The Toyminator

17

By the time Jack clocked off from his first day at the Golden Chicken Diner, it had to be said that he was a firm believer in the power of the American Dream.

“Head chef?” said Dorothy as she clocked off in a likewise manner.

“Hard work, ambition and faithfulness to the company’s ethic,” said Jack, and almost without laughing.

Although Jack didn’t feel much like laughing. Jack felt anxious and all knotted up inside. Jack worried for Eddie. Feared for his bestest friend.

Jack’s bestest friend was more than a little afeared himself. He was afeared and he was hungry, too. Eddie had spent a most uncomfortable day travelling third class in the luggage compartment of a long black automobile.

There had been some stops for petrol, which Eddie had at first assumed were stops for winding of the key. Until he recalled that the cars of this world were not at all powered by clockwork. And there had been lots of hurlings to the left and the right, which Eddie correctly assumed were from the car turning corners. And there had been slowings down and speedings up and too many hours had passed for Eddie Bear. For as Eddie knew all too well, with each passing hour, indeed with each passing minute, the car was taking him further away, away from his bestest friend Jack.

“I can see that look on your face again,” said Dorothy to Jack. “You are worrying about Eddie.”

“How can I do anything else?” Jack asked outside the diner as he slipped on his nice clean trenchcoat.

Dorothy shrugged and said, “You’re doing all you can. And my, that trenchcoat smells of chicken.”

Jack made that face yet again.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Dorothy. “I’ll take you out tonight, to a club – how would you like that?”

“If it’s a drinking club,” said Jack. Hopefully.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Dorothy,” said Jack, and he looked into the green eyes of the beautiful woman. “Dorothy, one thing. You only had enough money to pay for a couple of cups of coffee earlier. How come you can now afford to take me out to a club?”

“I stole money out of the cash register,” said Dorothy.

“Oh, that’s all right then,” said Jack. “I thought you might have done something dishonest.”

No further words were exchanged upon this matter and Jack and Dorothy walked arm in arm down Hollywood Boulevard.

Dorothy pointed out places of interest and Jack looked on in considerable awe, whilst wishing that Eddie was with him to see them.

“That’s where the Academy Awards ceremony is held each year to honour the achievements of movie stars,” said Dorothy. “One day I will go onto the stage there and receive my award for Best Actress.”

“I thought you were going into producing,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Dorothy. “Best Actress and Best Producer and I hope you’ll be there, too. You’d look wonderful in a black tuxedo and dicky bow. Very dashing, very romantic.”

At length they reached the Hollywood Wax Museum.

“Would you like to see the movie stars?” asked Dorothy. “They are here in effigy.”

Jack shrugged. “About this drinking club. I’ve had a hard day and I do like to unwind over a dozen or so beers.”

“All in good time, come on.”

Now wax museums are very much like Marmite.

In that you either love ’em or hate ’em. There’s no in between. No, “I think I fancy a visit to the wax museum today, sort of.” It’s either yes indeedy-do, or no siree.

At the door to the wax museum stood the effigy of a golden woman in a white dress, the skirt of which periodically rose through the medium of air-jets beneath to reveal her underwear.

“I like wax museums,” said Jack. “Yes indeedy-do.”

“That’s Marilyn Monroe,” said Dorothy as she purchased the tickets from a man in the ticket booth who looked like a cross between Bella Lugosi and Rin Tin Tin. “She’s the most famous actress in the world.”

“Does she have a nursery rhyme?” Jack asked.

“No, silly,” said Dorothy. “Come on.”

And they entered the wax museum.

It was dark in there – well, they always are, it lends to the necessary ambience. And disguises, of course, the fact that wax museums are generally housed within crumbling buildings with really manky decor, faded damp-stained wallpaper and carpets that dare not speak their name.

But that’s part of their charm.

Jack viewed The Legends of the Old West: William S. Hart, Audie Murphy, Jimmy Stewart, Gabby Hayes, Hopalong Cassidy, Clayton Moore, Roy Rogers and Trigger.

Jack then viewed The Mirthmakers: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers (whose hand prints Jack had viewed outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre) and Abbott and Costello.

Then The Hollywood Horrors: Lon Chaney Senr., Bella Lugosi, Dwight Frye, Boris Karloff.

“Oh,” said Dorothy. “They scare me.” And she nuzzled close to Jack.

