I Thought I Was Fine...

You never realize how something affects you until you look back, years removed, and truly accept the damage that is done.  I’m relatively self-aware and have a general understanding of why I will do the things I do or act the way I do.  Granted, it’s not always as I’m still prone to making decisions that don’t make much sense.  However, I think I’ve grown to a point where, even in the middle of a questionable decision, my brain will be telling me that I need to control or change an action.

Emily and I in 2002 and again in 2018...

It wasn’t until this past Friday when I realized how damaged I was from an incident over 18 years ago.  I truly believed that I was so past the situation that nothing from it resonated into my life every day after.  Let me set the stage.  Last Friday I was continuing my streak of attending a movie with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on opening night; 17th movie in a row.  My girlfriend Emily was joining me, as well as her son Jackson.  Knowing we’d be picking Jackson up in Pleasant Hill, I thought it might be fun to see it at the theater that I was the manager for 18 years ago, as well as the place that brought Emily and I together all those years back.  See, I was managing the theater and she was a teller at the bank the company utilized.  I managed to utilize my awkward flirting and lack of game to go on a date.  Long story short, we dated, broke up and the universe brought us back together many years later.  Pretty amazing story, but I’ll get into that another time.

As we walked up to the theater, I started to feel a little weird.  They have done some improvements and renovations, but it was the same theater I spent over 70 hours a week in all those years ago.  I met some wonderful people there, people I have maintained amazing friendships with to this day.  I assumed the feelings I was going through were just nostalgia and flooding memories, nothing more sinister than that.  After we sat down, I excused myself to the restroom so I wouldn’t have to get up during the movie.  As I left the restroom, I glanced casually towards the west exit door.  Surrounded by glass bricks to the outside, it looks exactly like it did years before.  Then it hit me, like something in a horror movie.  Panic.  Anxiety.  Fear.  I went back into the theater, shaken, yet put on the mask of “nothing is wrong” and watched the movie.  While enjoying the movie, I couldn’t shake my anxiety and fear.  I would constantly shift in my seat, feeling trapped mentally and not knowing how to escape it.  Emily leaned over at one point and said, “We’re never coming back here.”  Her comment was a joke regarding the seats and how they weren’t the spacious recliner chairs we’ve grown accustomed to at other theaters.  I laughed and said, “Definitely not.”  The seats weren’t that great, but my issue was much deeper than that.  As the movie ended and we left, I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough, closing the door on ever returning there.

Back in the theater days with my BIGSEXY license plate

So I’m sure you’re wondering, “What about that door triggered such fear?”  To understand what happened we have to travel way back to 2001.  Buckle up because this story takes some time to get through.  Now, as I write this, I don’t remember the dates at all.  When you’re managing a movie theater, days and times tend to run together.  You’re always there and working.  You start associating movies with events, more so than the dates of anything.  I’ve blocked out the movies that were playing at that time but I do know it was summer of 2001.  The theater had always been fun.  I enjoyed my job, as I was surrounded by movies, great employees and customers.  However, this particular time frame was stressful.  There was some internal theft going on that I just couldn’t figure out.  My inventory count was always accurate, but the money never matched despite the register receipts being spot on.  It seemed like every shift had a shortage, so it was clear that someone was stealing.  Despite my best efforts to monitor everyone, the problem kept going.  I entrusted a couple of employees to assist me in figuring out the issue, telling them exactly what to look for.  Still, nothing.  Then came the Sunday evening where my assistant manager Derek called me at home.  He was frantically looking for the money bag from the matinee shows, only to come up empty.  As usual, I had placed it in the safe before leaving for the evening.  I drove across town to the theater to help in the search.  We tore that place up for hours and couldn’t find a thing.  It was well over $10,000 and it somehow grew legs and walked away.  Couple this with the inventory issues, I knew there was a major problem that was spiraling out of control.  I thought that I was doing a good job as a manager.  24 years old and I had been transferred around Iowa to help fix theaters that had managerial issues, but now I’m in a situation I can’t figure out.  Something odd happened the week after the money bag disappeared, though. My inventory counts and money were absolutely perfect.  There was not one penny unaccounted for.  While there was a mild relief, there was the unfortunate realization that an employee “Zack” (not his real name) who I trusted completely, was the one behind everything.  How did I figure that out?  “Zack” made the mistake of taking that week off.  He was the only one off that week and, miraculously, everything was fixed.  Remember when I said I entrusted a couple people to help me and I told them what to look for?  Yeah, he was one of them.  It was crushing.  He wasn’t just an employee.  He was a friend.  I trusted him with my car.  We played basketball together.  We hung out outside the theater and I never witnessed any red flags.  He was someone with a questionable past, but after we worked together and got to know each other, I thought he turned a page and his life would be positive.  Whoops.

