114 The Meadow head. One of four or six interchangeable kids hulks in the paybox, hands too large for his console. I still get a stupid sense of surprise that his intensity is for a game. They converse through games, the young and savvy. Pictures bleed too much meaning. A game has context, rules—gives human transaction a near-classical structure. I wait till his brow indicates some setback. “One please.” He rests down the gadget. He may recognize me. “It’s chick crap, man.” We rely on the critics. “Cold outside.” A juvenile headshake says he’d get warm better places. Relishing analogue labor, he punches a ticket off the reel, checks it as though this ticket—midway through the strip— might hold unexpected data. I pay cash. He grips the bill a second before slipping it in the drawer. One day, he’ll tell incredulous grandkids: these dudes paid cash. There’s no one at the popcorn stand—I can’t call the kid out the paybox: our transaction is done. Behind the doors the town is gone in crimson twilight. Maybe others will come: women seeking validation, men wanting a touch. Flashes and squalls make the paybox a warzone, the kid on some deft mission. When he sees his girl after midnight, he’ll tell her work was lame. The passageway rakes down to the auditorium—I like that, the descent into closed, particular darkness. A string of lights on the floor fakes a conveyor sensation. Along the walls someone framed old movie posters. Maybe not old when they framed them. The posters stop ten, twelve years back. A student project, maybe. A summer task. Some of these films I don’t know, their graphics and loglines frozen at some urgent cusp of release. Names above titles familiar and not—big stars gone in a car smash, a meth burn, or just not called anymore. Female
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