by Greg Jolley
I panned the room and confirmed that Mumm wasn’t present. She was partial to the first third of the evenings—the meals and conversation—but usually departed before Father and his friends became, at best, animated. If a screening were scheduled or there were dailies to view and critique, Mumm would be on time, staying close to the executives and insulated from Father and his friends.
Ezra circled wide around Father and his crowd. One of the dates—naked, wet, and trembling—came in from the lights and pool and wove through the tuxedos to the fireplace. Mr. Harris offered her a tablecloth, and she stood before the flames shivering and smiling and looking uncertain and dazed. She still wore one of her high heels.
I recognized her as one of Father’s constant dates. Her name didn’t come to me.
Father was oblivious to her standing in front of the fire and was beckoning with his beefy hand.
“There’s my negro,” he called to Mr. Harris.
Father glanced to his buddies, laughing to himself. Others were turning their heads away, and none of them looked amused. I spotted Mr. Nash with a glass in each hand among those still laughing. He had removed his tuxedo jacket, and his hair was awry.
I panned the partiers, the barely clad dates, the men with their drinks and loosened ties, and the house staff, all of them smiling and nodding and scurrying in response to requests and demands.
I left the doorway to my birthday party and walked up the hall to Mumm’s screening room. There was a black velvet curtain between the door and the room, and I parted it and looked in. Rows of fashionable and comfortable chairs descended before the low stage. The tall, black stage curtains were closed. The room was dim—the brightest light coming from the glass popcorn maker to the left of the door. I could smell melted butter, and I took a paper box from the stack. There was no one else in the room, and I took my usual seat in the third row, just off center. I set my popcorn box on the short table next to my chair. Piano music was playing—a record had been put on in the projector room—and the song carried from the theatre speakers. I pulled on my 3D goggles and ate popcorn and waited.
TWENTY MINUTES later, I turned from the stage and watched the doorway curtain part, and Mumm appeared. Mr. Nash held the curtain for her. He left her side and walked to the projector room. Mumm looked resplendent. She wore darling slippers with gold lace appearing below the hem of her sparkling white dress. Her pale skin was just a few shades lighter than the silk. When she saw me, she smiled and walked the decline and sat down beside me. She kept her kind smile to me, framed by her loosely falling blonde-white hair. She took my hand and looked right into my eyes—through her own pair of 3D goggles.
A faint motor hummed, and the stage curtains pulled back into the wings. I listened to the piano music and the chaotic party sounds from down the hall. The noise ebbed and then quickly resumed. I heard clumsy sounds and a curse from the projector room. A white funnel of light cast into the room and haloed Mumm’s shoulders and head.
“I believe our Mr. Nash is struggling,” Mumm said lightly.
I watched the screen and his efforts to align the images from the dual projectors. I could go and offer to help him, but I didn’t. There was another curse, and the needle on the record scratched, and the piano playing stopped.
While the movie screen flickered with test footage, I noticed that the room was still half-dimmed. I got up and worked the sliders on the wall beside the projector room, killing all light.
I took my chair, and Mumm took my hand, and the test footage ended. The film’s title resolved from two misaligned images into one, and we were within 3-D.
The opening soundtrack was the wind from the sea in the trees. The title, Savior, was centered in white dramatic script on the black background.
The credits rolled, and I smiled as each of the members of our film crew was acknowledged. Mr. Nash received multiple credits and the major ones, including “directed by” and “produced by” and, disappointingly to me, “screenplay by.” Finally, the screen read, “Based on the short story by BB Danser.” I couldn’t help a smile.
Our goggles placed each letter, each word, right in our laps, pressing into the skin of our faces. From the corner of my eye, Mumm’s outreached hand was touching and petting the credits.
The film began with the view of the meadow and ocean.
There was Mumm, beautiful and tender on-screen and also inside the theatre air resting on our faces and shoulders. I felt a hot flush to my head. I was in the meadow. My hands went out to brush the swaying grass aside so I could see Mumm better. I touched the pale softness of her wrists. I breathed from her as she raised her eyes to the cameras, to me and me only. Her expression was accepting.
