Drive In

Drive In

The rules were straightforward and the same every time: Cooper pays for the movie, then the next time Joe, and after that Isaac, then it rotated back around to Cooper. The person paying lets in the other guys through the back door, the one near the east parking lot. Wait until the previews start just to be safe, otherwise the assistant manager with a stick up his ass might find out and they would be banned from the theater. And most important of all, the payer picks the movie. 

That was incentive enough to want to pay, especially for Joe, who hated wasting two hours of his life on the stupid movies Cooper inevitably chose. So Joe picked the newest Leonardo DiCaprio movie. How could anyone argue with that? 

But Joe’s thoughts of Leo melted away when he saw who was working at the ticket counter: Danny Spitz from school. Joe knew of Danny, obviously--who didn’t? But he didn’t actually know him all that well. They were in the same grade, had trig together last year, had a few mutual friends. They were in the relatively same social standing. Joe might have been to a party at Danny’s sophomore year, one of those huge ones where it wasn’t uncommon to not know who was actually throwing it.  

“Oh, hey, Danny,” he said, as if he hadn’t noticed Danny until just now. 

“What’s up. You seeing a movie by yourself?” he asked, not unkindly but suspiciously. If Danny and the rest of the theater staff were privy to their scam, Joe wouldn’t be surprised. 

“I’m meeting someone first. Saving seats, you know.” He cleared his throat. “Since when do you work here?” He definitely would have noticed if Danny worked at the theater, considering he came at least twice a month. Much more now that summer started a few weeks ago.  

“Since March. I just changed my shifts around recently.”

“Oh. Cool.” Joe felt slightly uncomfortable having someone his age wait on him. “Well--”

“Let me guess: you’re seeing the new Leo movie?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“That’s what everyone’s been seeing today,” Danny said as he rang up the total. “I’ve seen the credits for it at least five times when I clean up the dirty ass floors.”

Joe snorted, a little taken aback. Danny didn’t seem one for small talk, and this conversation was going beyond what was socially necessary. Not that Joe minded. 

“They play better movies at the drive-in, though,” said Danny. “Better than this place.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like old movies, though, not current ones.” Danny shrugged. “They’re not everyone’s thing, but whatever.”

“No, me too. Like old movies, I mean. Rear Window, Rebel Without A Cause, whatever.”

“They’re playing Jaws next week. It’s at nine, on Thursday night.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Psst!” Cooper and Isaac were peaking around the corner of the hallway where the theaters were, waving at Joe with exaggerated hand gestures, apparently having snuck in through the back doors when the last movie ended. 

Joe cursed under his breath, but fortunately, Danny was laughing. 

“Hey, how about that. I don’t remember selling them tickets. Weird.”

“I--”

“Hey, I don’t care. Not like I’ll get in trouble. The only other person working here today is Sean, and he’s too stoned to even look in this direction.” Danny jabbed a thumb over at the concession stand, where a scrawny mid-twenties guy was, sure enough, too stoned to notice the commotion. 

Joe thanked Danny quickly, cheeks burning, and hurried to the theater.

Apparently, Danny telling Joe about the existence of the Jaws showing at the drive-in was his way of inviting Joe to go along to it with him. Unsure how Danny even got his phone number, Joe received a text message the day before the movie: “It’s danny. Want to use my car for Jaws?”

Joe stared at his phone, dumfounded. He waited a cool four minutes to respond, then texted Danny his address and said: “sounds good.”

Danny texted back: “Be there at 8:30.”

At 8:37 the next night, an Acura pulled up in his driveway. In the hours before, Joe alternated between agonizing over what to wear and feeling silly for caring at all. Why should Danny notice what Joe was wearing? It would be dark, and they would be focused on the movie, and guys don’t notice what other guys wore, right?

Deciding on a jacket that his girlfriend Cathy said looked cute on him, Joe brushed past his parents’ questions about the car in the driveway and headed out. He thought maybe Danny would have brought some of his other friends, but it was just Danny. 

Danny’s brown hair was damp, like he had just showered. “What’s up.” 

“Nice car,” Joe said. He climbed into the passenger seat. 

Danny reversed out of the driveway carefully, sliding into the warm and buzzing night air. 

While deciding what to wear, Joe had also worried about what to talk about with Danny, because from what he saw of him in class or in the cafeteria, Danny was perhaps the most taciturn person Joe knew besides himself. But now Danny mostly went on about Jaws and its history and behind the scenes tidbits, so Joe listened to him. He’d never seen Danny so amped about anything and didn’t want to disturb his flow. 

At one point, though, Danny said, “How’s Cathy?”

“Fine. She’s taking a summer class at Vassar, so she’s pretty busy.” 

The drive in was filled with couples there on a date, packs of four or five 

preteen girls, and families with grade school age kids, but if there were any cars with just two teenage boys, Joe didn’t see them. If Danny noticed too, he didn’t let on. They sat quietly in the car, Danny obviously paying close attention to the movie, and so Joe did the same. 

