The Altonevers

by Frederic Merbe

  “So where we going anyway?” Anna asks.

  “To the movies Carrots.”

  “This early?”

  “It's never too early to see a moving picture, a dream on the screen. Besides we have to make a stop or two.”

  “Moving picture of a dream?” Anna asks.

  “Someone has to make em right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “So then someone has to dream them up, right Carrots,” Daisy says slamming on the gas. Lighting a comically big brown cigar, lowering her sunglasses and letting the convertible top down.

  “Want one?” Daisy asks.

  “No thanks. Not really my thing.”

  “It's just a cigar,” she says. The shadows of palm trees striping the side of the car make it even more resemble a wild cat on the prowl. Daisy stomps on the brake, taking a half block of squealing rubber to come to a stop.

  “Tsk, I overshot it,” Daisy says.

  “Overshot what?” Anna asks.

  “The cake shop,” Daisy says, as she hops over the driver side door with a huff of her cigar. Stomping though seeming like she's gliding in her white sundress toward a tall windowed bakery with The Rising Pitch pastries written on the glass of the storefront she's heading toward.

  “You want coffee?” Daisy asks.

  “Sure,”

  “Light and sweet?”

  “Yeah,” Anna says, then sits, looking around like one does when waiting in a car. Zoning out staring at the gleam on the side mirror's rim. Then looking into the scene of the small round mirror, seeing the back of young woman wearing the freshly ironed costume of a secretary. Sipping a coffee, and buzzing along on her way to work, spurring Anna to think of the differences of their lives, their realities. Wondering whether the girl will know anything outside her occupation after thirty years of taking memos and phone calls. The girls supposed worries, of alarm clocks, mean bosses, hours, being on time, pay scale, and overtime. Aside from friends, memories, loves and her own aspirations. Where will she ever find the time, Anna asks herself.

  “Ugh, dreadful,” Anna says to herself. Then thinking of a family, the one thing she would be envious of the girl for having. Settling down, not usually a thing she ever contemplates, though only physiologically desires. Imagining Cider as a husband coming home to her as a yellow gloved housewife with a baby bobbing on her knee. If it could happen it would have to be somewhere where we can stay, build a nest. Like here, she thinks.

  “Carrots!” Daisy yells angrily, snapping Anna from her train of thought.

  “I need a hand,” the starlet says, opening the trunk to her arsenal, that seems more like a munitions depot packed with all sorts of bombs, guns and destructive paraphernalia.

  “Um. Should you be smoking over all that?” Anna asks, back peddling and pointing to an open bag of loose gunpowder, as Daisy takes a big puff of her cigar.

  “Yeah why not. Hold this, and this,” she says handing her one stick of dynamite, then another.

  “Where are the fuses? I always lose the fuses,” she says to Anna, who stands pale as a ghost as she leans further into the trunk. Her cigar dangling dangerously close to a pile of gunpowder as she grabs a bag of explosives, then pops her head out to glance back to the bakery. Literally every person, man or woman is standing stopped in place and staring at Daisy's jaw dropping gams.

  “Yeah. Three should do it. Hold this, and this,” she says, handing her another stick of dynamite, then a roll of electrical tape.

  “Tape those will ya, I need to find the fuses...oh there they are,” she says, twisting the wick in her fingers and plugging them into the taped sticks of TNT in Anna's trembling hands. Sweat’s dripping from her brow as she watches Daisy's stogie with anxious anticipation, thinking she's a falling ash and a breeze away from dying in a burst of flame.

  “What're you all shook up about? I know. You’re excited because you want to light it,” she says jubilantly, in the throes of one of her giddy manic mean streaks.

  “What did they do?” Anna asks.

  “They didn’t have any milk,” Daisy answers with nose up.

  “That's it? No thanks about the coffee then?”

  “And they’re collaborating with a rival studio.”

  “Mmm, I don’t know. That seems like a lot of dynamite for that,” Anna says.

