At the Movies

By Jim Bostjancic

In At the Movies, follow the story of Garbonzo, a young boy growing up in Vancouver in the 1970s, whose passion for movies leads him on a journey of self-discovery. As he befriends the local film critic and starts sneaking into restricted shows, he develops a love for the works of director Sam Peckinpah and a deeper understanding of the power of cinema. But when he gets caught up with the wrong crowd and ends up in jail, he loses everything, including his love interest and his job at the local theater. Years later, he returns to his hometown to find the theater industry in decline, but is given a chance to save the remaining theaters and make his dreams a reality. At the Movies is a coming-of-age tale that explores the transformative power of cinema on both an individual and a community level.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781649797957

Jim Bostjancic

Jim Bostjancic is a screen, television writer, and novelist who grew up in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. This is his second book.

Book preview

Prologue

He needed an army to back him up, but some of the funding didn’t go through. Was the project crap. Idea didn’t grab other investors. Scuttled due to some private resentment? Passion, consistent, dedicated, focused, concentrated drive took you far. Even if his agent and Peter believed in the vision, could he expect actors and crew to show if kids at home were sick or they were not even being paid a token wage?

The crisis in the arts was due to how entertainment was now accessed. In the day, you watched VHS or DVD’s and Interpol and the FBI warned of copyright violation and consequences of massed exhibition of product. At extremes in the ’80s could those authorities justify the 1000-dollar cost for a VHS video tape machine. 50 dollars for a video store membership? Three dollars a day to rent a single movie.

The downfall and inevitable shift occurred post 9/11.

Your favorite movies. Thousands of hours of online content all for a monthly internet connection. Fans claimed it happened because moguls, exhibitors, stars, and directors were greedy.

Why pay for a single theater ticket, popcorn, and a drink on a Saturday night then? Large screens. Superheroes. Blaring THX. Extravagant special effects. The Bolder exhibition for mass appeal and international box office to minimize loss and maximize profit. Or else swipe to the next if it failed to capture attention in seconds? Instant data. Thousands of choices. Unlimited movies, music, TV – cheap or free.

The social-media status quo encouraged sharing. Equated it to equality. But free consumption failed creators. Instead of a nominal fee and recognition for contribution to pop culture, it left artists behind and their real-life stories to grocery store tabloids. YouTube fodder. Drug abuse. Alcoholism. Divorce. Destitution. Bankruptcy. In some cases, death.

You left the cinema in awe lasting a week in the ‘70s. Now, in seconds. Guilty of it himself. Downloading sneak previews and shows from the ’old days.’ Nice, but no way to sustain art.

Not about greed. A million channels on a little TV in your hands? Could studios survive if entertainment was free? Was it still valuable? No, we failed to recognize work, heart, and soul of art now. Legacy of those who came before. His own life evolving with entertainment history.

So, Garbonzo returned to the reality of his regular day job stocking items on supermarket shelves. Waiting for the wheels to turn, his project to happen, reminiscing back to that time when it started at the movie’s years ago on theater row.

Chapter 1

Vancouver, B.C. 1977

No computer. Internet. iPhones. DVD. Not even Beta max or VHS tapes. Just cable – ABC, CBS, NBC. Independents, CBC. If you were 18, drinking, nightclubs, and rock n’ roll concerts ruled. At 13, 14, 15, how you related and defined the world was by movies – seen and unseen.

Garbonzo, a skinny kid. Crooked teeth. Baby face marred by pimples, sat listening to the teacher whom he felt resembled movie actor, Elliot Gould, explain mathematics.

He looked present, but his heart and mind were in an alternate universe. He clipped an ad out of the morning Province entertainment section after doing his morning route.

Replication of movie poster advertising ‘EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER.’ Black panther with white lettering announced it was ‘Restricted.’ British Columbia film censor’s warning: ‘Frequent Violent scenes.’

Playing at the Fraser theater. Passed the Fraser every day when his mom dropped him off in her car at school. She wanted him to attend St. Christopher’s because they incorporated Catholicism in the curriculum. In 1977, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost ensured sons didn’t transform into a delinquent. In desperate instances, if that failed, Mother of God; Virgin Mary interceded.

