by David Smith
Just then, as Blain was now walking alongside the canoe—and parallel to where Laura and Malaysia were sitting—holding the rope in his hand, another canoe guide came up to him and said, “Blain-O…your break.”
Malaysia had been looking up from her seat at Blain and instantly felt defeated again. Here, another guy was going to take their canoe. Malaysia felt like saying, ‘Wait! Stop the canoe. I want off.’
“Tell you what, Alan, give yourself a little extended break yourself,” Blain said. “I feel like taking one more trip.”
“Okay by me,” Alan said, shrugging and turned walking back down the length of the dock in the opposite direction.
Smiling at Malaysia who was still turned looking back at him, Blain suddenly, with a strong move, pulled the canoe forward very quickly as Darren jumped into the front of the canoe. Just before the end of the dock, Blain very athletically, jumped onto the back seat. In one fluid motion, he sat down onto the small square rear seat, while simultaneously pulling out the large paddle that was wedged between his seat and the side of the canoe rail. With a quick motion, Blain took several long strokes, getting the canoe out into the middle of the river.
“You didn’t think I would leave you all alone back here, did you?” Blain said leaning forward speaking in a soft tone into the ear of Malaysia.
Malaysia turned and smiled; she was only a few inches from his face. “I was hoping you were coming too,” she said. Laura turned and stared at her sister with a ‘what the…?’ look written across her face.
“Do I detect a strong accent?” Blain said, as Darren, in the front of the canoe, was showing the other guests in the canoe how to hold the paddle. “Don’t tell me,” Blain said, holding up a finger. “I’m going to guess Swiss.”
“Wow, very good!” Malaysia said actually impressed, catching a glance of her sister next to her just shaking her head. “How did you guess?” Suddenly, Malaysia wondered if Blain had recognized her, even through their disguise of sunglasses, hat and dark hair.
“We have a couple girls who work here in merchandise who are from Switzerland,” Blain said. “Exchange students, I think.” Blain paused, taking a few more strokes with his paddle. Laura was starting to follow the lead of the guests in front of her, reaching forward with the wide end of her paddle and pulling back, trying to keep in rhythm with the person in front of her. Malaysia had yet to take a stroke. “I’m Blain, by the way,” Blain mentioned.
Malaysia suddenly was stuck. What do I tell him? She thought quickly to herself. “Oh, hi Blain. This is my sister Laura.” Laura glanced back and nodded indiscriminately to Blain.
Laura was thinking to herself: Okay sis, what name are you going to come up with?
“My name is Missy, Missy Johansen” Malaysia lied, figuring if she introduced herself as Malaysia, her little day of being incognito would probably be over. Blain reached forward between the girls, offering his hand as Malaysia turned slightly and shook his hand between her and her sister. Laura just kept paddling.
“Nice to meet you, Missy. You too, Laura,” Blain said shaking Malaysia’s hand. Laura didn’t turn towards Blain and just continued paddling. For a moment, they didn’t let go. It was just like earlier, holding the paddle Blain had handed her earlier. There was something unexpected, something riveting Malaysia’s hand to Blain’s. She felt something in his grip, it was almost like someone was whispering in her ear and she was using her hand to hear every secret word. Yet, she was also realizing that for no reason at all, she simply didn’t want to let go.
Finally, Blain did let go as he had to use his paddle to steer the canoe as they were making a slight right-hand turn in the river.
For a while no one spoke, Malaysia sifting through her emotions, wondering what she even saw in this total stranger working at Disneyland…other than, of course, his intriguing green eyes, tan muscular arms, and blonde hair about the same color as her own—when it wasn’t dyed brunette as it was at this moment—and just a striking, charismatic look about the man.
“Uh, Missy, just what do you think you are doing?” Laura whispered in Swiss-German to her sister, leaning in close to Malaysia who was now paddling with her.
Malaysia turned toward her sister. “Shh. I’m just having fun.”
