THE WEEKEND Part 1 - Friday, 'The Flicks'

THE WEEKEND

1

Friday Night - The Flicks

 

"Olly olly Mum!"

The teenager’s tedious habit of bawling out the kiddie’s hide-and-seek chant, whenever he came or went, caused the bemused woman to hunch her shoulders, drag deeply on her Park Drive cork-tipped cigarette and roll her eyes skyward - yet she would always respond, tiredly, in the way he knew she would. "Oh, for heaven’s sake… olly olly, Ronnie."

"Olly olly Dad!"

Dad wasn’t going to play this game. He had a more, what he thought, authoritative rejoinder. "Shut up Ronald, you silly sod."

"Olly olly Grandad!"

The old boy nearly spat out his cream of tomato soup, visibly shaken. He hadn't heard the lad approaching from behind, nor sensed him lean forward to near point-blank range of his hearing aid.

"For God's sake," Father thought the thing was going too far, "clear off!"

It was the start of a typical Friday night for Ronnie Horsefield, the lump of a boy who proudly boasted of the insanity in his family - and many thought him living proof. He blew a loud raspberry in the general direction of his tired parents then slammed the outer door behind him.

CRASH!!!

Horsefield senior instinctively clenched his fist and waved it threateningly from behind the net curtain. At the front gate, his son put up the open palm of one hand to conceal the V sign he was making with two fingers of the other. Greg and Alan were already hanging about in the street. "Here comes trouble," Alan mumbled, cocking his head in Ronnie's direction.

"Watchy’a Ron," Greg smiled, pleased to see his lummox pal.

"What ho Greg," Ronnie smiled back. “Evening big ears," he added resentfully, almost as an afterthought.

"Bollocks fat guts," Alan responded. He had unusually huge ears that belled out like Dumbo in flight, and was naturally sensitive about them. In any case, he despised Ronnie Horsefield; loathed the very square footage that the boy occupied. Greg could never understand why the poor bugger tagged along; why he was here again now for what would surely amount to another evening of abuse.

"We’ll go to the flicks," Ronnie had decided. He loved the cinema - especially the cartoons – but he was broke, and the others had no more that a few coppers between them.

"What do we do for money Ron?" Greg asked.

"Dun’no yet," he said. "Let's walk."

They did so, scuffing their feet along the damp pavements, punching privet hedges and thin weatherworn fences, racking brains for inspiration until Ron got it. "Wait;" he said, turning into a gateway, "keep out of sight."

Alan and Greg ducked down below the level of the paling fence, straining their ears, stifling their laughter.

"Good evening sir," Horsefield announced himself on the doorstep. "I'm collecting on behalf of St. George's fund for the poor. Did you manage to read the leaflet we delivered last week? You didn't get one? Well, I'll have to report that to Pastor Faloon. Anyway, as I say, it's a collection for the needy of the parish... there aren't? Oh yes there are; you only have to go down to the terraces behind the dog track. Some of those poor souls haven't even got electric light, and Jesus told us that... oh... thank you very much sir. God bless you."

"How much?" Greg asked as soon as the door closed.

"Half a crown."

"Few bob more and we're laughing," Alan observed.

"You'll be laughing all right," Ronnie said under his breath, did two more charity calls and then they were on their way.

Just looking at Ronnie would amuse Greg. They were roughly the same height, though that was where any similarity ended. Greg was of average build, Ronnie wide. Whereas most kids were keen to be seen in the latest fashions, he set his own - which nobody followed. Tonight's ensemble centred around a pair of his father's cut-down cavalry twill trousers, extremely tight around his backside yet baggy from there on down. And he liked hobnails; plain industrial feet protectors with reinforced toecaps.

It was always a safe bet that he would be wearing one of two favourite jackets; either the lumberjack checked red and black furry one or, as on this occasion, the zip-fronted bottle green windcheater with elasticated waist and cuffs which exaggerated his large frame by making him appear to taper at the extremities. And whether he thought it made him look older than he was - or simply wanted to hide his puppy-fat face with its button nose and piggy-slit eyes - a trilby hat sat in place, front brim turned downwards as far as possible, a ludicrous pigeon feather pointing skywards from the side of the band.

Alan hadn't failed to notice Ronnie's get-up. "You look a cunt as usual," he said.

