At my parents’ house last week, I mostly slept on the couch and watched television, flipping through movie channels and pausing on each one. When I reached Starz, though, I screamed, threw the controller, then in a panic ran to the TV and pressed the off button with such force, I jammed my middle finger. I sat for a moment to catch my breath, staring straight ahead of me, trying to absorb the horror I had just witnessed. It was “Ernest Goes to Jail.”
To anyone, “Ernest Goes to Jail,” one of the many Ernest movies, would be annoying, but, to my mother and me, it is so much more. When I mentioned seeing the movie to my parents, my mother winced and pressed her palms to her ears. Then we both turned to my father and scowled.
When I was three, we moved to Saudi Arabia and lived there until I was eight. On the first and last flight, my father’s company paid for our tickets, so my mother and I sat in British Airways First Class with my father. On every other flight though, we took Saudia Airlines, which had the only direct flight from New York to Jeddah. My father sat in first class while my mother and I flew “worst class.”
Saudi Arabia does not have movie theaters or even movies, so we should have considered ourselves lucky to watch “Ernest Goes to Jail” over and over on that 14-hour flight. Ernest is the poor man’s Pee Wee Herman, a lovable buffoon with a dash of Mr. Bean. Because he goes to jail in this particular film, he never interacts with women and the movie was therefore deemed fit for Saudi eyes. The first flight from Saudi, my mother and I sat with our legs tucked under us. I happily giggled at Ernest and his antics; my mother just glared at the first class curtain.
We were flying home during Ramadan, and many Muslims were returning from Hajj.A Muslim must wash his or her feet before praying. Hajjis took to washing their feet in the bathroom sinks, which soon flooded. The water seeped into the plane’s carpet and slowly inched further and further until the entire ground was soaked. With each step, you sunk into the ground and made a squishy noise. The plane smelled like wet carpet, sour Indian food and body odor. On the fourth run of “Ernest,” my father sent a first class stewardess back with chocolates for my mother. She sent the woman away, though I think the stewardess understood my mother’s side. The movie played again.
We went home to New York or Boston every year for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and summer. The film probably played six times during a flight. At eight flights a year for five years, counting the times we didn’t return home during the Gulf War and allowing for a nap or two, I estimate that I have seen the movie “Ernest Goes to Jail” 220 times.
I remember liking Saudi, but all the things that remind me of it prompt a visceral reaction. The shampoo I once used turned up in a hotel room; as I lathered my hair, the steam picked up the smell of the gel, and I felt sick.
I felt exactly the same way last week when I saw Ernest in his prison jumpsuit. I hadn’t thought of him in over a decade, but he was there, lurking in my unconscious, ready to pounce.
Thirteen years later, I figured, it was time to get over it. When I look back fondly on my time in Saudi, I’d rather not recall my time in the air. And when it comes to Ernest, there are some things in my past that I would rather repress.