  “C'mon Carrots, ya gotta live a little once in a while,” Daisy says and Anna shakes her head no like a child in trouble. Daisy lights the end of the long fuse with it in Anna’s trembling hands, tosses the cigar and snatches the explosives, chuckling, giving Anna a look of disappointment, then marches half the length of the tire's skid marks back to the bakery.

  “Hey asshole,” Daisy yells with fury, and Anna dives head first into the back seat, peeking over the leather headrest. Watching as the white dressed Daisy winds up and throws the dynamite through the window like the fastball from a baseball pitcher, even though the door’s wide open. She strolls away carrying a sardonic grin. A few seconds later...BOOM! a red orange blast blows the glass windows to the other side of the street, sending the two floors above the bakery into hunks of airborne debris. Leaving the pastry shop as a pile of rubble and a hole of raging flames behind her. Daisy wipes her hands and hops in the driver’s seat, turns back and smiles at Anna who's still kneeling in the back seat.

  “Ready for some coffee carrots?” she says gleefully.

  “Yeah I could go for a cup, but try at least, not to blow the next place down, Please,” she says climbing back into the passenger side. After a brief brunch, that lasted two hours because of Daisy's need to mingle with the other beautiful people and vaudevs, they come to a gentle stop in front of a hotel that Anna accurately surmises is a, “brothel. Why are we at a cathouse?” she asks with a face of smelling something foul.

  “We need some Dolls.”

  “What do we need some, uh dolls for? wait, do you mean man whores?”

  “There not for us. Unless?” Daisy says rolling her eyes to Anna.

  “No!”

  “Oh, okay,” Daisy says digging like a mole through her large purse, that’s much too big to actually carry.

  “Then who are they for?” she asks.

  “Hmm, oh the mayor. We have to catch the mayor in a way.”

  “To blackmail him.”

  “Very good Carrots. I knew you had a good head about you. I'll be right back,” the starlet says then prances away. Returning ten short minutes later wrangling two whore's into the back seat.

  “Meeeeeeh.” “meeeeeh.”

  “Shut up sheep. I will bring death to both of you.”

  “Yes miss Daisy,” they answer together.

  “Sooner than you think your bodies will be worthless, you must know that. Used, then what use will your pimps have for you. Think for yourselves and maybe you can become your own pimps or something better.”

  “Meeh.”

  “It was a rhetorical question. Just giving you silly sluts a good idea. If you knew how to use it, you wouldn’t be getting used for it” Daisy says waving her finger in their faces. Then speeding off, driving on the sidewalk to bypass the densely congested traffic, heading to a nicer hotel on the other side of town. Anna holds her nose to the stale petting zoo perfume of the two terrified girls in the backseat.

  “Alright get up there, and do what you do. In about, I don't know a few minutes we'll be there, alright. Make sure the door is cracked open okay?” Daisy says as a question, though is heard to them as a demand.

  “Yes miss Daisy.”

  “Yes miss Daisy what?” Daisy asks.

  “We will make sure the door is left ajar,” one says.

  “What's ajar?” Daisy asks.

  “Open a little bit,” Anna answers.

  “Oh, well if I have to kick that door in, I’m killing everybody. Everybody,” Daisy stresses.

  “Yes miss Daisy. Anything you say miss Daisy,” the sheep say getting out of the car.

  “Wait, I'm sorry. I just don’t like seeing girl
s get taken advantage of. I can't save you, but you can save yourselves, okay. But not today. Now get to work.”

  “Yes miss Daisy.”

  “Anna hold this,” the starlet says handing her a heavy antique camera with a bulbous flash bulb.

  “Ready?” daisy asks.

  “Ready,” Anna says. They tiptoe through the hotel hall to wait outside the mayor’s door. Anna's awkwardly holding the cumbersome camera, as Daisy stands holding a fog horn, both wearing ski masks for the fun of it.

  “How much are you paying them,” Anna asks.

  “Who? What are you talking about, I'm not paying them”, Daisy laughs.

  “You’re not even gonna pay them.”

  “Oh, relax I’m only borrowing them.”

