Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 09:07:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Joseph Smith <gaymormonwriter@yahoo.com>
Subject: BEHIND THE SILVER SCREEN Chapter One  high school

Behind The Silver Screen
Chapter One

(Author's notes: The usual legal acknowledgements. I own the copyrights to
this story. Email comments are always welcome.)

It was a bright sunny day on North Main Street in Dayton, Ohio. I was
standing under the marquee of the Palace Theatre, across the street from
the old Victory Theatre at First and Main and next door to Rikes Department
Store.

It hadn't always been the Palace Theatre. An independent owner had given it
that name a few years ago. For over fifty years it was known as Loew's
Theatre. In fact, the original Palace Theatre was still standing on Fifth
Street, but had been closed for over ten years.

It's been 5 years since I was last inside the theater. Today, June 21,
1975, I would take in its broken majestic splendor for the last time. I had
known that this day would come.

The construction crew was already in the building preparing for the
demolition of the old girl. The front doors were propped open; from under
the marquee, standing on the sidewalk, I could hear inside was a jackhammer
nosily breaking up the concrete around the snack bar in the lobby.

I walked by the box office. As I passed it, I reflected on how many hours I
spent there, selling tickets, answering the telephone, watching the city
busses going there north and south of town stopped in front of the
theater. The city moved in its constant and repetitive motion.

I passed the doors into the foyer. Its tiles were old and cracked from the
years of foot traffic inflicted from the decades of movie-going
customers. The foyer ramped up to the six black lobby doors that were also
propped open. I moved toward the lobby, choking on the concrete dust was
flying out of the lobby into the foyer.

The lobby itself was rather small, more like a hallway. The walls had been
painted white since the Loew's days. When I was here, the walls were
painted with a kind of rose color. Even now the paint was dull and flat
like the rest of the interior of the theater. I often wondered what the
theatre really looked like in the heydays of the twenties and thirties.

Opposite of the lobby doors stood the snack bar with its candy case,
popcorn warmer and Coke machine. On each side of the snack bar, double
glass doors opened to the main aisles of the the theatre's main floor. At
the far sides of the lobby were empty doorways that allowed entrance to the
side aisles.

A grand staircase rose from each end of the lobby turned directly to the
mezzanine. I looked beyond the staircase towards the exit door and side
aisle. I could see him in my mind...

With my eyes closed I could see him, tall, slender handsome in his tuxedo,
hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall, watching a movie...

I fell in love with the place the first day I worked here, and later, I
fell in love with him the first day I worked with him.

I tore myself away from my daydream and climbed the stairs to the
mezzanine. Located on the side mezzanine was the Ladies Lounge and
restroom. The left was the Gentlemen's Lounge and restroom. In their day,
the lounges had sofas, tables and ashtrays, and attendants served patrons
with towels and lights for those who smoked.

To the right of the back wall was a ramp on each side that led to the
balcony. On each side of the ramps were doors. The door on the left led to
the storage room and projection booth; and across the ramp from there was
the assistant manager's office.

The left ramp was the manager's office and storage closet.

In the sixties the theatre installed wooden gates over the entrance to the
balcony after business because slowed way down and the upper seating was no
longer needed.

The gates were unlocked and I went right up the ramp into the balcony. All
of the exit doors were open and the lights were on. The old
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer logo carpeting still covered the steps and
aisles. Although it was over 30 years old, it had held up well.

I climbed the steps to the back of the balcony and sat down. I had never
ventured this far up when I worked here. I gazed over the huge
auditorium. The stage was wide open and the silver screen was gone.  The
chandeliers were still in place. All that was left of the wall fixtures was
the wiring hanging out of the electrical boxes that held them up.

I closed my eyes to feel the vibes of the place. I could imagine all the
great movies and vaudeville acts that had played here. If the walls could
talk I wondered what they could tell.

I could feel him close to me.

How I wanted him close to me again...

*****

It was April, 1969. I was a junior at Meadowdale High School. At the end of
school one day, as I was getting onto my bus, another student grabbed my
arm.