Mumm breathed deeply in the theatre chair beside mine. I was within the movie and in the movie appearing at her side in the film.
On the screen, there was a rustling of movements behind Mumm as I watched myself move through the grass. The cameras panned and zoomed to my hip and arm.
A voice interrupted the wind in the meadow. It was Mr. Nash cursing from the projector room. I didn’t turn, didn’t leave the meadow.
There was a significant crash from somewhere else in the mansion. Mumm’s hand released mine and gently gripped my knee before she rose from her chair and departed.
The second-to-last scene of Savior stopped abruptly, rudely, leaving me with my arms outstretched as hot, flickering blue and yellow light replaced the story on the screen.
“That’s it for now, boy-o,” Mr. Nash called through the projector window.
A moment later, the theatre lights were raised, and the screen went white.
I heard men’s voices from behind and kept my goggles on and aimed at the dull movie screen. The stage curtains slid to a close as the door to the screening room opened and loud voices—Father’s especially—entered.
He staggered in with the hands of others grasping for his tuxedo. The hands missed, and he parted the black door curtain with his gaggle of friends and their heated voices, some pleading with Father and others encouraging. The clamor of red faces and hands and disheveled tuxedos stumbled into the room. The popcorn machine was toppled and hit the ground with a spray of glass and popped kernels. Father stepped to the front of the group with his finger pointed at me.
“Boy! So it’s your day. Get up on the stage.”
I stared.
“Now, dimwit!”
I stood. The guests were panning out, both the men and their dates. I heard Ezra’s voice pleading ineffectively in the mix. I walked down to the base of the stage.
“Curtains!” Father bellowed.
The stage curtains parted as I climbed up onto the planks of the stage.
“Lights!”
The projectors were turned on and washed me, blinded me. I could no longer see anyone or the room, just that hot and brilliant beam.
This had happened before. In fact, this had happened every birthday that I could recall.
“Music!”
A new record was put on. Gypsy music began from the many speakers—an odd and uncertain rhythm and melody I had heard and hated for years. I stood facing the light, feeling the heat it was giving off.
“Take off those stupid goggles!” Father commanded. “A jig for your master’s pleasure!”
Mumm’s voice entered the chaos, sharp and cutting, taking up my defense along with Ezra.
Father ignored them and barked, “Boy. Dance!”
“IM. Stop!” Mumm yelled, bravely.
I didn’t remove my goggles, but I began to sway my shoulders and arms, hesitantly, in the heat from the projector lamp and my humiliation.
“Dance for your cake!” Father roared.
Hands began to clap in rhythm and voices continued to both encourage and contest this scene. I danced on the planks. When Father demanded, “Loosen up!” I did my best, knowing well of the fast fists and kicking I’d receive if I didn’t please. Not right away, not with Mumm and the guests present, but late in the night or near dawn
. While the rest of the mansion slept, he’d awaken, like a rabid bear from hibernation in search of mayhem—to appease his hunger, to feed his knuckles.
I heard a scuffle begin that I couldn’t see and alarmed voices yelling. I heard Mumm’s stage name called out. The music was cut. There was grappling and curses as a fight started. The projector was killed, and I stopped dancing.
“You drunken fool!” Mumm yelled.
“No one’s gonna talk to me like that!” he hollered back, followed by the sound of a punch.
I pulled my goggles to my neck and saw Mumm on the floor, Ezra beside her. The gaggle parted, and Mr. Nash shoved Father back through the curtain. He had hit Mumm in the face.
From out in the foyer, the sounds of a brawl began. I jumped down from the stage and ran to Mumm. Ezra was helping her to her feet when I reached her. She looked both dazed and focused, and the left side of her face was red, the beginning of a bruise.
“I’m fine, love,” she said to me, ignoring the others trying to assist her.