  “That's one way to put it,” Anna says and the two share a chuckle.

  “So what's with you and Apples?” Daisy asks.

  “We're, I dunno, you know.”

  “Yeah he's a bit dreamy, a good catch.”

  “He has his ups and downs,” she says.

  “Don't we all. What brought you two together anyway?”

  “Eh,” she shrugs, “it's complicated.”

  “Ha,” Daisy laughs.

  “I dunno. He said he knew the way home, so we've been together ever since,” she says unable to think in terms of months or years, only counting days as he does, and losing count of those a long time ago.

  “How far is home?”

  “I don't know, we couldn’t read the map,” Anna says.

  “You couldn't read the map or he couldn't?”

  “Neither of us.”

  “Oh. I'd've figured he could. I mean with the lifetimes he's spent riding those amber rails he loves so much.”

  “Yeah,” she sighs, thinking it odd now that she thinks of it.

  “What happens when you get there, home?” Daisy asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is he going to stay, with you, or..?”

  “I don't know. I mean I haven't really thought about it for awhile,” Anna says.

  “Oh,” says Daisy. Realizing she may have made an oops in bringing it up.

  “Ready Carrots,” Daisy says, slapping the top of Anna's head like a drill sergeant hits a soldier's helmet.

  “I think so,” she says.

  “Good. Try to get a good picture, with him and the whores,” Daisy says. The duo take the positions of runners at the starting line waiting for the whistle.

  “Now!” Daisy shouts, kicking the door in and storming the room like a two woman swat team. Daisy's giddily laughing while generously blaring the deafening foghorn indoors, startling the half dressed mayor. The two girls jump back and stand around looking immediately bored. Anna intensely focuses on getting the best shot she can with this bulky contraption of a camera. Pop! a blinding flash, and a fizzle.

  “Got it!” Anna shouts happily at the top of her lungs, “yay”

  “Good,” Says the fairy figured Daisy laughing like a witch. Blaring the fog horn in her hand as she flies like a full steam locomotive across the room and lifts her right leg. Plowing a big boot with her heel lunging into the half dressed mayor's chest, sending him airborne, then slamming against the wall with a limp bodied thud. Then pistol whipping him a few times yelling “Pig!” in his face. Much to the prostitute’s delight.

  “That last bit was healthy, it was part of my primal therapy, anyway. Alright let's get outta here,” Daisy says.

  “Did you get it out of your system?”

  “Not even close Carrots. The wallet's are yours,” Daisy says to the two bored looking whores, before slamming the broken door behind her. Giddily riding a giggling manic high and blaring the foghorn all the way down the hall and staircase from the fourth floor, disturbing everyone she see’s through the lobby, dying as they reach the car.

  A film trailer about a very manly, testosterone sweating wrestling movie filled with muscles and thick mustaches. Their tussling like forces of nature fill the wall sized screen as a metaphor for eternal struggles of man against himself. Then another trailer, of a sci-fi musical that could hardly be heard over the rustling of hands shoveling popcorn into buttery faces, and the sound of shoes over always sticky floors to their seats with their last minute snacks. More then burnt scent of spent shells is Daisy’s favorite smell, one that snaps her into serene inner scenes in an instant, that always eases her erratically flowing emotions, is the aroma of melting butter that permeates every bit of the air she breathes in the picture house. The lights dim leaving the patrons faces bathing in the Technicolor glow of the thirty foot silver screen towering in front of them, otherwise in the dark of shadow. The collective whispers of the crowd die down to a silence so quiet you can only hear the repetitive chirps of film rolling through the projector.

  “You still haven't told me what we're watching,” Anna says as a question.

  Bloop 5

  “Shhh it's about to start,” Daisy winks to Anna, with a finger

  over her dimly lit smile.

  Bloop 4

  “What is?”

  Bloop 3

  “It's a biopic, one of my best films.”

  “Of what?”

  Bloop 2

  “My life,” she says filling her mouth with a fist full of buttery popcorn, into her zealous expression.

