Daria Ravenclaw: The Legend of Sporting Joe
Picture Show One
DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter was created by JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling, Wizarding World, and Warner Brothers. Daria was created by Glen Eichler. Beavis and Butthead was created by Mike Judge. Both Daria and Beavis and Butthead are owned by MTV Viacom. I don't own them.
This story is written for my amusement, not for profit. If you're enjoying this story, please write and post a review.
Daria Ravenclaw: The Legend of Sporting Joe* Daria Ravenclaw: The Legend of Sporting Joe* Daria Ravenclaw: The Legend of Sporting Joe
On Sunday morning, Julia informed her mother that she'd rather stay at the hotel than at the set. Her mother accepted, but three hours later, Julia was regretting her decision. I'm bored, she thought. There's got to be something to do here other than twiddling my thumbs. She closed her book, then got up and left her room. She took the elevator downstairs to the lobby. She saw a young man wearing a jacket and tie at the front desk. He looked to be in his mid-twenties.
"Can I help you?" he said.
"Yes, I'm Julia Darling and I'm a guest here," Julia replied. "I'm wondering if I can ask you a couple of questions about downtown Highland. Do you know anything about downtown?"
"I'll try to answer," he said.
"Any sights?" she asked.
"You've seen the hotel," he said. "There's also the civic center and the old train station."
I've seen the Civic Center," said Julia. The Civic Center was an imitation Spanish building a few blocks away from the hotel. Julia thought it was pretentious.
"There's also the museum," said the desk clerk. He paused, looking thoughtful; Julia didn't think that he had many thoughts to spare. "Other than that, I can't think of anything. If you've seen the hotel, the museum, and the train station, you've seen it all."
I don't think you know very much, Julia thought irritably.
"Is there a cinema?" she asked.
"A what?" said the desk clerk.
"A movie theater," said Julia.
"There's a multiplex," the desk clerk said brightly. "It's at the mall. It's kinda far to walk, though. You'd have to take a taxi if you don't have a car."
"I see," said Julia. Bloody Hell, I'm trapped here unless I bother Morgendorffer. She noticed a small pile of what looked like newspapers. She picked one up and saw that it was a summer guide to Highland published by the by what she supposed was the local newspaper. "Are these free?" she said.
"Yeah," said the desk clerk. "Go ahead and take one."
She turned away, then walked over to one of the couches in the lobby and sat down to read. As she suspected, there was little to do in Highland, particularly if you didn't have a car, but that didn't stop her from reading the guide's contents. Perhaps there was something she could do.
A listing under Recreation: Downtown caught her attention: Weekend at The Picture Show. She read the listing and saw that the local Arts Council was sponsoring movie showings on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons. Was this something current or was it something they'd had and discontinued before she'd come to Highland, she wondered.
She read further, then smiled. No, it was still a going thing. The advertisement said that the Arts Council sponsored movie showings at the Texan movie theater and that they had movie showings from 1:00 until 6:00 PM. She looked at her wrist-watch, then opened her small purse to look at the small map of downtown Highland she'd picked up on her first day in town. The article said that the movies were suited for the entire family and that while admission wasn't free, it was very cheap.
Good, she thought. I've $20.00 and that should more than cover admission. She looked at the time: it was a little after noon. She stood up and walked out the door.
It was already hot when she walked out the front door to make her way to the movie theater. It wasn't the blast furnace of a late Texas afternoon, but it was hot. The sun was directly overhead, mercilessly obliterating any shade from its warmth, causing her to sweat. It took her several blocks to find the right street, and a couple more blocks to find the right address. There was indeed a movie house.
She was not impressed. There might have been some grand and glorious movie palaces back during Highland's heyday as during the first oil boom but the Texan wasn't one of them. It looked like an Art Deco design with decorations done as cheaply as possible. At best it was an also-ran, someplace for some movie chain to serve the scraps and left-overs of the area's movie-going crowd. It did have one advantage over its former competitors: it was still a going concern.
At any other time she might have wondered if it was open, but there was a queue of would-be movie-goers lined up outside the ticket window. Good, it's open, she thought. She walked down the block and crossed the street at the next crosswalk.
"Yes?" said the brown-skinned, dark-haired girl at the ticket window.
"I'd like a ticket for the film this afternoon," said Julia.
The girl stared at her for a moment, taking in Julia's British accent. "You know that this afternoon's features are in Spanish, don't you?" said the girl. She gestured at a poster on the wall: Domingo: Peliculas en Español.
"No I didn't, but that doesn't bother me," Julia replied. "If worst comes to worst, I can look at the pretty pictures and make up my own dialogue."
The girl at the ticket window gave her a strange look, then shrugged as if to say "It's your money and your time, not mine."
Julia bought a ticket and went inside. To her relief, the building still had a working air-conditioning system, old, noisy, but highly functional. She then walked into the theater and wondered if she'd made a mistake. It wasn't that the theater seats were old and worn or that the floors were dirty: the seats were still in good condition and somebody had cleaned the floors. The trouble was the audience: almost all of it was composed of Mummies and Daddies with their little ones jabbering away in Spanish, reminding Julia again that not only was she in a foreign country, she'd also temporarily left the English-speaking world. The children were active and noisy, talking with each other and with their parents and occasionally trying to climb over the theater seats. Julia didn't understand a word they were saying.
