Warning: Not only is this post late. Nothing happens in it. I was just goofing around with fake drama and suspense for a while stringing words together for no particular reason. You're welcome.
October 1969
“5 minutes Mr. Bergen,” came the announcement from the other
side of the dressing room door. Bergen
stopped adjusting his bow tie, turning his hands in front of him to inspect them
through the dressing room mirror.
Glaring at his useless right hand, unable to fathom how he had kept his
secret for so long. None of that
mattered now. The end had finally
come. One more show and the debt to
Duvall is paid in full. If there are no
surprises, Bergen thought to himself, you might just make it through alive.
Bergen looked over at the real stars of his show. The blank gaping grins of Snerd and McCarthy
stared back at him. Mocking. “You ready, gentlemen,” Bergen asked with a
heavy sigh. Rhetorical, really. They’re ready. They’re always ready. For Horror!
Or comedy. Yeah – mostly
comedy. But sometimes … Horror!
Snerd wore a black and white checked suit and red vest. He had lost a front tooth in a back room
brawl during a poker game and had never bothered to get it fixed. When Snerd talked about it, he’d always say,
“I lost the battle, but won the war.”
The body of the man who’d knocked out The Snerd’s tooth had been found 3
days later, bloated beyond recognition, strangled with piano wire and stuffed
into an old oil drum down at the docks.
Snerd’s defense was that he was just an inanimate dummy who couldn’t
possibly have been involved.
Investigators allowed Bergen into the room while the Snerd was being
questioned on the condition the he not move his lips during the interview. Bergen agreed and politely asked for a glass
of water. He could not explain it, but
he was sure The Snerd was somehow behind the murder.
The Snerd’s remaining front tooth jutted over his lower lip
adding to his comical appearance. A
close look into The Snerd’s eyes however, revealed a cold dead disturbing
presence. Occasionally a fan would
encounter The Snerd and sense the evil within.
“It’s a hunk of wood,” Bergen would always come to the Snerd’s defense,
if only to protect the suspicious innocents who got the cold chill as they passed by the Snerd.
Charlie McCarthy usually dressed about the same as
Bergen. Black tails and top hat. He often wore a monocle or occasionally a
pince-nez as fashion dictated. All and
all, Charlie was just along for the ride.
The more famous of the 2 “dummies,” he had no taste for unpleasantness
or blood. He was not good or evil. Most of the time he was too busy pondering
the meaning of his existence to care about getting into any kind of mischief with
his cousin Mortimer.
Exiting his humble room for the stage, Bergen placed a small
letter in the box for outgoing posts.
Would Marilyn see the letter in time? He could only hope.
Under his arm, Bergen hefted a large trunk that carried his
companions. After tonight, with the exception
of his haunted dreams and visions, he would be free of them forever. The Snerd said he was going to go to
France. Charlie said he had a plan, but
he wouldn’t say what it was.
Bergen waited just off stage for the warm up act to finish. His mind wandered back to a simpler time.
May 1927
Sitting at a sidewalk café in a Chicago suburb, young Bergen
practiced his act. He would make sloppy
notes with his left hand as he argued with a poorly dressed McCarthy. In fact, they were both poorly dressed. Bergen hadn’t had a thing to eat in 2 days
and didn’t know where his next meal was going to come from. But he was happy. He had his whole future ahead of him and he
believed in himself and his dummy. He
had been at the table for about 2 hours, nursing his coffee when the waiter sat
a club sandwich in front of him. He and Charlie
looked at each other in confusion. “I believe
this is a mistake,” Charlie started as the
waiter walked away, shrugging and nodding off to the left. His left.
Charlie and Bergen slowly and in sync, turned their heads together comically,
eyebrows high, in the direction indicated by the waiter. There a man sat obscured by the copy of the
Daily Edition he held up in front of his face.
As the ventriloquist team watched, the man folded the paper flat on his
table, finished his coffee and approached Bergen and Friend. He was tall, young and athletic with light
wavy hair. He wore dark sunglasses, a
sharkskin suit and no hat.
Holding up a hand to signal there was no need to get up to
greet him, the man said, “Name’s Duvall.
I can help.”
Bergen and Charlie looked at each other and then back at
Duvall. Charlie’s monocle dropped to his
side.
Duvall said, “You look hungry. I took the liberty of ordering you a turkey
sandwich.”
It was Charlie who spoke up, “I’ll have you know, my good
man, we’re in no need of charity …”
Duvall was ready for this, “But you could use some work I
take it. Not so easy to find these days,
is it?
Now it was Bergen’s turn, “This is highly irregular …”
Duvall was quick, “Give me five minutes to explain while you
and Charlie – Yes, I know your names – while you and Charlie enjoy your lunch.”
Much to Bergen’s surprise,
Charlie piped in, “I say we give him a listen.”
Bergen’s face turned white. His hand dropped, sending his “Dummy”
hanging upside down at the end of his right arm. Bergen
felt an icy cold fear grip his heart, “Did you,” was all he could breathlessly
choke out. He hadn’t made the dummy
talk, yet it was the same voice. What
sorcery was this?
“Now that’s what I call ‘not moving your lips’,” Duvall
marveled as he casually pulled out a cigarette and his trusty old Zippo
lighter, dated 2/16/2362.
~~
Bergen came awake alone and on his back. The room was total darkness except for a
faint streetlight that shone through the dingy single window of the room. Off to his right, he saw the horizontal strip
of light coming in through the bottom of the bedroom door. He had no idea where he was, except that he
was still in Chicago. The sound of distant
freight trains unmistakable to a native of the city. Rolling on his side, he remembered the
strange man who had somehow thrown his voice to Charlie. What was the man’s name. French or something. Outside the bedroom door he heard
yelling. An argument, but only one
voice. Another voice was arguing, Bergen
realized from inside his head. It was Duvall,
that was the name, in a shouting match with Bergen’s alter ego. “I think you might be losing your mind, Teddy,” Bergen’s nickname for himself.
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