Chapter 8: That Same Morning

By Allen Frost


That same morning, Wervers strode back and forth at the studio
with his hands deep in pockets. The rest of the crew watched him go on his wind-up way, hoping he would stop before too long and say something else or point cameras anyway. They were all in a dull shock, but at least he was moving.
Finally, he did stop. Next to a boom he turned to face them all. He touched his chin and said, “On the other hand…It’s not like anyone ssaaawww us send those balloons right? I mean, who could have known where they came from?”
“That’s right,” a woman in a pilot costume agreed. Some other murmurs echoed around the stage.
Wervers continued, “And it shouldn’t stop us from making our movie, right? We can’t let this disaster, this horrible disaster, defeat us.” He put his foot up on a chair and weighed the copper tea kettle rounded on his open hand. He tried to Hamlet out the words for them. They were watching him, they needed some poetry, they were waiting for that.
From the end of the room a door clapped open and the light threw someone in. “We’re off the hook!” The door banged shut. The secretary ran across the wooden floor towards the film makers. “It’s on the radio, the Nazis are taking credit for the attack.”
“What?” Wervers stared at her. “Nazis?”
“Talk about luck.” She laughed nervously.
“What do you mean, Nazis?”
“They’re saying they did it. They said this is just the start, more is on the way.” She shook the thick pile of paper script at him. It seemed to take the timed burn of a fuse for her news to pop. “That means we can keep making the movie!”
That was the message Wervers had been waiting for. He was overjoyed, he leaped over to her and hugged her so tightly and suddenly the pages of the movie fell away from her grip and splashed all over the floor. He swung her around and let her back down. Everyone felt the same way, reacting with shouts and laughs and hurrays.
“Well!” Wervers rejoiced. “Let’s set up that next shot, down at the bay. Let’s go, let’s go!” Equipment had to be loaded onto trucks, all the actors and props. Wervers caught Sam’s arm as he bowled past. “Wait a second Sam, you can come with me in my car.”
Sam nodded. He snapped his fingers at the swaying doctor caught in his shadow. “Hey George, follow me.”
Wervers had a blue Packard sedan, it looked like an automobile version of himself, rusted on the edges and faded to silver by years of weather, but it started up eagerly once they all got in. The old man pulled at the wheel and turned them around the crowd, down the road between stage buildings and the track. “Sam, what do you make of what happened?” he asked. “I can’t figure out why those were real bombs…We’re lucky we weren’t all blown sky high.”
With a shrug that could have bent a trestle, Sam grunted, “Don’t know.”
“Well…I think we better keep an eye on things. It’s up to me to get this movie made and I don’t want the Nazis or whoever sabotaging us like that again.” He waved at the gate man and they drove out of the studio onto the two-lane road.
After a pause drifting on the edge of the wildflower shoulder, Wervers continued, “Do you suppose it’s possible the Nazis might have got on our set and switched the dummy bombs with real ones? I’d hate to think it was an inside job.”
Sam kept quiet.
“If they’re really using our movie to start their war, forget it, I couldn’t be a part of that.”
The Packard bucked over some potholes, slowed, turned to follow a small side road that made a run for the ocean. “We’ll shoot down there.” They shook across a rail line into the iron colored flats that bordered the sea. Now the harbor was revealed and the city shimmered across the waves. “Those balloons floated this way yesterday,” Wervers traced a crooked finger across the windshield slant. “Phewww!”
They hit another rut and George in the backseat thumped against the window. He slumped like a human cargo.
“Is your friend okay back there?” Wervers asked Sam.
“He’s fine,” Sam said. “He’s tired.”
“He’s a doctor, right?” Wervers’ eyes filled the rear view mirror. “Maybe he sat on one of his hypodermic needles?”
Sam glared at his director. Was the old man playing a game with him? What did he know?
“One film we did up in the canyon, we shot a cougar with one of those tranquilizers.” Wervers was warming up to the story but he stopped his thought and his car at the sight of a soldier waving a gun at them. “Woah!”
Sam’s fists clenched. George bumped against the front seat.
The soldier came over to Wervers who unrolled his window.
“What’s your business here?”
“Hello there, soldier. Name’s Wervers, I’m directing a movie. The rest of the crew is on the way. You need to see the permit? Papers?”
The soldier stared past Wervers and his face beamed like a lamp. “Hey! You’re Sam Samsara, the wrestler. I’ve seen you in those serials too!”
Sam nodded at the man.
“You fellahs making your serial here today?!”
“That’s right,” Wervers told him. “Soon as we get set up.”
“Aww, I can’t believe my luck! I thought I got stuck with guard duty and now look! Hey, can I watch you guys film?”
“Yes of course. Maybe I can even put you in somewhere.”
“In a picture with Sam Samsara!” the soldier rubbed his eyes. “This is like a dream.” He slapped the car, “You go right ahead Mr. Wervers, I’ll do whatever I can to help out.”
“Thank you soldier. We’ll park up there on the bank. Rest of them should be coming along shortly.”
“Hot dog!”
Wervers saluted and restarted the car. They pulled ahead over gravel and dry ryegrass.

