Second shot at the cinema

Once I wrote about an attempt at going to the cinema which had ended in abject failure. I feel I need some vindication, so here’s a quick sequel of sorts. My second attempt, I told myself, is going to work. I thought this with a profound sense of determination, one of those feelings which seize you when you’re strewn in mud and nothing sustains you but a spark of immortal pride, so I was certain it was truth. I still believe it would have been true if I had ever done anything to actually undertake that second attempt. Unfortunately I seem to find the activity of parking my buttocks under a palm-tree so enticing that I am barely even brushed by any other desire. I don’t think I would ever have gone to the cinema in Martinique if it weren’t for my innate Casanova powers of attraction.

One day I am walking around with a German friend of mine called Mikhail, sporting my snazzy sunglasses and what not, when these two girls woo at us and ask us to come closer. They want to sell us some eucalyptus smoking leaves, and my friend Mikhail, who is a very sociable guy and feels in a particularly jockey mood that day, takes the chance to start up a conversation. I on the other hand am pretty quiet – and somewhat taken aback too. I’ll admit that my tastes are often quite arduous, but even to the locals these two must look like a pair of combat bulldogs. One of them appears like a midway point between a brontosaurus and a World War II German Armoured Vehicle, the other one has a face which acutely evokes that of a frog. When placed together, they seem as attractive as a malaria epidemic. To top it all, and as I realise after approximately twenty seconds of conversation, they are about as stupid as the plants of eucalyptus they were trying to sell.

In any case I am indifferent to it all until the two girls ask us if we would take them to the cinema and to my astonishment Mikhail replies, all merry:

‘Why sure! What better way of spending the evening!’

I drag him aside for a minute and hiss at him: ‘What on earth are you doing? Have you seen those two walking scarecrows?’

‘Andrea, what are you, stupid? Can’t you see they’re pulling our leg?’

Apparently, according to Mikhail, the girls are trying to con us into going to the cinema on our own, walking away from the appointment themselves for a laugh. In short, they are playing a prank. I don’t know how he has reached this conclusion, but the guy insists and even gets quite heated on it. Eventually I think, ‘well, he’s the one who probably knows women better between us two,’ so I let him accept the invitation and we set off for the cinema which the girls have pointed out for us. It is an ungodly trek but I was really eager to go – my ancient desires of staring at a big screen had been instantly rekindled.

So there we march, wondering what film to watch, and when we get there, what do we see? Yoo-hoo! Les beaux mecs! Those two prodigies were there, happily waving at us. I’ll pass on the rest of the afternoon, and I’ll pass on the organizational skills of local cinema (it took them fifteen minutes to realise they were projecting the wrong film and another fifteen to change the reels, a time which I spent engaged in conversation with the brachiosaurus). When the time came to leave, they suggested that we go out to the city and I politely declined the invitation. I didn’t feel like furthering the interaction. Besides, by the time we were at the bus stop, they seemed to have found a suitably stupid-looking guy with a bandana tied up over his head and a truckload of those gigantic fake necklaces which rappers use to compensate for the size of their penis around his neck. They introduce him as a friend of theirs. So at least they are in good company, and I feel a little less guilty when I scuttle off to go home, completely dissatisfied with my time out at the cinema!