And Jack took to this nuzzling and Jack turned up the face of Dorothy and kissed it, on the forehead and on the cheek and then on the beautiful mouth. And Dorothy kissed Jack and moved his hands from her shoulders down to her bottom.

And, as there was no one else around, and the lighting was so dim and everything, very soon some clothes were off and the two of them were having sex.

And somewhat sooner that Jack might have hoped, it was over, and somewhat soon after that the two of them were back in the evening sunlight of Hollywood Boulevard.

“Well, thanks for that,” said Jack.

But Dorothy put her fingers to his lips. “It took your mind off Eddie for a while, didn’t it?” she said.

“Damn,” said Jack. “I wish you hadn’t said that. Now I feel worse than ever.”

Eddie Bear felt worse than ever. He felt hot and he felt sick from all the bumping about and when the car finally stopped for good and all and the lid of his prison was lifted, Eddie Bear peered into the sunlight and felt almost exhilarated. Almost.

“Out,” said the voice of his bestest friend, which came not from that fellow.

“I’m wobbly,” said Eddie. “You’ll have to lift me out.”

“Out, or I’ll kick you out.”

“Well, there’s no need for that.” Eddie struggled up and over and down. To rest his paw pads on sand. “If I ask you where I am, will you tell me?” he asked.

The other Jack shook his head grimly. “Where you’ll not be found,” said he. “Come on, get a move on, that way.”

That way proved to be between the open steel-framed gateway of a tall and barbed-wire-fenced enclosure. Eddie looked to the left and the right of him. The fencing faded off in either direction. This was a large enclosure. There was a guard post by this gateway. A uniformed guard sat in it.

There was also a sign on an open gate. The sign read:

AREA FIFTY-TWO

UNAUTHORISED ACCESS FORBIDDEN

There were some rules and regulations printed beneath these words and these were of the military persuasion.

Eddie looked up bitterly at the other Jack. “I’m hungry,” said Eddie. “And thirsty, too. Is there a bar nearby?”

“There’s plenty of bars where you’re going,” said the evil twin of his bestest friend. “All made of steel.” And he laughed, in that mad way that supervillains do.

“Most amusing,” said Eddie. “But why have you brought me here?”

“Because you are so special,” said the anti-Jack. And he did more of the manic laughing.

Jack wasn’t laughing. He now felt very guilty.

“Listen,” said Dorothy, “you’re doing everything you can. Didn’t you tell me that as head chef of a Golden Chicken Diner you were invited to the head office tomorrow for a motivational training session?”

“I don’t recall doing so,” said Jack, “but that is what I’m doing.”

“So you’ll probably be on the board of directors by lunchtime and in a position to find out where they’ve taken Eddie.”

“You really think so?” said Jack.

“Just follow the American Dream.”

“I am a little confused by the American Dream, as it happens,” said Jack as he and Dorothy walked on, passing the Hollywood Suit Company, which knocks out really natty suits at a price that one can afford.[29] “I mean,” Jack continued, “if it is every American’s born right to follow the American Dream and succeed in this following, how come most Americans aren’t googlaires living in mansions?”

“It’s their right to try,” said Dorothy.

And that was that for that conversation.

“Let’s go on to a club,” said Dorothy.

Jack took to halting and gazing at her. “Actually, let’s not,” he said. “As you might be aware, I have nowhere to sleep tonight.”

“You can sleep with me if you want.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. Why don’t we give the club a miss, go to your place, have some more sex and get an early night? I have a hard day ahead.”

Dorothy looked up at Jack. “All right,” she said. “We should both have an early night. There’s no telling what might happen to us tomorrow at the Golden Chicken headquarters.”

“Us?” said Jack. “I will be going alone.”

“I think you’ll find that all management staff have been invited. Restaurant management as well as kitchen management.”

“So that’s why I’ll be going alone.”

“And that’s why you won’t. I follow the American Dream, too, Jack. I manage our branch of the Golden Chicken now.”

“What?” said Jack.

“There was some unpleasantness with the previous manager,” said Dorothy. “She didn’t go quietly. I was forced to use my Dimac.”

“Early night it is, then,” said Jack.

The Californian sun rose once again. As it always does, unfailingly.

Its warmth and golden wonder did not fall on Eddie Bear, however, for he lay dismally in a barred cell, many floors beneath ground level in that Area known as Fifty-Two.

