PART 2
The man beside Marcus wore a maroon polo with the theater’s logo stitched over the pocket and a laminated badge that read Jordan, General Manager.
He wasn’t holding a flashlight or a clipboard, just a small tablet, and he walked with the specific calm of someone who had done this exact walk down this exact aisle more times than he probably wanted to count.
I noticed, even in the dim light, that he glanced at our row number twice before stopping, cross-checking something on the tablet screen before he ever said a word.
“Evening, folks,” Jordan said, stopping at the end of our row, his voice pitched low enough not to disturb the rest of the theater but firm enough that the family behind us definitely heard it. “I’m going to need everyone to pause for just a second.”
The father twisted around in his seat, annoyed. “We’re watching the movie.”
“I understand,” Jordan said. “I’ve had three separate complaints about this row tonight before this gentleman even came to find me. Seat kicking, thrown food, that’s this auditorium’s third incident this week involving this same party.”
“Excuse me?” the mother said. “We come here all the time.”
“I know,” Jordan said. “I pulled the account when Marcus described the seat number. You’re on our internal incident log four times this month alone, under the loyalty account registered to this email.”
He turned the tablet slightly so it caught the glow from the screen, not quite readable from where I sat, but clearly readable to the father, whose face went through a fast, unflattering series of expressions.
“That’s private information,” the father said.
“It’s my theater’s information,” Jordan said. “And it exists because staff kept logging complaints nobody upstairs ever followed up on properly until tonight.”
I looked at Marcus, still not entirely understanding how a four-minute walk to the lobby had produced this.
“You know him?” I whispered.
“We went to state together,” Marcus whispered back. “I recognized his name on the manager board by the concessions stand. I wasn’t going to make a scene. I just wanted someone with actual authority to see this instead of us.”
