“They don’t teach cursive in school anymore?” asked Patrick, wiping down the counters by the soda fountain.
“Guess not. I never learned it,” Sam admitted, with a mousy shrug.
“How are you supposed to sign checks and stuff?”
“I don’t know,” she paused. “I just write my name.”
“Damn, your generation has completely missed out on so much. It’s pretty fucked.”
Sam snickered, “Aren’t you only like eight years older than me?”
“Well, nine, today actually. That’s almost a decade.”
“Oh, today’s your birthday?”
“Yep.”
“Well, happy birthday,” she said with a closed smile.
Sam swiveled to continue writing the movie times on the chalkboard behind the cash register. It’s really fucked she doesn’t know cursive. She won’t be able to write the title, “First Reformed,” pristine for all to see, Patrick thought. It was the new Paul Schrader film they were getting that next week. It’s supposed to be really enthralling. A patient movie about how fucked up religion can be. He’s got a slow burn directing style that isn’t that accessible to mainstream audiences, so don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of his movies. Patrick will probably just rewrite the board in the morning.
Patrick was robed in a black hoodie covered in little debris. The cowl draped over his shaggy brown and gray nest of hair. His twisted beard had stayed untrimmed for months. His only semblance of put-togetherness was in the dark framed glasses he peered out of. The glare in them censored his arctic eyes and the accompanying red fleshy bags underneath them. His every movement was an erratic shuffle.
Not only was today Patrick’s birthday, it was also the second anniversary of his being promoted to assistant manager of the Cinema. Not the anniversary of his getting the job as a clerk, that was five years ago (which was observed in March). Yet another fucking milestone. To celebrate, he bought a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon that was waiting in the cramped darkness of the mini-fridge under the ticket dispenser, accompanied by several glass milk jugs used for milkshakes. Nobody comes out to the lobby after the last showing is seated. Who’d say anything? I’m in charge, after all. The PBRs were a tradition at this point, a treasure that reminded him of his time in film school when him and his roommate stayed up late talking about ideas for movies.
Between the each nightly chore, he glanced at the computer by the box office. Each time, an open word document with a winking cursor was waiting. Half of a script that he started while still attending Messiah College’s film program years prior. He pulled it up while some of the last patrons were buying their tickets, hoping Sam or anybody, really, would ask him about it. If it’s in front of me, I’ll probably work on it tonight. Let the Pabst do their magic.
Patrick began spritzing the syrup counter with spray that was mostly water. The syrups were used in Italian Sodas or flavoring in coffee, popular concessions amongst their mostly elderly customers.
“Fuck. The ants are back,” moaned Patrick.
“Ew. They show up like every June, right? Jonathan said he’d get the exterminator to come soon,” said Sam.
“Jonathan is always saying the exterminator’s coming but Jonathan is hardly ever here, let alone with an exterminator. You know how he is.”
“I think the last time I saw him was my interview,” Sam chortled.
The red specks marched to the dried splotches of raspberry goo on the altar before Patrick. He admired their determination, though they are a real pain in the ass. With a paper towel, he doused them in cleaning chemical and wiped them away, killing most. The towel tore, stuck to the syrupy glue and the poisoned survivors crawled along Patrick’s soft hand. They were the biting kind of bug. Fuck.
“Son of a bitch, this place is infested.”
“God. My apartment at school gets bugs all the time too. I normally just spend most of my time writing in the library to get away from it,” Sam said, looking down at Patrick.
“I would’ve imagined the housing in Philly would have better pest control.”
“Yeah, you’d think. For my tuition, I’d probably be able to buy a whole extermination company.”
Patrick laughed harder than one would normally at such a mild quip. Good line. He ran his hand under the slow-to-warm faucet. Fucking ants. There was a quick silence, indicating the natural end of the conversation.
“You know, I almost spent a semester in Los Angeles through one of your Temple programs,” Patrick said.
“Oh really? That’s cool. I’m doing one of their abroad programs in the spring.”
“I was going to Messiah and they have this complicated thing where you can go through Temple’s abroad program to study over there. I didn’t do it, though, because the program is shit. Sucks but I’ll get over there one day, I think.”
“One of my friends did the Los Angeles thing and got a job with Disney. She loved it.”
