The wheel of the cigarette lighter spun around six or seven times before a weak spark finally turned into a weak flame. Her eyes fluttered quickly in response to the flame and then darkness engulfed us both. We ran down the dark corridor, slammed a hip into the business door’s foot long handle, and then splashed into the afternoon sun waiting on the other side of the door. We looked at each other out of breath, laughing. Je t’aime and I, looked at each other triumphantly, turned and ran.

I remembered the smell of the burning imitation butter on the popcorn so well. It stunk and remained on my fingertips for hours afterward. The buttered popcorn box had lit the velvet curtain on fire and it ran up the twenty-foot wall so quickly. Ultimately, it cost us our summer jobs, but we both agreed it was a very worthy craft.

Je t’aime led the way down the side of the darkened theater lit only by the equally dark movie. Skillfully she weaved through the shadows, with me following her every move. The whites of her eyes and her teeth shone brilliantly against the darkness. On she went hunched over and determined to light the movie theater curtain on fire and exit out the back theater door. We did it, and we only did 10,000 dollars worth of damage. The best part of it was we set the movie screen curtain on fire as the movie Stop Making Sense played and David Byrne danced around on his stage decorated like a living room in a pale colored, oversized coat and sang the song “Burning Down the House”. To that, we did the forever high-five anytime we thought of that moment – it’s a very worthy craft.

We helped pull down the remains of the tattered purple velvet curtain with grimy soot on the material and water stains. Once the firefighters were finished and it was safe to return into the old theater, we readily helped clean-up the mess. Giuseppe, the owner, had no idea we’d done it, and actually we had to help, we were Giuseppe’s only two employees besides Dave, the alcoholic. He ran the camera. We giggled the whole time we cleaned knowing it was a very worthy craft and that it may not be the last time we strived to make life imitate art.

For many summers throughout the eighties, I worked at the Guild Theater in Hillcrest, California. It was an independently owned and operated, one screen theater with a balcony and the occasional seat that sat much lower than the rest. There was also the broken chair with yellow caution tape wrapped around it and good cheap matinee prices. We saw many movies there like Diva, Diner, My Life as a Dog, Ran, Kagemusha, Hope and Glory, Cinema Paradiso, Jean de Florette, Room with a View and when we showed Sex, Lies and Videotape, Giuseppe started previewing the movies.

I was in college part time and learning about performance art from a queen performer and imagination extraordinaire Je t’aime. We were instant friends Je t’aime and I – and not just because my name is Amor. It was our youth and love of the colors and offerings these films bestowed on us that inspired our many attempts at our brand of avant-garde, performance art. There were times we wore full yellow rain coats, with the matching hat, for Singing in the Rain, and got applause from our patrons when we wore gunnysacks on our heads, limped around and reacted to our customers request with, “I am not an animal.” We had eye and mouth holes, of course, for our showing of The Elephant Man. One night Je t’aime added the sentence, “…I am a dromedary camel,” to the end of our movie quote and from our posts behind the snack counter we laughed so hard we had to remove our gunnysacks from our heads.

Mostly, we handled the tickets and the concession stand. After the tickets line disappeared, I’d join Je t’aime behind the snack counter. We’d stand on either end and sell the limited munchies the theater offered, one-size bag of popcorn, coke, some candies and gum. There were no nachos, pretzels or water sold at the time only the over-priced basics. After the last showing was finished, we swept, cleaned the bathrooms, and emptied the trash and the popcorn machine. Dave locked the money in the safe as his last thing to do before locking up.

He would usually finish before us, and on his way out he’d say, “Good night, ladies, I’m on my way to look at the open sea, there’s really nothing else worth looking at.” We’d say a tired good-bye, lock the door after him and Je t’aime would always turn to me and say, “Life is but a dream Dave; we know ‘the open sea’ is a bar down the street.”

Je t’aime and Amor, Part II – Tomorrow!