Brokeback Snack Bar

Brokeback Snack Bar

The scene in the movie theater lobby resembled something from Platoon. The soft moans of exhausted and often injured theater employees echoed through the room. It was a heart wrenching scene and each of these employees had their own horrific story to tell.

I stood next to the theater owner here in downtown Chicago, having come from the East Coast to cover this story. We stood in somber silence for a few minutes taking in the view, neither of us able to find words fitting for this tragedy. I knew it was going to be bad but this was worse than anything I could have imagined.

Earl Newton, the theater owner, began to speak but stopped abruptly, caught in the middle of a coughing jag. My eyes were watering and I had a coughing fit of my own. The source of the irritation was a nearby popcorn machine spewing black smoke through the building.

“See that girl over there?” he said, pointing to a blond haired girl of about eighteen. She was sitting in a wheelchair with her face buried in her hands, sobbing softly. “The docs say she may never walk again. That kid over there, he’s a college freshman and lost an eye just last week.”

“It’s all my fault,” he said, looking at his feet and closing his eyes. I was supposed to be objective, supposed to just report the story, but I found it impossible in the face of this human suffering. I put my arm around him and told him not to blame himself.

A noise behind me caused me to jump and as I turned I saw a kid, no more than 17, crumble to the ground.

“It was me that started this,” Newton told me. “The kids are calling it Brokeback Snack Bar, their angry and making accusations, but I know the truth. They might as well call it Earl’s Snack Bar Fiasco. I hate that I hurt these kids.”

I left Earl there and wandered amid the rubble, walked around the smoking popcorn machine and sputtering, badly damaged soda dispenser. I made up my mind to interview all of these kids that I could, to tell their side of the story before it was too late. I wanted to confirm the accusations they’ve made and hoped to God I could convince Earl Newton he couldn’t have caused all of this devastation.

I approached the girl in wheelchair, knelt down beside her and swept some of the debris from her shoulder. She looked up at me then, Mascara running down her cheeks, and said,”It’s Earls fault!”

She wiped her eyes and continued, “He’s the idiot that told Ebert about the free refills on gigantic sized snacks and beverages….” Her voice trailed off and her eyes glazed over. Looking blankly into the distance she began to ramble. “I wasn’t on popcorn duty that night. I thought I had it easy. But the soda…my God the soda. I changed the Diet Pepsi canister 5 times and he kept coming. I carried 10 gallons of soda into the theater for him, that lazy Ropert just watched. But he kept coming. I was changing the canister again, Ebert came out of the theater screaming he was thirsty, popcorn was flying out of his mouth. He reached into his pocket and threw a stale doughnut at me. I tried to hurry, I grabbed 4 more buckets of soda and tried to carry them for him. Then I heard my spine snap…”

The stories were all similar and just as tragic. The trouble started the day Mr. Newton told uber-liberal movie critic Roger Ebert that he was entitled to free refills on gigantic sizes.

“We were setting up our tenth popcorn machine, they kept overheating, they just can’t keep up,” said Fred Miller, a high school senior with a bloody bandage on his leg and black eye. “So Ebert comes running out of the theater with this empty bucket, it’s been filled up so many times the bottom is worn out. Anyway, some of his popcorn leaked out and he’s furious. I’m trying desperately to get the new popcorn machine running and I see him coming….I just couldn’t get it done. He rammed the machine like a linebacker and, as he was falling, he was swinging his fists at me. The popcorn machine fell on top of me and Ebert, thank God, fell to the side. I’m lucky all I got was a broken leg, I could’ve been killed.”

Another young woman recounted the time she asked if Ebert thought he had enough food. He called her a fataphobe and hurled juju bees at her face. As a result she lost her left eye.

“I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. Some of my co-workers are worse off than me. I heard that even Ropert lost his index finger when he forget where he was and reached for the popcorn,” she said. “Ropert isn’t even his real name, “she whispered. “It’s Ebert little inside joke that Ropert is French for Whopper. Ebert wanted the show to be called Ebert and Whopper.”

This is just one of the accusations being tossed out by veteran theater employees, many of them shouted in anger from rehab clinics and hospital beds. Other Brokeback Snack Bar veterans claim Ebert couldn’t possibly watch every minute of a movie before he reviews it since he’s back at the snack bar every ten minutes. There are also rumors that it’s not possible for him to even see the screen over the mound of blown-out popcorn buckets and empty diet soda jugs.

“I mean, come on,” one worker who remained anonymous told me, “Last week he gave four stars to a foreign movie about the societal bias against gay Tibetan field mice. I’ve seen the man eat field mice.”

Aside from the injuries and emotional scarring, there’s been some economic fall out. “We had to close one whole theater whenever he comes in,” Newton said. “People were running out of there, covered in popcorn debris, tripping over vats of soda. Everytime he emptied the popcorn bucket he roared like a dinosaur, nobody could hear the movie. He was flinging his empty buckets and vats all over the place, hitting people. We have rats, mice, cats and birds in the theater now! We never had that problem before. They gather around his feet to eat what falls off of him. Lucky for those animals he can’t see his feet…God if someone ever told him there was food around his feet…”he said, shaking and turning pale.

In response the city of Chicago has done everything in its power to meet the demands of this crisis. Chicago Memorial Hospital has setup a triage unit to care for wounded employees and a local psychologist has been on hand to counsel those employees suffering from post-traumatic stress. This reporter tried, to no avail, to get a statement from the triage nurse who treated Roper (Whopper) for the injuries he sustained when Ebert bit off his finger.

For now it’s time for me to put down the pen and help. There’s only so much suffering one man can witness while sitting idly by and reporting on it. It’s time for me to roll up my sleeves, wade through the puddle of soda oozing from the over burdened Diet Pepsi machine, carefully make my way around the many worn out popcorn machines, and see if I can help these brave doctors and nurses tend to the wounded. I can barely see through the smoke of the latest popcorn machine, now fully engulfed in flames, but I must help. Luckily Ebert is currently watching a special screening of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so there’s time to evacuate the wounded and dead.

“We play that movie to sooth him, “ Newton said. “When we can’t take anymore or we run out of healthy people at the snack bar we start it. He just sits there and drools at it for 2 hours while we treat the injured.”

Someone pray for these people. And pray the Chocolate Factory reel never snaps while these poor kids are in-country.