“Disney? What’d she do? Help make one of those completely CGI superhero movies? Those ‘films’ are all the same,” he said using air quotes. “I would’ve worked for A24 or a studio that actually cares about telling a story that matters.”
“I think it was just with their Sales Department,” Sam said with a concealed eyeroll and then paused. “Didn’t you drop out?”
The question shot through him like a javelin. He’d rehearsed the many reasons why he stopped going to Messiah for the best in the long-run, but in that moment he could only let out a winded “I…” before boisterous laughter from outside interrupted them.
Through the boxy panes of glass, two people emerged from the noisy darkness of the streets and glanced around like confused dogs. A pudgy man in a trendy button up shirt with pineapples on it and a woman with a white fedora. Perhaps they were on a date. Please don’t come in. The last movie was already seated and the pair were cleaning but Patrick forgot to lock the doors. There’s a fire hydrant outside if you need to use the bathroom.
The young couple let out hoggish chuckles as they twiddled on their phones, taking short videos of each other, showing the other, and laughing louder. What are you monkeys doing? Trying to go viral or something? They collected themselves and waltzed into the lobby of the Cinema, bottling their amusement.
“Hey, we’re looking for Appalachian Brewing Company? Google Maps says this is it,” said the pudgy man, stepping on the carpet that was harder than stone. Gah, you frumpy idiot! Believe everything you read off of your screen, you pineapple?
“It’s around the back. Connected to this building. The entrance is down past the parking lot,” Sam said, standing above them on the counter with the sink, trying to reach the whole blackboard.
“Oh awesome. Thank you. I was worried they closed and had been replaced with this place,” said the pineapple’s fedora. “Woah, is that one of those old projectors?”
“Yup,” said Patrick, now focused on sweeping.
“Cool!” the man said, “We should really go into the city more, babe.” The city? The City? I fail to see how Harrisburg, this deadbeat excuse for a capital, is deserving of the ‘the’ article. Have you even heard of New York? Even visited Philadelphia?
“Does it work?” asked the woman.
“No, that’s why we have it in the lobby. It’s not even plugged in. Please don’t touch it. It’s very sensitive.”
They studied the ancient device as if they were health inspectors. Once upon a time, it served as the theater’s primary means of showing movies. The last place in central Pennsylvania to do so. The rolling flicker of the reel pattered and the still filmy feed came to life. The crispness of the scenes, the tangible metal of the spinning wheels, and the artistic precision of it all. The glow it produced was warmer than any fireplace I’ve ever seen. This is how films were meant to be experienced!
The cast-iron machinery has faded into a rustic mold of bluish green, like a bridge weathered by the elements. Eventually, the distributers demanded that the films be shown in digital. Producing film reel became “way too expensive,” or at least that’s what Jonathan told him. So, the projector was retired to antique status in the lobby, where it collected dust and greasy fingerprints from curious grubbers.
People often mindlessly fiddled with its delicate knobs and do-dads and oh-what-does-this-thing-do’s. Between showings, Patrick often stared at the projector, imagining the kinds of films that people used to watch on the contraption, or the strategic way people can still make movies in such an old-fashioned way. If he was going to make a movie in a run-down place like Harrisburg, he absolutely needed it to be shot on reels and shown with this projector. Surely, it requires some tidying up, and a couple small repairs but that will come later, after my movies are already being made! He fantasized about keeping the projector for himself too, perhaps in a home movie theater or something. I’ll figure out exactly what to do with it later. The hulking husk peered downward to the base of the counter Sam stood on, its reflective lens a defeated eye.
“Hey babe, get my picture with this thing?” asked Pineapple as he shuffled the projector, hovering just inches away from sacred machine. “The guys at work are gonna think this is so cool.”
Patrick glared at the villain with a muffled anxiety, like watching a stranger holding his newborn child. The man posed there, making a series of quirky faces or body gestures to get some good options.
“This one’s a video,” said white fedora with a flirty snicker.
“Harrisburg, baby!” yelped the man, staring at the smartphone. He did a weak dance while pretending to operate the machine, to the fedora’s laughter.
“What did I just say, dude? Don’t touch it,” interjected Patrick with red cheeks, halting the couple’s fun.
