Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

(This is an excerpt from the next Luna City Chronicle, wherein big show business comes to town to film a movie — a movie which at first has the enthusiastic backing of practically everyone in town. But there is something not quite aboveboard about the movie production — and two of the most influential townsfolk have just found out what it is. They have a cunning plan …)

          Three days later, two men sat on the terrace of the Wyler home place, watching the sun slide down in the western sky, and the shadows lengthen across the formal garden below, and the green pastures beyond, where cows drifted idly hither and yon. A comfortably shabby set of rustic bentwood furniture contrasted rather oddly with the pillared splendors of the mansion built by Captain Herbert Wyler, in the first flush of his prosperity in the 1880s cattle markets. But they sat at the exact best place to watch the sun go down on the Wyler Exotic Game Ranch, and on the distant trees and church spires of Luna City, and so it was one of Doc Wyler’s favorite places, even in the heat of a Texas mid-summer. The temporary headquarters for filming extensive location shots was also within view, a prospect in the farthest meadow, and now viewed with sudden distaste by both men.

“Good of you to drop everything, and hustle all the way from Houston,” Doc Wyler said at last. The pages of the script lay on the table between them.

“You said it was an emergency in the note,” Clovis Walcott replied, as grim as s stone face on Mount Rushmore. “By god, so it is. I’d like to smash that miss-representing little weasel into a bloody pulp with my bare hands. We got taken, Doc. And taken bad.”

“That we did, Colonel – that we did. They told us what we wanted to hear, like any good convincing conman does.” Doc Wyler sounded much the calmer of the two, although the half-consumed mint julep at his side may have had something to do with his air of relative equanimity. “The thing is now … what are we gonna do about it?”

“My lawyer’s going to hear from me – first thing in the morning, if not by voicemail tonight,” Clovis sounded as if he were grinding his teeth. “And my banker, as well. I invested in this travesty – and I was near as dammit about to make it a bigger investment, on account of what those bastards said. I wouldn’t have touched this travesty with a ten-foot-pole, no matter how sweet they talked. As it stands in this script, this movie will be a disaster, all the way around. I wonder if my lawyer can make a case for fraud …”

“Ah, but there was nothing in writing, was there?” Doc Wyler sipped meditatively at his julep. “All a verbal understanding between honorable men doing business together on a handshake understanding … sharp practice, Colonel. It’ll be the death of this world. A man’s word used to be a bond. I’ve always said ‘trust but verify,’ but when it turns out that you can’t trust ‘em after all…”

“Thought that was Ronnie Reagan who said that,” Clovis Walcott sounded as if his own barely touched julep had just begun to mellow the edges of his fury.

“Yeah, he did – but he stole that line from me,” Doc Wyler replied. “As I was saying – if  it turns out to be that you can’t verify, and don’t trust … and that you have been, in fact, lied to in the most infamous fashion – what do you do then?”

“Destroy them,” Clovis Walcott looked out upon where the temporary film headquarters had been set up; tents and generators, with tall lights on stilts, and elaborate RVs. Filming was set to begin in earnest on the outdoor scenes the following morning. “Destroy them, root and branch. Sue them into such oblivion that their grandchildren are still paying into the end of this century … I roped the Karnes Company into participating in this, on my word alone! I’ll never be able to lift up my head in Texas reenactor organizations again, if this movie shows in any venue but a midnight cable freak-fest … and even then, I know there’ll be words spoken! It’s my good name – my reputation on the line, every bit as much as the Karnes Company Living History Association.”

“Destroy them … what, with a lawyer, brandishing a brief and a court order?” Doc Wyler chuckled. “They’ll use it as publicity, and then where will you and your history enthusiast friends Be? Oh, yes – I agree with the overall aim, but not the immediate means. Look, son – they’ll be done with the last filming before your lawyer can even draft the first cease-and-desist order. Time … time is against us in a legal sense … but not the opportunity for sabotage.” Doc Wyler sank another third of his mint julep, and regarded the distant movie camp with the same calculating, squint-eyed expression with which his grandfather (had he but known) had regarded such obstacles in his path as Union Army foragers, Comanche raiders, cross-border Mexican cattle rustlers, and various Kansas rivers in flood-stage. “Suppose … just suppose, you tell your Karnes Company reenactor pals about the dirty trick that’s been played on you … has been played on them all. Emphasis upon ‘them all.’”

