The Drive In
2004-10-02 - 12:33 a.m.

1992, and there we were, staring at the screen, our attentions vacationing in another world. We’d brought rock candy and Ruffles, and Sharon had even brought a blanket. It was late September, and the air was already crisp and biting. It was a double feature, Dracula and Frankenstein, black and white versions. Scary enough to give nightmares, but not enough to traumatize, and we all loved them, me, Sammy, Sharon, Justin and Erica. We’d bring Sammy’s dad’s transistor and tune it to AM 1410. When we could hear Karloff’s evil hiss, we’d jockey for prime position in front of the speaker. I usually won. Sometimes, after the movies were over, we’d sit in the woods and talk about whatever crossed our minds. Sammy and I argued over which Hardy Boy would win in a fight (Frank, by a mile). Sharon and Erica giggled to each other about the new boy at school, and how he’d definitely looked at Sharon like he liked her, and she hadn’t known what to do but walk away, and it had probably been a dumb thing to do. Justin usually sat quietly and listened. He said he was still thinking about the movie, but we all agreed that he was probably almost asleep. Arranging these meetings wasn’t easy. Everyone had to spend the night at my house, and everyone’s parents had to think they were somewhere else. Once, Justin let it slip where we’d been, and that had been the end of the movies for a while. Time heals all wounds though, and it also erases most memories, and time had been good to us. Before we left, we’d always agree that we’d all be friends forever, and I think we really believed it. I know I did. 2004, and I’m back at the drive-in for the first time in years. This time, I’m in a car with a girl I barely know. Her name is Ellen. She has blonde hair and glasses, and her silence was making it perfectly clear that I’d made a bad first impression I couldn’t change. I think about my old friends, and how going to the movies was such a treat. It was an adventure. We didn’t notice that they used the same props for every scene, or that the lines were generally delivered with either apathy or inexperience. To us, these old films had been real. Ellen laughs at the movie only when she finds a problem. She points out that Sheriff Cogburn shot seven bullets from his six-gun. She snorts at an extra who she saw die in the background of an earlier scene. She swears she saw a car in the big shootout. She refuses to laugh at anything that’s supposed to funny. When we were kids, everything was as it was supposed to be. If the movie was supposed to be scary, it scared us. If it was supposed to be sad, Sharon cried. I wish Sharon were here. We would laugh at the jokes, we would gasp at the revelations. After the film was over, we would talk about it, and about how our lives had taken us far apart from each other. We would talk about how great it was to see each other again, and our hearts would sink when it was time to go. We would hug, maybe a peck on the cheek, and we could both die happy. The movie is over, and I’m driving Ellen home. She’s complaining about someone I don’t know, which is slightly less awkward than the cold silence that filled the car most of the evening. I try my best to get to know her, but she’s an ice queen. I think she must be trying to make an ex-boyfriend jealous. I hope it isn’t working, for his sake. We stop in front of her house, and I don’t even get out to open the door. There isn’t time anyways. We’re barely stopped before she utters a completely insincere, “Thanks, I had a nice time.” and she’s gone. I pull away, and tune the radio to AM 1410. There’s nothing but static on at eleven o-clock at night, but my mind molds the hissing and the white noise into a radio program from the past. I can hear Sammy arguing for Joe, and I can hear my own voice saying that Frank is an inch taller and has a brown belt. I can hear Sharon and Erica saying that Jimmy Simmons is cuter than Justin, just to see if he’s awake. I can almost hear Dr. Frankstein’s ecstasy: He has created life. I pull into my driveway. When the gravel cracks underneath my tires, it reminds me of the reeds breaking when we’d lie on the ground and look at the stars before the screen flickered to life. I look up through the windshield, and see that the stars haven’t changed. I still see Cancer crab-walking across the great beyond, still see the Gemini twins, separate, but embracing. I can see the big dipper, and Orion drawing his bow for the billionth time since his creation, hoping that maybe tonight, he will finally kill the Great Bear. My windshield begins to fog, and suddenly, I am back in the woods, looking at the screen, and watching people from the past pretend to be people they are not. A car honks in the distance, and the screen begins to fade, and then disappears completely. The movie is over, and it's time to go home.