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Posts Tagged ‘Musicals’

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — Dark Carousel III

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 17, 2017 at 12:06 pm

(Hi, friends! New to this story? Avoid the spoilers below; start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 12, 2001 – Dark Carousel III

I resist at first, but Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit leans in and brushes her lips across mine. I follow. She leads me past what I now know are the stage left stairs. Nobody sees us. We’re among picnic tables, turning right and going down three steps to a shadowed terrace. She draws me to the darkest corner, furthest from all sources of light. In the moment, goosebumps and arousal fight for dominion.

Re-visiting the memory, I’m galvanized by fear:

We’re on the rooftop picnic terrace above the mens’ dressing room.

As if on cue, a sound floats from the trees on the dark slope beyond:

“Ma-Ma … Ma-MA …”

It’s like a whisper; it could be mistaken for a night bird. I didn’t notice it at the time. My impulse, in the clarity of hindsight, is to turn and run. Only for some reason, I can’t flex this memory. I’m stuck. And Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit is kissing me, so it’s much easier to just give in.

“Close your eyes,” she says. I do. She says, “The moon is waning, did you know?”

“Yes,” I say. “My mom’s an astrologer – ”

She stops my mouth with another kiss, then says, “The moon is waning and the dust will blow.” Then she knees me in the balls.

I gasp, eyes popping open, as she blows something in my face. It’s powder or dust and I feel little bits of it get in my eyes and on my lips. I’m gasping, choking, sputtering. I can feel my eyes swelling up. The urge to rub them is overwhelming. “What the fuck was that?!” I say, raspy, coughing.

“The webs of fate have all been spun,” she says, and she sounds ecstatic. Euphoric. She puts something on her tongue and kisses me, shoving her tongue into my mouth as she pushes me to the cold hard concrete. I’m trying not to cough into her mouth, but whatever is on her tongue is in my mouth now, and it’s crunchy. Like, bugs crunchy.

At the time, I thought she was trying to be kinky. Clumsy, embarrassing, potentially fatal kinky, but still — sex.

Pulling up my shirt, she breaks the kiss. Knowing what I know now, I realize she isn’t really trying to undress me. The concrete is cold and rough on my low back. I want to tell her this is really uncomfortable, but it feels like my throat is closing up.

“Ma … ma?” from the shadows in the trees just beyond the terrace. It sounds excited.

She’s whispering, grinding against me, and I hear her words this time: “This day’s the last you’ve seen the sun. This day’s the last you’ve taken bread. This day’s your last, your end’s begun. The dark moon grows, your breath’s unspun, the webs are strong, you’ve lost the sun, your lust is crumbs, the bread is mold – ”

I want to tell her I’m surprised at her use of internal rhyme, because she’s strictly an ABAB kind of girl — but I’m distracted by the click of something metallic. I try to open my eyes. They’re swollen mostly shut. In spite of that, I can see movement now among the branches, in the darkness beyond the terrace. A shape is coming closer.

Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit puts a cold, sharp blade against my low back, on the left side. She says, “I promise you will Not.” The blade cuts into me. “Get.” I struggle back from her, trying to push her off, but her fingers are pressing, rubbing a stinging substance into the slice. “Old!”

Even with my eyes swollen mostly shut, I can see something strange in her face: her left eye has something shiny in it. Something … golden. I marvel at it a moment before the shape in the darkness raises up above and behind her. It looks like a fleshy scorpion’s tail, but all wrong. Unnatural and revolting. It jiggles as it moves with such wrongness that I sit up fast and straight – smacking my head into Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit’s nose.

She cries out, clutching her face.

Electric light floods the terrace. The thing of wrongness is gone. Blood is pouring down Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit’s face.

“What the hell’s going on here?” I hear a familiar voice. “Laurabell? Is that you?

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — Dark Carousel

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 13, 2017 at 5:04 pm

(Tell your friends to read this story so you guys can chat about it over absinthe. Tell your enemies to read this story so they will come to you and say, “Why did you tell me to read that? Now I’m afraid to poop. I’m so afraid to poop!” Because your enemies are clearly idiots. Start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21, 2017 – Dark Carousel

Judy steps between Weedbeard, myself and the door. She fixes her eyes on mine. She’s calm, firm and strong like Half Dome. She says, “Ed, I want you to think of a girl you once knew. That may take you some time – I know a lot about you.”

I laugh at that – and manage to push Weedbeard back a step.

Judy is still speaking, though: “This is a girl whose eyes looked blue when you met her. She came along at a time when you needed healing, and at first you thought that she might be the one.”

This tickles memories from over a decade ago, but there is power welling inside of me, filling me from my feet upward.

Judy is distracting me with her damned words: “Again, Ed, that could describe a lot of the women in your past – you’ve needed healing all your life. And that’s okay.”

