The Picture House

“I thought it was just great.”

“Of course you did,” Bert said. He couldn't remember the last time Ethel hadn't liked a movie. The theater opened in 1925, back when your standard movie house had one screen and one showing a week. The McClintocks owned it then, the McClintocks owned it now, and it still only had one screen.

“This popcorn machine stinks,” Joshua said, as he continued to search for the perfect ratio of kernels to oil that didn't threaten to burn the building down. He'd worked at the theater for the better part of his senior year now and, for the most part, being there just depressed him.

“Take it outside, Pistol,” Gerald McClintock said with a point, avoiding eye contact as he descended from the projection booth.

“Aw, dammit,” Pistol said, as he squished a lit Marlboro Red into the overstuffed ashtray Joshua hadn't emptied in over a week. The theater used to allow smoking inside, but hadn't done so for decades now, and Pistol, claiming victim of his growing dementia, made it his daily ritual to try to sneak one in. Gerald would have none of it.

Bert and Ethel gave a nod to Joshua as they shuffled out of the dim lobby. Bert carried a paper bag from the local Stop & Save.

“You went grocery shopping before the movie?” Joshua asked. The scent of burnt kernels permeated the air.

“Naturally,” Ethel said, “Otherwise we'd have to backtrack.” The Stop & Save had a long standing deal with the McClintock's to offer discounts on movie tickets with grocery purchases on the day of the show. The discount remained firmly at ten cents, and Bert & Ethel were, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the only two theater patrons who took advantage.

“Can I borrow this?” Jake asked as he stood at the counter and reached for the pen next to the register.

“Seriously? You know we gotta buy those, and when you borrow them, we don't get them back.” Jake had a habit of loaning out his already borrowed pens to his schoolmates, creating a complicated supply train of which few returned.

“I need it for school. Hey, you know it smells in here?”

“Just take it and go.” Joshua knew he'd probably never see the pen again.

Gerald McClintock sat at his desk, which was wedged in the space not occupied by the mop and mop-bucket near the back of the storage room. He knew that when the theater opened it cost a nickel to get in, and as it stood the price had inflated all the way to just under a dollar. He was forced to contemplate a price increase. He crunched the numbers with his always finely sharpened number two.

The phone rang. “You gonna get that?” he called out to Joshua.

“You know it's for you.”

“Just get it.”

He heard Joshua's muffled voice mumble a greeting into the phone. “It's for you.”

Gerald picked up the receiver on his end. Joshua dumped the scorched popcorn into the trash bag. He opened a new bag of kernels and a new bottle of oil and prepared again to attempt popcorn perfection.

Gerald wandered into the lobby. “We're getting a new picture.”

“Finally. What's it gonna be?”

“Rush Hour 3.” The theater had never shown the first two.