The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid_ A Memoir - Bill Bryson [91]
Because the movies were so bad, and the real action was out in the lobbies, nobody ever sat still for long. Once every half hour or so, or sooner if nobody on the screen was staggering around with a stake through the eye or an ax in the back of his head, you would get up and go off to see if there was anything worth investigating in the theater’s public areas. In addition to the concession stands in the lobby, most theaters also had vending machines in dark, unsupervised corners, and these were always worth a look. There was a general conviction that just above where the cups dropped down or the candy bars slid out—slightly out of reach but tantalizingly close by—were various small levers and switches that would, if activated, dispense all the candy at once or possibly excite the change release mechanism into setting loose a cascade of silvery coins. Doug Willoughby once brought a small flashlight and one of those angled mirrors that dentists use, and had a good look around the insides of a vending machine at the Orpheum, and became convinced that if he found someone with sufficiently long arms he could make the machine his servant.
So you may imagine the delight on his face on the day that someone brought him a kid who was about seven feet tall and weighed forty pounds. He had arms like garden hoses. Best of all he was dim and pliant. Encouraged by a clutch of onlookers that quickly grew to a crowd of about two hundred, the kid dutifully knelt down and stuck his arm up the machine, probing around as Willoughby directed. “Now go left a little,” Willoughby would say, “past the capacitor, under the solenoid and see if you can’t find a hinged lid. That’ll be the change box. Do you feel it?”
“No,” the kid responded, so Willoughby fed in a little more arm.
“Do you feel it now?” Willoughby asked.
“No, but—ow!” the kid said suddenly. “I just got a big shock.”
“That’ll be the earthing clamp,” said Willoughby. “Don’t touch that again. I mean, really, don’t touch that again. Try going around it.” He fed in a little more arm. “Now do you feel it?”
“I can’t feel anything, my arm’s asleep,” said the kid after a time, and then added: “I’m stuck. I think my sleeve’s caught on something.” He grimaced and maneuvered his arm, but it wouldn’t come free. “No, I’m really stuck,” he announced at last.
Somebody went and got the manager. He came bustling up a minute or so later accompanied by one of his oafish assistants.
“What the hell?” he growled, forcing his way through the crowd. “Move aside, move aside. Goddamn it all. What the hell. What the hell’s going on? Goddamn kids. Move, boy! Goddamn it to hell. Goddamn. Goddamn. What the hell.” He reached the front of the crowd and saw, to his astonishment and disgust, a boy obscenely violating the innards of one of his vending machines. “The hell you doing, buster? Get your arm out of there.”
“I can’t. I’m stuck.”
The manager yanked on the kid’s arm. The kid wailed in pain.
“Who put you up to this?”
“They all did.”
“Are you aware that it is a federal offense to tamper with the insides of a Food-O-Mat machine?” the manager said as he yanked more and the kid wailed. “You are in a world of trouble, young man. I am going to personally escort you to the police station. I don’t even want to think about how long you’ll be in reform school—but you’ll be shaving by the time of your next matinee, buster.”
The kid’s arm would not come free, though it was now several inches longer than it had been earlier. Clucking, the manager produced an enormous ring of keys—the kind of ring that, once seen, made a man like him decide to drop all other plans and go into movie-theater management—unlocked the machine, and hauled open the door, dragging the kid protesting along with it. For the first time in history the inside of a vending machine was exposed to children’s view. Willoughby whipped out a pencil and notebook and began sketching. It was an entrancing sight—two hundred candy bars stacked in columns, each inhabiting a little tilted slot.
As the manager bent over to try to