J Goes to the Movies

I settle into the theatre seat next to my cutie-pie. We’re at the premier of A History of Violence (free tickets, woo hoo) and looking forward to it. Then, to our dismay, we see him: it’s J.

I use his initial only here, because I don’t want to ruin his relationship with his girlfriend by revealing his full name and his infidelity to her in the same article. That’s right: J is not just awkward, boring, and irritating, he’s also unfaithful and dishonest.

Worse, he was a bad friend to a good friend of ours. So there is really no mercy here – nothing to stop me from making fun of, say, his belief that the flair he wears has to be symmetrical. “I have to wear this metal bracelet on my right arm”, he told me earnestly when we first met months ago, “because I have a metal earring in my left ear”.

I pointed out that he had a Transformers Autobot patch on his pants but nothing to counterbalance it. He deflected my criticism deftly, revealing the Decepticons armband he was wearing under his shirt. He had proven his symmetry at the cost of his dignity. We all have to make sacrifices for the things that are most important to us, I suppose.

Now, we are sitting directly behind him. “Shhhhh”, my date whispers. “Don’t let him know we’re here.” Fine by me. The show is about to start anyways, because the woman who’d been plastering Y108 posters around the theatre is about to get things going.

From the front of the theatre she nervously announces what we all know already: she’s from Y108. The good part is that she’s going to give away prizes based on correctly answering trivia questions (doing so at a premier last week had landed us the tickets to tonight’s show, so we are ready for action).

She explains that if you know the answer to the question, you need to stand up so she can point to you and you can shout it out.

“Who did Viggo Mortenson co-star with in Apollo 13?” she asks.

J jumps up along with various other hopeful theatre-goers. “You, in the black shirt and black toque”, she says, pointing directly at him.

“Me? Me?” he asks, looking behind him to see who else might be wearing his outfit. But no one else is wearing a winter hat in September. It’s his lucky day.

More hesitation, more awkward mumbling, cut short as he calls out triumphantly, “Apollo 13!”

The theatre is silent. Instead of answering, he’s just repeated part of the question. Everyone is confused. No one more so, it seems, then the promoter who asked the question in the first place.

“Good job,” she says, “come on down and get your prize.”

It really is J’s lucky day. Not only was he picked to answer, he answered wrong and got away with it, much to the consternation of everyone else. The theatre is awash with discontented grumbling. “Ed Harris!” shrieks a woman indignantly. She had stood up at the same time as J and damnit, she wants her rightful prize. “ED HARRIS!”

The promoter woman starts to catch on. “Wait a second…did you say Apollo 13?” But it’s too late. J is already back in his seat and even though he now knows he was in the wrong, there is no easy exit for him. No one asks him to return the tickets, which he is caressing nervously. A light red flush colors the back of his neck. He is hoping the promoter will just move on.

She does. “What trilogy did Viggo Mortenson previously star in?” she asks. I leap to my feet and bellow “APOLLO 13!” Laughter follows. “Fine,” J says, turning in his seat. “Go head and take my – ” He falls slient as he recognizes me. I look him in the eye and he turns back around.

Take that, you cheating symmetrical bastard.

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Dedicated to C. You know who you are, we love you.