Failure To Thrive

Picture Show

June 3, 1957

Light flickered across the silver screen, faint humming flowing from a severely overused projector overhead as music filled the Rainbow Theater, the only theater within a 40-mile radius still open after that awful depression had left over half of the town bankrupt and starving; nearly 30 years later, poverty still persisted to an unsettling degree in small towns and rural areas like Highland, local farmers hardly stumbling back onto their feet years after barely surviving dust storms that had blackened the skies. Together, Cheryl Beavis and Josephine Head sat in the cheap seats in the back of the theater, the latter unable to pass as "white" after years of grueling outdoor labor that had left a telltale shade on her skin that never failed to fall prey to the uncaring conditions of segregation; although she had been born and raised in Texas, her grandparents had been immigrants from Tamaulipas with strongly indigenous physical traits that hadn't exactly been blond-haired, fair-skinned, or blue-eyed. Despite Josephine's plight, Cheryl, a refugee from France who lacked melanin and was therefore free to go those exclusive spaces for "Whites Only" though she often chose not to, went nearly everywhere with the former after having moved next door to her in 1942, the two having quickly bonded out of loneliness and indescribable familiarity despite having been strangers at first glance. Light chattering permeated the fairly full room, its air conditioning a popular attraction during those dreadful summer months, while Josephine stifled a cough as she held a handkerchief to her mouth, lungs weakened after years of exposure to those brutal dust storms. Meanwhile, tapping her foot like she always did whenever she was excited for the latest picture show, Cheryl fidgeted with the wedding ring she'd never gotten rid of, still holding onto the memory of the man she wanted to be her husband instead of the disgrace she was currently stuck with- just as was Josephine's situation- as she waited for the film to start; after living in the United States for over a decade, she had become fairly fluent in English and could keep up with the latest films without needing help from her cousins to understand. As the first film trailers began to dance across the silver screen, both women shushed their overall-clad daughters, Shirley and Judy, with the weary discipline unique to single parents; the toddlers' fathers had been locked away in unmentionable institutions rather than sitting alongside their families, the men's minds never having returned from war and only having worsened even after their daughters had been born, therefore rendering themselves disgraces to society best kept out of the public eye rather than being praised as the standard American heroes celebrated in Hollywood. Later that day, both women would leave their girls behind in the hands of strangers as the sweet embrace of death beckoned them out of this miserable life in a land that only bore the illusion of opportunity and little else, but for now, the mothers and daughters would all watch a splendid film together one last time just like a couple of happy families living the American dream they had all hoped for but would never have.

Pop!

Pop!

Pop!

Greasy kernels burst into fluffy yellow clumps inside of the popcorn machine as Shirley and Judy approached the concession stand with their ratty, homemade coin purses, their mothers having warned them to behave before sending the fidgety girls to get their treats; both children were especially excited today because they rarely ever got to have popcorn, buying something so frivolous typically out of the question since tickets to the theater were already costly enough according to their mothers, who were hardly able to make ends meet in a workforce that was still primarily designed for men. Giggling at the sound of the popping kernels, each girl paid for three small bags of popcorn, one of the bags for Josephine; Cheryl hadn't eaten popcorn ever since she had left France, nearly a decade before Shirley's birth, claiming to be disturbed by the noise of popping kernels. Although Shirley would never know why her mother couldn't stand to be around anything associated with such a silly and pleasant sound like the pop-pop-pop of buttery kernels, Josephine had learned the reason within weeks of meeting her new neighbor back in 1942. Apparently, the popping of kernels sickened Cheryl not because of some fickle idiosyncrasy she had but because the noise sounded a bit too similar to the gunshots that had deprived Shirley of an aunt. Of course, it was rather common for the citizens of Highland to occasionally practice shooting at targets in preparation for yet another sparse hunting season, but homesteads were far apart, the gunshots mercifully muffled by distance and stagnant waves of dusty heat. Used to secrecy and silence, Cheryl always pretended that she was fine and that nothing bothered her around nearly every single person she had ever met, but if she could help it, she always chose to keep her distance from anything that reminded her of the destruction she had left behind before moving to Texas. Only Josephine would ever know a few of the things that kept her up late at night and tethered to the liquor cabinet. Now that the trailers for upcoming films had ended, Cheryl fidgeted with her snuffbox as she redirected her attention from the discomforting smell of popcorn to the figures parading across the screen. Laughing as the film started, Judy and Shirley wiggled into tattered seats for second class citizens while spilling a few pieces of popcorn, gleefully unaware of how desperately their mothers were trying and failing to forget their misery.