Blockbuster

by Richard H. Smith

  What had that flower to do with being white,

  The wayside blued and innocent heal-all?

  What brought the kindred spider to that height,

  Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

  What but design of darkness to appall? —

  If design govern in a thing so small.

  The poem left me pondering the mysteries of life. Thither in the night, I repeated to myself. What a great phrase. I wondered how much control I would have over my fate, but I glimpsed signs of a reinvented life and a brightening future.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Friday marked a week since Bullock’s murder and a week before Jaws would start. Rollerball and The Conversation II had both played themselves out. Kenny and I figured that even the start of the weekend would be slow. We figured wrong.

  Possibly it was curiosity about the theater because of Bullock’s murder, or interest generated by the coming of Jaws. In any event, we had good-sized crowds for the first two shows, which made me anxious. The platter machine still needed servicing in theater two. This wouldn’t happen until Monday when a new system would be installed in the main theater. And with every showing we had detected yet another strange sound coming from the projector or one of the platters.

  I didn’t want to deal with a lot of refunds if the projector malfunctioned, and we couldn’t fix it. The company required that we only give money back to people who still had their ticket stubs, but some would lose them or throw them away. We could offer passes, but tempers would flare. For me, this was the worst part of the theater business.

  I stuck my head in the projection booth to check on the platter rotation. The film had broken and was spewing onto the floor in a pile already a foot high.

  “Damn that machine.” I stared at the lower take-up platter that spun with the one end of film flapping like a snake’s tongue. The machine was supposed to cut off if the film broke. Don’t panic. Keep calm. Kenny was over in the theater one. Until someone told him about it, this would be up to me to fix.

  Maybe, just maybe, after stopping the machine, I could pull out the broken end of the film without creating a snarl or knot and splice both ends together. It might take only two minutes. Then I could feed the film onto the platter. The pile, though scary big, seemed free of tangles. Could I do it? I was about to find out.

  I mashed the shutdown button on the machine. The sprocket wheels clattered to a stop, and both platters froze. The projector bulb faded.

  Someone in the crowd called out, “Hey, the bulb blew!”

  More shouts followed, but I blocked them out as I knelt to examine the pyramid of film. Careful to avoid movement in the pile, as if I were playing a high stakes game of pick-up sticks, I parted the film at a place where the broken end might be. No luck. I tried another section. Still no luck. The air in the booth was thick and warm, and sweat broke out across my forehead and upper lip.

  I heard light footsteps racing up the stairs. It was Carrie. “Mr. Burton, the projector. Oh, Jee-sus.”

  “I’m trying to fix it,” I said, now extra worried whether I could handle it in front of her. A drop of sweat fell from the tip of my nose against the film.

  “This looks—impossible,” Carrie said.

  “You can help. If I can just find the end. There, got it.”

  I gently pulled the broken end out from under the pile and extended it a few feet, watching for any knotting as I pulled. I extended it further so that the end reached the splicing table.

  “Carrie, see the other broken end, on the lower platter. Unwind enough so I can splice it. Bring it over here.”

  She moved over to the platter. “The crowd’s freaking out!”

  “I know, I know. Ignore ’em. We’ve got time before they go completely berserk. Let’s do this.”

  “Pull it?”

  “Yeah, it’ll unwind. Quick.”

  As she unwound it, I placed my end on the splicer and cut off the frame where the film had broken. She handed me the other end, and I grabbed her end. But my hand was slick from sweat, and it slipped from my grasp.

  “Damn!” I said.

  Carrie reached and caught it in midair.

  “Good catch,” I said. And I meant it.

  I held the film extra tight this time and snapped the end sprocket hole into the splicer, making a clean cut. I brought the two ends together and applied the splicing tape.

  “Good. That does it. Now let’s see if we can wind it onto the platter. This is where we’ll need some real luck,” I said, praying to myself. “You turn the platter and I’ll feed it. Take it slow. I need to watch for twists.”

  “Got it.”

  It went smoothly at first, but a knot appeared halfway through the pile.

  “Hold, hold. Wait a second,” I said, shaking the film, praying that the knot would free itself. It loosened and straightened itself.

  “Great, no tangle. Go. A little slower, slower.” Another half minute and all the film was safely wound onto the platter.

  “There is a god,” I said. “Let me get her started again.” I did a fast inspection of the film for proper looping at each sprocket wheel. Good to go. I hit the start button, and we were back in business. Cheers erupted from the crowd. We’d fixed it in less than two minutes.

  “Carrie, you were stellar.”

  “I guess so. You too.”

  I wanted to hug her, do something. But I felt myself soaked with perspiration. With a brush of my sleeve, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and upper lip.

  We stood looking at each other for an awkward second.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “How about you checking everything’s cool downstairs?”

  Carrie left with a bounce in her step. Owen was one lucky guy. And the world was not a fair place.

