Hole In The Wall

"Another one got rowdy last night," Winnie said.

"Made trouble?" I replied, eating my cereal.

"Are you okay?" said Max.

"Fine," said Winnie, "but I'm getting tired of Friday and Saturday nights at work after the damn bars close." At that point, Winnie looked at me. "Are you doing anything important after midnight?" she asked.

"Ah," I said. In truth, I wasn't sure. On the other hand, I didn't quite know if I wanted to go to work with Winnie and hold back the ravening horde of drunks, either.

"Please?" said Winnie. "You're large and hairy and if you wear your biker jacket, you look like a biker and if you say 'get the hell off the counter,' the drunk will get off the counter long enough for me to get to the phone."

"Ah," I said. I've done bouncer duty. I didn't much like it. Getting a faceful from a belligerent drunk who is convinced he could stomp Bruce Lee is less than pleasant, and the main thing I learned from it was that (a) it's pointless to argue with a drunk, and (b) one should never shake a drunk. They leak. Often violently. Even when they're the ones doing the shaking.

"Please?" asked Winnie. "I'll buy the sodas, and I'll give you store credit."

That got my attention. "Winnie," I said, "whatthehell am I gonna do with store credit at a porn shop?"

*********

Winnie wasn't a radical feminist, but she coulda played one on TV. She refused to shave her pits and legs, had loud feminist viewpoints, and insisted on having metaphorical balls. I liked 'er. She was an interesting person. She was Max's girlfriend, and the three of us shared a house.

And when a job opened up at the porn shop, she pounced on it. It would provide useful background information on the objectification of women, and be an adventuresome ride. The owner liked it, because Winnie was good looking, and a good looking woman working in a porn shop is an asset.

99% of the guys who walk into a porn shop are NOT looking for trouble. They barely speak to the clerk. Eye contact with ANYONE in a porn shop is ... meaningful. Every porn shop I've ever been to has been as quiet as a church, unless the clerk had a video playing with the sound on.

But then... it was a college town. And this meant bars, bars aplenty. And this meant that when the bars closed, certain other businesses braced for impact. Up until now, I thought this only went for all night groceries and coffee-and-pancakes joints (every waitress who's ever worked the graveyard shift has horror stories of What Happened That Time After The Bars Closed.)

'Parently, this goes for porn shops, too. Winnie had had two separate incidents in one week where some drunk got a little too lively for her taste. If a couple of her regulars hadn't stepped in the previous night, she wouldn't have had time to get to the phone... and if the drunk hadn't been afraid of getting arrested at a porn shop, the threat of calling the cops might not have been enough. He apparently didn't understand that the clerk wasn't for sale or rent.

And so, Winni asked me to stand around and look dangerous. Sigh. All right. ONE night. And you're buying breakfast.

And thus, my learning experience began.

A couple of drunks showed up that night, but they didn't do much more than stagger around and giggle and point at things and speak a little too loudly. No harm done. But you know what? If you pay attention, it's durn hard to get bored in a porn shop.

For one thing, there are the Regulars. Winnie knew a lot of them by name. These were guys who came in regularly, particularly on weekends, to cruise for blowjobs.

"Blowjobs?" I said. "What, are there hookers here?"

"Tell you what," she said. "Go in one of the booths in back. Here's some tokens. Just go sit in a booth and watch a movie for five minutes."

I took the tokens, but I did not go in a booth. I stood and looked at the Big Board. There must have been half a dozen guys hanging around the Big Board, the showcase with a bunch of different movie boxes in it, showing what movie was showing on which channel. They looked at the channels, and did not make eye contact with each other. No one said anything.

One guy detached from the group, wandered into a booth, and closed the door. I heard the click of tokens being fed into the slot. A video started. Distant muffled porn music and sounds were heard.

A moment later, another guy detached from the group and ambled down the aisle, past that booth. He brushed the door, perhaps accidentally. There was a click; the door was shut and latched, apparently. So the guy stepped into the next booth, and closed the door. Click of tokens. More porn music.

