Meanwhile in the World where Kennedy Survived

by Lacey Ann Carrigan

  Chapter Fifteen

  The girls attending the class quickly left when it convened, briefly thanking Jacy for her spectacular performance. Madame Grigoriev mentioned something to her about that coming Wednesday and Jacy remained about twelve feet away, still gawking at her. She was in awe of the fact that the stunning, athletic performance she’d just witnessed came from a woman who would be sixty eight years old on her next birthday. “Mom I have to check on something with someone downstairs,” Josette said. Dorina remembered that their family owned the building and she probably had to check in on some type of business matter. When only Dorina and Jacy remained in the room, the younger of them approached the virtuoso as if she were a delicate, ethereal being.

  “I’m speechless,” Dorina said, still shaking her head in disbelief. “That was utterly, profoundly exquisite. Why in god’s name haven’t you been a bigger star?”

  Jacy giggled like a teenager and dismissively waved a hand at her. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Like breathing. I’ve been doing this since I was seven years old.”

  Dorina was suddenly embarrassed. “I’m so sorry I said that.”

  “Oh?” Jacy said. “The star thing?” She touched Dorina on the arm. “I was as big a star as I wanted to be.”

  Mitch came to mind, and the point for her call to Jacy had reoccurred to her. “I guess I should tell you I already finished the article for Spectrum,” she said. “I told your daughter I needed to talk with you about it, but that wasn’t quite true.”

  “Oh?” Jacy said. “Oh. Well I knew that you probably had, deadlines being what they are and such. Was there something else I could help you with?” Her gaze was fixed intently on her and she truly got the sense that there was no one or nothing as important in this world as their conversation right then.

  “I was going to tell you something...” she started to say but could not think of a way to bring up her dream from the other night without seeming like a lunatic or at least neurotic. “I’m going to ask you a strange question. When you were little, did you have a radio in your living room?”

  “Why yes. Everyone did. That was long before television, you know.”

  “Did you like to catch butterflies.?

  “Yes, I did. My little friend Catherine came over and we would watch them fly around the yard, especially in the spring. Why do you ask?”

  Dorina’s stomach frosted over. She could have sworn that she remembered Jacy referring to her as “Catherine” in the dream. “Well it’s sort of strange but...”

  Jacy was looking at her intently, in a very mothering kind of way, as if encouraging her to go further and Dorina continued. “Well a few nights ago, I had a dream and you were in it. You were little, about seven or eight. I was your friend. We listened to the radio in your living room and then went out in your yard to catch butterflies.”

  Jacy looked out into space blankly, to ponder the thought. “Isn’t that uncanny,” she said. “Did we have fun?”

  Dorina was a little taken aback that Jacy didn’t seem to think that her dream was anything out of the ordinary. “Well don’t you think that it’s kind of strange?” Dorina asked.

  Jacy was reaching for her gym bag. She pulled a pair of warm up pants out of there and a pair of running shoes. While slipping the pants on, she said “Dreams are very mysterious. Like ballet in a way. It’s very often best to leave them be, and try not to overanalyze them.” Dorina helped Jacy steady herself while she finished pulling on the warm up pants. She lowered down to the floor to put her shoes on. Dorina retrieved her warm up pants and street shoes from the other side of the room. She joined Jacy on the floor to put them on.

  “Well there’s something else,” Dorina went on. “It’s about the urban myth. Do you know H. Ron Lewandowski?”

  Jacy paused and glanced up at the ceiling to think. “I think I’ve heard the name. Oh yes! He’s a director. He does the Portals Beyond series.”

  “Then you’ve seen the movies?”

  “I know there are many of them. Possibly the second or third one. It’s been many years. Very wonderful special effects. It’s amazing what they can do nowadays, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.” Dorina shifted on her haunches to position herself directly in front of Jacy, so that she could make sure her next point was being heard. “H. R. Lewandowski

  was one of the children who may have been awakened when Galaxian was played in his hospital room. There are people who think that since Galaxian and the Portals series contain many similar characters and storylines, that he plagiarized the idea.”

  “I don’t think they were that similar.” Jacy brushed off her pants and started to stand. Dorina stood with her.

  “Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here,” she went on. “I had a dream with you in it, from a time in your life when you were small. Do you think it’s possible that H. R. Lewandowski could have had a dream based on the suggestions from the Galaxian show and it helped him awaken from his coma?”

  Jacy smiled. “Anything’s possible,” she said, smiling, lifting her gear bag. “But it seems to me that Mr. Lewandowski would be the one who could tell you how he awakened from his coma.”

  They parted shortly after that. Jacy told her that she could come back to the session any time she wanted to. It would always be held at two o’clock on Saturday afternoons.

  For the first time in her short career, Dorina actually looked forward to returning to work on Monday morning. On that Saturday night she ordered out for seafood and spent the rest of the evening surfing the web for ballet, lucid dreaming, the Portals series in particular and H.R. Lewandowski in particular.

  The ballet portion of her web search was not very productive or fulfilling. All she could find were a few encyclopedia entries on her online program. One of them featured a spooky black and white film of a couple doing a romantic, slightly seductive dance entitled “Pas de Deux.” Most of the other things she found were general, fifth grade history lessons about the evolution of the dance form. The lucid dreaming websites she visited were also a disappointment. She found that she only had the patience for just so much vivid descriptions of climbing mountain peaks that reached into the stars or running through fields of wildflowers that stretched on forever. A further mark against the Institute for Lucidity was that when she tried to visit their site and read the latest scientific findings, three different pop-ups appeared trying to sell her things.

  She wondered if she should go out and rent a video but then she came up with the idea of doing a search on “H.R. Lewandowski,” typing his name in the search field. The engine took a few moments to respond, which was a case of there being no entries or thousands of them. She would find out it was the latter.

