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“What about hot dogs at ballparks?” one friend challenges.
“Not even close. Hot dogs are eaten in plenty of other places. But I would guess that over ninety percent of the popcorn eaten in America is eaten at movie theaters, or in front of movies at home. No other foodstuff comes close.”
Ryan smirks at Avery.No other foodstuff comes close. If Avery is excited about plunging into collegiate queerdom, Ryan is more skeptical; to him, college appears to be as full of poses as high school. They’re just different poses. Ormaybe the same poses with a wider vocabulary. Ryan can’t tell. He’s also pretty sure that being skeptical of poses is a pose in itself, so it’s not as if he’s setting himself apart. Skepticism is just how his nervousness manifests itself.
They get to the front of the line without having discussed what they want. After they caucus, Ryan orders a large bucket of bottered popcorn and two not-even-close-to-calorically-compensating Diet Cokes.
As the concession stand worker (their age, forlorn) scoops the popcorn from its glass cage, Avery asks Ryan, “Did you saybotteredpopcorn?”
Ryan smiles. “Yeah. That’s what my dad calls it. Because it’s not, y’know, butter.Batteredpopcorn sounds abusive and/or deep-fried.Betteredpopcorn just isn’t true. Andbitteredpopcorn isn’t what the taste buds want to experience.”
“Sobotteredit is.”
“Yup.Botteredit is.”
Avery gestures to the concession stand worker, who is cursing at the soda dispenser. “They don’t look particularly bottered by your order.”
“Wow. You went there.”
There’s a brief skirmish when Ryan takes his wallet out before Avery can do the same. The popcorn is handed over, and Avery exclaims, “Ooh…it’s hotandbottered!”
Ryan groans.
“You started it,” Avery points out.
“But how to end it?” Ryan ponders.
“With kisses,” Avery says. “Always with kisses.”
“Awwwww,” a college kid with mascara to spare says from behind them.
Even though it’s well into twilight, Ryan can see Avery’s endearing self-consciousness. Were he not carrying a big bucket of popcorn, he’d take Avery’s hand back in his and parade to the truck.Let the world see us,he feels, and feels it so strongly, so naturally, that he doesn’t even realize he’s never felt it before.
An announcement that the movie will begin in five minutes is greeted with a cheer. As Avery makes sure their popcorn and sodas don’t fall to the ground, Ryan retrieves the blankets he’s brought and fashions a cocoon in the back of the pickup. Avery hands over the concessions, then climbs in beside him. Their legs are covered, swaddled. Ryan raises his arm so Avery can lean in.
This is new. Closeness. Warmth. The blurring of bodily borders. It’s never a perfect fit. There are always limbs that might go numb. Hair in the mouth. An unsureness of where to put one’s breath. Sweat that comes with the warmth. Especially in places that don’t usually sweat, like fingers. But the discomfort, the condensation, the awkwardness of appendages—these are all slight compared to the greater laws of togetherness. While Ryan and Avery are conscious of their smaller, graceless movements, they are conscious of them without truly feeling them. What they feel instead is the communion that occurs when the orbiting ends and they find themselves as the center, the convergence of not just their bodies, but their lives.
It is not that everyone else at the drive-in disappears; they simply become less important. It is not that the night isn’t a little too cold and the back of the truck isn’t four pillows short of being plush; it’s simply that the accommodations are beside the point.
While the Diet Cokes will each remain in their respective corners of the flatbed, the bucket of popcorn is pulled into the cocoon, spanning both boys’ laps. The welcome reel announces itself onto the screen, a parade of happy hot dogs shaking their buns, spritely sodas twirling their straws, and cavalries of ice cream cups thrusting plastic spoons aloft like proper majorettes. It’s the same opening that Ryan’s and Avery’s parents or even their grandparents might have seen on their own drive-in dates, so uncool it’s become cool again.
Someone three cars over accidentally leans against a horn, and in response four other cars honk along. Avery laughs, while Ryan is glad he wasn’t the person who leaned on the horn in the first place.
The movie begins, and there is another cheer, followed in a matter of seconds by complete silence. All that can be heard is the dialogue and the score, traveling across the air from the speakers hooked to the parking poles.
When I found you, I wasn’t even sure I was me,the voice-over begins as one of the main characters runs into a hospital, asking for help for their frail grandmother. The young nurse is kind and professional, and about the same age as the grandchild. Once the grandmother is taken care of, the nurse and the grandchild keep talking.
I was afraid that how you saw me would never compare to how I saw you.
The grandmother is fine. She hadn’t eaten, felt faint. Before the grandchild leaves the hospital, they ask the nurse if the conversation the two of them have started can continue. That’s how the grandchild says it, that they want the conversation to continue. The nurse appreciates the way this is said, and the conversation continues. The next day, the two of them meet for coffee. The nurse is still in their uniform. The grandchild, who wants to be a photographer but works at the admissions desk of an unpopular museum, has worn a tie, thinking it will make a good impression. It is awkward at first, but then the two of them realize it’s only awkward because they want so much for something good to happen. They talk about this…and since they talk about it, something good happens.
There is a reason the wordyouis longer than the wordme. I will always feel thatyoucontain more to know, more to learn.
There are no gender origin stories. They do not draw the outlines of their histories and then erase these outlines in order to demonstrate the current shapes of their lives. They approach each other in the present tense.
Ryan looks over to Avery, who is paying rapt attention. While Ryan is still reveling in the warmth of their cocoon, Avery has ventured out of it to step into the story. Ryan does not know Avery well enough to understand what the story means to him as he watches, but he can tell the connections between Avery and this story are not threads but veins. He iscareful not to interrupt. Some boys would jostle, would try to make it about themselves, since it’s a fourth date and on a fourth date you always want to interrupt the programming with your own advertisements. But Ryan lets that go. Ryan lets Avery be somewhere else.
Parts of you begin to define me. Parts of me begin to define you. We do not ask for this. It is the direction we grow when we’re together.
