Our Kingdom of Dust (3 page)

Chapter 4

I woke up to the
Mary Poppins
soundtrack, Dick Van Dyke’s annoying faux-cockney accent pounding my head with each broken syllable, followed by Julie Andrews’ nasally whine piercing my brain. I love that soundtrack, but at that moment I don’t think I’d ever heard anything more annoying. I wanted to kill the Sherman Brothers.

Even with my eyes shut, I knew I’d puked all over myself. I could smell it. One eye popped open, and sure enough there was a stream of vomit all over my vintage EPCOT Center t-shirt. My only thought was whether the stain was going to come out. I was pissed. My other crusty eye ripped itself open, and I vowed never to drink again.

And then I realized I had no idea where the fuck I was. This was not The Beach Club. But there was Disney shit everywhere. Like, seriously, there was Disney shit all over the fucking place. The pillows I was laying on were shaped like Mickey’s head. The blanket on me had a
Lion King
print. The coffee table next to me was a replica of the magic mirror from
Snow White
… which, admittedly, was pretty cool. There were little figurines everywhere. Stuffed animals. Framed art. Tapestries. All Disney.

“Where the fuck am I?” I asked aloud.

“Watch the language, please,” answered a soft voice from behind me. I twisted my head and saw a fat guy with a moustache, frowning at me. “You’re in my house,” he said.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, a little louder. I panicked. I was in a fat guy’s house. He didn’t like cursing. And he had a moustache. This couldn’t be good.

“Language, please!” the fat man said, exasperated. “I’m the guy whose shoes you vomited on yesterday.”

I focused and saw that he was wearing boxers and a wife-beater, and was covered in tattoos. Creepy.

“I’m the guy whose limo you urinated in. You also vomited there. You vomited a lot, actually. What did you eat yesterday?!”

The tattoos were all Disney. Just like the shit in the house. Weird. But then instead of panicking, I just felt bad, because, yes, I likely had pissed and puked all over this guy’s limo.

“Damn, dude,” I said, trying to get up and immediately regretting it. The pain in my head was unfathomable. “I’m really, really, honestly sorry about that, and I will fully compensate you for any, uh, damages I might have caused.”

I turned my body to get a better look at the fat man and right at that instant he opened the curtains. The light shot from the window, barreled through my bloodshot eye, and exited through the back of my head. The pain was so intense that I was pretty sure the light somehow blew off a chunk of my skull. I fell back onto the sofa.

“Well, I hope so,” he started, “because I had to cancel all of my appointments today to get the upholstery professionally cleaned, and….”

I cut him off.

“I would really love to continue this conversation,” I said, “and discuss what I owe you, and more importantly, try to figure out what exactly I’m doing in your house. I’m sure it’s all very innocent, and that you’re a nice man who has no intention of murdering or raping me. But, and I hope I’m not imposing too much here, in order to have that conversation I’m going to need like six ibuprofen and at least two cups of coffee.”

My stomach was burning. “And something to eat,” I added.

I looked down at my shirt. “This is a rare shirt. Is the stain going to come out?”

My head was pounding to a beat. Specifically, to the beat of
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
. “I’m also going to need you to please turn off that music. Thank you. In advance. Seriously, thank you, I’ll pay you for everything. I’ll pay you to turn off the music. Seriously.”

“Give me the shirt,” the fat man said.

I pulled off the shirt, threw it in his general direction, plopped back onto the sofa and did the only thing that seemed socially acceptable at that point in time. I turned and fell asleep….

…and was woken by steaming hot coffee under my nose, served in a vintage EPCOT Center mug. This was nice. This I could get behind. Anyone who served coffee in a vintage EPCOT Center mug was okay by me.

“It is thirteen-hundred hours, Mr. McKinnon, and you need to wake up!” said the fat tattooed man, jumping around like Tweedledee (or Tweedledum, I guess).