“I’m not sure that I follow,” Clovis Walcott ventured, and Doc Wyler’s gaze returned as if from a long-distance journey to the movie camp.

“No? The scene they are to film in a week – if this schedule is to be believed – is the climactic scene. The one that they gathered all of your reenactor folks to film, in wide-screen and thrilling detail, from every perceptible angle, including a very expensive helicopter and a tall bucket-truck or two. If I have been reading this script aright … it’s the make or break for the whole production in a whole lotta ways. Now, between the two of us … we have a considerable force at our disposal… which, if we deploy them effectively, might damage this production beyond recall, and leave us with relatively clean hands. What say you to that, Colonel?”

“What can we do?” Clovis replied. “And who have we got? Who knows about the contents of this document?”

“A varied collection of volunteers,” Doc Wyler replied, briskly. “You have your reenactors, of course. As for who has seen this script, besides you and I? Chris and Jaimie’s boy, Sylvester – he was a Marine, too – like J.W. Richard from the Café. And Benny Cordova, who was the one who put them wise to it. Those last two, I’d rather leave on the sidelines, keep their hands clean – Benny especially. But we can count on Chris and Sylvester – boots on the ground as it were. Chris’ll be one of the movie crew as the on-scene medic. Sylvester has gotten himself hired on to help with communications. I believe that your folks, though, have the very best opportunity to wreck the shoot of that big battle scene.”

“I’ll take those I can trust into my confidence,” Clovis nodded. “We’ll come up with something, my word on it.”

“And if you could find a use for a couple of pints of methylene blue,” Doc Wyler scratched his chin most thoughtfully. “I b’lieve I can lay hands on some in a day or two.”

“Why, and what does it do?” Clovis Walcott looked doubtful at first, but a broad grin crept across his countenance, as Doc Wyler explained. “My hat is off to you, sir – I know just how this might be used to good effect. Confusion to our enemies, Doc.” He lifted his julep glass and drank from it, looking happier than he had since reading the script.

“To confusion, humiliation, and pain.” Doc Wyler lifted his own glass, and added, “It’s an established fact, Colonel – old age, guile, and treachery will always beat out youth, speed and a handy lawyer.”

(Yes, in the next Luna City Chronicle, there are some matters which will be addressed … such as — what is going on with the Mills Farm movie project, and why will it be a disaster? Yes – a stealth volunteer company of Lunaites propose to find out…)

Show Business in Luna City

“I might have to take you up on your kind invitation of hospitality very soon,” Richard said morosely to Chris, late one afternoon at the VFW. It was visitors’ evening, and the place was still relatively uncrowded. Midsummer was at hand, and the Age of Aquarius Campground had filled almost to overflowing with the reunited members of the old commune. “Between the constant drum-circle, and visitors constantly tapping at my door asking for this or that, and that obnoxious Canadian treasure-hunter yammering on and on about his latest test-pit and trying to recruit me into pulling a commando raid dig on Mills Farm, I hardly get a wink of sleep.”

“You’re more than welcome,” Chris replied, shrugging. “Me, I had trouble getting used to the country, because it was so damn quiet. For the longest time, I missed the sounds of sirens, gunshots and fenders crunching.”

“It’s dark, usually,” Richard continued. “I got kind of used to that – seeing the stars, all clear of a night … Venus in the morning, clear and bright by the moon. The only moon I’ve seen lately is sagging old hippy bum.”

“My sympathies,” Chris murmured, nodding towards Sylvester Gonzalez, and Benny Cordova, who had just come in out of the harsh afternoon sunshine. “Hey, Benny, man! How’s show-biz?”

“Crazy,” Benny answered. He joined them at the bar, shaking his head somberly. “Just a beer, Chris. They’re setting up for the exterior shooting, supposed to start with it next week, if they keep to schedule. The director himself flew in just this morning … on a private helicopter, no less. I can’t remember the last time I took such a deep dislike of someone, just by shaking hands. Made me want to sponge myself off all over, with about a quart of hand sanitizer. I can’t wait until this movie stuff is all over and done with.”

