The Man Who Would Be Dad

They were two adventurers, barely big enough for the task.

Their first clue that they might have undertaken something bigger than their inflated self-regard was when they found themselves stranded in the Himalayas, convinced that this, engulfment by snow and ice, might mark their anonymous end.

A smaller scale version of this same scene was playing directly outside, where the whirlwind December air was enveloping my father and I as we, like the aforementioned Danny and Peachy from The Man Who Would Be King, began to entertain thoughts that our journey was over, that our ultimate destiny would not be what was planned - in our case, that rarest of commodities: a film neither one of us had seen.

Fed up, tired from wandering from downtown theatre to downtown there in the biting air, my father decided that we would take refuge in the psychedelic Cineplex playing John Huston's latest release. My heart broke like the many frozen puddles that had met my foot that night. I had seen this film - one of the few a thirteen year old could attend unaccompanied - what felt like a thousand times already: on my own, in the company of school mates, with other relatives. I had set out looking for the biggest prize there was: a film not only that I hadn't seen, but that I could not see without an adult, thus securing major bragging rights at school. What I ended up with was the familiar.

We entered, and were greeted again by the icy imposition of winter; the movie had started already, and there they were, Danny and Peachy, making the best of the situation they found themselves in - something I, too, had decided to try and do.

Dad made it easy for me. He absolutely delighted in the film. Despite his traditionally low key manner, there were moments - the polo match using the head of a deposed despot, the playful plundering of the King's coffers, Danny's climactic death off a rope bridge - were he verged on showing the uninhibited, vocal enthusiasm of a child.

The film ended. We exited back out into the cold - though dad's continued ebullience brought a certain level of warmth to the two of us.

By the next morning, the effect of the film on him had finally worn off. Routine settled in. Our identification with Danny and Peachy was officially over.

...or is it, I ask myself suddenly?

For as I write this, I am Peachy, as he was at the end of the movie: older, wiser, covered in life's scars, remembering his fallen friend, secure in the knowledge that once, I had known an extraordinary male kinship, and that it's sad and sudden end - rope bridge/lung cancer - by no means diminishes the many adventures that sprang from its existence.