This went on for a while. I didn't get it. I went back outside.

"Did you see the hole?" asked Winnie.

"Hole?"

"GLORY hole, numbnuts. In the wall of the booth."

Glory hole? Wall of the booth? I wandered back into the darkened room of booths in back, and this time I went into a booth. And yes, I locked the door. I fed a couple of tokens in, sat down, and began to watch the movie.

A moment later, I saw a flicker of light to my left. I glanced down. There was a hole, some two and a half inches in diameter, in the wall. I was seeing light flicker from the video screen in the booth next door. Someone had gone in, closed the door, and was watching a movie.

As I watched, I saw his fingertips appear, resting on the rim of the hole.

I don't think I glanced at the pornucopia on the screen for the rest of the time I was in there. I stared at those fingers as though they were going to erupt through the hole like snakes. At one point, he began drumming them, impatiently.

I got the hell out. I got back into the shop proper. "What the hell was THAT all about?"

Winnie giggled. "Someone was lonely, that's all."

"And what the hell was I supposed to do about it?"

"He probably wanted to know if you wanted to suck him, or if you wanted a sucking."

My mouth fell open. Thinking about it, I immediately closed it again.

******

And so, my education began. I began accompanying Winnie to work on Fridays and Saturdays occasionally. Not all that long -- I really did have a life, and did not care to spend it hanging around porn shops -- but if I had nothing going on around the time the bars closed, I'd duck down to the porn shop and hang around looking bikerish.

This was the late eighties/early nineties, and I was amazed at what porn went for. By this time, you could buy most new release feature films on VHS for around twenty bucks. The cheapest video at the porn shop sold for $25, and that was on clearance. Most sold for $35 or so, and prices climbed as high as $80 for highly specialized stuff like foot fetishes and hard-to-get stuff. And people paid these prices. I was amazed. Or as George R.R. Martin put it, "They want to hum, and they want to hum bad."

Gay guys cruise porn shops. I'd had no idea. I thought that's what gay bars were for. They apparently had this whole secret language they used, made up entirely of body language, nonverbal signals, and eye contact -- almost nothing verbal -- that they used to cruise porn shops for sex partners and anonymous fun. I quickly learned that standing in front of the gay porn section, apparently doing nothing more than perusing the tapes, was the equivalent of holding up a neon sign and blasting an air horn.

I was and am not gay, but damn, it was fascinating. I'd had no idea.

I took to hanging out in the back section, a large, darkened room lit only by the Big Board and the "Occupied/Vacant" lights on the twenty or so booths. Guys would come in, get change from the change machine, and stare intently at the Big Board, noting carefully what porn was offered and upon which of the eight channels each movie was shown.

Oh, wait, no, they weren't. They were carefully using peripheral vision to note who else was in the back room, who else was nearby, who else was facing them (full facing means "I am interested in you," whereas partially facing someone means "I am checking you out, and don't mind if you notice." Note that even when full facing someone, your head is almost certainly pointed elsewhere; facing someone and actually making eye contact was the equivalent of saying, "It's everything I can do to keep from falling on my knees right now and feverishly tearing your pants open and rubbing your penis all over my face.")

Another signal was going into a booth, and turning the channel to a gay porn film, and then turning the sound up. "I am watching gay porn," was the announcement. If you're interested, you'd go into the next booth, and switch to the same channel, and turn the sound up.

#7 and #8 were popular for this -- they had holes in both the right and left walls, so they were good for voyeurism. #9 had holes in THREE walls, and was always occupied, it seemed.

Once I overheard two guys talking. "Juan is such a slut," one of them remarked. Turns out Juan had a habit of going into a booth and just leaving the door unlocked, particularly if he knew someone was checking him out.

"Yeah," said the other guy. "He says using a glory hole's like using a condom. He wants the whole pie." And they both laughed.

