Hidden Mickey 5: Chasing New Frontiers

by David Smith

  Her disappointment was short lived.

  “Hey, if you guys like to dance or just hang out listening to music, come by tonight.” Blain reached into the folder he was holding. He produced a full color flier that promoted the band, SECOND EXIT at the Caper’s Club. There was a little map in the corner of the flier showing the location along with a picture of the band prominent in the center. “We are playing at a club just down the street from here.”

  “Thanks Blain!” Malaysia said, taking the flyer. She looked at Blain in the picture, a white Fender Stratocaster guitar hanging around his neck. “You look good in this,” Malaysia said, her lips curled in an irresistible smile.

  “Thanks Missy! I would love to stay and talk, but I really do have to go. I don’t know if you can make it, but I’d love to see you there.” Blain felt he was being pulled in two directions: he didn’t want to leave the girls again, knowing the chances of them coming to the club were probably next to nil but also knowing he was going to be late for the sound check if he didn’t get moving.

  Malaysia and Blain held each other with their eyes, both sensing something that was beyond just visual attraction. Finally Blain tilted his head. “I do need to run.”

  “I know,” Malaysia said softly, understanding his predicament. “You better hurry.”

  Blain turned to go. He stopped and turned back. “I’m really glad I ran into you guys.”

  Even though he was not a lip-reader, Blain saw Malaysia lip the words, “Me too.”

  “He was just a guy from Missouri who believed in his stuff and never gave up. To me, [Walt Disney] represented someone who, against a lot of odds, made a place in the world that was his, forever.”

  Frank Gehry, Architect of the Disney Hall

  CHAPTER 12

  A Death in the Family

  Thursday, December 15th, 1966

  5:30am

  With the bags of money safely hidden and Lynie officially on “medical leave,” Nathan came into the Park on Thursday, December 15th, with a plan. Unfortunately, he didn’t know something about this day: two people were going to die today: Nathan and one other. For those who were old enough, the date would be remembered specifically not because of Nathan dying, but because of the one whose death would be announced several hours before Nathan eventual demise. For millions, the day would be just like three years earlier when President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas: everyone would remember where they were and what they were doing that exact moment they heard this morning’s news for as long as they lived.

  Every day since he had hidden the canvas bags twelve days ago, Nathan came to work with a different sense of perception around him. Even though he had no idea the amount of money that was contained in the bags, he looked at everyone as if they knew what he had already done. He felt like a fugitive, but not yet wanted. The missing money had not yet been figured out. Because of changes in the daily accounting sheets the night before, the bags of money, for all practical purposes, never existed. Nathan was smart enough, however, to know that when it came to the monthly audit, there would be a discrepancy in the books.

  A large discrepancy.

  But for now, Nathan was riding on an emotional high. The only time he felt any emotion—other than what he felt while stealing—was when the girl working in the Tiki Room, Lynette, paid attention to him last fall. Rumors had it that Lynette had heard that Nathan ‘came from a lot of money.’ The story had materialized when someone heard that Nathan’s mother was to receive a large settlement resulting from her ex-husband’s accidental electrocution three years earlier. Lawyers for the company who had hired Paul Duncan to remove the trees, however, made the discovery that Paul Duncan had drunk four beers prior to the accident. That evidence mitigated Paul’s wife’s chances for a legal victory and forfeited any possible settlement to the family.

  Out went any chance of a substantial settlement. And eventually, Lynette ignored Nathan.

  Nathan would have enjoyed showing Lynette this new found wealth, although the exact amount of wealth, Nathan had yet to determine since he only had time to hide the bags, not examine their contents.

  But, right this moment, Nathan now felt both like the King of the World…and like a lowly cockroach, having to hide from the light.

  Nathan had talked once to his “Lynie,” assuring her the money was safe and that he would retrieve it for them after today. Today was going to be a very big day, he promised her. He had no idea how easy things were going to be.

  However, like the proverbial hammer, something was going to fall.

  Unfortunately, like drugs, the thrill of getting away with something is usually short lived. The high was always relative to the difficulty or the item’s worth that Nathan was stealing. But, within a day or even a number of hours, paranoia would set in and take the place of the exciting rush he felt immediately after the plan had been executed. Especially now, since what he stole was hidden here at Disneyland and that Disneyland was not only Nathan’s ‘victim,’ but also his employer and now “benefactor.” Thus, the paranoia and the fear were doubly acute.

  Since the first part of his plan, the stealing and hiding the bags of money, was completed successfully less than two weeks ago, Nathan was just now starting to feel the air of paranoia lifting. In fact, he was feeling more and more confident that his plan was fool-proof and that he would soon be a very rich man. Technically, Nathan was now a rich man since he—and he alone—knew where the bags of money were hidden. Of course, he didn’t know how rich he might be nor would he know until he could smuggle the bags out of the Park. But, indeed, Nathan wanted to believe that he was a very rich man.

  And, he was…for a very short period of time.

