Wind in the Wings

Wind in the Wings

Word Count - 2831 (Dark Fiction/Fantasy)


         “There is something wrong here, I can feel it,” Kenny muttered to himself. He gave the spotlight another wiggle, testing the mount for security, before pulling a wrench out of his pocket. He leaned out of the catwalk, twenty-five feet above the old wooden stage, and strained to reach the antique contraption. Turning some of the bolts, he regained his balance and wiped sweat off of his brow with his shirt-sleeve.

         For some reason Kenny seemed unable to determine, he had the eeriest feeling something would go wrong tonight. Alberto Selvaggi’s one-man show, The Ghost of My Mother, was having a great run, and the actor, pompous though he may be, had been spot-on every night. Tonight was the finale, and if Alberto managed this performance with the flair he’d been exhibiting, all the critics were saying he’d finally hit it big enough to get into real Broadway performances. So, of course, every cynical, antagonistic, inflammatory person who had access to a public forum was going to be in the audience tonight.

         Kenny, of course, had his own one-man show to put on. Alberto was nothing if not cheap. He wanted to share the attention and adoration of his fans with no-one. He also wished to share the show’s takings with as few people as possible. So he’d hired one promoter (essentially a jobless man with lots of friends and contacts), one musician (a first chair high school violinist), and one tech… Kenny. It fell to a seventeen-year-old boy to make sure that the show Alberto was counting on to make or break his career went off without a hitch.

         Kenny was good at his job, of course. That’s why Alberto’d hired him. He prided himself on his well-timed and -rehearsed placement of props and set pieces, his seamless matching of light cues and special effects. He was small, wiry, and dark, the better to remain unobtrusive while climbing about in the scaffolding above the stage, or moving set-pieces between acts. He was good with a spotlight, and had learned quickly how to anticipate Alberto’s movements enough that the self-righteous prick never got away from the beam.

Kenny'd been told his looks were more suited to being onstage, as opposed to backstage. His lustrous black hair and well-defined features lent him an almost aristocratic look. However, Kenny's diminutive stature and mismatched eyes (one so dark as to appear almost black, the other a startling, brilliant green) kept him from being classically handsome, as Alberto was more than happy to point out. Kenny was also ready to point out at a moment's notice that acting was not where his talents lay.

         Kenny might hate Alberto’s cholesterol-hardened guts, and vice versa, but that made Kenny work all the harder to perform his task flawlessly. He’d never once had a director or actor accuse him of a slipshod performance, and he had no intention of starting now. Alberto was testing his resolve, though.

         The self-righteous slob got away with a lot. His birth name was Albert Savage, but he’d changed it to sound more “Broadwayish” (his word). He was a fat pig of a man, and a sloppy eater to boot. He couldn’t stand not being the center of attention and was notoriously tight-fisted. However, those were small faults in the acting world.

         Irritatingly enough, the man sang like a tenor angel, and was extremely expressive. He could sink himself into almost any character and within a day have you thinking it was his real personality. This new persona was nearly always preferable to the true Alberto.

         He looked a bit like Marlon Brando in his days as Don Corleone, and if there was someone to impress, he was perfectly superb at pretending to the same dignified bearing. Emphasis on pretending. Kenny thought the biggest difference in appearance was the carefully groomed beard he used to bring his imaginary jaw line out from where it was hiding between the chins on his nonexistent neck.

         And woe betide the unfortunate fool who made Alberto look unprofessional. His temper was legendary. The day Kenny’d accepted the job, he’d had people, trusted friends and colleagues, warn that he should be careful. There was even a rumor that, years ago, Alberto had raped and killed a young actress that had actually upstaged him on an opening night. Supposedly, when the reviews were published the next day, the young actress’s praise had been glowing. Alberto had barely been mentioned.

         The two had been lovers, he reveling in the attention of the pretty young thing, she star-struck by the dashing older man. The rest of the story changed depending on who was cautioning Kenny that day… the girl had been called to Alberto’s dressing room, or he’d gone to hers, or they’d met for dinner before retiring to some other private place… supposedly so that he might congratulate the young starlet. He got her drunk, and then proceeded to become more angry and aggressive until all that could be heard was screaming and smashing, and the sounds of furniture and bones breaking.

         When Kenny asked how the man could be acquitted of such a crime, people were quick to tell him in a raised-eyebrow, “isn’t-this-creepy” sort of way, that while a janitor had seen Alberto heave a body-shaped bundle into the dumpster, no actual corpse had ever been discovered.

         “Urban legend,” Kenny would tiredly respond. “There are too many loopholes and what-ifs for that to be at all likely”.

         Kenny was ripped out of his reverie by a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Quickly looking over, he saw nothing but the spotlight hanging from the rickety wooden scaffolding. The old, fraying wires were probably doing more to support the heavy fixture than the rusty, mismatched bolts he'd been adjusting.