“Same here,” Richard agreed with a lugubrious sigh. “This whole movie project has a definite pong to it. No, it stinks to high heaven, and I’d be saying so even if Pip Noel-Barrett wasn’t involved.”

“Funny you should say that,” Benny regarded his drink with a thoughtful expression. “That’s the exact same thing as I’ve been thinking myself.” Almost inconsequentially, he added, “Anyone like to take a look at the shooting script? Looking at that script might explain a hell of a lot.”

“Why? Did you get a look? Could you get ahold of one?” Richard’s interest was piqued – not the least over why Benny had suddenly soured on Pip Noel-Barrett’s movie project.

“No can do, partner,” Benny drawled. “Tightly controlled items … numbered, signed for individually and secured under lock and key. I’m not on the need-to-know distribution list. But Miz Wyatt has a copy. Board of directors; VPI has its privileges, after all.” Benny directed a significant look at the wall, over Chris’ head. “I had a look at a few pages. Not hard to cultivate the ability to read upside-down. You ought to figure out a way to get a better look at Miz Wyatt’s copy – the whole thing. And then … do what you think best.”

“Man, I thought you were all about corporate loyalty,” Chris spoke, after a long silence, and Richard said, “What is it that got up your nose, Benny? What did you see in that script?”

“I can’t really be specific, Ricardo,” Benny replied, with carefully-selected words. “You’ll just know why, once you’ve had a look.” He considered for another moment, before addressing Chris’ question. “Corporate loyalty – it’s a give and take, Chris. Me, I’ve been the GM for Mills Farm for … eight, nine years, now. Best job I’ve ever had. Guess you can say that I love the place. My folks out there – they’re like family. If something happened … a huge, flaming corporate disaster with the result that VPI decides to close Mills Farm, you know how many people would be out of a job? I do. I sign their paychecks, every two weeks. You think many of them are going to be employed again soon, if they loose their jobs? In this economy – you gotta be kidding me.”

“You’re saying this movie will be such a stinker that having anything to do with it might very well might sink Mills Farm?” Chris shook his head. “There are people in Luna City who wouldn’t mind that at all.”

“I can see that,” Benny replied, with a serious expression on his face. “But if Mills Farm goes down, Luna City will most definitely feel the pain. This movie project is a stinker – not a doubt in my low-level corporate management mind. We have a commonality of interests, guys, in preventing Mills Farm and VPI from committing a self-inflicted public-relations disaster.”

“So, exactly how big a sh*t-storm will this blasted movie create?” Richard asked as a matter of self-preservation, as he had survived several in his time and did not wish to participate, however peripherally, in another. And anything which could get Pip Noel-Barrett out of Luna City would be all to the good.

“Not measurable with current technology,” Benny was examining the wall over their heads again. “Miz Wyatt is staying in the little pink guest cottage, round the other side of the Mills Farm Dance Hall – that’s where her office is. You gotta know that security has cameras pretty much covering all the public areas, and the grounds between buildings. Figure out a way to fox security, and you’re home free. I can’t be seen to cover for you too obviously, but I’ll do what I can.”

“We’d welcome suggestions as to timing,” Chris drew out another beer for himself and after due consideration, another for Sylvester, who came drifting over from the pool table, as soon as Chris caught his eye and beckoned. Benny seemed to be conducting a detailed survey of the wall above their heads. Sylvester silently took a seat several stools away, as length along the bar went.

“This Saturday night, there’s going to be an all-hands launch party at the Dance Hall,” he said. “A kind of meet and greet, for the out-of-town crew, the cast, and all the local folks involved. Lotsa people drifting in and out. Miz Wyatt, couple of investors, a VPI VIP or two, maybe. Lotsa alcohol and food, a live band. Best time? Maybe at the shank end of the evening. As for the rest, I’ll leave it all up to you.”

“We’ll keep you posted,” Chris lifted his own beer in a toast and salute.

Benny grinned. “No, I’d rather you not. Plausible deniability, you know. And if you flub the mission, I was never part of this conversation.”

