The Show Must Go On

 

The disparaging had dwindled as she gazed at the subtle scuff on her left shoe through teary eyes. “Heels, a woman should never dismount her heels,” her mother had always harped. She scrutinized the man behind the pulpit: 6’2″, white hair, white beard,about 300 pounds, charming, deep tones in his voice. I am so lucky to have gotten this job, she thought.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said with his right hand waving evangelically to the right, “we are here today to coalesce—“

 

Gun shots blasted through the speech with deafening bangs.
“Everybody on the ground,” screamed an elderly woman in her eighties, her voice vibing Bacall and her stance exuding Bogart. Ten men in black clothes and Gandhi masks ran across the room rapidly reaching their positions. “No need for heroes tonight. Unless you want somebody to die. Raise your hand if you’re a police officer, secret service, or a security guard. I do admonish you to cooperate, for I am succinct, able and ruthless.”

 

Loud gun racket ensued. Women wailed. A man laid dead on the floor with a chrome pistol in his hand. One of the Ghandis leaned in and took his wallet and tossed it to the old woman.

 

“Well…”Howard Chicken Hawk”…from Austin, Texas. Sorry that you are no longer with us. I did warn you. Please, all of you can walk out of here with your lives. This violence is unnecessary. Any other recalcitrant display will undoubtedly result in a disastrous demonstration of my unfailing determination to achieve my desired end here today.”

 

“Time?” she said as she strolled over the corpse and headed for the pulpit. One of the Ghandi’s pulled back his sleeve and read his watch: “ten till ten,” he muffled.

“Good,” she said applying a tomato-red lipstick from her salmon colored purse. Her white gloves caressing everything in their path.

 

Once behind the pulpit, she reached for the microphone and bent it towards her face. “Now, pay attention, I don’t like repeating myself. I need these people to stand up: Gregory Ironsack, Mike Wallace, Heather S. Winters, Steven McKinnley, Franklin Chambers, and Anna M. Kings.”
They all stood up slowly and befuddled, straightening out their ties and pulling on their dresses except for one: Mike Wallace. “Why do you insist on this dull charade?” said the old woman as she took a few sheets of paper from one of her goons. “We know where all of you live, by the way,” she said squinting and rubbing her lips together surveying the quiet crowd. “My men are at your abodes now. Insurance, you understand. I just read the list. I am a woman of little patience. Come out, Mike.”

 

Mike rose to his feet annoyed and embarrassed. Fixing his cuff links he belted, “what is this about?” That’s right before Gandhi shot him in the back of the head. “My name is “Bell” and these are my “Bellonies.” All of you that are standing up, thank you for your obedience. Bello’s…”

 

The sound of semi-automatic weapons unleashed like rabid wolves on the people standing; they began dancing in pain,  adding to the strident symphony with bones cracking and snapping, screaming, grunting, and pleading. Clouds of dust carried pieces of their wardrobe and chunks of hair.

 

“You said we would walk out with our lives?” said a man on the floor.

 

“Do you still want to?” said Dorothy. The man did not respond. “I thought as much.

 

“Each one of those people, now departed, were involved in the kidnapping of my beloved brother “Cagney.” He is the reason I grace you with my presence here tonight. We are not letting you go until somebody here provides me with substantial information concerning his location. I strongly admonish you not, I repeat, not to try and contact the police in any way, shape, blah blah blah. If anybody has a question, now is the time to ask? No? Good.”

 

“Aaand cut!” screamed Sullivan Borne, the director.

 

“Keep shooting,” cried Dorothy. “This picture is over when I say so. And, by the way, real guns, real bullets, real dead ducks.”

 

“Okay, very funny. That’s lunch.”

 

“Number Seven…” she said as one of the Ghandi’s shot him on the foot.

 

“You fucking crazy bitch,” he struggled to say staring at her from the floor. “Have you lost your goddamned mind? You will never work in this town again, you old hag. My fucking Christ. Listen, Dorothy—“

 

“Bellona,” she said applying more lipstick.

