A Dollar’s Worth of Destiny

I’ve picked up a job as an extra in Nicole Theron’s new vehicle, ‘There Will Be Blood In Fargo’. I’m Customer No. 3 on the set of the Transylvania Bar. I have a bushy beard and I’m mostly in shadow, so no-one picks up on the fangs.

One of the Coens (I can never remember which is which) yells ‘Action’. In strides Nicole in all her pale and willowy elegance. She orders a Rhesus Negative Highball and scans the room. ‘Cut. That’s lunch. Back in an hour,’ shouts Ethol. As she slides off her stool, Nicole glances in my direction and our eyes lock briefly, each excitedly conveying ‘It takes one to know one’.

At lunch she sits, alone, under a giant beach umbrella. She’s wearing dark shades (just like mine) and her caked-on make-up makes her skin look like alabaster. She sips from a steel thermos, presumably to disguise the metallic smell of its contents.

I loiter until she sees me and then, with a barely perceptible nod, she invites me to take the director’s chair beside her. From the side of her blood-red lip-sticked mouth, she murmurs ‘Nice job with the beard.’

‘And you?’ I say.

‘Surgically removed. For my career’ she grimaces. ‘Nobody knows the sacrifices.’

‘Except us and Hollywood orthodontists,’ I drawl. She allows herself an immaculately capped smile that suddenly makes her look sixteen. ‘Clever. I like that in a man.’

We each look over the top of our shades to re-connect and spiral into each other’s vortex. She says ‘Do you have a pen and paper?’ I fumble through my pockets and find a pen and that dollar bill I always carry with me. Again that smile, as she writes in tiny script in the space next to Washington’s head.

She leans toward me and breathes urgently ‘The gods have brought us together. Today is my last day of filming. Tonight I fly out to my castle in the Carpathians and into retired obscurity. Tonight, meet me at the address I’ve written on the bill and come with me.’

After a pause she says ‘There will never be another opportunity for us.’ In my haste to say ‘yes’ I don’t bother to read the address before slipping the dollar bill into my shirt pocket.

The remainder of the day’s filming is agony. She makes no further eye contact with me until the director bellows ‘That’s a wrap’. As Ethol gives her a Hollywood hug, she flicks me a thunderbolt of an eye bat over his shoulder. And then she is gone.

As I head home to pack (what do you pack for an indefinite stay in a castle?), I reflect on my journey here.

***

I am an orphan, risen from the Mumbai slums. An American tourist once gave me a one dollar bill to have my photo taken as I combed the rubbish dumps for treasure, with a half-eaten chapati in my mouth. The photo became famous and I was adopted by a wealthy Californian couple, arriving with my only possession, the dollar bill. Next stop was the orthodontist’s chair.

After graduating, I mine my own history. I became stupendously rich from what others threw away. I invent technology that mined dump sites for plastic and then re-constituted it as oil, a process that no-one to date has been able to replicate, giving me an oil market share that rivals OPEC.

I have been told from birth that I am a direct descendant of Kali, the vampiric bloodthirsty Goddess of the Hindu tradition. As my fortune grows, I hold fast to that sense of heritage and believe that my future success and ultimate happiness will be derived from that blood connection.

With my newfound wealth, I am able to live as a virtual recluse. I have taken the opportunity to have my fangs re-inserted, complete with a tiny pump attached to my root canal. I tested them on the surgeon and they worked perfectly, which solved more than one problem.

As I wander the darkened streets of my city, my opera cape draped over my shoulders, I am finally able to fulfill the reason that the gods put me on Earth. Occasionally I assuage my guilt by thinking of it as doing my bit for the homeless. However ultimately I feel empty and alone, no matter how many times I top up.

One evening the gods steer me into a late night showing of Nicole Theron in ‘The Monster With The Wide Open Eyes’. Not only am I instantly hopelessly besotted with Nicole, I am equally convinced that she shares my ancient roots and that we must be together.

The next day I phone the Coens and tell them I will fund their next movie as an uncredited executive producer, just as long as Nicole has the lead and that I can have a small part as an extra.

***

And how here is everything working perfectly. I step out of the cab in front of my apartment building. Near the entrance is a pathetic old man sitting on cardboard to protect him from the rapidly freezing footpath and silently proffering a paper cup, more in hope than expectation.

Elated with what the future promises me, I am uncharacteristically moved. I take the dollar from my top pocket, drop it in to his cup and go inside to pack.

Inside the front door, I realise with horror what I have done. In panic, I return to the street. The homeless man is nowhere in sight.

 

Doug Jacquier lives in Yankalilla, Australia. He writes stories and poems. He’s lived in as many places across Australia, including regional and remote communities, as well as travelling extensively, especially in Asia and the US. He’s a former social worker and former not-for-profit CEO. His work has been included in several anthologies, including Friendly Street’s New Poets 21. He has recently published a collection of short humor, Raving and Wryting, on Amazon. He blogs at Six Crooked Highways.