Garbonzo had two buddies he met here. Peter and Lou. Pete was smart and studious. Always ‘got it.’ Was able to pay attention. Earned glowing grades on report cards. Garbonzo did not know what type of business his family ran, but Pete was well-to-do, and everyone marveled at the fact he was dropped off at school every day in a ‘Cadillac.’

Plus, Pete had a regal, English accent, which made everything he said sound royally important, and ‘rich!’

Lou’s claim to fame was the accelerated rate he was developing into puberty. No one, not even Pete, could not purchase a baritone voice or armpit hair to impress male peers. Mr. Garcia droned on about fractions, and the next second tore the Tiger Beat magazine concealed buy a notebook Garbonzo was glancing it. Tiger Beat featured celebrities teenagers were infatuated with. Garbonzo, so entranced by Oliva Newton John’s beauty, was oblivious to Mr. Garcia screaming at him as class laughed with delight. Mr. Garcia dragged Garbonzo by the ear to his office and WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Smacked him hard in the palm with a ruler. Again, it was 1977. A Catholic school. They had the strap. This is what happened if you were daydreaming about movies and pretty girls instead of paying attention.

****

Paper shack was a world away from adults and parents. Pecking ordered was established by age, skill set, brand, and type of bike one rode. Motocross with front and rear shocks and 10 speed Apollo’s ranked best. Bragging rights – going past first base with girls also garnered stature and awe.

’70s Pop culture lore was appreciated too.

Big Mac ruled. He was 16. Grade 10. In high school. Fellow carriers ranged from two to four years his junior. Mac counted and distributed Vancouver Sun papers. In case of no-shows, he was responsible for undelivered papers, hence he also meted out justice if no-shows later materialized.

After school, Garbonzo and Lou went home then drove their bikes to the shack. Peter met them there on Fridays because his dad couldn’t pick him up in the caddy till 5 o’clock.

Clint Eastwood was Garbonzo’s hero. The ad for his last movie ‘The Enforcer’ was in the Vancouver Sun on Christmas Eve. Black panther ‘restricted’ designation, so it blocked him from seeing it. During the winter break, he was able to see ‘The Silver Streak’ at the Vogue.

Gene Wilder smearing shoe polish over his face pretending to be black while Richard Pryor cheered him on. And ‘King Kong’ at the Downtown. Amazing special effects thriller produced by Dino De Laurentis.

Giant Monkey in love with beautiful Jessica Lange. Carrying her up the World Trade Center in New York. Really memorable impressive shows to mark that time.

Kudos to the ABC Friday and Sunday Night Movie too. ‘Dirty Harry. High Plains Drifter. Magnum Force.’ Garbonzo watched them all. His parents were friends with a couple next door who had a Zenith 26-inch color TV that had a ‘Space Command’ remote control. Unfortunately, Clint’s movies had the dreaded caption beneath; ‘edited for television.’

A janitor roamed St. Christopher’s halls, serenading crooners Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, and hummed movie musical scores. Doctor Zhivago. King and I. Gunsmoke. James Bond 007 theme. It was the best time of the day; 3 p.m. And T.G.I.F. or as they used to say in the ‘70s, ’Thank God, it’s Friday.’ Garbonzo, Peter, and Lou began to mimic the janitor’s hummed rendition of Ennio Morricone’s musical score to one of Clint Eastwood’s most famous movies.’

Whistles, cheers, and laughs. Followed by howling and cheering!

Mac knew the tune and wanted to see the show.

Even know what that is?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme, Garbonzo added.

Going to be on TV again, Peter said.

Get out, Mac added.

Swear it, Lou said.

When?

Late, Late Show. Saturday night, Garbonzo said.

What channel?

New channel; 13, Peter replied.

Know what that means? Mac announced.

Garbonzo, Peter, Lou grinned.

Yeah, best parts might not be cut, Garbonzo expanded.

Fellow carriers gasped.

Expect good things, lads, Peter added.

Everyone loaded papers on bikes and sacks, ready to roll when Lou whipped out a Forum magazine, so instead, they froze. ‘Forum’ had a lot of dirty secret information, cementing Lou’s reputation as the lewd and crude superior intellectual.

Guess what turns women on in the sexual ’70s?

Paperboys glanced at each other, clueless and innocent.

Lou pulled down his shirt to prove his point. Hairy chests like mine! Everyone marveled.

