The Drive In and other random young nightdog memories
(a writing exercise)

by Sue Blair

	On our weekend drives, we would stop at picnic tables

under the trees for a chocolate milk break and plan how we would

pop a big grocery bag of popcorn for the drive-in later on, secretly

hoping for James Bond or a cheesy horror flick.  We'd head home and

eat dinner, then leave early so that we would have time for the

drive-in playground, located directly in front of the big screen.

That playground was the best since it's the only one we could play in

at dusk.  We would find a good spot to park the car and, while Dad

tested the speaker, run to the swings and slide, the smooth gravel

crunching underneath the rubber soles of our sleeper-feet P.J.'s.

	When the film was ready to start, they played the concession

stand header with the male dancing weiners and female dancing

ice-cold drink cups, the weiners accompanied by wavering red flames,

the cups with falling blue snowflakes.  A weiner would appropriately 

raise his eyebrows and give a knowing half-smile if a comely drink

cup batted her eyelashes in his direction.

	It was amazing the amount of junk food we would eat at

the drive-in without ever gaining an ounce- popcorn and cokes 

and cookies, candy bars and chocolate milk, pizza and hotdogs.  

	Typically, my brother would fall into a peaceful slumber

at precisely 8pm if he had Bark, his stuffed dog, in tow.  I

pretended to fall asleep too so Mom and Dad could get nuzzly.

Also, if I pretended to be asleep, I knew that Dad would carry

me in from the car and tuck me in bed with my pink dog, Samba,

and my mom would kiss me on the forehead.

	Then I would usually read under the covers with my 

Girl Scout pocket flashlight until I got sleepy. Then I would

dream about the cool flaming skulls and voodoo men of James

Bond, Live and Let Die.  Sometimes I would sneak out of my room

and watch TV with the volume on low. My favorite thing to 

watch was the The Ghoul hosting cheesy horror flicks like

Dementia 13.  My brother would sneak out with me to watch 

that, since he especially liked when the Ghoul blew up little

stuffed frogs (named Froggy) with firecrackers.

	Sometimes I would just go quietly exploring in the house, 

and see what was where. I looked in the kitchen cupboards,

the basement cupboards, storage cabinets. Once I found my

mom's diaphragm in the bathroom cupboard. I had no idea 

what it was and was afraid to ask anyone since

they would know that I was snooping around and I would get

into trouble. I hypothesized that it was some type of 

medical doojigger since it was made out of the same stuff

as surgical gloves. Eventually, I concluded that people 

used this device to cover their finger while they scraped out 

toe jam. Only years and years later when I was watching 

The Valley of the Dolls did I realize what this truly was.

	I had weird recurring dreams that I would be snooping

around somewhere, not knowing that it was a portal for space aliens

and they would come through and paralyze me. I couldn't move

or make a noise, though I would be trying with all my strength.

Of course they were skinny and green with long arms and big

metallic black eyes. From there, they would touch a thing that 

looked like a metal wand with a tiny light bulb on the end to my 

forehead and read my thoughts. The last thing I remember would be the 

light coming at me and blocking out everything else. Then, I 

could feel them rummaging around in various compartments of

my brain. It made me uncomfortable since each time they touched a 

memory, it brought a twinge of the emotion that was inextricably

tied to it.  Some of the memories I didn't want to go through 

experiencing again, so I tried to muster up a large amount of

mental hate directed against the aliens for invading my privacy.

Invariably, they would find it and explore every nuance of it.

I could feel their thoughts too, and 

were 

The light, which was everywhere, would get smaller

and smaller until it was just a point and then I was left 

in total darkness and aloneness, for which I was greatly 

relieved. I knew that they would be back though, to get the

next installment of knowledge from my young, growing mind.

	Another weird recurring dream was that I was a soldier

and got my right arm blown off. I was kneeling in a field 

screaming, 'my arm, my arm!'.  Whenever I had this dream, I

would (not knowing this) be sitting up screaming or crying

and flopping my right arm up and down with my left.  I 

would wake up to find my mom looking worried to death 

and that my right arm had fallen asleep. If my left arm

fell asleep that didn't happen.