toward the inner sanctum, as we called it. Congenially, as if he were inviting them in to a party. “Cash box is right there on the desk. Unlocked. Take it. Take whatever you want.”
Okay. Good. Good job, Andy.
“Lie down on the floor. Face down. There.”
Andy lay right down on the floor. I, obediently, right next to him.
Ew. Nasty carpet.
Good. I’d worried about my wet jeans; now I was worrying about the filthy carpet I had to bury my face into. Next to Andy, no less.
It would be over soon. They’d take the money and we’d be okay.
We aren’t gonna die.
The men rustled around. “It’s right there, on the desk to your right,” Andy hollered.
“Shut up!” I hissed.
I felt them run back, jump over our legs after they’d collected the lock box and cased the room. Heard them start up the stairs.
“Stay on the floor,” they shouted. “Don’t get up!”
Hallelujah! They were almost gone.
Then they tripped.
At least one of them tripped. I heard the cash box clatter and the coins rattle through the open steps. They cursed and scrambled around.
Shit!
“Take your time, guys! Heh, heh, heh!”
They cursed and came back down under the steps to pick up the dropped money. One guy yelled at the other. I listened, my face still scrunched into the carpet.
Maybe we are going to die.
They collected their money and clambered back up the stairs. “Stay there! Don’t move!” they shouted one more time before the door slammed.
Andy jumped up immediately. “Are you crazy?” I raised my face from the carpet. “They said to stay down! Let them get away!”
He ignored me. He ran in to call the police. Then he ran up the stairs and out the door.
Quiet. I sat up. Eventually. I decided I wasn’t going to go upstairs before someone came down to get me.
Some minutes passed—five? Six? I stood up. I walked in a little circle. I sat back down.
“J! Oh man, J! Ohhh maaan! Are you okay?”
Chaz, our hippie projectionist, rattled down the stairs, hair flying behind him. He rushed over to me faster than I’d ever seen him move. Chaz was usually one to slip out to his car for a toke or two once all the shows were up and running. Chaz was more a “floater” than a “rusher.” He might have had a beer or two himself up there in the projection booth that night. Most of us ran the evening shifts at Sunflower with a low-level buzz of one kind or another.
Chaz and I went back upstairs, back down the winding hallway where just a few minutes ago I had been walking with a gun in my back, convincing myself that staying calm and thinking positive thoughts meant I wasn’t going to die.
“I can’t believe I thought he worked here!” Chaz said.
“What? Who?” I asked.
“I came down from the booth to see if y’all still had any popcorn out, and I saw him sweeping the floor. I asked him if he was new here and he said, ‘Uhhh…yeah.’ So I introduced myself and said, ‘Welcome.’ You know me, J, I’m a friendly dude…
“…and then I went on back up.”
The guy with the broom. My broom! The one I didn’t know where to put down. Chaz welcomed him into the fold… The guy who stepped back before the other two…
“Really, Chaz? Really?” I wanted to say. “You thought that guy was a new usher here at the theater??” But I didn’t.
In Chaz’s defense, there was a fair bit of employee turnover at Sunflower—we were a lot of youngsters, after all—so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that one might stumble upon someone he hadn’t heard about or hadn’t met. And, to Chaz’s credit, he was the only one who thought to go down and check on me to see if I was all right.
And, to Chaz’s credit…
…he’s just Chaz.
The police had arrived. Andy was talking to them. When Chaz and I entered the lobby, one of the policemen asked if I was the “other party involved.” They separated Andy and me quickly, once I started telling my story and Andy started correcting me on parts where he wasn’t even present.
“Chaz, would you please take over the front and direct people when the shows are out?” Andy asked. People were starting to come out, from Sunflower #2, and from 3 and 4 in the back. Folks may have cast a glance, but no one took too much notice of the policemen quietly talking to Andy on one side of the lobby, or to the shaky girl in the back.
“What kind of gun was it?” one of the officers asked me.
“What kind? Ummm…a handgun.” I said.
“What kind of handgun? Was it a 38?”
“A 38?”
“Yes, was it a 38 caliber?”
“Ummm…I don’t know…”
“You don’t know?” The officer was business-like, but I could tell my answer surprised him. Maybe even annoyed him a little.
“No.”
“Well, what color was it?”
“Blue.”
“Blue??” The officer turned to his partner. Clearly, I was an idiot. He turned back to me. “It couldn’t be blue.”
“It looked blue to me,” I said, and squelched the urge to apologize. I had nothing to be sorry about.
