“Why not.”

 All day, I had these tickets in my pocket, burning a hole therein. I purchased them
the day before just to be on the safe side. Six dollars a pop with a student ID. I buy two,
one for me and one for Kim. I was deeply exhilirated by my natural habitat, free of
distractions and full of life. At the movies.

 Finally, it’s 5:30. I am looking at the clock, wishing it would change. Clocks are
evil. ‘The Simpsons’ ends. It was the one where Homer climbs a huge mountain after
training with Reiner Wolfcastle, star of the McBain films. 8: 30 rolls around. Kim knows
how to get to Broad Street. Of course she does, we rode a shuttle bus there every day last
semester. So, we’re driving along Cheltenham Ave. and we come to a terrible accident.
We blaze by it at a terribly slow speed. Already I’m sweating. We see ambulances.
Probably three of them passed. In my mind, in a logical mind that means we’ll see them
all night. Luckily, they stopped just as we took a wrong turn onto, I think, 19th Street.

 Here’s the predicament. There’s a tree. It’s got many branches. It’s many
branches are covering up a stop sign. That sounds bad, doesn’t it. That sounds really bad.
OK, so I’m not even thinking about it, she’s talking about some “asshole” she knew in
high school who crashed his car. We RUN the stop sign. Some guy is turning. Kim
swerves to the right, we hit him very softly, a tap, a really frightening, alarming tap. That
feeling, the feeling where you know you’re going to hit and you know you can’t do a
damn thing about it and all your will is there, trying, working to make you stop. And you
don’t.

 She cracked a headlight, a little scrapage of black from his car. He parks, comes
back to see if everybody is alright. The man’s a saint. He walks back to his car. I’m
amazed at how calm I am, having survived three accidents in my lifetime. She’s nervous,
but she still has her shit together. He returns and says “it hardly looks bad on his car, let’s
swap insurance info., phone numbers and be on our way”. No cops. No ambulances.  A
guy who looks to be a crackhead walks outside, saying “Is everybody okay, do I need to
call the cops?”

A collective “no”.

 The swap proceeds, and finishes. I look at her eyes, not dialated. I try to feel out
the situation, is she going to keep going or, was this enough excitement for the evening?
It looks as though we’re going to keep going.

Good.

All I could think about was, “there goes ‘Goodfellas’”.

Nice.

 Okay, so, we turn around, we get going down Broad Street, torn up as it is, and
we move towards City Hall. We get there, it’s a roundabout, like in Europe. A couple of
twists and turns and we’re on Market Street. I get the “Good Navigator” look from Kim
and we’re on Second Street. We go to Avis Parking. She parallel parks (badly)  inside the
garage and we walk up to the attendant, he gives us a ticket. We’re alive and we’re on
our way.

So, I was lucky. I got us there. I figured it out. I'm the man.

We approach the Ritz Five, not saying much of anything. I point out that there is a crowd
there and that I hope they’re all here for a purpose other than to see ‘Goodfellas’. They
were not. We get up to the outside of the theater and I have her take a picture of me. Why
not? I want to remember this moment, when I got to see my favorite film, on the big
screen, without the aid of a VCR, for the first time, all over again. We wait in line with
what seems to be a million people who are “different, but look like everybody else”.
They have the backwards hats, as I do; and they have the “film school look”, as John
Shelly told us was the style. They all look like Deron Albright. I had read that you have to
exchange you tickets for special passes. You didn’t, I looked like a dork, but, hey, who’s
counting? We get in line and I breath in the atmosphere, engulfing my soul with what is,
film and it’s many followers. The guy behind me is talking to a former TLA video clerk
about all the 75th Anniversary films and how his favorite film of all time is George
Stevens’ ‘Giant’. I work at Giant. What a strange coincidence.

 The line is about to bust. The manager shouts. “The Warner Bros. 75th
Anniversary showing of ‘Goodfellas’ is now seating. Please have your tickets ready!” A
shout goes up from the crowd. It’s starting. Oh Joy.

 We sit in absolutely perfect seats, nobody in front of me, 4 rows from the back.
The people are amazing, so many who love the film, so many who want to be there for
the sheer pleasure of it. They know each other, they are bonded by a common element.
The lights dim. I get flutters in my heart. This is it.

 The film runs, I see something I’ve never really drawn from the film, and I have
probably seen it close to ten times. I see the humor in the script, the reaction shots and
the foreboding of the Joe Pesci character, who is, in his own right, a comedic genius.
Scrocese’s camerawork is less affecting than I had hoped, now that I’ve seen it so many
times, but the shear thrill of watching it on the big screen, with the added bonus of being
accompanied by someone who has never seen it before - - well these elements more than
make up for the familiarity I’m starting to feel. That’s the flavor. I hear nothing but
laughs. People find so much humor in it and I realize that it may have all been
intentional, but one thing is sure, seeing it with a crowd makes all the difference. Some
people know the lines. I am quiet. I know the lines, trust me.

 I know that Kim is very hungry. Everytime there is food, such as at Uncle Pauly’s
house or the prison dinner sequence, I lean over and apologize. She shrugs it off with
“It’s all meat, anyway”. The film’s best shot comes up. I point to it and note it to her. It’s
a slow close-up of Robert DeNiro contemplating the death of the “unconscionable
ball-breaker” - - Morey. Cream’s “Sunshine of my Love” plays over it. I get chills. The
sequence where Billy Batts is murdered gives me chills. I grew more fond of Joe Pesci’s
character. When he is shot through the back of the head in revenge for the Batts murder, I
get a little choked up. Could it have been that I was so attached to him? Could it have
been DeNiro’s crying? It was probably a combination of the two. The lights come up.

 Everybody seems overjoyed. I look over at Kim. She’s still there, awake and alert.
I am impressed. It’s a long film. Entertaining, but long. We don’t stay through the credits,
but, instead, we’re on our way. I ask her if she liked it. She says she did, very flatly.
That’s all I need to hear not to wreck my evening. From Kim, that’s the level of
enthusiasm you get. That’s as far as it goes. We get back to Avis Parking Garage. She
notes the corvette and another car, I think, a chevelle. She notes that she liked the cars in
Goodfellas. That’s something.

 The guys at the garage seem to lose her keys. We wait around for about 20
minutes. Expecting to be delayed, cuz that’s how the night was going, outside of the film,
we don’t even appear upset or shocked. She eventually has to go into the office and ID
her keys, as if she was ID’ing a body. She grabs em’, we pull out and a couple of twists
and turns and we’re back on Broad Street, headed for Ambler. We end up at 7-11 first,
where I purchase a Danish right out of the blue rack meant for stocking tommorrow’s
goods. I also buy a 16 oz. Irish Cream coffee, cuz it looks like the freshest pot. She buys
some pizza combos. We inspect her car for damage, again.

It’s cool. We drive off. The evening ends.