Harry Flammable

by Frank O'Keeffe

  “Okay, Harry.” Mr. Shamberg almost smiled. He seemed to be in a much better mood than yesterday. “I called you in for two reasons. First, Joe Straka dropped by my office after school and told me he’d thrown your hat onto the roof of the shed. Apparently word got around your hat was found in the fire. That doesn’t let you entirely off the hook. Your fame is only exceeded by your reputation, or whatever that saying is. But it does seem to explain why your hat was there in the first place. It also appears the school insurance will look after replacing my bike. However, I want you to know that if you had anything to do with the fire it would be best to admit it. Everyone in the school is under suspicion.” Mr. Shamberg paused.

  “I don’t know anything about it, honest.”

  “Okay, Harry. We’ll leave it at that for now. The other reason I called you in is because today, as you know, is the day I’m going to announce the work experience job placements. I’ll be doing this in class later, but I thought that, in view of our little confrontation yesterday, you might feel where you were placed would be affected. That I might be biased against you or something. I want you to know, as promised, I made a strong recommendation to Pocket Money Pictures on your behalf. I told them how keen you were.”

  My heart sank. I knew what was coming.

  “However,” Mr. Shamberg went on, “Pocket Money Pictures indicated they preferred a girl for the job. In fact, they insisted on it. I’m afraid I had to place the other leading candidate in that position.”

  “Who was that?” I blurted.

  “Mmm … that new girl …” Mr. Shamberg searched on his desk for something, then flipped over a sheet of paper. “Here it is. Celia Spendlove. But it’s not all bad news. I managed to get you one of the prime placements elsewhere.”

  Elsewhere. What did he mean, elsewhere? Some welding shop, some warehouse loading trucks, a supermarket bagging groceries? The only place prime for me was Pocket Money Pictures. It was going to be my first step, getting my foot in the door, to become a famous director. I didn’t care what job they gave me. Just making the coffee would have been good enough, and I’d have done it for nothing. Some places paid minimum wages but others didn’t. They just gave you experience. And it was the experience I wanted.

  “This one pays fifty cents an hour over the minimum wage. I know you’re disappointed about the film company but The Ritz Hotel is a really classy place to work. Just do me a favour. Don’t burn it down, okay?”

  “The Ritz? Doing what?”

  “Well you know, causing accidents like yesterday with your cap,” he joked. “Oh, you mean what’s the job. It’s working under Chef Antonio in the kitchen. He’s famous. You’ll learn a lot. You’ll be shown how to do all sorts of exciting things.”

  “You mean like peeling potatoes, making Jell-O?”

  “No, not necessarily. It’s the best job I have. Some students would give their eye teeth to get it. I just wanted you to know it’s the best I could get you and I wanted you to understand there are no hard feelings about what happened yesterday. I tried my best to get you placed with Pocket Money Pictures. But it just wasn’t to be. I wanted to tell you before I have to announce it in class later.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Shamberg,” I mumbled. I rose to leave.

  “Oh, Harry. Before you go to The Ritz, you might want to get a haircut.”

  A haircut? My hair, which was dark, wasn’t that long, just over my collar. I thought it gave me the perfect film director’s look. Cut my hair? No way. Maybe I’d just tell Mr. Shamberg I wanted something else. Maybe some kids would give their eye teeth for The Ritz job like Mr. Shamberg said, but what’s a few teeth compared to cutting your hair? My hair! Maybe bagging groceries wouldn’t be so bad.

  3

  I DECIDED TO TRY The Ritz job. Not because I wanted to learn how to cook or work under the direction of the famous Chef Antonio. It was because I’d heard the star actors and director for the film Pocket Money Pictures was making would, in all likelihood, stay at The Ritz. It might be the break I needed. Who knows what could happen? Lana Turner, the glamorous movie star of the 1940s, had been discovered sitting at the Top Hat Café in Hollywood. I know that because I read everything about movies I can get my hands on. This isn’t Hollywood or the 1940s, and Lana Turner is dead now, but The Ritz dining room is a cut above a café soda fountain.

