Catch-22

My best friend, Chuck, was sitting across from me in a booth at Bunks Drive-in. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting. A blonde woman’s wig lay in the center of the table between our two Cokes.

“So how would you define the term, Catch- 22?” I asked him.

Outside, one roadster after another drove slowly through the parking lot revving their engines. The boys inside the cars, many of whom weren’t students from our high school, were trying to impress the girls gathered at the drive-in. They were also showing off to the local boys who sat in their cars.

“From what I got out of the movie, the phrase Catch-22 is the same as saying, ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’ It is a no-win situation term that the Army Air Corps came up with.” He said this as he watched a cherry red Chevy Camaro roll past the window. “Although, I might add, that thanks to you I missed a good share of the movie.”

“At least you got to finish the movie. I missed the last 45 minutes,” I groused.

Catch-22 was a satirical novel written by Joseph Heller in 1961. It was later produced into a movie of the same name starring Alan Arkin which came out in 1970. It was this movie at the Grand Theater that we had just, hours earlier, snuck in to watch.

Now, you may be asking why two 16-year-old boys would have to sneak in to watch a movie. Well, for one thing, it was R rated and the other thing was that my dad forbid me to see it.

“I saw the movie because I was an Army Air Corps pilot and I wanted to see how true to reality they made it. It was very real. It was coarse, bloody, vile, and contained unnecessary nudity. You don’t need to see it.”

“Does that mean I can’t see it?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he said with finality, “you can’t see it.”

But there had been such a buildup by the press about Catch-22, that both Chuck and I wanted to see it regardless.

“Well, my parents could care less if I saw the movie,” Chuck said.

“Ah, my dad said no,” I sighed, “so we’ll just have to be clever, but we can’t get caught. We’ll go to the matinee this Saturday, but we’ll have to wear disguises so my dad or his friends don’t see me.”

“I’m not wearing a disguise,” Chuck said, shaking his head.

“Look, if my dad saw you at the movie, he would naturally expect that I was there too. We always go to the same shows. It’s not like I’m asking you to wear a clown costume. You have your red polyester ski jacket with the hood rolled into the collar. Just wear the hood over your head.”

“And what is your disguise?” he asked.

“Hmm. I’ll wear a wig. My mom has a long blonde one. She’s not at home. I’ll grab it.”

Leaving the living room, I ran into her bedroom and came out with the wig on my head.

Chuck looked at me and an involuntary gag reflex caused him to throw up a little in his mouth.

“Wow, you are an ugly woman,” Chuck said with disgust.

“Hey, it’s just for three hours. It’s a sacrifice I’ll make.”

Saturday came, and Chuck stopped by my house in The Black Mamba, his mom’s old station wagon. It had a hole in the muffler which made it sound either cool, or obnoxious, depending on your age group. He was wearing the red polyester ski jacket. Hidden in my jacket was the woman’s blonde wig.

“I overheard dad tell mom that he was going to bring some of his Air Corps buddies to see the movie someday. It must be a great movie for him to see it twice.”

We turned onto Commercial Avenue and found a parking spot not far from the theater.

“Okay,” I said. “From here on out we wear our disguises.”

Chuck unrolled the polyester rain hood from his collar and pulled it over his head. I removed the wig from my jacket and placed it on my head. Lowering the sun visor to check myself in the vanity mirror, I felt my stomach heave a little when I saw my reflection.

“Wow, I am an ugly woman. Let’s go.”

I looked at every car coming down the street, sure that my dad would be in one and would catch us.

“Pull the draw strings tighter, Chuck. I can still see your face.”

“Cripes, Mitchell,” he said as he pulled the strings so tight that only his nose and one eye could be seen. My long blonde curls bounced on my shoulders.

Walking to the ticket booth outside the theater, Chuck was first to buy a ticket.

With only his nose and one eye visible he said, “One student ticket please.”

The ticket seller stared at him, trying to understand what he was seeing.

“His face was burned badly in a fire. He prefers to cover it,” I said to him.

The seller looked at me and I detected that he too involuntarily threw up a little in his mouth.

With tickets in hand, we entered the darkened theater and found seats toward the middle. I pulled off my wig and Chuck removed his hood. We shared a collective sigh of relief.

“I’m going to go get some popcorn and a Coke. Give me some money and I’ll grab the same for you.”

I handed him a fiver and he left.

Standing in front of the concession stand, he had just requested two popcorns and Cokes when, from behind him, he heard a familiar voice.

“You guys are going to love this movie. Alan Arkin does a great job at playing the role of a guy trying to play the section 8 card.”

Without turning to look, Chuck pulled the hood over his head and drew the drawstring tight. Only the tip of his nose stuck through. With the popcorns and the Cokes held tightly between his left arm and his chest, he stumbled through the curtain door and went back into the theater.

“Put on the wig! Put on the wig!” he whispered frantically as he made it back to his seat. “Your dad is in the lobby. Put the darn wig on!”

Slapping on the wig I said, “Okay, stay calm. We’re just two freaks sitting together in the theater. He won’t pay any attention to us if we play it cool.”

My dad and his three friends entered the theater and, as luck would have it, sat two rows behind us.

“Play it cool and eat your popcorn.”

I could see him bring a kernel of corn to the small hole of tightened fabric around his nose and shove it with one finger inside to his mouth. Luckily, he thought to bring a straw for his cola, and he was able to also feed it through the hole to drink. Then the theater went black, and the movie began.

“Cripes,” he whispered. “I can only see with one eye through the nose hole.”

The movie was indeed gory and showed what the war was like from the perspective of an airman. There was vileness and nudity. I can see why my dad forbid me from going.

The movie is two hours and two minutes long. At one hour and fifteen minutes into the movie, I had to use the bathroom. I should have gone before I sat down, but I didn’t, and the Coke I was drinking put me over the top.

“I’ve got to go to the can,” I whispered to the hood.

Standing up, I sidestepped past the empty theater seats to the aisle. Turning to walk up the aisle to the lobby, I quickly looked at the group of men sitting with my dad. They were staring at the screen. I pulled my long blonde hair to the side to cover my face as I walked past them. Coincidentally, my dad also stood from his seat and whispered something to the man sitting next to him. He walked up his aisle a short distance behind my pace.

Had he seen me? My urgency to pee intensified. Bursting through the curtain into the lobby I headed to the bathroom only to have the concessionaire yell, “That’s the men’s room, ma’am.”

Now, I was in a quandary. My dad would enter the lobby at any second, a woman couldn’t go into the men’s room, and I wasn’t about to go into the woman’s restroom.

It was my own personal, Catch-22.

So, I ran out of the theater and as I passed my dad, he only got a slight glimpse of my face, but it was enough to trigger an involuntary gag reflex causing him to throw up a little in his mouth.

“That’s one ugly woman,” I heard him say to the concessionaire.

“There’s another freak sitting in the theater with his coat hood pulled tight over his face,” the concessionaire responded.

Back at Bunks Drive-in, it appeared that the day was shot. I was hoping very much that my dad hadn’t recognized me because I would catch it when I got home.

“Well, the day couldn’t have gone much worse,” I said.  “Let’s finish it off on a high note.”

Hopping into The Black Mamba, with the roar of the engine coming through the rotten muffler, Chuck drove slowly through the parking lot as I, wearing a long blonde woman’s wig, waved enthusiastically to the boys in their cars, just to see how many involuntary gag reflexes I could get to kick in.

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