  That morning on December 15th, however, Nathan felt a strange sensation, a premonition of sorts. He had actually seen this day coming several months ago, but he didn’t associate that one of the visions he had received from the pendant was specific to this day. He just knew that when the day came—as projected by the vision—he would then recognize it, just as he had recognized the vision of the money bags once he was in the reality of the situation. Later this morning, Nathan would realize the validity of that, and several other visions.

  Nathan clocked in at five-thirty on the morning of December 15th. He had walked into Harbor House, the timecard shack where he had pulled his card from the rack of thousands of others, each grouped within their particular area or job description, and punched in by pushing the card into a mechanical time-clock printer. He left Harbor House and proceeded to walk down along the sidewalk, under the train trestle which the Disneyland-Santa Fe Railroad cars would pass across during the Park’s operating hours, and then turned to his right, crossing the access road to the newly built Cast Member locker rooms that sat above the Cash Control office. Once inside the locker room, Nathan stood alone in front of his narrow locker. At a little past 5:30 AM the locker room was essentially vacant. Within the quietness of the room, surrounded by hundreds of similar lockers, Nathan changed into his white landscaping costume. The only contrasting color on the costume was the blue-trimmed triangular patch that had the words “Disneyland Landscaping” embroidered in bright yellow letters against a royal blue background that was sewn on the right side of his shirt. He pinned his “Nate” nametag on the opposite side of the patch and passed the mirror without even a glance. Had he bothered to look, he would have seen his pin was on crooked and his oily hair didn’t look any different than when he woke up that morning.

  He didn’t care what he looked like, really. In his mind he didn’t really exist in the eyes of others. His slender frame was the polar opposite of his father, making him think he was adopted…a claim that his mother denied many times since Nathan was old enough to understand the concept and ask. He had acne scars from his teen years, something that would have bothered him had he shown interest in girls as a teenager. It didn’t bother him at all. The only women in his life, up until working at Disneyland, were his sister, Evelyn, and his mother
. There was the one other woman, Lynette Collins, the one who worked on the Tiki Room attraction. For a while, people thought for the first time that Nathan Duncan might actually have a girlfriend. What started quick ended quicker, it seemed, to the few people that actually even noticed Nathan with Lynette.

  Since then, Nathan paid little attention to the many attractive girls working at Disneyland. There was a saying at Disneyland that went, “If you can’t get a date working at Disneyland…you can’t get a date.”

  Even with Lynette Collins, it was well-known among those who worked in Landscaping that Nathan Duncan had never had a date.

  Nathan chose that morning to walk down Main Street instead of catching a ride on one of the maintenance vehicles going around to the back of the Park where the landscaping offices were. Nathan was early for his 6:00am shift, and walking through the Park when it was uninhabited had a soothing effect on him for some reason; the emptiness quieted his inner voices.

  Entering the southern hub at Town Square from between the Opera House and the Wurlitzer Piano and Organ shop, Nathan stopped and looked across the street. The tall flag pole rose from a small, triangular flower garden in the center of Town Square, though at this early morning hour, the pole contained no flag. The flag would be raised during the ritual morning ceremony with the small Disneyland Band playing the National Anthem followed by the raising of the American Flag. The long-silenced and capped Civil War cannons were poised at either end of the Square—one pointing east, the other west—each near the two entrance tunnels that were the symbolic embarkation points for guests leaving their world of reality behind and entering Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Nathan took in the raw vacancy of Main Street for a moment. He turned and gazed north viewing the empty street where the Main Street shops funneled visually toward the majestic Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at the opposite end. The nightly steam-cleaning of the concrete streets and walks had been completed much earlier. Only a few puddles remained in low-lying areas. Those remaining puddles would be mopped dry before the Park opened.

  The morning sky was gray, not like a pending storm, but a dreary, mottled sky where low hanging clouds seemed to almost touch the spires of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. The gloom seemed to enhance the strange feeling that Nathan was still feeling. In fact, the feeling in his stomach seemed to be stronger, not lessened by his entry into the empty Park this day.

  Nathan passed the fifty-five foot Christmas tree that stood at the opposite side of the Town Square from the flag pole, the tree marking the very entrance of Main Street where each half of the circular street around the hub converged into one. Nathan paused and looked over at the Christmas tree; his eyes followed the assortment of ornaments up to a gold star perfectly seated atop the pine. He looked beyond the tree and glanced to the right, across the hub, where the Fire Station and City Hall buildings were. Upstairs, on the second floor above the Fire Station, there was a window where a small electric lamp sat on a table just behind a thin, off-white lace window covering. This window, Nathan now knew, was part of the small apartment that Walt and his wife Lilly lived in when they were at Disneyland; it overlooked Town Square.

  Today would be the second time Nathan would be in the apartment.

  Looking into the window of the apartment, Nathan saw that the little lamp inside the window was not on.

  Nathan tilted his head slightly as he stared at the window. Most everyone that worked at Disneyland knew that the lamp usually identified when Walt Disney himself was in the Park. If the lamp was lit, he was here; off, he was gone. This is good, Nathan thought. His plan today was to get back inside Walt Disney’s apartment, open the gramophone’s secret door, and pocket the exquisite red diamond pendant and chain.

