The child touting cook, he smiled, nodded his head, and then flicked his cigarette butt into the distance. Waiting for his co-worker to finish his smoke, he kicked a couple rocks away from him. Once his friend was finished, the two Chinese men entered the back door of the restaurant, disappearing from view.
Excess hamburgers were piled to the top of the remaining garbage can. The bums were stocking up for the week. Mice scurried from under the dumpsters. Birds were drinking from puddles formed by water dumped out from kitchens. There was piss splattered where the buildings met the pavement.
Swallowing hard, Brittney said, “Yuck!”
“Totally,” Barb said. A bird flew by with half a bun in its beak. It dropped a crumb that landed on Barb. “Not cool!” she said, wiggling her arm. The piece of food fell down to the pavement. A mouse ran up to the bread and snatched it, running away before Barb could know what happened.
The heist had gone well, a treasure of materialistic belongings for their stash.
“Drama Dolls Strike Again!” the inner voice of conquering reason said.
Barb locked gaze with Brittney, their hearts beating heavy. Gasping for air, they nodded, the Dolls’ real lips building to smiles. Masks on top of their heads, the plastic faces crumpled, looking up to the stars. Empty eye holes stared into nothing.
“Great work, Barb.”
“You too, Brittney.”
Crumbling gravel in the distance startled them. Nodding their heads sharply down, each mask slipped to the respective cheerleader’s chin. The getaway car, a black Buick LeSabre boat, crept around the corner, its headlights turned off. It was purring through the night. The large body fit just enough in the alley for the car’s doors to open.
In the backseat were bags filled with necklaces, bracelets, loop earrings, and stud earrings. The bags had tiaras, rings, and chokers. A Pearl Drop Tattoo choker was sticking out of the top of one bag. The bits of jewelry, they were the lifted contents the cheerleader Dolls had to sort through later. Prior heists that also went as planned.
Slouching against the door in the backseat was a passed out Drama Doll. Her body, it was limp and hunched down. Her head fallen into the window. Uniform wrinkled, the shirt was scrunched up halfway over her torso so you could see her navel ring. Shaven legs from the knees down; blade cuts were a music staff without notes. Thighs were a smooth satin. The doll wore spotless white shoes. Her right one untied.
The passenger side door swung open. Leaning over into the front passenger seat, Lena screamed, “Get in!” The Doors played softly out of the speakers. Melancholy keyboards complementing the guitar riffs.
Masks positioned, Brittney and Barb tossed the loot into the car. Sliding up against the bags in the backseat, Barb made herself as comfortable as she could. Squeezing in pushed the passed-out Drama Doll’s head farther into the window. The mask was looking ghostly through the glass. Staring out toward the direction of the heist, Barb said, “Let’s go!”
Birds flew off with hamburger buns. Soaring in front of the car, through the windshield, the cheerleaders could see bread crumbs dropping onto the street. A homeless man digging into a dumpster pulled out a chicken leg. Biting into the meat, his teeth pulled the skin from the bone. The vagrant swallowed his score and then scooped out taco meat with his hand, throwing the chunks into his mouth simultaneously with the dark meat.
Brittney and Lena looked at each other and winced. “Gross,” Lena said.
Her own plastic mask over her head, hair pulled back in a ponytail, Lena shifted into drive. Hands were covered in gloves around the steering wheel. On her feet were white cheerleader shoes. Her mini-skirt layered over a pair of runny pantyhose. Lena looked exactly like them – totally beautiful.
Observing the passed out, dolled up freak show, Barb said, “What’s with her?” Brittney stayed quiet. Although Lena stayed silent as well, she made a point to stare at Barb through the rearview. The silence in between the music urged Barb to repeat herself. “What’s with her?” she said, this time louder.
Speeding away, Lena remained quiet. Jim Morrison singing “Light My Fire.” Lena lip syncing Morrison through her mask. Her plastic lips rolling up and down to the words.
“Tired… she’s just tired,” Brittney said. Looking over at Lena, the air thickening from the discomfort, Brittney quickly changed the subject. Her thumb pointing over the seat, she said, “This is Barb. Barb, this is Lena.” Rubbing her ankle with her hand, the heat from the friction started to burn Brittney’s leg.
