The movie was as complicated as advertised, so twisty that Izzy felt her mind constantly juggling the possible motives of the characters, never able to consider one long enough before she had to deal with another. The two guys behind Izzy and Hal had spent a good portion of the movie discussing, in voices just below a conversational volume, their theories as to what might happen next.
“That dude is bad, bet on it,” one of them said.
“They want you to think that dude is bad so that, like, when the real bad guy shows up, you won’t notice.”
“That’s why he’ll end up actually being bad, just to blow your goddamned mind.”
Hal, who had been twisting a napkin into tiny, sweat-dampened bits of confetti, finally turned to the guys and said, “Could you guys not talk about this, please?”
“Sorry, man,” one of the guys said, and Izzy quickly grabbed Hal’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Even in the dim light, she could see him force a tight smile for her benefit. Five minutes later, the two men started up again as if nothing had happened.
“His car is gonna run out of gas, bet on it,” one of them said, a little louder than before, as a matter of fact. “Why show the needle of the gas gauge unless he’s going to run out of gas later?”
“Well, of course it’s going to run out of gas, shit, man, that’s a given.”
Hal turned around again and whispered, his voice cracking a little with exasperation, “Guys? Could you not talk?”
“Why don’t you and your daughter move to another seat if it’s bothering you so much, man?”
Hal, his twitchiness and anxiety sometimes obscuring the fact that he was solid and fairly tall, stood up and turned to face the still-seated men. “Why don’t I fucking move you guys out of the fucking theater,” he said.
“C’mon, Hal,” Izzy said, immediately pulling on his arm, which he snatched from her grip. “Let’s just move.” She tried to calm him while knowing, the way he kept snapping his head to the side, that he was already well on his way toward that frightening stage of his mania, where he smashed something into tiny pieces.
“Jesus, man, relax,” one of the men said, smirking. “We’re sorry, okay? We’ll shut up.”
Izzy leaned toward Hal and said, “Let’s get the heck out of here, please?”
Hal kissed her and then turned back to the movie. “I cannot fucking figure this thing out to save my life.”
Less than a minute later, just enough time to believe that order had been restored, disaster narrowly averted, the man sitting behind Hal kicked viciously at the back of the seat. As if coiled in anticipation of this very action, Hal snapped around and punched the man squarely in the face. The man recoiled from the impact and slumped in his seat, stunned by the act. Before the other man could even react, Hal had jumped over the seats and was on top of him; they were wrestling and Hal kept grabbing for leverage while the man shouted, “Take it easy. Take it easy, man. Take it easy.”
Izzy didn’t realize it, but she was pounding on Hal’s back, trying to get him to disengage from the fight, to get his feet moving out of the theater. “Please, Hal, we have to go.”
By now, the rest of the audience was turned to watch the fight. “You had to be a fucking asshole, didn’t you? Like the world isn’t already full of fucking assholes,” Hal said, his voice still barely above a whisper, as if trying to be courteous to everyone else. Izzy nearly fell over the back of her seat trying to maintain her grip on Hal’s shirt. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Finally, Hal pulled away after he managed to land a single punch to the man’s ear, which made him howl in pain. Izzy pulled Hal down the aisle, out of the theater, not stopping to look around. The pocket on Hal’s shirt was nearly ripped off, and the knuckles on his right hand were as red as raw meat, but, otherwise, there was no immediate sign of a fight on his person. No one was yet following them out of the darkened theater. They moved swiftly but calmly out of the building, past the concessions, past the ticket taker, into the parking lot. Izzy tossed the keys to Hal and they sped onto the main road, putting traffic between them and the fucking calamity that they had made.
After nearly ten minutes of uneasy silence, both of them breathing so hard and their bodies radiating so much heat that the windows constantly fogged, Hal finally said, “Are you okay?”
Izzy was still unable to speak. She just nodded, not able to look at Hal.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and his foot touched the accelerator at this same moment and the car kicked forward. “Everything hit at once. I need things to hit in a sequence and things just hit all at once. I don’t know how to handle myself sometimes.”