“It must have been the light reflecting off it that made it look blue,” he said.
“Ummm…okay.”
“Do you think it was the light reflecting off the gun that made it look blue?”
“Okay, here’s what I think,” I said. Enough already.
“I think the gun was blue. I think the gun was blue because it looked blue. I don’t know what kind of gun it was, or what number, or what caliber, or whatever you call it. All I know is, whatever color it was, it was scary to have it pointed in my face, and scary to be walked downstairs with it in my back. I know they made Andy and me lie on the floor, and I know they took some money, and I know they got away. I know I am happy to cooperate with you guys as best I can, but mainly, I know I am just happy to be alive.”
The Meaning of Life ended, and the crowd started to file out. I could see Chaz up there, backing up and waving them out the front doors as if he were directing an airliner onto the runway.
I didn’t go home after that.
I didn’t go to Lohan’s, either. I wasn’t up to that, to have to tell Diane and everyone about it and rehash everything. I went to another bar, a bar with other friends where I could down a few more. Enough to make the shakes finally wear off and where somebody could follow me in their car a few blocks to make sure I got home okay.
The police caught one of the young men the next day. Not the one who held the gun, nor the other guy who came down with him. They caught the “lookout,” the one who’d grabbed the broom and fooled Chaz. They caught him somewhere silly. Somewhere you’d think he’d avoid for a while, the front of a L’il General convenience store just a few blocks from the theater.
The other ones had dropped him off and gone straight to Roanoke, we learned, and they were arrested up there. They held up a man and put him in the trunk of his car. He escaped, somehow, and called the police. There was a high-speed chase and a wreck. No one was injured, but the men were taken into custody and since kidnapping a man in Virginia was a more serious offense than holding up Andy and me with a blue gun in North Carolina, they were charged and tried up there. They were found guilty and sent to jail for a good while.
Our guy with the broom went to trial here, at home. Andy and Chaz and I were there.
I almost felt sorry for him, all nervous in his ill-fitting suit. He said he thought they were all going to see a movie, and that he had no idea he was going to be an accomplice to a hold-up. That he was as surprised as I was when the gun was drawn, and did his best to follow along so that no one got hurt.
The middle-class faces of the jury looked at me as I gave my testimony, describing how I was tidying up after the last show had started (leaving out the beer part). How the men made me take them downstairs to Andy (leaving out the wetting my pants part). How they grabbed the money and got away. They were smiling at me, the jury—pretty, young, well-dressed thing that I was. I was telling the truth, of course, although it probably didn’t matter. That southern jury would have believed anything I said over the nervous young man in the suit that didn’t fit.
A girlfriend of one of the guys who got busted in Roanoke was also a prosecution witness. She was out in the corridor during a break in the trial, smoking a cigarette. Andy was chatting with her. “So…can I ask you,” I said—very carefully because she looked kind of tough—“that business he was saying on the stand about being surprised when they pulled out the gun….was that true?”
“That shit?? Hell no,” she said. “As a matter of fact, he was the most excited of any of them. ‘Let’s go. Let’s do it. Hurry. Hurry!’ He was all like that.”
Chaz was on the stand longer that I was. Chaz had more of an interaction with the young man than I’d had, though I did get the opportunity to testify that, no indeed, the young man did not look surprised when the gun was drawn.
Andy wasn’t even called to the stand. He never even encountered the young man.
The trial lasted a day and a half; then the jury went in to deliberate. “Go take a break,” the veteran District Attorney told Andy and Chaz and me. “Maybe go down to the Rhino Pub down the block and grab a bite. Y’all have to be starving. I’ll call if the jury comes back.”
We didn’t eat, but we drank a couple of beers and played a couple of rounds of pool as we rehashed it all.
“Chaz, I cannot believe that you testified the guy already had the broom in his hands when you came down from the projection booth! Didn’t you tell me he grabbed it after he saw you? And Andy. Seriously. Running up the stairs right after them? You could have gotten both of us killed…
“…Six ball in the side pocket.”
We returned to the courthouse. “Oh good,” said the DA. “The verdict just came in; I was just about to call you. It was quick. That’s a good sign.”
A good sign for us, he meant.
“Guilty.”
I don’t remember the sentence. Probably a year with time off for good behavior, or something like that. It’s not like he held the gun, or anything.
It was the right verdict. I hope the jury made it for the right reasons.
“Look at the time,” said Andy, glancing at his watch in the late afternoon.
“We gotta get back to the theater. Dollar Movie Night starts in an hour.”