My sister once dragged me to a chick flick because she didn't want to see it alone. We drove all the way to Raleigh Grand Cinemas and walked in on the previews. That was when the storm downed power.
Disappointment blossomed in my sister--unable to watch a movie she had been lusting after for a week now, and me, unable to come to terms with all that gas we wasted.
The theater was halfway filled to capacity, due to the second weekend matinee show and wiser people staying home due to inclement weather. But there we sat, disbelieving, listening to thunder, and waiting for that screen to relight. We waited for the requisite apology, but more importantly we waited for the show, albeit five minutes late. Ten. Twenty.
Eventually we gave up, but not one-by-one. We left two-by-two, or family-by-family. No one was alone, subconsciously following a societal mandate. There was only one person in the entire theater who couldn't call anyone else by name, and he sat in the next-to-last row.
He was easily the largest person I had ever seen--three or four hundred pounds, and as many chins, surrounded by an array of candy and stray popcorn kernels. One hand cradled the tub of popcorn in his lap; the other glistened with butter. Sometimes he reached for the Coke, but only with effort.
He wore suspenders. This grown man, middle-aged, wore the brightest and thickest pair of suspenders I had ever seen. His mouth disappeared with a fistful of popcorn, then moved. His skin glowed. He looked agonizingly patient. He was determined to see this chick flick, because there was nothing else to feel this way about. There was no one when he went home. There was nothing he was missing with the exception of Hugh Grant falling in love with Sandra Bullock. He needed their story. He craved their ending.
And then I saw two long-haired, swivel-hipped women in his row get up and file past him. Even in the darkness I caught their revolted stares. He didn't even notice. He reached for the Junior Mints and gently plucked them open.
"Come on," my sister said. "We can't wait forever. They're handing out vouchers. We can come back later."
I seized the armrests and shook my head. I desperately did not want to leave. I couldn't. Not when everyone was leaving, and the man made no sign of movement but to eat. And eat. I closed my eyes. Even then I could see those two godforsaken ladies stepping over him, around him, gingerly, an expression of distaste patent in their eyes. Of course they had to be beautiful and young. Washing over him like cold, clear water. He had always been a rock that halted the water. That was the way he lived his life.
I couldn't stop. I wept in my chair, my bewildered sister cutting off the circulation in both my wrists. I felt like a loser. I felt like I lost my life. I have no compassion for anything. I am hard-hearted. I yell at my mother. I fight with my best friend. I ignore the Ninth Street bums. I never buy flowers from the Franklin Street flower lady. I don't drop my change into the tip jar. But watching this man doesn't hurt. It kills.
I don't want this column, especially since it's my first, to come off as moralizing, condescending, holy. That isn't the point. In fact I don't think I have a point. I just had to write this, to point it out as one of the most disconcerting moments in my life. I suppose everyone has to be reminded of her humanity. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it will just when you least expect it. Like when you walk into a movie theater and a freak storm cuts out the lights and your eyes wander only to settle on the horribly lonely individual in the back, seeking solace--from people like those two women and non-people like lonesomeness--in innumerable boxes of candy. And all you can do is simply watch.
So you do.
J. Patricia Kim is a Trinity sophomore.
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