“How in the heck…?” Laura was at a loss for words. She was amazed and thoroughly amused at how this guy, ‘Blain,’ suddenly acted like he had known or seen Malaysia before. “He doesn’t know about who you are…?”
“Shhh. No! I don’t think so,” Malaysia whispered in Laura’s ear.
Behind them, Blain was bewildered at the seemingly strange banter between the two girls. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he knew it might have something to do with him.
“Um, Missy, Laura…Am I missing something here?” Blain asked, taking some good strokes with his paddle, but making it look very leisurely.
“Oh, I’m sorry, uh, Blain,” ‘Missy’ said, turning around again, facing Blain. “My sister doesn’t speak English all that well. I needed to tell her…uh, something about this ride,” Malaysia stammered.
Suddenly, Laura reeled off a few sentences in their native Swiss-German dialect, directed at Malaysia.
“Um, she said you have very pretty eyes,” Malaysia lied, her sister actually telling her to not start something she couldn’t finish.
“Thank you,” Blain said, enunciating the words very slowly towards Laura.
“You’re welcome,” Laura said in perfect, almost sarcastic English.
“Wow, you learn quickly!” Blain said with a smile.
“I’m working on it,” Laura said again in perfect English, not even trying to sound European.
For a while, the canoe trip was one of sight-seeing for the girls and Blain being a polite tour guide.
“The Indian Village you see there,” Blain said, pointing to the teepees on their left as the canoe rounded the back side of the Island, “Those are some of the original teepees that Walt Disney had put in back in 1955, when Disneyland first opened. Of course, they were in a part of the park that featured real live Indians doing tribal dances, ceremonies and other ‘Indian’ things,” Blain said.
Darren, the front guide, also occasionally stood up and narrated along parts of the river. The whole trip, Malaysia imagined Blain’s eyes looking directly into the back of her head, sensing he could see through the fake hair color and even her fake name. She was glad she had on a baseball cap, now being very conscious of someone looking closely at her. She suddenly felt that her temporary dye was as obvious as an eighty-year old dying her gray hair flaming red.
The canoe continued around the Island, coming out now into Frontierland. It was quite a sight after being surrounded by trees on both sides of the river for most of the trip. There were thousands of people in front of them.
“Wave at all your fans,” Blain said, looking out over the expanse of people moving in all directions beyond the seawall.
“What?” Malaysia said quicker than she had intended. Her idea of ‘fans’ was far different than what Blain had intended. But she didn’t know that. Does he recognize me? Malaysia wondered to herself again.
“Fans…look around,” Blain said, using his arm to emphasis the vista. “We are out here in the middle of the river, almost by ourselves. Look at all the people watching us.”
Malaysia looked around and then thought about the first time she spotted Blain when she and Laura were sitting on the bench. She was catching on to what Blain was referring.
“It’s like we are on stage,” Blain continued, pausing to wave at some of the tourists taking a picture of their canoe. “A moving stage, perhaps, but still a stage,” Blain said, emphasizing his point by patting the canoe gunwales with his hand.
“Oh, I see,” Malaysia said, suddenly feeling exactly like she did when she was indeed on stage; people were looking at them from across the river. She saw the people with cameras, just as she would observe when she was on HER stage performing.
; “Well, at least for me, anyway,” Blain explained, shrugging. “I play lead guitar for a band with a few other musicians that work here…and this—out here—always reminds me of being up on stage playing for people.”
Malaysia smiled to herself. I understand completely, she thought, thankful that Blain couldn’t see the broad smile on her face or read her mind. Laura was almost laughing out loud next to her, covering her mouth, pretending to stifle a cough.
“Wow, I’ve never seen so many people in one place, I don’t think,” Malaysia lied, playing the role as a sheltered tourist from a small town somewhere in Switzerland. “Where we live, we have only a few thousand people, and they are spread out over a pretty large expanse of land.”