I waited until the day before “Zack” was supposed to come back to work and then I called him.  I made some small talk, asking about his time off and making it seem like nothing was amiss.  Before we hung up I asked him to stop by the theater because I needed to talk to him.  He paused and said he’d come by later that night.  He never showed up.  I never mentioned to him that I solved the mystery, but he definitely knew what I needed to say.  Either he knew his guilt and just walked away, or his cousin “AC” (again, not a real name) who also worked with us (I didn’t tell him “Zack” was the culprit), told him that the mystery was solved, I don’t know.  I let him walk away and decided to move on.  Lesson learned, right?  Apparently his checkered past would be his future also.  I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.

So I let things go.  I moved on with a more watchful eye of my employees, but also deeply hurt that my trust could be abused in that way.  Regardless, I suppressed that and tried not to punish others for what “Zack” did.

As we fast forward a couple of months, things were going well again.  My inventory, payroll and deposits were all excellent.  My employees were positive and we were back to the type of theater I enjoyed managing.  I took a weekend off to head to Omaha for a wedding.  It’s a quick drive so I went up Saturday, had a great time, stayed the night and drove back to work on Sunday night.  It was a relatively slow Sunday night, so I was catching up on some paperwork in my office.  While working on a report, out of the corner of my eye I saw a mouse run across the floor.  Startled because I’m a very clean individual and kept my theater clean, I became obsessed with finding this little rodent and disposing of it.  The next few hours saw me complete empty furniture out of my office, cleaning thoroughly, yet never finding the mouse.  The last movies were getting out a little after midnight while I finished getting my office back in order.  It had been roughly an hour of putting things back when I was finally finishing up.  It was a little later than I would normally be there at night, but that mouse had driven me nuts!  I emerged from my office and noticed, what I thought were police lights outside of the west door.  Flashing through the glass bricks were red and blue lights, while a shadowed figure was posed on one side of the glass bricks you can’t clearly see through.  I didn’t think anything of it, just assuming someone was pulled over, so I walked over and opened up the door.  My car was over there so I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.  When the door opened, I got a clear view of the shadowy figure by the door.  It was a Pleasant Hill police officer…with his gun drawn, pointing in the direction of my car.  Startled, I threw my hands up and proclaimed, “It’s Ryan.  The theater manager.”  The officer, who I recognized and who recognized me, sharply turned to me, lowered his gun and said, “Hey, Ryan.  How’s it going?”  Shocked, all I could say was, “I don’t know.  How am I?”  I will never forget his comment.  I still remember it vividly, just like it was yesterday, “We found a guy with a gun under your car.  There was another that we’re locating right now.  Go inside and relax.  We’ll come in momentarily and update you.”

The theater...good and bad memories....

So the relaxing part didn’t happen.  I was trembling, even shaking while I write this.  Why would anyone be under my car with a gun?  Who could it be?  Who is the second guy?  Were there any others?  I had stopped hunting the mouse in my office.  Now I felt like the prey.  The officers came in and assured me everything was okay.  They found the second suspect in the dumpster and were talking to a third man in a car up the street, likely the getaway driver.  The officer asked me if I was familiar with someone named…you guessed it, “Zack”.  I gave them a brief overview that he was a former employee that was let go due to theft.  Another officer came in and asked if I knew “AC”, who was in the car up the street.  “AC” denied knowledge of anything at theater and was “meeting with a girl”, but if your cousin is under your bosses car with a gun, you probably have some insight.  The third guy in the dumpster, “Samuel”, was someone I had met briefly but didn’t really know.

I asked the officers a couple of questions, but first on my mind was if the gun was loaded.  They told me it was a BB gun, which was a slight relief, but then they filled me in on the plan that “Zack” admitted to in the back of the squad car.  Their plan was to hide under my car, once I came out with the night deposit, jump me, rob me, pistol whip me and flee in “AC’s” car.  Luckily for me, and I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the night officers always drove by the theater around the time I left each night to make sure everything was good.  I have no idea how long they had been doing this, but I was lucky.  During his patrol, he noticed a dark figure under the back of my car.  He pulled into the parking lot, shined the light and insured my safety.  Had he not been doing that, who knows.  You just don’t know how severely I could have been beaten that night.  Who knows if I would even be here today without that officer, not just doing his job, but going above and beyond, at least in my mind?

I went home that night, shell shocked.  I don’t remember sleeping and constantly thinking about going back to the theater in the morning for work.  I was the first one in the building that morning and was scared to death until my employees started showing up.  Funny thing was, as I sat down at my desk, I heard a faint thumping sound.  I looked down into my trash can to find...the mouse.  I grabbed the trash can, walked outside and let him run out.  Without that little guy, who knows what would have happened to me.  It was quickly realized that word had spread about the near robbery and attack, as every employee did one of two things; keep their distance because they knew I was “off” that day, or stay really close to me and make sure I was okay.  There was no right or wrong way to deal with me that day.  All I knew is that I could tell each of them cared.  It was a very low point for me, but those kids did their best to pick me up and support me.  I spent most of that day in my office, sequestered from everyone and only coming out when I knew I had to.

