Concerning Ashley
“Shoot! No signal! Stupid phone.” Kelly punched hard at the screen of her cell phone and leaned all her weight on the glass over the candy bars across the theater entrance. Ashley tried not to roll her eyes and instead tried to keep them fixed on exam study guide in front of her, but the impulse was too strong and her dark brown eyes rolled up into their sockets. She pushed on the desk with the lime green movie tickets hidden inside and spun around in her booth.
The movie theater felt like it used to be a warehouse. High ceilings in all the hallways, walls painted eggshell to match the pock-marked drop-ceiling, the green and purple carpet that crept halfway up the walls.
Justin sulked across the lobby with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He kicked one of the backless benches over to the wall and sat down, slouching hard. He glanced over at Ashley and she smiled quickly, but it was already too late. By the time her lips curled he was looking away, around the room, at his watch, then back at the ceiling. He looked apathetic in a way that made it obvious that he practiced hard.
Ashley spun back around so she was facing the two glass doors facing the dark street and put her head down on her arms. She thought about testing the limits of the ticket machine, just pounding the buttons with her forehead, having it spit out tickets all over the room. She thought of all those tickets just coming out from infinity, vomiting up without end, filling the room, choking everyone. Maybe it would just run out of paper and just fill her booth. That would be fine too, she thought.
Kevin appeared out of nowhere, six-foot-three-inches mid-twenties-and-already-balding manager. He clapped his hand once and rubbed them like he knew he was in the money. “How are we doing to‑night!” He grinned that greasy smile of his.
No one made any move to acknowledge anything had happened. “SHOOT!” Kelly squealed and smacked her phone against her palm hard.
“Right. Ok. Screen three will be getting out -” he jerked his arm so his ill-fitting blazer rode up his arm, showing a skinny white wrist with an over-large watch wrapped around it, ”- any minute now. Ashley! Could you be a dear and go clean it up once our patrons get out?”
“Sure,” she said, watching Kelly punch madly at the buttons on her phone the whole time.
She groped for the chain in the back of the room, and when she found it and pulled hard. The light didn’t click on, and something like grease came off on her fingers. She tried to wipe it off on her black polyester pants but it just smeared across her hand. The light from the hallway behind her changed and she half-turned to look. The group of junior high kids were out of the theater, grinning and hanging off each other in wife-beaters and cheap gold plated chains. She watched them from the shadows until they were out of sight, then waited until she couldn’t hear them anymore until she gathered her supplies and went into the now-empty theater.
She started at the back, going in and out of all the rows, picking up candy wrappers and sweeping popcorn into the dustpan. She got down to the front of the theater and stopped in front of a ribbon of light running across the floor between the seats and the screen. She looked at the doors at the back, but the light in the hallway outside was too dim and the crack wasn’t right. She following the light in the opposite direction towards the screen.
A piece of black curtain at the bottom of the screen looked as if it had been pulled aside and didn’t come back to rest in the same way, letting the thread of light out from behind a skewed black pressboard. Ashley ran her fingers down the crack until she got to a place big enough to fit her fingers in. She tugged and the board came away, lighting the entire theater enough to make her blink and sneeze. The board covered a hole about four feet square, maybe ten feet deep. She squatted down holding the hair away from her face and looked in. At the end of the short tunnel was morning sky, and a red bird sitting on the lip started and dropped out of sight. She dropped to her knees and crawled inside.
Ashley looked over the edge and watched the bird descend to clouds far below, and a city far below that. The city glinted like it was made all of glass, and it stretched on until it swallowed up the horizon. On her left there were rungs affixed to the outside of the (building? tower?) leading down into the city. The rungs shrunk farther and farther until they were a line on the smooth surface they were pinned down on.
The bird circled down and away, and Ashley watched it until it got too small to see. She chewed on the inside of her cheek and looked over her shoulder, into the dim theater, then back down to the buildings glinting in the sideways morning light.
“Well?” Kevin came right up and leaned in too close to her, whispering sharply. Ashley shifted her armful of brooms and cleaning bottles and glanced at the small line of the same junior high kids waiting impatiently to get back in.
“All done. There’s nothing in there.”
Ashley threw the cleaning supplies in the closet, not even bothering to make sure they didn’t break. She walked calmly back out to the lobby and leaned into the ticket booth to grab her book bag. A large sweaty body stood in front of her, wanting something; she didn’t know what. She ducked to the side and kept walking. She pushed hard on the heavy glass doors and she was out in the humid dark, running as fast as she could.