Cinema 13

[JayTee13]

I don't care if it's on the record; no, I do not sympathize with the 100-year-old man we found in Theater 5. A lot of my coworkers have labeled me 'rude', or 'heartless', or 'ugly' - not true and doesn't have anything to do with the story - and I want to explain my point of view. Before you judge me, do keep in mind that I only got 3 hours of sleep the night before this mess occurred. All I'll say now is that if you had my job you'd probably end up like a few of the unlucky employees before me; in a not-breathing-so-much-anymore type of way.
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So I got this new job. Not too new, I've been working for about a month now. Let me tell you, the learning curve is something else. If it wasn't paying as nice as it is, I'd settle for vape shop manager.

That's still on the table though. I saw something today that has me rethinking my employment.
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I pull up to my shift; late afternoon 'til close and kill my Pontiac in the parking lot outside of the large Century 13 movie theater. After a quick duet with Elton John (I'm still standing, yea, yea, yea), I lock my car and pass my coworker, Lindsey, on her way out.

She looks like she just dove into a swimming pool.

"Yay or nay?" I ask her.

"Like god-damn animals in there."

She's out of breath too. Lindsey had just finished her ushering shift, the one I'm about to substitute in for.

"Someone almost walked into Theater 13. Pretty much tackled them."

Usually, Lindsey doesn't care enough about the job to do any actual work but she knows how long clean up would take if someone accidently stumbled into Theater 13.

Her number one priority is to minimize, minimize, minimize any effort required for the job.

"So, nay?"

She waves one of her hands through the air in an indecipherable manner. Either goodbye or good luck. Maybe both.

"Have fun."

I walk into the lobby. Immediately, there's a little girl with pigtails crying that she can't find her mom. I'm not even clocked in yet, so I point in a random direction.

"I think... over there…"

Trailing off, I head for the staff room.

On the way there I pass by concessions, currently manned by Harvey who's trying desperately to work a two-man job (and failing), and then the ticket booths where our workplace couple, Jack and Jill, are arguing.

No, I shit you not. No made up names in this story, I doubt you'll be able to find us anyways. Pretty sure Jill was mad at Jack cause she found Tinder on his phone. He insisted it was a virus.

Remember, I got like 2 hours of sleep that night so I skip small talk, keep my head down and push through the door behind the squabbling duo.

Inside is essentially a small kitchen. We got a fridge, sink, countertop, table, chairs, and a computer shoved into the back corner.

Here we have our team meetings. Topics range from 'who would stare the longest at a disabled person in public?' to 'who keeps clogging the toilets with human teeth?'

If you're wondering, the answer is 'Carl' and 'we don't know' respectively.
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Funny story actually. My second day here I was cleaning the men's bathroom. Pushed open the furthest stall and it looked like the Tooth Fairy had relapsed.

Overflowing the toilet bowl was a mound of teeth. I thought it was popcorn until I saw their roots.

Molars, incisors, canines. They filled the toilet and lay scattered on the stall floor. I remember how some were much smaller than the rest. Baby teeth. There were even inch long fangs from what I assume was an animal.

It's kind of weird to say, but all of them looked fresh. Stark white like they were recently cleaned.

At the time I had no idea what the fuck I was looking at. My job interview, if you can even call it that, was Carl asking me what my favorite movie was and then making me watch a horror flick alone on IMAX to "see how I held up."

There was no mention of teeth.

To be honest I didn't know what to do. What would you do? I started feeling lightheaded and was about to radio this in when I noticed a pair of shoes in the adjacent stall.

"Uh, Sir? We're going to be doing some cleaning, so if you could wrap it up..."

I lost my train of though when a gnarled hand creeped from under the stall and closed around a handful of teeth.

I took a step back.

The hand shook as it retracted back into its stall.

"Sir?"

There was a sickening crunch like someone had bit down on uncooked pasta.

Within 5 seconds I was in our office begging Jack to call the police.

He calmed me down and left to the bathroom while I watched from concessions.

Just as he walked in, a man passed Jack on his way out. He was tiny, probably 5 feet tall, but bundled up in a ridiculously oversized jacket even though it was summer. He looked old and young simultaneously. His face had wrinkles but an air of innocence too. Except for his eyes which were a harsh dark green color.

He hobbled through the lobby and just as he went to walk through the exit, he turned and smiled at me through an array of mismatched teeth. He ground them together staring at me.

He left the theater, while I trembled at the popcorn maker.
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Sorry, got a lot of shit in my head.

But after that I got the gist of what work here was going to look like.
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I clock in and drop my stuff off. At the start of every shift I like to fantasize how the rest of my day will play out.

Well, there was that second week at work when I pissed off the boys upstairs. Our attic I mean. I forget exactly what I said but something along the lines of 'musty' and 'freaks'. Which is true. If Carl ever needs more straws for concessions requiring a trip to the attic, I make sure I have my trusty nose plugs with me because it reeks up there.