How did he know my name? Oh, yeah, right, he knew it because he was my limo driver, and he must have been holding a sign with my name on it. Which I didn’t see, because I was too busy puking on his shoes.

I sat up and he handed me four ibuprofen and the coffee, and laid down on the table a glass of orange juice (a picture of Orange Bird was printed on the glass) and a fancy plate of gold-leaf-rimmed china engraved with “Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa” on the edge. On the china were two Mickey-shaped waffles, two slices of bacon, and some scrambled eggs. I threw the pills into my mouth, followed by a gulp of the OJ and a gulp of the coffee, which burned my tongue. Which was fine.

“You’re a lifesaver, uh, Disney Tattoo Guy.”

He looked at me, amused. “Yes, I will answer to ‘Disney Tattoo Guy’ at the parks, but here at home I go by Jay.”

 “Ah, okay, cool. Jay…. Jay the Disney Tattoo Guy.” I said, mulling it over in my head. A picture from somewhere on the Internet flashed into my head. It was him! “Yeah, yeah! You’re the Disney Tattoo Guy! I’ve seen pictures of you on the Internet! You’re famous!”

Jay looked happy about being recognized. “I am pretty famous. Some people call me a living legend.” He turned his head down, a strange look on his face. “That’s taking it a bit far, but yes, I am a local celebrity, which has its perks.”

I was feeling slightly more normal. This guy was hilarious. Everything was cool. Except, I still didn’t know how I’d got there.

“Jay, if I may ask the question of the day… why am I not in my room at The Beach Club? Why am I sleeping on your couch instead of in my posh resort bed?”

He answered slowly, like I was a complete idiot. “Because you were falling down drunk and vomiting and urinating all over everything, and if you’d tried to check into your room in that condition, you would’ve been banned from the hotel, and likely the entire resort.”

“Ah… yep, that’s true. That’s very true.”

This man, this extremely unusual fat man with a nicely trimmed moustache and a lot of Disney tattoos, had saved me from being banned from the place I came here to visit. The place that would heal me. If I’d been banned on my first night…. Well, that would not have been a good scene. I wasn’t sure how to express my gratitude.

“So, yeah, thank you for thinking of that. I really owe you one… or three or ten.”

I started shoveling down the eggs. A whole piece of bacon disappeared down my throat, washed down with a gulp of coffee. I grabbed for one of the Mickey waffles. I bit its left ear off.

Jay laughed. “Everyone always goes for the ears first!”

I laughed, too. This guy was okay.

Chapter 5

I awoke from another nap, feeling much better. The headache was mostly gone, although the back of my eyes still felt weird. My mouth was dry. My kidneys ached. But other than that, I was doing okay.

“Jay, could I get a glass of water?” I called to nowhere in particular.

No answer.

“Jay? Water?” I said a little louder.

Nothing. He obviously wasn’t in the house.

I stood up and put on my vintage EPCOT Center t-shirt, which was laid out on the mirror table, completely stain-free.

“Kick ass,” I said to myself. So far, absolutely no negative ramifications from my day of debauchery. Maybe I was being a bit extreme saying I’d never drink again….

There was a note pinned to the bottom of the shirt.

“Gone to pick up the limo,” it read. “Be back by 16:00 to drive you to The Beach Club. – Jay”

Awesome. I’d soon be at The Beach Club, where I could finally start my real “vacation”, or whatever the fuck it was that I was doing here in Florida.

But right now, I needed a drink of water. I stumbled around the mirror table and changed my mind – no, what I needed first was to shit. Badly. I hobbled forward, saw the kitchen, turned around, walked a step, turned again, walked another step, and stopped, realizing I had no idea where the bathroom was. Spying a carpeted hallway, I bolted, flinging open every door before finally catching a glimpse of a Mickey Mouse shower curtain.

My pants were down before I’d crossed the threshold, and in a split second the remnants of whatever had been left in my stomach after yesterday’s puke-athon spewed out of my ass with extreme force.

