Crime and Punishment

Michael is in trouble now. He knows he won’t get away with this easily.

His father’s watch, a real wristwatch with a leather strap, is not in his pocket anymore. Michael has just realized it. He was playing with it in the kitchen, that’s the last thing he remembers. Dad told him he could have used his watch for one day, and then he lent it to him. But his wrist was too thin, he couldn’t close the strap, and so he just started to play with it. He put it in his pocket, and then all of a sudden, with calculated nonchalance, he extracted it to see what time it was. Like a gentleman.

Now his mom is taking him to the cinema, just the two of them, to see Buster Kingston.

-Keaton, Michael. Buster Keaton. You’ll like him.

-But who is he? I’ve never seen him before. –He had never watched that many movies though, he had to admit to himself while swallowing his last bite of apple.

-Oh, it’s that nice comedian with that long face… you know, the one who’s very slim and has black hair. He’s very funny.

-Oh yes mom, I bet he is. –Michael hadn’t really understood who this Mr. Keaton was, but what was the point in insisting with his questions?

He touches his pocket for one last time before entering the theatre. No, the watch is not there. He has lost it. While they proceed to enter the dark room and to look for their seats, he only thinks about the watch and the stern face of his father and the inevitable punishment that he will receive. His mom seems not to notice.

Perhaps he could just tell his father that he has left the watch on the table, and that he hasn’t touched it. And that, consequently, it’s not his fault if it disappeared. He doesn’t know anything about it, no sir. But no, that wouldn’t work. Dad has seen him playing with it and putting it into his pocket. When he will come back from work, he will be very upset. Maybe even disappointed.

How much does a wristwatch cost?

Michael almost doesn’t notice that the movie begins. The screen says “Buster Keaton in The Cameraman”, and there’s that lion who roars that he likes so much. Majestic. He has just learned that word and he finds it’s absolutely fitting for a roaring lion. Majestic.

Buster is indeed nice, but he looks sad. Well, at least that’s what Michael thinks judging from the images. This is not a talkie, this is like all the other movies in which there is no sound and nobody speaks. You had to expect it, there are less people in the room. But that might also be because it’s only four in the afternoon and many people are probably working.

He bets his dad would have come if the movie had been a talkie.

But there is also another thing Michael is thinking about. If it is afternoon, and some grown up people are indeed in the cinema, it means they are not working. Why aren’t they? Are they all idlers? And if they are idlers and loafers, where did they get the money to pay for the cinema? All right, it doesn’t cost that much, but if you are a loafer and you don’t have a respectable salary then you probably want to spend the money you do have on some more important things. Food, clothes. That’s reckless. Obviously, mom is not working today, but that’s a different thing. She never works, and most of the women he knows don’t work. Because, well, they are women. And mothers.

-Do you like the movie, Michael? –Oh dear, mom is probably realizing he is not happy at all, and that he is thinking about that stupid wristwatch. He must avoid any suspicion before he decides what to do. If he appears too worried now, then he won’t be able to deny anything when dad will come back home.

No, play safe.

-Yes mom, it’s really nice! But why are they not talking?

-Some movies talk, others don’t. It’s an expensive process, I suppose.

He might as well watch the movie now. Smiling every once in a while. Buster is trying to buy a movie camera, apparently. But he hasn’t enough money, so he is forced to buy an old and shabby one. Michael understands him perfectly well. He doesn’t have enough money to buy a new watch. That would solve everything. Well, obviously, he doesn’t have money at all.

Buster buys the camera to impress a girl who works for a movie studio. What a stupid idea. Michael would never do that for a girl. All the girls he knows are dull-witted and loud-speaking and impossible to reason with. He tries to be nice, sure, but that’s all they will ever get from him. Spending money for them, real money? You must be kidding.

The girl Buster loves, though, is beautiful. She has a wonderful smile, you have to admit that.

-What’s the name of that actress?

-She’s Marceline Day. She is very talented. I bet –Michael’s mom says, with a strangely proud tone- that she will become a star.

She must be really good, then. Now Michael hopes Buster will manage to get her.

But the date they have at the city pool is an unmitigated disaster. That Keaton guy really doesn’t know how to behave with women. The scenes are very funny, though. Michael finds himself laughing more than once now, and not only for that story of the wristwatch. It would never work in real life, but it’s funny. Half of the girls he knows, Betty and Cindy and Veronica for sure, would have left him in the pool and walked away. Girls have no sense of humour, he learned on the first day of school. When they were playing tag and he grabbed Cindy’s hair to stop her, and her hairband fell on the floor, she was so upset that she told everything to the teacher and he was scolded in front of everybody. All of this for a stupid hairband. He doesn’t even want to imagine what terrible scene a girl would make if he had to behave like Buster at the pool.

Granted, it was not Buster’s fault. But women wouldn’t understand that, or they simply wouldn’t care.

Instead, in the movies girls are always nice and the protagonist falls in love with them and they ultimately end up kissing. This Sally (what was her real name? Marceline?), for example, is really nice to Buster and tells him to go to Chinatown so that he can film something interesting there and be hired by the movie studio. Again, Michael can’t help laughing. Buster is so clumsy.

Michael’s mom is laughing too, she looks really amused. Perhaps he can talk to her about the watch, now that she is in such a good mood, before his father arrives. Maybe he should first let the movie end.

-Dad’s going to be so disappointed when he’ll come here! This movie is amazing!

Now hang on. Is dad coming to the theatre? Will he not wait for them at home? That’s it, Michael is done for.

Buster keeps making a fool out of himself, and the film is probably still funny and Sally is probably still beautiful, but Michael barely follows the story now. His father will be really angry and will probably say something that will make Michael feel sorry and mortified. Something like ‘I needed that wristwatch at work’ or ‘I can’t afford to buy another one now’. Then Michael will stay silent and stare at the floor, but his cheeks will burn.

In the good old days, men didn’t need wristwatches. They went along in coaches and on horses and thought about Napoleon or the Civil War. Nobody needed a machine on your wrist telling you how late you were for tea.

When the film ends and Michael proceeds with his mom towards the exit, he possesses all the composure of a nobleman going towards the gallows. Or, at least, all the composure he assumes an old nobleman with a white wig would have in front of the gallows. Some of the sequences of the movie he has just seen flash in his mind, but he must not laugh. This is serious, and he knows it. Buster Keaton jumping and diving and running all over the screen. His father looking at him without saying a word, and then shouting.

Calm and quiet. If Marceline could look at him now, she would be proud of him.

When dad arrives, he kisses mom on the lips, as usual. This is the prelude to the disaster. He must already be angry about the watch.

Then he turns towards Michael and shakes his hair. –How are you, Mike? –his watch is on his wrist. –You should be careful with what I lend you –he smiles again. –You left the watch on the chair in the kitchen. Somebody could have sat on it. You know how mom and dad are absent-minded at times!

Davide