It touched upon the cheek of Jack, though, who lay in the arms of Dorothy in the single room she rented in a house in Blue Jay Way that would one day be rented in its entirety by George Harrison, who would write a rather pleasant song about it. But not yet.

Jack yawned, stretched, rose. Viewed his clothes, all washed, ironed and ready, hanging on a hanger. Looked down upon the sweet sleeping face of Dorothy and kissed her on the cheek.

Dorothy stirred and murmured, “Not now, Brad.”

“Brad?” said Jack.

And Dorothy awoke.

“Brad,” said Jack. “You said Brad.”

“Brad is the name of my dog,” said Dorothy.

“You said that your dog was named Toto.”

“Bradley Toto,” said Dorothy. “He’s a thoroughbred from England.”

Jack laughed loudly. “Your first lie,” said he. “We should celebrate it with some early-morning sex.”

“I’m not in the mood,” said Dorothy.

“Your second lie,” said Jack.

And when the early-morning sex was done and Jack was once more feeling really rotten about himself for having such a good time whilst Eddie was either in peril, or dead, they had their breakfast. Which Jack really hated himself for enjoying so much.

And then they got dressed and went out.

And that sun was still shining. Like it does.

And they caught a downtown train and it took them to downtown LA, where they alighted downtown.

And Jack looked up at GOLDEN CHICKEN TOWERS and Jack went, “Wow, that’s big! Especially the lettering.”

Golden Chicken Towers was located next to the Eastern Building, which remains to this day a triumph of Art Deco and is celebrated for the fact that Predator 2 stood upon its roof and was not at all concerned when his retractable spear jobbie was struck by lightning.

The foyer, entrance hall, vestibule, lobby or whatever you might wish to call it of Golden Chicken Towers was nothing less than palatial.

It was sumptuous. It was golden. It was chickeny.

To either side of the expanse of golden floor tiles stood golden plinths, upon which rose statues of golden hens. These hens stood in noble attitudes. Some held tall upward-thrusting spears beneath their golden wings, spears capped with golden pennants, each emblazoned with the company logo. Some of these hens wore uniforms decked with golden medals. Others looked defiant, bearing golden guns.

“I don’t know about you,” Jack whispered to Dorothy as they joined a queue to receive their official passes, “but all this is very wrong.”

“It’s like some temple dedicated to the God of All Chickens,” Dorothy observed. “Those are very big statues.”

Jack craned his neck and peered along the queue. It was a long queue made up of eager-looking young Americans. They were all spick and span and as near to business-suited as they could afford. They had that scrubbed quality about them that is somehow unwholesome, although it’s difficult to explain exactly why.

To Jack they all looked all of a sameness. And this, Jack felt, was odd. And then it occurred to Jack, perhaps for the first time, that they all were of a certain sameness. That everyone he had encountered since entering this world that was exclusively peopled by his own kind, even though they had certain superficial differences, they were all of a sameness.

They were all of a single race. The human one.

And suddenly Jack yearned to be back in Toy City. This was not his world, even if these were somehow his people. There was such diversity amongst the denizens of Toy City, the gollies and the dollies, and the teddies and the clockwork folk. Each with their own specific, particular outlook on life, their own ways of being. They were Jack’s folk. Jack was one of them now. He had always been an outsider, always looking for something. But there was nothing here he wanted.

Jack looked towards Dorothy.

No, not even her, really.

Jack just wanted to be back with Eddie. Back in Toy City with all of this horror behind him.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Dorothy. “Eddie, I bet.”

“More than Eddie,” said Jack. “I was thinking about … well, no, it doesn’t matter.”

But it did. It really did.

As they drew closer to the desk where they were to receive their passes, Dorothy said, “Look at that, Jack. I bet you don’t like that.”

Jack looked and Jack saw. Behind the desk was a tall glass cabinet. Very tall, very wide, glass-shelved. Upon these shelves were many little figures.

Jack peered and Jack saw and recognised these figures.

The clockwork clapping monkeys. The band from Old King Cole’s. The orchestra from the Opera House. And oh so many more.

And right in the middle and larger than the rest sat a bear wearing a trenchcoat. And there was no mistaking that bear.

Jack made certain growling sounds and urged on the queue before him.

And presently it was his and Dorothy’s turn to receive their passes.

