My Horrid Reputation

Ah. More memories come back. I had two high-school/college buddies with whom I all too often attended movies at Donald Pancho’s and The Guild and UNM and sometimes elsewhere, too. The day I started my job at Donald Pancho’s, they stopped attending — except for Bananas, which one of them attended without bothering to say Hi to me. He also attended The American Friend, but on a night when he knew I would not be working. Within one week after my termination, they both started attending regularly again, and rubbing it in by telling me how great the movies were. I’m still trying to figure out if that really meant anything.

Not long after I got the boot, I attended the Sunshine to see a Saturday matinée double feature. After the first feature, I stepped out into the lobby, and lo and behold, who did I see bounding down the staircase but Mr. Riot Act. He did not normally work there, and must have been filling in for somebody else. I called out to him by name, but he ignored me. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I got closer and tried to start a conversation: “You know, I was at Don Pancho’s for a while — .” He cut me off, and in the smirkiest tone of voice possible, retorted that, “Yeah, we heard aaaaaalllllll about Don Pancho’s!” and he continued walking briskly away. I was so upset and irritated that I left the building right away and did not return for weeks or months.

Now, what in heaven’s name was the aaaaaalllllll about that this mysterious “we” had heard? This had been a problem in my life since my first memories. Everywhere I went, people heard aaaaaalllllll about me, but I never heard, and so I never had a clue what aaaaaalllllll about me they had actually heard. Sometimes I got into a lot of trouble when people told one another aaaaaalllllll about me. People I hadn’t even met or even heard of had already heard aaaaaalllllll about me, as I would discover upon a first meeting. Neighbors believed these stories. Coworkers believed these stories. Police believed these stories. The FBI believed these stories. Banks believed these stories. The Postal Inspectors believed these stories. Employers believed these stories. But what in the bloody heck were these stories? Why didn’t I ever hear them? That problem continued until the middle of 2003, when I finally moved to a different part of the country, one that has a noticeably different culture. In one day, just one day, that problem stopped, and it has stayed stopped.

A consolation is that one of my MPMO buddies couldn’t stand Mr. Riot Act, griping that, “He thinks he’s god’s gift to projectionists.” It felt good to hear that. It’s always cathartic to have a bad experience validated by a neutral third party, isn’t it?