Page 83 of Shadow Ticket

“Enjoying that popcorn, there,” Daphne observes, “and the lights aren’t hardly down yet.”

“Mighty unusual taste, besides the paprika, I mean, it’s not butter exactly—”

“It’s goose fat. Normally it’d be restaurant lard, but now and then, special movies call for special recipes.”

“Aahm-hmng!” through a mouthful of giant exploded kernels fiery with eros paprika, drenched in goose grease, vanishing by the fistful till soon, shamelessly, Bruno has started grabbing at Daphne’s popcorn as well.

“Here now, none of that—” batting his hand away.

The feature they’re here tonight to see isBigger Than Yer Stummick(1931), the latest hit starring child sensation Squeezita Thickly, which is about, well, eating, actually. Back in the States, every showing of this movie, no matter where, has collapsed well before the second reel into civic disorder—screens across the nation presently inscribed with knife scars, fork tracks, spoon indentations as audiences, many of whom haven’t seen a square meal since the start of the Depression, sent into collective chuck horrors by giant images of turkeys, roasts, tenderloin steaks and birthday cakes, pots of soup big enough to swim in, go running up to physically assault the screen hoping in some magical way to forcibly enter the paradise of eats being so meanly denied them, only reluctantly pausing when Squeezita, adorable as always, comes marching into the shot with a determined twinkle in her eye, brandishing a sidearm, and swinging dimpled li’l fists back and forth, and singing in 3/4,

Ooohh,

Eat-ing, eat-ing!

My, what a thing, to do!

When it’s pea-nut but-ter and

jel-ly time?

Right, down-in-to-yer

Bel-ly time!

Who’d ev-ver wanna stop, eea-ting?

Pass that ba-na-na cream pi-i-ie—

Ooh my!

You don’t want conversation? well

nei(heehee)ther do I, when we’re

Ee-ea-ting!

A pot of soup, approached from overhead, now smoothly lap-dissolving into a giant swimming pool full of bathing beauties, bordered by palm trees and food pitches, offering an array of snacks from roast turkey drumsticks to deluxe hot dogs smothered in sport peppers and dripping green-blue pickle relish strangely aglow, even though the movie’s supposed to be in black-and-white, and gigantic Italian sandwiches quite a few feet long, and glutton-size ice-cream extravaganzas and oh well that sort of menu…

Soon enough, however, the music has shifted grimly minor, as overhead now looms agiantsoupladle, about to dip down and scoop up one or more of the aqua-lovelies, as if, in thedistantworldfrom which the ladle has descended, they are considered edible delicacies. The girls cast theatrical glances skyward, scream, squeal, submerge in the soup trying to escape, yet smiling all through the shot, having just the greatest fun, while pretending to croon, in tight inside-the-octave harmony.

Sir-loin steaks-from-the bar-

-be-cue—

Hot fudge sundaes ’n’ lob-sters too, It’s my

own business what I’ve been

Ee-at-ing,

Never mind how much I ate—

Long as you keep yer lunch-hooks a-

-way from my plate, when we’re

Eea-ea-ting!