And, as there was no one else around, and the lighting was so dim and everything, very soon some clothes were off and the two of them were having sex.
And somewhat sooner that Jack might have hoped, it was over, and somewhat soon after that the two of them were back in the evening sunlight of Hollywood Boulevard.
“Well, thanks for that,” said Jack.
But Dorothy put her fingers to his lips. “It took your mind off Eddie for a while, didn’t it?” she said.
“Damn,” said Jack. “I wish you hadn’t said that. Now I feel worse than ever.”
Eddie Bear felt worse than ever. He felt hot and he felt sick from all the bumping about and when the car finally stopped for good and all and the lid of his prison was lifted, Eddie Bear peered into the sunlight and felt almost exhilarated. Almost.
“Out,” said the voice of his bestest friend, which came not from that fellow.
“I’m wobbly,” said Eddie. “You’ll have to lift me out.”
“Out, or I’ll kick you out.”
“Well, there’s no need for that.” Eddie struggled up and over and down. To rest his paw pads on sand. “If I ask you where I am, will you tell me?” he asked.
The other Jack shook his head grimly. “Where you’ll not be found,” said he. “Come on, get a move on, that way.”
That way proved to be between the open steel-framed gateway of a tall and barbed-wire-fenced enclosure. Eddie looked to the left and the right of him. The fencing faded off in either direction. This was a large enclosure. There was a guard post by this gateway. A uniformed guard sat in it.
There was also a sign on an open gate. The sign read:
AREA FIFTY-TWO
UNAUTHORISED ACCESS FORBIDDEN
There were some rules and regulations printed beneath these words and these were of the military persuasion.
Eddie looked up bitterly at the other Jack. “I’m hungry,” said Eddie. “And thirsty, too. Is there a bar nearby?”
“There’s plenty of bars where you’re going,” said the evil twin of his bestest friend. “All made of steel.” And he laughed, in that mad way that supervillains do.
“Most amusing,” said Eddie. “But why have you brought me here?”
“Because you are so special,” said the anti-Jack. And he did more of the manic laughing.
Jack wasn’t laughing. He now felt very guilty.
“Listen,” said Dorothy, “you’re doing everything you can. Didn’t you tell me that as head chef of a Golden Chicken Diner you were invited to the head office tomorrow for a motivational training session?”
“I don’t recall doing so,” said Jack, “but that is what I’m doing.”
“So you’ll probably be on the board of directors by lunchtime and in a position to find out where they’ve taken Eddie.”
“You really think so?” said Jack.
“Just follow the American Dream.”
“I am a little confused by the American Dream, as it happens,” said Jack as he and Dorothy walked on, passing the Hollywood Suit Company, which knocks out really natty suits at a price that one can afford.[29] “I mean,” Jack continued, “if it is every American’s born right to follow the American Dream and succeed in this following, how come most Americans aren’t googlaires living in mansions?”
“It’s their right to try,” said Dorothy.
And that was that for that conversation.
“Let’s go on to a club,” said Dorothy.
Jack took to halting and gazing at her. “Actually, let’s not,” he said. “As you might be aware, I have nowhere to sleep tonight.”
“You can sleep with me if you want.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. Why don’t we give the club a miss, go to your place, have some more sex and get an early night? I have a hard day ahead.”
Dorothy looked up at Jack. “All right,” she said. “We should both have an early night. There’s no telling what might happen to us tomorrow at the Golden Chicken headquarters.”
“Us?” said Jack. “I will be going alone.”
“I think you’ll find that all management staff have been invited. Restaurant management as well as kitchen management.”
“So that’s why I’ll be going alone.”
“And that’s why you won’t. I follow the American Dream, too, Jack. I manage our branch of the Golden Chicken now.”
“What?” said Jack.
“There was some unpleasantness with the previous manager,” said Dorothy. “She didn’t go quietly. I was forced to use my Dimac.”
“Early night it is, then,” said Jack.
The Californian sun rose once again. As it always does, unfailingly.
Its warmth and golden wonder did not fall on Eddie Bear, however, for he lay dismally in a barred cell, many floors beneath ground level in that Area known as Fifty-Two.
It touched upon the cheek of Jack, though, who lay in the arms of Dorothy in the single room she rented in a house in Blue Jay Way that would one day be rented in its entirety by George Harrison, who would write a rather pleasant song about it. But not yet.
Jack yawned, stretched, rose. Viewed his clothes, all washed, ironed and ready, hanging on a hanger. Looked down upon the sweet sleeping face of Dorothy and kissed her on the cheek.
Dorothy stirred and murmured, “Not now, Brad.”
“Brad?” said Jack.
And Dorothy awoke.
“Brad,” said Jack. “You said Brad.”
“Brad is the name of my dog,” said Dorothy.
“You said that your dog was named Toto.”
“Bradley Toto,” said Dorothy. “He’s a thoroughbred from England.”
Jack laughed loudly. “Your first lie,” said he. “We should celebrate it with some early-morning sex.”
“I’m not in the mood,” said Dorothy.
“Your second lie,” said Jack.
And when the early-morning sex was done and Jack was once more feeling really rotten about himself for having such a good time whilst Eddie was either in peril, or dead, they had their breakfast. Which Jack really hated himself for enjoying so much.
And then they got dressed and went out.
And that sun was still shining. Like it does.
And they caught a downtown train and it took them to downtown LA, where they alighted downtown.
And Jack looked up at GOLDEN CHICKEN TOWERS and Jack went, “Wow, that’s big! Especially the lettering.”
Golden Chicken Towers was located next to the Eastern Building, which remains to this day a triumph of Art Deco and is celebrated for the fact that Predator 2 stood upon its roof and was not at all concerned when his retractable spear jobbie was struck by lightning.
The foyer, entrance hall, vestibule, lobby or whatever you might wish to call it of Golden Chicken Towers was nothing less than palatial.
It was sumptuous. It was golden. It was chickeny.
To either side of the expanse of golden floor tiles stood golden plinths, upon which rose statues of golden hens. These hens stood in noble attitudes. Some held tall upward-thrusting spears beneath their golden wings, spears capped with golden pennants, each emblazoned with the company logo. Some of these hens wore uniforms decked with golden medals. Others looked defiant, bearing golden guns.
“I don’t know about you,” Jack whispered to Dorothy as they joined a queue to receive their official passes, “but all this is very wrong.”
“It’s like some temple dedicated to the God of All Chickens,” Dorothy observed. “Those are very big statues.”
Jack craned his neck and peered along the queue. It was a long queue made up of eager-looking young Americans. They were all spick and span and as near to business-suited as they could afford. They had that scrubbed quality about them that is somehow unwholesome, although it’s difficult to explain exactly why.
To Jack they all looked all of a sameness. And this, Jack felt, was odd. And then it occurred to Jack, perhaps for the first time, that they all were of a certain sameness. That everyone he had encountered since entering this world that was exclusively peopled by his own kind, even though they had certain superficial differences, they were all of a sameness.