Cinema Purgatorio

IN THE SPRING OF 1992, I saw the film "Cinema Paradiso" for the very first time. It made working at a movie theater seem like a marvelous, quaint and romantic experience, with a big pot of gold at the end. The way I read it, "Cinema Paradiso" said that if you worked at a movie theater and really loved film, you would end up a rich and famous director with gracefully graying temples, a bevy of beauties in your bed and a tragically, nobly broken heart.

That same spring, I applied for a summer job in Geneva. I felt certain that I would get it, and spent the whole of May waiting to hear. May came and went, but I didn't hear from the people in Switzerland. And so I found myself home in Oxnard, California--Strawberry and Lima Bean Capital of the World, summer training home of the L.A. Raiders and probably the only place in the universe named after bull testicles--with no job and no pecuniary prospects for the summer. Fate, in the guise of Scott, my best friend from high school, soon took care of my woes and secured me a position at the movie theater where he was employed. I began to think that perhaps kismet was leading me down the "Cinema Paradiso" path. And though I felt that I, like those widows in 18th century English novels, had "come down in the world," I accepted the job.

Don't get me wrong. I know that honest work is honest work. My father is a farmworker and my mother a housewife and seamstress, and so I have had the experience of being a member of the Lumpenproletariat (which somehow seemed appropriate, since Karl Marx's birthday always falls on Cinco de Mayo). However, Harvard is supposed to be a pass to bigger and better things, and I hadn't expected to end up shoveling popcorn into Value Size cardboard containers. Soon enough that enterprising Harvard spirit set in: I set my sights on being employee of the month. I was sure that if I played my cards right I could achieve it before the end of the summer. Having my mug plastered in the lobby of the theater for all to see was nothing more than a variation on the proverbial gold star on the forehead.

Scott, who had toiled at Pacific Theatres since high school, served as my guiding Virgil. He helped me secure my uniform. Who could resist the chance to be a fashion plate? The gray polyester pants seemed to cling to one for dear life, as if the wearer were their last chance for redemption. There was also the natty dark blue polyester vest, which made me look like a Christmas pudding, and the rakish gray clip-on tie made from some fabric whose origins I've yet to divine. Finally, honor of honors, I also had my very own name tag.

Suitably accoutered, I began taking patrons' tickets at the door, working the snack bars, checking the temperature in the theaters, sweeping theaters after each showing and helping to clean the entire establishment after the day ended at 1 a.m.

Since I may never again have the opportunity to be Upton Sinclair, I feel a duty to reveal all that I learned for the good of the American consumer. Never eat the popcorn at a movie theater. I must relate the story of the time Gina Maria Sandoval, she of the big hair, the Kabuki harlot make-up and the lavender Lee Press-On nails, was in charge of making the popcorn. We heard a muffled cry of horror and a Spanish expletive emerge from the lovely Gina, who she told us that she had lost one of her nails in the popcorn. About two hours later, a pleasantly bourgeois woman emerged from a screening of the Tom Cruise extravaganza "Far and Away" and lodged a complaint with the manager. That she had torn herself from Tom's pristine complexion and pallid, rippling chest (in slow-motion, no less) was evidence of the seriousness of her plight. She had bitten down on Gina's crunchy lavender thumbnail, and was not at all amused.

Porpcorn is not the only snack to stay away from. Hot dogs were put on the warmers at around 11 a.m., and if no one purchased them, they stayed there until closing time, at which point we would put them in Tupperware containers with soda water and ice and freeze them for the next day. If, now endowed with a leathery skin and the consistency of a Nerfball, they survived a second day unpurchased, they went back into the freezer, because, after all, the third day's the charm. What the condition of the dear frankfurters was after three days, modesty prevents me from relating.

Heed my warnings, Reader. Never eat anything that does not come in its own wrapper. Don't ask for ice in your already ice-cold drink, unless you want less soda. Get the size you want; don't let yourself be subliminally tricked into getting a larger size and paying more. After a day of training at PACE (Pacific Academy of Courtesy and Excellence), I knew that if a customer asked for a drink, I must immediately say, "Large, Ma'am?" The customer, charmed by the smile and the seemingly unobtrusive suggestion, would succumb.

Our most popular movie during the time I spent at the theater was "Sister Act," starring Whoopi Goldberg. Every showing was packed. We were also showing "Howards End," which wasn't doing very good business. I did my part for high culture and the indie film industry by persuading some customers to abandon "Far and Away" or "Sister Act," and watch "Howards End" instead. I told the customers that Emma Thompson was certain to win the Oscar for her performance. Such prescience I had! Nominations, after all, were a little less than a year away.

A bit of sociological induction, done while sweeping the theaters, revealed that people who went to see arty movies like "Howards End" did not litter, while those who reveled in Whoopi's antics and Tom's neurasthenic smiles behaved as if the theater were their private sty. Someone once forgot a walker after a showing of "Sister Act"--old ladies adored the movie, and would come out exclaiming, "Oh, that Whoopi is so funny!" We also found several used diapers. After a showing of "Thunderheart," in which Val Kilmer (!) stars as a half-Indian detective who returns to the reservation to solve a crime, we found an empty bottle of cheap Canadian whisky and a used condom.

Hogarthian characters abounded in the theater. There was Abel, the flamboyant homosexual who would hoot at pulchritudinous customers; Norma the manager, who had the face of a hatchet and the demeanor of Torquemada; Katie, poor, sweet, knocked-up Katie; vivacious Gilda, a fortyish woman of Italian extraction who had been raised in Ethiopia and who now devoted herself to the music and careers of heavy metal bands; baby-faced George, an aspiring actor who claimed to have had a meeting with Steven Bochco's people; and Autumn, as delicate a ditz as ever broke a man's heart.

Our theater had supposedly been built on an Indian burial ground, and an Indian chief was reputed to haunt theater number 6, but before I could begin a proper investigation, I received a call from Switzerland telling me that I had the job. Despite the fact that I'd already joined the union of movie theater employees and was well on my way to winning employee of the month, I said goodbye to Gina and Whoopi and flew to Geneva. And while my two weeks at the cinema may not have been Paradiso, it wan't a half-bad Purgatorio, with real butter on top.