“Is this your first time to Disneyland?” Blain asked, wondering to himself why he hadn’t asked them sooner.
“Yes. Actually first time to the United States,” Malaysia revealed. “The cities here are very large. They remind me of our Capital, Bern…but Bern is still much smaller than what we have seen here and in Los Angeles where we flew in to.”
“Yeah, too many people here if you ask me,” Blain said dryly.
“Don’t like the crowds all that much?” Laura asked, turning around and speaking for the first time in quite a while.
“No,” Blain said, bluntly. “Oh, I like playing some of the clubs around the various cities, especially the beach cities. But, I certainly don’t plan to stay here that long,” Blain explained.
Malaysia nodded, understanding. She too didn’t like crowds, and even though she was awed by the large areas she had seen in the short time she and Laura had been in the U.S., she too could see that such congestion could become tiresome.
Their canoe was making the wide turn in front of New Orleans Square, the point in the river where Blain had first seen ‘Missy’ sitting on the bench.
“There it is,” Blain said casually.
“There what is?” Malaysia turned and asked, looking at Blain.
“The bench…where I first saw you sitting, silly,” Blain said pointing towards the bench with the blade of his paddle…as if the bench was now elevated to national monument stature because of their presence on it earlier.
Following where he was pointing, Malaysia was touched by this memory. Here she was, a famous music star, stared at by countless fans—men and women, boys and girls—and she had never, ever, had that moment of seeing someone and being drawn into them as she suddenly had been with Blain. Even though she knew that there was no hope of taking this chance-meeting any further, she was still moved by his pointing out the place where they had first made eye contact.
Laura turned and looked at Malaysia as if seeing her for the first time. She too looked up at the bench and actually smiled, remembering the two of them sitting there earlier; at the moment, the bench was now occupied by an older couple.
“What made you look over at the bench, anyway?” Malaysia asked, curious.
“It wasn’t the bench I was looking at,” Blain corrected her, smiling. “It was two very pretty girls obviously enjoying whatever it was you were eating, and, quite frankly,” Blain rubbed his chin for a moment, “to be perfectly honest, I don’t really have a clue.”
Malaysia laughed out loud. “Well, I like your honesty!”
Blain smiled. Their canoe was approaching the canoe dock. Darren stood up and instructed everyone to take their paddles and stand them up inside the canoe, and to keep their arms, hands and fingers inside the canoe as they approached the dock. He asked them to remain seated until the canoe came to a stop inside the dock. Blain steered the canoe expertly into the narrow channel, the sides of the canoe barely grazing the rubber-coated wooden sides as it slid into the dock.
As Blain stood up and stepped out of the slowing canoe, Malaysia looked up a little dejectedly, knowing that Blain was going to go on another trip—or take a break—and she and Laura would be heading out to other parts of the Park.
The canoe came to a stop and Blain put his foot against the rail to hold the canoe firm against the sides of the dock. He reached out and took Laura’s hand and helped her out of the canoe first, then reached for Malaysia’s hand. She took his hand and, before stepping out, locked eyes with Blain again, much as she had when they first shook hands.
“I, uh, hope you both have a very magical day. It was so nice to meet you, Missy. And you too, Laura. Your English is getting so much better,” Blain said with a wink.
Laura let a grin escape her lips before putting her paddle into the box. Malaysia stood beside Blain for a moment, letting the other exiting guests walk around her. Very slowly, Malaysia put her paddle into the box with the others and started to walk towards the exit.
“Let’s go, MISSY,” Laura said, emphasizing her sister’s newly fictitious name. “I really want to go on Splash Mountain.”
“Thank you, Blain,” Malaysia said stopping for another moment, seemingly oblivious to her sister’s request. She then added quietly with a sincere smile, “Hope to see you again.”
“Now that would indeed be magical,” Blain said, smiling.
Tom Sawyer Island is truly the only part of Disneyland that Walt Disney single-handedly designed himself.
