What's Showing at the Drive In?

He was dark as I was pale. His eyes blue to my brown. He loved to laugh as much as I did and he was a great kisser. Brad was a junior and I was a senior. Long and lanky, his dark shock of hair falling across his clear blue eyes, he made me catch my breath each time he turned that radiant smile on me and took my fair hand in his large tan one. We were both middle children from large families that owned the then popular station wagon. My family had a monster coral color Chevy with large fins and cateye brake lights. Brad’s dad owned a squarish Ford Fairlane model that Brad had dubbed the “Black Bomb.” Neither of our families had enough money to provide a car for each new driver, so we traded off borrowing the family car. Brad liked to drive and we almost always took the Bomb to the drive in. It didn’t matter what was currently screening; that’s not why we went to the drive-in. I always wondered why Daddy smiled at my mother when he asked what was showing at the picture show the previous night and I had to think about what had actually been flashing up on that big movie screen. I miss the drive-in theatre. I could go, hang out with my honey and make out to my heart’s content. It was both public and private. Private enough to scrunch down in the seat so no one could see exactly what was going on, but also public enough to prevent me from going too far knowing anyone could walk by the car and peek in. It was especially nice on cold nights because the windows fogged up quickly and we could cover up under a blanket adding an extra note of discretion. One night when Brad came to pick me up, he asked if we could take my family’s car. I started to ask my mother but before I had the question formed, my mom answered from the other room. She was going to need the car that night. I sighed, rolled my eyes and we left. When I slid across the roomy bench seat, I asked why he wanted to take my parent’s car instead of the Bomb. Brad laughed and said that when his sister returned in the Bomb that afternoon, she informed everyone that the “stupid car” wouldn’t go into reverse. Brad had to put the Bomb in neutral and let her roll down the driveway. I didn’t realize the implications of this revelation until we got to the drive-in. A drive-in consists of several parallel rows of mounds with evenly spaced posts which held a speaker on a cord long enough to reach into the car and be rolled up in the window on the driver’s side. There was a skill to picking the correct space in the giant lot. You didn’t want to be too close to the screen, the kid’s playground, or the concession stand. You didn’t want a lot of foot traffic passing by your car giving the passersby a look into your car’s interior. It usually took a couple of tries to get correctly positioned between posts. We drove down the row we selected and turned into a slot. After Brad pulled the car up over the mound, he tried to put her into reverse. Oh, yeah, the Bomb won’t go backwards. Sighing, Brad pulled up to the next row and stopped a little too late, putting us too far over the bump and we couldn’t back up. There was already a car in the spot directly ahead so Brad tried to cut around and that put us at an awkward angle on that row. All this time, we were getting closer and closer to the screen and more cars were pouring into the lot filling up potential spots. We began to laugh as we realized that the other patrons were wondering what the hell we were doing, driving over the mounds, bounding up and down the mini-mountains, moving closer to the screen. Brad decided to try once more and we moved ahead another row. Now we couldn’t even see the top of the screen without craning our necks and we were awfully close to the playground. Brad pulled out onto the drive around and tried to scoot back a few rows to try again. We were met with headlights and honking horns, as most people were driving toward us. We just hunkered down in the seats to avoid the blinding headlights and waved at the oncoming traffic. Brad finally got us turned up a promising looking row and began searching for a space. He slowed the Bomb to a snail’s pace as he spotted a prime spot up ahead. Brad turned out in a broad arc and brought the Bomb perfectly into the space. He turned and smiled at me triumphantly, putting the car in park and rolling down the window. We both started laughing again when we realized why no one had taken this perfect view. The post was missing its speaker. Oh, well, we knew what Charlton Heston said to that planet full of apes. We could make up our own dialogue.