There was a whole world going on in here.

After a couple weekends, I noticed that I seemed to be getting some attention, particularly from the regulars. One Saturday, I noticed that the regulars stayed the hell out of the back room and booths in droves; only the curious college kids and a few diehards were using the booths.... and then, suddenly, about midnight, things went NUTS. All the regulars came swarming in. One of them smiled warmly at me and said, "Hi, dude," which was unheard of; you did NOT verbally acknowledge ANYONE in the back room. And they immediately gathered around the Big Board, and promptly began pairing off and veering to their favored booths, in ones or twos. They'd never been so blatant before. I was wildly confused.

An elderly gentleman came up, smiled at me (scaring the shit out of me), and took my hand and put a twenty dollar bill in it. "This is for you," he said, and smiled some more.

I stood there in utter shock. MIGHOD, I thought, THIS GUY THINKS I AM A MAN-WHORE AND WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO --

And then he turned away from me, and winked at Juan. Juan smiled like a beautiful little boy on Christmas morning. The old guy shuffled away from me. The two of them walked down to #7 and went in together. I heard the door latch click shut.

I stood there with a twenty in my hand. The wheels were spinning so fast and hard I thought my brain was going to melt.

I staggered out into the bright lights of the porn shop. I looked up at Winnie. Winnie was desperately trying not to burst into laughter. I said, "You know damn good and well what just happened, don't you? What the fuck did you do?"

She fought a little harder, and then collapsed in gales of laughter. It took her awhile to be able to talk. When she finally managed it, she explained. Apparently, the regulars had noticed that I hung out and watched and nosed around, but never DID anything with anyone. They had become concerned that I was a cop.

Naturally, they had approached Mama Winnie. She'd wondered what to tell them, but she was quick on her feet. She told them, "He's a biker. He's not a cop. We had some incidents a while back, you know? So the boss won't hire security 'cause he's cheap, so I got this guy to come and hang out on the weekends when the bars close. His job is to keep an eye out for cops and fagbashers and troublemakers and shit. He won't even say boo to you guys as long as you don't start a fight or make trouble. I told him to leave the regulars alone."

...and lo, there was much rejoicing. The old guy hadn't been trying to rent me. He'd tipped me.

Which was still confusing, but far less sexually threatening, I guess.

*******

And so my education continued.

Not everyone in a porn shop is gay. I found it was a fascinating game to try and figure out someone's motivation when they walked in. Great psychology practice. This guy, in his mid thirties -- just looking for a video? Cruising for gay sex? Straight, but looking for a blowjob? Bi-curious? The variations were endless.

The regulars were interesting, too. Ollie (the older fellow who'd tipped me) regularly came in cruising for younger guys. He was well known and rather popular among the regulars, since he'd take you home with him if he REALLY liked you, and there would be pancakes for breakfast, or so I was told. Nobody ever told me about what sex with him was like, but his pancakes were legendary.

There was another guy, Hassan, who liked others to watch him in action. He'd hang around until #9 was open, and then lead some lucky soul into the booth with him, and anyone who knew anything immediately flocked to the three booths surrounding it for a free show. He never had any shortage of spectators; Hassan looked like a young Lou Diamond Phillips, but more buff. Word had it that there were washboards that wept with envy for Hassan's abs.

There was Pancho, who was neither gay nor bi-curious, but cruised for couples. He'd been in one day when a young couple had come in and headed for the booths. They'd liked his look, and had rented one of the "preview booths" -- large booths at the other end of the store, where you could rent a video and watch it there at your own leisure -- and had invited him to come and watch the video with them.

The experience had utterly blown his mind. It had been a year previously, but Pancho was there nearly every weekend, hoping for another adventurous couple to show up. Or even the same couple...

