Going to the Movies with My Dad
And our unwelcome guest
“Do you wanna see Twisters tonight?” asks my father in an impromptu voice on the idle, sweltering July day. The air is thick with humidity and the clouds overhead brighten and darken with a pendulous uncertainty.
He briefly tries to coax my mother into coming, but unlike the clouds above us, she’s made up her mind. So with enough time to spare to stop for snacks, he and I set out on our adventure.
“Remember when I used to drive you, Ryan, Anthony, and Gabe to the movies and we would rush to grab candy before we’d all race into the theater?” he says with a warm, nostalgic smile, thinking of me and the childhood friends I’ve scarcely seen in fifteen years. We reflect fondly on the time he took us to see Harold and Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay — and when the film’s abrasive antics arm-barred the well-meaning man into sending each of their parents profuse apology texts once the movie had ended.
Moments later, our fond reflection on the childhood mishap is jarringly interrupted by a buzz and a blood-curdling bristle along my arm. A wasp has flown in through the open window, skimmed past me, and found a temporary home on the interior windshield of my father’s blue, dulling-Biden-stickered hybrid. My dad maintains a meditative cool as the colossal-stinger-brandishing creature scuttles menacingly along the glass. Its antennae spasm omnisciently as it rubs its arms and legs together strategically — sadistically.
“Oh god. Oh no. Oh god,” I repeat, taking shield behind the sweatshirt I fortuitously schlepped along for the ride in preparation for the frigid tundra that is our local cinema. I defensively zip up my hoodie despite the swampy day and sport it like the chainmail of a knight — bearing middle-aged discomforts to fend off prospective stabs from the ill-intentioned, sword-sheathing insect.
With the wasp plodding around in my half of the car, my dad remains serene and unburdened as he wrestles discreetly with the hope a breeze will carry away this newfound aggressor. But on the scorching afternoon, there’s hardly a wafting zephyr to be found during our entire windows-open car ride.
I keep my pupils planted on the plotting bug as it crawls up the inverted pane of glass toward me. Only a foot from my face, I debate whether slamming the sunshade on it will free me from the oppressive scourge of paranoia that’s overtaken me.
“Should I kill him with that?” I point. “Should I kill it??” I repeat frantically.
“I… I don’t know,” he replies non-commitally. “How’s your karma?”
Unamused, I repeat the question once more and he repeats his answer.
“I think we can get through the ride…,” he carries on optimistically after a brief pause.
“That’s easy for you to say!” I retort as the throbbing stinger of our new guest issues not-so-subtle threats.
“I would prefer him to be outside of the car…,” he admits as the wasp begins his peregrination toward my dad’s half of the hybrid. He continues donning the steadfast serenity of a man who’d spent the past decade meditating daily.
“Please fly away…,” I plead.
“Okay bug, you can do it. I have faith in you! Launch!” chimes in my father with a cavalier urging — clearly decided on taking the good cop route despite the oppressor’s growing violations of his personal space.
“You’re never going to see your family again.” I’ve assumed the bad cop role, I realize, still confidently cowering within my armor of cloth.
Now miles from his home and in an unfamiliar district, I decide to dub him “Waspy and the MTA,” a reference to the song “Charlie and the MTA” about a man who couldn’t afford his train fare and was forever forced to circle Boston’s Subway system.
“You may ride forever, through the burbs of PA just a wasp, who never returned,” I sing through my trepidation.
My father turns on the radio to drown my tormentous melody, and in the hopes that some jazzy improvising will be enough to make the menace finally flee from sight. After a minute or two, the plan seems to take effect as the wasp forgets its wings and desperately darts toward the sanctuary of the crevice between car seat cushions.
We no longer see him, and for a few minutes, the thought of the ready-to-pounce pompilid is even more terrifying than when the predator was fixed in front of us. But as a few minutes pass in silence, some semblance of pre-wasp calm begins to resurface in the radio-blaring room on wheels.
We arrive at the convenience store a few blocks from the theater, open each door and window, and hope the colossal thorn-adorned assailant makes his presence — or absence — known. Neither of us takes much solace in our struggle to spot him, but we continue our tentative voyage toward the theater regardless.
With a snack line too long to bear, my father spends the first fifteen minutes of the movie palpably debating whether it demands popcorn. As the smell of delectable buttery delight wafts through the theater, he decides to brave the lobby once more. Seeing the line has lingered past the end of the previews, he returns to his seat again. Minutes later, still overcome by indecision and disengaged by a lulling plot point between tornadoes, my father puts his foot down and determines we can simply go no further without a bag of yellow kernels split between us.
Ten growing twisters and a bag of popcorn later, we walk free from the theater with another mindless blockbuster added to our arsenal of movies watched together. We spend the ride home hoping our wasp friend from earlier really has departed, and debate the practicality of fireworks launched into churning, trailer-lifting vortexes. We reel from the utter shock of the two disparate — both suspiciously attractive — heroes reconciling in an airport at the end of the movie.
Never having seen such a tear-jerking trope in our shared lives, we shed sarcastic sobs over the star-crossed reunion throughout the entire car ride home.
This article was originally published on Medium.
If you enjoyed this article, you can support my work on here for under $2.00 a month. It would make an enormous difference in helping me to bring you the quality writing you deserve during these times when journalism is under attack.
"I don't know... how's your Karma?"
That remark from your dad
was delicious and a serious consideration
I might add :)