Typical Day
It's 2:00PM, and John's phone alarm begins to play. "Morning Mood" by Edvard Grieg has never sounded more like anti-aircraft gunfire. He groans loudly and thrashes his arm across the upside-down cardboard box he's using as a nightstand. No luck finding his phone.
Suddenly, John remembers. Before going to bed just four hours prior, he'd decided to leave the phone in his sock drawer across the room, having (correctly) predicted this exact situation. He roars at the ceiling, cursing his own thoughtful responsibility. The ceiling does not reply, so John gets up. Once he's on his feet, there's no turning back. The alarm in the sock drawer has done its job.
John kills the alarm and walks to his closet where he swats at two shirts hanging from the dowel. Neither is his uniform.
"Matt!" he yells at the wall. "You take my uniform?" His roommate does not reply.
John stomps into the hallway, and pokes his head into a nearby room. He sees Matt lying on top of an unmade bed, fully clothed. "Matt," he says. "Matt!"
"I washed it," Matt mumbles.
John leaves him, and heads downstairs to the utility closet. Matt works at the same movie theater, and has a habit of stealing John's uniform in a pinch. "But at least he washed it for me this time," John thinks, opening the dryer.
There's nothing there.
"Ma—" he begins to yell. Then he sighs and drops his forehead into an open hand. He knows where his shirt is.
"Man..." he says, pulling his shirt from the adjoining washing machine, still wet from yesterday's spin cycle. There's no use yelling at Matt about this now. If he doesn't leave soon, he's going to be late for work
After giving it a couple of shakes, John wriggles into the damp. It feels...icky. Taking his keys from the counter, he walks outside to the curb and unlocks his 1992 Pontiac Bonneville. It coughs to life as he turns the ignition.
Despite the Florida summer heat, John drives to the theater with the car heater on full blast, hoping it will speed dry his shirt. He can't tell if it's working; as the water dries, he sweats in its place.
He arrives on time for his 3:30PM shift, and says hi to Belle and Raymond behind concession as he signs into one of the sales terminals with his username and password.
Belle raises an eyebrow at the state of John's shirt. "I know it's hot out there," she says, "but—"
"Where's Tim?" John asks.
"Out to lunch," Raymond answers. "Again."
Tim is the theater manager, and the only person on staff who might get John in trouble for the state of his uniform. With him out on break, the shirt has a chance to dry. A stroke of luck.
Belle shakes her head and moves to help a customer approaching the counter.
"What's out?' John asks.
"Just two," Raymond says, pointing toward the center auditorium.
John nods, grabs a small broom and dustpan, and heads in to the theater. Theater two is not very large, seating only 120 people at capacity. Still, the last film shown was a kids' movie, making disaster inevitable. Sure enough, nearly every seat is covered in spilled soda and casually discarded pieces of trash.
This sort of behavior always confuses John; adults don't generally make a large mess, and yet their children generally do. If they know not to leave trash behind, why wouldn't they teach their kids that? It's an easy thought to have while scraping gummy bears out of cup holders with a screwdriver.
He finishes in about fifteen minutes, just in time to head back behind the counter to help sell tickets for an upcoming show. After the bulk of the line is gone, he moves into position at the front. Once there, his job is to confirm that moviegoers have tickets before being allowed into his newly cleaned auditorium.
The job feels unnecessary to John; after all, in a theater as small as his, he can actually see people purchase their admission before walking over to him. Still, he doesn't complain. He could be stuck flipping burgers like his girlfriend, Sam.
The line dies, and John moves back to the concession area. Tim's back, but fails to acknowledge John's presence, let alone inspect his shirt. Instead, he lumbers off to the office to, as he says, "work." John and the rest of the staff are fairly certain he just reads sports news up there, but nobody says anything. The job's neither wonderful nor terrible, so what would be the point in rocking the boat?
John survives a few more rounds of cleaning and ticket-taking before heading up to the projection booth for a half-hour break. The room is dark, empty, and mostly quiet but for the calming, constant hum of the projection equipment. He makes his way in the dark to the back where he and the other staffers have hidden a canvas sports chair in the broom closet. He brings it out, unfolds it, sets an alarm, sits, and passes out.
His dreams don't involve the job; he already knows exactly what the rest of this shift will bring, and tomorrow's, too. Instead, he dreams about making movies of his own, and one day popping into a small theater just like this one to see the kid in the wet shirt making minimum wage guide moviegoers into their seats.
The seats face a giant, wall-sized projection of a film that ends with his name in the credits. He dreams about a time where he can afford to rent his own place, and doesn't have to live with Matt anymore.
Half an hour passes, and his phone alarm goes off—"Morning Mood" again. Only this time, it doesn't sound so bad. He folds up the chair, heads back down to the theater floor, and checks tickets until 11:00PM.