“Ahhh…” I sighed.

After washing my hands with soap shaped like Mickey which I found in a Little Mermaid-sitting-on-a-seashell soap dish, and wiping them on a towel embroidered with Tinker Bell, I cracked the window and pulled a Lightning McQueen cup from a badass Pooh’s hunny pot dispenser. I filled the cup with water, downed the contents, and repeated about eighty times. Much better.

Walking back towards the living room, I realized that I’d opened every single door in his main hallway. Obviously this had to be rectified, but not before I’d peeked into each room. Every one was filled with an astounding amount of Disney crap. Just a massive collection of trinkets, dolls, lunch boxes, statuettes, Mouse Ears, music boxes, records, books…. It was like a fucking museum! I had no idea whether it was all a bunch of junk, and Jay was a crazy pack-rat, or if everything was ultra-rare and collectible, making Jay a shrewd millionaire. Either way, the dude had a hardcore Disney obsession.

As I was closing the door of the last room I caught sight of a really old-looking metal contraption on a stand, rust and peeling white paint covering it, with a crank on the front and some sort of viewfinder on the top. I couldn’t resist. I walked into the room and up to the device, which said “Mutoscope” on the inner ring of the viewfinder. I looked into the viewfinder, turned the crank, and the screen filled with light as photos on a reel flipped past fast enough to turn them into a movie of W.C. Fields playing golf. It was just like the little cartoon flip-books I used to draw as a kid! Now this, this had to be worth something.

I tore my eyes away from the viewfinder and examined the exterior, wondering what the hell it had to do with Disney. Attached to the top was a little frame that presumably held a title card for the movie. But in the frame was a wide shot of Jay with one arm around this very machine, the other around a young girl by his side, standing inside a wide, ornate entryway. Above the entrance was a sign that read “Penny Arcade”. I recognized it immediately as being from Main Street at The Magic Kingdom. The Penny Arcade had been long since replaced with a regular store that sold standard Disney merchandise, which was complete bullshit.

I wondered who the girl was… a daughter, maybe?

I turned and scanned the room. On top of a table that looked like it’d been made from fake tree trunks, and was likely a discard from Frontierland, sat a photo album. I looked around. Should I open the photo album? Was I this big of a snoop? Did I really want to risk getting caught red-handed?

Yep.

The album flew open. Young and skinny Jay with a wife and one kid, no tattoos, at The Magic Kingdom. Pages turned. Two kids, same wife, slightly fatter Jay, still with no tattoos, at EPCOT Center. He looks miserable. Jumped ahead a few more pages. A newspaper clipping. “Drifter Arrested for Attempted Convenience Store Robbery” shouts the headline. A picture of a man from the back, a Snow White tattoo on his shoulder. We can’t see his face, but who the hell else can it be? Turned to the next page. “Drifter Sentenced to Ten Years in Jail”. Damn. Next page. Jay, a totally different kid, totally different wife, at MGM Studios. Jay’s shoulders covered in tattoos. Flipped through just a few more pages. No wife, same kid, older, maybe twelve, Jay, kinda fat, both arms covered in tattoos, at Animal Kingdom, in front of some big tree thing. Turned the page. Nothing. Empty.

I slammed the book shut.

What. The. Fuck.

I hightailed it out of the room and jumped back onto the couch, covered myself with the
Lion King
blanket, and spent thirty minutes trying to sort out the timeline in the photo album, before Jay finally came back.

“How’re you feeling, champ?” he asked, even more chipper than before. “The stains all came out of your shirt!”

“Yeah, man, that’s awesome. Thanks so much for that. I’m feeling good. Almost normal.”

“Even better,” he said, “the urine smell came out of my upholstery!”

“Thank God for that!” I said.

