Most weeks I’m at the Screening Room only on Wednesdays, but I fill in when the owners need a break, as I did this past Sunday for two showings of a two-and-one-half hour film.
Ever since the new owners added weekday afternoons, I’ve been packing a lunch, and on Sunday it was my favorite: chicken curry salad to have in a sandwich and a large honey crisp apple.
Before I could put it in the fridge, I spotted a stylish, dark green handbag with a note on it: “Left last night.”
The bag was snapped closed, and we learned long ago that such things are almost always claimed the next day. Perhaps Saturday’s projectionist felt it best not to invade anyone’s privacy, and give the owner some time.
A morning and early afterrnoon later, I figured, was plenty of time for the owner to panic. I’d open the bag and rifle any purse or wallet for a name and phone number. But first, I put my own stuff away–only to find I forgot to pack the bread. Spooning the salad out of the plastic container was hardly appetizing.
Letting the green handbag sit until the matinee was on the screen, I prepared the lobby, popping corn, making coffee, and heating water for tea, and I arranged the old cigar box that serves as this quaint, quirky cinema’s cash register.
That done, I realized the day was just mild enough that I might sit out on State Street for some 15 minutes before patrons arrived. As always on warm days, that’s good incentive to show up early.
Way too early for the film were two women who walked in just after I took my chair. Noticing that I appeared to bounce back out of it, they apologized for getting me up.
Made me laugh: “I need the exercise,” as I always say, though at times grudgingly.
After buying tickets, they said they’d be back and asked for a suggestion for where to get coffee, telling me they were from out of town. When one asked if I wanted anything, I started to say no, but then thought of the chicken curry: “Yes, a single roll or piece of bread, anything for a sandwich.”
“A pita pocket?”
“Yes, that will do!”
They left, and as I retook the seat on the street, I thought of how difficult such a simple thing can be to find and called after them to forget it.
“No, no, we’ll see what we can do. By the way, I’m Christina, and this is Maureen.”
As always, I repeated the names and made eye-contact with each while doing so, a memory trick that has served me well over the years, adding only, “Jack.”
Half hour later, the lobby was crowded. When that happens and I’m making another batch of popcorn, I like to point out how difficult it is for a right-handed person to pour kernels and oil into the kettle of a machine designed for left-handed people. While giving that spiel, I spotted a package of eight brioche rolls on the counter.
Somehow I managed to pour the mix without spilling it while laughing out loud. Christina and Maureen had walked in without my noticing them. With no way of knowing why a package of rolls was on the counter, people must have thought I was laughing at my own rueful joke.
While they watched the film, I had the sandwich and learned that if I can’t get to Annarosa’s Bakery across the river, I can trust Sara Lee in Market Basket.
So good, I forgot the handbag and began drafting my first Daily News column in a month. Writer’s block? Stymied by the run-up to the election? Too much time in–and exhaustion from–two days at a renfaire every week since Labor Day? Two more at Salem’s witch trial reenactments every week past Halloween? Addiction to the baseball playoffs and the start of NFL football? Stunned by the result of the election? Getting old?
Maybe all of the above, so I turned to local issues and soon found myself repeating the word “lost” which, after a while, reminded me of my opportunity to dive into a stranger’s wallet.
Turned out she was no stranger. She and her husband are longtime patrons of the Screening Room, and I got to know them a bit ten-twelve years ago in a group that led the resistance to waterfront development.
Before I started rifling her rather thick purse, I couldn’t help but notice two Hershey bars buried in the bag. Lead me not into temptation… If I didn’t know her, I might suspect they were smuggled in, but we do sell them, and she and her husband are no strangers to our concession stand.
Ignoring a few larger, wrapped-up items, I went into the purse. After thumbing through her credit cards, medical cards, group and business memberships, I had his phone number.
To my surprise, he did not know the bag was missing. “Did you two get divorced?” I almost joked, but held my tongue. He said they lived nearby, and he’d walk over a bit later.
When the first show ended, I made sure to thank Christina and Maureen by name, deliberately calling them by each other’s name, a ruse to make people repeat their names and point to themselves, all with eye-contact, making them easier to remember for weeks to come.
I suggested they take the remaining seven rolls. “No, no, we have enough at home. Freeze ’em.” I offered the container of the remaining salad, “delicious, from Tendercrop, a local farmstand,” enough for a sandwich they could split with soup. “No, no, we’re all set!”
Then, Maureen asked, “What’s your name again?”
“Jack, like in the trunk of your car!” A trick for the memory of others. In this same lobby, I once told a woman who asked my name, “I’m in the trunk of every car,” and she guessed, “Beach Chair?”
“How useful!”
“Ya, if you need a lift, come back on a Wednesday! Popcorn’s on me!”
They disappeared down State Street just as the first customers arrived. Among them was a couple who announced they had just left a party where the Screening Room owners were in attendance. That may have led me to think they were of the same generation as my employers, and they both appeared youthful enough. So I asked for general admission and ripped two GA tickets.
“Don’t I get my senior discount?”
“Well, yes,” I said while lowering the price, “but it does work better if you say it ahead of time.”
He laughed, and I forced a laugh. He paid with a credit card, which really ought not to be allowed in movie theaters where everyone arrives at the same time and they take so much more time than cash. But I’m way outnumbered on that score, and never complain to a card user–unless you count the many times I loudly thank people for using cash within hearing of those who may be about to use cards.
He introduced himself, asked my first name, and went into the theater. Five minutes later with people still buying tickets, he reappeared, asked for a $2 bottle of water, and held out his VISA card. But deliver us from evil… “Please,” I thought to myself, as if praying, “don’t let this guy ever come here on Wednesdays.”
Soon after the start of the second show, the fellow I called arrived to claim his wife’s handbag. Before I could turn to get it, he asked a question that surprised me as much as anything I’ve ever been asked:
“Were there two chocolate bars in it?”
“Hunh? Well, yes.”
“Ah! We were looking for those after the movie started.”
He laughed at my dumbstruck amazement. Finally, “Let me get this straight: The two of you looked for and could not find two chocolate bars, but never noticed that the bag was missing?”
Laughing: “I guess so!”
“Even though she put the bars in the bag?” We’re all required to speak softly in this lobby while a film is in progress, but emphatic hand gestures surely amplified that last phrase.
He kept laughing.
Well, as I told him, I’ve done worse. Full pots of hot coffee put into the refrigerator. Opening a bottle of beer when I was intending to have orange juice first thing in the morning. Perhaps a few other doozies I’d rather not put in writing.
He left, and I resumed my attempt to find Newburyport in 700 words or less until the late show as over. When the credits rolled and patrons started filing out, I was looking into the hall and overheard a cheery voice behind me:
“Hey Jack, great to meet you! See you around!”
“Yes, you too,” I turned quickly and addressed him by name, adding, “I’m here on Wednesdays.”
-627-
Mouth of the River 