Paint the Toon Red

by A. J. Mayall

  I folded it and stuck it in my back pocket. “Thanks! I wasn’t expecting—”

  She held up her hand again. “I have seen so many people come and go, and one of the main reasons they quit is because they cannot figure out that house. Some time ago, I made a map for the new helpers, and frankly, for me too.”

  I finished the martini and checked my watch. “I need to be heading home,” I said.

  Pamela raised her wine glass to me. “Are you okay to drive?”

  I nodded. “It’s only one martini, and if anything, I’ll grab some water before I head out.”

  She nodded and led me to the door. “I’ll be pretty busy tomorrow and the day after that, and…” She pulled out her phone and checked her schedule. “Dammit. Maybe a week from today, we can catch up?”

  I nodded. “May I ask why?”

  She refilled her glass of wine. “Two reasons. One: I don’t get to see many humans aside from the talent I work with when they’re willing to come over. Two: you never know where you’ll actually find good talent. I mean, you heard the story about how Harrison Ford got started in the industry, right?”

  I shook my head.

  “There are a few different rumors here and there, but I believe it was American Graffiti: he was basically set up as a guy sweeping the floors, and people liked the look of him. I kinda like the look of you.”

  “Well, I—thank you for that,” I said, “I am taken, though.”

  “Really? What’s the lucky girl’s name?”

  “Kyle.”

  “Oh. Oh!” she said. “Dammit, how come all the cute guys have to be gay?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know, but it’s a good curse to have, isn’t it?”

  She nodded and let me out. I walked back into the estate and grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen, overlooking a portion of the grounds. Then, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It looked like someone was perched on top of one of the tall stone walls.

  I chugged half of my glass, refilled it, and approached the figure.

  “Hey, you there! You need something?”

  Upon being spotted, the figure jumped off the back of the wall. He was human, that much was clear. He was Caucasian, wearing a black leather bomber jacket and a gray T-shirt, he had rugged features, and brown, wavy hair.

  I rushed back to the main estate, finished my water, and sought Snappy. I pulled out the map and ran through the convoluted routes to get to each room before finding him in the study.

  “Hey, Snappy.”

  “Tyler, you’re still here? Wasn’t the end of your shift half an hour ago?”

  “Yeah, I went and talked with Miss Blake for a bit and I had a martini.”

  “Was it good?”

  “Oh, fantastic.”

  “Good. She makes excellent cocktails. What do you need? Did we not get all the paperwork signed?”

  I shook my head and went, “No, I think we got all that covered after the pie extravaganza, but there was a guy who was climbing over the wall.”

  Snappy asked, “Does Miss Blake have a client over right now?”

  “Yeah, she mentioned a horror movie or something. I heard someone practicing in the basement.”

  “Paparazzi. It’s the one downside of having Miss Blake here: they’re always trying to get on the grounds and take photographs of actors coming and going.”

  “Okay. Is there anything I should do, should I see them again?”

  “Give them a good clobberin’.”

  “I don’t think I’m allowed to do that.”

  “Then give them a bad clobberin’.”

  “I don’t think I’m allowed to give any kind of clobberin’.”

  “Then just let me or Miss Blake know. We’ll call the police if need be, but the paparazzi are harmless, more annoying than anything. Frankly, I doubt a trespassing charge is going to do much to deter them.”

  I nodded and thanked Snappy for a unique first day at work, then gestured to the shoes and the tie.

  “How do I wash these?”

  “Oh, they’ll be fine in the morning, don’t you worry.”

  “And I can wear anything, but I have to be wearing these, correct?”

  “Yes, that is your uniform. Anything else is just accessorizing.”

  “Like pants and a shirt?”

  “Exactly! Accessories.”

  I chuckled and pulled out the map, beginning the labyrinthine way back to the front yard. I hopped into my car and pulled out of the gate. Before I turned onto the road, I saw the guy who climbed the wall there.

