Their shrieks of laughter hurt his ears. The light stabs his eyes. Four hours and sixteen minutes to go till his shift is over.
He’s dumping popcorn into a carton when a gang of local boys swagger in. Denim jackets glazed with rain water. Sly flasks of whisky shoved into the waistband of their jeans.
Rat-a-tat-tat. A pewter ring in the shape of a skull whacks the counter. Eyes like silverfish. Wild blond hair. The one they call the Viking.
‘Can I get some service over here, or what?’
A curvy, sloe-eyed girl in a yellow sundress is clamped to the boy’s side. History girl. Angela. His heart teeters from its perch… and dies. On a pollen-filled afternoon in May, she’d smiled at him once.
‘Hey, dickhead.’ Stubby fingers stained with engine oil snap in his face. ‘You on something? Gimme two Cokes and a box of popcorn. Make it a large, on the house.’ The furtive smirk turns sour. ‘You lookin’ at my girl?’
Like a whipped dog, he lowers his eyes and hands over the popcorn. Later, he’ll put the money in the till from his own pocket. He wouldn’t want Mack to think he was stealing.
In a haze of cigarette smoke and laughter, the gang disappear into the dark. That skinny boy from biology class, his greasy brown hair tied back with a rawhide cord, who everyone calls the Duke, turns back and snickers. ‘Moron.’
Angela tosses him a shy look over her shoulder. He signals with his eyes, I will save you. But she slips through the red velvet curtains, forever lost.
He blinks and turns away, hoping to settle the storm in his head by studying the coming attractions. A cheesy horror film about a group of teenagers on a camping trip. Astronauts lost in space. A pre-historic Tarzan knock-off. On the stylised movie poster, a squadron of pterodactyls, their wings spread against the sky, darken an angry sun.
Rain spatters the pavement. Gusts of humid air sweep in through the open door. Except for the mousy girl hiding in the shadows, the lobby is empty. She’s staring at the door like she wants to flee. The previews have already begun, but the film won’t start until seven on the dot. He beckons her over.
‘It’s your lucky day. Sodas are free till the movie starts.’ He cocks his head at the dispenser. ‘What’ll it be?’
A scared rabbit, she’s frozen to a spot on the floor. Poor kid.
The lyrics of a pop song, about a girl adrift in the night, ping through his head. Eyes closed, he sweeps his fingers over the levers on the soda dispenser, tapping out the beat. Dr Pepper. She’ll like that. Dark liquid foams into the paper cup. The sweet stench prickles his nose, the ceiling lights dazzle his eyes. One of those weird headaches is coming on.
He sets the cup on the counter. ‘Here you go. But you’d better hurry, the movie’s starting.’
A mottled flush, like a port wine stain, creeps up the girl’s neck. She takes the cup and lifts it to her lips, but the embryonic smile vanishes at the sight of a green sedan pulling up to the kerb.
‘I have to go.’ A strangled whisper. She drops the cup on the counter and bolts.
‘Get your fat ass in the car!’
A woman with a face like a raptor reaches across and yanks the girl into the passenger seat before screeching away, red tail lights dissolving in the rain. He digs his thumb into his temple, closes his eyes. Crap family. He can relate. But he’s glad the girl is gone. With that scared-rabbit look, she’s a dead ringer for his sister Izzy. Creeping about the house like a wraith, subsisting on air. As if all she wants is to disappear.
Three hours and forty-nine minutes till he can switch off the popcorn machine and head home. Don’t forget the lights, son. And lock up the doors. You’re in charge. Mack’s voice. Good old Mack, his cheeks flushed the high colour of a dedicated boozer. Clumsily patting Tim’s shoulder, as if he were the son Mack never had. Though he’s wary of such fatherly overtures. One old man impossible to please is enough.
Five minutes before the movie ends, he busies himself with wiping the counter and sweeping up the smashed popcorn underfoot. Anything to avoid seeing Angela draped around that boy again. Rumour has it that instead of crawling back into whatever hole he’s come out of, that jerk will be going to the high school in September. Senior year will be hell.
The jabbering crowd surges into the wet street, dashing for the shelter of their cars. The air blowing through the door is ripe with the peculiar mix of pine sap and fish brine he’s known all his life. At the sound of the Viking’s honking laugh, his head snaps up. The gang are in high spirits, hopped up on something. Adrenaline maybe, or the latest cocktail of drugs.
‘Where to next?’ Someone suggests Ted’s house, whoever that is. ‘Yeah, he’ll have some decent weed.’
They pile into a blue Camaro, with Angela curled in the passenger seat, her hair luminous under the street lamp, and roar away.
The thought of something happening to her is like a punch to the gut. A violent crash, her bloodied body flung to the side of the road. Or that psycho, Mister Golden Hair, forcing himself on her.
A sharp pain blooms behind his eyes. He’s desperate for sleep. But there’s one more film to roll before he’s released into the night.
*
The rain is coming down in buckets. He splashes through puddles to reach his mother’s blue Pontiac, borrowed for the night so she won’t have to pick him up. The blasted thing’s as big as a boat, but soon he’ll have enough dough saved to buy his own set of wheels, something sleek and sporty, built for the open road. On a calendar in his bedroom, he’s marking off the days. Soon, very soon, he’ll hit the highway and leave boring