Sometimes you'll see a shadow, or hear them arguing in hushed humanoid voices; just ignore them. Well, now I do. They must've heard me through the vents. I woke the next morning to Sully, my golden retriever of eight years, dead on my front lawn. He'd been stretched across the yard with his innards strewn about haphazardly, in a carnage similar to the one a toddler would leave behind after playing with their toys.

A bus route for the local elementary school passes down my street and I had slept in that morning. There was a lot of explaining to be done to the police. Coyotes I said.

My neighbors don't talk to me much anymore.

I adopted a Bullmastiff, Cherry. If anything goes wrong again, a little more muscle may help.

She's not allowed outside.

Caught myself rambling again.

On the flipside, envisioning the worst route the day could take involves Carl forcing the entire place on lockdown and tasking us with covering any windows, doors, and other mediums allowing The Owners a look inside. They don't come often but when they do, don't expect to clock out on time. Even after they've left, Carl will make you stay a little later, just in case.

I walk out of the staff room and head towards Carl's office to see if there's any issues in need of immediate handling.

I knock on his door. The voice from inside almost sounds scared.

"Excuse me?"

"Yea, it's me."

"Who?"

"I'm coming in."

There's an uncertain "Ok?" as I open the door.

Carl has a very worried look on his face until he sees it's me walking in.

"Oh, cool."

I've asked him before who else he thinks it could possibly be but he's always vague: 'You never know' or he'll just list one of a dozen movie characters. It's easier to just assume he's joking.

He's an odd guy but we all respect him. At one point or another, he's earned every employee's trust. All the employees still working here I mean.

Anyway, that morning he didn't need much.

"Check the toilets, one of them's clogged again."

"Teeth again?"

"No, it was me this time."

I leave his office.

As an usher you can print out tickets to see which showings end when and how many people bought tickets per theater. I think a new Christopher Nolan movie had dropped the weekend before so it was busier than usual. On a regular day, we average maybe 5 people per showing, sometimes more, sometimes no attendance. When it's the latter, I don't need to bother cleaning the theater and can take some leisure time.

I check my little ticket slip. I have 15 minutes until the next theater needs cleaning.

Branching off from our main lobby is an arcade; closed since I started working here but Carl says it's mine to chill in while waiting for theaters to clean.

Crossing the lobby, I open Netflix on my phone ready to burn some time.

That little girl with the pigtails is still there and still lost. If you couldn't glean it from what I've told you so far, we have bigger fish to fry here, and to be frank she was bumming everybody out.

I wave at Harvey and point at the child when I'm able to capture a small window of his attention. He's swamped in concessions - like I said, it was a busy day - and sucking on his asthma inhaler like a scuba regulator at the bottom of the ocean . He shrugs and lowers his inhaler to say something but a teenager interrupts.

"Hey, sorry man, but I ordered popcorn 10 minutes ago, we're 'bout to miss our movie."

Harvey whimpers as if smacked across the face and the inhaler pops right back into his mouth like a pacifier.

Sensing, the imminent panic attack, I guide the pigtailed girl to the arcade. Sitting with her, I now consider the side of fries on my plate next to Carl's proverbial shit burger that still needs unclogging.
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I may be dragging the story but give me time. I need to make sure that at the end of this you're on my side and I can show my coworkers. They've been assholes to me this last week.
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I tell the little girl I barely got an hour of sleep last night and to sit there and not do any kid stuff while I start my first round of theaters. Carl's bowel movement will have to wait.

There are about twenty tickets bought for theater 3, so that takes a bit of time to clean, but relatively easy. Next is theater 5. Only three tickets but the entire theater is a mess; buttery smell of popcorn spills here, candy wrappers there, soda stains on the seat, decrepit old man on the floor…

"You good?" I don't have much patience for whoever this poor geezer was and by the looks of the theater, don't have the time either, so I start to clean around him. This is the part my coworkers give me the most grief about.

'Well, why didn't you ask him if he was alright.'

To be honest I wasn't sure if he was real or not. Safer to ignore most things when working here.

'He looks like a bag of bones of course he needed help.'

In this climate you can't assume anything.

'Dude, he pissed himself.'

At the time the pool of liquid surrounding him and darkening his pants looked like soda and my nose was clogged because of allergies.

Regardless, I finish the cleaning with ample time left.

I inform the old man on the ground, "Movie's over, my guy."

With that last reminder, I decide to head back to the arcade for some more Netflix'in.

I step out of theater 5 and look both ways down the long hallway. To the right is the lobby and further down another hallway housing the even numbered theaters. To the left, the odd numbered theaters, stretching all the way down to the double glass emergency exit doors. Someone is all the way at the end of the hall, spinning and jumping. It's hard to make out any features. The ceiling lights dotting the halls are strongest the closer they are to the lobby, something to do with the location of the building's energy source.

I thought it was one of the smelly attic gremlins at first, but after a few seconds I see pigtails swishing through the air. The lost little girl points at me, laughs, and skips directly into the theater at the end of the hall.

