Double Feature
by Theodore Roethke
With Buck still tied to the log, on comes the light.
Lovers disengage, move sheepishly toward the aisle
With mothers, sleep-heavy children, stale perfume, past the manager's smile
Out through the velvety chains to the cool air of night.
I dawdle with groups near the rickety pop-corn stand;
Dally at show windows, still reluctant to go;
I teeter, heels hooked on the curb, scrape a toe;
Or send off a car with vague lifts of a hand.
A wave of Time hangs motionless on this particular shore.
I notice a tree, arsenical gray in the light, or the slow
Wheels of stars, the Great Bear glittering colder than snow,
And remember there was something else I was hoping for.
This is what I wrote:
Double features frequently leave me feeling like I need more, like I was supposed to do more. All those hours in the dark, taking part in someone else's plotline. That's why we go to the movies, to put our lives on hold. They are a pause--they are what makes that wave of time hang motionless. And it's funny that it was suggested we write about something we haven't before. I just went to a double feature on Friday and told Paul as we looked out the second story window of the Hollywood Theater that sometimes I really, really missed working in a movie theater--the popcorn smell, the ice noises, the mechanical sound of soda being poured, the pure simplicity of my job. Tear a ticket, butter popcorn. It wasn't even hard to smile. Paul said he missed it, too. We were looking out on Sandy Blvd. and I asked, "Do you think that man down there is happy or sad?"
"He's in between." And he was exactly that but I said, "I think he is happy." Paul probably thought I was stupid or at least silly.
I got two boyfriends working at the movie theater. One was five years older than me, short, skinny, with a constant 5 o clock shadow. He had gaps between his teeth and later when I would talk about my time with him my brother would ask, "Why?" And I wouldn't have an answer.
The other was a mormon who was just breaking up with a Bolivian woman he'd met on his mission. He had full lips and a torso shaped like a V. When he would walk into the theater lobby my friend would nudge me and say, "Your boyfriend is hot." I thought I knew more than him and told him what beer to drink, and which shirt to wear and how much eye-liner to put on when he played a show. The idea that we wouldn't spend every waking second together shocked me and he spat, "You don't want a boyfriend, you want a puppy."
After him I stopped working at the movie theater--gave up my free movies and popcorn and soda. I have to deal with the small amount of jealousy I have for the girl in the box office who looks up from her book to ring up my ticket.