The power is reaching my heart. If Judy would just shut up, I know that – very soon – I’ll throw Weedbeard through that door and leap after him, just to prove that there’s nothing there and we’ve won!

Judy plants her feet and places her hands before her in a stance of, what, conjuring? Protection? It looks familiar to me, but from where? She says, “What makes this girl different from all the rest is that her eyes didn’t stay blue. In fact, they never were. Not since before the first time you saw her. But you saw the slip of her mask. On a very specific night, in a very specific place – they turned from blue to … ”

“Golden,” I say.

The world flips over. Everything on the floor crashes through the ceiling. I need to escape before it lands on me, so I slip straight down – only, up – through the floor.

And I’m falling. There are hundreds of people below me, screaming? No, cheering –

I land with a slam and a lurch and I hear myself say, “Earthquake, sorry, I’ve eaten too much garlic,” to the lady next to me.

She doesn’t notice because everyone’s on their feet, cheering as Julie Jordan is taking her bow. And now here comes Billy Bigelow – and it’s my old friend Noel Escobar. “Holy shit, we’re at Woodminster!” I say.

“Of course we are, silly,” says a young, sultry voice to my right.

I turn and there she is. Brunette. Blue eyes. Full lips. Porcelain skin.

… cracking porcelain, paper hands …

I brush that thought aside, noting that it would make a good detail in a short story about a haunted theatre. I take her in my arms, kissing her full on the mouth. She complies, willing, and as I feel her press her body against me – firm, full breasts; muscular thighs – I am overcome with incandescent desire. The people around us fade away and I am unzipping her jacket, reaching to –

“Jesus, Edward, calm down – it’s not that cold!” This from my left and the spell is, well, not broken exactly, more like put on hold. I turn and that lady isn’t a stranger; she’s my friend Billy Seltzer – friend and former lover, she who eventually regretted introducing myself and the Sizzling Bhuddist Yam Pot to my right: Laurabell-Beaujolais Grausamkeit.

… I haven’t seen Billy Seltzer in over a decade …

For a moment, I see events yet to come as though recalling their memory, and the world splits in two: my eyes lose focus, vision splitting and going sideways as I land heavily on my ass in a hard plastic bleacher seat. Everything is spinning and I hear, faintly, something I don’t want to hear at all: underneath the applause and cheering, bells.

Jingling.

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R X

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 12, 2017 at 11:54 am

(Sometimes you are dusty. Let these mummified hands brush you clean. Listen to their first insidious whispers here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R X

As he braces himself to fire,Weedbeard’s right bootheel touches a small patch of the insect grool and is burned away on the right side. He doesn’t notice, racking a fresh charge with a lever on the underside of the shotgun as he shouts, “Rocksalt, Fatherfucker!” The second blast is a dull roar; my ears are still ringing from the first.

The blast of salt tears through the baby doll, its larval plorper and the rotting hand, burning chunks splattered backwards onto Dolly Lurker’s porcelain skin – which now cracks, like actual porcelain. Dolly Lurker is gnashing its giant flapping shutter trapdoor teeth, breaking spider legs with juicy, meaty chunkings; the arm of the rotting hand holding the nightmare baby doll jutting off at an odd, jaunty angle like FDR’s cigarette holder. We have nothing to fear but a giant mouthful of spider legs! This thought is all mine, and it’s a relief to not hear others in there.

Weedbeard racks a third charge with the lever – I look over: this is a revolving shotgun. I say, “Fucking rad!” – but I’m drowned out as Weedbeard bellows, “Thrice-blessed by Rabbis, Priests and Pagan Conjurers! Smoked in the Smokey Smoke of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!”

As he says those last five words, ancient harmony wells up around us: thousands of monks, angelic choirs, every hippie who ever lived? Whoever it is, there is a moment of soul-wrenching beauty as that harmony coalesces around Weedbeard. He fires the shotgun on the button of the musical phrase.

There is a strange stillness to the blast – the salt crystals meet a barrier in the air for an instant, but the words Smokey-Smoke appear in the air, in a circle, around the blast. Is this the smoke of the blast, or the smoke in which the salt was smokey-smoked? I don’t know. But it puffs out into those words and then is sucked into every shard of salt – and the barrier is broken.

Dolly Lurker is blasted back against the wall, shrinking, two hands reaching up to hold its cracking face together, spider legs scrabbling at odd angles for purchase on anything. One of them is caught on the doorjamb of this upper door and rips out, falling to the floor with a clatter. Weedbeard has racked a fourth charge and blasts the leg away from the door; it shatters, but even the shards twitch and jumble about. I have a feeling that they’d slice anyone they could reach right now.

“Ma-MA! Ma-MAAaaughlghghghllllrrrrrghhhhh … ” Dolly Lurker sounds like it’s back down at the bottom of the stairs. I’m standing – when did that happen? – and I move toward the door to look.

