What You See in the Dark - Manuel Munoz [86]
She had watched him, his stiff, hard body, the white hat casting a shadow over his eyes, over half of his face, so that all the women in the audience could look only at his hard mouth.
That girl had been jealous, knowing those women had looked at Dan like that.
You had looked at Dan Watson like that.
That nameless Mexican face along the back wall must have seethed at how the women looked at Dan, the ripple of need he set off in them, sitting next to their clean-cut men.
All that need. Husbands fail. Boyfriends cannot provide. Men in the cantina feeling they could never match up against someone like Dan Watson, the collapsing darkness of the place allowing them to hide that fear. Whoever that Mexican face belonged to, nothing he could ever do would match whatever Dan Watson offered her.
Not a week later came the night in question.
That girl looking up at the painted ceiling of the Fox Theater, up at every tiny light shining down on her, the ceiling painted dark and swirled with faint clouds, studded with tiny lights that beamed down like stars. She looked up at the painted sky as if Dan Watson had offered it to her himself, as if he were the one who opened the barely contained promise of the Fox Theater in daytime: the scrolls of neon piping, the gallery of lightbulbs waiting to burst bright once the sun went down. All around them, people chose seats without a fuss, but that girl kept looking up in wonder. You knew without knowing that on her lunch breaks she’d gone down to the theater just as she’d gone to the record shop, to peek through the shut doors for the red carpet inside, the velvet ropes hanging on brass stands, the poster images of serious drama, of women in gowns, of love and long looks, of color and intensity, beauty shimmering all around her. She traced the ceiling with her eyes, then followed it all the way down front, where the dark velvet theater ended with an enormous white screen, blank and brilliant with promise.
People milled and chatted, and because it was December, the act of removing a coat gave the men a chance to be gallant, assisting their dates. People got comfortable, the rustle building into the excitement about whatever the screen held in store. This was not the dust and darkness of the drive-in, but the spotlight of standing in queue out front, people showing off their best garments. The women, both the older wives and the younger ones on dates, had arrived in dresses and scarves and earrings. Some of the older men wore hats, which they removed only after they had finally chosen a seat. That girl—what nerve—wore the baby blue satin cowgirl dress with the white fringe from her cantina performances, as if she knew people would recognize her, and you watched as she pretended to fix her hair in the back, the lift of her arm making the fringe on her sleeves dance and sparkle.
The chatter in the theater calmed a bit when the lights dimmed halfway. The gather of smoke from a few cigarettes floated visibly now, but the projector shot out such a bright beam that it hardly mattered. A Looney Tunes cartoon appeared to apparent indifference from the crowd, the last few people scurrying back from the concession stand. More coats removed and draped on the backs of chairs, more people settling in, but when the cartoon ended and the lights went down, the screen went dark, and up came the cheers,