THE CINERAMA
by Dean Fiora
I hadn't been to Wakefern in twenty-plus years; but when a business trip landed me two towns away, I rented a car and paid my old stomping grounds a visit.
There wasn't much that I remembered. The fast-food joint where I worked in high school had long-since gone out of business. The video arcade had been lost in what was deemed an insurance fire. The massive mall across town had killed the shopping center. And my favorite hangout, the CineRama, had closed its doors twelve years earlier.
I wouldn't know any of that except for my Cousin Eric, who still lived in Wakefern and with whom I exchanged the occasional e-mail.
Eric lived on a side street a mile or so up the hill from what had once been Wakefern's thriving business district. I passed by the old shopping center, now filled with empty, decaying storefronts and a parking lot overgrown with weeds. Behind it was the CineRama, which I couldn't see from the road but assumed was like a mausoleum. Its marquee, which faced the street, was pocked with holes from the myriad rocks thrown at it. And the steel frame supporting it was covered with rust.
I pulled into Eric's driveway and parked behind his mini-van. Before I could get up the walk, Eric flung open the door and walked out to meet me. His porcelain-like face broke out into the wide grin that was my cousin's trademark.
"Gary! Great to see you again." He grabbed my right hand and vigorously shook it.
"You too, buddy. It's been a long time."
"Too long." He placed his right hand between my shoulder blades and guided me into the kitchen.
I asked, "You alone?"
"Yeah, Leona took the kids to the mall."
"Ah, yes. The mall that killed Wakefern."
"Ain't that the truth?"
"This town has really gone to hell, hasn't it?"
Eric's silence answered my question. "Have a seat." I did so, at the kitchen table. Eric joined me.
"Man," he said. "I can't believe it's been twenty years."
"Time has a way of kicking your ass, doesn't it?"
"Tell me about it." He ran his right hand over his bald head. "I used to have long blond hair, remember?"
"And I used to weigh 165 pounds." I gave my considerable mid-section a none-too-affectionate pat.
"So, how's the insurance biz treating you?"
I shrugged. "Keeps the bills paid; for now, at least."
"They still talking about shipping your job off to India?"
"Not just mine."
"Let's hear it for the global economy, huh?"
"Least I paid off the mortgage. Now, if I just had somebody to share that big old house with…."
"I don't know why you never got married."
"Yes, you do."
Eric grimaced. "Dude, that was twenty-five years ago!"
"Twenty-six."
"Exactly. You going to let it haunt you the rest of your life?"
"It's not like I want to."
"You still in therapy?"
"Oh, yeah. We've tried everything. 'What would Becky say to you if she were here now?'"
Eric broke the awkward silence. "On the other hand, being in a relationship is no guarantee of happiness."
"You can say that again."
Leona soon got home with the kids, Tommy and Michelle. I sat in the living room with the moppets while Eric and Leona prepared a scrumptious dinner of pot roast, baked potatoes and carrots. As much as I enjoyed everyone's company, I was especially glad for the home-cooked meal.
Later, I helped put the kids to bed and felt a rush of tenderness when six-year-old Michelle hugged my neck and kissed my cheek. Eric, Leona and I parted company at the kitchen door with lingering hugs and a promise that I wouldn't wait another twenty years before I saw them again.
That's when things got weird.
As I drove down the hill toward the ghost of the old shopping center, everything went dark. For the briefest moment, I couldn't see or hear a thing. The houses and streetlamps all seemed to vanish. My headlights still worked but shone into eternal, inky blackness. Even the radio went silent.
But as quickly as the darkness had enveloped me, it disappeared. I was back in the Wakefern night. Though momentarily shaken, I continued down the hill.
Then something struck me. I had the radio tuned to a sports-talk station but now heard music. As the song faded, a gratingly upbeat DJ gushed, "That's brand new in the countdown this week, jumping in at number eight – Michael Sembello with 'Maniac.' And now, here's the number seven song in the Power 1230 top ten: Madness, with 'Our House!'"
