A counselor at my school is very deliberate about interacting in the community when he isn’t at work. For example, every December, he takes his wife and two kids to the mall in the city where we work to do their Christmas shopping. He could just as easily take them to the mall down the street from his house, a much nicer one not solely comprised of 85 shoe stores separated by cellular phone islands; but instead he travels twenty miles on the freeway so he will see and be seen by his students and their families. And his family always gets shoes for Christmas.
With this in mind, my wife and I decided to go out to a movie in the same city where I teach.
I too live about twenty minutes from where I work, so this last Saturday, we caught the 9:25 viewing of Salt, with Angelina Jolie. Perhaps I should have picked up on the foreshadowing when we arrived at 9:15 only to find the times on the internet were wrong, and the show would actually start an hour later. Normally, we would have turned around and left – waiting an hour in a movie theater isn’t my idea of a nice way to pass the time, but just as we were deciding what to do, two of my former students walked up, just having gotten out of another movie.
We chatted for a few minutes, one was a Sophomore about to go to her third high school in three years (I had her as a Freshman before she moved), and her date was a Senior who hadn’t graduated and had Adult Night School to look forward to (I had him four years ago when he was a Freshman too). By the time I sent them on their merry way, my wife had bought ice cream. So we sat and decided to wait it out. Hey, maybe I’d see more students, and continue to feel like an integral, authentic member of the community (of course I was born and raised there anyway, so it wasn’t that far-fetched).
Alas, I didn’t see another student from my high school until we had finally sat down to watch the previews. A kid walked by in a black hoodie who looked very familiar. I had never had him as a student, but I was pretty sure he went to my school. I also knew he was a rough kid who ran in crazy crowds. I forgot about him immediately as the theater darkened and the horribly clichéd storylines of Hollywood today began to mock me onscreen.
Ten minutes into the preview of Wall Street II, starring Michael Douglas playing…well…Michael Douglas (Does that guy ever act like someone else, or are his directors just happy to have Michael Douglas in a different situation?), the film stops completely and the speakers go silent. The already rowdy crowd grumbles and turns to glare up at the projector booth. No one seems to be up there. Ten minutes pass, and just when people are beginning to get up to go, the lights come on and five cops in bullet-proof vests stride in carrying Assault Rifles, Shotguns, and other such weaponry. Two others with their guns drawn take up position at each exit and entrance.
“Oh shit!”
“Goddamn!”
- are some of the things people had to say about this. These guys had more guns than Angelina Jolie in the movie we hoped we’d live to see. They walk across the entire length of the theater and quickly begin to ascend the stairs, looking up into the crowd toward the top of the theater. Up in the projector booth a sniper has a rifle pointed into the crowd.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I see something like this, it’s time to go. I’m not trying to be an innocent bystander, especially not if the last thing I am going to see in this life is the white mullet of that no-talent hack who married Catherine Zeta-Jones. My wife was already ahead of me, working her way down the row when the guards at the doors yelled, “SIT DOWN, STAY IN YOUR SEATS, AND KEEP YOUR HANDS IN YOUR LAPS! DO IT!”
So we sit back down and witness what happens next. I must say, it was kind of exhilarating, scary, and humorous to look up at the crowd and watch the different reactions of one hundred people whose lives are probably in danger. Some are standing, some are ducking, some are eating popcorn, others are texting on their cell phones. The cop with the shotgun walks across one row and points the barrel down at the neck of a guy below him. The cop with the assault rifle begins going down the row the guy is actually in.
In the end it was anti-climactic. They get the guy, handcuff him, and ask his friends to come along with them. They apologize to the crowd and promise to get the movie going again. As they again walk by in front of me with their catch, I am not too surprised to see it was the kid I thought went to my high school – the one in the black hoodie.
Some people leave, some women are crying. Others go and demand free tickets. My wife and I decide to stay and watch the movie. Hey, we figure nothing else can possibly go wrong. At this point the movie is already starting an hour-and-a-half late. We then watch Angelina Jolie beat up pretty much everyone who moves, even though she only weighs a buck-twenty max.
Leaving the movie theater, my wife turned to me with a smile on her face and said, “Hey, remember when those cops came into the theater with shotguns?” By then it had been two hours ago, and the reminder was enough to make us both laugh.
“What?” I asked her back, surprised. “Those things don’t happen where you grew up?”
In conclusion, I have to say the night couldn’t have gone any better. I saw and was seen by students in my community, some who were mine, others who might be mine next year (assuming the charges don’t stick). It was an authentic experience in the community where I teach, and I had brought my loved one along with me to see it.
Although I have to big up the counselor at my school who goes Christmas shopping there every year. I think the reasoning behind his approach is sound – I just don’t know if I’m going to be bringing my kids next time.