“Got it,” Chris replied. “And this tape will self-destruct in three minutes.”

“Good luck,” Benny swallowed the last of his beer, and set the bottle on the bar with a small but definite clink of glass against tin countertop. “See you Saturday … or not, depending on good luck. Ricardo,” he fixed Richard with a particularly speculative gaze, “You know, Miz Wyatt – she has the hots for ya, in a not-wholesome way. If you choose to exploit that weakness, be a gentleman, ‘kay? She might be a real PITA, in some ways – but she’s an OK boss. Or at least, not near as rotten as some, in my experience. That’s all I’m gonna say. An’ now I’m gonna go, so that I won’t have to testify later about what I heard, should this all go south.”

“Appreciate the consideration, dear chap,” Richard sketched a brief bow. “I will be the complete gentleman; I assure you most sincerely on that account.” Benny departed silently, grinning – although how a man in cowboy boots could ghost though a room with a creaky wooden floor was a mystery beyond anyone’s ken.

With a brief gesture, Chris summoned Sylvester even closer, to join the knot of conspiracy at that end of the bar. “OK, Comm-expert; you’ve been listening to all of this. What’s your plan for foxing the Mills Farm security system?”

“You’re gonna love it,” Sylvester replied, a mad grin spreading across his face.

The final cover for The Chronicles of Luna City!

And a bonus: a brief chapter regarding Day of the Dead in Luna City

Day of the Dead

The dead are always with us – their memories, if not their actual presence. Some of the residents of Luna City do claim a casual speaking relationship with the dead, through some medium or other. Judy Grant claims to see auras and to sense otherworldly presences. The rest, especially those over a certain age – are acquainted with the dead. The oldest residents; Miss Letty McAllister, Dr. Wyler, Adeliza Gonzales, all of whom have passed into their eighth decade at the very least, are now in the curious position of having more friends among the dead than they do the living.

Such is the custom in the borderlands, which includes Luna City; there is a time to formally acknowledge those gone on before. In the Catholic Church, the first and second days of November — All Saint’s and All Soul’s Days – are set aside to honor and celebrate saints and martyrs, and then to remember all the others. Such orthodox Catholic rites and traditions of observing All Saints and All Souls merged, or were grafted onto more ancient customs. In Mexico, such observances merged with a traditional festival honoring an Aztec goddess of the underworld. It is believed that over the Days of the Dead, they are allowed to return for a visit to the living. It is considered a fond and courteous gesture to put out refreshments for those visitors, especially the deceased’s favorite food and drink. In Mexico and in the southern borderlands, the dead are honored with representations of skulls, and offerings of marigolds and special food and drink. Families visit the graveyard, and adorn the grave of a loved one with flowers, or build special private altars adorned with pictures of the deceased, with flowers, candles and significant memorabilia. It’s just one of those things.

The most visible Day of the Dead observance in Luna City appears stealthily around the War Memorial on Town Square – a grey granite obelisk on a four-square base, upon which are carved names of local men from both world wars, Korea, and Vietnam, and a single freshly-incised name of a Marine, L.Cpl. J.W. Ellis, dead in the aftermath of an ambush near Fallujah in 2004. There is also the name of a single woman; an Army nurse who perished at Anzio in the Second World War. She was a girlhood friend of Miss Letty’s – who brings and leaves for three days a bright red lipstick and a tiny vial of Coty Emeraude. Bottles of beer also appear, almost by magic – Pabst, Shiner, Lone Star and Pearl. On his way out to the Wyler ranch to participate in Doc Wyler’s hunting trip (the first days of hunting season coincide with Day of the Dead – a coincidence which some have found bitterly ironic) Chris Mayall brings a half-dozen cellophane-wrapped Moon Pies for J.W. Ellis. Those were J.W.’s favorite, and he always shared them out with his buddies in the company when they got care packages from home.