  “Hey, so, I know why you’re here, and just lay off. They’re not looking to press charges.”

  He turned and glowered at me, then gave me the finger.

  “Hey man, just trying to help you out!”

  I drove back home and was very glad I’d had that glass of water. Otherwise, that martini probably would’ve hit me a little bit harder than it did when I realized I’d had only that salad to eat today. I felt stuff from the pie, but the pie didn’t actually do anything, besides leave me a mess.

  I made my way back to the apartment, unlocked the door, and went, “Honey, I’m home!”

  Kyle came in from the bedroom. “So happy to see you, and I…what the hell are you covered in?”

  CHAPTER 5

  It’d been a week; one unbelievably crazy week. I don’t say that lightly. The sheer insanity of this job was only made worthwhile when I got the check. Now, living in the Bay Area of California, with its abnormally high rent and a decent-paying job, or even a good-paying job, mostly just kept out of the gutters. If you worked for one of the big tech firms, you could probably live fairly comfortably, even if every landlord in the tri-county area priced out most of the population.

  Living in Animætropolis, I didn’t have to worry about that so much. However, the amount I made in one week for Snappy Gator—let’s just say probably constituted almost a month’s salary at any other standard job that I’d had. So, pies in the face? I’m willing to take it.

  However, as the week had gone by, things were getting a little more…bizarre.

  Now, mind you, heading into work one week later, I made sure my shirt looked nice, my jeans were well-maintained, and I held my head high, wearing my cartoon bowtie and saddle shoes. Upon entering the house, I called out for Snappy and got no answer.

  I got mostly used to the weird routes I’d need to take to actually get around the house properly, since I couldn’t use Snappy’s portable holes, moving walls, or flipping up an entire segment of wallpaper like it was a curtain to reveal impossible staircases.

  It took me about three times as long as Snappy would like for me to get from room to room, but he also understood that I was limited by physical space and traditional reality.

  The house was mostly empty. I saw a couple of the gardeners milling about in the back who wanted to come in for a glass of tea. Snappy, apparently, was a fan of iced tea and always kept more than enough pitchers on hand for anyone who might drop by.

  I nodded to the gardener, pouring myself a glass as well before I walked the halls. Eventually, I ended up in the living room, where I saw what appeared to be one of Snappy’s earliest productions.

  The title card had just faded from view, but it seemed to be a cute, if short, cartoon involving him on a train, trying to impress some lady.

  It was like that famous cartoon with the Big Bad Wolf at the strip club, but a lot less, well, sexy. Snappy was portrayed more like a hopeless romantic than a horndog.

  I sat back as I watched his repeated attempts to woo the maiden fair, posing as an engineer, a waiter, and finally appearing in a tuxedo, carrying a bouquet of roses. He made what I can only assume was a Rockefeller reference to her when she clobbered him over the head with a frying pan.

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “So, you liked that, did you?” asked Snappy.

  I looked around, trying to catch him. “Yeah. Where are ya at?”

  “In here!”
/>
  That’s when I realized the broadcast was talking to me. I leaned in closer to the television and Snappy jumped out of it, straightening his lapels and doing a quick spin, turning into a tornado for all of a second before stepping back in his zoot suit.

  The Happy Harmonies theme song played on the TV and it turned itself off.

  I had forgotten that as it was something I hadn’t seen in a while. Toons have the ability, if you can believe it, to just hop into screens. They came from the television and the movies, and they can go back to them completely freely.

  Not that it was considered rude to do so in front of people, it’s just, well, toons in society tried their best to acclimate. Snappy had been around long enough that he acclimated enough and, you know, what he did in the privacy of his own home is nobody else’s damn business. I respect him for that.

  To his question, though, as to whether or not I liked it, I nodded fast. “Yeah, I mean, you can’t beat the classics, but was that new material you were trying out?”

  He nodded. “Apparently, the whole ‘retro’ thing is in, so I’m setting up some old programs and trying to see if I can recapture that old glory.”