         Kenny blew in his hands and rubbed them against a sudden chill. “Must be a leak up here. Stupid building’s falling apart; we got wind blowin’ in everywhere." Kenny looked again at the spotlight’s mounting bolts. That’s strange. I could’ve sworn I tightened that bolt not thirty seconds ago. Damn Alberto wanting to perform in this dust bucket deathtrap. Historical value my left nut. "You’re a cheap-ass, Alberto," Kenny huffed.

         “Were you saying something, Kevin?”

         Kenny jumped and nearly lost his balance, barely catching himself on the catwalk’s splintery railing. The wood gave an ominous creak as he heaved himself back to safety and glared down at the worn wooden stage.

         “It’s Kenny, Mr. Selvaggi.”

         “Yes, I’m sure it is. Now stop rampaging about up there! You’re shaking dust into my hair, and I’ve already pomaded it for this evening’s performance.”

         “Yes sir,” Kenny replied, silently adding, I’ll just let you trample across the stage and leave this eighty pound spotlight to shake loose, you fat, oafish bastard. Don’t worry… I’d imagine you’ll avoid permanent damage, seeing as how your head is safely ensconced in your ass.

         “Good. See that you do.”

         Kenny couldn’t help but chuckle at Alberto’s response to his unvoiced threat. He walked over to the ladder, clambered down onto the stage, and dismissed the chill he'd felt briefly. Just nerves, he thought to himself. Kenny decided to sit down to a hearty meal of peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, chips, and soda and rehearse in his head all of tonight’s blocking and set cues again before the show. Tonight has got to be flawless.

* * * * *


         Things started almost going wrong before the threadbare, velvet curtains even came back. As Kenny was pulling on the rope, revealing the opening scene of Alberto’s character Alberto (very creative, fat man) kneeling before his mother’s grave, he saw another cord begin to unravel from where it had been carelessly wound about an anchor point. Glancing up, he felt his mouth go dry. The rope was holding up one end of the light bar, which was already beginning to slip down towards the stage floor… and Alberto, hunched on his knees and praying. Kenny tried to reach out with his foot and pin the rope so he could finish opening the curtains (he’d never hear the end of it if the curtains stalled on the first draw, and he expected better of himself in any case). Besides, it was very tempting to let the heavy assembly bounce off of the man’s head… just a little.

         He managed to keep it from completely unwinding, but he could feel the rope slipping as he cranked the curtain back. Finally, as soon as he could, he removed his foot and leapt for the rope, gripping it tightly and ignoring the rope burn until he could slow it enough to start winding it back around the anchor point. Kenny managed to knot it securely this time and gave it a few test tugs. He glanced out onstage to see Alberto swaying and bemoaning the loss of his beloved mother.

         Shit! I almost missed my cue! Kenny scurried up the ladder to the scaffold and then quick-stepped out onto the catwalk just in time to turn up the spotlight and aim it directly down into Alberto’s face just as he was staring upward at the ceiling. “Oh God, why must you bereave me at every turn? My brother and sons to the war, my daughters to plague, my wife and son to the sea, and now this? She was all I had left!” At this range, Alberto's body language was almost disgustingly exaggerated.

         Kenny felt his pulse slowing, and he swallowed a few times. Alright… everything’s back on track. He let the violin piping in from the speakers calm him and watched as Alberto rolled on the ground in supposed misery, looking for all the world (to Kenny) like a hog wallowing in shit. The set tech smiled, amused at his own wit.

         He glanced over to the rope he’d just secured, and felt his hackles rise and his heart begin to pound painfully in his chest. There was someone there… a woman. A small, raven-haired young lady, barely more than a girl. She was hidden in shadow – little more than a silhouette - but she radiated such a frigid sense of malice that Kenny’s blood ran cold.

         At a loss, Kenny glanced down and saw that Alberto was moving towards the back of the stage. This was Kenny’s cue to re-center the spotlight and get down to close the curtain for the first costume and set change. He quickly realigned the light, and then snapped his head over to look back at the strange woman.

         She was gone.

         Startled, Kenny hurried down the ladder and dashed over to his place, and, as Alberto started wrapping up his monologue, he began drawing the stage curtain. Finally the curtain was closed and Kenny could catch his breath… until someone slapped him on the back of the head.

         Kenny whipped around, fearful of seeing the shadowy woman, but it was only Alberto.

         “What is wrong with you? That’s three cues you almost ruined!”

         Spittle flecked Kenny’s face as “only” Alberto wrapped a ham-hand around his throat and lifted him bodily to pin against the cinder-block wall.

         “I swear by all that is in Heaven and Hell if you ruin this for me I will make you regret it for the few measly minutes you have left of this wretched existence!”

         Stunned, Kenny's mind wandered away from him, refusing to focus on the situation at hand. He noticed Alberto was sweating, and his makeup was beginning to run. He'd also left his colored contacts out, and the the fake stubble he'd applied to his face for the scene was patchy. Finally, Kenny managed to wrench his mind back on track.