I exclaimed, "Power 1230?" They had stopped calling it that when the station went Sports Talk in the early Clinton era!
But before I could think about it, something else commanded my attention. Off to my left was the shopping center, but it was no longer abandoned. Indeed, the storefronts were ablaze with lights and neon signs, the parking lot was filled with cars, and dozens of people scurried about.
I looked at the CineRama's marquee. It was no longer rusty and filled with holes. Instead, it beamed into the night:
NOW PLAYING
WARGAMES
TRADING PLACES
RETURN OF THE JEDI
Determined to find out just what the hell was going on, I pulled into the shopping center and drove around back to the CineRama building. It was lit up and open for business. It even took me some time to find a parking space.
As I got out and looked around, I saw cars, trucks and vans of '70s and early '80s vintage. My heart pounding and my throat constricted, I made my way toward the building. Numerous teen-agers stood outside, smoking cigarettes and talking. Their clothing and hairstyles all suggested the early 1980s. As I walked past a "coming soon" poster for Terms of Endearment, a voice called, "Hey, Gary!"
I turned around and was face-to-face with a boy of seventeen. He wore blue jeans and a Def Leppard T-shirt, and sported shoulder-length blond hair. There was something oddly familiar about the young man, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"How's it hangin'?" he asked me.
"Uhh…. Fine, I guess."
"Dude, you're supposed to say, 'Low.'"
"Oh! Sorry."
"Hey, you got a smoke?"
"No, I quit."
"Really? When?"
"Eleven years ago."
He laughed. "Dude, will you quit messing around?"
"I'm not messing around!"
"Yeah, right. You quit smoking in the first grade."
I gaped incredulously at the young man, whose face became a mask of deep concern.
"You OK, man?"
"Uhh…. Just a little tired, I guess. Have we met?"
He laughed again. "Dude, you're always joking around. Like you don't recognize your own cousin."
I blinked rapidly. "Eric?"
"Well, it ain't T.J. fuckin' Hooker." When I didn't reply, Eric said, "Dude, seriously. You ought to sit down. You don't look so good."
As we sat on a nearby bench, I muttered, "I don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"Eric, what year is this?"
"What the hell year do you think it is?"
"Please, just tell me."
"Dude, it's 1983. Has been for, like, six months."
I took a deep breath. "How old are we?"
"Say what?"
"Eric, please."
"We're seventeen, man."
"Do I look seventeen to you?"
"Well, sure."
I gave my belly a squeeze and realized that I was thin! Then I gazed at my reflection in the picture window behind us. I felt the same, but looked seventeen.
"Uh, Gary? Maybe you ought to go home."
"Home?"
"Yeah. I think you might be coming down with something. Come on, let's get your bike."
"Bike?" I followed Eric to the bicycle rack on the CineRama's south wall. Sure enough, there was the twelve-speed my parents had given me for my fifteenth birthday. I rode that bike all through high school.
Instinctively, I reached into my pocket. My car keys were no longer there, but I found the key to my bicycle lock.
Then something occurred to me. "Is Becky here?"
"Yeah, she's here."
"Can you get her for me?"
"Good idea!" Eric ran off in apparent relief. When he returned moments later, I almost cried. Walking next to Eric was my first girlfriend, Becky O'Rourke, looking just as she had all those years ago: five feet four inches tall with radiant green eyes, flowing red hair, and a pixie face dotted with the most adorable freckles. Becky was decked out in the same New Wave clothes she had fancied in high school.
As they approached me, Eric said, "Hey, I need to get inside. The movie's starting."
Barely hearing him, I muttered, "OK, bye."
As Eric walked away, Becky matter-of-factly said, "Hey, Gary."
"My god, it's really you." I was barely audible.
"Well, sure it is." When I didn't reply, Becky said, "You all right?"
My face broke out in a smile. "Better than I've been in years."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, Becky." I threw my arms around her.
