Chapter 25: Start With The Ending

By Allen Frost

Birds painted orange as goldfish had been released into the blue sky. The flock sparked overhead and Wervers said sardonically, “That’s what you can do with a big budget…I wonder what Spinster is trying to make up here?” From his copper kettle, he poured a cup of green tea for Sam. “Sam, I thought what we could do is start with the ending while we already have the windmills and a mob gathered. Now what I want you to do is—”
But it was too late, the end had already started. All Wervers could do was run the camera as his Frankenstein heard the music playing down from the wrecked top of a windmill and walked big, slow and apocalyptically.
“That’s Cornelius Barter,” George said.
But Wervers gave him such a steely look to be quiet and watch the movie.
Frankenstein moved across a lot of yard full of dandelions and then he pushed his way past the spectators and film crew and entered Alfred Spinster’s picture. Screaming people ran from Sam in fear, but Cornelius Barter went on with the soundtrack, it was all a movie to him. Frankenstein just got to the tied up windmill when the first shot was fired.
George bolted from Wervers.
Wervers swung the camera around as he heard a metallic fluttering clattering up behind him. Only years of experience held him from screaming out in surprise or losing focus.
All that tin of Shriner cars had been welded and torn and turned into a wobbling biplane with ten propellers slicing.
More shots were fired by the military and police.
None of it made any difference to Frankenstein, he had climbed ten feet off the ground, pulling on the white roped ladder, he had clouds and heaven above, ricochets and bullets burst around him.
Tiny Snopes bled and tried to steer but the aircraft was going down in pain, pouring charcoal and flame. It seared over the trees and slope beyond Jupiter Hill and disappeared from view.
Another fire had started, the windmill was hit by a burning wing. Cornelius Barter played on, smoke billowed out gray and smothering out the sight of them.
A cloud window opened and George saw the apparition. He yelled, “Sam!” and ran towards him.
The wounded monster moved with stop animation.
“Sam, you okay?!”
There were still gunshots, this was a dangerous war zone. Everything Sam had warned George about was happening now.
“We have to get out of here!” George yelled. When he caught up with him, George felt blood on his hands. “You okay? You’re bleeding.”
“Let’s go…”
“Of course Sam, I’ll patch you up at the car.” George let the weight of Frankenstein lean on him as they hurried across the World War 1 atmosphere, somehow clawed to where their car was waiting.
The leaking water made the ground mud around it. They crushed little flowers they couldn’t see as George got Sam to the driver’s side. They didn’t even see the letters DUME spraypainted on the side.
“Okay?” George said to the Frankenstein crumpled behind the wheel. “This is the time to test Green 18.”
Sam found the key to start the car.
Wrapped in green soaked bandages, Frankenstein was half mummy when George was done and the car began to roll out of shadows in a wide arc onto the road. The car was more ocean than ever, all the seams were water, a starfish rotated on the speedometer.
“Look out!” George shouted. He grabbed the steering wheel instinctively to avoid the white balloon bomb drifting towards them through the vapors. The silver car slid and kicked up wind that breezed the balloon bomb away. “That was close…” George said just before a big orange explosion occurred behind them, the whole peak of Jupiter Hill was a volcano.
The car shot along the steep hill hundreds of feet above the drop to waves.
“Maybe we don’t need to go quite so fast,” George suggested as a hellish on fire red tin bursting airplane cometed over the hill at them.
George saw Frankenstein lurch the wheel—that was the last the doctor saw of him. George was thrown free and out of a fire that just started. He almost soared, half bird, his arms could have leaned into that and glided him miles. No such luck. He was an unconscious sleeper traveling by air.
George hit the ground and fell in. He dropped into a tunneled world with ice melting everywhere. Passing shadows of fish crossed his collapse into shallow water, a foot from a frozen werewolf.
Sam had been thrown out of his destroyed car too. That silver thing had skidded off the plummet towards the sea below and Sam was left stranded in air with his arm hooked around a root. Madronnas sighed above him raving leaves.
Straight up twenty feet beyond on the road, there an explosion sound as more of Tiny’s airplane burned cars. Sam dug his boots into the cliff side, dislodging rocks and dirt into the climbing fog from the sea. He winced. Some blood trickled down his green painted hand. He had to hold on for the fog. He knew once the fog got to him everything would be alright. But the fog had to hurry.
As he waited, some rocks fell away from his shifting feet. It was close. Ghostly fog birds felt across the ridge and soared on overhead, leading the way for the rest of the shroud. It was coming to save him, he could hear the familiar sounds it carried, reaching to dream him out of here.
Clouds swarmed. A surge of them formed stairs just below his feet. All he had to do was walk up them into the floating world, just let go and belong to the air.