Jim Korkis, in his book, The Vault of Walt
CHAPTER 10
Moving Day
Saturday, December 3, 1966
3:15am
Nathan saw the high voltage power line lying against the concrete curb, the end of the wire flicking bright sparks of electrical heat that resembled a plume of burning embers streaming from a dynamite fuse.
The power line was leaping haphazardly, appearing more like a sinewy black hose with water being sprayed out its dancing end. However, instead of harmless water being ejected, the emerging sparks represented something totally different: death. Nathan watched as his father moved towards the dancing snake, seemingly wanting to tame the beast. For some reason, Nathan’s father had a can of beer in both hands. Nathan watched him put the beer cans down on the edge of the curb and then, with a look of determination etched on his face, Nathan’s Dad started for the live wire.
“Dad, your gloves,” Nathan heard himself yell. There was noise filling his father’s ears; a chain saw idling nearby. Paul Duncan couldn’t hear the warning. Instead of moving away from the power line, Paul quickly reached out with his foot and stepped on it, trapping the line as if it were a leash on a run-away dog. He bent down and grasped the wire with his bare hands, holding the end away from his face as it moved and jumped at him, trying to bite him, trying to kill him.
Nathan watched his father subdue the unruly line. Nathan relaxed his shoulders, realizing that his father had the line under control. It was in the very next moment that Nathan screamed at his father. A second electrical line now danced around Paul’s feet. The line, a sibling to the first, jumped three feet in the air and attacked Paul’s body like a hissing snake, driving sparks into the flesh around his midsection.
“No!” Nathan heard himself scream, watching the scene play out in slow motion; the wire on the ground arced up and grabbed at Paul’s side, causing him to loosen his grip on the line in his hand. In a desperate moment, Paul reengaged his grip, tightening not on the harmless outer coating of the wire as he had before but on the very end of the sparking line. Electrical impulses in his body were suddenly initiated, causing the muscles in his hand to contract violently closing even tighter around the deadly end. In a moment’s time, Paul saw his fingers clenching tight, an autonomic contraction that he could not control.
In the last moment before death, Nathan watched his father’s eyes widen, first in pain and then in fear.
Paul collapsed at the curb, landing face down in a pile of branches and leaves.
Using a wooden stake, Nathan desperately tried to pry the one wire off his father’s side, finally knocking the line away with the end of the stick. He jabbed the stick under his father’s side and pushed him over onto his back. Suddenly, from Nathan’s perspective, Paul Duncan was no longer
wearing his blue jeans and plaid, Pendleton work shirt. Nathan looked confused. He now saw his father wearing white pants and a white shirt. It was then Nathan saw with perplexed recognition that it was no longer Paul Duncan lying dead on the curb.
Nathan looked at the face of the dead man and saw it was his own.
Nathan sat bolt upright in bed, his pillow covered in his sweat. The dream was vivid and in color. He looked down at his right hand and saw that his skin was red as if he had been clenching something tightly. He felt his side.
It was hot to his touch.
5:05am
Just after five in the morning, Nathan drove his small, flat-bed landscaping golf cart all the way around from the landscaping office to the building under the lockers. He remembered thinking how strange it was that “Cash Control” was a building right under the men’s locker room when he was first hired. Now, it worked to his advantage, at least as far as the plan he had in place went.
The day before, Nathan had seen his next-day’s ‘to-do’ list. What his landscaping foreman, Willie Riggio, had slated for him fit perfectly for the plan he had for today. It was as if everything was already designed for him. He felt like he had been given a detailed list of plans and instructions on how to execute those plans. While the pendant’s vision had only lasted a few moments, the clarity of those images seemed to come to Nathan more and more each day, with each night’s dream, each vision was built on the previous. And each dream seemed to lead him to the promise of great wealth.
Except for this morning’s dream; Nathan chose to push that dream from his conscious memory.