Judy and Weedbeard both grab my arms and pull me back. I’m fighting them. Why?

“You heard the voice, didn’t you, Edward?” Judy says.

“It’s got a deeper hold on you that it would if you’d never heard it,” Weedbeard says.

They’re strong, but I’m determined to look through that door. I’m dragging them toward the opening. It looks innocuous. Just a doorway. I say, “How do I tell you both to fuck off but in a very respectful way?”

Weedbeard steps in front of me, grabbing me by the shoulders. I’m able to push him toward the door. I’m not usually this strong. “This is why I told you the memory was unsafe!” he says. “This doorway is warded and therefore acts like a portal – memories are malleable and can be changed here! You passed out when Alan fell, you didn’t see all of this. You need to step back to your present before you alter this leaf of time!”

But I’m pushing him. We’re almost at the door. I’m winning.

It feels so good!

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R IX

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 11, 2017 at 11:45 am

(Do you like the marzipan? Yes you love the marzipan! Do you like the licorice? Maybe not the licorice! Only take a bite. Only take a bite. Bite and bite and suck the taste: licorice and marzipan, everything that’s moist. Take your first nibble here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R IX

It’s like a cartoon. Dolly Lurker is thrilled with this turn of events, eyes lit up as it regards us, pausing before slamming into the doorway again. Another pause and it’s clapping its weird tiny hands like a giddy, evil fop before the next wall-shaking assault.

“How long since these wards were refreshed, Judy?” Weedbeard says.

“No way to know, Bill. Alan was in charge of this portal.” Judy is running toward Joel’s office, all business.

Another fully-voiced sentence in my head, What vast emptiness awaits all devoured by the deadening? It’s the other voice – the not Dolly Lurker voice. Good to know I’m hearing multiple voices. But this question has been nibbling at the back of my mind: how far down will Obi-Wan-point-five fall before he lands? I still hear him screaming as he falls.

“Do we know the basis of his warding?” Weedbeard says.

“I think he was trying to charge it up right before he stopped making sense,” Judy says, stepping into Joel’s office.

Dolly Lurker is whispering something to us, gesturing us closer with its little paper hands. It wants us to come closer, but Weedbeard and I scoot back. Dolly Lurker frowns, then grins bigger than before – we can hear its mouth stretching – and a veritable forest of jagging, grabby giant spider legs vomit forth, scrabbling at the floor, their massive raptorial tarsus claws gouging the concrete. In my mind I hear,

No, no, no, no, no you will not get away. Oh my, oh my, oh my, no you will not.

Aloud, “Ma-MA! Ma-MAAAAAAAAAA!”

One of the claws is reaching, scratching at the upper left corner of the doorway, searching for a target I cannot see. It flinches as the little purple sparks of the warding singe its long, thick tactile leg hairs.

“Will the wards hold?” Weedbeard says.

“I’m not waiting to find out!” this from Judy as a shotgun roars over our heads. Judy is knocked onto her ass from the force of the blast. All sound fades as it tears into Dolly Lurker, sizzling black burns that send the spider legs back into that still-growing mouth for a moment; they’re in there, glistening, their tactile leg hairs rustling as Dolly Lurker’s face lights up in beatific rapture.

“It’s breathing! Gun!” says Weedbeard, reaching to catch it — again, without looking — as Judy throws the shotgun.

A massive, gnarled hand punches from the center of the bunched spider legs – fingers blue-black with deep, dry gangrene – punching all the way out and through the door. A wave of decay rolls from the hand, and the memory of chunky rotwater boils over in my mind. Clutched in the hand is a squirming baby doll, its face scarred and stitched with a patchwork of different colored skins, some light, some dark, some fresh and soft, some old and leathery. They look like actual human skin. One eye is blue, its eyelashed lid blink-blink-blinking at us. The other socket is dark, but not empty. Something wet and larval squirms in that darkness, and under the cloth of the baby doll’s body is a squirming mass of living insectoid terrors, devouring and hatching by the billions every second, their juices and chunks staining the cloth and dripping through to land like gooey, sinister espresso, thick and sizzling on the concrete.

“Ma-MA! MA-MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Dolly Lurker’s screeching would deafen anyone not already ear-numb from a shotgun blast.

Something is worming its way out of the dark eye socket, a sleurmy winged plorper. The baby doll’s fingers twitch and clutch at the air, its mouth opens to show way too many square teeth.

“It’s larval!” Judy says, “Kill it before it lands!”

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R VII

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on October 9, 2017 at 11:43 am

(Applebee’s sucks. In your heart of hearts, you know it’s the Fuller House of chain restaurants. If you love both of those things, you probably won’t like this story. If you loathe both of those things, you’re in the right place. Start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R VII

Lanky dark hair just beyond the doorjamb moves in a breeze I can’t feel. I see it now: an eye. Golden iris, pupil far too large. Locked onto me. Skin porcelain white. A gigantic, goofy grin, with way too many huge square teeth. The expression in that one eye: towering, giddy, ravenous rage. A clear thought forms in my head, the entire sentence sounding inside my cranium as though spoken, It wants us dead, and it wants to be the deadening.

