The Altonevers (39 page)

“
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 girls 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.