 

“What?”

 

“Bell, if you like.”

 

“Listen, Dorothy, stop this craziness…”

 

“Seven,” she said calmly.

 

“No, no, wait. What do you want? What do you want me to do? Did I do something wrong? I’ll give you a longer part. Money? I have lots of money, you know that. Anything. Just say the word.”

 

“We…are…finishing…this…picture, Sullivan.”

 

“Okay, okay. Can I get some medical attention first? I’m in pain. My foot is bleeding all over the place.”

 

“Number 3, wrap it with one of those towels over there.”

 

“I think the coffee girl just lost it, Bell,” said number three standing in front of a young red-head trembling and urinating where she stood.

 

“Christ,” said Dorothy, “have a little class, Darling. In my day, this type of behavior was unheard of in the business. Someone get this tart to sit down, will you? She’s appalling.”

 

“Her name is “Candy”,” said a thin, acned Mexican boy with a microphone headset.

 

“Will someone get me a drink?!” she screamed, right hand reaching out into the air. Her face staring at the floor.

 

The scuffed-shoe maiden raised her hand timidly and said, “I have a bottle of Schnapps in my purse.”

 

“You’re hired, kid,” said Dorothy snapping her gaunt, pale fingers as her pearl bracelet spun around her freckled wrist drawing attention to her matching necklace and earrings. “Hurry your goofy tush, Sweetheart, we haven’t got all day for Christ’s sake. And wipe that silly scuff of your stiletto, would you.”

 

“Yes, M’am.”

 

Dorothy poured herself a drink and relined her eyebrows in the rattling reflection of a camera man’s aviator glasses. He stood still producing beads of sweat upon his brow. “Get rid of those glasses, young man, you look like a homosexual policeman. Bellonies one through five, sweep check the warehouse.  You, other five, hold your positions. Collect all portable phones. Do whatever it takes, Darlings.”

 

The director sat against the grimy set and gestured gregariously and grunting. “The cops will be here any minute, Dor— I mean, Bell. You really don’t think you’ll be getting away with this, do you?”

 

“You’re a fool. You’ve always been.”

 

“People are going to wonder why there wives aren’t back home; why their boyfriends never returned from the filming.”

 

“I’ve sealed the place off, Buster. Nobody’s getting in here, believe me. You know…you were nothing before I starred in that silly picture you produced in ’56. God, was I ever that young.”

 

“Listen to me, you can end this right now. Nobody else needs to get hurt. You do realize you’re suffering from some kind of del—“

 

“Quiet, you fool,” she snapped as she drove her stiletto slowly and forcefully with a groaning twist into his chest, “this picture will be made, Sullivan, with or without you. You decide.”

 

“Fine,” he squeaked looking through the high windows in the warehouse. “Sweety, be reasonable. Let the people go who aren’t involved in the film.”

 

“So they can run and get help? Oh, come one, what do you take me for? I assure you, Sir, I was not born yesterday. No, no…the show must go on, and all the people must stay. Places, places everyone.”

 

Rachmaninov’s Prelude Op 23 no 5 commenced as Bell ran a gold metal brush through her dark black hair, sprayed perfume in the air and twirled slowly in it with a serene smile so satisfyingly emitted, it almost put everyone at ease. Almost.

 

Police officers were pulling over drivers elsewhere; husbands watching sporting events on television hadn’t noticed their wive’s missing; Paramedics laughed through a bug-riddled windshield as they passed the studio; children looked up at the sky watching a hot-air balloon; a prepubescent princess pranced before her parents in a ballerina outfit singing ‘I want to be famous when I grow up’; the sound of a train accentuated Rach’s notes…

 

“You ready, Sullivan?” she said with a scarlet smile and heavy eyeliner as she extended her gloved hand to help him off the ground.

 

“Yes,” he muttered understandingly, finally in his old age, his now mediocre career, that the show…must go on.

∞