Read by Keleigh Wolf (first story in podcast, here)
Here’s the thing about my line of work: my telephone rings when everyone else’s stops. Times like this: late night, Christmas Eve. Everyone other than me is tucked up in bed or out getting into trouble. I’m listening to carols on the radio and waiting for a call. There’s always a call.
‘Hey, Alex?’ The voice at the other end of the line wasn’t asking. It was gearing up to give orders.
‘That’s me,’ I said, anyway. ‘What can I do for you, Eddie?’
Eddie was the Chief Operating Officer at one of the big studios, which meant he was the fixer when things went wrong with their stars. He had a good reputation; too good, as it turned out. Whenever the reporters saw him show up anywhere, they knew something had gone wrong. So there was a lot of work for independent contractors like me.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But it’s the festive season, so…’
‘Yeah, yeah. Double your money. And there’s one other thing.’
At that point, my doorbell rang.
‘In fact,’ Eddie continued, ‘that sounds like it’s arrived. Go get the door.’
I put the receiver down and went to answer the door. I looked through my peephole first, out of habit; there was a stack of two large boxes standing outside, supported by a thin pair of arms and a spindly set of legs. I opened up.
‘Can I put these down in your hallway, ma’am?’ said the courier.
‘Okay with me.’
The courier, a boy of seventeen or so, shuffled in and dropped the boxes in a heap. He stretched his arms experimentally like he’d just come off the rack. I noticed him notice me. I was from before his time, but a kid running errands for a Hollywood studio the night before Christmas has got to be a movie fan. His eyes widened as he figured it out; he looked around my tiny apartment as if to say ‘If it’s you, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in a big house on Sunset?’
‘It’s a long story. Stay there,’ I told him, and went back to the phone.
‘I don’t know your size,’ said Eddie. ‘I guessed. The big red suit’s for Jack.’
‘Hold on, what?’
‘Your disguises.’ Eddie was getting impatient. ‘That’s what’s in the boxes. You’ve gotta get Jack out of there without anyone noticing. Like last year.’
I knew where this was going. The year before, Jack Gillman, the leading man at Eddie’s studio, had got into a brawl during a movie screening in Grauman’s and been knocked out cold. Eddie reckoned that Jack just needed a nice lie-down somewhere without the publicity of a hospital stay, so he got me to put on a nurse’s cape, ride down to the theatre in an ambulance from a medical drama they were making, and smuggle Jack out on a stretcher with two extras dressed as orderlies. It went smooth as silk, and it stood to reason he’d try the same thing again. Only—
‘What d’you mean, big red suit?’
‘Can’t pull the ambulance trick twice. This is the sequel. All you need to do is put Jack in the Santa Claus outfit, get him on his feet, and walk him right out of there.’
‘Santa Claus?’
‘Yeah. Big guy with a beard. Flies around the world in one night. Gives out presents.’
That was the thing with Eddie. You could never tell if he was joking, or if he genuinely thought you were an idiot.
‘So if Jack’s in the Santa suit…’
‘Congratulations. You get to be an elf. Tip the boy. Those boxes are heavy.’
And he rang off.
I gave the boy my last couple bucks, and got into costume.
*
The Cocoanut Grove was the fancy club of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. It had opened back in the 1920s, and was still going strong a couple decades later; the ceiling was dark blue and pierced with bright little lights to resemble the desert sky, and the walls were lined with papier-mâché palm trees salvaged from an old Valentino picture. Except tonight, one of the palms was out of place. It was lying on the ground, and beneath it, hugging the furry monkey with electric-powered amber eyes that should have been sitting in the branches, was Jack Gillman.
If Jack had caused a sensation when he pulled the tree down on himself, along with a table and a whole heap of glasses and bottles, it had died down by the time I got there. There was a mixture of stars in velvet dresses and tuxedos milling around and keeping a discreet distance, waiting for Gus Arnheim and his orchestra to come back. My elf costume was hot and itchy; the temperature in LA rarely gets below 48 in December, even at night. The fabric smelled stale, like mildew; I wondered what picture it had been used for, and how long ago.
‘Babes in Toyland.’