Mac shoved through, doubtful.

That chest hair isn’t real.

Then what? Lou, rhetorical now, announced.

You drew it on? No, glued them on from somebody else? Lou pulled his shirt wider, revealing more.

Everyone was flabbergasted. Floored. Stunned.

Lou had hairy arms pits, now he had a hairy chest too.

Go ahead. Grab some. Tug on it.

None of the younger boys in the shack had seen Bruce Lee rip Chuck Norris’s hairy chest in ‘Return of the Dragon,’ but Mac had and tugged hard, ripping out veritable chest hairs.

Lou screamed. Carriers laughed.

Mac was chocked – his pecs were hairless.

Accelerated puberty triumphed alpha-male status.

Guess I’m blessed, Lou said. Lou produced a green tube from his jacket pocket.

What’s that? Peter questioned. Brut-33. Deodorant. Lou smirked at Mac.

For real men…

To do what? one carrier queried.

Keeps the ladies loving me…

Mac tore it from Lou’s hand to inspect it.

You need it more than me, Lou smirked.

What’s it for? another carrier called out.

So you don’t stink," Mac said, reaching under his sweater, applying it to his armpits.

Maybe now you’ll get a date. Lou laughed.

You’ve never been with a girl in your life, runt, Mac snarled back.

You have? Peter interjected.

Damn rights, Mac shot back.

Who? Peter ‘Doubting Thomas’ of the bunch pressed.

Divorcee next door, Mac proudly announced.

Go down on her? Lou leered.

You bet. Mac announced proudly.

Carriers gasped.

Yea, what she tastes like? Lou leered.

Paper boys eagerly awaited Mac’s response.

Mac told them what he read in a Forum magazine.

Peaches.

Hysterics erupted. Except for Garbonzo. Just like in school. Always daydreaming or with his head in the clouds. He had the Vancouver Sun Entertainment section open and was contemplating movies starting on Friday.

Bring ’em? Mac asked.

Yup, Lou answered with a smirk. Rumors, whispers, and chit-chat followed. Everyone anticipating, except Garbonzo.

He won’t be thinking about what movies too see this weekend now. Garbonzo glanced over.

Everyone was bracing for something monumental.

Something more amazing than Clint Eastwood in ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ playing on the Late, Late Show on the new TV channel 13 was going to happen.

Lou grabbed his Adidas bag out of a corner cubby hole. There was going to be many disappointed customers waiting for paper delivery tonight. The ‘Adidas’ acronym meant:

‘A’ – All

‘D’ – Day

‘I’ – I

‘D’ – Dream

‘A’ – About

‘S’ – Sex!

Middle of a coverless magazine flipped open. Smiling 1976 Playboy Playmate of the Year revealed her breathtaking beauty and figure to the pubescent paperboys.

Lou opened and shut the centerfold, tantalizing them. Laughed out loud. Savoring their hopeless drooling.

Admit it! You love it! Love it – don’t ya all!

Whoa, was she ever hot, Mac contemplated.

Stop fucking doing that and let me see it! Mac ordered.

Yelling concurred, seconding the motion.

Lou slammed the magazine closed again.

Sure, but it will cost ya…

Lou stumbled on a gold mine in his own house. Dad had a secret stash of dirty magazines hidden in the basement. No way anyone knew about it. Especially his mom.

Price too see one Playboy five bucks. Or 3 magazine flashes for the price of two for a 10 buck as a deal.

We don’t get paid till collection next week, a squeaky voice rang out. Lou laughed.

Then you’ll have to wait to get your jollies then.

Everyone groaned with disappointment.

One of the carriers had an idea – shouted out!

Mr. Billion!

Yea – Mr. Billion! Another voice cried forth.

Everyone focused pleadingly on Peter.

Don’t call me that! Peter responded.

They began to chant ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ theme anew…

Told you before. I’m not rich. Dad’s the millionaire!

Lou opened and closed the Playboy seconds again. Then, unless your dad has a stash of girlie books, you’ll have to wait till you’re eighteen to see it again…

Mr. Billion rang out again. Repeatedly! Please!

Save us! Another voice rang out.

Yea – c’mon, Garbonzo added too.

Lou pointed directly at Peter.