Then another voice speaks in my head, shadows of terrified screaming beneath every vowel; my ears itch inside as it slithers around in my brain, unlocking every worst memory, breathing fresh fuel into every fear and insecurity:

No, no, no, no, no, my tasty, I am the deadening. Oh my, oh my, oh my, yes. I am the deadening. I am the deadening.

I shake my head against its slithering brain eggs; the nodule and sporangia all shift to focus on me with wet squish and plorpings. I’m trying to ignore the whirlwind of bad memories in my mind.

No, no, no, no, no, my tasty — all of the things. You remember all of the things. They are your esssssssence. Why try? You are that rejected ring. You are the miscarried child. 

Weedbeard says, “Alan, now!”

I can see outside the door, at last: Judy is there, and now there’s a face to the voice of Alan – it’s Obi-Wan-point-five! He’s throwing a Crown Royal bag full of something that isn’t a bottle to Weedbeard, who catches it without looking, eyes on the nodule. Obi-Wan-point-five is covered in oil. Judy is upending a box of kosher salt over his head, then pouring on more — olive? — oil. There’s another box of kosher salt nearby. I want to make a joke about savory sex, but I’m afraid to speak, and the voice in my head won’t stop:

You are the broken heart, abandoned promises, mistaken love, foolish indiscretion, erotic obsession, shameful indulgences, every dark and bad thing you work so hard to hide is why you should give up.

The nodule and sporangia shift back to Weedbeard – shphleurk-pop-pop-pop! – when he catches the bag, but I can’t stop shaking my head – I can feel it moving in there! – and they shift back to me, the frond fluffing to cover the ceiling and come halfway down the walls. It sounds, I realize, like a tom turkey puffing up his feathers. This strikes me as funny, until the nodule presses against the skin surrounding it, stretching the skin thin enough that it looks like the nodule will break through.

My tasty, when you tell this story, others will come looking for me, and oh how I want to be found.

It’s the face of a turkey. If a turkey was part vulture and part newborn baby. Grinning, with wriggling tongues for teeth, its eyes crudely-chopped mismatched triangles like a psychopathic jack-o-lantern. There’s a flickering light inside, casting horrid little shadows on the inside of its skull. It’s the light of a candle made from human tallow. How do I know that?

I am the one standing at the foot of your bed, that’s how.

Weedbeard is muttering something over the open Crown Royal bag, moving his hand in a pattern as he does so. The turkeybaby is getting closer to my face, the sporangia growing darker, like they’re engorged with blood.

I am in your closet, watching you sleep. Sucking at your dreams.

“You’ve got one chance, Edward,” Judy says, all calm business, tearing open and dumping the next box of kosher salt on Obi-Wan-point-five, “But you’ve got to shut your eyes. Trust me. Shut your eyes, and when I say NOW, you turn and reach out your left hand. We’ll try to get you in time. Edward? Shut your eyes.”

Mine are the grabbing hands waiting under your bed, reaching up to touch you.

I do as she says, shutting my eyes. Something warm and wet gloms onto my face, wrapping my head in flesh, clogging my nose, sealing my mouth shut. I try to breathe, to scream. I can’t!

I use your mouth to spill my seed in your lungs. Hold real still. Hold
real still. Hold real still.

“Edward, listen to me,” Judy says, her voice still low and calm. “It’s making you think you’re suffocating, but you’re not. And if you open them again, it’s going to breathe those spores right into your eyes and you will be lost to us forever, with no memory of any of this. Be ready, Edward; to your right, with your left hand. Trust me, you’re breathing. Just trust – NOW!”

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Seven — Voice Memo V

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on September 19, 2017 at 12:43 pm

(If you like to be frightened, at least know the backstory: start here.)

Day Seven: Tuesday, 25 July 2017 – Voice Memo V

[Sound: still garbled and watery; frantic sloshing through water, wet hands on concrete; in the background, growing closer from the right, jingling and high-pitched laughter.]

Edward: Not one single fuck do I give right now, I’m getting out of this fuck-cunted fountain. Nightmare where you can’t run fast enough from the monster, and now I’m in a fucking toxic algae bloom!

Voice: Splishy splashy, little fish … !
Toxic algae, be my pal, gee!
Little fishy, grant my wish!
Crunchy-cralgae,
Here … !
I … !
Come!

[Sound: light footsteps on concrete and jingles punctuate the last three words, moving just above and to our right.]

Edward: Do you have to do everything with internal rhyme? Fucking creepy shitbags!