Ronnie digested the insult with raised eyebrows, then sniffed long and hard from the back of his throat, eventually rolling his head forwards to assist the expulsion of a wad of phlegm that he propelled with a practised skill to cartwheel through the air and land on the back of Alan's shoe.

"Cunt," Alan repeated, flatly.

Rush hour seemed to rush all the madder on Friday evenings: the roads crowded and thick with exhaust fumes, the bus queues long, the busses full. They leapt onto the open platform of one as it moved off, the conductor having already said, 'Full now; no more,’ and rung the bell.

"I’d shift if I were you," Ronnie advised two schoolboys with fist clenched, requisitioning their seats and shoving Alan in to sit by the window - trapped. Greg stood in the aisle and waited for the inevitable. Two women sat in front of Horsefield, chatting happily, probably content with their Friday pay packets from the jam factory and looking forward to the weekend.

"I had a bath before I came out," Ronnie announced, seemingly in Alan's direction, but clearly for the benefit of the captive audience before him, and once confident of their attention loudly added, "with my mum."

The women looked oddly at each other.

"She likes washing my cock."

A giggle went up from somewhere - all the encouragement Ronnie needed. "Do you know Al;" he said, "she actually got in with me this time. Your old lady does that as well, doesn’t she?"

"Shut up Horsefield!"

"Oh yes... and you ought to see my mum’s body. Her tits are all saggy and she's got one nipple bigger than the other. It’s not normal. It’s like a grape."

"Now look here;" one of the women turned round, glaring, "any more of that and I'll call the conductor."

"Scum," the other said.

"But it's true," Ronnie maintained. "The old girl's tits are all wonky. She can't help it."

Two minutes later and they were off the bus; Greg voluntarily, Ronnie and Alan obliged. It was only one stop away from their destination and they stopped to look in a dress shop window where a dainty man was putting the finishing touches on a new display. "Poof," Ronnie observed, beckoning him with a crooked forefinger. The dresser came over smiling, nose to nose with the boy but for the barely visible partition between them.

"Watch this," Ronnie said, mouthed a kiss at the man then let fly a massive flob of spit that impacted horribly on the glass before yielding to gravity in a repulsive drawn-out trail. Alan was already halfway up the road, breaking into a run, still on probation and desperate to avoid trouble.

They had seen most of the Vincent Price horrors, probably this one too, but that didn't matter. Ronnie queued for the tickets at the Eros, handed one to Greg then disappeared through the door into the auditorium. Alan gaped; no ticket, no cash, and was allowed to stay in the foyer at this uncomfortable disadvantage until Greg, having persuaded Ronnie to part with it, came back some minutes later with the chap’s admission money.

While the lights were still up they surveyed the scene for talent to sit near. Greg had a fair success rate, Ron occasionally scored if he could find somebody daft enough - Alan usually got nothing. He was a liability in this game. If they found three reasonable bits together, chances were that his comedy ears, pear-drop head and gormless expression would put them all off. But it didn't deter them. Ronnie saw it as a win-win situation for himself; either picking up some ‘skirt’ or ruining their evening - outcomes holding equal appeal.

With the lights lowering, Alan was clearly uncomfortable, sensing more embarrassment heading his way. They were sitting right behind three girls; one who'd said ‘no thank you very much’ to Ronnie’s offer of cigarettes, ‘not likely’ to suggestions of moving to the back row with him and, in response to the dubious prospect of being shown his dick, ‘bugger off’. She had a frizzy black mane done up in a lacquered nest at the back, and such was the depth of her concentration once the Pearl & Dean advertising stuff came on, she quite forgot the lout in the next row back who was hastily adding his own touches to her hairstyle. She felt nothing, and when the creation was complete they moved - as they usually did three or four times each visit.

Some while later, it was an elderly couple who were wondering whether they could believe their ears. Ronnie had resumed his bathroom saga, this time placing particular emphasis upon the splendour of his mother's pendulous arse cheeks, the noise they made when they slapped together, how they could be utilised as a holder for the loofah.

Alan cringed when somebody a couple of rows back made shushing noises which Ronnie duly acknowledged with a firm "Bollocks!" He was keen to continue his tale, treating the appalled pensioners to a description of the elastic contraption his old lady used to hitch up her 'jam-rags', how he liked to use it as a catapult when she wasn't 'on'.

"Disgusting little yob!" the old boy snapped. “I’m getting the manager.”

