The Joke

“E – 13...” the voice crawled into my ear like a soggy finger. I turned and looked behind to see someone scurry quickly, a few rows back, through the seats, down the aisle and towards the exit. Before carrying on through the heavy maroon doors I saw their face turn towards me and I couldn’t see it well but I knew their eyes connected with mine, though I’m sure it’s untrue I truly felt as if I could see the yellowish glowing discs of some kind of animal’s eyes. They smiled, and went through.

“What is E - 13 supposed to mean,” I wondered to myself.

There were only four other people sitting in the theatre. The person must have been talking to me, as the other four audience members were split into two pairs, seated in the half of the theatre closer to the screen. I sat alone, near the back.

It was late and I was tired, but too restless to stay home. Unusually cold weather was blowing through early September days, bringing with it dark purple and blue clouds and rain.

E – 13… The lights slowly dimmed and the endlessly looping songs abruptly stopped and with a click the first trailer began.

The voice curled around in my brain, reverberating loudly.

The two couples were nestled closely to one another, keeping warm in the big cold room, whispering quietly in each other’s ears.

People should mind their own business. It’s a stupid thing to do, to bother someone like that. I could be disturbed, crazy and violent and to mutter such nonsense like that could cause a tragedy.

Only when I decided to inspect the armrest I was gripping and picking at with my left hand did I notice a small metal plate secured to it. It read E – 13. You can imagine how unhappy I was. A red worm crept up my throat and turned into a wet cough.

They couldn’t have known which seat I sat in. Even if they figured out I was in row E, the only way they could have figured out the exact seat would be to count all the way from the end of the row.

More worms sliding down sweat mudslides, pushing through desperately.

My hand slid down and felt the bottom of the seat all over. The floor, fine, only dust. Just to make sure I stood, crouched, and felt the cushion with both hands, pushing my fingers into the old spongy seat. Nothing obviously wrong with the chair.

I slid back into my seat and leaned back and tried to pay attention to the trailer: A bald man sitting alone in a car, crying. His daughter approaches the car and he sits up and wipes his eyes and tries not to cry.

Cut to a dinner scene at a big table where an attractive woman spills wine and apparently some kind of tension is broken and there is laughter.

Was the person insane? Did they get no other pleasure in life other than annoying lonely theatre-goers? Did they purchase a ticket, or was the management of the theatre allowing weirdos to wander as they pleased, harassing the paying customers?

A man wheels a boy out of a hospital in a wheelchair. He rolls down the halls of a school, and another boy pushes his head to the side and another steers the wheelchair into the bathroom and they push him in front of a toilet.

I stood and walked nimbly down the chairs. Not realizing how far apart the stairs down the aisle were, I stumbled, but caught myself before I fell.

A man kissed another man and another man walked into the room and the first two men stood up quickly.

In the hallway, I walked slowly and avoided eye contact with an usher who I’m sure smiled. I’d seen this one around the theatre before and he always made a point to act kindly.

The bathrooms were old with much of the murky brown tile missing corners and containing cracks.

I pulled out my penis but couldn’t pee, for another man walked up immediately after I took my stance by the urinal, and he grunted and leaned back and closed his eyes and tilted his head back so if his eyes were open, he’d be staring at the ceiling. He peed with a strong stream. I stood there until he walked away and finally peed when he turned on the sink.

After making sure he was gone, I checked all the stalls: empty. I contemplated walking into the women’s, which was right round the corner, but instead I crept close to the door and stood there long enough to hear any movement.

What else could I do? They were gone, either in another theatre, or gone completely.

There were reasons to tell the management of this person. I wasn’t crazy. They could be dangerous, creeping in the dark, watching the customers closely enough to know which seat out of hundreds they sat in.

I imagined them running up behind me, quietly, as I walked to the parking lot before smashing a brick on my head and rifling through my pockets, taking my jacket, leaving me unconscious and cold and bleeding in the rain.

The hallway smelled of garbage, popcorn in puddles of cola, rotting stacked four feet high in the garbage cans that lined it.

While taking a long drink from the drinking fountain, I started to calm down. It was a joke, of course. Surely the person was kidding around. A stupid joke, for sure, but in a cruel way, still funny.

I began walking down the hallway at a leisurely pace. The more I thought about the joke, the more funny it seemed. Before I knew it, I had walked through the big maroon doors and into the dark theatre.

The screen shined brightly and the dimmed lights completely extinguished. I stood in the doorway for a moment, confused. A great white shark swam huge and solitary through turquoise water.

A man was now sitting right around where I had sat before. Was this the right theatre? I thought about it and considered that I hadn’t been paying much attention when I had been walking down the hallway. After sneaking a quick peak outside the big doors, I was sure this was the right theatre.

Pairs of legs kicked beneath the surface of the water.

Unless the man was waiting for someone, he was all alone.

Walking slowly, making sure not to trip, I walked down the stairs. C, D, E- that’s where he sat, in the middle of row E.

He seemed not to notice me and was leaning his head far enough towards his popcorn bucket that he could stick out his tongue and the popcorn would stick to it, and recede into his chews. I stared with awe down the row, counting the chairs until I knew that he was sitting in my seat.

With a deep breath and a last look at the shark, I crept down row G, until I stood ten feet behind him and cleared my throat which had become coated with phlegm.

With a low but firm voice, I called out the letter and the number of the seat that he sat in and hurried towards the exit, only turning back to smile at him as I disappeared through the doors, laughing with myself.