THE END........................




Thanks to Miguel Ramos

Chapter 24: 20 Dollars

By Allen Frost

“Yes, hello, is this Mrs. Parrot?”
“Yes! What—who’s this??!”
“Please madame, my name is Rennie and I’m calling you on behalf of your local Shriners Union.”
She sighed a tangled breath back through the receiver.
“Mrs. Parrot, a little while ago you pledged to support our organization with the generous amount of twenty dollars. Now, if you’d like—OH MY GOD!!” he suddenly shrieked and fell against the glass walls of the phone booth, a quarter pulled out like a silver fish on a string.

Chapter 23: Wherever World

By Allen Frost

Very slowly with brushes, Fled Magyar applied the green make-up of Frankenstein’s monster. Classical records played on the wooden player, one after another as time passed by.
George turned another page of an Edgar Allan Poe book. The bag sat on the next plastic chair beside him. The soldier seemed to be sleeping away the long waiting.
“There we are,” Fled said.
Sam was allowed to lumber out of his chair. His feet were already worn into thick soled boots. He took big chopping steps away from the chair, one by one. What a monster he was as he walked away from Fled to the door.
“Let’s go, George,” he growled.
George followed holding the book up to his face like a rare flower or window to an underwater or wherever world.
Sam opened the tin trailer door. Rays of sunset made him squint his green lidded eyes.
“Hey, don’t forget your bag,” Fled called.
“Oh!” George gasped.
Fled Magyar held the bag and it was open and he was looking inside and smiling. “This is good work,” he told George. “You make this?”
“No,” George answered, resigned slow motion taking the bag back. “To be honest, I found it on the beach, I don’t even know how it stays alive. It defies my medical knowledge. What can I say?”
“Hmmm,” Fled replied. “Not unheard of though. You should come by the circus later tonight.” He stared at the green under his fingernails. “I’ve been keeping something under wraps at the sideshow. It’s a body…Without a head.”
George stood there like paper mache.
“I assure you it’s completely alive and only waiting for a chance like this to come along.”
“Oh…I don’t know,” George said. “I’m sort of looking out for him.”
“Yeah, he’s my guardian angel,” the soldier brayed and sneezed. “Listen doc, you bet I would like having a body again! You fellahs have no idea, this is torture.”
George said, “Well then…Sam…Would you mind if I—”
“No,” Sam burst. “I need you here. This is a dangerous place, there’s a war on, I could get hurt, I need to have my doctor nearby.”
This speech coming from a green Frankenstein made George smile and almost laugh. “Okay Sam, okay.”
“But what about me?” said the soldier’s head. “I need that body.”
“I may be able to do the procedure,” Fled offered. “In fact I’m sure I could.”
The soldier’s head looked hopefully at George.
“Well I don’t mind,” George finally laughed. “I’ll, ahh, it’ll be strange not to be carrying that bag all around.”
“You did forget me a minute ago,” the head reminded George.
“I know, that was a mistake, I was reading a book.” He directed his eyes at Fled, “It’s a fairly simple operation attaching the nerves, veins, muscle structure and various ganglia.”
“Ugh,” the head said. “I don’t want to know.”
“You’ll be okay,” Fled promised. “I’ve done this kind of work for years.”
“It would be a sort of relief,” George sighed looking down into the bag, “No offence to you, I’m just getting tired out emotionally and physically, making sure you’re cared for all the time.”
“You know,” the soldier said, “I’m so grateful that you and Sam Samsara showed up when you did. You saved my life, I’m really thankful for that. But I need to get back to my wife and I don’t want to go back there the way I am. It’s crazy. What’ll she do, put me in a birdcage? If I can be attached to a body again, what could be better? Please doc, give me a chance.”
“Sure, of course.” George let Fled take the bag from him, though it wasn’t entirely easy, it was still like something stolen off a laundry line.
“Don’t worry friend,” Fled said. “A new life isn’t far away.”

