Down the Rabbit Hole

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

 

An accidental memento from Hank’s provocative past, becomes the rabbit’s foot in his precarious future

“Come on, come on baby, that’s it! Sky high for daddy! So close! Come on Beautiful! Not there yet… you can take me higher…” I grip the arms of my chair, never taking my eyes off the twisted features before me in the on-screen photograph. “Almost there! Can you do it for me honey? We’re so close…”

Heart pounding, salty sweat burns jagged streaks down my nose, rolling off my chin onto the keyboard below. “Almost there, almost…” counting down seconds in my head as dollar amounts rise… nineteen, eighteen….“Come on… COME ON! Come to papa, Bringing it home… YES! YES! HOLY SHIT! I scream like a girl, then embarrassed, follow with a manly war-whoop that would wake even Mrs. Bartlett in the run-down apartment next door (if she hadn’t been stone-ass deaf).

Breathless after this explosion, I fondle the small apparatus also portrayed onscreen, then bring it to my lips, kissing it gratefully.
Lord, she’d done daddy proud today. I stare at the bidding notice on my ebay auction… One hundred thousand fucking dollars! “YEEEEEE-HAAAA!” My ship had sailed, and I was finally on board!

It had taken ten years for this baby to pay off, and during that time, my life had declined so rapidly, it defied gravity, but when this journey began, my spirit had been as high as that ebay auction climax, less than a minute ago.

I close my eyes. My mind meanders backwards in time. It is April, nineteen hundred and eighty-three. Sunlight feathers across my windshield as I enter Holmby Hills, the opulent California community just outside Bel Air. I nose my dented Corvair into a space at the base of Charing Cross Road then hike uphill until I find the massive wrought-iron gate. An innocuos sign reads;

“Press button to speak.”

“YES?” A deep voice booms from a metal box.

“I’m a new bartender,” I pant.

“Name?”

“Henry Littleton.” Pause…

“Buzzing you in, stop at the guard office straight ahead on your left.”

The mighty gate draws back.

After the guard shack, papers signed, picture taken, name tag printed, I’m traveling to uniforms at the back kitchen when I pass the private zoo; an orgy of animals all maintained under one roof.

“He houses the bunnies separate.” notes my escort. I grin.

At the back door of the handsome stone mansion belonging to one of the most infamous billionaire playboys of all time, I’m issued a uniform that an organ-grinder’s monkey would reject, and then sent in search of the head butler, Sean, who leads me to the back yard and points.

“There‘s your bar, set it up, party starts in three hours.” This is my fledgling entrance into Xanadu.

Stocking the bar, I peek over the flagstone countertop, across an oasis of naked beauties, lounging poolside, legs outstretched, exposing acres of the most flawless skin you‘d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else on the planet. They feed each other juicy chunks of casaba, watermelon and pineapple, blood-red toenails toying absently with the glistening water as beach balls arc playfully overhead. Peacocks glide across green expanses of lawn. On the delicate air, feminine voices chirp. Bursts of male laughter explode, as they enjoy the bouncing attributes of buxom starlets challenged to greater heights on the trampolines behind the grotto.

Days into years, I live vicariously in this wonderland, a midsummer night’s dream come true. I work hard, make friends, especially with Hazel, sixty-five years young, mansion mistress. She appoints me head bartender, schedules me the best parties. The ebony cook, Ruby, bakes me fresh chocolate chip cookies, wonders what I want for dinner, lobster? I’m big brother to girls who’ve forsaken small mid-western towns to reach for a jaded star. The man of the house, in his silk pajamas and smoking jacket, allows friendships, but nothing more.

One evening, Sean commandeers me. “Rachael just booted the house photog,” he fumes, “Know how to work a camera?” I did, even considering myself fairly adept at ferreting out composition and beauty. I’d even considered sneaking my camera in here once, but with bags searched coming and going, decided only fools risk that. This night, I graduated from mixologist to house photographer, relishing my collections of frozen moments in this crazy dreamland.

The notorious bachelor, celebrated for voluptuous blondes dripping off both arms, had been married eons before, but only my lenses capture the chestnut-haired Barbie Doll who fleetingly steals his heart. When their storybook romance crumbles, emblazoning his legend brighter than the stars, I’d held her hand as she cried.

In winter of eighty-eight, a stunning flaxen-haired creature tiptoes in, and the iniquitous world that is the mansion, changes forever. By the next year, the wedding of the century has been orchestrated, and that July, dressed in a new suit, camera ready, I wander the south lawn, snapping pictures between fine linen tablecloths, recording history.

This day moves elegantly forward, until at dusk, with Foreigner's "Waiting for a Girl Like You" lilting on the breeze, bride and groom, clutching cut-crystal goblets, pose, ready for a Lafitte toast. As I zoom in for the shot, a harried server looks frantically for a corkscrew. I read stark terror in her eyes, so I bound for the bar, snatch a monogrammed bar tool, and dart back. Twisting out the cork, I fill their glasses, then slide the corkscrew into my pocket, freeing my hands for lens adjustment. The love-birds’ carousal flows intoxicatingly onward.

I’m still driving west on High Life Boulevard in August of eighty-nine, when one of my kidneys goes south. My Kodachrome life fades to grey as the other follows. By ninety-nine, I can’t work. My doc drops me for non-payment. I am barreling down Highway Five to Mexico for the only meds available, when a honey-throated D.J. croons,

“And Now, Down a Rabbit Hole~ Playboy Bride Calling it Quits!” She lays odds on how long before the notorious Den of Iniquity turned domestic domicile comes alive again.

While Vegas placed bets, I gambled on a timely ebay auction for a solid silver corkscrew, ornately inscribed with;

“Hugh & Kimberly
Till Death Do Us Part”


Most would bet he’d never survive the marriage. But I knew Hef better than that.


© by taree Belardes 6/15/2009
NYCMIDNIGHT CWC2009 Flash Fiction Contest
Genre: Historical Fiction
Location: A photo shoot
Object: A corkscrew
Word limit: 1,000 words
Time limit: 48 hrs.