Chapter 7: If You Don't Mind

By Allen Frost


Frances woke up without moving. Crows were squawking outside her window behind the blue flowered curtains, but her eyes wandered down her bare leg thrown out of the covers. She noticed the long thin red scrape and began to wonder. She slowly wriggled her toes. The nails were dark with dirt underneath, the skin of her feet stained green yellow and stuck with leaves of grass. The crows all at once flapped in a clatter. A wing bumped the glass as they left cawing away.
Her arm was heavy to move, to bend to her face so she could look at her curved fingers. They too were scratched and soiled, as if she’d been running on all fours in the middle of the night. She sighed, tried to breath in the new day without too much pain in her ribs. “Ohhh…” she moaned as she noticed the state of her room.
The door was bucked off its hinges. A force stronger than the metal latch had snapped it free. Everything in her bedroom had been friction bent by that whirlwind. What remained of yesterday’s purple blouse was a rip of cloth looped around her left wrist. She shook it off. It was the moon at fault, it was the full white face of it howling from space that had done this to her again…another werewolf night…
It was like the first breath of being returned to life. She pushed herself to move off her bed with that same slide out of darkness she knew from time and again. Where had she been, what had happened? She slipped a bathrobe on. Her memory painted fierce images. Was she on someone’s lawn, was it the park? She tried to fight the fog to figure out where she had been. Lots of trees. Not much ground cover, it had been gnawed away to the dirt. She padded across it. When she got to a tall chain link fence, she easily climbed over it to the other side. That was all for memories.
A gray violet morning light flooded the hallway behind the splintered door. It was quiet. She stepped around the door and onto the panels of daylight falling in from the kitchen windows. She looked down the hall. The front door was closed. It was quiet but she couldn’t help feeling like she was being rolled along tighter in a spider’s web.
The kitchen clock tick-tocked above the stove. Spring leaves swayed on the branches beyond the window. The screen was open, she could hear a mourning dove breezing on a wire across the street. Something scratched the linoleum floor under the table. Frances shot a look at it, suddenly saw the claws curl up, the panting big teeth, glinting eyes and dark fur.
She was so relieved by the friendly sight she cried out his name, “Agnew!”
The dog whined and scratched and licked at her hand.
“Oh Agnew. Good old Agnew.” The gangster’s dog had been with her ever since their escape from the candy shop. He had kept her safe from police and crime all this time. She patted him gratefully. “I’ll get you some breakfast Agnew. I could use some tea, I don’t know about you.” She opened the cupboard door and jumped at the face looking back.
It was herself reflecting from the shiny tin surface of a can on the shelf. For a second though, she had seen a fanged beast. “I’m a little scared still,” she tried to laugh, explaining to him, “Last night was another full moon.”
She took down the can, placed it on the counter and opened it for him. Agnew remained under the table, the same place he would crawl when there was thunder or fireworks on the 4th of July. She tipped half the food onto a blue and white china plate set gently down by the chrome leg of a chair. “There you go.”
Some music would be nice, that might go a long way towards making her feel better. First some water in the pan to get the tea going. After the pan was filled and put on the gas burner, Frances reached and switched on the wooden radio. It took a moment to warm and turn gold.
Instead of music the station chattered with news of the attack downtown. The radio panicked and shrieked voices who had seen it happen, it was war, it had to be! In one quick spin like a safecracker she wheeled the dial out of there and it hit on the sound she had been looking for. Cornelius Barter played ‘It Never Entered My Mind.’ The trumpet poured it out sad like some dented flower.
When the song was over, Frances was staring into the iris of a boiling silver pan of water. The announcer rattled to the microphone. “And Cornelius Barter will be playing tonight at the Lucky Note. That’s set for an eight o’clock show. As far as I know that’s still going to happen. Cornelius Barter in town tonight. So…Let’s…Uh, let’s play another cut. If you don’t mind.”