         “Put me down, fat ass, or you’ll ruin your own damned show without my help,” Kenny managed to choke out. “Time’s a wastin’.”

         Alberto held him up a moment longer, glaring at him with piggy, devilish eyes.
         “This isn’t finished. When this run is ended, so are you.”

         Alberto dropped Kenny and stormed off to the small portion of the wing set aside for him to make quick costume changes in. Kenny gasped and massaged his sore throat, running off to gather his own things. He and Alberto had only about two minutes of lonely violin solo to get ready for the next act.

* * * * *

         The rest of the show seemed to be going well. They were nearing the climax in the third act and Kenny hadn’t had another strange feeling yet. So far everything was right on schedule. He kept an eye out, but the stranger had yet to make another appearance. On stage, some rocks and wooden platforms had been artfully arranged to depict a mountain pass that Alberto was traversing on his pilgrimage, to make restitution for his sins.

         Kenny rubbed his eyes. He generally got sleepy during this part because his work slowed considerably at this point and consisted primarily of keeping the light on Alberto. He shook himself to wakefulness. In a moment his whole ordeal would finally be over and he’d never have to work for this pompous ass again.
“Dear God,” Alberto entreated onstage, kneeling and staring up at Kenny (not that he could see him behind the spotlight) “I now recognize that all that I love was taken from me because I was ungrateful. Indeed, I was unfaithful to my wife, abused my children, and insulted and assaulted my mother… I do not deserve to live. Please deliver unto me the fate you have decreed, that I might be justly punished.”

         The spotlight operator felt a sudden chill, another cool wind, on his shoulder. He reached to rub the goosbumps through his shirt and encountered cold flesh... a hand. He whipped his head around, and there at his shoulder stood the dark lady.

         The stunning young woman had fine, elfin features, with a sharp widow's peak and skin so pale and translucent that a fine tracery of blue veins was visible through her skin, causing her to resemble a china doll. Her hair lay dark and shimmering over her shoulders, like a waterfall at midnight. But her beauty was overpowered by the biting chill that emanated from her, of a long-nourished hatred.

         Kenny froze in shock, and stared into the face he’d kept in his wallet for the past seventeen years… the unsmiling face of a woman who knows no happiness, who has no joy left in the world, despite the smiling newborn depicted in her arms.

         “It's time, Kenny.” The woman reached out and, with fingers seemingly too delicate for the task, began unscrewing the rusty bolts holding the spotlight to its mooring. “You and I have waited seventeen years for this. You know what he did to me. You know he beat me, raped me, and dumped me in a trash bin to die.”

         The woman’s words were soft and pleasant sounding. The smile on her face was almost coy. But the look in her eyes showed an inhuman, murderous rage seething beneath that calm, chilly veneer.

         “M-Mother…”

         Kenny could barely grasp this… being confronted by someone he had no memory of, but loved unconditionally... someone he never expected to see again, breathing or not, who was now commanding him to murder. His carefully laid plan to take vengeance on the man who’d raped his mother had ultimately been to ruin this performance… on the brink of the man’s greatest victory, Kenny would raise the house lights, cut the music and have some props fall randomly onto the stage, flustering Alberto into missing lines and stalling the climax. But he had never planned on murder.

         “Do it Kenny… for me.”

         Or had he?

         Kenny’s mother waved a hand and in front of the spotlight and, right on cue, Alberto said in his tenor stage-voice, directed to the audience, “What is this? Is this God’s angel of death come to claim me? Or… could it be? Is it… Mother? Are you coming to call me home?” Alberto knelt and raised his hands to the spotlight in supplication, false tears of sorrow and joy mingling on his face as he cried out, “Mother! Let me embrace you once again!”

         As Kenny's mother pulled out another bolt, the spotlight squealed and swung to one side, now pointing outward and blinding the audience. Blinking rapidly up at the ceiling, Alberto looked pathetic to Kenny, like a mole suddenly ripped from the ground and sniffing for any escape from dangers he couldn’t see. Kenny looked down at the pitiful creature, kneeling twenty five feet below him, and remembered the man’s grasp on his throat, pinning him to the wall, and he remembered staring into Alberto's piggish, mismatched eyes (one dark brown, the other a brilliant green). He remembered reading the suicide note his mother had left for her infant child, describing the atrocities visited upon her by this fat, greasy, stinking mole-man. He remembered that Alberto didn’t even know his name.

         “Kenny Savage”, Kenny whispered, and turned the last bolt out. As he watched the eighty pound light fixture plummet towards the fat man below him, Kenny wondered what ring of hell is reserved for men who kill their own fathers.

         Blinking up at the rapidly brightening light, Alberto thought to himself, in that strange, semi-lucid and completely dissociated way that people do when they sense their fate rapidly approaching, “there is something wrong here, I can feel it.”