One cold winter night, at the age of 17, I set out across frozen Lake of the Isles for a covert operation at the Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis. My best friend, Gunderbutt, and I were out to see an R-rated double feature.
We were too young to buy tickets to see "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now." So rather than going to the main entrance, we headed straight for the Lagoon Avenue emergency exit. It seemed stuck at first. But then, grudgingly, it opened.
It always did. The latch had been broken for years.
I didn't know it then, but by slipping into the theater that night, I was slipping out of my childhood. I was entering a place that wasn't quite adulthood, but where adult decisions were made.
My friends and I sneaked into plenty of theaters over the years, but most of the movies we saw were at the Uptown, because of that broken door. We usually went for themed doubleheaders: "Pink Flamingos" paired with "Eraserhead" or the emotionally complicated "Carnal Knowledge" paired with "Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession" (which I saw at 15 — definitely bad timing).
But the night Gunderbutt and I saw "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deer Hunter" felt different, important somehow. There was a military charge in the air. The year was 1982. We'd just been reminded in health class that President Carter had reinstated selective service two summers before. We needed to sign up when we turned 18. If we didn't, we wouldn't be eligible for college financial aid. We might even be charged with a felony.
Gunderbutt and I talked a lot about that requirement and wondered why it was reinstated if our country wasn't at war (we were unaware that newly elected President Reagan had just initiated covert operations in Nicaragua and El Salvador). But when "The Deer Hunter" started, we were able to kick back and forget all of that. For the film's first 30 minutes anyway.
Then we were dropped, as if from a thumping helicopter, into the moral terror of the jungle war.