[Sound: During the above, huge frothing splash of a fully-dressed 190lb man throwing himself out of a fountain into dry dirt and brittle weeds.
In the far distance, sirens and horn of firetruck.
Hands and feet scrabbling for purchase, we hear wet shoes squeaking, wet cloth squelching under the following:]

Edward: In the movies, everyone gets away so fucking easy …

[Sound: car engine close by, brakes engaged, engine idling. Sirens are closer.]

Edward: Headlights! On the trees above me, please let it be …

Voice: Scribble-scrabble in the dirt!
Fearful panting, jeerful janting.
When I catch you, it will hurt:
Leerful lanting, tearful ranting!

Edward: How does it feel about headlights, I wonder? Oh fuckno – it’s here, stripey pants – on the wall of the fountain – yeurks –

[Sound: Edward scrabbling to his feet, stumbling.]

Edward: Run fucking run, fucking run you pudgy fuck …

[Sound: running feet underneath the above line, then a trip and a fall into leaves and dirt.]

Edward: Graughhh!

[Sound: a voice, male, from the direction of the idling engine: You hear that?
Edward is struggling to his feet, cursing, breathing hard.
Another male voice from the direction of the engine: What, you think it’s the old Witch of Woodminster?]

Edward: They’re right up there. Here we go –

[Sound: THUD, Edward falling to his knees in leaves.]

Edward: Fuck. Tree. Head. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. … Bleeding … Oh God …

[Sound: stumbling steps through leaves, panting, wet shoes squelching with every step.
Second Male Voice from car: It’s an old wives’ tale, man.
Jingles and snapping branches overhead.
First Male Voice from car: So you say, but my friend said he saw her.
Idling engine and the voices in the car are getting louder as Edward moves up the slope.
Sirens are much closer.
Giggles and jingles and branches rustling, snapping overhead.
Second Male Voice from car: Okay, fine: what does she look like?
First Male Voice from car: Covered in leaves. He called her a bog hag.
Second Male Voice from car: (laughing) Bog hag? Your friend into D&D and shit?
First Male Voice from car: That’s the thing. He wasn’t. And he couldn’t sleep alone for two years after.]

Voice (whispering, with glee): I’m above you in the trees

Edward: Finally. Haugh, it’s the police. Get these leaves off my face.
Excuse me, Officers?

[Sound: from the right, Ma-MA! Ma-MAAAaaaaaeuuuurrrghllllthhhh …]

First Male: What the fuck – ?

Voice (whispering, with even more glee): Jingle branches, queurky queranches!

Edward: I need your help –

Second Male: The fuck is in that tree?!

[Sound: Jingling, giggling, thrashing branches.]

Voice (whispering, with way too much glee):Yous will not escape from mees … !

Edward: Offfficcc –

Voice (whispering, with what can only be called an excess of glee): Tingle tanches, tingle tee … hee … heeeeeee … !

[Sound: hacking, retching, the splashing of chunky vomit]

First Male: Outside your window!

Edward (groaning, doubled over in pain): Fuchhthasserbrilighhhh … [Fuck, that’s a bright light.]

First Male (simultaneous): Jesus Christ!

Second Male (simultaneous): Jesus Christ!

Edward: Glorphloorgh, phflorgleblorg … [I’m sorry about the vomit, but this is an emergency.]

Second Male: Bog Hag! Drive!

[Sound: Police vehicle thrown into gear, tires screaming as it speeds away; Second Male’s voice fading with distance as he bellows, What the hell, man, what the holy hell?]

Edward: No!

[Sound: Shambling, squishy footsteps as Edward runs after the police car.
Sirens are blaring, close.]

Edward: Fuck. My car. It’s in the lot at the top of the hill. Wait …

[Sound: squishing footsteps halt. A jingle and a giggle from behind us.]

Edward: … I smell … smoke.

[Sound: Firetruck hurtling down the road toward us, horn blaring, siren howling.]

Edward: Oh shit. I look like the guy who’d set a fire. In a bog. To roast toads.

[Sound: screaming squeal of brakes, footsteps on gravel as Edward leaps to the right. Siren cuts off, window rolls down, a voice speaks from the driver’s seat:]

Weedbeard: Edward. Get in. We don’t have much time —

[Audio cuts off. Battery dead.]

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Seven — Voice Memo IV

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on September 13, 2017 at 12:32 pm

(You, like me, are a geek. Timelines matter: start here.)

Day Seven: Tuesday, 25 July 2017 – Voice Memo IV

[Sound: rusted steel doorknob rattling, stuck.]

Edward: It’s locked. Fuck. Okay, moving along the wall …

Where was I? Pyramid, chanting … right. So I was listening to the chanting, standing up, getting ready to jump out and scare them. Because it would be fun to scare Burton Thomas. I think he’d enjoy it, actually. He’s that kid, at your 8th birthday party, the one who brought a VHS tape of Faces Of Death. Tells your mom it’s a comedy.