  I smiled and toasted to him with the glass of iced tea. “All the best of luck to you, man.”

  “So, your paycheck; any problems with that?”

  “Nope! Cashed it last night, and thank you! That was a lot more than I was expecting!”

  “Think nothing of it. You’ll probably be due for a raise within a few months if you keep up at the rate you’re going.”

  I had to chortle at that. “I don’t really know what it is you want me to do. I mean, day one, you threw pies at me for almost 8 hours straight. Yesterday we were tuning pianos, only to have you start throwing them out the window. Does that have anything to do—” I said, gesturing to the TV, “—with your little project?”

  Snappy nodded. “Hey, if I’ve got to compete with all of these modern guys, I need to be at the top of my game with the good classic gags. A pie in the face is kinda cliché, but if you do it just right, it’s fantastic. That’s to say nothing about dropping a piano or an anvil on someone.”

  “Okay, well, what’s today’s agenda?”

  “I could start doing a couple of routines on you, if you want. If you wanted to help out the gardeners, you could. I don’t know; what do you think?”

  At that, I just stammered. Again, this was just average stuff for a toon. He was used to just going with the flow, and now, here he was with an employee who was just eager to get work done, even if the reason was that he paid a shit-ton of money.

  “How about a little R&D?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You want to know what you have to compete against; why don’t we just watch some TV, see what’s going on.”

  “Oh, you mean like—”

  I said, “Yeah, let’s watch the competition and see what the kids are all raving about these days.

  “We have to be careful, you know, ever since all of that anime stuff came out,” he said, hissing under his breath.

  “Snappy!” I said. “I know you came out near the turn of the century, and your formative years with humanity were during World War II, but you’re not going to get all—”

  “This has nothing to do with the USA versus Japan. I don’t know, the rifts over there…the toons that popped out have a completely different ruleset. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but they can actively hurt each other. Not just in a funny way, like, they can kill.”

  “Well, I’m sure that things come back, just like here.”

  “No! You don’t understand! An anime toon comes after you, you might be blown up, and not the fun TNT kind, where you just become a pile of ash with a pair of blinking eyes. They don’t mess around over there!”

  I said, “I never really looked into it. I had no reason to; most of the toons in the United States were more of your ‘funny animal’ types and a few humanoids here and there. Once the 80s hit, there was a whole influx of cookie-cutter, merchandisable cartoons.”

  Snappy shook his head at that.

  I continued, “I don’t know what came first, the toon or the toy, in those cases. Seriously though, just between us…the rifts you mentioned, where toons come from. You said you’ve got one of those near your estate?”

  Snappy nodded. “Oh, yeah, it’s in the guest house where Miss Blake lives. It appears in her basement.”

  “Oh!”

  “It hasn’t done anything lately. If anything, it kind of lights up a room at night, but you can just put something in front of it to block it out.”

  I shrugged and nodded at that and flipped through the channels. I landed on one meant for little kids and tweens but appeared to be interrupted by a special news bulletin.

  “In today’s gaming news, famed eSports player Brandon Butler has gone missing. He was due to appear in a tournament with his team, Los Lobos Locos. Brandon Butler, known in the gaming community as DonkeyDog, vanished from his hotel room in Oakland sometime last night. A source reports that his quarters had been ransacked and blood was found on the floor, but we have no confirmation of either statement yet.

  “What we do know is that he was the linchpin for his group against their slated rivals, the Timber Titans. We will have more details for you as they unfold.”

  There was a close-up of Brandon Butler’s face; he was an Asian kid, probably no older than 24, skinny as a rail, with spiky hair.

  I looked at Snappy, he looked at me, then he grabbed the remote and switched the channel. “I wish I could get a gig doing that.”

  “Doing what? Games? There are all sorts of streaming services these days and people watch a lot of stuff. I’m sure they wouldn’t have a problem watching a toon playing a game.”