There was Francis, who for some insane reason liked to seduce young college guys and squeeze into the crawlspace behind the Coke machine to make out with them. He could have had far more privacy in the booths, but the Coke machine was his staked-out territory, and no one else ever even tried to get in there. Not without Francis. Although Winnie had to warn him that the lit part of the store was public territory, and he'd damn well better keep his pants on in there, Coke machine or no Coke machine.

It was a regular weekend thing to see... during a quiet moment, two disheveled young men would suddenly erupt from the secret space behind the Coke machine, hand in hand, and walk very quickly to the door to the back, to seek out a booth in which to consummate their passion... it was especially good if a non-regular was there to see. More than once, I had to stifle a laugh as some incredulous townie slooowly approached the Coke machine and peeeeeeered nervously behind it, as if it were some sort of magical wardrobe-portal to Gay Narnia or something...

There was Arthur, a little middle aged fellow who was just as flamin' as they come. He was there not only for the sex, but the social life. I remember him because he talked more than any other regular, and because he often brought his poodle along. When he disappeared into the back, he'd give Winnie the poodle (whose name I have forgotten) and a baggie of doggy treats, and she'd look after the poodle while Arthur was in the back gleefully going down on the other regulars.

And there were couples. It was a college town, remember. There was one couple, a blonde girl and a guy who seemed to have a baseball cap permanently grafted to his scalp, who came in from time to time to rent a preview booth. They invariably brought a third player with them, who changed from visit to visit. They'd never picked anyone up at the store, which disappointed Pancho, but he had hopes.

Occasionally, other couples WOULD show up and meet cute with someone at the store, just often enough to drive Pancho crazy... and keep him showing up.

*******

One Friday, I noticed that nearly every regular tipped me. This was unusual. Usually, only Ollie tipped me, and even then not all that often. Tips were unusual, and several tips in one night were unheard of. I wondered about it until Arthur approached me and rather angrily told me I ought to be ashamed of myself for what I was doing.

By this time, I had learned that if anything incomprehensible was going on, I could usually count on Winnie to unravel it. I asked her WTF? and she didn't know what I was talking about until I explained what Arthur had said.

"Oh," she said. "Okay, um... I might have ... stretched things a little."

"Yes?" I said.

"Well... you weren't here last Sunday... and Arthur brought in coffee and doughnuts, right? And we were all hangin' out and talking, and the question of you came up."

I raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, and waited.

"Specifically the question of what 'security' cost."

I stared and waited.

"And the fact that I kind of said that you weren't actually a paid employee."

"And?"

"And the question arose of how I convinced you to hang around and keep an eye on things."

"And?"

"And, well... I told them that you were kind of my boyfriend, and that you were doing me a favor."

I thought about it. This did not make sense, based on the tips and Arthur's attitude, and I said so.

"Well," she said, "Arthur's met Max. So has Ollie. They knew that I already had a boyfriend."

I frowned and said nothing.

"So," she said, "I admitted you weren't really my boyfriend- boyfriend, but that I had agreed to be your sex slave on one of my days off if you'd come down and be security for this place."

My mouth wanted to drop open, but in this place, such facial expressions had other meanings. I poker-faced it.

"I wouldn't have said that, but Ollie had already asked how much I was paying you," she said. "They know I don't make THAT much at this job, and Ollie was... well, you know what a sweetie he is. He wanted to make sure that paying you wasn't actually hurting my budget."

"And so you decided to tell them that I'm just a pervert and a rapist, instead?"

"Oh, no!" said Winnie. "Just that you took your wages out in trade."

I thought about that. Winnie mistook my silence for something else, and continued guiltily. "And I kind of said that you had some kind of kinky tastes, and that most women wouldn't put up with the stuff you liked, and so you would accept my 'services' in exchange for standing around looking like a biker."

THAT got my attention. "And precisely what kinky tastes am I inflicting upon my poor victim that most of womankind cannot or will not endure, except in desperation to protect her poor little fruitbats from the ravenous drunks of doom?" I asked.