  Although I’d be working in the kitchen, film stars and celebrities were always ducking into the hotel kitchens to get away from fans and autograph hunters. Maybe I’d be spotted by some talent scout or at least be asked to be a stand-in for some actor for a stunt. Anyway, I reasoned, I’d have a far better chance to be close to the film industry at The Ritz than working at Joe’s Meatmarket, Pete’s Autowreckers, or bagging groceries at Fletcher’s Foods.

  So I got my hair cut. I asked for a trim. I didn’t have much money so Mom cut it for me. She was humming something as she worked on my hair.

  “What’s that tune?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s from The Barber of Seville.” She grinned. “Appropriate, don’t you think?”

  Mom sang in a trio. She has a pretty good voice and probably could have been a professional singer, but she was happy to sing just for fun.

  I looked at my hair in the mirror in the kitchen. I gasped. “It’s too short!”

  “Nonsense,” Mom said. “I’ve hardly cut any off. Look at how little hair there is on the floor. Anyway, if you don’t like it, you can always go out and get a proper haircut at the barber and pay for it. This is free.”

  I stopped complaining. I guess she hadn’t cut much off, and I didn’t feel like paying ten bucks or more for getting just a trim.

  Yesterday, when Mr. Shamberg had given us our job assignments in class, Celia let out a gasp and beamed with pleasure when she heard she’d be working at Pocket Money Pictures. Joe Straka got the job at Pete’s Autowreckers and he promised to pay me back for the loss of my cap out of his first paycheque.

  “Hey! Really high class,” Leonard Wooley said as he clapped me on the back when he heard I’d got The Ritz job. He knew I’d had my heart set on Pocket Money Pictures and he was trying to cheer me up. “I’ll bet you’ll make a fantastic cheesecake. I’ll come over to your place for dessert every night.”

  I presented myself at the reception desk of The Ritz at 4 p.m. but I had to wait in line. Everyone behind the desk was either on the phone or tapping away at computers as they checked guests in. I quickly scanned the huge lobby for possible film stars or directors, but I couldn’t spot any obvious ones. Everyone looked pretty ordinary. An orchestra was playing soft music somewhere off to one side, in what I assumed must be the dining room. I wondered how long it would be before the diners in there were afflicted by my efforts at cooking.

  I turned my attention to the deep, plush, blue carpeting that covered the lobby. It was so thick my running shoes sank into it and when I moved my feet they left footprints in the carpet for a few seconds. The footprints slowly disappeared as the carpet puffed back into place. It was really neat, and I tested out different techniques, pressing really hard with one foot and softer with the other to see if one footprint would last longer than the other. It did. Then I tried standing on the edge of my runners and made Xs.

  “Do you have a reservation?”

  Startled, because I was so engrossed with my carpet designs and hadn’t noticed that the person who’d been in front of me had left, I glanced up at the woman behind the desk. She was frowning as she peered over the reservation desk to see what I was doing with my feet. I bet she thought I was cleaning my shoes on The Ritz’s carpet. I felt myself blush.

  “Um, no,” I stammered. “I have an appointment with Ms. Capstone.”

  “Your name, please?”

  “Harry. Harry Flanagan.”

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “Um, yes. I’m here from Crestwood High, for the work experience program.” When I said it, it sounded to me like I’d just been released from prison after serving twenty-five years for
some terrible crime.

  “One moment please.” The woman picked up a telephone and spoke rapidly into it, giving me furtive glances all the time. It was as if she suspected I was about to revert to whatever criminal behaviour I’d committed in the past. When she put the phone down, she said, “Go down the hall on the right and take the elevator at the end of the hall. You’ll find Ms. Capstone in the executive offices on the third floor.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled as I headed for the hallway.

  I had to wait in an outer office for a while until I was shown into Ms. Capstone’s office by her secretary.

  Ms. Capstone was scary. She wasn’t overweight but she was a large woman and she sat behind an equally large desk. I guessed her age was about thirty-five. Her dark, shoulder-length hair was covering one side of her face and was pinned back behind her ear on the other side.