Flashed fleeting photos of nude beauties again. Only get to look again if Pete pays. Second open and then closed. Over and over.

Lou belly-laughing away.

Tormenting and tantalizing the hell out of them for fun.

Got to be something! Garbonzo called out.

Yea! C’mon! Please! voices rang out anew.

Keep it open ten seconds if one of you kisses it! Mac immediately swacked – French wet kissed the picture.

Carriers groaned.

Gasps as Lou held Miss February open 10 seconds.

Collective sighs when Lou closed the Playboy again.

What’s it going to be?

Please, Mr. Billion! Please! a desperate voice cried. After pleading and begging, Peter handed out eight separate five-dollar bills to Lou who meted Playboys stashed in his Adidas bag to Carriers in line.

Garbonzo went off into the corner. Gazed at the beautiful blonde woman, feeling something he had never felt before – sexually aroused.

Wow, he thought to himself. Would he love this older woman to seduce and introduce him to sex? It was so intense, he completely lost track of his responsibility to deliver papers to 30 customers.

Peter had lost his bearings as well. Armed with 50 dollars pocket money in the event dad could not pick him up for a cab ride home and emergency meals, transfixed himself by Miss January and her curves.

Lou reached in his bag. When he grew up, he knew he wanted to be rich like Pete, and so far, this enterprise exceeded expectations. Now he wanted to push it further yet.

For this one. 10 bucks?

What? Why on earth for, Peter shouted.

Penthouse. Even better than Playboy.

Lou quickly opened it. Peter gasped. Not only was the female profiled amazing, but the position she posed in was more provocative and explicit than the Playboys he was privy to. So, he handed Lou a 10 and opened it – flabbergasted!

She is absolutely the most stunning, sexiest, hottest, beautiful bird I have ever seen, he announced. Look at you all! You have hard-ons! Hard-ons! They glanced down. Lou was right. It was true.

Mortified. They all had erections. The majority of them for the first time.

Lou ducked his head out the shack.

Word had gotten out.

More carriers were waiting in line outside to see.

Holy shit! I’ve never seen so many sex maniacs in my life! Lou said looking around, laughing away hysterically!

****

Subscribers to the ‘Vancouver Sun’ newspaper in the Southern Slope and Oakridge districts were baffled. What happened with their Friday paper? Other customers received it two hours late. On Monday, a district manager was going to show at the shack for this. Carriers with more than five ‘pink’ complaint slips were going to be ‘nixed.’ Clint Eastwood was on the Late Late Show that Saturday. ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ was showing.

The word was the new local station possibly aired movies that weren’t ‘edited it for television.’ But the boys never knew.

So, overwhelmed with their borrowed copies of Playboy and Penthouse, they discovered the birds and bees that weekend.

On Monday, they all showed at school. Returning what Lou now called ‘stroke magazines’ clandestinely in the boys can. Lou thoroughly laughed, shaking his head, shaming, and mocking each one of them all as they sheepishly handed the ‘stroke books’ back for him to store and conceal in his Adidas bag.

Of course none of them knew, Lou himself had thoroughly examined every single Playboy and Penthouse for hours and hours on end, and since he was going through puberty faster than any other of the Paperboys, knew he himself was the biggest sex maniac of them all.

Chapter 2

During the ride across Canada, they stopped in the Peg. Stalker knew the place having once lived near the train tracks at the intersection of Main and Logan, having moved here after leaving Flin-Flon for beating up too many people. Strode a few blocks from the bus station at Portage and Colony, to the Y

He had to leave ‘the Peg’ after knifing a drug dealer. Few years later, the hold-up squad in Toronto boxed him for knocking over banks. Now he was fresh out of the Kingston, Pen after doing a 6-year stretch. 27 years old and on his way to Vancouver. Stalker never had it easy. Never knew his real mom and dad. And never, ever since he was a kid, liked anyone telling him what to do. In and out of orphanages. Never listened to foster parents giving him a chance. Lifting money from their purses or wallets to buy baseball cards, chewing gum, or chocolate bars. Eventually swiping cars to getaway further and faster as he grew up. In prison became permanently brain damaged after being jumped and sodomized, never able to think people were nice again.

When Stalker got out of the infirmary, he dummied the gang who jumped him, stomping them and kicking teeth out, making a nasty rep for himself as someone for nobody to mess with.