Chapter 22: The Sinister Backdrop

By Allen Frost

When the road reached Jupiter Hill’s summit, they were slowed by a hive of studio trucks and cars, black and white police cars and military vehicles and finally brought to a stop by a yellow tape strung across the tar.
Sam grumbled and turned the rusted protesting steering wheel towards a glade under a tree.
“What’s going on up here?” George said. “This can’t be for Frankenstein’s Hand, can it?
“I don’t think so,” Sam answered. He killed the motor and a last spasm rippled from the engine down the frame and coughed out the exhaust. “Oh no…” Sam suddenly groaned. “It’s that guy.”
A tall white cowboy hat rode above a thicket of actors and crew. Bronson Griffith strode towards the silver car with a big smile prepared on his face. “You old son of a gun!” he lowed. “Sam Samsara!”
George closed his hands protectively over the bag and followed Sam’s lead getting out of the car. ‘That guy’ actually looked like a match for Sam.
“You on this picture too?” the cowboy boomed. He dropped a fist through the air and caught Sam for a handshake.
George sogged along the long ocean scarred hood of the car. He stopped when he saw one of the rivets moving across the metal, realized it was a gray shelled hermit crab, and moved on around to Sam’s side.
“It sure is something…” Bronson Griffith shook his head, cleaving a hand in the windmills direction. “Wait til you see, it’ll take your breath away. But I’ll tell you what. From now on when people ask me why I do what I do, I’ll say that’s why. That’s the truth, Sam.” Then, as he pushed back the brim of his cowboy hat, a loud sneeze came from the bag George was holding.
“Whu—?” Bronson Griffith leaned to look in the gap of the bag, expecting to see a dog, his features going from mild curiosity to a brightened mask he’d never show on the silver screen. He squeaked, “Whu—?” again.
“Holy cow!” the soldier’s head chattered back at him, “It’s Bronson Griffith!”
George quickly snapped the bag and hurried to explain, “That’s a prop, a puppet, funny isn’t it?” he grinned haphazardly.
Sam gave the cowboy a thud on the shoulder with his oar-sized hand. “Yes, we must be going. The set is that way?”
But the cowboy actor was still waxed and attached to that spot like a statue imitation.
“Excuse me, we will find it,” Sam nodded, leading his companions away, slipping into a crowd carrying light stands, ladders and rolls of wire. Jupiter Hill had gone from hilltop home to windmills to a spilled out anthill. Sam and George were caught in the flow and carried on the crushed lawn past hedges to an amazing movie made sight. Every windmill was strung together with thick white ropes going over every angle and blade up and down lacing like spiderweb.
The soldier sneezed again, but nobody noticed. Sam and George approached it like the Parthenon remains.
After another sneeze, the soldier head said, “You know, I think I’m getting a cold.”
“This is the biggest budget I’ve ever seen,” Sam confided, “It looks like an Alfred Spinster movie.”
George was just amazed by the expert knots and surgical skill involved in the project. He almost felt like laughing.
“Sam Samsara.”
It was Alfred Spinster.
“I should have known you’d be paying your respects up here,” the director remarked. “Yes, it’s a terrible shame this thing had to happen. So tell me Sam, you think you could make an appearance in my film while you’re here?”
“Sure,” Sam said. “I’m…”
“I’m glad you said that, I was hoping you would in fact. I’m very happy with the results. Okay Sam I’ve got a part for you, I want you to picture a little town beside the sea. You can see the movement when the dawn hits. People start getting ready for work, they’re out the door and either they catch a gondola or they walk. That’s where you come in, Sam. That’s where the camera finds you.” Alfred Spinster stopped to take a stare through a kaleidoscope camera lens. “No, no, no!” he cried, “I’m not in focus!” While there was a scramble of crew, Sam felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Sam Samsara.” Wervers was there. “I’m glad to see you. We’re—”
“Hah!” Alfred Spinster spluttered. “I seem to have forgotten your name, oh wait—I remember now. Wervers, right?
“Yes,” Wervers nodded. “Good to see you again.”
“I suppose you’re cashing in on a picture up here too? Probably using some of my sets when I’m not looking? That’s alright. I don’t mind, it’s all in the nature of the beast.”
“Actually,” Wervers broke in, “I’ve been waiting for Sam so we can get started.”
“There you are, taking my actors too. I wonder what kind of slip-shod production you’re up to this time. Monsters on the loose? Ghouls? Let me see, let me guess. This whole tapestry of wound up windmills is only the backdrop to a more sinister paranoid reality. The world is plunged into war and the only one who can stop it is this heroic Sam Samsara.” Imperiously, Alfred Spinster leaned back on his heels to coast in the wind of his words.
Wervers cracked a smile. “I suppose you guessed it.”