Chapter 6: The Night Balloons

By Allen Frost


“George is my friend,” Sam took a hand off the steering wheel and pointed at his grim passenger on the seat next to him.
The guard nodded, “Yes sir, Mr. Samsara.” Snapped around, he took the long walk back to the kiosk to open the studio gate. He had to walk past the rumbling long train engine under the silver hood of Sam’s car. The pistons churned and pounded the ground for fifteen feet in front of where Sam Samsara drove the colossal bullet shape.
When the striped yellow gate rose over the airstreamed grill, Sam took his foot off the brake plate and the automobile roared forward. They were already there when he hit the brake again, fit in a runway parking spot between a row of potted palm trees. Sam turned the ignition key over and one by one the valves shut down with the growl and sparking cough of a dragon. The silence in the air afterwards was deafening.
George crawled over the side. He had never been to the film studio before, he only left the apartment for short walks. Today though, Sam had requested his services as personal doctor—he was doing a stunt that had the possibility of going very wrong and he wanted George along just in case. From the swinging grip of his left hand George carried a black leather bag.
“This used to be a horse track,” Sam grunted. “Even has an old radio tower…That comes in handy.”
A big stable in front of them had been converted into a film stage. A studio jeep pulling a torpedo on a trailer drove in the wide rolling doors. “There it is,” Sam told him. “That’s where we film.”
Even before they got there, George could smell the horses’ ghosts. After he turned his head he saw the abandoned field inside the dead track. It was overgrown with mountains of blackberry vines, it was a briar patch like Uncle Remus or the Brothers Grimm. In the middle some white balloons were tied to piles of garbage.
“Those balloons are in today’s shoot.”
George said, “Mmm.” They walked by a parked truck. The back of it was filled with standing sheets of plate glass that reflected them walking. George got a good look at the two of them. Sam wore the uniform of the Imperial Japanese Army. George was dressed like the Invisible Man. What a sight, what a horror, George thought. Then they were met at the open door.
“Sam, Sam good morning!”
“Wervers…” Sam told George. “He’s the director.”
The nervous fellow gimped up to them. He carried a copper tea kettle. “You got your lines memorized?”
Sam tapped his temple. “Photographic.”
“Oh yeah!” Wervers laughed, “That’s right, Sam. Well come on in, we need you now.”
George had taken a step into another world. The light inside was brighter than sunshine. A crew was dismantling the last scene. They were ripping out the nails of a jungle. George followed Sam to the edge where ferns were propped and a couple folding chairs waited.
While Sam perched himself carefully into his creaking chair, a cup of green tea was quickly poured from the copper kettle. The china cup fit in his hand like a hummingbird nest. Sam inhaled the steam and liquid then held the empty cup out for more.
“I got a neighbor lady who thinks you’re great!” the old man gibbered while he applied make-up to Sam’s face. “Course she’s nuts about all the bad guys, but she likes your pictures most of all. I told her I know Sam, I work with Mr. Samsara, he’s not like that at all. But she just gives me one of those looks, you know. One of these days I’d like to get your autographed photo, I’d sure love to see her face when I drop that on her!”
George was watching the last of the jungle fade away. It was being carted away and replaced by grey walls, painted windows that showed a harbor view, battered furniture and a single red rose in a slender vase. The last thing one of the stagehands brought in was a big cardboard contraption. It was a box in shape with silver aerials crowning rows of phony levers and dials. Then the floodlamps went back on, George had to shade his eyes from the bright yellow.
“Okay Sam. This is it.” Wervers left his side and went to the camera.
Sam stood up and took big steps onto the set. He sat at the table. He let the last preparations go on while he laid hands on the prop machine and waited for the director to yell, “Action!”
A sour voice came through a close-up on the speaker, “Are the radishes in the garden?”
Sam leaned toward the transmitter and turned a nob, “Yes Master. They are ready for harvesting.”
A chuckling laugh replied, “Then carry out your orders.”
Sam nodded and snapped a switch. He stood up and looked out the window, the sight of the harbor, the sleeping city fading out at the sound of seagulls.
The next chair George was sitting in, he was under a cloud of gulls, staring over heaps of garbage, car and kitchen parts that framed the scene of rubble at the junk yard. This film was rushing along like a train through a dream.
The camera leaned towards Sam as he took out a bomb from a red wheelbarrow and tied it underneath the white bobbing balloon. He moved from balloon to balloon, arming them with bombs and letting them drift airborne.
Afterwards, Sam came over to George and explained. “That was for Chapter 6, The Night Balloons.” He jabbed at the weak afternoon sun, “This is supposed to be nighttime. The camera has on a dark lens.”
“I see,” George nodded. “So you’re sending out weather balloons to blow up clouds? Interesting idea.”
“No. The balloons are heading for the city. Over there…” Sam pointed across the harbor at the tall buildings along the shore.
George stared at the toy-like scene.
“Well Sam!” Wervers clapped his hands together, “That was great. Talk about cliffhangers! The kids will be lined up around the block for the next installment.”
They stood there and watched the film crew. It took five people to push the camera on the tracks they’d made through the thorns.
In the distance, across the water, the silhouette of skyscrapers dotted with orange explosions and black smoke.
The sound rolled towards them like thunder.
“Holy –!” Wervers staggered.
The crew hurried to push the camera back up the hill.
A smile winched down the corners of Sam’s mouth.
George fell backwards into his folding chair and blacked out.