“Yea, we’ve meh-”
Clearing her throat, Lena cut Barb off. She craned her neck back and gave Barb a sharp, dirty look.
Outside the back car window, the alley was shrinking to the size of a faraway train tunnel. Eying Barb, the darkness hiding her gaze, Lena said, “Hi. Nice to meet you.”
Gazing out the window, avoiding Lena’s stare, Barb slid down in her seat. “A pleasure.”
Of course, Barb’s real name was William.
And Brittney’s was Jeffrey.
----------
Before the burglaries, William and Jeffrey would dress up as adult cheerleader Dolls in the comfort of their own homes. It wasn’t just them, though. There were adult cheerleaders as far as eternity. The beautiful thing about the World Wide Web was you could have a group of peppy cheerers leading rallies in the privacy of their bedrooms. A multitude of one-person pyramids toppling over to the ground. Kicking their legs up and standing like a statue with their arms straight up. The open curtain, open window, was the student body in the stands.
Behind the monitor screens, the Dolls simultaneously typed into the little chat box at the bottom of the website. Many of them shared stories throughout the day.
An online group for fetishes, William slowly blasted out emails to build his community - a community of adult Dolls who shared his passion for being beautiful. For being accepted.
William, he grew up obese and his skin was full of acne. His teeth were a row of baked beans. Pushed down into the dirt the beans were either straight or crooked, leaning toward the left of his face. Much of his childhood had been riddled with bad fortune. His self-esteem never blossoming.
Sitting on a playground bench, observing a girl as she combed the hair of her Barbie doll, William had seen the girl’s smile widen like the doll’s manufactured lips. Watching the young child hug her doll, kissing it as she held it in tightly, the overweight loner witnessed true happiness. Something he had never himself experienced. Now, he was trying to recruit others.
Jeffrey would gradually log in at random intervals to see the group’s posts. Most of the posts came from William. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, Jeffrey felt compassion toward William, who had wanted to be beautiful for so long.
Over time, members dropped out, disappeared, or grew out of the phase. The online community’s participation lessened. Posts reduced. There were only a handful of members commenting. Penis enlargement pills and discounted sex toys were the only advertisements being pimped out.
After a while, the membership dwindling, William and Jeffrey took their passion out to the real world. Decked out in full cheerleader outfits, the two visited retail stores, pricing out televisions and computer equipment. They shipped packages via ground through the post office. William and Jeffrey attended rock concerts. Experiencing the reactions from people made them feel important.
Dressing as Drama Dolls, sipping lattes at coffee houses, the stares fed into their sickness.
Eyes burning through their backs, snickering when the two cheerleaders passed by, after a while, the rush began to fade away. The people around them became artificial. As if William and Jeffrey were sitting behind a computer again.
To keep the momentum alive, Jeffrey suggested crimes. Not murders or assaults, nothing of the sort; rather, his plan involved home invasions. Stealing. Looting. For the rush, exhilaration.
This most recent burglary, a dozen’s worth of stash collected, was the beginning of the end for Jeffrey. It was the be
ginning of the end for the Drama Dolls.
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The getaway lasted the entire Doors album. “People Are Strange” going into “Break On Through” going into “Love Me Two Times,” the entire drive was a fog. The rawness of Robby Krieger’s riffs complementing Morrison’s vocals took Brittney back to a different time. A different life. A life before she met Her. It took her back to a life before the Drama Dolls.
The depth of Morrison’s voice was haunting at this hour. Ray Manzarek tickling the keys brought chills through the plastic coated figure’s spine. It didn’t help that the night was in full swing, allowing the drive to be pitch black at times.
Brittney looked over at Lena. The driver’s attention was fixed on the road ahead of them. The ghostly profiled mask, seemingly glowing in the night, brightened under each street light that the car passed.
