The question is will you believe what you see, what you feel, what you believe to be true. It’s hard, like remembering your age…

I had few options. Well, that’s a lie. I created few options because I decided I’d rather exist done than co-exist in my surrounding.

They had just opened the movie theatre in town. It was open before, when there was still plans for a bowling alley. Mayb eI would have gone…

They opened three days a week with one show at 7 p.m.. It’s run by 15-year olds, catering to 12 year-olds, but it beats putting 100 miles on my car just to see the same people in a different place.

I slowly come to realize that the environment may be different, but the people are born and breed. Built for this life, something that looks foreign and stupid to me is second nature to them.

The stares, outright stares as I walk though the door. The stunned look of the lucky stiff who takes my $5.

”Enjoy the show.”

”Do I need this stub?”

”No.”

The owner’s working the snack stand and gives me the once over as I walk in. I coulda snuck a 3-foot bong into the place, but the 11-year olds wouldn’t be able to hold their smoke.

That and they had a sing in magic marker saying No Smoking.

I sat down near the front and squatted low. Maybe I blended it, or maybe my quietness allowed them to relax, but it was like a middle school cafeteria.

Voices and naughty words sandwiched in with pathetic attemtps at copulatiuon. I thought of raising my voice, answering one of the questions that hung in the air. Something like,

”I like previews too. They’re the best part. Usually better than the movie.”

Just to hear the silence. If only I could turn around and see all their expressions, the wheels in their head turning with greased gears. Who would answer or would an uncomfortable silence exist until the preview began?

I decided to let them live. Besides I was entering their world. This was made for them. When I was young, I went to The Rink on Saturday afternoons, gathering the courage to approach girls in benefit of another. Never myself.

I was 10, maybe 11. I was a good skater, not great but I could do what i had to do to get around the rink. Regardless, it was the mall, the club, the bar, the frat party, but I digress…

I thought I saw the lights on the screen move slightly in a repeated vertical thrust. At first, I thought the projector was having a little fun, a brain fuck for the raging hormones of the audience. But the light was unscrewed too soon and the movie began.

It was another call, another example – look at me, I’m Leatherface. Buzzing around for all the see, but truly calling only to me. They talk about writers, about paving your own path and like any work I see, read or feel nowadays, I lave with the same sense.

”I could have done that better.”

It occurs to me that if I wanted to, I could carve my hitch in this town. I could run this theatre, write freelance and settle down roots. I would become a town celebrity – a big fish, foreign fish ina  microscopic pond.

In three years, girls would pay for the 18th. Eventually I would have to choose. But it wouldnt’ be anytime soon. It would be a while before that.

I would fail to enjoy the Midwest farmer’s daughter, like The Beach Boys spoke of. The shy one because the temporary tag is like a scarlet letter. Why attach yourself to something that will leave?

But if I stayed, I would never forgive myself for leaving anyplace else before because is this better than anything else? I could achieve this anywhere, anyplace I tread.

So what then?

The answer escapes me, but I know that a decade is a lon time. I say in a room of 30 where I had a decade on everyone. 1992 doesn’t seem as far away as it should.

I’m 24 and a young man who once was a boy. I’m a writer, a talent waiting to be discovered. I’m a father, looking for his soulmate. I’m the future, waiting for a path to walk…