"Hey, I am David. I work at Loew's. You applied there last week, didn't
you?"

"Yeah, I did."

"The manager asked me to have you come down and talk to him."

"Okay, thanks. I will."

Damn, he was a nice looking guy.

I was seventeen years of age and up to this time I had not admitted to
myself that I was gay. I knew I liked looking at other boys and even scoped
them out in the showers at school and at the YMCA where swimsuits were
never worn in the pool area. I had grown to love the naked male form.

I got on my bus excited about the idea of working in a movie theatre. I
immediately went to the city bus stop after I got home from school. I rode
the bus south on Main Street and got off at the front of theater. The
marquee listed WHERE EAGLES DARE, a Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood WWII
film written by Alistair McLean. It ended up being a box office dud, but
scored well when it premiered on network television.

I walked through the front doors, up the foyer ramp to the doorman's
location at the top of the foyer. The doorman was an elderly man around
75. He was dressed in a tux, and had white hair and a pencil thin
moustache. When I told him why I was there, he walked over to the far wall
to an intercom box and called the manager down. He told me he would be
right out.

I walked down the foyer and looked at the poster frames. In one frame was
the current attraction at the other Loew's theater in town. The theater was
showing ROMEO AND JULIET. Across the foyer the poster for "Coming Soon" was
THE WILD BUNCH.

"Hello," said a voice near the doorman.

"Hi," I said walking towards the man, "I am Michael Brown. I was told to
come in about a job."

The man was around 60 years of age. He was dressed in a suit, his gray hair
was combed straight back. He smiled at me and asked, "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"What year in school are you?"

"11th grade."

"Can you work evenings, weekends and holidays?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. I have an opening at the Loew's Northtown. It pays one dollar an
hour."

"Great."

"Can you start tomorrow evening?"

"Yes, sir."

"A white shirt is all you will need. Be there at 6:00 and ask for Miss
Burns."

"Yes, sir. I will be there."

"Thank you, sir."

I reached out to shake his hand and he complied. I left the theater and
walked across the street to catch the bus.

I waited at the bus stop, biding my time, excited that I had a job. Lost in
my reverie, I didn't notice him until he was nearly standing next to me.
He broke my self-congratulatory moment as he stood there, looking down the
street, apparently waiting on a bus as well.

He stood about 5'10" tall, and had brown hair and blue eyes. He was dressed
like any other teen. He was thin, but great looking. I looked to down to
check him out and couldn't get any impression of what he might have down
there. I realized he had taken my breath away.

He must have noticed me looking at him and glanced at me and smiled, with a
'hi' kind of smile. Not a word was said between us. He walked towards the
curb and waited for the approaching bus, No. 12 Fair Oaks. I watched him
climb the steps and sit down in the back of the bus.

As the bus drove off, I figured I probably wouldn't see him again. My bus
pulled up, No. 7 Forest Park, and I rode north with him on my mind.

I got home and told my mother I had a new job and I started the next
day. She said that was great and finished making dinner. After dinner, I
retired to my room to do my homework. That night I found myself thinking
about him in my nightly 'exercise' of my wrist.

The next day couldn't go fast enough. I couldn't wait to start that night
at the theatre. The day finally ended and I headed home. It was a Friday so
I could do my homework over the weekend.

When it got to be about 5 P.M., I grabbed my shirt and walked the mile to
the theatre. The theatre was at the south end of the Northtown Shopping
Center. It faced Main Street and had a parking lot in the rear. The tower
stood proudly above the marquee, which topped the roof above the foyer
area. The box office was inside in the foyer area where "Coming Soon"
poster cases covered the brick walls. I opened the all-glass door and
entered the foyer. An older gentleman stood at the doorman's area. I told
him I needed to see Miss Burns. He nodded and walked past the box office,
and me, across the foyer over to a door next to the poster cases. He
knocked and a women dressed in a purple dress uniform appeared. As I
introduced my self, she said she was expecting me. She told me to follow
her into the lobby area. The carpet was alternated-strips of green, blue
and purple. The walls were papered in solid colors of blue, green or
purple. The snack bar filled the space between the only two aisle doors
with its popper in the middle.