The man’s face turned from a toothy smile to a stern growl, actualizing Patrick as a potential threat to their carefree night.
“Hey, sorry dude. I didn’t touch anything, relax. Just looking, really, you know the thing you’re supposed to do at a movie theater? You are a movie theater, aren’t you?” No actually, I am not a movie theater. I am a living, breathing person with thoughts and feelings, asshole.
Patrick did almost say what he was thinking, finally. That projector is mine! Nobody can touch it! Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back. Instead, his shoulders tensed and his belly spun as he hushed up in a strained breath, as if he’d been grabbed by something underwater. He raised his eyebrows and sighed, audibly, but without intent. Pineapple stood there, looking at Patrick for some kind of comeback, with the kind of instigated determination people have for retail employees and waitresses. Back to sweeping.
“Try the Wastin’ Daylight cream ale when you get over to Appalachian. It’s my favorite,” Sam broke into the silence.
“Thanks, we’ll do that. C’mon Patrick,” said fedora, tugging on pineapple’s eye-straining shirt. Patrick looked up thinking she was talking to him. Oh, of course his name is Patrick, too.
Sam offered a light chuckle at Patrick’s obvious confusion, which the other Patrick mistook as a personal attack.
“You know what, maybe we won’t be coming back here next time we’re in Harrisburg. I think I’d prefer the AMC anyways. Fuck you guys. Pretentious losers,” Pineapple Patrick said before storming out, grabbing fedora by the rim.
“Okay,” said regular Patrick, flustered. An ‘okay’ meant for Sam or maybe himself, as the door was already shut on the couple. There’s a hush in the lobby as they continued with closing procedures. Neither of them really knew what to say about the man’s comment.
“Us Patricks are a varied bunch, ya know? Can’t all be like me, I guess,” he said, thinking it would make her laugh or something.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Hey, I’m done with the chalk stuff, mind if I duck out now?”
“Uh, yeah sure. You work tomorrow?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yup, six days a week.”
“Alright. Well, I’ll see you later,” said Sam, as she got down off the counter.
“See you,” said Patrick.
Sam paced down the aisle, staring at the tiled ground past the silver coffee maker, grimy popcorn machine, shelves of blinding candy, and the orange waste bucket where they had to dump dense liquids and coffee grounds. One time, the sink’s crusty piping burst with sludge, ruining the organized, artsy aesthetic the theater was going for. This made the dump bucket hidden behind the counter an absolute necessity.
Sam gathered her belongings for about three minutes, while Patrick counted the drawers in silence, glancing over to her occasionally. Each went about their business in the same space, despite saying goodbye for what felt like ages before the actual departure. They shared a weak smile before she passed through the same glass doors, past the movie posters that had to be replaced for the upcoming week.
People these days really don’t know how to act. Thank God I’m not an unbearable asshole like that other Patrick.
He waited a minute, so it’d seem like he wasn’t following Sam to go lock the doors. The chores of closing came as second nature, now. Mundane, but doable. The repetitive rituals were engrained in Patrick. Finally, he sat by the computer staring at the pixelated script in the dim lobby lights. The beginning read: “INTERIOR. CHURCH – EARLY MORNING.”
He yanked a PBR off of its plastic chain and mustered enough strength to pop open its lid. It’s foam gathered at the top, and Patrick took a strained slurp. He felt a buzz in his pocket, stopped, and padded his dirty clothes for his flip phone.
“1 MISSED CALL – DAD”
“1 VOICEMAIL – DAD”
Patrick groaned at the thought of talking to his father for his annual birthday phone call. He flicked open the device and pressed the hard buttons to listen to the message.
“Hey Patrick, it’s your father. Just wanted to call to say happy birthday. What is it, thirty years now? Time flies. Haven’t heard from you much. I hope God has blessed you this year. Come by the parish sometime this week and we can get lunch after the service or something, I’d like to know what you’re up to. God bless and happy birthday,” spoke his father’s crackling voice.
Patrick sighed and felt a tinge of guilt before remembering the rest of his upbringing. His father, Patrick Senior, was a devout Catholic. Evidenced in the ritual praying before dinner and bedtime, sending him to Christian school in the suburbs of Harrisburg, and hitting him with a paddle harder than the nuns when he misbehaved.
