Black Paper Behind the Mirror
The torn red sky hung like a slashed throat on display, over fanged tent tops of the bustling fairground at night. Ethel's Amusement Park lay beneath these grisly heavens. She was open all year long in this balmy, Louisiana climate. Her list of attractions were many, but the Mirror Maze, and lethally wicked Corkscrew blew blasts of wind through sticky shirt sleeves, and shot hair back. After that, there was the Fortune Teller, coupled with his eccentric habits, and the Freak Show. These drew such heaving crowds, that it was almost impossible to find one's way home through her mad throng. It was an escape from obscurity, but it was also a confrontation with the curious and eccentric sides of life that prompted people to fork over hard-earned dough at the end of the week.
As the shifting tableau of the heavens turned from the crimson interior of a ravenous wolf’s maw to ink black, and starless, the paying public finally began rousing out of their collective trances. One by one, they slowly became conscious of how lighter their wallets had become in their revelry.
Daisy worked the counter at the Mirror Maze attraction all night, and her back ached to high Hell, but she didn’t show one inch of disgust. Daisy had learned to mask her pain during her life of infinite let-downs. Still no sight of her biker boyfriend, Rudy, who was usually his horniest when Daisy was at her job. You could kick up a rock and all the cockroaches would scuttle out, followed by Rudy. He was more than usually found, with his arm draped around some under-age thing he had recently unearthed. Though Daisy despised this, she was equally bothered by Rudy not being sighted on her entire workday this Saturday. It was unlike him to go missing entirely. Reluctantly, she closed up, and went to greet the cab that would hustle her home to her trailer park on the edge of town.
°
Awoken by frogs, in the same suit from yesterday, Fritz had found himself in a funny position. It was funny because he had awoken with his body engulfed in foul liquid, like a toothpick dunked sideways in a Martini glass. Blackened sky signaled that many hours had gone by while he had been in this state.
In a flash, Fritz recalled that this was the very same swamp which had long since acted as the uncombed back of the fairgrounds. Coming to his senses, he promptly righted himself to face the mud and cattail stalks. Water sloshed off of him, as his eyes went to work, trying to take stock of surroundings.
At long last, Fritz found a hold that his fingers could grip. A massive root shot out of the soup; ascending crookedly to the left of him, and stretched out of the swamp like a Grim Reaper's arm. Grabbing hold of the tuber, Fritz dragged himself free of the muck.
Stumbling into the park, Fritz passed through differing New Orleans crowds in shorts and tees, spot-lit by lamps on their way home. His bobbing head inhaled the scent of fried food being tossed, as shops collectively killed lights, before turning keys on the day.
Fritz’s vision swam in and out like the fish of the marsh in which he'd just escaped. He was forced to collapse on a bench twenty feet behind a pair of lovers. The engaged couple seemed unaware of anything; caught up in a public display of face-suckling. Their bench was at the outer edge of the fairgrounds. This would have made for a romantic view, if the couple weren't locked at the lip.
Eventually, Fritz grew thirsty, and righted himself on the bench. He painfully began to hobble towards the ever merciful bottle that he yearned for. In the midst of his stagger to the bar, Fritz came neck and neck with a reckless baby carriage, pushed frantically by an obese lady jogger. Fritz had a absurd compulsion to inspect the contents of the carriages jostled cargo.
Out of the corner of his eye, to the south of the path, Fritz suddenly witnessed a dark haired woman by the public restroom enclosure, reaching out in his direction. Fritz could see a dark, ominous figure in a cloak hovering behind the woman.
Suddenly, re-shifting his focus, Fritz took a passing gaze at the obese joggers baby carriage again, which was still quite close to him.
The female beyond the nearest row of trees, popped back in sight. He saw her mouth gape open, as something that shined in the night snaked into her neck, causing a red torrent of blood to spout. The weapon disappeared into the cloak owned by the figure posted behind, who just as swiftly vanished, behind the enclosure.
Fritz’s attention was drawn back, once again, to the jogger who was finally racing ahead of him. He began to think about his own health as he witnessed this coronary accident waiting to happen. Halting himself from worry, he glanced back towards the public restrooms. He half-remembered seeing something disturbing a minute ago, and then shrugged.
°
Big Shots Lounge was almost completely dead, except for a few regulars. Fritz was content to be somewhere that served liquor.
“Hey, Herm, how's business?”
“Don't know, don't care. If I paid attention to the heaps of shit who pissed their lives away in this Sea of Death, I'd take a long walk off a short pier. Hey, is it true you screwed the pooch last night?”
A couple of the regulars chuckled evilly as Herman worked the inside of a mug with a rag.
“Where'd you hear that?”
“Oh, some dame, likes to flap her worn-out gums. She seem pretty crazed, said she seen you over at Sally's, and they had to toss you outta the joint on account of your condition. I think she claimed you tried to take some of her clothes with you on the way out.”
