Back Row at the 400 Drive In
By the time Dick (who hated being called Richard) pulled up outside Wells’ building, the city was still holding the day’s heat. Streetcars groaned in the distance, windows were open up and down the block, and Toronto smelled like pavement, gasoline, and summer. Dick leaned one arm over the door of his Studebaker convertible and looked up just as Wells came down the steps.
Wells had dressed lightly for the heat: dark hair slicked back in a neat pompadour, open-collar summer shirt clinging just enough across his chest and shoulders, trousers sitting high on his waist, sleeves showing strong forearms browned by the sun. He moved with that easy confidence Dick had been thinking about all week.
“You’re late,” Dick said.
Wells smiled as he slipped into the passenger seat. “You don’t look disappointed.”
Dick didn’t answer right away. He just pulled the car away from the curb and let the warm evening air do the talking for him.
They drove north out of the city with the top down, past thinning blocks of storefronts and scattered roadside lights, the Studebaker humming low beneath them. Dick kept one hand loose on the wheel, the other near the seat between them. Wells sat angled toward the road at first, watching the last glow fade from the sky, but every so often Dick caught him looking over.
“You still haven’t told me what picture we’re seeing,” Wells said.
“That important to you?”
“It might be, if you dragged me all the way up Highway 400 for some sad war picture.”
Dick laughed softly. “You’ll survive.
By the time they reached the 400 Drive-In, the place was alive with headlights, gravel crunching under tires, and voices drifting through the dark. The great pale screen rose above the lot like a wall against the sky. Beneath it, the marquee glowed. Rows of cars were already settling in. Speaker posts stood at each parking spot. The snack bar was bright with white-uniformed girls moving behind the counter while boys in rolled sleeves wandered through with popcorn and paper cups.
Dick paid at the gate and drove them inward, deeper into the lot, then farther still.
Wells noticed. Of course he did.
“You planning to watch from the back row?”
Dick glanced at him. “Best place.”
“For the movie?”
ick eased the Studebaker into a quieter stretch of gravel and killed the engine. The screen flickered to life in front of them, silver light washing across the windshield. Somewhere nearby, a speaker crackled. Beyond that, there was only the chirr of insects, the smell of dust and warm metal, and the faint sweetness drifting from the concession stand.
Dick reached over and hooked the speaker onto the window.
Then he turned, slower this time, and rested his arm along the back of the seat.
“I asked you here to see a picture,” he said.
Wells waited.
“I just didn’t say that was all I had in mind.”
For a second Wells said nothing. The screen flashed over his face, then dimmed again. His mouth curved, slow and knowing.
“You drove all the way out here for that line?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Wells gave a low laugh and shifted closer on the seat. Close enough now that Dick could catch the clean scent of his soap under the night air, close enough to see the pulse in his throat when the screen flared white again.
Outside, the film had begun. Inside the car, neither of them was paying much attention.
Dick touched Wells first like he’d been thinking about it for days and had finally lost patience with himself. A hand at Wells’ waist. A pause. Then Wells’ hand catching Dick’s wrist, not to stop him, but to keep him there. They kissed with the windows open to the summer dark, the speaker muttering forgotten dialogue beside them.
Every so often the lot lit up with a bright scene from the picture, silver spilling over the dash, over Wells’ cheekbones, over Dick’s hand spread on his thigh. Then the screen would darken again and leave them half-hidden in the back row, all warm breath and low laughter and the creak of upholstery beneath them.
Later they went to the snack bar, not because either of them was hungry, but because they needed the excuse to step out of the car and steady themselves. Dick bought Coca-Colas and popcorn he never touched. Wells leaned against the counter with his collar a little looser than before, looking far too pleased with himself.
On the way back, Dick brushed his fingers against the small of Wells’s back as they crossed the gravel.
“You going to watch the second picture?” Wells asked.
Dick opened the car door for him. “Depends.”
“On what?”
Dick looked at him, letting the moment stretch.
“On whether you plan to behave.”
Wells smiled and slid back into the seat. “Not likely.”
So they returned to the back row while the giant screen glowed over everybody else and the summer night settled deeper around them. The movie rolled on. Cars idled and cooled. Voices rose and fell in the distance. But in Dick’s Studebaker, with the speaker hanging at the window and the smell of dust, tobacco, and popcorn in the air, the real feature was much closer at hand.
Years later, neither of them would remember much about the picture.
But they both remembered the pre-dawn drive home.
One summer night, one Studebaker, one night in the back-row — if you’re ready for hot lights, close quarters, and the kind of trouble that follows you home before dawn, come ride with us. Contact our recruiters: @alton-gold77, @polo-drone-125
