The Happening 10:15

I’m alone tonight. Just me and my affair with the screen. Alicia is already asleep by the time I leave.

The Olympics are on, but since I don’t have a TV, I can only watch them online. They don’t stream the marquee events online. No Michael Phelps. No beach volleyball. So I’ve been watching women’s archery and field hockey. I saw a Korean woman beat the Olympic record for archery. That was exciting.

I languidly haul myself from the computer screen, slip my keys and wallet into my pocket, and head out the door. The night is cool for the middle of August, but it feels good to roll down the windows and feel the slight chill wash over my cheeks and tussle my hair.

The sprinklers are on at the theater, and water sprays over the little islands of grass in the parking lot. Mostly it falls on the warm asphalt and runs in big swaths toward the drainage grate.

There is a group of people standing in front of the ticket window trying to get a consensus of what to see. I stand a few feet behind them waiting for them to make up their mind and buy some tickets. One of them sees me.

“This one’s closed,” says a skinny Hispanic man with a moustache.

“Huh?”

He points to the other ticket window where a peroxide blonde sits bored, waiting for someone to buy a ticket.

“Oh,” I say. I start to walk over to the open ticket window, but—apparently—at the same moment that they guy was telling me the other ticket window was open the group had come to a consensus. And now we move parallel to each other to the other window. The skinny guy with the moustache sees me and parts the crowd. He nods.

I kind of half-smile and walk through, as the rest of his group stares at me, wondering why I have been given the privileged of going before them.

I buy my ticket from the peroxide blonde, and notice she has a lip ring. “Enjoy the show,” she says.

There is no ticket-taker tonight. Other movie goers, confused by the absence of someone to check their tickets, have left their tickets on top of the podium, not even bothering to tear them. Consciously, I think we all recognize the superfluousness of the ticket-taker. But when he is gone we are confused by his absence. Where has the gate keeper gone? There is feeling that I am flouting the system as I walk past the podium and stick ym entire, entact ticket into my pocket.

In the bathroom, a man come in, bypasses the urinals and heads straight for the sinks. He washes his hands casually with soap. I wonder why this man came to the bathroom for the sole purpose of washing his hands. What did he touch? I would start to run scenarios in my head, but it is late and my movie will be starting soon. After all, this is the dollar theater; anything can happen.

I am the only one in the theater. I can enjoy my affair in privacy.

The movie starts, but the picture is out of focus and the curtain is still hanging halfway down the screen. Within a minute, it is all fixed with the exception of the bright green lines running down the screen. But eventually those disappear.

Two more guys walk in and sit down on the other side of the isle. Then a couple sits in the back.

The movie ends with no fanfare. The two guys are laughing at the absurdity of it all. And I will too on the drive home.