"Whoa!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Hey man, what's going on?"
Then I remembered. Becky and I hadn't started going out until our senior year. And it was still the summer before.
I pulled away from her. "Hey, I'm really sorry. I just got carried away."
"It's OK. But Eric's right; something's up with you."
"You don't know the half of it."
"You want to talk?"
"Do I ever."
"Let's go for a walk." Becky took my hand and led me to the back of the CineRama. We stood there in silence for what seemed an eternity.
As Becky let go of my hand, I said, "Listen, you're going to think I'm crazy…."
"Gary, I know why you're here."
"What?"
"You left town when I killed myself. You haven't been back since."
"Y-you know?"
"Yes, I know."
"So, you're a ghost?"
"Like the past is a ghost," she said cryptically.
"What about Eric? Does he know, too?"
"Yeah."
"Then why the act?"
"We had no choice. You needed to figure out for yourself why you were here."
"But I don't know why I'm here."
"Yes, you do. The moment you asked for me, you knew why."
Becky and I had dated through our senior year of high school. I loved her with all my seventeen-year-old heart. She said she loved me too, but there was little in her behavior to suggest it.
Becky always kept me at arm's length. Not physically; but she always distant, like she didn't want me to know the real Becky. Finally, I grew weary of her aloofness and ended the relationship a week before I went off to college.
A few days after I left, Becky hanged herself in her parents' basement. She never left a note, but everyone involved knew exactly why Becky had killed herself.
From that day on, I was never able to give myself fully to a woman. Years of therapy had barely scratched the surface of my guilt.
Becky said, "It wasn't your fault."
"What do you mean?"
"From the time I was seven, my father sexually abused me. My mother knew but let it happen anyway."
I kept silent.
"When I met you, I felt like I could finally take a stab at normalcy. But after a decade of sexual abuse, I just couldn't open myself up to a man."
I had to grin. "I was hardly a man."
"You know what I mean. I tried, Gary, lord knows I tried; but I just couldn't let you in. When you broke up with me, I didn't blame you. I'd have done the same thing in your shoes. But I thought I'd never be able to truly love another person. So what was the use of going on?" Becky looked back at me. "You see? It was never your fault."
"Why you didn't leave a note?"
"My father's grip on me was so complete, I didn't want to get him in trouble."
"Jesus."
She began to cry. "I'm so sorry."
I took her in my arms. I don't know how long we stood there holding each other, but I never wanted it to end. As Becky's crying subsided, she cupped my face in her hands and pressed her lips to mine. I thought I'd collapse from the now-unfamiliar joy that coursed through me.
Finally, Becky separated from me. "I have to go."
"Why?"
"Because I need to move on; and so do you."
"Will I see you again?"
"No." Her face was a mask of regret.
I started to cry.
"Live your life, Gary. It's the only one you get."
She kissed my cheek and backed away from me. I tried to follow, but the darkness enveloped me again. Still crying, I leaned against the building and let my emotions run their course. I bellowed wordlessly and pounded the walls as twenty-six years of pent-up guilt and anger released themselves through my tear ducts.
Finally, the tears subsided. As I pulled myself together, I noticed that the shopping center looked as it had a few hours before. Its streetlamps were dark, grass grew up to my knees through the cracks in the asphalt, and the chirping of crickets had replaced the sounds of people and cars.
I walked to the front of the CineRama, which stood dark and empty in the night – a lonely memento of an earlier time. At the far end of the parking lot was my rental car – the only vehicle present. I got in, started the motor, and heard SportsTalk 1230 on the radio. I shifted into gear, exited the plaza, and left Wakefern behind.
When I returned to work on Monday, I struck up a conversation with Carol, a 40-year-old widow who worked in Accounts Payable and always seemed to make an extra effort to say something nice to me. When I asked if she might like to get together some time for "a cup of coffee or something," she was quite receptive.
Thank you, Becky.