  At first she tried the obvious biographical sites. The first one gave information about the director as if he’d been a nineteenth century literary figure. Name, birthplace and birth date. He had been married and divorced twice and had a daughter from the first marriage and a son from the second. The site described him as one of the richest and most powerful men in the industry, which gave credence to her “going after the one with the deep pockets” accusation against Wayne. Unfortunately, he was also one of the most enigmatic of all the major directors, according to the author. He rarely gave interviews and was generally inaccessible to all but those under his employ.

  Dorina studied the photo of him on a “Hollywood Facts” site, since it was larger and in color when the others had been in black and white or blurry. He had sandy blond hair in a long, brushing the collar style that had been popular in the seventies. Overall, he looked quite young considering that the calendar said he was nearing fifty. His skin was ruddy and tanned; Dorina knew that it could have resulted from the good life and trips to exotic sunny locations or maybe he liked to be “hands-on” when directing outside. Mostly what caused the man to look young to her were his soulful, dark brown eyes. In the photograph they gazed out at her warmly and she imagined that in real life he was charismatic. To have am
assed a cinema fortune, he would have to be.

  She searched for interviews and could not find a single one. There was, however, a site for an unauthorized biography, so she clicked on it. The author began by describing H.R. Lewandowski as “the ultimate self-made man.” He had been only a fair student in high school, interested mostly in art and creative writing. After graduation his plans for college got sidetracked when his daughter was born. Since high school, he’d worked a few unskilled or low wage jobs, such as a dock worker at a large retail store. To support his wife and daughter he entered the more lucrative field of long distance truck driving. Life on the road and in endless hotels had been lonely so he’d turned to one of his childhood loves, reading. He re-read Tolkien and all the science fiction trilogies he’d always enjoyed along with thriller and horror best sellers.

  According to the text, he received a “thunderbolt of inspiration” while driving on highway 40 in Arizona during May of 1985. He stopped at a motel, bought three pads of writing paper and set out to write for three days, never calling the trucking firm to explain what happened. The load of plywood and building supplies were supposed to go to Oklahoma City, yet when H.R. finished a one-hundred page treatment and synopsis, he turned around and headed back to California. The trucking firm fired him, and he decided to stay in Hollywood and attempt to sell his idea for “Portals Beyond” to a major studio. Unfortunately, the major producers resisted the idea at first on the basis that movie audiences had mostly outgrown science fiction and fantasy during the 1960's.

  Mr. Lewandowski persisted, however, working odd jobs in construction and hotel management while he spent his spare time rewriting his treatment and screenplay and knocking on doors.

  His big break came at end of 1987, when Universal Studios purchased his screenplay and the production team of Meyer and Lewin saw possibilities for it. To keep costs down, the studio hired a cast of unknowns for the major roles. The complicated project required numerous re-shoots for special effects continuity and editing problems further delayed its release. Several times the project was almost shelved until H.R. Lewandowski volunteered to edit the final cut. During the holiday season in 1988, Portals Beyond hit theaters.

  The studio’s initial goal for the movie was to break even on a forty million dollar budget. At first, box office for Portals was lukewarm since it had not been advertised heavily. Scores of good reviews and word of drove up receipts, however. A long run also helped, since the movie stayed at first run theaters well into March. Overseas box office also added to the total because the movie became popular in Europe and India. At final count the first installment of Portals Beyond grossed $125 million and paved the way for H.R. Lewandowski’s spectacular success over the next decade and beyond.

  Dorina checked the titles and release dates of the movies. A new installment was produced at least every two years. When she had stumbled onto the beehive of activity in the studio lot beside the Archives building, she learned that the cast, crew, and technicians were getting together to produce the seventh movie. All of them made money, in fact the article stated that only Star Wars had been more popular with the movie going public. Out loud, Dorina said “No small potatoes, that Wayne character was discussing.

  Details about H.R. Lewandowski’s empire and hints about his private life continued. “Starwind-Voyage of the Enlightened,” the third Portals movie hit theaters during the summer of 1993. Post production was accomplished at the brand new “Vortex,” his huge underground soundstage and special effects laboratory. Apparently, the exact location of the complex was secret and only employees of Mr. Lewandowski’s production company “Merlin’s Lair” had access. Most industry insiders and Portals series enthusiasts agree that it lies east of San Bernardino, in the desert.

  Forbes magazine listed H.R. Lewandowski as one of the fifty richest men in America during 2001. The article detailed how investors line up to help bankroll his new projects because the rate of return is practically guaranteed and lucrative. Many of the newest cinematic special effects techniques were developed and perfected at “Merlin’s Lair” and the organization pioneered digital film making by installment six of the series: “Zeus Revisited.” It became the first major studio release to have been completed without using even one can of traditional celluloid film.

  The last section of the website offered ideas and insight about the enduring popularity of the Portals series. Storylines pursued in the movies were usually conceptual and thought provoking and featured unforgettable characters such as rogue knight Zephyr Mnemnon, High Priestess Alhambrina, and Cleric Matthew. Each new installment somehow managed to stand as its own independent little universe. Critics often remarked that “the uninitiated, who had never seen a minute of s Portals movie, could still thoroughly immerse themselves in the action of the newest installment as a new and original story. When a new Portals movie was released, video rentals of the previous chapters boomed, presumably because all the new fans obtained would want to see what they’d missed previously.

  In short, it was resounding success on a grand scale.

  Dorina exited the website and closed the browser window. Her cat, Samantha jumped onto her lap as she checked her personal email accounts again. As she petted the feline creature gently, she looked down and said “Well Sam, it looks like mommy’s going to make another visit to that studio back lot.” The cat blinked at her and then closed her eyes, settling into the soothing feel of her owner’s touch.