My Love/Hate relationship with the Drive In Movie

When I was a small child families used to cram into the station wagon and head out for a double feature at the drive in for an evening's entertainment.  Especially at any theater that provided a 'carload' or family rate -  this was bargain entertainment - two movies, maybe a cooler full of sodas or juice, and one big bag of popcorn probably didn't even set you back $10.  My parents used to take us to Disney movies - usually the first film was an older one and then the main attraction was the current Disney hit.  I saw a lot of Kurt Russell movies as a small child that way, and one in particular is very memorable.  I think it was my 5th birthday that we went to the drive in rather than a sit down dinner and then an indoor film. My parents always took the whole family out for my birthday since it was a holiday (New Year's Eve).   Hardly drive in season, but right after Christmas one imagines in a family of 9 funds might have been running short before payday.  That 5th birthday was also the last one before my cousin started joining me every year and sleeping over at our house for New Year's, so she was spared the crowded station wagon on a freezing late December night.

My first Kurt Russell movie was an older film, a black and white one, if memory serves, that was running before the main attraction.  It was called "Follow Me Boys" and starred Fred MacMurray as a scoutmaster.  Innocent times those were.  Anyway, we had a Rambler station wagon at the time and because it was my birthday I got to ride in the middle and not the way back and I chose the seat next to the passenger side door.  I hated getting squished in the middle.  It was cold though and I think we were all complaining about how cold it was so my mom went to the snack bar to get us all hot cocoas.  While she was gone my older sister moved the old speakers they used to have to attach to your car window from the backseat window - mine - to the front seat, so she could hear better.  My mom returned soon with a cardboard box full of paper cups brimming with hot cocoa.  She handed one cup to my sister up front and then began to hand the box to me so we could pass out the remaining cups among the four of us who were in the middle seat (my younger sister was already asleep in the way back).  But, my window was rolled up a little because we'd had the speaker hanging from it, and as my mom passed the box through it didn't clear the opening.  I remember a sensation similar to what I'd felt a year earlier when I'd been scalded down my back when I ran into my mom carrying a large coffee urn out of the kitchen, only this time it was in my lap.  I expect I must have screamed, but I don't remember that at all, I just remember looking down at my lap and it was soaked through with hot cocoa.  My mother yanked open the car door and my father jumped out of the driver's seat.  Now, my mom was a little person, five foot two at the apex of her growing days, but long before my dad got around to our side of the car she had yanked me up into the air with just one arm, got her other arm underneath me and she began to sprint toward the public restroom next to the snack bar.  In the annals of Kelly's birthdays - this one does not finish first on the disaster scale - but it is in the top five.  What happened next should have been a blur to a child so young and who was probably already in shock, but it panned out in very slow motion for me as she pulled me into the crowded restroom, yanked off my clothes and in front of a number of girls and women I hope I never actually saw again who happened to be waiting in line for the stalls - began to hose me down by running a couple of the sinks at once and shoveling water all over me.  I'm not sure if I blacked out from pain or an abortive suicide by embarrassment, but my next memory is of me laid out along the way back bench wrapped loosely in damp paper towels and my older sisters' school sweater, staring up at the ceiling of the car as my father backed out recklessly and peeled down the lane at the drive in on our way to the hospital, all while at least two of my sisters were crying and asking why we had to leave before the main feature... It was a long time before I would venture back to the drive in theater.

But I do remember being convinced to go to the drive in with a bunch of my high school friends my freshman year.  We went to girls' school and there were packets of siblings who all hung out together.  I remember being very honored to be asked by none other than Bobbie Biggi, older sister of my friend Debbie, to serve as a last minute replacement in a crew that was headed out one Friday night in the spring of 1977.  Bobbie Biggi was a senior, and I was scared to death of her.  I didn't realize it at the time, but she had a major case of middle child syndrome, and you needed to cut her a wide swath.  But, she asked me and I said okay.  My own older sister, also a senior, did not go with us as she always had a boyfriend and didn't usually go on these outings.  Bobbie and Debbie picked me up first that night in their 'vintage' Plymouth Belvedere, a huge off white monstrosity that probably got about 5 miles to the gallon.  Next we went out to get Michaela Bashford, a junior who had transferred to Mercy High School that year.  Then it was over to the Lallys, where we picked up Teresa, a senior, Rose, a junior, and Bernadette, a sophomore.  We drove south down Watt Avenue from the Lallys toward Highway 50 and pulled into a grocery store parking lot near La Riviera Drive.  Bobbie ordered us all out of the car and went around back and opened the trunk.  She took a long look at us and then turned to me and said, "Little Boyd, you get shotgun."  Thrilled, I ran around and jumped in.  A few minutes later the trunk closed and Teresa Lally got into the back seat of the car.  I knew better than to ask where Debbie, Rose Marie, Micki and Bernadette were, and my joy over being granted the honor of sitting in the front seat of Bobbie's car faded as we pulled out of the parking lot and the rear bumper scraped the sidewalk.  I knew I was ballast, chosen for my unique ability to offset more of the rear load.  Bobbie turned to me as we neared the entrance to the Sacramento Drive In and told me to keep my mouth shut and nod in agreement to anything she said.  She towered over me physically, and as my first encounter with her years ago when we dropped my older sister off at their house had been to see her on her family's front lawn with her mouth taped shut over the particular brand of backtalk she'd given her mother at dinner, I assumed she was every bit the bad ass I feared her to be.  I nodded silent assent.  It was not my intent to ride home in the trunk.