“Hand to God, Herman, I don't remember a thing about yesterday, but if I was in Sally's I had to be drunk. I'll have a Jack and ice.”
When Herm reluctantly nudged the glass with the drink towards Fritz, he tipped it back, taking a strong pull before returning it to it's paper napkin.
“Christ, that's just what I needed. Anyone call for me?”
“Now you know damn well I don't take to being anyone's secretary, especially not dead-shits. I told you enough. Now that we made with civilities, and you drank your drink you can officially screw 'til you settle up.”
“Why all the hostility, Herm? Do you see flies circling around me like your other loyal patrons?”
“Pay your tab or get lost!”
“Later, Herm. Much later.”
Fritz surrendered to returning home to face his demons. He passed over the hotel mat, and smacked the door closed behind him. His place was a disarray of tiny, hateful projects, like washing dishes. Fritz was obsessed with his divorce, that little things seemed like mountains. Fritz peered into the mirror above the sink in his John at the shaded, chaparral of his face. The hair on his head, on the other hand, was thinning like it was on a race, and he was only twenty three.
Suddenly, the phone went off, saving him from his courtship with the hole of his life.
“Yay, this is Fritz.”
“We know vat you did vith Herr Labin, and ve are prepared to take vurther actions if you don't take a meeting with us, and eeksplain yourself.”
Although Fritz was mentally shook by the accusing voice on the phone, he recognized it somehow, at the base of his almost blank memory. If he wanted answers he had to address the voice at the other end. He swallowed some saliva, and put his ear to the receiver once again.
“Uh...is this regarding something that happened last night?”...
...“Of course iz regarding last night you fool! Do you zink my vife will forget your perverse dizplay? Iz questionable az to whether I'm ave to enter her into therapy, thankz to you. Now vill you, or von't you agree to meet?”
Fritz thought for an instant, reflecting on the callers voice. A warning of insanity itched at the back of his mind. Whatever the threat, Fritz was intent on finding answers to mysteries that shrouded the night previous. He raised the phone to his head, after sticking his pinkie in his ear, and examining it.
“I am Fritz Marrion. Maybe you should introduce yourself, Herr whoever.”
“Meet me in zee parking-lot nearest to the dock behind Zally's in twenty minutes. My car vill be the one with the red flag on the antenna.”
The phone went dead instantly. Glimpsing out the window to spy on the progress of the storm, Fritz snatched his raincoat, as he bolted out the front door.
°
Daisy's upper lip twitched involuntarily, as she ran a comb through hunks of hair, in front of a smeared mirror, in preparation for her job. She had had these spasms since she was kidnapped three years ago by a cult of nuns dubbed 'Saviors of Divine Light' when she was pregnant with child. Her nosy parents had alerted the sisters when they had guessed that Daisy was rethinking giving birth. Afraid of what Daisy would do, they had her bound and gagged, and hustled into a station wagon by mad ladies. They continued to chant 'Hail Mary' after they had tossed Daisy, like a bound bushel of hay; slamming their foot on the gas, and careening off to an undisclosed destination.
Shook from her trance by some child calling out to distant parents, Daisy found herself gripping the restroom sink, and staring into the drain as if it were a light beam. It reminded her of the space-ship she saw on the outside of the dormitories on the night she had fled for the highway. A brilliant spot-light from the bottom of it’s hull poured down on her, as she stood frozen in fear. Finally, with much effort, she adjusted her required bow-tie, and stepped onto the Fairground, heading in the direction of the Mirror Maze. On her way there she thought for a instant of the lump that she had left in the supply closet before sprucing herself for work. It brought the faintest flicker of a smile to her face, before memory was plunged back into a black envelope.
The ferris wheel was waiting from above, with it’s circuit of conflicted lights flashing. Similar lights had fallen on her earlier when she'd killed Lucy. They danced in differing patterns on her dress, as she drained life from Ms. Perkins behind a crop of dead trees. Heat flushed her cheeks, as she watched what was left of Lucy spill out on concrete near the stalls. Daisy looked up, feeling a conscious recognition of being watched. She immediately identified Fritz, who had taken a trip through her maze a few times this last month. A stray cat suddenly darted off behind Lucy, and broke Daisy from her machinations. Yanking tarp around the corpse, she made quick work of concealing her in the restroom in it's maintenance closet. Luckily for her, most of the park workers used the bathrooms closer to the park exit, because this particular one had a sour odor, and a nasty habit of overflowing. While she worked, her mind returned to the Russian accent of one of the most intimidating nuns in the Divine Light cult from her pregnancy years. She tried to sound out vowels, and put stress on the particular letters that she featured in her dialect.
It would not be long after this, that she would become cosy in a few of the local dives. Here she would hear from a vaguely conscious bar fly of how Fritz had drunk more than his usual limit the previous night, and wandered off in a blind stumble towards Ethel’s Park.
(To be continued...)
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2017
Bunny Villaire