“Name?” said a young tanned lovely, with a great beehive of golden hair.

“Dorothy,” said Dorothy. And then she added her surname. Dorothy received her pass.

“Next,” said the lovely to Jack.

“Jack,” said Jack to the lovely. “Jack is my name. My name is Jack.”

“And Jack what would it be?”

“You have me on that one,” said Jack. “What would it be?”

“Your surname. You are Jack what?”

“I am Jack the head chef of the Golden Chicken Diner on Hollywood Boulevard.”

“I require your surname.”

“All right,” said Jack. “I’m Sir Jack.”

“There’s no Sir Jack on my list,” said the lovely. “Please leave by the way you came in. Next, please.”

“No,” said Jack. “Hold on there. I am the head chef.”

“Your name is not on the list.”

“I only started yesterday. I rose up through the ranks.”

“Ah,” said the lovely, batting preposterous eyelashes towards Jack. “You are a migrant worker.”

“Exactly,” said Jack.

“No work visa, no ID, paid in cash and poorly, too.”

“That kind of thing,” said Jack.

“Then get out before I call security.”

“Now hold on –” said Jack.

“If I might explain,” said Dorothy. “Jack is from England.”

“Oh,” said the lovely. “England, is it? Where you all wear bowler hats and take tea with the Queen at three? Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“Would it have made a difference?” Jack asked.

“Well, naturally it would. We Americans just love you English. Our politicians, in particular our President, are so keen to cultivate a special relationship with your Prime Minister. I have the gift of prophecy, you see, and I calculate that in some future time our President will be able to bully your Prime Minister into breaking the Nato Alliance and help him invade a Middle Eastern nation state.”

“Eh?” said Jack, accepting the pass he was now offered. “What was that you said?”

“You want it all again? You see, I have the gift of prophecy. And I calculate –”

“That’s enough,” said Jack. “Can I use your toilet, please?”

“Well, you can’t use mine, but you can use the men’s room – it’s over there.” And the lovely pointed with a lovely hand.

And Jack said, “Excuse me, please,” and made for the door at the hurry-up.

And once inside the men’s room, he locked himself into a stall and withdrew from his trenchcoat Wallah the calculating pocket.

“Oh,” whispered Wallah. “Remembered my existence at last, have you, Jack?”

“I’m so sorry,” said Jack. “All kinds of things have been happening.”

“Of that I am fully aware,” whispered Wallah. “I have been plunged into dirty dishwater, then roasted in a rotisserie. Then washed and wrung out once again by your lady friend to get the smell of chicken out of me.”

“It’s all been rather hectic,” said Jack.

“Well, all the sex you’ve been having certainly has.”

“It’s just business,” said Jack. Which was a callous thing to say, more callous too because there was a more than even chance that he meant it.

“You are a very bad boy,” said Wallah.

“Eddie sometimes says that,” said Jack.

“And you behave very badly when that little bear isn’t with you.”

“I behave very badly when he is,” said Jack. “Often with his encouragement.”

“Time is growing short,” said Wallah, and her voice was faint. “Eddie has less than forty-eight hours – you must move with haste.”

“I’ve got this far,” said Jack, “thanks to you.”

“But I can take you no further. You forgot about me, Jack.”

“I didn’t. Everything got hectic. I told you.”

“You forgot about me. But it doesn’t matter. I thought I was special to you. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you find Eddie and together you stop the fiend who would destroy Toy City.”

“I’m on the case,” said Jack. “I’m trying.”

“I can do no more to help you but tell you this: I calculate trouble by teatime and I calculate that, given the choice, you should duck to the right.”

“Right,” said Jack in a puzzled tone.

“Right.” said Wallah. “And so goodbye, Jack.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Jack. I am fading fast. Time is up for me.”

“No,” said Jack, shaking Wallah about. “You can’t go now. You can’t –”

“Die?” said Wallah. “I’m dying, Jack. Would you do something for me?”

“Anything,” said Jack.

“Anything?” said Wallah. “Anything I ask?”

“Anything,’said Jack.’Anything at all.”

“Then kiss me, Jack,” said Wallah, “and …”

Jack emerged from the men’s room. He had a rather guilty look on his face. And it was a red and embarrassed face that this guilty look was upon.

“What have you been doing in there?” Dorothy asked Jack. “You look as if you’ve been –”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Jack. “I’ve been in there by myself.”

