by Greg Jolley
Underneath the sales contract was a common-law marriage agreement. It was already filled in and had a notarized seal from the state of North Carolina. All that was missing was my signature. I paused, pen in hand. I hadn’t seen Mother in several years. A long time ago, I had rescued her. Maybe the marriage would make her feel safe? Perhaps thaw her heart? I didn’t know. I signed the agreement.
Looking out the grimy kitchen window and down the hill, I saw the sparkling, blue wavering water of the swimming pool. I was distracted by the smell of burned and rotted food, so I took the folder with me out into the fresh air.
THE NEXT morning, Hilda collected Pierce to drive him to school, and I went off to put my smoking, blue automobile in the repair shop. After a short day in the writers’ office, mostly working on rewrites to the space-adventure film, I took the bus to pick up my car. The tall, old man in green coveralls had diagnosed the motor. It was terminal. He gave me the price for a replacement, and I took the bus home, not approving the repairs because I didn’t have the money.
Pierce had figured out the lawn mower and had it fueled and running. As he mowed the overgrown, yellow lawn, Jared and I went into the cool shade of the garage. We read the sides of the pool chemical buckets and began our first experiment to remove the mossy green from the pool water.
Pierce finished the lawns and rolled the mower to the garage and returned from the guesthouse with his rebuilt 16mm movie camera. He walked down into the pool with his shoes and clothes on which made Baby Ruth laugh. She was sitting beside Hilda who was reading her magazines. The day before, the three kids had filmed the sinking of the sailboat. Jared climbed into the pool wearing a torn-up white shirt with ash smudges on the sides of his handsome face. He was carrying a broken board. He swam to the deep end and, at Pierce’s direction, treaded water with the board across his chest.
Baby Ruth left the table and kneeled on the pool deck. She watched Jared closely over Pierce’s shoulder and the raised camera.
“Quiet!” Pierce barked.
Jared squinted, and his expression changed to bewildered and determination.
The pool area was silent. Everyone was focused on Jared’s plight. I felt Hilda’s hand on my wrist, but I didn’t turn.
Pierce called over his shoulder, “Baby Ruth. Please.”
As rehearsed, Baby Ruth hefted a section of plywood taken from the garage and pushed it into the water. She entered the pool and placed her hands out wide on the wood.
“Roll on four,” Pierce directed.
Baby Ruth began shoving and pulling on the plywood causing a series of waves that quickly reached Jared.
“Action.”
Jared took a mouthful of water and choked and gagged and turned away. As scripted, he spoke a single word to the view of the vast ocean.
“Sharks.”
He went wide-eyed but kept the resolute set to his jaw as he floundered in the waves, looking back and forth and side to side for the predators. His expression was torn with shock and pain just before he was pulled under. One of his hands remained on the rocking piece of wood.
Pierce called “cut” and leaned around the raised camera.
Baby Ruth stopped making waves.
A voice, angry and familiar, bellowed from the garden up the hill.
“You! Husband!”
I waited until Jared reappeared and winked at his brother before I turned around.
Mother wore a lime, translucent robe that draped down along the sides of her naked body. She had put on weight since I had last seen her. Her belly and her breasts were plump and pale and ghostly white. The hair on her mound and head looked like cotton candy and were dyed a vibrant snow-white. Her lips were painted a glossy pink, and she wore black sunglasses.
I realized that I was staring instead of answering.
Her hands went to her hips, and her breasts bounced when she called down.
“Where are the signed papers?”
The kids were wide-eyed and as stunned as I was to see Mother in daylight. I heard Hilda’s magazines spill and slap the concrete. I got up from the umbrella table and went to our guesthouse where the blue folder lay on the small table within the sprawl of camera parts and 3D reels and viewers.
Carrying the documents up the paths to the landing where she stood, I studied the open lime-colored robe parted like a curtain. I had never seen her naked before. I felt a rare mix of emotions—lust and loss.
“I signed everything,” I stammered, handing over the folder.
Her pale, lovely fingers flipped through the pages, confirming the signatures. Satisfied, she turned for the darkness of the house.
“Maybe you and I and the children could celebrate?” I said to her back.
Her voice carried from the shadows beyond the door.
“Not going to happen. You might’ve saved me, but I’m not part of your collection.”
WHEN PAIN Staking bombed, I was unexpectedly credited with most of the movie, both inside Lion Heart Pictures and in the hastily edited newspaper advertisements. My workdays became shorter. The space-adventure film was in trouble, and I was told to work on sequencing and continuity as filming continued. The movie was bogging down as it tried to carry the airship romance and the trials of space travel. I took red ink to the long, anguished break-up scenes and penned a single shot of a letter the main character finds at the helm. He opens it, reacts, and gets back to repairing the turbo thrusters. Four minutes cut to thirty-seven seconds.
Twelve days into the shoot, Ira entered the writers’ office and sat down beside my desk near the back of the narrow room.
“Don’t murder the mailman,” he told me. He had a sheet of paper in his hand which was covered with columns of numbers. “They chose me, I suppose because we’re buddies. To the quick, you’re fired.”