  I took another close look at the machine. It seemed to be operating normally, with only a slight, uneven tension in the film on the lower platter. We’d be fine until Monday, I hoped.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When I returned to the lobby, Carrie was excitedly telling Kenny how we’d fixed the break in the film. But everyone soon got distracted by a rush on concessions just before the nine o’clock showing of The Conversation II in the theater one. I wanted to keep a closer watch on Rollerball because the print had felt brittle while I was splicing it, but the crowd caused me and Kenny to help wherever we were needed, tearing tickets, fixing drinks, or popping corn.

  The Conversation II had already started, and I saw a couple rushing up to the ticket window. The man was tall and stiff, like a store mannequin come to life. He had a full head of silver hair and long sideburns flanking tanned cheeks. I’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t place him.

  Samantha took her time, deliberately I thought. As soon as she pushed the change through the ticket window, along with the two tickets, he snatched them up, handed one to his companion, probably his wife, and bolted into the lobby. She was attractive, slender, also well-tanned, and expensively dressed in a flower-patterned dress. I guessed she was at least fifteen years younger than him. She had a stressed, distorted expression on her face.

  I recognized him. He was a Duke Hospital heart doctor named Halderman. I’d seen him on TV several months back because the family of a patient was suing him and Duke Hospital for malpractice. He was known for some controversial, experimental treatments, and this one turned out badly. But what I most remembered about him was something Mrs. Roe had told me. In the late fifties, her husband had been his patient at Halderman’s private clinic, before Halderman had been hired by Duke. He had changed doctors when he had discovered that Halderman required his Black patients use another entrance and waiting room. Now this was a long time ago, and times were different. Halderman too, presumably. But you had to wonder what kind of man this Halderman was.

  He took long strides toward where I had moved over to the box we used for ticket stubs. His wife headed to the concession counter. He shot past me without giving me as much as a glance
, handing me his ticket but showing no interest in his stub after I had torn it. I held it in his direction as he sped across the carpet to the theater entrance. A guilty wish arose in me. Perhaps someone would accidentally extend a leg in the theater aisle and trip him. I tossed the stub into the ticket box. His wife was nicer. Despite carrying two drinks and two popcorn boxes, she showed me her ticket, wedged in between two fingers, and let me squeeze her stub back between the same fingers. I led her to the theater door entrance and opened it for her. Poor woman.

  At least ten minutes passed before Kenny and I checked on the projector.

  “Do you hear that?” I said as we entered the projection booth.

  “Uh-oh,” Kenny said, his eyes bulging wider than I thought possible.

  We saw another pyramid of film piling on the floor next to the projector. The safety arm had failed to shut down the projector once again. I felt like the sorcerer’s apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia. The brooms were multiplying out of control, but dumping spirals of film onto the floor rather than water. Something else must also have failed because the upper sprocket wheels now chewed a section of film that had backed up into the projector bulb area. Blackish smoke curled upward, the air increasingly thick with the distinctive smell of burning celluloid.

  “Holy crap!” Kenny said.

  Kenny punched the projector stop button, shutting the machine down. A small blue flame blossomed from where the film had backed up and was pressed against the projector bulb. I slapped it out with a dust cloth. The sprockets were caked with bubbling, melted film.

  “Refunds,” I said, with a full sense of the mayhem this promised.

  I glanced through the observation window. We’d sold just over fifty tickets, but it seemed like a hundred. Shouts had already started.

  “You deal with this. I’ll handle the refunds,” I said, as Kenny nodded his agreement. He got right to it, and I hustled downstairs. We knew the drill, but that wouldn’t make it much easier.

  Several people had already exited the theater.

  “Sorry, folks,” I said. “The projector broke down.”

  They groaned.

  “We’ll be giving refunds or passes. Just line up by the concession counter. Give us your stubs if you still have them.”

  I went into the theater and made a general announcement. More groans. Soon the concession area was a mass of frustrated people, jostling for position, wanting their money back. We set up two areas, one for refunds, which Samantha would handle, and one for passes, which I would handle. Carrie helped me with passes.

  I kept a watch over Samantha. Her sour attitude might set people off. But she took care of business, collecting stubs when she could, otherwise directing people to me and Carrie.

  Halderman and his wife were at the back at first. But Halderman elbowed himself toward Samantha while his wife headed outside. People gave him fierce looks. He plowed right through.

  I was about to ask him to wait his turn, but he was already at the counter holding up two fingers for two refunds. He had no stubs. How would Samantha handle this? Curiosity got the better of me, and I held off saying anything.

  Samantha kept her attention on a woman and her son who she had been about to serve.

  Halderman said, “Two. I’m a doctor. I need to leave.”

  Samantha gave him a withering stare and said,

  “I don’t care if you’re Elvis his-self. You can get your uppity ass to the back and wait your turn like everybody else. And make sure you have your stubs.” She turned away from him like he didn’t exist and asked the woman, “One adult and one child?”

  Halderman’s face turned red and veins in his neck and forehead expanded like he was blowing on a trumpet.

  “Give me the damn refunds,” he said.

  “Wait your turn,” someone in the crowd said.

  “What does being a doctor have to do with it?” someone else said.

  Halderman finally seemed to realize how outnumbered he was. Two beefy men in the crowd came forward, forming a barrier. Halderman appeared to shrink.

