Part Two - Night Among the StarsI came to know the Paramount Theatre long before it ever laid eyes on me.
Information about my stepfather's Abilene childhood never grew to much more than a sketch--he graduated from Abilene High, was in the marching band, fished a Lake Fort Phantom and ate at the Dixie Pig and Mack Eplen's. These small nuggets stood alone, never articulated beyond their bare bones. The Paramount, however, was the subject of several detailed descriptions. By the time I was a teenager, I knew the clouds and stars in the ceiling, could describe the colors of the proscenium and stage. I knew the best seats for necking in the balcony long before I understood the meaning of the term.
Then we moved to Abilene in 1980, a move to a very different place from the Rocky Mountains I had spent the last nine years. The air was too humid, terrain too alien and folks talked funny (though friendly). The first thing we did when we hit town was to head to the Dixie Pig for lunch (should have picked the pink cookies at Mack Eplens'). None of this interested me, of course. I wanted to know when we were going to the Paramount.
I would spend weeks being disappointed. The theatre was rarely open and when it was there certainly wasn't any money to attend a dance recital or concert. My satisfaction was finally gained one afternoon while we shopped at what was left of Minter's Department Store. Purchased church tie in a paper sack tucked under my arm, I snuck up the street to find the north door propped open and the sounds of work coming from inside the Paramount. Hustling through the frosted glass door, I hurried past the old office, through the lobby and into the grand house. Surprisingly, all the lights were up--clouds scuttled past twinkling stars and the smell of cigarette smoke and burnt popcorn filled my lungs.
Though I didn't know it, these were the Paramount's hard times. The building and stage were barely holding together, physically and fiscally. The leg curtains were severely water damaged, the basement prone to flooding, etc. Later, my stepdad would remark that it was a shell of its former glory. I didn't notice, having no nostalgic vision of its past. It was wonderful and would be even more so in the future. I would be back.
***
It is a single, unopened pack of chewing gum: Dentyne. Otherwise pristine, its wrapper is no longer the trademark red, faded after many yeares into a sort-of maroon. A year after that first visit to the Paramount, my stepdad found himself in the crawlspace under the balcony. The exact circumstances of his visit are fuzzy, other than the fact that he was still working in his father's used furniture store next to the courthouse--this must have been some sort of scavenging trip. At dinner he reached into a pocket and presented me with the ancient pack of gum. "Found it under the balcony at the Paramount," he said, "among other things."
I had him describe each item he discovered, none of which had any real value that I remember. To me, each was an artifact as precious as anything Howard Carter pulled from the ground. Each Sensen wrapper, greasy comb or popcorn box was a relic of my stepfather's mysterious childhood. In my imagination, those wrappers, combs and boxes all belonged to him, their absence noticed only after he and his brother had run home from a Randolph Scott picture or he had dropped off his date. This was my prize from his day's work, though I never thought of keeping it to myself. It was our token, and remains in a drawer in my parent's house to this day.
***
The third act of the Paramount Romance began my senior year. The theater's renaissance was just beginning--by now the classic films series had begun every other weekend, the dances, even the premieres of documentaries and Steve Martin comedies had come. I saw as many movies as I could, urged passionately to attend each weekday morning by Cooper High AP English teacher (and Paramount volunteer) Robert Holladay.
The theater's angel pulled me aside one February morning, "I wondered if you would volunteer to help clean up this weekend? They don't have a cleaning crew anymore," he asked. Excited at the prospect of a one-weekend stint as Paramount janitor, I agreed. I turned in my keys on July 25th, 1985--the day I left for college and six months later--it was the last thing I did as a resident of Abilene.
Thus my romance with the Paramount, begun in the search for my stepfather's youth, became--as things often do for young men--wholly my own. My deep affection for classic cinema was firmly entrenched, I learned to respect every person that has cleaned out every public restroom I've ever used and yes, I too, found a few good spots in the balcony to neck (c'mon, I was eighteen).
As a non-union worker, I was not permitted into the projection booth (thus it took me weeks to convince the projectionist to let me in). There I learned to operate the arc light-powered projectors (35 and 16mm) and swapped stories. When I remember those months at the end of my tour of Abilene, the Paramount will be often present:
A prom night (or early morning, rather) leading my friends and their dates, still in tux and gown to the roof to look down on the city;
Telling (utterly fictional) ghost stories in the basement to those same gown-clad young ladies after another dance (fear is still the greatest aphrodisiac, after all);
Meeting Carl Reiner, Steve Martin, Joan Fontaine and Buddy Rodgers;
Working alone among the old velvet seats, U2 or Miles or Talking Heads or Stevie Ray screaming from the projectionist sound system so loud those clouds in the ceiling would rattle;
Turning in those keys and driving away...
When I visit Abilene (which we've already noted is rare), I still visit the Paramount, even if it is closed. It is a pleasure to walk Cypress street--the city has done such a tremendous job of putting a shine on its downtown, no longer the ghost town of my high school days. On my last visit (described the last post) I left the initial party at Abilene's Grace Museum and walked with a group of friends to the Paramount (where I had parked, natch). There we stood for a half-hour, visiting, sharing tales of woe and no-longer-accurate memories while standing directly under the marquee.
What was showing that weekend, you ask?
William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives
The Paramount's timing, knowing me as it always has, was perfect. I was now standing waist deep in my past, but heady with the Now, with the eponymous years before me.
God bless...
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