I SPENT four weeks going through the trades and newspapers and typing up resumes on the typewriter the studio had given me as a parting gift. I began to worry about money each time I opened a packet of cash. Mother’s expenses continued to come my way and, while reduced by her dwindling number of employees, the packets were thinning every week.
Six weeks after my dismissal, I received a telephone call at the guesthouse—an invitation to an interview with Legend Pictures. The caller explained that the company wasn’t a studio but a production house that was using military newsreels and archived footage to build historical shorts for sale to grade schools, community colleges, and collectors.
My screenplay skills were not required. The position was for a member of the editing team. I accepted the offer and planned to take the bus to the office in downtown Hollywood the following Friday.
On one of the days in between, Hilda pulled me aside while the kids shared a bowl of watermelon at the umbrella table. I hadn’t been able to pay her the past two weeks, and she had a solution. Later that same afternoon, Ira and I unlocked the second guesthouse, and while it aired out, we cleaned it and made it nice for Hilda. She liked the idea of living there rent-free in exchange for caring for my three. That same day, Hilda told me that Jared and Baby Ruth would no longer be sleeping in the mansion but with her in her new place. I’m not sure if the twins were more excited or relieved.
That Friday, I was right on time at Legend Pictures. When I arrived, there were already six other applicants sitting in the untidy front office, leaving me to stand. I completed the necessary paperwork and waited forty-five minutes before the secretary read my name and nodded to the adjoining door.
The interview room was dingy and cluttered with old screening equipment, projectors, and splicing machines. There were two metal chairs and a wooden table. Across from me sat Mr. Nash—the director of Mumm’s and my film, Savior, and my previous employer in the delivery business.
He used the intercom on the table to speak to the secretary, “Let those others go.”
He gestured to the chair opposite his and opened a file with my name written on it.
“I saw your name and had to wonder.” His welcomin
g smile froze. “We’ve got a history, of sorts.”
I agreed.
“No filming here, Danser. Our angle is mining the miles of old newsreel footage for repackaging.” He set my resume down on the table. “Appears you have a knack for speeding up storylines. Are you interested?”
“Yes.”
“Good. In six weeks, we’ll have completed the acquisition of film stocks and be ready to go. You’ll start one week early to learn our edit and splice machines.”
“Five weeks?” I asked. “I was hoping…”
The frosty smile stretched. “Short on cash?”
“Yes.”
He opened the center desk drawer and took out a set of car keys on a black fob. “If you’re interested in returning to the delivery business, I can pay up front. Cash. Starting tonight.”
The keys were dangling from his fingers.
“It comes with a car like before. With the same cleaning and garaging rules. I’ll have the car’s title put in your name. For our own reasons.”
The telephone on the desk rang. He ignored it. It jingled three times before being replaced by a small blinking light.
“Like before, you’ll be given the addresses the night of. You’ll also deliver small bags with the…employees.”
Mr. Nash selected a button on the telephone and spoke to someone without pause or listening. He ended the call and rose from the table.
“For tonight, my secretary has the addresses for you. Starting tomorrow, you’ll get calls at your number. Is your telephone still working?”
“I believe so.”
“Do this. She’s going to pay you for tonight. Go down to Pacific Bell and pay your bill. Pay it forward, too.”
I agreed.
“You’ll like the car.” He walked to the door and opened it. “It’s a ’61 Lincoln.”
I took the keys, and he closed the door at my heels. The secretary gave me a note with the addresses and an envelope half full of cash.
That night, after my three were bunked out in Hilda’s place, I backed the dirty Lincoln from the garage and went to work.
I made deliveries almost every night during the five weeks before reporting to work at Legend Pictures. As before, most of the employees I delivered to the wealthy homes were stylishly dressed and chatty. Later in the wee hours, these same young women were disturbed, unraveled, and drugged. Sometimes they were incoherent as I drove them to their apartments. Occasionally, the employees were young men who also went through the before and after Jekyll and Hyde mutation.
I found my role in this business distasteful. These young women were being drained of all hope and life. Like them, the constant need for money kept me at it.
During those days, regardless of what I did each night, I enjoyed my three. When they were home from their schools, we lived in the pool area with laughter coming from all corners and the open doors of the two guesthouses.
A week before I was supposed to start at Legends, I turned the black Lincoln into the driveway and saw a sandwich board on the south corner sidewalk before the mansion. It didn’t have “For Sale” written on it, which would have been indiscreet for that neighborhood, but the sign—with only a telephone number—made the intention clear. I asked Hilda if she heard anything. She hadn’t, so I filed the question away.
ON MY first day at Legend Pictures, I wore my black suit, white shirt, and green tie and stood out on the street, in the day’s early heat, waiting for the office to open. I was on time, early, in fact, ready to start at 8:00 a.m. I was curious about what genre of film I would be working on and what kind of editing equipment I was going to learn.
The street was busy, so I waited in the alcove before the front door. The cracked tiles were dusty and covered with bits of litter. My black shoes and cuffs were tan by 9:00 a.m. I knocked on the front door again as I’d done four times over the past hour. No reply nor movements or voices.