Next Thursday was Raiders of the Lost Ark, and neither of them were busy so they went again, and then Ghostbusters, and by then it seemed weird to skip the newly formed tradition, so they didn’t. After The Terminator they were both hungry afterwards, so grabbed Taco Bell, and then that became another tradition. Or another time Danny would think of something he forgot to say to Joe in person, so Danny would call him and they would talk late into the night, and then that would happen at least three nights a week, and Joe would wake up with his phone buried in his covers, the battery drained.  

As the summer wore on and Joe spent increasingly more time with Danny, the unresponded texts and rejected requests to hangout from his other friends piled up and up. It wasn’t that Joe didn’t think to invite Danny along, to properly introduce him to his other friends. But Danny felt like a secret, something he didn’t want to share and didn’t see why he had to. And the fact that Danny never brought any of his own friends to meet Joe just confirmed to him that Danny felt the same. 

As for Cathy, Joe didn’t necessarily want to blow her off. Cathy was nice. They got along well. She was good to him. 

Which was why he surprised himself with how readily the lie poured out of him when, one Tuesday morning, as Joe spoke to Cathy on the phone, he rejected her request to go out to dinner that night, saying he was too bogged down with homework from his SAT prep class. After he hung up the phone he sat there a moment, shocked with himself. There was no reason he had to hang out with Danny that night--at that point in the summer they saw each other plenty. What was one dinner with his girlfriend?  

And yet the lie happened anyway, and he and Danny found themselves at Target on that Tuesday night, high, standing in the toy aisle, when a familiar voice said from behind them, “Joe?”

“Joseph?” Cathy held a shopping basket at her side. She squinted at him, then at Danny. “Danny? Hey. What are you guys doing here? I thought you had SAT prep.”

“Yeah, I finished early. My mom needed milk.” Joe showed her the quart of milk. At least that part was semi-believable. 

“Oh.” Cathy squinted again, and Joe struggled to keep himself from fidgeting. “Are you high?”

Now Danny was giggling. “Sort of. A little.” While Cathy stared at him some more, he added, “And, you know, Cath, I thought you would have already made plans without me, so I didn’t want to bother you.”

After a moment she shrugged, all smiles now. “Okay. I better check out, I’m running late. Call me later?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Cathy kissed him on the cheek and walked away. Joe could feel Danny’s eyes on him before he even turned around. 

“SAT prep?”

He hid his face in the Hot Wheels section. “We’ve been having some problems.”

“Like what?”

“It’s hard to explain.” 

“Why don’t you just break up with her, then?” 

“I don’t know. We’ve been together so long, it would feel weird. . . .”

 That was part of it, but no matter how close to Danny he felt now, he didn’t want to tell him that, a few months ago, he and Cathy had sex for the first time, and what kind of guy breaks up with his girl so soon after having sex with her? It would seem like that had been all he’d wanted from their relationship, even though they’d been dating since eighth grade. So Danny just raised his eyebrows at Joe’s noncommittal response and that was that. 

Two weeks before school started, Danny wanted to throw a party at his house, on a weekend where his parents would be away on an anniversary trip. Danny, complaining about his sister using all the hot water in the mornings, had said, “Well, at least she’s leaving for college soon. Oh yeah. I wanna have a party. Do you think people would come?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thrown one for a while. And isn’t Justin usually the one who throws end of summer parties?“ 

Joe lay sprawled across his bed, phone next to him on speaker; after two hours his arm grew tired. 

“He doesn’t have to be the only one,” Joe said. “Just make sure people know about it soon, then he won’t have one because you’re having one.” 

“Okay. Hawaiian theme? My sister left behind this inflatable palm tree. And you’d look good in a Hawaiian shirt.” 

Joe wondered if Danny noticed his brief pause before replying, “Yeah, sounds good to me.” He hung up, hands shaking slightly. 

Joe had a decision to make now. He’d already blown off Cooper and Isaac dozens of times, but a party seemed like a weird thing to skip out on with them; the movies or video games in Isaac’s basement were one thing. But a party? Who else did you go to a party with, besides your supposed best friends? And as for Cathy, once again he felt the compulsion to lie to her, because a drunk Cathy would leave him alone all night.  

The Cathy problem was solved easily; she had her sister’s birthday that day and didn’t think she could come. But when Cooper and Isaac messaged him about it, Joe’s thumb’s hesitated over the screen. They might expect him to hang out with them for most of the night, maybe even leave early to go smoke or get food or something. He needed to blow them off, but subtly. 

