Third and Final In a Series about Saturdays

On Tuesday nights I sneak Alex into my film class. Once a week, we flash student IDs at the door and disappear into the front middle seats. Joan Crawford, in Mildred Pierce, the night the storm catches us. We share a jacket, but enter the theater soaked, freezing. The professor mentions how Joan attended college across town at Stephens. A few minor cheers erupt from the back.

I think it’s Eve Arden’s character who says, ‘Leave something on me, I might catch cold,’ and I undress Alex with my eyes, explaining the joke.

It’s still raining at the end of the movie.

Those old actors lived in different times, and it annoys me when the teacher tries to make too many comparisons to today. Almost a different species, and it feels like anthropomorphizing cartoons. Like forgotten memories of youth, the tiny body that occupied your current name couldn’t have possibly known what it’s like to feel human.

I have a dream around 1982 that my cousin dies. What I remember about childhood is having vibrant nightmares, almost every night, and being taught that to control my dreams means I have a special gift. I cannot, but I know that children with those kinds of abilities are revered, so I lie. But I slip one day and tell about my cousin. The psychologist will explain away those dreams as common household fears, but my aunt calls and lets us know that she’s miscarried the day before. For a moment, anyway, I have that special gift.

There isn’t much yelling on that particular Saturday, but the calm is much like the overflow tank of a water heater. It builds into the night, exploding at the very littlest word. We are marched, the two of us, the last line of marital defense with promises of good behavior. The gambit fails, and the one parent sleeps outside in the car, while the other broods. Even misbehaved children smell anger, and I risk a later beating to avoid the abuse tonight. It’s raining outside.

Alex and I run to the car. We are desperately poor, and between my scholarship and her minimal wages, we scrape together enough once a week for a burger joint after the old movies. We drive through the hills imitating those old time actors, almost all of whom are dead, creating our own lines in their voices. “Look now upon you own amber waves of grain,” “Welcome to the future! The weather is fine!”. We share stories about growing up, putting as nice a tint to them as we possibly can, not wanting to ruin the present, as so many childhood presents are. We park, because it’s a brief rain, not like what we have here in the Pacific Northwest; heavy, burdened rains and intermittent crashes of thunder, like fits of grief and anger. We only leave when the dampness of the air has settled, the fireflies of the fields reflecting the stars of the clearing sky.