Craning her neck into the backseat of the car, Brittney saw Emily slumped down into the seat. The car’s wheels rolling over bumps on the road caused the passed out doll’s neck to swivel. At times, her limp head bobbled as the Buick rolled into divots in the street. The movement of Emily’s neck accompanied Morrison’s voice as it echoed throughout the speakers. As if she was singing along.
Mixing in with passing intersections, parked cars, fire hydrants, and sidewalk cracks was Emily’s faint cheerleader face coming into focus through the car window’s reflection. The frightening image, coupled with the claustrophobia of the mask crowding Brittney’s face, her nostrils encumbered by thermoplastic polymer, caused her to fall in and out of a stupor.
----------
The Doors had entered Jeffrey’s life when high school graduation was within grasp. A group of friends, one whose father worked the graveyard shift, together they would hang out in Paul’s basement, drinking Milwaukee’s Best. Listening to his older brother’s music. Queen, Steve Miller, the Doors, they all were on constant rotation.
Paul’s mother lived in another state; a recent divorce resulting in Paul learning to “deal” with it.
Passing the time, the friends tossed empty aluminum cans into a pile. Miller singing “The Joker,” the late night chill sessions started with their core group of buddies. Poker hands dealt - seven card stud, five card draw - the games helped idle away the hours until it was time to sleep. Until it was time to repeat the cycle.
A half dozen kids avoiding the police in a relaxed state until adulthood.
Gradually, the monotony forced Paul to invite others. Football players, jocks from other lettered sports, high school cheerleaders, hippies, and underclassmen, they all came and went at their leisure. One night could see a dozen folks while other evenings could witness entire classrooms of students.
The basement crowd filtered into the living room, which then made its way into the attic. Students did their laundry when they spilled vodka and other identifiable liquids. There were semen stains that mixed in with cigarette ashes while the spin cycle ran. Random panties and boxer shorts fraternized with Paul’s clothes. Loose change, house keys, necklace charms, they all consorted in an ashtray to be collected later. As the parties continued, the lost and found emptied until the ashtray was used for its intended purpose, a dropping point for cigarette butts.
Pizzas were delivered in bulk. The driver becoming familiar with the gatherings, he would stop over after his shift. He became a regular, singing along with Freddie Mercury. Dancing along with the Doors. In uniform, jumping up and down while the music blasted, he hit the high notes in key. All the while, his plastic badge was being shuffled around the house. The pizza guy ruled “Fat Bottomed Girls.” A background filled with music lessons, the gang soon discovered. Those were the days Jeffrey was “normal.” The days before he met Her.
Now, anytime a Doors, or Queen, or Steve Miller song played, the confused and lost boy came out in Jeffrey. The internal dialogue, it said, “Break on through to the other side.”
----------
Lena slammed on the brakes. A wild squirrel running across the street. Coming out from her reverie, Brittney shook her head. “Sorry,” Lena said.
Fleeing the scene, with Brittney riding shotgun, each block looked the same. Houses in one area were dated back to Victorian times - a historical district. Queen Anne styled homes. Unbalanced facades covered by wraparound porches. Overhanging eaves with decorative support brackets. There were dentils around the roof outlines on a number of the houses. The Victorian homes, they had front-facing gables. Their towers, shaped like polygons.
Terraces made of brick, roofs from slate.
The Queen Anne houses were surrounded by brick roads. Uneven bricks with different shades. Red, orange, brown, they all mixed together to add class to the community. Driving into the block was driving into another time.
The cheerleaders drove by a pink, purple, and green-colored painted lady with a square tower as its focal point. The tower was perfectly centered. Behind it toward the back of the house, extending up to the heavens, was a colossal chimney. Wooden shingles to match the trim. The front porch’s balustrade was recently painted. One spindle replaced due to wood rot, its color standing out to those walking by.
An open-door event showcasing the homes’ interior was peddling donations for the neighborhood’s beautification project. “Help keep our neighborhood timeless.” There were signs posted in the yards of various houses. White cardboard canvases stapled to stakes in the ground.
Lena pointed to a sign. “We should go to that,” she said. In a plastic info tube, hanging from the wooden post, was a stack of flyers promoting the cause. “I would love to see the insides of these houses.”
