Boys in a Car
After babysitting and picking beans I got a real job, with a schedule and a regular paycheck. My friend Rayma told me she worked at the Roseburg Indoor Theater and the owner was hiring. With her recommendation Connie and I were hired. Movies played four nights a week, two of them on the weekends, it was a great job for high school students’ schedules.
We sold tons of popcorn, candy, and Pepsi. We were also usherettes we carried flashlights and would shine them up and down each row, partly so we could see where we were stepping, but mostly to shine the light on couples necking. I’d rather serve Pepsi. Sometimes I got to sell the movie tickets from the booth with a window and a slot for exchanging the money for the tickets. The booth had a formal appearance and it made me feel important.
We had fifteen-minute breaks where one of us at a time sat up on the balcony seats and got to watch a bit of the movie while we ate our snacks and drank Pepsi. The problem was we didn’t get to see the whole movie, but oh well, it was a great job.
We always got off late, so it was after dark of course. One night, Connie and I walked the short distance to the church parking lot where my VW was parked. I was substituting that week for the church secretary and it was my job to change the reader board before Sunday. I forgot. Connie waited for me to unlock the sign frame to change the letters.
Suddenly a car full of boys screeched into the lot. One guy got out and grabbed Connie’s arms and pulled out a knife. He pressed on her back and said, “Get in the car.” Connie smelled alcohol on his breath, not a good sign, all of them were probably drunk. I said, “Let me lock the sign first.” His cigarette burned her arm and she jumped away and ran diagonally across the street to the police station. The guys took off. It happened so fast we couldn’t read the license plate on their car so there was no way to find them. There was a short paragraph about it in the News Review our local newspaper.
The frightening thing was, I would have gotten in the car. Why was I so compliant? Why didn’t I run for help? I shudder to think what could have happened. God’s sovereignty protected us with a cigarette burn from being gang raped or something more deadly.
The next morning, we sat at Connie’s house side by side, no words were necessary. We were processing what happened, the fact there were two of us, together certainly helped.
It was her job to make popcorn before the movie each night.
One night the popcorn maker was accidentally left on and it short-circuited. A fire gutted the theater, closing it forever. I thought this was a fitting ending.
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