I've been knocking around with Jerome for as long as I can remember. What began in High Infants has matured nicely over the years, seeing us through the boy scouts, FCA, a short stint squatting in London and various other rites of passage in this boy's life.
Through all these years Jerome has been right there by my side, and, I suppose, reciprocally viceversa. Our friendship is a bit like the man who claims "I wouldn't drink and drive if I were sober". I'm sure Jerome would agree that only for the fact that we are friends for such a long time, we wouldn't be friends at all.
Jerome's a technophile; his flat has every mod con and computerised, digital, solar panelled gizmo you could think of. In fact, the only reason I have a VCR is because Jerome gave me his old one when he imported a new six-head Nicam top-of-the-line model from Germany last month. He said if two heads are better than one, where would you be going without six? Anyway, I'm delighted with my new second-hand toy. There's only one drawback - Jerome has taken to calling over to my gaff once or twice a week with a video from his own private collection under his arm.
"It's a western," he said, knowing my Achilles tendency towards anything with Indians, banditos, cowboys and coy women. "You'll love it! MacKenna's Gold! It's a classic!" he said, and slid the cassette into the slot.
Mackenna's Gold? Now that sounded familiar. It was my First Holy Communion or Confirmation, I'm not too sure. But what I do remember is that I had a wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted to splash out. So me, Jerome and a bunch of downtown dirty faces went to the Savoy, stopping off to pick up 40 Consulate along the way. "Consulate are like vodka," said Jerome, "can't smell `em off yer breath!"
When the word went around that Creedon was flush for a change, the word really went around. There was no way in this wide earthly world that I could afford the whole 24 of us. So, I paid for Jerome and his small brother - it was just a matter of opening the fire door when the lights went down to let the others in.
The Savoy was more an experience than a picture house. Beveled glass doors shielded us from reality and rain, a white marble staircase rose up like a highway to the gods. Inside were rows of red velvet flip-up seats, sloping from ceiling to floor, where Fred Bridgeman and his hydraulic organ would lead the way with The Legion of the Lost. Two thousand souls would go and raise rafters at the Saturday matinee, singsonging along in a sort of collective Corkonian Karaoke. There were raids on the ice-cream lady under cover of darkness. Sweet wrappers, chewing gum and cigarette butts were thick in the air, their shadow projected onto the screen like black snow. Why else would we go?
Anyway, just as the springloaded bolt on the fire door eased downwards, he appeared out of nowhere, in his uniform of burgundy and gold brocade, looking like a General.
"Hoi! Ye scuts, what're ye at there?" he shouted. For that split second we stood there like rabbits (of the urban variety: slightly scruffier, runny-nosed and wild) dazzled in the beam of his flashlight.
The fire door swung open, out onto a sea of dirty faces; hundreds of them, every dirty knee and Murphy from the northside of the Lee standing there. Up went the roar - "Charge!" And they did. It was like the Little Big Horn, and General George Armstrong Custer flaking wildly with his torch, only to be trampled to the floor by the sheer volume of quarter-ironed cafflers. "Come back ye scuts!" was the last I heard, as we vanished to the safety of Red Velvet Canyon and darkness. That day went down in the annals of local lore as the Battle of Dirty Knee.
The only gold we saw was the flash of the tassle on Custer's cap as it was tossed from row to row. Eventually, we natives were rounded up by the redcoats and sent back to our reservation on the northside of the river. As for MacKenna's Gold? I guess you could say it was the best film I never saw.
So the trailers are rolling on the telly. Jerome is looking for an ashtray. I'm reading the dust cover. What a cast: Omar Sharif, Gregory Peck, Burgess Meredith, Raymond Massey, Edward G. Robinson, Telly Savalas to name but a few. And music by the one and only Quincey Jones. This looked promising. But to paraphrase that old war chief Crazy Horse, what need is there to promise the inevitable? I suppose what I'm saying is that the dust cover spoke with forked tongue, and it didn't deliver on its promise.
Picking holes in a net is pointless, so I won't bother. But suffice it to say McKenna's Gold is pure and unadulterated rubbish. As a 1969 review said, 12 year-olds of all ages might tolerate it.
But I sat through every 136 minutes of it. I suppose that's what friends are for. Sometimes a friendship needs a little white lie to keep it on track, because as the final credits rolled, Jerome asked me what did I think. I just pointed to the dust cover. "Great cast," I said. And that's about all I could say. Give me a pack of Consulate and a red and gold cap to toss in the air any day.
Conal Creedon's play When I Was God runs at Bewley's Cafe Theatre, Dublin, until November 25th. Booking at: 086-878 4001.
