THE OLD PLAZA THEATER
A beautiful young woman screamed as the masked maniac swung the ax.
Then the film trailer was over.
A moment later a worn out film ad for the snack bar was playing on the screen. It was a crudely done cartoon of talking hotdogs urging people to visit the snack bar before the next movie begun.
The Plaza Street Theater had been there forever it seem. It was an one screen theater on the less fashionable end of Broadway in downtown. It was between a vacant building and a restaurant supply store. At one time it was one of many movie theaters on the block. Now it was the only one left that was not playing adult movies.
The current owners knew nothing of the history of the movie theater. It had been built during the days of the silent movies and sometime during the 1930's the original owners sold the theater to the grandparents of the current owners who inherited it with the rest of the family fortune a few years back.
The heirs were surprised to learn that the family owned a movie theater among the rest of the many businesses that their family had interest in.
Only one family member ever dropped by the theater to look it over and check the books. After that a business manager made a phone call or sent a letter or two to the theater manager a few times a year.
Shortly before 6 in the morning the last movie ended. At 6 AM sharp Henry the janitor entered the theater and called out as loud as he could that it was closing time and all people still in the theater were to leave now.
He went along a shook awake the ones who were still sleeping. He hoped that he was not going to have to drag out any passed out drunks this morning. He wanted to get home quickly and have pancakes for breakfast.
Everyone still there wandered out of the movie theater to face the morning cold of downtown. They were carrying their knapsacks and blankets. Later on that night most of them would return to the theater to watch the movie again and get a spot to sleep out of the cold of the downtown city. Many of the cheap hotels these people use to sleep in were closed down by the city. The city counsel believed if they got rid of the cheap hotels that the homeless that slept in them would disappeared from the city.
Johnny Barman was the current manager of the theater. He took the job after college. He was 22 and figured it would be a good short term job to take till he was able to get something better more of his liking in a few months.
He was now 38 years old. Every New Years Eve he promised himself that he was going to quit his job at the movie theater and start his own business. He stopped believing himself a few years ago. His life centered around running the worn out old theater.
In many ways the old theater was his own business. He ran the day to day operations and owners were only a mysterious voice on the phone that called him up about once a year to see if they were still in business. Sometimes Barman wondered if there really was an owner. He was pretty sure there was because when he would look at the monthly bank statement someone was withdrawing most of the money he deposited into the business account. He always assume it was the home office taking it's share of the net after the bills were paid. He paid the staff and himself from the box office and snack bar profits.
Working at the theater for the summer was Betty Barman who was Johnny's oldest daughter at 17. She was a short busty blond girl who looked a lot like her mother. Like her mother she spent too much money using the credit cards. Johnny could not make his wife stop over spending but he could make his daughter work off the money she spent on school clothes that year.
Betty worked the snack bar with Janet Stone. Janet was an old time beatnik artist. She worked at the theater for rent money while she waited for her art to be discovered. She had been waiting for it to be discovered for almost 20 years since she came to work there in the late 50's.
Ben Chapson ran the ancient projectors of the Plaza Movie Theater for a bit over 30 years. The projection room was his second home up there on the upper level of the theater. The walls was covered with posters and ads from movies that played in the theater over the years.
Chapson locked himself in the projection room most of the time and rarely talked to the rest of the staff.
Most of the time he read from paperback novels as the movies played on screen. After seeing movies two are three times in a row he would become bored with them. He saw thousands of movies over the last 30 years.
He did not own a TV set and did not want to. Movies killed his desire to see films for entertainment. He liked to go to the museum and the library on his day off.
From the late 20's till the early 50's the theater ran mostly good features from the big studios that use to churn them out like a factory.
In the early 50's that changed. The theater started to play a lot of sci fi B movies and exploitation movies. The police once tried to shut them down for running a nudist camp documentary once. Now hard core films played in the few other theaters around them.
Now in the late 70's the theater ran a lot of the same exploitation movies that played in the drive ins.
One Monday morning Barman got one of his rare letters from the management company that over saw the theater for the current owners.
It was a short letter thank Barman and the staff for their years of service.
That was the first line. The next line inform Barman that the theater was to be closed in three month. The theater had been sold to the city as part of the plan to redevelop the downtown area.
This was the same redevelop plan that turned the theater late at night into a flop house for the homeless.
The letter inform Barman that he was to give notice to the staff and to sell anything in the theater that was not nailed down.
The letter upset Barman. He thought the very least them could have done was to give him a phone call to tell him.
On the last day the theater was open Barman was there at six in the morning to make sure that all was well before locking up the place.
He watched the men who slept over night in the worn out seats wander away into the streets of the city. He wondered where they would go tonight to sleep. Most of the other theaters closed at midnight.
Barman swept up the theater to make it tidy and then went up to the projection booth to see if Chapson was ready to go.
Barman found Chapson polishing the old projectors as if he was coming back that night to use them again.
They talked as Chapson finished working on the projectors.
Chapson told Barman that he was going to be 70 the next month. He was going to retire since he was sure no one would hire him at his age.
Before Chapson left the projection booth he told Barman that he wished he could take the projectors with him.
Barman walked around the theater one last time to make sure everything was in order before he locked up. He checked the bathrooms to make sure no one was sleeping in one of the stalls again.
He locked up the front door and walked toward the post office. He had to mail the keys to the management office.
He was still bitter that no one came down in person to over see the closing up of the theater.
A few years later when home video recorders became popular Barman open a video rental shop.
The theater sat empty for many years. Finally it was condemned by the city along with many other buildings on that end of the block. The city sold the land to a group of investors for very little money.
The theater and the rest of buildings on that end of the block were torn down and a large twenty screen mega theater was built there.
Within six months the large theater was closed down and the investors went bankrupt.
The End.
The Old Plaza Theater is Copyright 2011 By Teel. Not to be reprinted or re posted without permission.
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