Untitled II

Movies are a great escape. You lock yourself in a dark movie house and forget the world outside, rain or shine, it doesn't concern you ... for a couple of hours. Some people prefer to see movies with certain somebody, I am just fine to be by myself. I haven't gone to a movie that I am the only one in the movie house, there is always someone who shares the same movie interest at a particular time on a particular day. Father liked to share his movie experience with me. I got to get some air, to get away from the small apartment. I bet that was what he wanted too, to escape from the mundane, the daily grind.

Father would grab some banknotes from his white work jacket's patch pockets and then he would ride his bicycle, with me in the backseat to the main road where we would the 14-seat mini bus to town. The bicycle wasn't one of those popular big black ones. It's a man's model, greenish color but on the petite side, Father was not a big guy, he was a small fellow, good looking in his own way, he was quite charming when he smiled. The bicycle was fitted with a headlight which got its power from the back wheel through pedaling. It's one of those machineries that intrigued me. The apparatus was shaped like a miniature Coca~Cola bottle, when locked to the spinning back wheel, it sent electric power to light up the headlight, it was simply magic. I can't find any bicycle headlight anymore. One time I was in a bicycle shop and the new bicycles have warning label telling owner not to ride in the dark.

The bike ride to the main road didn't take long. And if Father brought my sister T along to the movies, which he did quite often, then we simply walked. It was not uncommon to just walk 30 minutes to get to the bus stop on the main roadway. My two older sisters used to do that every day when they started working in the factories in their early teens. And when I was a bit older I rode my bike to pick one of sisters Y up in the evening when she returned from work. I would get there early, waited for her, did my little bike tricks, like turning and braking to spin the back wheel or whatever stunts I made up. I just felt like I belonged there, me and my bike, the quiet dirt road and the open sky all in perfect harmony. When sister Y started dating, I would ask her if her boyfriend could buy me something. Soon they got married. After some fifteen years and two children later, their marriage dissolved. Sister Y have custody of the children. She divorced her husband but she didn't divorce her in-laws. I heard they play mahjong's together.

We had the 2.30PM show usually. Father and I would wait in line to get the tickets, and I only paid half price or admitted for free. Back then we got to pick our own seats. To go to the movies meant to have Romntrees Fruit Gums. Father would buy me a roll of Romntrees Fruit Gums from the confectionery stand before the movie began. I just loved those gummy sweets. They were very chewy and very delicious. I could never not chew on them when I ate them.