Chapter 5: Green 17

By Allen Frost


The late afternoon windows were raining. The radio song had calmed Sam and he reflected back the weather’s celery color. This was a good time for George to take a walk.
He quietly put on his big coat and the gray fedora that rode just above his eyebrows. He left the watch in front of Sam, still spinning Cornelius Barter jazz. He had a clear premonition of the watch’s fate. It would be smashed flat when he got back. So what. Time and radios weren’t built to last.
He went out the kitchen door. The rain pattered on the dark wooden stairway. The stairs tipped and showed wet chipped yellow paint. Wounded, they crawled down one floor to the alley. Clothes hung like band-aids from the ropes strung above. The air rolled smooth and cold and smelled like the ocean. George held the rail and went down.
All the usual creaks. He was used to this place, a half year after the explosion and here he stayed. Everything had been blown away that day. It was okay. He didn't need to go back to the ruins and pick up pieces. He didn't need the mob anymore either. Sam was keeping him supplied. He could lay low forever. It was best if he seemed dead.
In his black coat and slouch he moved in the rain like no one. He walked on the sidewalk along bricks and windows. A tree strained tall out of the cement. Other green smaller leaves were finding their way out of the pavement too. He remembered it was spring. And this unfreezing rain was another reminder. For a sad moment before he turned into the bodega he thought of his daughter.
Then the music and Mexican movie posters overpowered him. George nodded at the man reading a newspaper at the cash register. He drifted by the Spanish words on the cans that lined the shelves and stopped when he reached the green labeled can of cactus juice. “Cactus juice…” he thought, “what a thing to be craving.” As a doctor, he observed this phenomenon as the body signaling a specific deficiency. Perhaps, he concluded, a diagnosis is in order…So he turned the can in his hand, read the ingredients in a mumble, “Water, Agave, Saguaro Puree from Concentrate, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Beta Carotene, Green 17.”
He speculated. He knew the effects of all active ingredients except Green 17. What could it be? Why would his brain order it? And what could it do?
Anyway, he carried it to the counter and set it down next to the reader.
George had time enough there to stare into the front page as if it was a tabloid mirror. Dos Pedros was the bold headline. The words went on below with a photo he was leaning to look at when the paper snapped down.
“Fifty cents.”
George managed to find the coins in his change purse.
There was an old fashioned bell and clang of machinery and he was gone with the can.
Outside it was starting to really rain. He tucked the can under his coat and bent into getting wet.
“Hold it, doc.”
The shrill voice sapped George in the back of the head and he turned around.
“Yeah…It’s me…” the little face of Tiny Snopes sneered. “I finally caught up with you.” In a quick motion he had a pistol in the air. He snarled, “I hate talking to you!” then he pulled the trigger.
The blow hit George over the heart. A stream of green looking blood poured out the puncture in his jacket. He gasped for air to breathe.
“Martian!!” Tiny Snopes squealed. The tiny man recoiled so fast he bumped against a stack of garbage cans. They crashed all around him and knocked him down. When he got up, he was running away.