  She reminded me of somebody or something I couldn’t quite pin down. I temporarily settled for undertaker, except her black formal suit had a red leather belt circling her waist, and her lipstick matched the red of her belt. But the strangest thing about her was her eyebrows, or at least the one full eyebrow I could clearly see and the bit of the other one that disappeared under her hair. They didn’t grow over her eyes but shot up at a sharp angle from near the top of her nose and I guessed, if I could see both of them completely, they would form a large V across her forehead. But because her hair hid most of the one on the right side of her face, it looked like she was wearing a large checkmark. It looked like the ones Mr. Shamberg uses on our notebooks except that his checkmarks are usually in red. Ms. Capstone’s was jet black. It took me a minute or two to figure out her eyebrows weren’t real. They were painted on, and she must have plucked out all the little hairs from her real eyebrows. Painful, I thought.

  She didn’t smile, but the one eyebrow, totally visible, moved alarmingly on her head and indicated a chair in front of her desk. I sat. I was still wondering how she had such control over a fake eyebrow when she startled me by suddenly barking out a question.

  “So you want to be a chef?” Her voice boomed and echoed off the walls of her office.

  “Um. No. I mean yes.” I almost said I really wanted to be a film director or at least an actor, and I had absolutely no interest in becoming a chef, but I guessed Mr. Shamberg had probably lied about my interest in cooking to get me this job. Our school program had very few spares and it was either this job or spend three afternoons a week up to my elbows in blood, like Leonard at Joe’s Meatmarket. Or, like Joe Straka, scouring the muddy yard at Pete’s Autowreckers, looking for matching hubcaps.

  “So why do you want to be a chef?” Ms. Capstone asked me, and I couldn’t help staring at the way her full eyebrow danced on her head, and the bit of the other one I could see darted behind her hair as if it had taken flight. Then I remembered what it was Ms. Capstone reminded me of. It was the spider I’d startled one summer when I was on holiday at Uncle Dan’s in southern British Columbia, and I was helping him weed his rock garden. I’d pulled a bit of grass from between two rocks and a couple of black hairy legs popped out of the hole and were quickly followed by the other six, on which sat a shiny black round body. I’d jumped back in surprise and Uncle Dan had laughed. “Black widow,” he’d said. “See the red mark on her underbelly? She has a poisonous bite and she kills and eats the male right after they mate.”

  I gulped, not because I thought Ms. Capstone was about to devour me — after all, we’d only just met — but because Mr. Shamberg told us we should be ready for a question like the one Ms. Capstone had just asked. I’d practised the answer for weeks, but that was in the belief I would be interviewed by Pocket Money Pictures. I could give a dozen reasons why I wanted to work in the motion picture industry. I couldn’t think of one reason why I would want to be a chef. Why would anyone?

  I frantically racked my brain. I couldn’t just say I liked food. Mr. Shamberg had gone over the objectives of the work experience program with us in class. What were they?

  “I want to explore a career opportunity at the source,” I blurted. It was the only objective I could remember, and as soon as I said it I knew it sounded phony, like some political slogan. “Oh, I have this letter of introduction.” I fumbled in my pocket for the letter Mr. Shamberg had given me and placed it in front of Ms. Capstone.

  “Hmm.” Her eyebrows twitched as she looked down at it like it was some unworthy insect that had just landed in her web.

  I waited anxiously while she read the letter. “It says here you have an inquisitive mind and are eager to learn.” She looked at me. “Mr. Flanagan, being eager to learn is important, but I must stress that here at The Ritz we have a very high reputation. Nothing must be allowed to sully that reputation. The comfort and needs of our guests come first and foremost. Privacy is very important to our guests, and anything you learn of their comings and goings, their eating habits, and so on, must be kept in the strictest confidence. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “This is the second year we have been associated with the work experience program and I must admit I had some reservations about continuing after what happened last year. But that’s confidential. Now before you can start work here, you must present yourself at the security office on the second floor. I suggest you do that tomorrow, after you get a haircut. You’ll be given an identification tag you must wear at all times. Ask for Miss Marsden. After you’ve been photographed and given your tag, she’ll direct you to where the kitchen is located. Chef Antonio will want to meet with you. He’s very particular about who works in his kitchen. If he is busy you can ask for one of the sous chefs, Gustav Halterman or Walter Nakamura. But a haircut is the first thing you need.”