Anyway, I’m standing there and a leaf goes up my nose. I snort it out, shake my head, rub my nose.

The chanting stops. Someone says, “What was that?” Sounded like Weedbeard. That would be fucking weird.

[Sound: footsteps on concrete, occasional crunching leaves.]

… Another corner … and … a tree near the wall … and more trees, feels like … Redwood. Growing right against the wall. Listening …

[Sound: wind in the trees, Edward breathing. Forest, night. Nothing else.]

…

…

Okay, I’m waiting here for a minute. These trees make me feel safe. And I need to record this. Phone’s at 8%. So … I was breathing in to jump out at them. The leaf goes up my nose again. I smack the branch away.

It’s solid. Meaty.

It’s an arm. I think it’s Burton, because Burton would stick a leaf up your nose in the dark.

I turn to my right and there’s a face. Bone white. Grinning at me. It says, “Yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhls-yeuhlssssssssss …” Rocking side to side, moving closer. Hands in white gloves. Squeezing my shoulder. Puffy, striped sleeves. I think, I swear I saw … a ruff around its neck? Like, an Elizabethan ruff. Or lace?

[Sound: whispering from the right, then, barely audible, a jingle.]

Okay, moving along. Away from the trees … feels like metal … another door, wait …

[Sound: pulling, turning knob that doesn’t want to move.
Whispering moves closer, jingles are louder.]

Double doors. Also locked. Moving on … the ground is sloping and the wall is curving outward. I’m following …

[Sound: from the right, jinlging and high-pitched giggles.
From the left, overlapping: Ma-MA! Ma-MAAAAaaaaaa … !]

Voice: I am silent when I need;
Sneaky-sneaky, peeky-peeky!
Thickly do you think you’ll bleed?
Reeky-creeky, cockie-leeky!

Edward: What the holy fucknuggets?

[Sound: from the right, jinlging – much closer, overlapped with keening screech laughs.
From the left, louder than before, closer, angry: Ma-MA! Ma- MAAeurghghgllllllphhhmmmmmnnn … !]

Voice: Some are here who should be not!
Interloper! Dolly groper!
I will bite you, like as not …
Filthy roper. Secret doper …

Edward: There are two of them. (A shout, surprised:) Fuck!

[Sound: huge splash, phone submerged; when it comes up, sound is garbled and watery; we hear gasping, coughing and retching.]

Jesus! … Christ, I’m … I’m in … disgusting water. It’s all goopy and full of algae. I’ve got … chunks in my mouth …

[Sound: more coughing, hacking, retching.]

Fuck. Is my phone still working?

Wait … goopy water, curved walls …

[Sound: wet hands smacking concrete, water sloshing.]

I think … I’m at the theatre. In the fountains … that means the parking lot’s …

Voice: I can hear you in the dark.
Secret noser, red-red-roser …
You will not escape this park,
I’m the poser, moving closer …

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Seven — Voice Memo III

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on August 31, 2017 at 12:06 pm

(Juice it! Juice it like a MANGO: start here.)

Day Seven: Tuesday, 25 July 2017 – Voice Memo III

[Sound: rustling leaves.]

I’m at the bottom of the slope, around the corner. Maybe if I stay still it will pass right by me. This building is larger than I thought.

Wait …

…

…

[Sound: distant sirens, fading]

…

Nope. Nothing.

So I never found the pyramid. Did I already say that?

My hands are shaking. It’s not cold. Christ.

So … looking for the pyramid. I was thinking I’d see them, their lights; we put water bottles on top of our phone lights to make water lanterns last year. Works really well.

I didn’t see any lights. But I heard voices. So I moved in the direction I thought I heard them, and there was a little deer trail off to the left. Sounded like the voices were in there, so I switched off my light and tried to sneak up on them. More fun to scare imaginative artsy types.

The voices were chanting, and the closer I got, the clearer it became that they were trying to freak me out. And it was kind of working. I think what they were saying was, “In by the Sunset, out by the Moon; Help us to find you, morning and noon; We seek you in darkness, now, under the trees – lead us to answers, please, Bess and Louise.” I think that’s accurate. I memorized it while I was crouching maybe ten feet away, trying to see their faces.

[Sound: distant high-pitched laughter, overlapped with cloth on concrete, leaves rustling, quiet footsteps under the following.
In the distance, also, jingling. You’re not certain you hear it, at first.]

Christ, it’s coming. I’m moving along this building, using it as a guide. Maybe it will lead me to a road. Keeping my phone light off. Can’t sit and wait for Dolly Jingles. Jingles the Creeper? Lurker Jingles … ?

[Sound: cloth on concrete, footsteps, leaves overlapped with the distant laughter and jingling. Then a change: the laughter segues into sing-song.]