I digested his cherubic expression like an antacid. It quelled the sickening feeling I’d had since looking at the photo album. It felt like a fist pushing into my gut, telling me that maybe something was off here. But his sweet, innocent, glee-filled expression stopped that fist cold, and I guess I felt like everything was going to be okay.

How did he do that? How did he make people feel that way with just a smile?

Chapter 6

 We drove to The Beach Club in Jay’s limo, which, even if the piss smell was gone, still stunk like vomit. I felt bad about that, but not bad enough to stop myself from pouring a gin and tonic from the limo’s bar.

Jay looked back over the divider. “Watch yourself,” he said. “We don’t want a repeat of yesterday.”

“Hair of the dog, Jay. I’ll be fine.” I pushed the button to make the divider go up. Jay pushed a button on his console to make it go back down. I sighed and looked out the window, nursing my gin and tonic.

We turned right at a light, and passed a Hess gas station. “Just like the one down the street from my house in Baltimore,” I thought. This immediately brought forth into the periphery of my mind’s eye an image of my backyard, which I apparently couldn’t picture anymore without seeing Sam, bloody, hanging from his tree.

I was going to have to sell that house. I never wanted to go back there again.

I shut out the memory of Sam with a gulp of my drink and tried to concentrate on the scenery.

On the left I saw a large, white, ornate sign for The BoardWalk Inn, another Disney resort with a 1920s Coney Island theme. I knew we were close to our destination, because according to the Fodor’s guide I’d bought at the airport and skimmed before getting completely obliterated in the plane, The BoardWalk overlooks Crescent Lake, along with The Yacht Club, The Beach Club, and The Swan and Dolphin. I fully intended to spend many hours lounging on the white beach surrounding the lake, taking in the sun, sipping a drink with an umbrella in it, and not giving two fucks about shit like selling my house.

“On the right is Epcot’s backstage area,” said Jay, pointing. “That’s the back of the France pavilion right there.”

I saw a fence and some trees. “Fascinating, Jay,” I responded, sarcastically.

He continued, unfazed. “And right now we’re about to go under a canal that the Friendship Boats sail in. They carry people between the resorts and Epcot’s International Gateway.”

Sure enough, we drove underneath what appeared to be a regular overpass. “Really? We just went under a canal with boats in it?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yes, we did!”

“Cool,” I said, turning to gawk at the overpass through the rear window.

It disappeared as we rounded a corner. I whipped around and caught my first glimpse of the place I’d be staying for the foreseeable future: The Beach Club. One half of what is traditionally called “The Yacht and Beach Club”, because of its proximity and similarity in theme to The Yacht Club next door. The Beach Club nonetheless has its own thing going on. Modeled after Cape Cod vacation homes, it’s painted soft blue and sea-foam green, with white trim and shutters. The buildings stretch and wind around a drainage ditch made to look like a relaxing canal, with white bridges crossing it at various points. I’d come to find that there were turtles living in that canal, dozens of them, and that they’d come out every afternoon when the sun was high and bob towards the top of the water. Every time I’d cross the bridges I’d look out for those turtles, and if I saw them I’d always stop and stare for a while. I’m not sure why I liked them so much….

As we drove up to the lobby I remembered walking through the resort with my parents, marveling at the décor, knowing that we weren’t nearly wealthy enough to stay here but wanting to experience as much of it as we could. A wave of sadness and remorse hit me as I desperately wished they could be here to stay in my fancy suite. Seeing their faces when they realized they would finally be staying in the place that was always so far out of their reach financially maybe would have made all the years of building up my wealth not seem like such a fucking waste of time.

I wiped a tear away and tried to smile. Now wasn’t the time to dredge this shit up.

The limo stopped under an ornate overhang and Jay stepped out, walked to the side of the car, and opened the door.

We were immediately accosted by an extremely well dressed, extremely agitated older black gentleman. He looked like he’d just stepped off the fucking
Love Boat
. Crisp white slacks, a blue coat festooned with gold buttons and gold trim on the shoulders, spotless white gloves, and a white and black captain’s hat covering short gray hair. His nametag read “Charles” and below that “Nashville, TN”.