  One of the men, short but wide, decorated with snake tattoos on each exposed bicep, said in a squeaky drawl that belied his appearance, “Why don’t you turn around and apologize to that nice lady. Then we’ll let you get behind us.”

  “Like hell I will,” Halderman said, but with weak bluster. He made a move to exit through an opening, in a direction away from the two men. But a hefty woman blocked his path, apparently emboldened by the others.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  The fun was over. At the back of where Halderman stood, and just to the right of Samantha, was an entrance door to the concession area. I swung it open and said,

  “Follow me.”

  I grabbed his closest elbow and pulled him toward me and closed the door. He drew his elbow away, but he followed me even so.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” someone yelled.

  “That’s not fair. He should wait like everyone else,” another person said.

  The other side of the concession area faced the smaller lobby of the second theater. It was empty. I led Halderman through to a corner hidden from the crowd.

  “Sir, why don’t you take these two passes. And, here, you can have two extra passes for your trouble. That should square us.”

  He said nothing, but I detected a shift in his thinking, possibly a hint of embarrassment.

  “I’ll just take the two,” he said, giving me back two of the passes. He exited the theater to join his wife, and they took off together, exchanging angry words.

  I returned to giving out more passes while Samantha continued to handle the remaining refunds.

  “Good riddance,” someone said.

  There were a few more complaints, but soon everyone seemed content to get on home.

  When we’d finished with the last person, I thanked Samantha.

  “I liked the way you handle that doctor.”

  “His crap’s the same as mine,” Samantha spit out each word, causing me to back away slightly.

  I found nothing to say in response, concluding that the nasty side of Samantha was the larger part of her core. If someone crossed her, they’d regret it. I wasn’t going to be that person. I turned and walked away.

  Carrie had seen everything. She asked, “Mr. Burton—”

  “How about Nate?” I said, without thinking. This felt right. Carrie must have felt it too because she shifted without missing a beat.

  “Yeah, Nate. Why did you offer him the extra passes? Did he deserve them?”

  I thought for a moment about how to respond, thrilled she’d used my first name so smoothly.

  “I didn’t plan that out. I guess I didn’t want him to leave us thinking he had a legitimate complaint.”

  “I see. The customer’s always right? But twice over?”

  “I don’t know. It felt like the thing to do.”

  “Anyway, his behavior was awful.” Carrie narrowed her eyes, their blue sparkle focused and challenging me to give her a better reason.

  I thought for a few seconds. I liked this. I liked that she felt comfortable pressing me. And I very much liked standing next to her. Her soapy, fresh fragrance just about made me dizzy. I considered the question more, and an idea came to me.

  “Let me put it this way,” I said, warming to the challenge. “I remember hearing about a pro baseball player named Baker. He’d gotten into big trouble over cheating on his wife. The tabloids had fun with it, and rival fans ribbed him from the bleachers.”

  I stopped for a second. I could tell she was wondering hard where I was heading. I continued, giving her a confident smile. “Hold on. There’s a point coming.”

  “I’m listening,” she said, with a doubtful but intrigued look.

  “There was a particular fan who had it in for Baker. This guy heckled him every time his team visited, yelling out the name of the woman. Ronda, I think it was. You get this kind of junk at baseball games, usually from the bleachers, but t
his guy seemed to make it his mission in life to ridicule Baker. Have you been to a pro game?”

  “No, but what does this have to do—”

  “I’m getting to it,” I said. I was enjoying elongating the point, how I’d seen Spence do it.

  “You see, this guy spewed out vulgar stuff like it was his only passion. Even as the players left the stadium after games, the guy waited outside the exit to yell at Baker. After one game, sure enough, there he was, at it again. Baker usually tried to ignore him, but his time he didn’t. Baker happened to be carrying a baseball, and he—”

  “He threw it at him?” Carrie said, anticipating what I would say, but seeming to realize that this couldn’t be what he did. Not considering how I’d handled Halderman.

  “This is the thing. He stopped right in front of the guy, extended his hand, and gave him the baseball. He gave him the baseball.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, the guy was so surprised that he accepted it and shut up. And, you know what? He never heckled Baker again.”

  “Come on. Did this really happen?”

  “As far as I know.”

  She looked at me in a curious way I couldn’t quite figure.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  We lucked out with the projector. After Kenny cleaned it of dried celluloid, he started it up for a test. All the sprocket wheels ran smoothly, and film fed through the whole system as it should.

  Later, Hogan corralled me in the lobby to gloat, “Those platters work, but only when they work. Otherwise, they’re junk.”

  “Phil,” I said. “I don’t disagree with you. But what can I do about it?”

  A woman who looked familiar came out of the main theater. It was the wife of the man who had hammered Mr. Bullock a week before. Maybe she and her husband had returned to use those passes I’d given them.

  She staggered against the wall, letting her pocketbook fall to the carpet. Hogan, closest to her, sprang in her direction and held her steady.

  “You okay, ma’am?” Hogan asked, as he eased her toward a nearby lobby bench. I grabbed her pocketbook. She gave both of us confused stares. Was she having a heart attack? What if she collapsed and stopped breathing? I’d seen someone administer CPR, but could I do it?