"Um," she said, "Well... I got kind of creative. You of all people know how a story can grow in the telling..." and then she told me.

It wasn't anything sick or gross or terribly perverted. It was actually kind of cute, in a mildly twisted and sort of titillating way... I don't remember all the details, but "schoolgirl costumes" and "blackmail fantasy" seem to bob to the surface of the morass of my memory. Oh, that, and that she had to clean my house, nude.

(Since she lived in it, she often did, actually; she was pretty casual about clothes in her own home, when I did not happen to be at home, and I was often out. Although she added a tiny apron and boob tassels to the story, which I am reasonably sure never happened in actuality. Max wouldn't have been able to resist bragging...)

At the time, I remember thinking, "This is a story she cooked up to amuse and scandalize a buncha porn shop regulars and aging gay guys." And I was right.

"So," I said. "Since they think this anyway, and there's a schoolgirl outfit for sale in the case, could--"

"No," she said sweetly, and that was that. She had me, and she knew it. There was no way the regulars would believe me if I denied any of this; it was too good a story. And she knew damn well I wouldn't just quit showing up; I was having too much fun myself. Human anthropology, on the hoof!

Dammit.

********

Sometimes, women would wander in. This was always an event. Keep in mind what I said about perception, and body language, and secret communication. Note also that not all the customers who USED this secret communication were strictly homosexual. It was always funny to watch when a woman walked in, because all attention was magneted to her so fast, you could practically hear the eyeballs click, all over the store. EVERY regular with ANY heterosexual leanings IMMEDIATELY rotated their body to place the newcomer PRECISELY in the middle of their PERIPHERAL vision. Not in the stare zone. One does not stare. But one keeps an eye out, oh yass. And pretends to be examining the videos, or the leather whips, or the feather display.

Any regular behind the fetish gear rack would IMMEDIATELY drop to his knees. The rack was wire, meaning you were concealed by the vests and leather chaps, but you could look through it and scope people out without being seen, if you weren't standing up.

And the woman in question would meander obliviously through the store, utterly unaware she was being visually and psychically tracked and stalked like a mouse with a cherry on top in a barnful of starving ninja cats.

I don't know about ALL porn shops, but at ours, the woman was given the benefit of the doubt. She was not bothered or accosted. She wasn't necessarily assumed to be in undiscriminating heat for hard lusty man-meat. She could just be vibrator shopping. But hope sprang eternal. So to speak.

Other times, girls would come in in gaggles. Two, three, four. They tended to be more aware of what was going on around them, and viciously scanned for anyone who might dare to make eye contact. The fear coming off of them was palpable, on these occasions. But still, they came. They looked at videos, they giggled at dildos, they asked questions.

They seldom went in the back, though. And when they did, they invariably freaked out upon finding the glory hole in each booth.

...which brings us to the time the two drunk women showed up.

I pegged them as being in their late thirties. They staggered around oohing and ahhing and giggling at the various rubber obscenities and leather harnesses and costume sections and novelties. They were like bulls in a china shop to the regular clientele. I kind of got the impression that Juan and Ollie in particular did not approve of them. They were loud. They lacked class.

Naturally, they got interested in what was in the back room. They asked Winnie what the back room was all about. Winnie replied, "Well, you find an empty booth, and you can go in and lock the door and then you put tokens in the slot and it'll show you dirty movies."

The blonde woman did not seem approving of this... but was intrigued. The brunette, on the other hand, insisted that this experience HAD to be tested.

The blonde was unconvinced. "There's other men in there, too," she said uneasily. "What if someone ... tries something?"

"We have security on duty," smiled Winnie, glancing at me. "No one will bother you."

The blonde looked at me. "Who's gonna protect us from security, then?" she said, wide eyed. The brunette giggled and told her to lighten up. They bought a couple bucks worth of tokens and staggered, arm in arm, back into the darkness. Winnie looked at me sharply. Get your ass back there and keep them out of trouble!