Chapter 21: Starfish

By Allen Frost

George’s opened eyes stared at a black and white photograph of Frances. He stirred in real terror not knowing yet if this was a bad dream starting. Her picture was on a green can, words above it said, Have You Seen Me? George grabbed the can from Sam Samsara. He turned the can around trying to find something out. Cactus Juice. There was no news about Frances, but he tipped the can to read the fine print on the side. Water, Agave, Saguaro Puree from Concentrate, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Beta Carotene, Green 18. “Green 18?” George gulped.
“That’s from their factory,” Sam told him.
George lifted himself off the park bench.
There it was, filling air with deep throbbing of living machines and furnaces. Smokestacks roiled out green colored smoke.
“You got this over there?”
“They gave it to me,” Sam shrugged. “I’m a movie star. You should give some to the soldier. Maybe it will grow the rest of his body.”
“Not funny Mr. Samsara!” the head chimed.
George turned in the direction of the ocean. “Did you see--?”
Cornelius Barter wasn’t out there anymore. “What time is it?”
“Relax George,” Sam laughed. “The car’s out of the water, those elephants were swell. Take a look.” Sam took a couple steps back and motioned. The silver car, crumpled sheets of abalone metal, was parked up on the grass off the road. Like a steamship boiler it hissed, like a sunken ship dragged ashore it was covered with barnacles and weeping leafy camouflage.
“It still works…” George’s floating words were as hollow as heron bones.
“Come along, Wervers wants us to meet him on Jupiter Hill.”
“No, I can’t. I have to find out about this can, this picture on it is my daughter.” George held it out to Sam and the giant began to laugh.
“Your daughter??”
George looked at the can again, turned quickly in his hand. Have You Seen Me? asked the bold letters. It was a picture of a shepherd dog.
“Your daughter,” Sam repeated as if he had to remember that punchline for the camera crew. He slapped George on the back with a weighty hand. “Let’s go.”
A hallucination, George decided—I saw the wolfish dog and I thought of her; it’s all a trick of the subconscious mind…After all, he had been asleep, it was nothing more than the last melting imprint of a dream…Absently he put the can into his bag.
“Yiiii!!” the soldier yelped.
“Oh—sorry.” George fumbled the cool green can from the face’s skin.
“Careful there, doctor. Don’t ever forget I’m in here.”
George put the can into his coat pocket, thinking who knows, it might stop another bullet. And “Green 18?” he muttered barely audible. What was Green 18? Was it an improved Green 17? Would he be able to run some experiments? Or was it up to fate for him to find out?
Sam was halfway to his car when he turned to check on George who shrouded slowly after him. “My daughter,” Sam husked.
Closer to the car George could see light stripes of rust banding it like a tiger. The rattling engine wheezed out charcoaled smoke from cut holes and torn tin edges—it had a hard time in the sea.
Sam crawled into the big harpooned shark. There was a splashing sound. While George caught up, Sam baled out cupfuls of water.
When George opened the door on his side a small waterfall poured out on his shoes.
“I still have not got all the ocean out,” Sam apologized.
“I can see that,” George answered. He put his bag down and sat in the aquarium car. He stared at the starfish on the dashboard. They probably think it’s low tide and all they have to do is wait for the ocean to return.

