nixsight

“Mars Attacks!” was on TV tonight, and I mentioned on Twitter that I have a favourite cinema story that relates to the movie, but that it was too long for a Tweet. The lovely Lulu immediately suggested that I blog it.

It was at this point that I realised that while the story isn’t really short enough for a Tweet, it is probably not quite long enough – or interesting enough – for a blog post. But here we are, and here it goes:

Back in early 1996, when I was only 23, I had a friend called Cass. Cass and I were firm friends, sharing many interests and yadda yadda yadda, none of which are pertinent to this story except for two:

We both liked unusual movies.
We drank. A lot.

Parts of my relationship with Cass have made it into some of the stories I’ve written, here and about – we spent a lot of time together, and shared adventures, most of which began at the beginning of a bottle of wine or can of lager in his flat, and ended at the end of a different bottle of wine or on a pile of crushed cans in the same flat, and actually can’t really be called adventures, in the strictest sense – but this one you’re getting here, exactly as it happened, without fictionalised names or overwrought metaphors, because well, this story is just too stupid to dress up or hide behind.

So, okay. Two young men. No longer under the yoke of University courses they didn’t take seriously enough. The beginning of the weekend, I think, so neither worrying about the jobs that they didn’t really care about. Unburdened of girlfriends at that particular time. As most times.

And Tim Burton has a new film out, which for some perplexing reason is only blessed with a midnight showing at the multiplex across town. (At the time, Southampton only had one multiplex. Now it has two. Progress!)

The film was “Mars Attacks!”, and all we really knew about it was that it was going to be awesome. Though it’s possible we didn’t really use that word all that much back then.

And what with the screening being at midnight, and the cinema a walk away, we decided to drop in to our favourite pub first.

The other people at the pub tried to talk us out of leaving at half-elevenish, but we had a mission, and we meant to fulfil it. So across town we yomped, with the fortitude of two young men pleasantly inebriated enough to forget that their route goes through one of the nastiest parts of town, and that they are far too delicate to deal with any problems, should they arise. I, at least, was stocky – in that the ratio between the width of my shoulders,  and my height, was not as great as it could be, largely on account of the fact that I’m a fairly short ‘un. Cass was just quite scrawny. Neither of us carried ourselves with particular physical confidence.

None of this, incidentally, has any bearing on the story. This is just me setting the scene. We were drunk, we were going to the cinema, we were a bit rubbish. That’s what you should be taking away from all of this.

So, we’re at the cinema. We don’t bother with snacks, for we are men. And a little drunk. And skint. We go into the theatre, and find ourselves two seats very near the front, right in the middle. There are only a couple of other people in the screen at this point, up near the back, and at no point are there going to be more than half a dozen people watching the movie.

So we’re sitting, anticipating awesomeness, and there’s the sound of two guys, chatting loudly, as they move along the seats and sit down directly behind us. Lads, obviously, chomping, boisterous, and making no sign of quietening down.

Still, both Cass and I seemed to make the simultaneous decision that this was fine through the trailers, as long as it didn’t interfere with the main feature.

But of course, it did. In fact, the male voices behind us seemed to have no intention of watching the film at all.

Finally, a few short minutes past the opening credits, Cass lost his patience – and it’s fair to say if it hadn’t been him, it might have been me – and with all the passive aggressiveness either of us was capable of mustering, he half-turned in his seat to scowl irritably at them.

I noticed his pause, and took a look at the two disruptive audience members and Cass in my peripherums, concerned that my companion might have bitten off more than he could chew. What I saw instead was my friend, with amusement on his face, and the two lads behind us. Not hefty and noisy brutes – just overly excitable teenagers.

Emboldened by this discovery, my friend decided to ditch the nervy attempt to assault the two with the withering scowl, and instead went for a much more direct approach. He gave them a broad grin – and at the time his was a grin that could surprise the most cold-hearted of girls, but that I could imagine being quite disturbing on the face of an unexpected stranger in a darkened cinema – put a finger to his lips in pantomime fashion, and let out a long, confident “Shhhhh.”

The two fell instantly silent, and Cass stayed facing them. Then, his expression changed – the glint in his eye became even more sparkly.

Guys like Cass and I – we didn’t get to be the Alpha Male often. And the endorphin rush of getting to experience it, after a lifetime drought, can be a little intoxicating. You only have to look at any group of socially retarded males – be they of the comic-fan variety, like myself, or into card games like “Magic The Gathering” or “Pokemon” – to see that those of us not groomed for the Alpha role can go a little insane – or in the examples I’ve given, at least insufferable – with the power.

And I think that was what happened to Cass. After a pause, he reached a hand out to the almost cowed lad behind him, and dipped his fingers into the bucket of popcorn that the chap held in his lap. Still beaming jocularity on his face, Cass lifted a small handful of popcorn to his mouth, and ate it. In a weird way, he managed to make it almost seem like a friendly gesture, and the fellows seemed to be calming down a little.

In the normal run of things, there was no rivalry between Cass and I. He knew books and the rules of lots of games, and politics and how to end up with girls, and I knew comics, and movies, and how to end up friends with girls that I was besotted with.

But on that evening, watching him eat the popcorn, I realised something. I was the one who was supposed to be good at stuff like this. Cass was the poet, I was the populist – in our particular dynamic, that made him the thinker, me the meathead. Neither of us could afford to back down physically from bullies, and he knew how to charm a bar, but when it came to social interaction with townies, I was supposed to be the more comfortable one, the one with the better social camoflague when it came down to it.

It was a slim distinction, and a meagre role – I was never the coolest or best looking of my friends, but I could hold my own with the normal people. A couple of years before, when I was first learning about hallucinogens with a group of friends that were much more experienced, I was the one equipped to share a cheery “hello, officer! Nice morning!” across a dawn street, while my friends twitched and capered around. You could rely on me to talk to the guy in the 24 hour garage, and get the particular snacks you wanted.

I was the small but unflappable one – at least in such circumstances. Like that other tiny fellow – the Frenchman – I was indomitable.

(At least, that’s how I remember it now. The reality may have been somewhat different.)

So suddenly, back in the cinema, as the first few minutes of Tim Burton’s much sharper, smarter reflection of the same year’s “Independence Day” played out in front of us, I realised that I wasn’t about to be outdone in the macho display stakes by Cass.

So I turned in my seat, smiled at the lad behind me, and put my own hand into his bucket of popcorn.

Except it wasn’t popcorn. It was Coca-Cola.

My fingers can have only been in the giant cup of drink for a few moments, but as I’m sure you can imagine, it seems like a lot longer, if you are either participant in that particular scenario. The boy whose drink I was fingering looked flabbergasted. Our companions looked bemused.

It may not have been Coca-Cola – I should mention that now. It might have been Pepsi.

But I thought fast. I recouped, as Dr T would have it. I realised that the only way out of this with any dignity was to act as if putting my fingers in the lad’s drink was exactly what I had intended to do.

Slowly, and smiling the whole time, I pulled my fingers out of the drink, put them to my lips, and licked them clean. Totally smooth.

I may even have made a comment. Like: “Mmm, thanks.” or “Nice drink.”

The two young lads stared at me, eyes wide.

Cass and I turned around, and watched the film. The two previously noisy chaps behind us didn’t make a sound for the rest of the film.

We, on the other hand, devolved to the point where we were giving standing ovations every time Tom Jones came on screen in the final act, and were probably completely insufferable.