Quick to the Bat Cave...

[jack_babalon]

I had scored some passes, from Criminal Records some weeks ago, for an advanced screening of Batman Begins. That was for last Monday, and along with William the Scholar, we battled our way upstream against the traffic to Phipps Plaza Cinema. Armed with our passes, our unshaven faces giggling and with what we thought was plenty of time, a half hour early. We got off the mall elevator to find that as soon we stepped out of the doors we were on the line. We stayed there until a little past seven, when the line started moving. Then we saw the people storming away from the theater muttering and cursing. Apparently they overbooked the show and there was'nt enough seating for everybody. They did however offer a new pass in exchange for the old one. So I made my way through the line and got my exchange tickets. Stuck at the mall, we decided to get something to eat, as I was sitting there, mssr.Scholar noticed that I still had my now useless pass, and decided to put it to use. He gets up from the table and comes back five minutes later. Mission accomplished. This enabled us to have four passes for the rescheduled show on the 13th instead of two. We'd try again and this we'd have back up!

Let's jump a week forward. New plan. This time we'd be an hour early. This time we'd be bringing initiate along with us, and we'd rendevous at his place before hand, seeing as how he lived the closest to Phipps Plaza. I was nervous about our prospects of getting there on time. Neither one of my companions tend wake up before three in the afternoon, and worse, they both have a habit of having to either A)Get a cup of Coffee, B)Get something to eat(remember theater people are always hungry) &/or C)pick something up/drop something off before going anywhere further than their mailbox. Not sure why this is, but it is, and i've chalked it up to just another endearing quirk of the native bible belt bohemian hepcat. So I make the Piedmont hike over to Initiates. I get there and thankfully he's awake and The Scholar is just getting up and ready. Time a quarter to five. Panic subsides as I wait for one of us to show, while the other one enters his X-Box induced Satori. We're on the road and the traffics on the rag. In Atlanta the use of a turn signal is tantamount to saying "I am a great big pussy and actually need ask you for permission to change lanes!". This is the South son! Real men don't indicate. Real men do! So as we snaked through potentail wrecks, cellphone zombies, Yuppy tank pilots & all those people who showed up at the DMV for 'Free licenses for the retarded day!', we inched closer to Phipps and we squealed with a preadolescent excitement that, thankfully, no member of the opposite sex was there to witness.
We hit the mall parking lot. Rocket in and steal a spot. It's five after six, so we're not that far off schedule. For once, just once, I might have a little luck go my way. We hit the escalator to the elevator. We get off the elevator and this time there's no crowd. No line. Alright we're early and we make our way quickly to the ticket guy our passes brandished victoriously. The usher looks them over. Looks at us. Looks back at them. I'm literally bouncing with excitement, bobbing up and down on the balls of my feet.
"You have the wrong theater guys!"
The three of us do a double take. Moe, Larry & fucking Curly over here. We don't say 'What?', our slack jawed expressions do that for us. The usher holds up the pass. His finger right at the part that says Regal Cinema 24. The theater two exits from where I live. The old Mosca luck strikes again. Three of us- college educated. Pseudo Intelligensia. One of us militarily trained. One of us going for his Thesis. Not one of us took the time to look at the big, thick black lettering that said "Regal 24"!
My fathers voice echoed in my ear "You are a Pratt sometimes". I never really knew what that meant, and only infered the words meaning from BBC via PBS sitcoms, but right then and there the meaning was clear.
To both my friends credit, they did'nt hesitate. They looked at each other and bolted back for the elevator. They were'nt going to give up that easily.
'We're fucked guys.' I said defeated.
'We will be if you keep talking like that'So with that it was agreed. This was now a race against time. The elevator was to slow so we marathoned it across the mall, dodging shoppers & gawkers. Racing down the escalator, we hit through the parking lot and make our way down the stairs. This is it. New plan. We run for our fucking lives. Punch a hole through traffic. Leave our hands in the devine Goddesses hands and do our best. After all, we should try and remember WWBMD?-What Would BatMand Do? initiate takes the Scholars car. Out of the three of us, it is he who drives most like in the movies, which I guess would be his indian name or something. We're out of the parking lot with the screaming of rubber on asphalt. We hit Lenox traffic and from there my world turns into a video game. This is why he plays that god damn X-Box all day. He was training for this moment. The time is 6:20pm. We have forty minutes. It's still rush hour and we're gonna have to do 85N. I lean into the back of the seat light up a cigarette and watch the fireworks of our race go down.
Barreling down the access road we pull into Regal 24's parking lot. I've aged a little prematurely but we get there at 6:45pm. The driver pulls up in front and we hop out to secure a spot on the line while he finds a place to park. We run in and find a small line of people with a similar passes. No ones moving. Not a good sign. Some people arrive behind us. The woman ahead of us on line starts up with the 'doom & gloom' routine. 'I think it's too late. They've stopped letting people in.'
The Scholar does'nt care. He tells her that there's only one way to find out. We stand there ten minutes. Only two people have been let in.
'It's out of our hands now' the Scholar says.
'Yeah, it's down to my negativity, his positivity(indicating Initiate) or your neutrality.' I say laughing. We all nod in agreement. Each in our own way hoping for the best. Now the usher is talking to somebody right outside the room that it's playing in. That somebody talks into his walkie talkie, he nods and signals for a number to the user she starts letting everyone through, and cuts the line right at me. The scholar is walking in, he turns and sees me & initiate stranded on the line. He stops and comes back. The usher is telling him to 'Go on' but he won't leave us. Even for Gotham. So we resume standing there. People behind us are starting to break off and give in the towel. Then the usher, nods at the three of us to the guy by the door, the guy by the door hops on the walkie talkie and holds up three fingers.
'Alright. You three. Go!' the usher says.
We look at each dumbfounded. Happy. Christmas in June. We don't wait to be told twice and once again we're running for the theater. There it is. Front row. Three seats dead in the middle. We make our way down and wait for the excitement to start.


Batman Begins Verdict: No spoilers here sorry. I will say that this was a lot better than the previous attempts at a Bat franchise i've seen. I enjoyed it a lot. He's more ninja than detective though. It does delve more into his origin, which I thought was one of the mistakes in the Burton versions. If you read the comics I'd put it somewhere between the Dennis O'Neil/Neal Adams & the Frank Miller 'Year One' stuff. It almost makes up for Catwoman.
Almost.
Alright back to work for me.

Comments

[catwalk.livejournal.com]

squee!
that! was an exciting story! :-D