The cue to move again, and Alan was becoming tired of it. In the new location he pleaded with Ronnie to settle down. He wanted to enjoy the film. Ronnie promised that he would, elbowing Greg’s rib cage by way of a subtle signal that his pal didn't need to recognise the barefaced lie.

"For Christ's sake Horse;" Alan was obliged to say within minutes, "stop making that racket will you."

Some people knew Ronnie as ‘the Horse’ since he had been christened with the nickname by one of the paperboys at the shop where he and Greg did rounds. The lad maintained that not only did Horsefield have the thick and heavy appearance of a beast, but he behaved like one most of the time, notably when discharging wind from his carcass.

What Alan was now complaining about was Ronnie's gulping noises. He would swallow air until it hurt then belch it back out again in one magnificent and amplifying burst, mouthing obscenities as he did so.

Paper shop days were over now for the Horse. He’d been sacked for upsetting customers; one having caught him sitting on her doorstep reading her children’s comics and drinking her milk; another losing paraffin at an alarming rate, her five-gallon container being tapped into the smaller cans that fed the primus stove and collection of council hurricane lamps festooning Ronnie’s shed. Less favoured customers – the ‘no-Christmas box arseholes’ - had their papers torn or screwed-up prior to delivery, and most others, at the very least, suffered the early morning yodels, olly ollys or spectacular burps that made their porches ring.

"Cut it out Horsefield," Alan insisted again.

Now fully charged, the boy was incapable of responding. Instead he sat silently, containing the ammunition, waiting to fire. Up on the screen a tense moment was looming. The creature, or whatever it was, ascended the rickety staircase to the petrified heroine's room. It stopped; she could see the shadows of its feet under the door. She trembled. The handle began to slowly turn; she cowered, helpless, in the corner. As the door opened she looked up, her tortured mouth open to scream then...

"Arseholes!" The audience took the full blast of a Horse Horsefield verbal-belch, ear-shattering and thoroughly satisfying; louder even than the soundtrack. Laughter and wolf whistles erupted from all over the place. Once more the trio moved before the torch-wielding usherette could locate the source of the offence.

"Here, look at this," Ronnie gestured to Alan, speaking deliberately loudly for the benefit of more unfortunate girls in front of them, and waving something about in the dark.

"Shut your fat mouth will you; I'm trying to watch the film."

"No, but look. Look at this."

"All right, what is it?"

"A Johnny-bag; found it floating in the bog."

There were a few moments of strained silence, the girls fidgeting in their seats, nudging each other and wondering whether to laugh or shriek. All the while Ronnie dangled the thing over the agitated Alan. Then he swung it in the boy’s face. "It's got semen in it," he said. Alan lashed out and Ronnie released the ice pop wrapper to fly against the back of a girl's head.

"Look what you've done big ears," Ronnie accused. "It's running all down her coat."

Now she shrieked.

Calm returned briefly before somebody a few rows down stood to face the audience behind him. "That's not funny;" he protested, unaware who he was admonishing, "just pack it in." He had barely sat back down when the second strafe of salted peanuts hit him; and he would doubtless have complained again had he not, like everybody else, been taken aback by the frenzied scream from the far side of the auditorium. A girl had finally found something foreign in her hair. She'd rubbed her head to free it only to receive a landslide of ashtray contents in her lap, spent matches, spent chewing gum, dog-ends and ash.

Next came more talk about mother's physical deformities and her penchant for wanking the family cat. Then loud references to Alan's abnormalities – sure products of incest – the abnormal ears, his wicked body odour and his extra testicle. Furious, Alan calmly slopped the melted residue of his ice cream tub into Ronnie's lap. Ronnie grinned, snatched the container and made off for the Gents.

"Oh no;" Alan whined when he saw the Horse's silhouetted frame emerging from the illuminated alcove, clutching the brimming tub, “I bet it’s piss, the dirty git.” With that, he was up himself, away into the darkness, soon pursued by his persecutor. To the audience’s continuing entertainment, the pair made a couple of noisy laps of the arena before Alan found himself cornered in the doorway of a fire exit. He shoved frantically at the push bar which gave way too late. "Filthy bastard!" everybody heard as the two tumbled out into the alley.

Greg left quietly via the foyer; Ronnie was waiting; Alan had gone home, damp. He'd had enough.

 

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 Albert Woods (2014)