  But this time, he would leave with the pendant, and then, leave the Park for good.

  Yet today, with the extinguished light saying Walt Disney was gone, Nathan felt a shiver go up his arms as he pondered that statement; it was a different shiver than being cold. Yes, it was cool this morning, especially this early. But within the shiver Nathan felt there was something else. He shook his head and said that Walt being gone was indeed a good omen, from his perspective, of course.

  Nathan had no idea that the great Walt Disney would be gone for good in less than four hours.

  Nathan began walking slowly up the empty Main Street; it always felt strange when the Park was not yet open, and when the sidewalks were void of excited guests. No one yet admiring the intricate and detailed window displays at the Main Street Emporium nor anyone selling Mickey Mouse balloons or cotton candy. There weren’t any children excitedly asking parents what rides they could go on first. Nathan continued down the center of the street, passing the Magic Shop on his right and the Penny Arcade on his left. He was walking in the middle of the street, subconsciously walking between the rail tracks of the horse-drawn trolley; the tempered steel tracks embedded in the gray concrete street seemed today to represent a path for Nathan to follow. Lost in his thoughts, Nathan put his head down, hiding his eyes from the ghosts of tourists past. He tugged at the bill of his standard-issue landscaping cap, pulling it down lower on his forehead and followed the steel trail at his feet.

  6:20am

  A little later, after Nathan picked up his tools from the Landscaping office, he began to tackle items on his daily checklist. Normally, Nathan was a tree trimmer, using tall ladders, harnesses, the cherry picker and other tools to trim back the more than 1200 trees that filled Disneyland. Today, however, the duties Willie Riggio left him on his clipboard were to trim bushes backstage near the cast member’s locker rooms, rake the small planters near the entrance to Disneyland University, and to prune the rose bushes that lined the administration and security offices.

  Backstage, Nathan looked out across the open parking area for managers and those who worked in the administration offices. With the Park opening in about an hour, the backstage area was coming alive with various cast members emerging from the locker rooms, walking to areas in the Park or other backstage areas like Cash Control, where those working in Merchandise or Outdoor Vending would pick up their opening tills. Nathan watched the procession of young people in various themed costumes seeing the variety of both people and the themed costumes each wore. Most of the employees walked in groups of two or more and Nathan watched as the Cast Members were talking amongst themselves as they always did walking from wardrobe to lockers or from lockers to their ride or show area in the Park. It seemed even the cast members had a clouded, subdued demeanor…as if they too could sense something in the air; not like the sort of electricity like that which those in Southern California felt when the Santa Ana winds blew the hot, dry air in from the desert. No, it was more like a cold, dead perception that Nathan just couldn’t put his finger on. On this overcast winter day, Nathan knew that something was just not right.

  Nathan first started understanding his feelings when he heard rumors percolate through the Park around ten that morning. What seemed at first to be just some cast members talking in hushed whispers, Nathan had been one of the first to hear the news from a reliable source.

  Nathan was working backstage along the outside of the administration offices, snipping bare rose buds or ‘dead heads’ from the narrow garden that lined the side of the buildings below the windows of the managers who ran and managed Disneyland. Under an open window of one of the manager’s offices, Nathan was carefully pruning the thorny rose plants back wearing thick gloves and putting the snipped buds and stems in a plastic five-gallon bucket. Standing up and stretching his back, he glanced in the open window of the office above him, and saw a blond-haired man he didn’t recognize talking to Joe Fowler, the man who Walt Disney had recently put in charge of his Florida Theme Park project, and Dick Nunis, the manager of Frontierland at Disneyland. Nathan knew the other two men from his initial training that all employees went through before being trained for their specific ‘roles’ in the park. The blond-haired man, however, he had never seen. But the non-verbal respect that Fowle
r and Nunis seemed to be offering the mysterious man led Nathan to believe the man was held in high esteem. All three men looked as if they hadn’t slept in weeks and the blond-haired man was holding a crinkled handkerchief that he brought up to the corners of his eyes on occasion. Nathan ducked back down below the window sill, listening to the partially muted conversation that filtered out through the window that was cracked open a few inches. He continued to prune the plants but his focus was catching the words that were being spoken from inside the office. While most of the conversation was lost on him, Nathan heard the blond-haired man utter three words that were unmistakable.

  “Walt has died.”

  “We were all sworn to secrecy about this area, ‘Anaheim’, and I remember thinking, ‘these people are crazy…we’re 30 to 40 miles from the city in a sleepy backwoods. Who’s going to come way out here?’ How wrong I was!”

  Art Linkletter in the Foreword of Mouse Tales

  CHAPTER 13

  Rock and Roll

  Saturday Night, June 24th, 2010

  9:35pm

  The band SECOND EXIT had the Saturday evening “Caper’s” crowd going as they did almost every time they played. Blain, on lead guitar, was obviously the front-man of the band, introducing the majority of the songs they played, making announcements, and playing to the crowd. The selection of music, the fun mix of band members—all but one being employees of Disneyland—and the quality of their cover tunes, all contributed to a full club and the lively atmosphere, something that the owners always appreciated.