Chapter 20: The Water Operation

By Allen Frost

Sam Samsara was in a rowboat again. The oars were stowed and he leaned over. The small boat tipped dangerously as he stared past the glassy surface swerve. The high tide floated him over his car sunk shoulders in the sand below. A flight of sticklebacks flecked across the shining silver submarined hull. It seemed a peaceful part of the sea, there were weeds and anemones already waving to it.
With slow unreeling, Sam let an anchor line descend through the green. He had to scull an oar to catch the car’s bumper on the second try. He pulled; it was tight; he let the line unloop around the oarlock to keep it caught while he rowed back to shore.
The bow hushed up onto the sand. Sam stepped out trailing the lasso. It cut a taut trail back to the ocean.
George had already drifted from the scene at the beach. He didn’t feel like watching elephants pull a waterlogged car, he was busy wondering. It occurred to George that he hadn’t slept for a long time…Had he? He felt warm in the glow of the climbing sun of another new day. Then he darkened with the breaking thought—what if he was sleeping right now? What if this was a dream, how could he know? This world seemed as real as a dream. These worries carried him away from Sam and the elephants and the water operation.
He left soft footprints in the sand like the invisible man fading from view across a thin white layer of London snow. By the time he passed around the rocky bend of the cove, he was a mile away. The city showed itself across the bay. Gray barrage balloons made buttons in the sky. The war was started. He wandered on to the next beach holding the soldier in the bag. He stopped when he remembered and looked inside.
“You okay?”
“Sure.”
“What are you thinking about?” George asked him casually.
The soldier didn’t worry over words, “I’m thinking about what will happen when I’m back. Look what’s left of me…How am I supposed to be when I go home? Mister, my mind is going a hundred miles an hour thinking.”
“I know,” George said. His eyes were on the distance too. “Do you mind if I take a walk to that pier way over there?”
“No. Go ahead.”
That was all they said for a while along the high tide chalk mark. Like a strange two-headed machine steam powered by hundreds of thoughts, George followed the washed up flotsam, ribbon bits of weed, beautiful stones shining wetly in sand, shells, bird prints and odd remnants of man-made things.
Each time George looked up from his feet, the dock materialized closer and clearer as if it was building itself. It had the look of something that was built very swiftly. It leaned crooked angles, there were boards missing, light shone through its planks like a rickety piano keyboard.
“There’s someone out there at the very end,” the soldier said. His head was half out of the doctor’s kit bag so he could see.
George nodded. He switched the bag to the other hand.
“Woahh!”
“Sorry. My hand’s getting sore,” George said. He was curious to see what the silhouette on that cartoon dock was doing. He wasn’t expecting to know who it was, but he did.
It was Cornelius Barter playing his trumpet to the sea.
“Look at that,” said the soldier.
George was. Cornelius Barter was actually playing directly into the ocean, the bell of the trumpet had a microphone wire fishing underwater. George didn’t want to be a disturbance, so he stopped near the rocky shoreline.
The water was hopping around the microphone wire. At first George thought the bubbles and chop were from the sound and trumpet air. But he soon realized there were hundreds of thrashing fish. It reminded him of a summer a long time ago when he was out in the woods and he heard the ecstatic water slapping of those carps in the lagoon. The fish had gone lovestruck or something. Maybe he was playing in a particular key that caused such a reaction in that species of fish, George noted. It’s certainly a possibility, George yawned. He looked for somewhere to lay down for just a minute.
Beyond the fish, the ballad reached into darker and deeper water, in veils offshore where the cold current welled, a Japanese submarine drifted in riveted silence. Sailors crowded around the receiving monitors while a reel to reel live recording was made for Imperial Broadcasting Services, to be pressed next week into long playing records labeled The Cornelius Barter Water Opera.

Chapter 19: Revenge of the Shriners

By Allen Frost

The old men stood outside the drawn down door. They all wore the same peculiar uniform, wine red fezzes, blue suits, festooned with ribbons and ranks and heraldry. The shriners had been there for fifteen minutes in the blue shade of Tiny’s Garage. They knew he was in there, the mad sounds of hammering, the whoosh of an arc welder, Connie Francis’ ululation echoing; Tiny was in there alright, an oyster shut up tight with the industry sounds of creating its pearl.
“What’s he doing to our cars?”
Four or five of the vanguard addressed each other before the shrill cacophony.
The elder with the most lean into his cane picked the weight of his arm from the mottled door. “Rennie!” he bleated.
The less silvered Rennie stepped forward eagerly with sun blasting gold on his black rimmed glasses.
“Rennie, I want you on stake-out in that phone booth over there.”
The whole daffodil contingent turned to stare at the phone booth. It looked like it had tumbled onto the street corner from the top of one of the warehouses. Bent frame, cracked or shattered glass panes, the phone hanging to a twisting cord.
But Rennie saluted smartly.
“You can keep yourself busy with this phone list.” The oldest man took a parchment from his coat pocket. “These are people you can hit up for contributions,” he explained. “You know the routine. And—” he added, digging into another pocket, “Use this quarter for the calls.” He dangled a coin, sewn through with a loop of thread so it could be pulled out of the machine afterwards. They all chuckled, making the dry rasp of forest leaves unfolding in the breeze.
“Let’s get back to the 249.” He referred to the lodge by its familiar name. While Rennie took up residence in the phone booth, the rest of the shriners ambled, hobbled and steered chairs past the garage to the alley in between Tiny’s and Shelton’s Packaging.
Their parked squadron of miniature red motorcycles waited in rows. Some of them had sidecars for the less nimble. It took them a while to prepare helmets, goggles, get seated and start motors. They had done this for hundreds of parades, but time made them slower and slower.