Pulling over to the side of the road, shifting into park, Lena ran out to grab details. Handing the information to Brittney, she drove away. “Read it to me,” Lena said, her mouth forming a smile.
Scanning the leaflet, Brittney cleared her throat and offered out the information. “Designed by the same architect, the historic beauties are unique but share similar floorplans,” she said. Pulling the paper closer to her face, Brittney said, “Handcrafted plaster outlining the ceiling gives each house an identity. Although the design molded into the plaster is comparable, the custom imprints are often slightly skewed.” Where decorative plaster was nonexistent, there was embossed wallpaper covering the ceilings.
Inside the painted ladies, dumbwaiters were for showing off. Many of them were not functional. A few of the dumbwaiters on the block were boarded up, making them a novelty for guests.
The darkness made it difficult to read. Brittney slid her body, holding up the flyer, using the passing streetlights as illumination. “The back staircases, once used for the help, are, today, generally used for shortcuts to the back bedrooms or second routes to the upstairs.”
Busy wallpaper, filled with floral patterns primarily colored red or blue, spanned the walls of dining rooms and parlors. The curtains often matched the wallpaper’s pattern so that it flowed continually throughout the house. Made from fabric such as velvet or silk, Victorian era homes’ window dressings consisted of curtains, cornices, and valances. Holding the curtains back were cords and tassels.
Scanning the document, Brittney said, “The parlors were for entertaining. These rooms are where the family’s antique furniture shines. Ornate couches and chairs are a must in this room.”
Bedrooms were painted plain colors to complement the quarter’s use. Brittney, squinting to read the remaining information, said, “A boy’s room would typically be blue and a girl’s room would typically be pink.”
Barb, screaming over the front seat, said, “How is that any different than today?”
And Lena, excited with the opportunity to expand her tastes, said, “Can we go?”
Turning the flyer over to inspect the back, giving it a once over, Brittney flipped it back around so the information was in front of her. “What’s today?” Looking up to the dome light, a calendar forming in her brain, Brittney said, “We missed it. It was today.”
Lena’s body dropped.
Her mouth curled downward. Eyes on the road in front of her, she said, “Poopy.”
The Victorian era shrinking behind them, the Drama Dolls approached another neighborhood.
Lena pointed toward a row of Second Empire houses. Derived from architecture during the Second French Empire, the houses dated back to 1865. “Look at that one,” Lena said. Barb leaned in between the headrests, propping her elbows up on the bench of a seat, to catch a glimpse.
A steep mansard, or curbed roof, on top of a rectangular tower was as high as the tree in front of it. The tower, centered in the middle of the symmetrical home constructed from red brick, was topped with iron trim. “The brackets under the roof are amazing,” Lena said. Releasing her foot off the gas, the getaway car slowing down to a crawl, she said, “I can’t believe how ornate they are.”
Turning her head to admire the roof, Brittney said, “Corbels. Those are called corbels. They support the cornices of the roof – the ledges.” Folding the Victorian flyer in half, Brittney slid the piece of paper in the side door’s pocket.
Lena, impressed with Brittney’s knowledge of old architecture, counted the corbels as they passed. The speed of the car prohibited her from being successful, the elaborate brackets beginning to run together.
The clear black of the night, the space between each house, broke the monotony of the blurry supports. Next to the brick beauty was an abandoned house waiting to be rehabbed. Chipping at the paint, patches of dry rot needing repair, the empty house had a lot of work ahead.
The Second Empire’s roof shingles were falling over themselves. Some were dangling off the edges. Other shingles in the grass in the front of the dwelling. Two of the four columns that supported the porch were off their posts, with sturdy steel beams in their place. The columns, sanded down to their original wood, they were perched up against the house’s side.
The front porch was sagging on one end. The joists underneath needing reinforcement. A partial railing constructed, many of the rods were missing or rotted. A ceiling fan hanging from the porch roof appeared to be the only item in working condition.
Drama Dolls: A Novel: [Dark, Suspenseful, Fast-paced, Exhilarating] Page 2