“Then you were –”

“Stop, please,” said Jack. “Let’s get a move on with what we’re supposed to be doing.”

“You have been,” said Dorothy. “Every woman can recognise that look on a man’s face, even though most women won’t ever admit it to a man. You’ve been –”

“Stop!”

When all had been issued their passes, all were led by the lovely to a golden escalator, up this and into a great hall (all gold) with seating upholstered in a similar hue. The seating was set up in rows before a stage, which Jack found unsurprisingly to be all over golden panels. And at length blinds were drawn at golden-framed windows and a spotlight, remarkably white in its brilliance, shone on the golden stage illuminating a golden microphone held high by a golden stand.

And into this spotlight stepped a dramatic personage who wore a suit that was not of gold, but was beige.

“Howdy doody, golden people,” he bawled into the microphone.

The sitters mumbled some good mornings/howdy doodys.

The man at the mic shook his head.

Jack peered up at the man at the mic. There was no all-over sameness about this fellow. He had something, something more. Just what was it? Jack wondered. A certain overconfidence? A certain attitude? He looked even more scrubbed than the sitters.

The man in beige had a big round head, with a big pink face and a kind of cylindrical body. His arms were long and so too were his hands, with very long fingers upon them.

His pink face surely shone.

“I said, ‘Howdy doody, golden people,’” he bawled.

The “golden people” sitting replied, this time with a louder “Howdy doody”.

“A very good howdy doody,” said the man on the stage, “but not good enough for you golden people. One more time.”

And this time he got a veritable thunderstorm of howdy doodys hurled back in his direction.

With the notable exception of Jack and Dorothy. Although Dorothy did mumble something.

“Good enough,” said the man in beige. “And welcome to Golden Chicken Towers. Welcome to you, the chosen ones. The special ones. The trusted ones. Your labours have brought you here. Your dedication to the company ethic. Your sense of duty. Your pride as young Americans.” And he raised a fist and shook it in a friendly fashion.

“Now who can tell me what this is?” he said. And he produced from his pocket … an egg.

Hands went up from the sitters.

Jack said, “It’s an egg.”

“It’s an egg, well done.” The figure in beige smiled down upon Jack. “It’s an egg indeed. And what is your name, young man?”

“Sir Jack,” said Jack. “I’m from England.”

“An Englander, is it? Well, up you come onto the stage.”

“And why would I want to do that?” Jack asked.

“Because I have chosen you to assist me with this presentation.”

“Well, aren’t I the lucky one.”

“What did you say, young man?”

“I said, ‘Well, I am the lucky one.’”

“As indeed you are. Up, up. Let’s have a round of applause for Sir Jack.”

And a round of enthusiastic applause went up.

Jack shook his head and climbed onto the stage.

“Now, Sir Jack,” said the man in beige, putting a long beige arm about Jack’s shoulders, “what I’d like you to do is –”

“Work the slide projector?” Jack asked, as one was now being wheeled onto the stage by the lovely with the golden hair and the big dark batting lashes.

“Precisely.”

“And would I be right in assuming,” Jack asked, “that the slides will display a sort of potted history of the company?”

“You are a most astute young man – I can see that career opportunities aplenty await you.”

“Splendid,” said Jack. “And then I assume you will be giving us all a motivational speech.”

“Something of that nature, yes.” The man in beige gave Jack a certain look.

“Followed by a slap-up lunch,” said Jack.

“Why, yes.”

“Followed by more, how shall I put it, indoctrination?”

“Well,” said the man in beige. And he removed his arm from Jack’s shoulders.

“Just so,” said Jack. “But I think not.”

“I do not fully understand you.”

“Then perhaps you will understand this.” And Jack pulled from his trenchcoat pocket the cleaver that he had used the previous day for the decerebration of the chickens.

“Oh,” said the man in beige. “What is this?”

“This,” said Jack, “is a cleaver, And if you do not take me, at once, to your leader, I will use it to cut off your head.”

Now this caused some alarm, not only from the man in beige and the lovely on the stage, but also from the seated chosen ones, who now unseated themselves, preparing to flee.

“And sit down, you lot,” shouted Dorothy. Pulling, much to Jack’s surprise, two pistols from her clothing. “Anybody moves and you’re dead.”

Jack looked at Dorothy.

Dorothy smiled. “Well, get a move on,” she said.