  I was about to protest I’d already got a haircut but Ms. Capstone’s phone was ringing and she dismissed me with a twitch of her one full eyebrow, while the other one leaped for cover.

  4

  I WAS WALKING ALONG a back street not far from The Ritz, looking for a bus stop that listed the bus route I needed to get home, when I saw the sign, HAIRCUTS, FIVE DOLLARS. A bargain. I knew Mom was going to a practice with her singing group and wouldn’t be home until late and she wouldn’t have time to cut my hair again. I had six bucks in my wallet and I figured I’d better get another trim before I faced the great Antonio tomorrow.

  I went in and was sitting in a chair with a red robe over me when I saw the sign on the wall: HAIR AND THERE BARBER SCHOOL — PRICE LIST. I gulped. I was in a barber school. That’s why the haircut was only five bucks. The other two customers being worked on were an old lady who’d fallen asleep and a little kid who kept jerking his head and saying “ouch” every time his barber snipped a piece off his hair. The kid’s dad was saying, “hang in there, Tiger. Mom’s gonna love the way you look.” His eyes met mine in the mirror. “His first time.” He nodded in the direction of his kid, but I wasn’t sure whether he meant his kid or the barber, and that got me really worried.

  In the mirror I could see the guy who was about to cut my hair studying the back of my head and nervously snipping the air with his scissors.

  “I just need a trim,” I stammered. I hoped I wasn’t his very first customer.

  He nodded, then attacked my head with his scissors like he was conducting an orchestra. Hair was falling around me in clumps and every now and then a guy I assumed was the supervisor put down the magazine he was reading, got out of a barber chair where he was sitting, and came and inspected my head. He’d point to the back of my head and the guy cutting my hair would snip some more. The scariest part was when he put down his scissors and picked up a straight razor and started sharpening it on a strap. I hoped he wasn’t going to fling himself on me like he had with the scissors. I closed my eyes when he pressed my head forward and I felt the scrape of the razor on my neck.

  “All done.” He whipped the robe off of me with a flourish and I opened my eyes and gasped. I was expecting to see a lot of my blood, but the whole robe was bright red. Then I r
emembered it was red to begin with. I felt the back of my neck as the trainee barber brushed hairs from my collar, and I was so relieved to discover I wasn’t bleeding I gave him my whole six dollars.

  When I got out on the street I realized I’d have to walk home. I knew I’d left my bus pass at home and I’d just spent my bus fare on a tip for a terrible haircut.

  “What happened to your head?” Leonard Wooley asked as soon as I walked into class the next morning. “You get caught in another fire?”

  “No. Just a fire sale on haircuts.”

  It was so embarrassing. Everyone kept glancing at me. I’d looked at the back of my head with a mirror as soon as I’d got home from the barber, and I knew what I looked like. There were bald spots up the back of my head and the top looked like it had been chewed on by rats while I slept. My chances of getting a bit part in the movie, which I’d heard was called Funeral at Feng-t’ai, were really hitting rock bottom. From what I’d heard, there were no characters who looked like they were escaped cons, or recovering from a bad case of ringworm.

  I gritted my teeth when Mr. Shamberg asked if we’d all got to our assigned workplaces and how we’d made out, and Celia bubbled with excitement about how she’d bumped into the star, Johnny Random.

  “And what will you be doing on the set?” Mr. Shamberg asked.

  “Oh. They said I could be the best boy.”

  There were hoots of laughter from some of the guys and Celia blushed.

  “Aren’t they a little confused?” Dennis Wilton chortled. “I mean, how blind can they be?”

  “It’s what they call the electrician’s helper in the movies,” Celia was explaining in an embarrassed voice, “but I’m not sure what I’ll be doing.”

  I’d stopped listening. Best boy, I thought. That meant her name would even appear in the credits. What a great opportunity and I’d missed out on it. Instead of rubbing shoulders with stars like Johnny Random, I’d be stuck in the bowels of The Ritz rubbing dirt off carrots.