As we pulled up to the pay window Bobbie held out six dollars to the clerk, two for each of us in the car.  Teresa in the backseat sunk down as far as she could.

"Your car's riding pretty low in back, sister."  The clerk commented, as I attempted not to swallow my own tongue, which seemed suddenly very dry and too large for my mouth.
"It's a crap car.  Suspension's shot.  And my dad keeps his tool box in the trunk."  Bobbie snapped, staring the guy directly in the eyes.
"Well, I'm going to need you to open it up so I can be sure you're not trying to sneak anyone into the movie."  He said as he began to step out of his little cage.
Bobbie slammed her hand against the dash board and turned the car off, yanking her key out of the ignition.  I imagined two Lallys, a Bashford and the younger Biggi closing their eyes and trying to appear invisible.  But, Bobbie held the car key out the window toward the clerk and hissed at him.
"My freaking father doesn't trust me with the key to his trunk and his expensive tools.  All I have is the ignition key.  Want to give it a try?"
"Hey, no key - no admission."  He handed her back the six dollars.  "You don't get in until I see what's in your trunk."
"Fine!"  Bobbie was really pissed.  "I will drive all the freaking way home and get you the key.  Asshole."

Bobbie drove us out of the parking lot and around the side of the huge chain link fence along the perimeter of the six screen drive in complex.  She pulled off to the side along a row of warehouses and got out.  She opened the trunk with the key from her jeans pocket and let everyone out.  They were instructed to scale the fence and meet us inside in five minutes.  Everyone looked happy to be alive and breathing fresh air and none of them complained.  Bobbie told Teresa to get up front with me and I slid toward the middle of the bench seat, reluctantly.  It was my first encounter with Stockholm Syndrome.  Bobbie drove the car back into the line for the drive in and in a few minutes we were back up at the same window.

"That was fast," the clerk, a guy in his 30s who had grey in his hair and lots of pock marks on his face, said to Bobbie as he eyed the horizon on the vehicle from front to back.  "Where do you live, in a warehouse?"

"So funny I forgot to laugh."  Bobbie retorted, handing him the trunk key.
"Trunk seems to be riding a lot higher too."  He commented as he took the key and headed toward the back of the vehicle.  It was taking all of my concentration not to pee out of sheer panic and fear.  Teresa Lally's arm was totally clammy rubbing up against mine too.  Her eyes were wide and focused on the area beyond the hood of the car.
"Yeah, I told you my dad doesn't trust me with his tools, asshole.  He took them.  Now there's nothing back there to offset tubby here."  She said, cocking her thumb towards me.
The guy opened the trunk and took a good, long look.  When he came back around her told Bobbie he was issuing three tickets for our six dollars and that when he had security come and check our car against our tickets later, there'd better only be three people in it.  Bobbie complained that we were meeting friends inside whose parents had brought them and he said they'd better have tickets or we were all going to be thrown out and would probably go to jail.  I couldn't breathe and the oldest Lally sister looked ready to faint, but Bobbie flipped him the bird and peeled out toward screen number 2. 

When she parked the car, in the middle of the middle row of lot number 2, she turned to me, handed me a flashlight she retrieved from under the driver's seat and told me to go get four tickets, pronto, unless I wanted to walk home now because ticket number 3 was going to her sister.  I stared down at the flashlight as Teresa eagerly let me out of the car.  I had no idea what to do, but I realized within seconds that necessity is not the mother of invention, fear of having your ass kicked by Bobbie Biggi is the mother of invention.  I walked off down the row and spotted a car parked away from the others, with a couple making out in its front seat.  I took in a deep breath, hoisted the flashlight in through the driver's open window and told them I was going to need to see both of their tickets, and maybe their IDs.  They nervously handed over their receipt and while the boy started fumbling in his wallet, I told him that would be okay, but this was a family drive in and we were getting complaints.  I found my next victims a few rows over and had my four tickets in less than three minutes. 

I have no idea what movie we saw that night.  I do remember that the six dollars plus the extra eight for popcorn and three drinks to share, came from me and the trunk dwellers, and Teresa Lally forked over two dollars for gas money.  We had a good time though, all in all, and we all still hung out together a lot of the time - maybe not so much at the drive in though. 

I remember distinctly when I'd arrived home that night from the movies my mom was waiting up in her barcalounger next to the front door, as always, and she asked me if I'd had a good time.  I nodded, still nauseous from stress, and started up the stairway toward the bedroom I shared with my younger sister.  My mother called after me to be mindful that good families like the Biggis and Lallys were used to the very refined and thoughtful way my older sister Maureen behaved around their older children, and I was not to mess up these important connections with the best families in school by falling into the sort of hijinks I was prone to getting into with my high energy level.

As the years passed many people were sad to see the drive in theaters begin to disappear, realizing that as they fell into disrepair, were converted to flea markets, or were torn down completely, we were witnessing an era passed into history.  I don't count myself among that sentimental lot.  On days when I commute down highway 50 and catch sight of the still operating Sacramento six drive ins, a chill sometimes catches me, and then a slow burn.