Racking Up an Evening With a Fine Dinner and Movie

Sometimes my wife and I seem to enjoy serendipity--the gift of making fortunate discoveries accidentally.

All you have to do is set out on some adventure, not knowing how it will turn out.

The other morning my wife was reading a review of “Danzon,” a Mexican movie about Julia, a 40ish Mexico City telephone operator who romanticizes her nights on the dance floor with Carmelo, an elegant older man in a white hat.

“I’d like to see that,” she said.

After she’d gone to work I read the review. The movie sounded fascinating. I checked the ads and found that it was opening that night at the Esquire, in Pasadena. The small print said, I thought, that it began at 9 p.m.

I called my wife at work and suggested that we have dinner in Pasadena and catch the movie. She sounded delighted.

We left the house in plenty of time. The question was, where to have dinner. We know several good restaurants in Pasadena (among them the Market City Cafe in Old Town) but I wanted something nearer to the theater. I had heard of a restaurant on Green Street east of Lake. I drove a few blocks past Lake and saw a well-lighted restaurant on a corner. It was called Roxxi. We could see many people dining through the windows. Garish prints adorned the walls. We decided to try it.

The service was fine. We both ordered a curried Thai chicken on black linguine. We each had two glasses of Chardonnay. Altogether, it was excellent. We struck up a conversation with a handsome couple at the next table. The owner had brought them a bottle of white wine that he highly recommended. The gentleman insisted that I try it. He ordered a glass and poured me some. It was one of those little incidents that can enhance an evening.

We arrived at the theater in plenty of time. To my dismay, I found that the movie started at 9:30, not 9. Have you ever sat in a theater lobby for half an hour? It’s worse than sitting in a bus depot. There was a Denny’s across the street. We decided to go there for a cup of coffee.

Walking down Colorado Boulevard we came to a saloon called Colorado Bar. It had no windows. Just a slab door. I pushed the door open and looked in. Four or five people sat at a long bar. A pool table stood in front of the bar. Others could be seen in a back room. A few couples sat in booths. I could hear the racket of pool balls and raucous male shouts. The air reeked of tobacco smoke.

“Looks good,” I said. “Let’s have a glass of wine.”

We sat at the bar and ordered two glasses of white wine. The bartender said, “That’ll be three-fifty.” The wine at the Roxxi had been $8.

“I’m overcome by waves of nostalgia,” I told my wife. It was true. In my days as a young reporter I had frequented bars like this. I felt at home.

I went to the restroom. In the small space I collided with a tall, lean man with a hard, handsome face. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. I took him for an ex-Marine.

A few minutes later the ex-Marine racked the balls on the table by the bar and started playing with a muscular young man in a T-shirt. The latter was obviously the better player. At one point he essayed banking the five-ball across the table and into a side pocket. The five-ball caromed off the 13-ball and went in. But he turned the table over to the ex-Marine.

“You made the five-ball,” I said, “how come you gave up your cue?”

He gave me a friendly smile and explained that he had called the five-ball in the side pocket, but had not called the carom off the 13 ball. “This is call shot,” he said. “You have to call your shots.”

Of course I knew that; I had played call shot many times. We watched the game with interest. Finally T-shirt won. The ex-Marine shook his hand. Polite to the end.

We got to the theater with five minutes to spare, much mellowed by our experience in the Colorado Bar.

There were hardly more than 30 people in the audience. The movie was indeed sensual, charming and full of laughs. When Carmelo vanishes, Julia is bereft. She goes to his hometown, Veracruz, in search of him.

In that picturesque port she meets several engaging people, including a compassionate transvestite and a virile young seaman. She rather discovers herself as a woman.

You never know what kind of adventures you will have when you go out to the movies. You don’t even have to call your shots.