“Fuck you, dad,” Patrick whispered to himself before closing his phone and tossing it.
He remembered crying when he thought God hated him. Is God named Patrick, too? He used to wonder. The Lord was supposed to be in the stars, or the crystals of snow that kissed his head, or the warm cinnamon feeling you get when you’re kind to another human being. Instead, he grew to see God in the blank thin walls of his bedroom, the wretched promise of failure, and his father’s blue eyes searing like a chemical fire.
For the young Patrick, movies showed him that there was a wide world out there. That generations before his could live lives of expression. That his life was far-less interesting than those on the screen. That religion “fucked him up, big time.” He hoped to turn the religious trauma into a film or book or something one day. One day.
“If you really want to study that garbage,” Patrick Sr. said during Patrick’s high schooling, “you’re going to have to play by my rules. I know a couple of the people at Messiah College through some mission work. I’ll pay for the tuition, so you don’t stray too far from God’s light.”
Without much of an option, Patrick agreed if it meant he could make movies. Once in college, he planned to never return to Harrisburg but, instead, go to a humungous city where people actually created things. The only places where people can make important things. The only places where people can actually fall in love. The only places where my demons will be vanquished. Creativity will thrive there. Wishful thinking. A lot of this actually stems from the first movie he remembers seeing, which was Ghostbusters (1984), a movie about guys in New York who invent machines to “bust” ghosts. Honestly, it made the boyish Patrick start to question his faith in God, too. Slimer wasn’t in the Bible. Films were his God now and he prayed every day.
Taking the film-study classes was much easier than the film-making classes. He enjoyed sitting in a room, not talking to anybody while a classic movie played. Breathless. Bicycle Thieves. Citizen Kane. Nobody will ever be able to top those. His professors tried to get him to work with equipment more, but each time he’d freeze. His father’s voice in his head, “Studying that garbage? Don’t you know that won’t help you? Do something practical with your degree or go to seminary school.”
Patrick’s only accomplishments were half of a script and a few credits as “Grip” on a few student projects, but over two semesters he successfully watched hundreds of movies. His dropping out was the result of bad production grades, being in an overly religious atmosphere, and wanting to be free of his father’s influence, and the fact that people don’t appreciate the classics enough and want to tell another rehashing of the same old story, just with updated digital cameras. Nobody from this school has actually succeeded in the film industry and nobody famous is from Harrisburg. One day I’ll be from somewhere else.
After he fled Messiah, his options were limited. Patrick’s begrudged return to the moderately-sized state capital was supposed to be temporary, like wearing a knee brace before getting corrective surgery. Then he signed a lease for an apartment four blocks from the Capitol Building by the Susquehanna River, because he couldn’t stand the thought of living with Patrick again, or taking any of his money. Then he got the job at the Cinema on the other side of town, because he needed money to pay rent. Then he got the promotion that earned him a yearly salary, because he wasn’t doing much else with his time besides watching movies and thinking of things he’d make one day. One day.
Patrick first found the Cinema when he was a teenager. Pimpled and already sprouting scruff, he discovered the place on a surprise field trip into the city of Harrisburg. Intending to help the local Diocese after the church up the street from the theater that was heavily vandalized, Patrick and his class offered their almost-man power to clean the mess, if only to get out of the standard religious studies of the day. One day.
A slight detour but he couldn’t resist. His classmates didn’t even notice his absence, one of the few times this came in handy. His eager faced pressed against the fogged glass. He’d only seen movies at home, hidden in his basement with DVDs he borrowed from the library. The first seemed even brighter inside the lobby than outside, as if the place had a halo. Colorful chalk drawings on the walls evoked a childhood he never had, each symmetrical poster symbolic of another world that Patrick could lose himself in. The wafting aroma of popcorn invited him to meander further across the new crimson carpet toward the endless counter. The place was nearly empty, except for a man with jet black hair dressed in an even darker button-up.
“Hello there, young man,” croaked the man behind the counter.
“Hi,” Patrick replied. “I’ve never seen a place like this before.”
“Is that a compliment?” asked the man, grinning like Judas.
“I think so. Yes. Yes, it is a compliment.”