Jay moved next to me and pushed me back a bit.

“You get right the hell on out of here, you son of a bitch!” Charles said forcefully, but not loud enough for anyone except for me and Jay to hear.

“Uh, I have a reservation for a concierge suite?” I said, hoping that would calm him down.

“Not you. Him!” He shoved a finger into Jay’s chest, hard. Jay winced, but took it.

“Calm down, Charles,” said Jay. “I’m just here to drop off Mr. McKinnon.”

“You son of a bitch. You goddamned son of a bitch. That’s bullshit! You’re here to push me, to push me straight over the edge. Well, I won’t let you!”

Charles turned to me. “Is he selling to you, son? You better not be bringing that shit into my place of work!”

“No! I mean… what?” I looked at Jay. “What the hell, Jay?”

One of the Cast Members from the valet stand slowly approached. “Is there a problem, Charles?”

Jay answered, looking at Charles. “No problem.” He turned to the valet. “If you could give me a hand with Mr. McKinnon’s luggage I’ll be on my way.”

The Cast Member looked at Charles. “Uh, so can you please show Mr. McKinnon to the lobby, Charles?”

Charles broke his death-ray stare-down with Jay, looked at me, looked at the luggage, looked at the valet, and changed his expression entirely.

“Of course I can!” he beamed, his bright white teeth matching his bright white gloves. And then with more zest and kindness in his voice than I’d heard from anyone in a long time, he nearly shouted, “Welcome to The Beach Club, sir! Concierge check-in is at The Stone Harbor Club on the fifth floor. Let me bring you there!”

I followed Charles to the front door of the hotel, looking back at Jay with a “what the fuck?” expression. Jay made the universal signal for “call me” and continued to help the valet unload my myriad assortment of heavy bags.

Charles whisked me into the lobby, which was spacious and bright and pastel-colored, and filled with comfy-looking couches and wicker chairs. I loved it.

We reached an elevator and stepped in. Charles pulled a key out of his pocket, which he inserted into a red lock near the top of the elevator’s control panel. He put a plastic keycard into a slot above the “five” button and pressed the button for the fifth floor. The button lit up, the door closed, and we started moving. But then he turned the key in the red lock and the elevator stopped. He turned to face me.

“Son, I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here. I’m gonna try real hard to believe that you didn’t know the kind of man you were associating with back there. Because if you’re anything like him, you and I are gonna have some problems.”

“Charles, I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. Jay has been nothing but nice to me.”

“That’s how he gets you! That’s how he draws you in!”

An alarm started going off and Charles quickly turned the key and pulled it out of the lock. The alarm stopped and the elevator lurched upwards.

“You need to stay away from that man, Mr. McKinnon. He is nothing but pure evil.”

We reached the fifth floor. The door opened and Charles stepped out.

“This way, sir,” he said, with a comforting warmth. This attitude flip-flopping was starting to freak me out.

He led me to one of the two desks in front of The Stone Harbor Club, the concierge area of The Beach Club. Apparently they had free food and booze in there somewhere. Seriously in need of a drink, I looked around but didn’t see anything resembling alcohol. Fuck.

“This is Mr. McKinnon,” Charles told the semi-hot Cast Member behind the desk. “He’ll be checking in today.”

“Thank you so much, Charles,” the Cast Member said. Her nametag read “Sandra” and she was from “Charlotte, NC”. There was nothing in the way she looked at Charles that indicated she thought he was totally off his fucking rocker. Weird.

“Have a magical day, sir,” said Charles. “I’m in the lobby most of the time if you ever need anything.” He turned and went down the elevator with nary a glance back.

Confused, I looked at Sandra, who was a bit mousy, but was definitely semi-hot. “So, uh, that Charles is quite a guy, huh?”

