We walked out of the theater when the film was done.
Moviegoers were hustling out through the aisles, stepping over popcorn kernels and crushed soda pop bottles. The Pasadena Playhouse had been packed to watch a showing of a South Korean film The Host. My friend and I walked slowly, in no rush to leave the universe of the movie. It was an enjoyable experience, a horror film with a lot of laughs interwoven with the truly horrifying. We stepped out into the brightly lit Pasadena streets. Bits and pieces of conversations were floating towards me with the evening breeze. I was picking this up above the din of city traffic.
”I didn’t understand what happened there in the end.”
”The Host looked amazing!”
”You think there’s going to be a sequel?”
I sighed and looked at my friend. A knowing smile crept across his face. He knew I hated to hear bits and pieces of conversations. It has to be somewhere in the middle on my incredibly long list of pet peeves. We walked on the cracked sidewalk towards the car. We passed little boutiques with minimal life inside, an art gallery filled with people who pretended they knew what they were looking at, and a homeless man resting his head on what were his sole possessions in this world. I took the sights in, still in awe of the beautiful city and amazed at the different stores. As we were at the crosswalk waiting to shuffle ourselves over to the other side, we heard a yell right next to us. Right across from us was what looked like a homeless man screaming at us.
“You gave up all the porn,” shouted the man, “eh, Boys?”
The friend turned to me with a nervous look of concern.
“Turn to Jesus Christ, so no more porn for you!”
The man continued to shout. I turned to confirm that he was speaking to me. Yep.
Crazy dude was pointing right at me.
“No more porn, eh boys?!”
My friend and I crossed to the other side of the intersection, away from him. We laughed as we quickened our pace away from the theater, shops, and crazy homeless man talking about our salvation from pornography. We stepped into the car and I sat down and fastened my seat belt.
Perhaps the reader understands when I mention those pictures we see in books or online with a large caption that someone other than the individual photographed has written. The caption is usually attributed as what that fellow is thinking at that exact moment in time. I felt at that moment that if anyone took my photograph at that point the caption would have said in bold letters:
“How did he know?!”