They stumbled past the two or three guys at the Big Board and entered #5 together. One of the guys at the Board glanced hopefully at #4. I walked over and stood at the door to #4, daring anyone to even TRY to enter.

No one did. In #5, I heard a token clink into the cashbox, and the sound came on. Someone had left Hot All-Male Police Traffic Stops with Cash Malone playing; there were plenty of moans of pleasure, but they were all male. This went on for quite some time, actually, before it apparently occurred to either woman to change the channel.

The guys at the Big Board went back to the usual routine. I stood at the door to #4. If a couple of society matrons got startled or upset while at a porn shop, they'd surely call the cops. Therefore, I would see to it that they were not startled or upset, except possibly by the dirty movies, no more.

Until I saw Winnie backlit at the doorway, frantically waving at me. She'd left the till untended? Uh-oh. I headed for the front.

Trio of drunk frat boys. Usually not too troublesome, but these guys were seriously staggering drunk, enough so that I wondered how they'd driven a vehicle from the bar to the porn shop without damaging the landscape and its inhabitants. I sighed, and put on my best "Sonny Corleone Joins The Hells Angels" impression, and moved in.

They were good fellows, and not anxious to make trouble, and moved on quickly. But it was a good three or four minutes before I was able to get back into the back room. And sure enough, when I got back there, the door to #4 was closed and locked.

The sound in #5 had stopped. The soundtrack to All Male Police was coming from #4. Were those women still inside #5? Well, someone was; the OCCUPIED light was on.

I glanced up at the Big Board; Ollie was up there. I strolled up and whispered, "Who's in number five?"

Ollie thought about it, and whispered back, "Hassan, I think."

Wuh-oh. Hassan. The exhibitionist. He was what we'd call an omnisexual; he'd sleep with anything if it was pretty enough and he was horny enough, and he was not noted for his good judgment. I went back to the aisle between #4 and #5, fully expecting to hear a scream, any minute now...

Instead, there was silence.

Well, not quite silence. Straining my ears in the quietude, I could hear whispers. Female. From #5. I leaned in and listened closer.

"What's he doing?"

"Nothing, yet... no, he's running his hand up and down the front of his pants. "

Eh? How would she know that? Unless SHE was the one staring through the glory hole... well, at least Hassan hadn't done anything weird yet...

"Oh-my-god, Helen, he's opening his fly."

"Gasp!"

"Oh, this is... oh, my."

"Oh, my god. What if he can see us back, through the hole?"

"He's not looking at us. He's watching the movie."

"Which one is he watching?"

"A gay movie. I think we're safe."

Apparently, it did not occur to the ladies that if I could hear them, Hassan practically had them in stereo. He switched the channel, through Big Butt Babes, Romancing The Bone, and The Best Of Bubbles LaRue... to... what was that?

Memory shifted and clicked. It was Marvelous Red-Hot Matures.

Ohhhh, shit.

"Ohmigod! I can see his PENIS!"

"Let me see! MOVE!"

Scuffle sounds.

"What's wrong with it?"

"What's wrong with what?"

"His PENIS! It LOOKS wrong!"

Scuffle sounds.

"How many penises have you ever SEEN, Delores?" whispered Helen, scornfully. "He's uncircumcised, that's all."

Brief silence.

"I've seen plenty of penises, I'll have you know," said Delores. "I've just... never seen one... like that, is all." Pause. "Is he MASTURBATING?"

"Oh, my ghod. I think he is. He's ... getting bigger."

At this point, I clearly heard Hassan moan. Sigh, I thought. Goddamn drama queen...

"Oh-my-ghod, I am watching a strange man masturbate. This is just sick."

"I don't see you getting off your knees and out the door yet."

"This is sick. You're sick. I'm sick."

"But ain't it fun? Ohmighod, he's taking his PANTS off!"

