We all knew there was no mechanic. If anything happened we would have to call and the mechanic would come over as soon as possible. But this would take fifteen minutes at least. And yes, we heard loud curses from a few hundred voices, the adventures of Tarzan were broken off. So here we sat, the three of us, in an adjoining room while angry drunk people were yelling on the other side of the door. I called the main theatre where the mechanic was stationed. He had to repair something over there first and would rush over after that.

The cursing got louder and the guy with the short leg locked the door between the theatre room and the restaurant. We felt a bit safer like this. After a while the cursing changed into cheering. The football player dared to take a look and locked the door immediately again. He became a bit pale. “They are throwing beer bottles at the screen and are demolishing chairs.” We became very silent, and had no idea what to do. We discussed what to do if the crowd forced the door open and became a threat to us. There was a back door and we checked if we could use this. We were able to open it.

I phoned again and told the person on the other side of the phone what was going on. “Yeah, sure”, was the reaction. We decided not to bother any more and just take a beer. The football player had one too. And we had another one and couldn’t care less any more. After twenty minutes there was a knock on our emergency door. Here was the mechanic, he had noticed that it wasn’t smart to walk in through the theatre room. He was quite experienced, got the film running again in less than five minutes. He told us he would stay in the control room until the film had finished. He gave us the advice to stay in the restaurant till the crowd left. From the control room he had a good look at this. In an emergency situation he would telephone the police.

The film broke yet again, but he made it run again within a minute. After that it just ran till the end. The crowd left without any problems.

The next day I was part of the third shift: the cleaners.

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