Back in June, I wrote about seeing Top Gun: Maverick, disturbing displays of movie fandom, and my stint working for Mann Theaters during the summer of 1996. What I neglected to mention was that The Mann wasn’t my only employer that summer. For the final two weeks of that summer, before heading back to college, I also worked for a man named Jeff, who owned an auto repair shop. Like all great gigs, this one came to me through nepotism.
After The Mann canceled employee perks like free popcorn and soda, I quit. If The Mann wanted to be petty, I could be petty too.
“What are you going to do for the rest of the summer?” my dad asked.
I didn’t have an answer. Actually, I had an answer, but somehow I knew my dad wouldn’t appreciate my plan to watch old movies on cable, raid the kitchen for snacks, and generally fuck off for two weeks.
“If you don’t have a job, you can work with me,” Dad said.
I had worked for my dad plenty of times. He always needed a production assistant, or an extra hand in the …
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