Seeing the 'Big Picture': A short story by Hugh Gallagher

You know you're getting old when you find yourself in a conversation like this with a lifelong friend.

“D'ye mind the pictures in St Mary's Boys Club?”

“Aye, great, weren't they. Great days!”

“And, do you mind what we did afterwards, on the way home?”

“Naw – what did we do?”

“Run up to the house beating the backside off yourself with a rolled up comic or a stick!”

“Not me – Naw. No way! I never did that!”

“Liar!You just don't want to remember, that's what wrong with you! You'd be a cowboy riding the range and hitting you horse to make it gallop. I was an Indian, an Apache Chief trying to capture you to scalp ye! And another thing – do you mind the games we played when we reached our street?”

“Naw. This is all news to me. Weird!”

“Aren't you quare and funny! Sure, you know rightly, we played cowboys and Indians and best fallers. And a game with our pen-knives.”

“Eh! What kind of game?”

“I loved it. We'd stand about three feet apart and throw a knife into the grass. It had to stick in the grass - blade first, or it didn't count. Then your opponent had to pull it out from where he stood and move his foot, either right or left to where the hole was. Then it was his turn to throw and make me move. If you slid or moved your feet too far apart and fell, I won!”

“Where you drinking the day! You talking a right load of rubbish. Anyway, I have to go now, there's my black taxi! Hi... wait for me!”

And he'd take flight and it would be a couple of days before you saw him again. But it was all true, though. Saturdays in Creggan meant one thing, going to the Pictures or Shows as they were known.

4d it cost to get in. Raising the money was an ordeal in itself. If I didn't manage it I would be depressed for the following week. I even queued up one Wednesday night to watch a showing of a Typhoo Tea advertising film. We saw chimpanzees having a tea-party! That was free. And we got a free balloon too. No free tea though! We went 'messages', went to the laundrette with striped pillowcases full of clothes and watched them go around through a glass door or went to the Gas-yard on Lecky Road for bags of 'coke' for our neighbours.

At the appointed hour, each Saturday – 2 o'clock – we would be found in the queue outside a wooden hut just off Broadway. There was a barn to the left of the Boys' Club. Handball was played against its white-washed gable end by the big boys who regarded us as weans even though we were ten years old. I'd go down early sometimes and watch them tossing pennies – gambling! I was scared to do anything like that.

I liked to be about fifth in the line because those on the front steps would take the full brunt of the appointed doorman's anger if we pushed forward. He was usually a man who could be easily riled, a man with a short fuse.

“Get back a that,” he would roar. “Or I'll break your ears!”

Sometimes he was as good as his word. I remember one Saturday in particular. We had queued for a hour in cold, drizzly rainy conditions. The 'Big Picture' was late in arriving, you see. When we were finally admitted there was the usual stampede for the best chairs. These were hard and uncomfortable but we didn't care. By the time the lights went out we were ready for anything. I looked behind me and followed the flickering shafts of light from the crackling projector to the home made screen. A roar erupted as 5-4-3-2-1 appeared and then the music spluttered into life from the speakers along the wall.

First up was Rocket Man. When we left our gallant hero last week he was hurtling, in an unconscious state of oblivion, after crashing through the twenty-second floor window of a down-town apartment block. We wondered if he would survive to fight another villain. Who else was there to save the universe? But we needn't have worried. He awoke at the last moment as the camera zoomed in on the controls on his chest. They read – DOWN-STOP-UP! He turned the dial to UP but I wanted him to try STOP just to see if it would work! I suppose if you're two feet short of eating the ground you can't afford to experiment just to please some eejit from Creggan you're not likely to meet in a month of Sundays.

At the end of Rocket Man there was the usual round of ejections for 'carrying-on'. Offences included spitting, cursing, talking too loud, yelling, standing on seats or sneaking in without paying. There was no appeal for those found guilty of these crimes and the punishment usually involved being ejected and being barred for two weeks or longer.

The Big Picture was going to be brilliant, I thought. They didn't half hype it up in a trailer shown last week. 'Coming soon to a cinema near you. Terror stalks the streets of America. A giant radioactive Octopus rises from the Philippines Trench to terrorize the North America Pacific Coast. It takes on the army, navy and air-force destroying bridges, ships, roads and skyscrapers. A giant let loose among the innocent!' They did everything but entreat you to bring your mother along to hold your hand.

The Picture was called 'It Came From Beneath The Sea' and it lived up to that title. It starred Faith Domergue, Kenneth Tobey, Donald Curtis, Ian Keith And Harry Lauter. 'It' was an octopus which wreaked havoc, pulling ships asunder. It wrapped its tentacles around submarines. As girls screamed in front of me 'It' began demolishing skyscrapers in New York. I was enjoying the film immensely, so much so, that I leapt to my feet shouting at its pursuers who were armed with everything from tanks to spears.

“Get it's eyes, will you!” I roared. “Are ye stupid, or what. Hi – you with the spear – stick it in it's eye, for God's sake! Hurry up!”

In two shakes of a lamb's tail I was collared and marched out on to the street. Oh – the shame of it, I thought. I hoped word wouldn't get back to our house, especially to my father.

“I didn't mean it mister, honest. I was only trying to tell them how to kill it!” I pleaded, but there was no forgiveness, as the door was firmly slammed in my face.

“There's another wan of them weans biting the dust!” declared one of the nearby hand-ballers. They all pointed at me and laughed. I turned quickly and maintained my dignity.

Stupid auld picture-house, anyway, I told myself as I slunk away. I determined to go to the Christian Brothers 'shows' from next week onwards. They're showing Buster Keaton movies.

In the end I went to both picture houses, one in the afternoon, the other at night-time. I hid my face as I passed the doorman at St Mary's. At the C.B.S. I followed the antics of an extra bunch of film stars but to this day I never did find out what happened to 'It'.