I looked down at Jack, who was peering at me through the paper palm leaves.
‘Your get-up,’ he continued. ‘It’s from Babes in Toyland. Stan Laurel.’ He sat up, lifting the palm tree and setting the monkey to one side. ‘But you ain’t Stan Laurel.’
‘Correct. It’s Alex. We met before but you were knocked out.”
“Knocked out? No surprise, doll.”
“I’m here to take you home.’ I held out the Santa Claus outfit. ‘Get this on over your clothes. My car’s outside.’
*
‘Didn't you used to be in pictures?’ Jack asked as I pulled out from the curb. We’d made it out of the Ambassador and walked to my car past a line of photographers with not a single flashbulb going off. Jack’s face might have been on a couple hundred screens and a few thousand posters and magazine covers in that very town, but a fake belly and a big white beard meant no-one saw a thing.
‘In pictures?’ I replied. ‘Once upon a time.’
Jack wound down the window and let the breeze play over his beard.
‘Yeah,’ he said eventually. ‘I went to see a few of your movies. Back in the day.’ He frowned. ‘You don't sound funny. I heard you couldn't make it in talkies cause your voice sounded funny.’
‘As you can hear,’ I replied, ‘my voice is fine. It's just my face that people got tired of.’
‘This business,’ he shook his head. ‘It can end just like that.’
Jack was sobering up faster than I expected, but he wasn’t quite sober enough to successfully snap his fingers. I took the thought for the deed.
‘It’ll be over for me, soon,’ he added. ‘I got an ex-wife who hates me, an ex-ex-wife who hates me even more, a girlfriend who’s sick of me, a couple of flops. Is it any wonder I drink?’
‘Maybe not,’ I replied. ‘But maybe you’ve got cause and effect confused.’
His head whipped round. ‘What d’you mean? Why’d you say that?’
‘Experience, unfortunately.’
*
Jack’s mansion was dark. I helped him out of the passenger seat and we walked up the gravel driveway to the porch. I made to ring the bell, but he stopped me.
‘No need to wake up the maid,’ he said. ‘She puts up with enough from me.’
He fished around under his big red coat for the key and dropped it on the ground. I picked it up and opened the front door. At this point, I would normally have left him to it, but I wanted to make sure he didn’t fall over and knock his head open on anything. So I went in ahead of him, and felt around for a switch. I hit it and the grand entrance hall was flooded with light, playing on the wood panelling and the high ceiling, the grand staircase that swept up at the back. I’d managed to light up the Christmas tree. Jack stood in front of it, his Santa hat and beard dangling in one hand, just looking at the lights like he was hypnotised. His face was puffy, his eyes bloodshot. There was a lot you could do with a camera to cover that up, I thought, but he was right; it wasn’t going to work for much longer.
There was something about his expression. It was like he had just woken up, was existing in that precious moment of consciousness before the troubles of his life came rolling back in to claim his attention. Maybe that time before he’d even come to town, before becoming an actor, even. When he was a young boy who had glimpsed a bit of magic, and decided he was going to try and hold on to it, to figure out how it worked, to make it last forever.
I headed for the door; the movement caught his eye. He turned to me as if noticing me for the first time. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Here’s an idea. Why not stay? We could do Christmas together?’
I thought about it for a good while. Say ten seconds or so. Then I shook my head and walked.
As I went back to my car, I remembered one of the carols they had been playing on the radio just before Eddie called this evening: the hopes and fears of all the years. All the years: too many for me, almost too many for Jack. A whole load of fears. And still, and always, maybe just a little hope, twinkling like the fairy lights. Not very substantial, not even real, perhaps. But good to have around.
(c) Niall Boyce, 2022
Niall Boyce is back at Liars’ League after a gap of six years. He has previously written for Big Finish’s Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield anthologies, and advised on medical matters for books including The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who and Rivers of London: The Hanging Tree.
Keleigh Wolf is an American poet, performer, journalist & activist. She performs as Coco Millay with Poetry Brothel London & she also founded The Little Versed Poetry Collective, produces and hosts the Propaganda Poetry radio series, and is
Poet in Residence at Kabaret @ Karamel.
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