  Bloop 1

  The feature film opens to a young child, a girl tap dancing in her parents living room. Then showing her as a bubbly blonde high school hot girl with a letter jacket. An energetic pony tailed teenager, a cheerleader dating the captain of the football team. Then showing the girl breaking up with the boy, with tears streaking down her cheeks. Spreading sniffles around the picture house. The girl in the film is arguing with her parents up the stairs and packing her bags. Setting her sights and sails on the city of movie magic and technicolor dreams. Aspiring to become the star she knows deep down she’s always been. Boarding a bus and being waved off by her family and friends, leaving her small town behind like all the other enchanted youths taking a chance on a performers pilgrimage to become a star of the silver screen.

  Beaming with exhilaration in anticipation of the adventure what life will be like on her own, what this spectrum city of dreams has in store for her. This exuberance lasts for the first few months, long enough for her to land a few small roles as an extra. Jumping for joy when winning a part with a line in it. It was only four words, but it was the greatest feeling her life will ever know. She catches the eye of the casting director, who sweet talks her, selling her the lie of him being able to land her a leading part in a major film with a big studio. She sleeps with the man, and he never speaks to her again. She hates herself for it, though another man, a producer lies to her in the same sweet way. She doesn’t believe him or any of the others after him. Knowing deep inside that she's only lying to herself, but her unrequited desire to grace the silver screen brings her to her back, again and again. Though she is with some talent, she’s young green to it all, they see nothing past her beauty, and this happens time after time with her never landing a single role. She keeps answering the phone, unable to let any chance of her to live her dream of being queen of the cinema slip through her fingers, each time loathing herself more.

  The crowd weeps. Shouting angrily at the screen as the girl in the picture continues. Continues being taken advantage of by actors, writers, anyone in the industry peddling false promises she’s too naïve and desperate to turn away, like a junky for another hit she tricks herself into it being the last time. She continues, and hating herself so much she descends into drink and pills to numb the pain of her selling herself for nothing but compromising her integrity, losing her dignity for just the slightest chance to live her dream, it drying by the drop dying inside as she does.

  For months she lays in bed in the fetal position. Lost in the fantasies playing through her head like a film, of her just arriving on set to work, even daring to see herself in a leading role and entrancing the film houses as a silver screen enc
hantress. Envisioning the many different faces in the crowds following every on screen movement she makes. Her beauty so breathtaking, and performance so captivating it entices the empathy of viewers to feel what her character feels, and know what her character knows. Dreaming with her eyes closed of the crowd standing to their feet in roaring ovation, whistling at her flawless performance after the end of every film she makes.

  The phone rings and she's back to contemplating her life as being for the pleasure of others, admiring, desiring her only for her beauty and nothing else. The phone is ignored. It rings again, she sniffles clearing her throat to hide her sorrow. It’s a casting agent. A wicked one who, like all the others lies so that he may feel himself inside her. Not believing the man, but still unable to let go of her already sin stained dream, she goes to his house.

  She gets in her car promising herself she won't do it. If there's no role she'll just leave. She arrives at the man's house, refusing a drink and repelling his advances, though his advances grow more forceful. She tries to leave, but the man grabs her. She fights back but the man strikes her. He easily overpowers her girlish figure. Pinning her down and taking her roughly for himself. As she cries and squirms the man continues raping her, hitting her and telling her to shut up.

  Anna and the rest of the picture house are brought to tears. Weeping and enraged, jeering at the villainous man filling the screen. Daisy in the seat is bawling like a blithering baby, gazing as hot tears stream down her supple cheeks. Anna can't tell if she's on the brink of a mental breakdown or bliss. When it's over the girl picks herself up, stumbling away broken...again. Trying to hold her torn dress over her bruised and scratched body. Demoralized, disheveled and retreating in disgrace. Disgusted with the man and herself, regretting even getting in the car. She returns home, curling up into her own bed. Weeping and whimpering for weeks, dreading the sound of her phone ringing like it where death itself. She rips the cord from the wall.