“Oh yes, sir! ‘Charles the Greeter’ is sort of a living legend among visitors to The Beach Club. Many people stay here just because of him!”

“Seriously?”

“I’ve never met a nicer man in my whole life,” said Sandra. She started typing.

“I’ll be damned.”

Semi-Hot Sandra continued to type. She stopped and looked dumbfounded at the screen.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Well, it’s just that there’s no check-out date here. That can’t be right.”

“No, no, it’s right. I don’t know when I’m checking out. I’ll be here a while.”

“Unfortunately, our system won’t let you check in without a check-out date.” She typed some more and clicked the mouse a few times. “So....” She looked up at me and smiled in a way that I interpreted as being at least a little flirtatious. “It seems like we’ll be seeing each other on a regular basis.”

“Huh?”

“I promise you’ll always have the same room, but I’m going to need you to come back here every two weeks and run through the check-out, check-in process. I’ll add this as a note on your account, so even if I’m not here I can assure you that the process will be quick and smooth.”

I sighed, and then smiled. “Be charming, asshole,” I thought to myself.

“Well,” I said, “I guess there are worse things than having to talk to an attractive girl every two weeks.”

She blushed, embarrassed.

“And,” I continued, playing interference after obviously not receiving the reaction I’d hoped for, which I guess was for her to jump me right then and there, “I hear there’s booze in this place somewhere? That’ll keep me coming back more than once every two weeks, for sure.”

“Yes, we do offer wine, beer, and cordials,” said Semi-Hot Sandra, “but only from five PM to ten PM.” She smiled again, and I swear there’s no way she wasn’t flirting with me when she said, “But if I’m at the desk I can get you anything you want, at any time.”

“Anything?” I asked, winking. I immediately felt like a creep. Trying to recover, I blurted, “Um, yeah, that’s mighty fine service.”

Mighty fine? Had I suddenly turned into Barney Fife? What the fuck? Man, I sucked at this.

Apparently she agreed, because she turned, stone-faced, looked at the computer, typed a bit more and handed me my light blue keycard with a picture of Cinderella Castle on it.

“You’re in the Nantucket Suite, room 5691. Just go straight down the hall, take your first left, and then take the another left.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the key.

“Your luggage should arrive shortly.” She looked at the clock, “And you’re in luck, because we’ll be setting out some snacks and beverages in just a few minutes!”

“Cool,” I said, walking out of the lounge. No way I was going back in there. I’d already done enough damage with this girl. Getting drunk in front of her was not going to help the situation.

“I think I’m going straight to The Magic Kingdom,” I lied. “See you in two weeks!”

I walked down the hall to my room, opened the door with the key, and was pretty blown away by the size of the place. Granted, for nearly $900 a night, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was impressive. There was a huge living room with two sliding glass doors that opened up onto balconies which overlooked the lake outside, as well as The BoardWalk across the way. On the right was a wet bar and a half-bathroom, and then a sofa facing an armoire with a TV in it, next to which was a small dinette with a window that also looked out onto the lake. The entrance to my bedroom was on the right, too, before the sofa. I walked in and was happy at how bright and cozy it was. A big bed, another TV, a lounging sofa, and a balcony. On the right was the bathroom, which was done up in what looked like dark marble. Two sinks (with a little TV in between), the shitter in its own little room, a shower, and a Jacuzzi tub, which no doubt was going to get a lot of use.

I pictured sitting in the Jacuzzi tub, watching The Disney Channel nonstop on the little TV, and sipping port or some shit like that. The idea of being able to relax, to do something like sitting in a bathtub all day, was really exciting. Was that sort of thing exciting to everyone? I had no idea. Man, I was out of touch, almost like I wasn’t even part of the human race anymore. I simply had no idea how normal people lived, or thought, or felt.

So, I figured, why not go where the people were? I nearly sprinted out of the room, excited to see EPCOT Center, and most of all Horizons.