  “I don’t mean playing the game, I mean being in the game. It’s big business. I should’ve gotten in on that back in the early 80s. You know, I could have been the Pong ball.”

  “Snappy,” I said, “the Pong ball was just a white square.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have taken me long to figure out the role. I’m sure I could’ve done well.”

  “Snappy,” I said, patting him on the shoulder, “I don’t think it quite works like that.”

  “No, you’re probably right. Anyway, I don’t know what would happen if I had my own game. I really hope it wouldn’t be too violent, and most people don’t remember me for my old shows much anymore. I’m mostly known as the guy who helps toons get their licenses when they pop into being.”

  “Hey, I just know you as my boss and the one toon who managed not to get hit by a bus.”

  He laughed at that and nodded. “Very true. Very, very true.”

  Then he threw another pie in my face.

  At the end of the day, I was drenched in sweat. Well, sweat, seltzer water, pie filling, and random debris from various cartoon TNT explosions, not to mention exhausted from carrying ponderous jugs of cartoon whiskey (or toonshine, as I’d heard it called). The smell of it told me that’s what Barry had been drinking that night I helped him back inside his apartment.

  Snappy wasn’t much of a toonshine drinker, though; he preferred more refined drinks, and was enjoying a gin and “toonic.” He toasted me after another day of hard work, congratulating me on fitting in so well, and acclimating to his rather bizarre whims. I returned the gesture with a sweet tea.

  My pocket buzzed. I was off the clock, but I was still in Snappy’s home, so I asked if I could answer it. He waved a hand and refilled his cocktail.

  It was Kyle. “Hey, hon. How’s it going?”

  “Going good.”

  “Are we still on for tonight?”

  “Yeah! Where do you want to go for dinner?”

  “I was thinking Burger Circus.”

  I scoffed. “Why would you want to go to Burger Circus? It’s not like they’re that good.”

  “Well, you know, this whole thing kind of started when you got shafted that one day. You went there, did some good d
eeds, and now you’ve got decent money. I want you to be able to save that money, and they’re cheap.”

  “Okay, we can go to Burger Circus, if you want to that bad, but I do have to make one quick stop.”

  “Oh? Where are you going?”

  “To visit the lady who lives on the lot here. She told me last week that I could drop in after work today and have a chat about how I’m acclimating. I don’t want to be rude and cancel on her. I shouldn’t be that long.”

  “Just keep me informed, okay?”

  “Sure thing, hon.” I turned off the phone and turned to Snappy. “I’m going to go out back and talk to Pamela, if that’s okay with you.”

  He shrugged. “It’s your time at this point. You have yourself a wonderful night, Mr. Fairfax, and I will see you tomorrow morning.”

  As I put my phone down, a low-battery warning flashed. “Hey, Snappy, do you mind if I charge this for just a few moments?”

  “Sure, go right ahead; I got a fast charger in the other room.”

  I nodded, walked to the study, and put my phone on the charger, which alerted me it would be charged fairly soon.

  I headed to the back, taking a few winding hallways to the very nondescript door that was one of the exit points to the backyard. It wasn’t far to Pamela’s house from there.

  I knocked a few times but didn’t hear an answer. After about 30 seconds, I knocked again and peeked through the window.

  There were figures in a room in the back and I could barely make out what they looked like.

  I tried knocking again. The door swung open almost immediately, and Pamela looked frazzled, hair pulled back haphazardly.

  “What do you want, Fairfax?!” she said, obviously agitated.

  “Oh, um…last week, you told me to come by tonight. You were very busy and said you would set time aside just to sit down and chat.”

  She looked at me dumbfounded for a second. Then, she slapped a palm on her forehead. “Fuck, that’s right, I did. Listen, I’ve got some guests over. Do you mind if we reschedule?”

  “Oh, no, that’s fine. I mean, would tomorrow be better?”

  “Tomorrow’s fine but, yeah, today just doesn’t really work for me.”