Seating was at a premium and the theater was filling up: the seats on Julia's row filled up with a Mummy and Daddy and their little ones. The Daddy sat down next to her and said something to her in Spanish. "I'm sorry," Julia replied, feeling a little distressed, "but I don't speak Spanish." The father smiled at her and said something that sounded like "Ni modo."
The show started shortly afterward, first with some announcements by the local art council and something called the Chamber of Commerce, then a couple of advertisements by local businesses that had donated money to the programs. That was followed by a couple of cartoons that Julia suspected were drawn in Hollywood but were dubbed in Spanish. They looked like they'd been drawn some decades before but that didn't stop Julia from giggling at the mishaps afflicting the wolf-like creature constantly pursuing a cartoonish two-toned blue bird prone to making "beep-beep" noises. After the predator creature went over a cliff one last time, the screen darkened and the main feature began.
Unlike the cartoons, the main feature was clearly filmed in a Spanish-speaking country. The title was also a give-away: "Amor en un Tiempo de Guerra." It started with a graphic made to look like it came from a newspaper, followed by scenes of marching soldiers, bands of furiously-galloping horsemen wearing large hats and shooting guns in the air, then scenes of traumatized peasant women and children fleeing some town or village that had been raided, then set on fire. Knowing little about Muggle history, Julia wondered what war this was and what had set it off.
The screen then cut to what looked like an extravagant wedding set at a large church, followed by a reception at some rich Muggle's country estate. She soon learned that the bride had a younger sister named Luisa and that Luisa was in love with a younger man named Ramon and that something or other was impeding their engagement. Not speaking Spanish, Julia tried to guess what might be the cause: perhaps Ramon wasn't a Catholic, Luisa's parents disapproved, or perhaps it was simply because Ramon didn't have enough money.
Whatever the reason that the lovers were star-crossed, their surroundings didn't remain tranquil. The peaceful countryside soon erupted exploded into violence: there was a clip of marching soldiers, then a scene showing Luisa, her mother, her aunt, and her little brother and sundry nephews and nieces being packed onto a train and sent away from the carnage. Not that that spared Luisa's father: raiders came to his estate and he perished in a fusillade of bullets.
The movie then alternated between scenes of violence and anguish as Luisa thought longingly of Ramon and he of her, sometimes depicted by showing the would-be lovers writing each other, sometimes in soliloquys interrupted by scenes that were either dreams or fantasies. Julia watched as Luisa and her mother fretted in exile in someplace called San Antonio while Ramon chose to enlist in one faction's army. Scenes of battle followed, interspersed with scenes of Luisa and Ramon thinking longingly of each other.
Eventually, Luisa's family returned to Mexico. The two lovers met again, only to be frustrated by one of the girl's older relatives. Julia guessed that he was an uncle or something. Whatever the uncle's objections to the young lovers' courtship might be, they were dispelled by a holy vision showing someone dressed like the Virgin Mary, only dressed in a dress and cloak of red, white and green. A flock of doves flew into the older relative's bedroom, he relented, and the young couple were first shown reunited, then married. The film proceeded to its conclusion with a scene showing them walking out of the church as husband and wife, then images showing their subsequent lives. The final scene showed an aged Luisa was showing a grand-daughter or great-grand-daughter a photo album showing images from her life.
The lights came on a couple of minutes later and the audience began to shift. Some patrons rose from their seats, taking themselves or their children to the exits. Julia knew that the afternoon show was a double-feature but hoped that the second showing wouldn't be quite so crowded. Her hopes were dashed as she saw new ticket-holders begin to trickle in. I hope I get to keep a seat or two between myself and somebody else, she thought. Her hopes were dashed as the new set of movie-goers began to take the seats formerly occupied by the families.
The theater began to fill up as much as it did for the previous show. The seats to Julia's right were quickly taken and the seats to her left began to be re-occupied. For a moment Julia wondered if her new seat-mates would also be Spanish-speakers. She soon learned that the new crowd was more mixed: some spoke Spanish, some spoke English and a couple of them spoke a mixture of both. Maybe I should move, she thought. She glanced around the theater and realized that that option was closed: the only single seat she saw was awkwardly-placed and way in the back.
A man, a woman, and a a boy about her age started working their way down Julia's aisle. The man was wearing a motorcycle gang-member's jacket, the woman was wearing a halter top and scandalously-cut shorts and the boy had blond hair and the biggest head she'd ever seen. Julia counted the remaining vacant seats then realized with alarm that they'd be sitting next to her. The man sat down first, then the woman, and then the boy with the big head sat own next to her.
She hoped they'd leave her alone but to her horror, the boy turned towards her and said "Hi, I'm Beavis!".
Author's notes:
As you can see, I decided that that it was high time that Julia Darling met at least one of Highland's most notable residents.
Also, I invented the title of the feature film Julia was watching. For those who are curious, the movie was set during the time of the 1910 Revolution in Mexico, a subject which in my opinion is woefully understudied in the USA.
A note to my readers: I do not share my characters' snobbery or prejudices. I try to make my characters their own people. That means they'll be opinionated, they'll be ignorant of certain subjects, and they'll occasionally be bigoted.