At 9:15 a.m., I stepped out on the sidewalk and looked in through Legend’s front window. The blinds were drawn. At 10:00 a.m., I gave the front door three strong knocks, waited, and tried the door handles. They were locked.
That night, I drove the Lincoln to the donut shop to get the to-and-from addresses for the night’s employee. I asked the man with the list and the small bag of medical bottles if he knew anything about Legend being closed for the day.
“For the day?” he chuckled. “Try for the decade. No. Better yet, try for like permanent. Crazy Nash and his grab-the-cash schemes.”
So began the days when I only worked nights, and, while glad to have that cash, I worried even more about money.
Mother’s mansion remained on the market for the remainder of 1962 without a single offer. The front of the property became overgrown and brown from lack of care. The boys and I kept up the backside of the property—we watered and mowed the lawn, and Jared and I found the correct mixture of chemicals and treatments to keep the pool clean and clear. The delivery business money was almost enough to cover our living expenses, but I couldn’t stay afloat in the waves of bills from the mansion. As the packets of cash dwindled, I began another search in the industry papers for studio employment, typing resumes on the old Underwood and mailing them off one by one.
Sometimes there were no replies, and other times the resumes came back stamped “Return to Sender.” When the telephone was shut off for nonpayment, I drove the black Lincoln to the telephone company and worked out a deal for a small amount of cash in exchange for restored service. I needed to pay the water company and power bill but couldn’t.
That afternoon, when Hilda brought the children home from school, Pierce had a note stating that he needed testing and eyeglasses. Another expense and an important one. At 5:00 p.m., the power company shut off the electricity. Ira was kind enough to loan me enough to cover the bill, but I passed on turning the power back in favor of covering grocery expenses.
There were three packets of cash remaining in the satchel that I kept in the closet Pierce and I shared. Our meager savings went quickly, the packets thinning even with my delivery job income.
Two weeks later, a single packet was all that was left. I walked to the front of Mother’s mansion and wrote down the telephone number for the realtor and called him. He confirmed that there had been no offers.
“That property needs a proper cleaning and restoration and repairs to make it marketable.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “There’s no money for that. How about we lower the price?”
At that, he laughed and said, “Can’t.”
“Why?”
“With all those loans, the seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths, you have very little wiggle room on the list price. Any chance you can get your wife to agree to a sizable downsize? To a less desirable zip code.”
I didn’t know anything about the loans.
“You want, I’ll make the listing changes, but you’d better talk to your wife about the realities of your…situation. Might also want to take her pen and checkbook away from her if you don’t mind me suggesting.”
“How much house could we afford if we lower the price enough to sell?”
“Well, Mr. Danser, it will be a surprise. And not a pleasant one, especially for your wife. Why don’t you come over to the office?”
I DROVE the Lincoln into town. The realtor set out a blue-lined notebook and a selected a pen.
“If you like, I’ll draw up the price adjustment and get the documents to you by the end of the week. Gives you time to discuss this with your missus.”
I agreed. But I didn’t speak to Mother about this. I felt compelled to act, to protect my three.
The documents arrived, and I signed them.
The mansion sat unwanted for two months without even a walk-through that I knew of.
I drove down to the realtor’s office to discuss the situation.
“An open house would help.” He shook his head. “But she’d have to be out of the residence for those days and times, and we both know that is not even
close to being in the cards.”
“I agree. Let’s lower the price again,” I said.
Long ago, I had saved Mother; rescued her. My need to continue to protect her was a question I couldn’t answer.
FEELING THE pressure, a squeeze, for money, I opened the last packet on that chilly winter night before heading off to work in the dirty Lincoln. Kneeling in front of the closet and closing my satchel, I sensed a closing panic that stirred up a possible solution. It would mean being away from the boys and Baby Ruth for several days, but it could solve our current situation and likely make us solvent for quite some time.
I walked over to Hilda’s and knocked on the door. After a minute, I heard movement from inside, and Ira answered rubbing the side of his face.
“BB? What’s wrong? It’s after midnight.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Is Hilda awake?”
“No. She’s sleeping, like all the sane do,” he said with a friendly smile. “What do you need? I can wake her if you like.”
“No, that’s okay. I need to be away for a bit. Probably a week. Maybe two. Not sure. Can she watch over the kids while I’m away?”
“Sure. I’ll brave answering for her. Better that than disturb her dreams.”
“Here.” I handed him half of the money from the last packet. “That should be enough for expenses and the usual unexpected.”
“Sure, BB,” he replied, taking the thin stack of cash. “What are you up to?”
“I’m gonna go get some money. Will you thank Hilda for me?”
“Yes, of course. And your three will be fine. Call them when you can.”
We exchanged a hug, and I went back to my place. I packed a bag of clothes and kissed the brow of my darling, sleeping Pierce. Before I headed off to work, I opened the Lincoln’s trunk and placed a selection of tools inside behind the paper bags of police cash and medicine bottles.