Flicker

Movies have flickered in and out of my life.

Filmed before I was, black and white shadows of the 40's illuminate my parent's romance, blaze of The War. "I saw....", "It was sure swell." "On the carrier tonight they showed "Stars Over the Pacific."

Even though they were not my theaters, their story lines not my own, they shaped me as surely as if I acted in them. Perhaps I did. Played in my mother's conception of what "should" be. My father's blind sailor washed idealism.

"How now brown cow." It was a trailer for Snow White. I don't remember watching Snow White with my father at the drive in while my mother was hospitalized. Don't remember, consciously, her illness.

But the boy who couldn't speak, he was sent to a special school. There he eventually delighted his proud parents with the simple rhyme that still conjures up the cartoon for me. "How now brown cow?" Indeed.

Movies mark stages. Ben Hur at the Starlight Drive Inn. In the backseat with my parents up front. Moses lifted the tablets and fog obliterated the light. No smoking mountain, but some revenge perhaps on the growing sins of early adolescence.

Dr. Zhivago with a group. With me, a boy who wanted to hold my hand in the tinkling balalaika music. But he had no money to spend on me. I needed someone to spend money on me. To make me feel like I was worth something.

Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare's yummy words, Zeffirelli's equally poetic sets. Another drive in. Another boy, much older. I was way too young for him and he took me out as one would take out a younger sister. Half bored, half condescending. Some amused. But he was willing to spend a little money, perhaps sensing my need to feel "normal" for once.

Vampire movies at the Prytania at Morehead. I didn't love them, but my roommate did. They were cheap enough at a dollar for me to afford. And it was fun to wear a huge tin cross picked up somewhere at a bargain price and watch reactions.

A dollar a movie. A two stick theatre. One to prop the seat up with and one to beat the rats off with. It was a theatre dimly lit for good reason.

Art films, foreign films with subtitles. Married now, with some money thanks to a husband with a thing for leggy big breasted girls, I could afford the alternate theatre on the Prytania. Rosario and I accidentally ended up at a male porn film one night and giggled our way through the medical checkups and weird photography.

Star Wars was a revelation seen with my husband in a theatre in California. California was a revelation as well. Epic, immense, science fiction immortalized.

Back in the South. Child years. Children and Disney. Animation. Candy, gum, demands, sticky fingers, tears. A cuddle and a sleep head warm and sweaty. A lap full of child that I long for again with a passion unmatched by any other. The movies irritating, tacky, or somewhat interesting. The theaters becoming bombastic, iconic, expensive.

The latest. End of the world scenarios. Various variations on horror, crime, violence, blood, some humor. The venue? Plush, pseudo quilts, cutsie track lighting in plastic tubing reminding me of Christmas tree lights. A cup holder for an outsize drink. Reminders to turn off all electronic devices. A seat that would be comfortable if I could sit still, if my bones didn't ache, if I didn't know that when I stood up I would be too stiff to move quickly. The result of too much damage.

Movies. Theatres. The RKO Albee in Cincinnati, Pike 27. All the unremembered seats and places inbetween.

Bread and Circuses. The distraction of a distraught age.