So he messaged: “ill meet you guys there”

Danny lived in a large farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, making it very conducive to parties. There were no neighbors for three miles besides cows. Joe arrived later than he had wanted to, having wasted time showering for almost thirty minutes, choosing what to wear, and refilling his mom’s gin bottle with water to replace what he stole for his flask. By the time he arrived the front yard was strewn with parked cars, and the living room was half full of people already a few drinks deep. Most of the guests Joe recognized from school, with a few random groups of people Danny probably knew from basketball and from the youth group his parents forced him to attend. He looked briefly for Cooper and Isaac, and, after not seeing them, was startled by the relief he felt. 

He found Danny in the kitchen, holding a Corona bottle by its neck. He wore a red shirt printed with pineapples wearing sunglasses. His cheeks were flushed. He smiled at Joe and said, “Hey. Let’s get you a drink. The night is young.”

 After three rounds of beer pong with Danny, Joe had a moderate buzz. It was at the point in the night when people decided to either keep sober up enough to sneak home past their curfews, or keep drinking to the point of having to crash at Danny’s house. Throughout the course of the night Danny had to leave to talk to his guests, so Joe drifted away to talk to other people, vigilant for the sight of Cooper and Isaac. 

“Hey,” Danny said from behind him some time later. Joe finished filling his cup with lukewarm beer and turned to face him.

Danny lowered his voice. “My sister gave me some of her weed before she left.”

And that was how Joe found himself in Danny’s bedroom, the two of them alone. Together. They usually hung out at Joe’s own home because it was closer to town, so Joe had only been in Danny’s room once, briefly, while Danny grabbed something or other he needed, Joe didn’t remember. He had only been focused on wanting to stay longer in the bedroom, to be able to study Danny’s innermost sanctum.  

But here he was now. There were posters of Pulp Fiction and The Blues Brothers, a shelf of basketball trophies, a pile of laundry on the desk chair. The blue bedspread was smoothed down in attempt to make the bed look made. It was the most ordinary teenage boy’s room Joe could possibly imagine, yet he wanted to memorize every detail. 

Now he was sitting on Danny’s bed. With Danny. How many times had the two of them sat on Joe’s couch together, or even on Joe’s own bed, smoking and talking as they were now? But now something felt fundamentally different. Maybe it was the party around them, the way the closed door blocked out the noise of the party and created a separate dimension from not only the rest of the party but the rest of the universe. 

Or maybe it was just the beer. 

Danny rolled a joint. 

“See, I told you a lot of people would show up,” Joe said. 

“And I told you I throw a good party,” Danny said with a grin. He took a hit of the joint. “Is Cathy coming tonight?”

“No. Her sister’s birthday.”

Danny passed Joe the joint, smoke drifting above their heads. “You crashing here?”

“Yeah. You mind? I drove.”

“Yeah, duh.”

They talked more, random threads of conversation Joe forgot as soon as they were spoken, the beer and weed painting everything in pleasant, broad strokes. Then there was a pause, and later, no matter how many times he replayed the incident in his mind--and there were many times--Joe could never remember the few seconds before they kissed. He couldn’t remember leaning in towards Danny, or even who made the first move. 

But he remembered everything else, like the way Danny’s mouth was cold and tasted like beer, not unpleasantly. The way Danny grabbed him by the front of his Hawaiian shirt and yanked him forward with so much force their lips smashed together. He remembered thinking, This isn’t like kissing a girl at all. 

And as much as he wanted to forget, he remembered the muted voice outside the bedroom door, saying coyly, “What are you doing in here without me?” 

Cathy stood in the doorway, her smile turning down slowly and her face paling when she realized what she was seeing. Joe expected something --- a scream, a tantrum, a full on freak out --- but she only closed the door and hurried away. 

Danny had got up from the bed by now. He stood, pacing around, muttering, “Great, great, just great.” He fumbled with his belt buckle. Joe hadn’t realized until then that both their belts were off. His shirt was unbuttoned.

“I thought you said she wouldn’t be here tonight.” 

Joe shrugged. “She must have got out of whatever she had.”

“Great, well. . . . . great.” 

Joe had not felt angry towards Danny during their entire friendship, until now. He didn’t like how unfamiliar it was. “You’re the one that didn’t lock the door, dumbass.” 

After successfully buckling his belt on the fourth try, Danny left without a word. Joe wanted to follow him, reassure him, tell him Cathy would probably be too embarrassed to tell anyone, but he thought it best to keep away from Danny for now. In fact Danny probably wanted Joe to leave his house entirely. 

And Joe would do that, in a moment. There was no point in staying anymore. But before the reality of the situation --- the inevitability of facing Danny at school, of explaining himself to Cathy --- caught up with him, he wanted to feel victorious. Needed to. Because he’d had a victory, in a way, even if it would be the only one he would ever have with Danny. As long as he didn’t leave this room it would still exist.

He deserved that much, right?   

So Joe flopped back onto Danny’s bed, staring up at the white popcorn ceiling, the bass from an 80s pop song thumping through him.