Theater 13. Instinct made me run after her. The thought of a helpless child stuck inside with that thing… its too much. I flew down the hall.

The door to Theater 13 has a glass porthole that lets you peer inside. In the process of flinging it open I catch a glimpse of the interior. The theater room angles downward from the door which leads into a central aisle. A movie played on the screen in front of a packed audience. Not exactly a movie. The massive video playing looked hand-held. It shows the interior of a small kitchen through a window. A man sits on a sad chair with a beer in his hand. Empty bottles scatters the table he sits at.
His head rests on his open hand as he seems to doze in a drunken stupor.

The door handle is ice in my sweaty hand. I recognize the man on screen. Marco, a friend, and former employee. The people watching in the theater seem uncomfortable. Their heads twitching, twisting, almost as if struggling against something. I don't know why they're still watching.

The shot begins to focus behind Marco. Zooming in, it centers on an open doorway in the background. Someone is looking at Marco from inside the unlit room. The picture is dark and grainy but I can make out half of a pale face, an eye, and a stretched smile from the black. The people in the audience were shaking their heads violently and faint wicked screams seeped through the door.

An audience member jumped to their feet in a frenzied way and scrambled over their row toward the center aisle. The light from the screen cast a shadow on his face, a young man in his twenties, twisted in absolute horror, his mouth propped open to shriek. There was no skin on his back, now a gory mess and in that moment I realize why everyone seems to be stuck to their seats.

The man makes a dash towards the door, where I'm looking in from, but is stopped halfway. A small girl with pigtails blocks his path. Unable to hear, I can only see the expressions on the man's face as he seems to beg. It doesn't last long, and defeated he allows the little girl to gingerly grab his hand and lead him back down the aisle towards his seat. He turns his head and finds my eyes through the glass. With utter despair in his face, he mouthed a word.

'run'

The movie was still playing but I didn't want to watch any more.

I turn and walk back towards the lobby.

That girl. She was bait. I didn't turn around but I could feel Theater 13 watching me.

I can say rule number one of this workplace is to fear it. Reminds me of Nietzsche.

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

I try to shake it from my mind. I retreat back into the arcade and distract myself with Netflix.

My radio squawks and I'm reminded about the clogged toilet. I finish my episode first.
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Armed with fierce determination and a mop from a nearby closet I head towards the bathroom to complete Carl's bathroom quest and on the way crash directly into Carl and Harvey hauling the piss-stained geriatric man across the lobby. I walk right into them, the handle of the broom smacking Harvey on the forehead. He yelps and
drops the senior like he's on fire and Carl allows him to slide limply off his arm face-first into the ground.

We had to close the Century 13 while we called an ambulance. Carl told us to start showing people out and made me wait for the paramedics with the old man. We were in the middle of the lobby so everyone had to pass us on the way out. He would scare the shit out of anyone who walked too close, shouting confused about what year it was.

We'd find out that the senior's name is Elvis. Elvis was born while Herbert Hoover was in office and had decided to watch Alfred Hitchcock's recent moving picture at his local theater one day in the fine spring of 1958. Apparently unimpressed with the movie, he decided to take a nice long nap during which 60 years passed, and he woke up a bitter old man.

Yea, another rule: literally no sleeping on the job. Time moves differently here when you're asleep.

Of course, no one really believed him. Except for us employees. Honestly, his story was comparatively bland to some of the other stuff we've dealt with. Rather, we were pretty happy that we got to shut down work early.

"And this hooligan swiped my wallet."

Carl, my coworkers, and I were standing around the paramedics who had been questioning him. Everyone now looked at me. Jill gasped.

Carl jabbed me in my ribs. "Dude, give it back."

"What the hell are you talking about? You believe him?"

Thankfully, Elvis was very racist - a product of his time - and distracted everyone by promptly accusing Carl, a Latino, before demanding the female medic's every move be doublechecked by her male counterpart. We were forced to remove him from the property after he decided to show off his outdated and offensive vocabulary to every minority walking through the lobby.

In the scramble to shut Elvis up, I made sure to fix my shirt to cover the wallet-sized bulge in my back pocket.
Our team debrief wasn't great. I got a lot of the blame, because I guess I was just a little too focused on doing my job. They even said it was my fault for him getting knocked over in the lobby.

"Harvey and Carl were the ones holding him," I pointed out.
Carl said Harvey shouldn't be in charge of holding anyone. "He almost passed out at concessions. No offense, Harvey."

"It's ok."

"And I dropped Elvis because Harvey did. You guys probably won't understand yet, but a manager is nothing without his team. I did it for you guys."

Whatever the fuck that means. I guess it made sense to everyone else because by the time we all clocked out, Carl had successfully shifted the blame back onto me.

Cool.
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I wouldn't say the job is worth it. A lot of you will call me stupid but well I need this job. Specifically. And that's an even longer story. But I don't know for sure if what I'm looking for is even here.

Anyway, please, honest opinions one how I handled the Elvis situation. I know justice will prevail and my alleged crimes absolved.