Ezra had his arm around her, and I took her other side. One of the tallest men parted the curtain, and we left the screening room, a studio executive leading the way. We stayed close to Mumm as we entered the foyer.
Dates were crying and calling out as we circled the border of the brawl. Mr. Harris was in the thick of the fight trying to divide the two teams like a referee. Father was outnumbered—he had two remaining allies, beefy and stupid-looking men, once famous actors. Mumm and our group finished our wide circling to the main staircase. Two of the kitchen staff met up with us, one holding a cloth full of ice. I saw Mr. Nash swing a round-the-barn fist at Father’s head. Father ducked to the side and wasn’t hit. Father planted his shoe hard up into Mr. Nash’s crotch. Mr. Nash went down as we started up the stairs.
Halfway up along the curve, I looked down into the fight. Father had broken free and was over at the front doors bellowing in rage. He spun back into the room swinging a cane from the umbrella stand. I continued upward as he began to change the tide of the battle to his advantage.
The dates continued screaming, fists and feet were swinging, furniture was upended. At the top of the stairs, I witnessed Mr. Harris end the brawl by smashing a vase against the back of Father’s head. IM inelegantly crumbled to the marble floor.
“Her face, you moron!” was the final shout by Mr. Nash, who followed his words by kicking the side of Father’s prone head.
I followed Mumm and Ezra and the others inside the sitting room of Mumm’s suite. Only Ezra was speaking, somewhat of a rant, that Mumm ended by saying to him, “Darling, please, hush.” I paused my nodding head to his chatter, noting the darling.
The tall men remained at the door guarding it and talking softly. I heard them speaking of Mumm’s invaluable face and glowing career and Father’s clattering downhill slide.
“His is in the rubble,” one of them said.
The clamor downstairs ended, settling back to earth like spiraling dust sinking to the marble floor. Ezra was beckoned to the couch where he sat down beside Mumm, and she took his hand. She held the cloth of ice in her other hand at the side of her face. I stood in the cluster of staff and protectors. Mumm looked up at me, so beautiful and so weary, an expression like a bear in the zoo.
The last words she said to me were, “Go save her.”
INSTEAD OF going to my bedroom there on the second floor, I went downstairs to the lab. I selected a freshly laundered blanket and a pillow from a shelf and lay down on the couch. A deadened sleep came surprisingly fast but was interrupted by brief explosions of voices and footsteps carrying from the air vents. These sounds snuck into my ears and became the soundtrack of my manic dreams.
In the wee hours, the creaking of the descending elevator woke me. I raised my head from within my blanket and stretched my eyes open wide when I heard a key in the door lock. The only light in the lab was from a standing lamp in the far corner. Its glow almost reached the door, which creaked open to reveal Father. The light was too faint to illuminate my seven mirrors, so I watched Father cross to my tables in a singular view. It seemed that another person was in the doorway, undefinable and silent in the shadows.
Father began shuffling through my books and magazines, disrupting the orderly stacks. I saw that my writing pad was closed and hoped he wouldn’t explore my satchel, which was there on the table.
He hadn’t looked to me—perhaps he thought I was still asleep. He read and muttered the titles of a few of my dime novels, my collection of Weird Stories, my H. P. Lovecraft collection, and my Argosy and True Detectives magazines. He found my copies of Spicy Detectives at the bottom of the stack and snorted—his style of laughter. He breathed the words, “Naughty boy,” and turned and looked at me.
I sat up and swung my blanket to the side.
“Would you like to see some real smut, boy? I’ve got a film, a few films, of your Mumm, as you call her, entertaining herself. Up there in her big, beautiful bed. Ever seen your Mumm naked? All shivering and undone? And boy, can she get on a naughty mouth when she’s in a lather.”
I watched him look away at the door.
“I have my own mirrors,” he continued. “Two-way mirrors. And my bedroom’s right next to hers. Just like what they do in your smutty detective books and magazines.”
