For ten bucks the young man
gets fresh popcorn and strong whiskey for his Coke.
The leftover change buys a ticket to all the memories
he can afford to put on the screen at the all-night
movie theater.

Not a lot of people know this,
but it still exists somewhere between the out-of-date downtown
and nowhere at all.

The manager is an old guy who sits by the phone
in his bathrobe and waits for the call telling him
to start pouring gasoline all over the lobby.
He’s got those Carson City retirement dreams,
but the money won’t come in until his father-in-law
tells him he can finally come home.

No one has even half a heart to tell the guy
that the family business dried up years ago.
All the veteran bosses have either retired
or passed on without so much as a letter
signed in someone else’s blood.

The young man is one of the only people
who shows up at three a.m. on Saturday,
or any other time in the fourteen-day work week,
and he’s never been able to get a word out of the old man.

He wishes he could.
He’d love to get at least one person
out of the fire by the end of the year.

His father arranged prison breaks
from the other side of the world. His mother
caught the roadrunner at twenty-four,
then spent the rest of her life drinking
at celebration dinners and changing the story
a little every single time she told it.

They were amazing people,
and he’s been living down their reputations ever since.

Inside the theater
the balcony will be closed for repairs
until the end of time has come and gone
and left nothing behind but children
with wide-eyed imaginations.

He goes up there anyway
because he’s never gotten in trouble for it.

That’s the way to live. The prayer circle
continues on in a straight line and maturity
is briefly postponed forever by seeing how much
a person can get away with by quoting their heroes
at twenty-two miles per hour.

He saves a dollar for the woman
who sings made-up hymns outside
the front doors. He closes his eyes and mouths
the words she told him before the outdoor
attendance record put a thousand cities between them.

The same old movie kick starts itself
like a legendary car back from the dead
and ready to knock over the local bank.

For the first time all day
nothing is subject to interrogation or introspection.

It’s a wonderful way to occasionally live.
It’s the only way he ever gets a little tired.

01/14/2011

Posted on 01/14/2011
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