You’d think that would be the end of that day, right?  Nothing is ever that easy.  Sometime in the afternoon there was a knock on my office door.  I looked through the peephole and saw…”AC”.  Yes, the same “AC” that was in the getaway car the night before.  I was panicked but let him in and acted as if I didn’t know his role in the situation.  He had his friend, “Kenny”, with him.  I knew him and he was such a good kid that I had no issue with him standing in the office with “AC”.  We closed the door and proceeded to talk.  He told me that “Zack” was bailed out so to be careful.  He mentioned that he was in the car up the street but didn’t know what was happening.  While I didn’t believe that, I never held ill feeling towards “AC”.  Him and I had an outstanding relationship and I think he was just a high school kid caught in between his loyalty to me and his cousin.  He didn’t know what to do.  I truly believe he stayed in the car and, like as ostrich, buried his head.  If he didn’t see what happened to me, it didn’t really happen.  At least that’s what I think his rationale was.  As he was about to leave, he reached into his pocket.  He unzips a little pouch and inside was a small pistol.  He tried handing it to me, worried that “Zack” was going to come back and finish what he started.  I put my hands out and said, “Don’t want it.”  “AC” was confused and, with a very concerned tone, told me he wasn’t sure what “Zack” was capable of.  I looked “AC” in the eyes and said, “Tell him this.  If I have an ass whipping coming to me, then I have an ass whipping coming to me.  I don’t want to be a part of what you’re handing me.”  He put it away and left.  Obviously, he never worked for me again either.  Everyone parted ways.  I never saw “AC” again, but still hope he’s doing well.

Of course I would go on to hear from “Zack” again.  I was at the Iowa State Fair with friends that next summer.  We had been doing a little drinking, so I was feeling good.  As the group was walking the fairgrounds, I glanced up and saw “Zack” standing with a friend.  We caught eyes and he seemed to jump back in his skin, unsure of me.  I walked right towards him.  I can only imagine what was racing through his mind.  I walked up, hand outstretched, slapped hands with him, brought him in for a hug and said, “Nothing happened.”  He stood there, shocked, and I walked away.  One of the group asked me who that was and I said the guy who tried to rob me.  She punched me in the arm.  I explained it as, hopefully a moment he can look back on and say, “That was my turning point to a better life.  Despite everything I put him through, he believed in a different side of me.”

I heard from him one other time, a few weeks after the fair.  He left a message on the answering machine at the theater.  In one of the craziest moments showing a true lack of self-awareness, he asked me to call him back if he could put me down as a job reference.  No, I’m not kidding.  The guy who stole a bank deposit, thousands of dollars from the registers and tried to rob me called to ask for a job reference.  I still laugh at that one.

I have occasionally looked up “Zack” over the years.  Sadly, he didn’t take the message away I had hoped.  He has had many run-ins with the law and is currently in prison until 2025.  You can’t help who doesn’t want to be helped.

So, yeah, that door with the glass bricks triggered those memories.  I had to come to the realization that, 18 years ago, that moment caused a level of trauma I never really dealt with.  I’ve struggled to trust people since then.  I’ll push people away for the littlest of things.  Even those closest to me will see me occasionally push away, not because of anything they did, but because of the trauma of this whole situation ripped me apart more than I ever truly knew.  I’ve had people turn their back on me since then and I just let it happen, assuming they were using me for whatever they needed at that time in their life.  I also became quite paranoid.  I moved apartments quickly after, unlisted my phone number and even held off on things like MySpace and Facebook until later because I scared being found.  I still look behind and under my car to this day.  I have cameras in my house.  My paranoia isn’t as dominating as it once was, but it will always be there.  It also changed my perception of people.  I used to always see the positive in everyone, but I’m not as naïve anymore.  I still look for the positive, but I won’t push aside the red flags like I once did.

I honestly hate that I’m not as trusting, that I’ll push away, complicate things that aren’t there and have a paranoid side.  I’ve been scarred in a way that I don’t believe can be changed back.  Then again, I wouldn’t want to go back.  Everything that I learned through this and subsequent experiences have brought me to who and where I am today.  I may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think I’m a pretty good guy who tries to learn from everything.

I hadn’t been back to that theater in 17 years.  I’m glad I did, because I can write this and put that situation in my rearview mirror.  That said, I will never step foot in that place again.  Why go through something painful if you don’t have to?  After getting through it as best as I could, I tattooed my back with the words “Only the Strong Survive”.  Inspired by a logo shirt of Allen Iverson, most just thought I was using Iverson’s logo as a cool tattoo, which it is, but it meant so much more.  I put on the exterior strength but never really appreciated the internal strength I would need to push through issues that arose because of this.

Apparently I’m still learning how to deal with the impact of this situation.  I’ve forgiven and moved on, but how do you heal internal pain?  My best answer…get up and keep moving.  You can’t let anything or anyone control what you feel.

If only it were that easy…