Previous ||| Next
Showtime
Mickey and me would work the projectors at the local cinema. It was a no-brainer job that was being paid no-brainer money but we didn't care. We got to see every new movie for free as many times as we wanted and we got all the free popcorn we wanted.
If it was some hot new movie we'd get girls into the booth for free to watch it with us in exchange for a thrilling climax. If it was a bad movie we'd deliberately screw it up for the people watching. Make no mistake, we weren't just evil projectionists, we were pretty bad ones too. Mickey would frequently forget to open the curtains and wouldn't notice until the first reel change that everything was blood red. We'd mess with the sound mix and volume and for Matrix Revolutions we left out the whole end reel. Hardly anyone noticed.
One night as usual Ortiz was emptying out the snacks stand, slipping the occasional treat into his own pockets and filling garbage bags with the leftover popcorn. That stuff is a license to print money so we can afford to give away metric tonnes of the stuff before we start making a loss. Today Ortiz had obviously made too much, knowing that nobody would be coming to see Shawshank Redemption part 2; Hadley Gets Screwed and he already had six bags full.
Mickey walked over there and muttered something to Ortiz. Ortiz shook his head then nodded then looked around and nodded again. Mickey called me over and we walked out of there with two bags each full of popcorn. I couldn't have told you if it was salted or sweet. It was late; that damn movie's four hours long, so it was dark.
Our walk home took us over the freeway bridge and without saying a word Mickey and I both knew what to do; we both moved to opposite sides, standing over the dual lanes of oncoming traffic. He looked round at me across the other side of the bridge and when he nodded we both dropped our bags. Four bags, four lanes.
The effect was cinematic.
Of course it doesn't take the world's dumbest detective long to work out where that much popcorn comes from after he's picked it out of the broken glass and torn upholstery, so a few days later Ortiz was arrested and charged.
As I said; we were evil projectionists.
Jan.19.2007