Celluloid by Holly Curtis

Author:Holly Curtis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: depression, drugs, movies, geek humor, agoraphobia, quirky characters, quirky humor, humor adult humor and comedy, surreal humor

Chapter Thirteen

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that Kid Scaramouche was not doing the show. As impossible as the lad was, what a coup for the cab he would have been. Down? Slightly. Out? Not a bit. My new found confidence and zest and all that had enabled me to rise above such things, and the hunt continued. No work, no prizes, as they say. I had six confirmed acts – one to go.

Once again Oswald tried to persuade me to pick him. He reckoned the Scaramouche affair was fate, and that it was his destiny to do the show. I told him I’d never believed in fate. Things don’t just happen – people make them happen. Well, okay, not all things. I suppose a meteor crashing into somebody’s house isn’t generally the result of anything a human has or hasn’t done. It’s just one of those things. It isn’t fate, though. It’s just bloody incredibly bad luck.

You may think that I acted cruelly toward Oswald. After all, he was a mate, so shouldn’t I be aiding his comedy calling? Well, I didn’t see it that way. For a start, I wanted this show to be good. Better than good. Zenith material. Anything that could possibly jeopardize that outcome – well, I was taking no chances. I’d worked incredibly hard these past weeks and I didn’t want it all to go floating down the Swanee through a single error of judgement. I really felt that this could be the start of something for me. I’m not saying I wanted to spend the rest of my life organizing cabarets, but I was actually enjoying this, despite everything. Besides, I didn’t want Oswald to get hurt. I didn’t want to see the lad abused and booed off stage, or whatever. It was too big an occasion for his debut outing. It was for his benefit as well as mine.

I held this thought as I stacked some shelves with some brand new DVDs. I now had a horror section, to go along with my sci-fi section, my musicals, my James Bond section and my western section.

I looked around the place, excited about life again, my enthusiasm even stretching to this wonderful shop. There were a handful of customers in here. Two teenage girls were making a piercing din with their giggling and stuff. Then a voice froze my bones, and cut through my very existence. That was no exaggeration.

‘Hello, Jimmy. Good to see you again.’

It was Sebastian Drake. Here in my shop again. My heart beat ferociously and I suddenly wished it was bedtime. Any confidence I had gained from my encounter with the Son of God evaporated with those words.

‘Oh, hello, Mr Drake,’ I said, with a quiver in my voice. He was alone again, but this time I hadn’t observed him approach the shop. He just materialized from nowhere, like a ninja gangster property developer.

‘How’s tricks, my friend?’

I didn’t notice it before, but he looked a bit like the Terrence Stamp character from The Limey.

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