Fred Longworth

After I Read This in Public, They Tried to Beat Me to Death

I’d just finished taking a class called "Labeling – the Gateway to Bigotry" when I found myself in a crowded theater. About an hour into the flick, some kid – well, maybe he wasn’t a kid. He was a juvenile. No, that won’t do. He was a young person. But don’t think by "young" I mean diminished capacity, or inexperienced, or unevolved in any way. I mean something purely chronological, like Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, or "this street was last paved on June 2nd."

In any case, this entity about fourteen was playing with a lighter in the front row. Maybe "lighter" is too judgmental. People of broad girth will probably be offended. I’ll just call it Zippo. He kept flicking the Zippo open and striking a flame, then shutting it with a clap. He kept looking around to see how many other young entities were glancing back at him, silently voicing "Hey, that’s cool!" and how many older entities were scowling with disapproval. But don’t take my word for it. I’m probably out of line to postulate what this young entity was thinking or even that he was thinking. Maybe he was playing with the Zippo as neutrally as a gate will swing back and forth in the wind. Of course "gate" can imply a barrier, and I don’t want to suggest that I was standing in his way.

Suddenly, from his area, I saw billows of black stuff in the air, and a lot of these red, yellow and orange tongues flickering above the carpet. They spread rapidly. Soon I could hardly see the screen. I thought of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to be guilty of labeling.