I began to get irritated that I couldn't see anything. This kind of running commentary must be driving Hassan crazy; he loved being watched, but how often would anyone provide a blow-by-blow and color commentary? So to speak, I mean...

"Oh, my lord. He's .... excited."

"Where did he get that oil?" said Delores, suddenly. "Did he bring that oil in WITH him?"

"I think it's likely," said Helen. "I bet he knew he was going to be doing this before he came here."

"Was he expecting an audience?"

"I bet he was! Why else would this hole be here?"

THAT one took me by surprise, and I had to gag back a laugh.

For several minutes, the commentary continued. Periodically, Hassan would provoke a new round of chatter by moaning or whimpering. Judging from the commentary, Hassan apparently also lost his T-shirt at some point, and Delores apparently simply could not believe she was on her knees in a public place watching a beautiful nude man coat his prong with oil and masturbate like there was no tomorrow.

And then, suddenly, there was silence. And then, a rather sharp gasp from one of the women.

"What?" Silence. "Helen, what is it?"

Pause.

"Helen, WHAT IS IT?"

"He's ... he's looking at me. He's looking right at me...."

"What?"

"He's staring right at me, right through the hole..."

"And he's still masturbating?"

"Ah... ah... " whimpered Helen, apparently hypnotized by whatever it was she was seeing.

"UuhhhAAAANuhhhh!" moaned Hassan.

There was a sudden, rapid scuffling sound, and someone began fumbling with the latch to #5. I stepped back to avoid getting hit by the door... and backed into a wall that hadn't been there a minute ago. I glanced back. What the hell?

There were eight guys piled up behind me.

Arthur, Juan, Curtis, Ollie, Mad Charlie, Jailbait Brian, the Tattoo Guy, even Francis, who had abandoned his beloved Coke machine. Everyone in the building except Winnie had scrunched in behind me, desperate to hear the show.

The door banged open, and the blonde staggered out...

...and stopped cold, seeing all of us standing there gawking with our mouths hanging open. Hers fell open, too, and we all stood there for a moment. By now, I had figured out that this was Delores. I felt fortunate that she likely didn't know that an open unspeaking mouth is pornstore signal for "I want to suck someone's dick."

Past her, in Booth #5, Helen remained on her knees, hypnotized by the glory of the hole. From my vantage point, all I could see was white light pouring from the hole, illuminating and backlighting her as she knelt, haloed by pornfire, as if kneeling in some twisted confessional, paralyzed by the spectacle of it all.

Delores stood there, mouth hanging open. "Helen..." she breathed.

"AAAAAAAH!" howled Hassan.

Helen shook her head, and tried to stand up, and failed miserably, collapsing onto the little seat. She was gasping. And then she noticed Hairy Security Biker Man and the Gay Narnia Tabernacle Choir, standing outside the door. Her hand flew to her mouth. Meanwhile, Delores staggered backwards and accidentally sat on Helen.

At this point, the Choir and I instantly dispersed and vanished into the shadows, other booths, the store proper, and Gay Narnia, behind the Coke machine.

A moment later, the two women regained their composure and left the store. Quickly. Juan noted that they still had a buck's worth of tokens stacked up on the seat in #5.

A while later, Hassan emerged from #4, once again nattily attired, and grinning like the cat that ate the thousand dollar canary. From over near the big board, I heard Arthur say, snarkily, "Well, I bet Pancho's never gonna forgive himself for missing this."

Turns out, he didn't. Because shortly before the end of Winnie's shift, Helen came back, alone, wearing different clothes... a dress, this time, rather than the slacks she'd had on earlier. She made eye contact with no one, but quietly bought five bucks worth of tokens from Winnie, and casually strode back into the back room... and began perusing the Big Board.

At three, Winnie and I left. I still regret not hanging around to see what happened after that, because I heard SO many conflicting reports afterwards...

A Night At The Drive In

“But what was it LIKE?” said Robin.

