I Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

A 14 year old circumvents the censors to catch a classic

He begged, he pleaded, he improvised deals.

Nothing, however, could make them bend the rules, the ones dictating who got into which movies. I was fourteen and that, in the pre Adult Accompaniment age, was that. No admittance, regardless of what scheme my father, desperate for me to see One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, was promising to make me a part of.

As he hung up the phone and explained that he had tried his best, I'm not sure which one of us had the longer face. He came up with a final idea: that he would pay for me to see the movie in the adjacent theatre, The Sunshine Boys, while he paid for Cuckoo's Nest, then attempt, somehow, to sneak me in. "No promises on that one though, son", he added in a voice all too aware of the risk. No promises was right; I knew those ushers. They were toughest ones in the city. I could recite a list of the Restricted movies they had caught me attempting to sneak into that would last until my 14th birthday.

The next day, I received the consolation prize: the book, which my father picked up while purchasing his daily pack of cigarettes. I tried to read it, but this wasn't the story I wanted. It was written from the Chief's point of view, a character my dad had told me didn't speak. Having him gab the length of an entire book like that seemed to ruin things.

Finally, almost an entire year later, the film moved from the prestigious Elgin to the Capital Square. Now that was a theatre you could sneak into, what with those horny young ushers always busy sweet-talking the popcorn girls.

I paid for a Charles Bronson film I had no intention of seeing, and when the solitary usher turned his back on me to try out a bad line on the girl behind the candy counter, I ducked into a room illuminated only by the oversized faces of Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher.

I left just before the closing credits, through an unmanned side exit. As I emerged into the sunshine, I felt everything my father told me I would feel: exhilarated, unnerved, riled...and yet, none of it had anything to do with the movie.

Unlike Nicholson's McMurphy, I had bucked the system and won.