"Joe?" she said to a young man in a tuxedo sweeping the lobby with a toy
broom and dustpan. "Would you take Michael upstairs and find him a tux to
wear."

"Yes, Miss Burns."

I followed Joe, who had a slight limp, into the theatre and around the
corner to the left to a door that lead upstairs. At the top of the stairs
were wooden storage lockers. There were two doors on the left, one to the
usher's dressing room and to the other the projection booth.

Joe led me into the dressing room and opened a closet where there were
dozen or so tuxedos.

"You will need to take your clothes off but leave the white shirt on," Joe
said.

I quickly followed his instructions while he found a couple of tuxes for me
to try on.

"Hey Joe," came the voice from the doorway.

I looked up to a tall, blonde young man with blue eyes and a great smile.

"Hey Ryan, this is Michael." Joe then looked at me, "or do you go by Mike?"

"Mike is fine." I turned to Ryan and offered my hand. "Hi, Ryan."

"Hi Mike," Ryan said as he took my hand. His hand felt great.

Ryan moved around me and started taking his clothes off. I watched
discreetly as he revealed a white Fruit of the Looms briefs; a nice package
caught my eye. I turned back to Joe as he handed me a pair of trousers to
put on. I tried on a couple of pairs and found one that fit the best. By
then, Ryan had dressed and gone downstairs. After trying on nearly ten
jackets, I picked the best one and I was dressed.

Joe took me downstairs and showed me around the theater. The auditorium
itself had 960 seats, a small stage at the front and the same color motif
of blue, green and purple spread out over the walls. The seats were covered
in purple with love seats placed every four rows.

Painted plywood doors covered the exit wells that lead to the rear parking
lot.

Joe asked me where I went to school and where I lived. He told me he was in
his last year at Colonel White. Ryan went to Fairview High School.

Joe and Ryan showed me everything an usher does: clean the rest rooms,
sweep the lobby and foyer, clean the glass doors, help in the snack bar if
needed, how to seat late arriving patrons after the movie started and check
the theater while the movie played.

I had heard that in some theaters, ushers would shine the flashlights in
customer faces to get their attention, but that wasn't done here. When
seating someone after the movie had started, we pointed the flashlight down
on the floor, slightly behind you so the patrons can see where they were
going.

The night went pretty quickly considering the movie ran for 2 hours and 18
minutes. I noticed that Ryan and Joe kept looking at their
watches. Finally, they said it was time and told me to follow them inside
the theatre.

They told me to watch the movie and I did.

On screen there was a bedroom scene where Romeo and Juliet were in bed
together. Romeo stirred awake and sat up, naked. He stood up and his ass
was completely exposed. I marveled at his over all beauty.

"Here it comes," whispered Joe to me.

I watched as Juliet suddenly crossed the screen with her breasts bouncing
along. I didn't care about Juliet. I wanted to see more of Romeo, but damn,
if he didn't slide on his tights.

When the scene was over, Joe motioned for us to go out to the lobby and
said, "What did you think, Mike?"

"I thought it was great."

I knew what they meant, but they didn't know what I meant.

We set up the ropes for the next showing. It gave the lobby a waiting area
as well as a path for exiting patrons. A table was set up by the pay phones
so that one of us could sell the souvenir programs of ROMEO AND JULIET for
one dollar.

It was funny watching the girls, wiping tears and pulling dollar bills out
to buy the program. I bought one so I could stare at Romeo that night when
I went to bed.

We had only five minutes between shows and as soon as the last patron left
the theatre, the ropes were dropped to let in the next crowd which had
filled the lobby and lined up outside along the side walk.

My first night in the theatre business was an eye opener in more ways than
one. We signed out at ten; I really enjoyed being nearly naked with Joe and
Ryan when we changed together.

I walked home thinking that I would enjoy working there. That night I would
be exercising wrist while I looked longingly at Romeo. Lustfully.  The end
of Chapter One.

The end of Chapter 1