“Well thank you, we just did some remodeling. This used to be an old grocery store, you know, and we had to tear out a lot of the fixtures. Some nasty stuff. It was a real bitch but we got these new countertops to show for it!” There was a pause. “Sorry, I’m oversharing. I was literally just dealing with the installation guy. What can I do for you today?”
“What’s Pan’s Labyrinth?” asked Patrick, looking up at the showtimes.
The man probably answered with a short plot synopsis of the film, saying that it took place during the Spanish Civil War and there were fantastical elements involved, like the faun convincing the little girl, Ofelia, that she would become a princess in the afterlife and achieve immortality if she followed its assigned tasks. A fable masking trauma. That could be a theme in something I make One day.
The man behind the counter introduced himself as Jonathan, the general manager, the person who’d recognize Patrick from his continued visits and hire him a few years later. Jonathan sold a ticket to Patrick for five dollars that day and even coaxed him with some free popcorn. A bribe for who knows what. Patrick decided to oblige and indulge. Sneaking off to see a movie was the biggest risk he’d taken up until that point, and perhaps the biggest risk since. Pan’s Labyrinth is about two hours long which would likely not be an issue because the students were also planned to stay in Harrisburg two hours, but normally stayed places longer than they expected.
Patrick cracked open one of his Pabst Blue Ribbons in the shadowy lobby of the Cinema. He waited for the theaters were vacated to sweep up kernels or whatever other junk the moviegoers didn’t feel like taking back out with them. Froth congregated on the pricks of his beard. He sipped and glanced to the outdated magazines that littered the table beside him. He waited as if he was waiting to see a physician. The quiet buzzed in his ears. Funny how a building with a hundred people in it could be so stone silent.
He noticed something subtly frantic by the old projector. Little black dots flickering around like the burned edges of a running reel. Am I hallucinating? I’m only one beer in. Creeping out of his seat, he paced slowly to the projector. A cockroach. And another slimy cockroach. And another. Patrick wasn’t as squeamish as he used to be yet he recoiled in a gagging dread. Fucker. He pried open one of the blue iron panels with the hurried hesitation one has when dealing with insects. Eck eck eck. Upon creaking open the contraption, an entire hive of cockroaches began sloshing around fiendishly.
“Fuck! Fuck!” exclaimed Patrick, dropping his PBR to the patted crimson. A throng of roaches freaked and scattered, vanishing into the walls. The rest receded into the machinations of the projector as Patrick felt the same rot emerge within him. He felt like vomiting out his guts as his intestines toiled under his sacred flesh. The panel groaned shut and Patrick was alone again.
While leafing through ideas of what to do, the theater swung open and a decrepit man with piercing blue eyes met Patrick’s, then looked down at the ground. Theater’s out already? I swore the movie was longer. An avalanche of middle-aged people followed the old man out into the lobby in a predictable pattern, most rushing right to the bathroom. Patrick fumbled to pick up his split PBR. I could get into big trouble if they saw me drinking on the clock. Without a counter to hide behind, Patrick kicked the still-leaking can underneath the infested projector.
On his walk back to his apartment that night, he smoked a Lucky Strike. The exhaust seeped through his yellow teeth into the veil of his hoodie as he lurched forward. Wincing still, after all these years, at the same tar burn of the unfiltered tobacco, he paused by the illuminated Capitol building. Its imperial lime dome was a colossus next to Patrick’s shrinking body. The eternal steps led up to where men in suits created laws for us to follow. Regal crafters behind chamber doors. Tonight, the ascension was illuminated by Olympic blue poles and spotlights, begging to be marveled. The pointed roman dome evoked the image a man with a flashlight under his chin.
The only people around were drunks two blocks away and the marble statues of anguished men and women at the base of the Capitol, their white stone bodies forever looking around, fixed with blank eyes. Their genitals exposed, smooth and cold, chiseled by the hands of some god-like sculptor. Their deceptively supple bodies like David’s in the Galleria dell’Accademia, their entire beings static, stuck posed until their inevitable demolition. The navy Pennsylvania flag whistled above them like a gawker.
Patrick, standing there, decided he’d find some way to restore the old projector at the Cinema. I’ll read some articles online or find a book at the library. Or maybe I will just quit my job, altogether. Find something else. He told himself that he’d decide which he would do tomorrow morning, maybe. Tonight he was watching Ghostbusters.