Voice: In the darkness, now, we dance …
Tra la la, tra la la!
Do you like my poofy pants?
Tra la la, tra la la!

Edward: Okay. Okay. It’s talking now. Not great.

Voice: Gate is locked! Left or right?
Jingle-jangle, jingle-jangle!
Be my friendly, in the night?
Bingle-bangle, tingle-tangle!

Edward: Holy shit, a door.

[Sound: hand grabbing rusted steel doorknob, turning.]

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Seven — Voice Memo

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on August 29, 2017 at 11:52 am

(This post means nothing without context. Start here.)

Day Seven: Tuesday, 25 July 2017 – Voice Memo

There’s something outside.

It’s dark. I’m in a potting shed at a native plant nursery in Joaquin Miller Park. I have my phone on low so the light doesn’t bleed. It’s 11:45 pm, I have no idea where I am and –

[sound: gravel crunching, dragging footsteps]

It’s moving closer.

I don’t know how much time I have. I’ll try to get this out fast. Here’s what I know:

I should never have come up here. Or I should have brought someone with me.

This is important, I need to remember this: when I got to the theatre today, Joel was hosing the outside wall off next to the stage door stairs. I asked why, and he said graffiti. But it was different because it was easy to wash off, it wasn’t paint, and it was actual words. I asked what it said, because jokes, ha ha Edward you masturbatory jester. He showed me a picture he’d taken of the graffiti – graffito? – on his phone.

I have goosebumps again just thinking about it. Three words, in charcoal:

into the party

Joel said I looked like someone walked over my grave, I made a joke about cadavers and went inside. I didn’t – and still don’t – understand why those words chilled me. They’re innocuous. They mean nothing. But, combined with everything else –

Wait. I’m listening. Have I been whispering too loud? I can’t tell. There’s no sound from outside. I can’t tell if it went away or if it’s right outside the door.

…

…

[sound: rustling cloth]

…

I think it’s … moved off.

… I’m trying to figure out what the fuck happened …

[sound: rustling cloth]

Left leg really hurts, have to change position a lot. Sorry.

Okay, so there was a note at my station saying: “secret party after rehearsal tonight.” This is rad, there were some during Shrek last year. Clandestine weed romps in Joaquin Miller Park at night. Ghost stories, snacks, dress warmly. We’re careful about who gets invited – no buzz kills, all legal adults, no creepers.

When I left the theatre, there was a note on my windshield. It said, FIND THE PYRAMID. All caps.

[sound: thump]

Oh fuck. It’s out there.

[sound: thump, closer]

Jesus, I think it knows I’m in here.

[sound, muffled: aaaa-aaaaa …]

My phone, it’s …

[sound: thump, too close.]

… dying.

[sound: Ma-MA! Ma-MA! … Ahheeeuuurrrrrghghghhhhssssss …]

Oh. Fuck.

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Six — Rehearsal

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on August 23, 2017 at 11:59 am

(Did the cool kids mock you again? Craving validation? Start here.)

Day Six, Rehearsal: Sunday, 23 July 2017

The Hardy Boys had it easy.

Their dad was a detective. They had their chum Chet with his jalopy. They lacked any libidinous impulses whatsoever, so they never walked into a piece of scenery because they were staring at a dancer’s ass during rehearsal.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I asked my server if anyone had given her the note, and she seemed genuine in her bafflement. I looked around at everyone in the restaurant, recognizing none of them and seeing no furtive skulkery or subtle chicanery. I looked so long that some people began to get uncomfortable. I’m told I have a penetrating gaze. But I haven’t done that since college.

I headed for Woodminster, vigilant in scanning my surroundings for lurkers and observers. I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Rehearsal began for me at 12 pm with the staging of Honey Bun. I fell off the platform, landing hard on my left leg and then my right ass cheek – kind of rocking backward onto another, perpendicular platform. This is what happens when Edward tries to learn a dance step that doesn’t belong to him. Foolish Edward, attempting the Sailor’s Hornpipe. Which sounds dirtier than it is. Speaking of getting ahead of myself. Zing! (Calm down, Perry.)

When I wasn’t onstage, I took a few hasty moments to jot down further notes and questions:

Montclair Historical Society: does not exist as a brick-and-mortar location – so how do I meet there tomorrow?
What the hell was Louella (Aughra) talking about – the girl with the eyes?
How did that card get into my pocket to begin with?
Why does Bill Weedbeard keep leaving me clues?
Who is watching me and leaving notes that arrive with my bill at restaurants?

When I was onstage, I admit that I was a little distracted: the puzzling messages, the overheard conversations. I started thinking about detectives. Holmes would be storking around, observing things with his aquiline brow perfectly smooth, fully in command of the situation. Watson would be by his side lending able assistance, steadfast and firm. Holmes would already have an idea of who Dolly Lurker really is (because in his universe it wouldn’t be anything supernatural), all based on the rolling of an actor’s cuff, the brush technique used to paint the clouds on the backdrop, or that dancer’s amazing ass.