In the little office in the Abernathy building, Jess brings out the silver-framed picture of her mother Beth, luminous in a bridal gown and veil. She waits until after Martin and her grandfather have gone to the Wyler ranch, wondering if Martin still grieves for her mother … if he does or doesn’t, Jess doesn’t want him to think that she is reproaching him. Martin has been the best and most devoted Dad ever. Perhaps he has finally dealt with the death of his wife, since it has been twenty years and a bit. Jess was ten when Beth died; if she has come to grips with her loss, she is not certain she wants to know for certain if Martin has. She sets up a modestly-Anglo version of a Day of the Dead altar; some yellow and white silk irises in a glass jar and a small Franciscan Desert Rose-patterned plate with some home-made raison oatmeal cookies on them. Yellow was Beth Abernathy’s favorite color … and she always made raisin oatmeal cookies for Jess. The smell of oatmeal cookies baking – butter, brown sugar, cinnamon brings the memory of her mother most piercingly back to Jess: but not as she last saw her mom, skeletal and shrunken, stuck full of needles and plastic tubes in a hospital room in a big hospital in San Antonio. Jess’ fondest memory is of her mother mopping the floor of the Abernathy’s little house three blocks from Town square, her hair tied up in a scarf, and scolding Jess affectionately for tracking across the clean floor with dirt on her shoes, while the smell of baking cookies perfumed the air.

Miss Letty, sternly Methodist and with no inclination to follow any custom or practice which smacks of either high church or pagan practices does, nonetheless, put out a dusty bottle of aged Courvoisier on the mantle of the old-fashioned parlor, where a tinted sepia portrait of her grandfather, Arthur McAllister sits beside a smaller one of her brother, Douglas … the professor of history at the notable university in San Antonio. Douglas was three years older than Miss Letty, and she recalls him quite fondly – although with some disapproval over what she viewed as his inappropriate sense of humor.

Joe Vaughn and the half-dozen officers of the Luna City Police Department do set up regular memorial alter in the little foyer of the police department building, at the edge of town. It honors those officers of notable memory who served Luna City over the years, a few with some distinction, but most with quiet day-to-day devotion to their fellow citizens, their town, their community. Joe brings in a large box of dounuts from the Krispy-Kreme in Karnesville. There is one picture not of a police officer among them; Hernando ‘Nando’ Gonzalez, who was a jet fighter ace in the Korean War. His taste for speed and dangerous living unappeased by the end of that war, Nando worked as a stunt pilot in Hollywood for several decades afterwards. Being barely tall enough to qualify as a military pilot back in the day, and as lightly-built as a jockey, he also performed (disguised with suitable padding, costume and wigs) as a stunt double for a number of different actresses and child actors. In retirement, crippled by arthritis, age and the inevitable accidents attendant on that kind of life, he returned to Luna City, and lived in contented retirement in a comfortable residence just down Rte 123 from Miss Letty. He was in the habit of driving into town every day at 11:00 AM sharp for lunch at the Café … at the wheel of a massive boat-like late 60’s Cadillac … which in the beginning was in pristine condition. Alas, as the trials of old-age shrank Nando even farther, he could barely see, or be seen over the dashboard of the Caddy. In fact, the Caddy usually appeared to be driving itself, with a pair of tiny gnarled hands and the top of Nando’s jaunty tweed flat cap just visible over the steering wheel. The Caddy suffered from a number of glancing collisions with the curb, telephone poles, fire hydrants, trash cans, the massive oak tree in the middle of Oak Street and West Town Square, the ornamental bollards in front of the Café itself and numerous other motorists. Damage was never extensive, mostly as Nando usually wasn’t traveling much faster than fifteen miles an hour. Still – Nando and his Caddy posed a hazard, especially to pedestrians. Nando could not be made to stop driving; someone who in his time had faced Chinese MIGs over the Yalu River was disinclined to follow the orders of a police officer who most likely was one of his nephews anyway. Lunaites had no real stomach for revoking his driver’s license, either. Chief Vaughn’s predecessor devised an interim solution at last. When alerted by a phone call from Miss Letty upon observing Nando’s Caddy rolling menacingly past her house, the duty officer, or the chief himself would set the ancient air raid siren to roar briefly into life – alerting everyone along Nando’s favored route to get the hell out of his way. Nando, quite deaf by that time, was happily unaware of the daily siren alert.

This is why the air raid siren at the Luna City Police station sounds at 11:00 AM on the 1st of November every year. In case you were wondering.