“What?” I asked.

“The idea of a DRIVE IN MOVIE,” he said. “What, did you drive into the building or something?”

The other kids laughed, and I got thoughtful. “No,” I said. “For one thing, most of the establishment was OUTDOORS. Sort of like a Sonic Drive In, except all the cars were pointed the same direction.”

The kids goggled. “They showed the movie OUTDOORS? What kept people from just walking up to the place and watching the movie for FREE?”*

“Nothing,” I replied. “But the drive in that I used to go to when I was a pup was five miles outside of town... and there was nowhere to park except INSIDE the fence. And if you parked OUTSIDE the fence, they’d call the cops and arrest you for trespassing. Or you could pay five bucks a carload, and drive in and park.”

“Five bucks?” said Tommy. “So why didn’t you just jam fifteen people into the car and everybody would pay five bucks altogether?”

“We did,” I grinned. “And we could get six more people in the trunk if we were feeling especially broke. And then when we were inside, we’d let ‘em out and we’d sit on the hood or the roof or some of us would go sit on the bleachers in the back of the place, near the concession stand. And there was a playground there where kids could play if they were bored with the movie.”

The fourth graders stared at me like I was describing life on Mars.

“How big was the screen?” asked Jalayne.

“About the size of one of the long walls in the gym,” I said. The kids whistled; the school gym is quite large.

“And you just sat in your car and watched the movie?” said Daisy. “How could you hear it? Did they have big speakers or something?”

“No,” I said. “They did have a speaker near the bleachers. But for those of us who sat in our cars, they had these little posts with little speakers on them, one near each parking spot. You’d park, you’d reach out and get the speaker, and it had a little coily wire keeping it connected to the sound system. And you’d put the speaker in the car with you, and turn it up so everyone could hear.”

“What if someone forgot, and drove off with the speaker?”

I grinned. “That did happen sometimes. In later years, they got rid of the little speakers, and they just put the soundtrack over the RADIO, and you’d turn your car radio to the right channel, and you could hear the movie just fine. In stereo, even!”

“You said they had a concession stand. Did they serve food?” asked George.

“Sure,” I said. “Sodas, popcorn, candy, chili dogs, pizza--”

“THEY SERVED PIZZA AT A MOVIE?” said about five kids at once.

“Well, they did at the drive in,” I said. “It wasn’t GREAT pizza -- about like what they have at 7-11, nowadays -- but yeah, they served all sorts of things. There was this one drive in out in West Texas, used to serve pita pockets full of chili and pimiento cheese... oh, and I was at a drive-in in Carlsbad, New Mexico that had hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers, and Chinese food, fried rice and egg rolls....”

The fourth graders stared at me like I was describing life on Venus.

“And you just sat in your car and ate the food and watched the movie?”

“Yup.”

“Like at Sonic Drive In, but with a movie.”

“Yup,” I said, thinking about how there used to be lots of dine-in-your-car restaurants, but Sonic is the only survivor today. I said nothing of this, though.

“How did they show movies during the day?” said Keesha.

“They didn’t,” I said. “You could pull in and park, but the show didn’t start till it got dark. Movies under the stars.”

“What kind of movies did they show?” asked Kevin.

“Same kind you’d see in the theater,” I said. “I saw the first Star Wars movie in a drive in, but it had been out for a couple of years already, and I’d already seen it by then. But I saw Dumbo there, The Rescuers, Dirty Harry, The Godfather.... oh, and did I mention that most of these movies were double features? You’d get to see TWO movies. They’d show cartoons or ads between the movies, so you could go to the bathroom, or get more refreshments....”

The fourth graders stared at me like I was describing life on the moon.

And it pains me to think that someday, I’ll have to tell a different story... about how there used to be these huge buildings with several theaters, and you would get soda and popcorn and go sit in a well upholstered seat in a big dark room to see a movie on a screen as big as the side of your house....

....before the Plague Time.