Poirot would be asking many charming questions, his eyes all warm twinkle, his moustache perfectly waxed. He would be stepping around drifts of sawdust as Captain Hastings makes a series of social gaffes, and Judy would be Poirot’s true assistant in solving the mystery. Quick and nimble, he’d gather all his evidence; he’d pause for a revelatory tisane; then assemble everyone in the men’s dressing room for a stunning and climactic reveal based on the way this actor was staring at that dancer’s ass.

Nick Charles would send Nora off with a series of false clues to try to get her out of the way long enough that he could do some solid detection. She and Asta would see a suspicious character and inadvertently fall into the basement of Woodminster, where they’d find an abandoned distillery and the body of the man everyone thinks is the killer. But Nick would have known it wasn’t Cranky Jack the whole time, because Cranky Jack was really Rooster Carruthers, crime-boss-turned-alchemist, who gave it all up twenty years ago to turn lead to gold. Nick would stage a climactic reveal as well, with plenty of pithy commentary from Nora. And, truth be told, I’m deeply in love with Myrna Loy. So she can comment all she wants. She’d probably make a crack about me staring at things that don’t belong to me. In her incredibly fashionable but utterly impractical hat.

The Hardy Boys would be up to all good, just being clean-cut American white boys who only ever interact with other clean-cut American white kids, when they’d hear a scream from the abandoned old theatre on the hill. They’d run up there just in time to see a figure disappear into the trees, dropping a creepy doll as it ran. They are each other’s companion, but they also have their chum Chet with his trusty jalopy and unreliable fortitude. Because fat guys are weak, right, Franklin W. Dixon? Or do I mean Edward Stratemeyer? I wonder if Frank and Joe ever solved the Mystery of the Old Publishing Syndicate. Either way, you can bet that they wouldn’t have noticed anybody staring at that dancer’s ass. They’d solve the mystery sans craving.

But what is the damned mystery? There’s no body. Some girls disappeared in the 50’s, there’s a creeper with a doll, there’s a group of old hippies who like to talk about fountain pens, Louella (Aughra) drives a very nice car. But there’s nothing right now to connect the Peet’s Eager Quintet to my experiences at Woodminster. And until I know exactly what the Montclair Historical Society is, there will be no connection. For all I know, someone could have put that card in my pocket while I stood waiting to cross a street. And if I spent more time working on my lines than trying to solve this mystery, my work on stage would be a lot more solid. Almost as solid as that dancer’s amazing ass.

That’s a lot to think about. And so maybe you can see how all of these competing thoughts could easily lead a grown man to walk into a wall of the set. I think Judy saw it happen. I tried to play it off like a bit of intentional slapstick. She just stared at me, no expression, then turned to watch the scene onstage with a slight tilt of the head that said, “That’s what you get for staring. Fuckmook.”

We broke a little before 4:30 to get into costumes for program photos. I made a lot of jokes. We took a lot of photos. I was released around 5:30, I think. By the time I left, my left leg was in a lot of pain.

There is nothing sinister about Woodminster in daylight. The smell of pine dust is strong in the parking lot. Taking my keys from my back pocket, the mysterious Historical Society card fell out. I bent down to pick it up, and there, in charcoal on the curb next my driver’s door was:

get to leave

Same font, same medium: mesquite on concrete. Well, now, that seems to be the kind of connection I was lamenting earlier. I looked around for Bill Weedbeard, as he is my chief suspect in this game of smoky messages. Again I saw nothing out of the ordinary, but I had the distinct feeling I was being watched.

Getting into my car, I tossed the card into one of the cup holders in my center console, then wrote this new phrase in my notes; together, they read:

was my purpose
get to leave

More damned anagrams? Red herrings? Bad poetry?

I did a Google search and found articles about the purpose of dogs, and millennials trying to find their purpose. Useless. Until one remembers that this cast is made up mostly of millennials. Is this a cry for help? Are they all confused about their futures? Do none of them want to admit the crushing guilt they experience every day over their secret shame that they voted for Jill Stein?

There was the possibility of my seeing a performance of The Four Immigrants at Theatreworks, but I was sweaty and smeared with sunscreen. My leg hurt, and maybe my head. How I hit my head, I have no idea. But one attends the theatre only in appropriate attire. Shorts, sandals and a Hawaiian shirt are unacceptable.

I went home. Veronica was making thick-cut pork chops. There was a hot shower and cold beer. I was able to set all these thoughts aside for a time.

Just as I was falling asleep, a thought occurred to me; I wrote it in my notebook, then closed my eyes. It was this:

A good detective has a companion.