By 25, it was too late to get right.

A change had occurred, worsening a slight psycho into a mean man who felt he could only survive the world with his fists, body, and a don’t-sass-me-boy temperament. From the bus station in Vancouver on Dunsmuir Street, the cab dropped him off on Burrard in front of the YMCA. Pissed about having to fork over five bucks for fare, since he could have used for eats. More ticked when he learned this Y didn’t accommodate travelers or poor boys with no dough like him. Just stuffed suits in tall bank towers near-by who had big cash to workout. Called a dude he knew in the slammer from a phone booth. Instead of inviting him to stay at his place, the bugger told him to hit the Holiday Inn down the street. Got lost trying to find it a few blocks away and they wanted 70 bucks a night for one night! Should have stayed in the Peg! Even if he didn’t land a regular job knew women who wanted to keep them warm in the sack all winter! If he ran into that a-hole from the pen who promised him he could crash at his place if he ever came out here, he would trounce the guy good.

He wandered down Helmcken to Granville Street. Pipes and roach clips in head shop windows. Places that sold dirty magazines and stroke books. It was raining – so he strut in the Golden Kitten theater.

Down pouring after he exited the dirty movie. Now wanted to get laid. A streetwalker with a deadly body asked if he wanted a date. Another cab dropped them at The Sunrise Hotel. It was on the skids in area he heard about in the Pen, called the Downtown East side. Drunks loafed everywhere. Dope fiends sprawled on sidewalks. Lowlifes on corners eyeballing him. He glared back jailhouse hard. They clued in fast not to mess with him.

Gerry the-Cop cringed on his way to a call past the Smiling Buddha club. Sex Pistols punk music was blaring from it and he was more a K.C. and the Sunshine Band,That’s the way I like it," disco music appreciative , ’70s tunes style guy.

Compared to other cops who brushed her off, Gerry was a good shit. A butt ugly trick slapped and took her money. Over three hundred bucks. How was a working girl sporting a nasty shiner like she had now going to pay the rent?

No Johns would want her now. Gerry gave her his card. Said to ring dispatch if she spotted him along Hastings. They would radio him. He would stop and hold the suspect till she came to identify him being the guy or not?

Ugly was a few blocks over at the West Hotel. The bedraggled clerk showing him a dive called an SRO A single room occupancy dump. A private shower was five bucks more. Hadn’t slept since boarding the bus in the Peg two days ago and needed to crash. Sleep for a week. When he was fresh, hit the welfare in this town. Get Free money. Then see what he could make happen for himself out here on the left coast.

Chapter 3

All Garbonzo’s parents seemed to be doing all the time was work. His mom dropping him at school then speeding to her job as a hairstylist. When dad got home, he toiled around the garden, kept up the yard, or was tinkering with the families’ two cars. He didn’t see his parents much except weekends. They were content he went to school, had a paper route, made money, and never questioned what he did with the 30 dollars he earned every month.

That was also the difference between him, Lou, and Peter compared to school peers. Garbonzo and his pals had money in their pockets to do things other kids didn’t. Since his family didn’t have cable, Garbonzo had been on the phone talking to Pete who had broken bad news. The Late Show on the new channel 13 cut the best parts out of movies too. That was just the start. End of the week report cards were coming out. Tension always occurred around this time. At breakfast, Garbonzo learned Mr. Garcia telephoned on Friday and wanted to see him and his parents. On Monday, his mom came to pick him up at St. Christopher’s and they all had a chat in the principal’s office.

We’re busy, working people, his mother insisted, and he already failed to complete grade two, mom added.

What? Mr. Garcia exclaimed stunned.

Happened when he was in public school.

That’s supposed to be a secret! Garbonzo yelled.

Mr. Garcia was furious.

How old are you? Garbonzo glanced at his mom.

Confidential. Hiding this too. Embarrassed about flunking and supposedly being dumb.

How has he gotten away with this?

His birthday is late in the year, mom said.

How did things degenerate so far? He’s in deeper trouble than I thought.

The movies. Instead of doing homework, takes the bus and goes downtown weekends to see movies. It’s all he talks about, his mom said.

You enabled him! Give him money to do this.

Has his own money, mom