Summer Matinee

I was only allowed to go, after much whining begging, promises of unlikely saint-hood if my brother, (much to his displeasure) made a pledge to keep an eye on me So off to the show we would go. Kids on the loose And yes, he did manage to keep, at least one eye on me, (the good son that he was) in the dim-dungeon, germ filled cavern of the Tower Theater on Atlantic Boulevard. This was the ritual of the Saturday Matinee There, happily, and rather smugly,..I would eat popcorn by myself... which was his apparent bribe, while he sat two rows behind me. And the popcorn was my reward for my promise to keep our Mother from knowing my isolation. As the movie unfolded, (some Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis thing) my brother, and his assorted, and creepy friends got great amusement from throwing kernels of their own buttered bullets, bouncing them off of the back of my head. I would turn around to glare at them, with blood-curdling, "I'm going to tell!", threat written in my eyes.. which, of course brought even more sadistic satisfaction, to four ape-like, teen aged primates.. After three or four long hours in the dank, air-conditioned bedlam- -sticky-floored coliseum-for juvenile delinquents, we were saturated with multiple cartoons, and double features, sugar and soda,... only to emerge with squinting eyes into the sweltering, afternoon sunlight My brother and his buddies, would still be punching each other, laughing hysterically at private and quite disgusting jokes (which I didn't understand, but somehow KNEW, were deplorable)... taunting me with, "Cover your ears...Squirt!" At that moment, all boys,...even my brother, (who was always my hero)... were as icky as wads of gum stuck under the theater seats ! When the obnoxious, poor excuses for the male sex, had finally parted ways,... and as soon as he knew they were out of sight,... My brother patted my head, and smiled at me,... he reached into his pocket, and handed me a piece of Black Jack gum, then grabbed my hand, and we walked the eight blocks to our home. Later, after supper, as the summer sun was going down,... he took me for a ride, letting me sit on the handlebars of his bike We sped around the block, ..I turned to look back at him and smiled... He winked, and grinned back at me... Then, he said, "Next week they are showing "The Blob". Ya' wanna come?" The sunset sky was pink, yellow and red, pretty as a lollipop... It had been a good , ...actually a perfect, ...summer day......