Father turned and faced me. A smile stretched his face.
“I offered her a solution. A pact, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t. The word reminded me of agreement and contract and what I had read about suicide pacts. I didn’t ask him to clarify. I watched him sit on the table and begin to swing his legs, childlike.
“She declined,” he said in the softest, calmest version of his voice I was ever to hear.
“We’ve been gone,” he continued, changing tact with barely a pause. “Traveling for hours. You and I.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“The accident upstairs occurred while we arrived at the train station.”
I blinked my eyes tight at the word accident and stared at his throat.
“Now get dressed,” he spat out, his voice again deep and controlling, directing.
“And stop that,” he said, mimicking the nodding and turning of my head from side to side along the row of his words.
“Get to the car,” he ordered.
I stood from the couch. Father pointed to my shoes on the rug. I was awake but also groggy and not cautious, and I braved, “Is Mumm okay?”
He actually growled from low in his throat. I looked away to the door between my mirrors. There was a person standing there in his shadow. I saw that it was a woman.
He stood from my table and left the room with the woman in tow. I pulled on my clothes and vest and my coat from the back of the couch. I opened my satchel and slid my writing pad and letters inside. I saw the birthday gift from Ezra and put it in as well.
When I entered the kitchen from the stairs, Father and his familiar-looking date stood outside the open mouth of the elevator. The room was dark and quiet. The last time I had spied her, she was coming in from the swimming pool naked.
The door to the carport was open. The headlights of Mumm’s car were shining across the driveway. Father saw what I was going to do before I had even decided. I spun from them and the doorway, turning to the other door, to the foyer, the stairs, to Mumm’s room, to Mumm.
He swung fast and hard, and I believe it was a tall redwood pepper shaker that he clobbered me with, fading me to black and putting an end to my attempted rescue.
Save
To make safe; to procure the safety of
to preserve from injury, destruction, or evil of any kind;
to rescue from impending danger; as, to save a house from the flames
Scene 3
I spent the five days on the train slumped in my seat beside the window with the blinds drawn. The headaches wouldn’t allow me to move, and I threw up constantly. When I opened my eyes, part of my vision was clear and other
areas were unfocused. I had the compartment to myself, and from time to time a steward brought me sandwiches, colas, bags of ice for the wound on my head, and clean buckets to vomit in.
We spent four days in Ann Arbor, Father’s hometown. I believe he had family there, but we stayed at a low-profile motel on the outskirts of the city. On the morning of our last day there, a doctor arrived. An area on the back of my head was shaved and sutured. By that time, my vision was almost clear except for faces. I couldn’t see eyes, only the shapes of heads, the centered noses, and expressive mouths.
Father told me to drive the hired car. Up front, I had my satchel and a motel towel rolled behind my neck. He was reclining in the back seat with his briefcase, and with Heidi, who Father preferred to call Heidi Ho.
“As in h-o-l-e,” he explained with his snorting laugh.
“Heidi Ho!” he called out like a boisterous greeting.
Heidi Ho protested.
He cupped her knee in his big, strong hand and said, “Darling, shut up.”
The roads going north were paved for a while and then became gravel. Snow was falling, and I drove as slowly as possible without getting an earful from Father. We were on what he called the parallels. I had no idea what he meant.
The turn-off to his family’s summer cottage didn’t have a name.
“Turn here, boy. It’s our road.”
I did, and from then on, the twisty dirt road was known as Our Road. Our Road loosely paralleled a lake as it wove through the trees along many tight turns.
“Burnin’ the clutch, boy,” I heard four times along those two twisting miles to the cottage.
The little house was on the lake and had a dock and but no electricity inside. Father spent two hours out in the snow with a ladder and ran a drop to the cottage, stealing electricity from the strand of poles that led to the wealthy, year-round, large homes on the east side of the lake. Huddled on the short couch, I listened to him tell Heidi Ho about the parties at those fine houses—the ones he used to be invited to.
