Our Kingdom of Dust (6 page)
The Utilidors are a series of huge tunnels underneath The Magic Kingdom where all the behind-the-scenes real world stuff takes place. Or, to be more specific, The Magic Kingdom was built on top of the Utilidors. They’re actually at ground level, and the park is the “second floor”, so to speak. They house Costuming, trash collecting, an employee bank, various kitchens for the restaurants above, employee break rooms, and two cafeterias. But perhaps more importantly, they’re a way for employees to get from one part of the park to another without having to roam around in front of the Guests. It wouldn’t look very good for a Cast Member dressed in Frontierland chaps to be walking across Tomorrowland in order to get to the employee parking lot. “Bad show”, as they say. Instead, the Cast Member just hops into one of the myriad of hidden Utilidor entrances within the park, goes down one flight, changes into civvies, and walks through the tunnels to the exit that leads to the parking lot. These inner-workings are invisible to Guests so that the “magic” theming of the park is never disturbed.
Jay and I entered the Utilidors through a door on the northwest side of Cinderella Castle. He opened the unmarked and unremarkable door and we both stepped inside to a harshly lit dirty room filled with strollers.
“What a shithole,” I said.
“I agree. Apparently the cleaning crew doesn’t maintain this area.”
We went down a full flight of steps and reached another door, next to which was posted an asbestos warning.
“Asbestos?” I asked, surprised that Disney would allow such a thing to exist in their wonderland.
“They treat their employees, er, Cast Members, a lot differently than they treat their Guests. I guess they’re not going to do anything about the asbestos down here, and they figure a warning will suffice, at least legally.”
“That’s not cool.”
“No, it’s not. But they’re a giant corporation, and they can get away with that sort of nonsense. I’m sure Lisa will be more than happy to tell you all sorts of horror stories about how the Cast Members are mistreated.”
We walked down a small hallway which opened into a massive tunnel. It was filled with pipes, speeding golf carts, costumed characters, and plain-clothed off-duty Cast Members. There was peculiar mix of somewhat Disney-themed 80s hits blaring through the overhead speakers.
Mainstreet
by Bob Seger was playing as we entered the cavernous Utilidors.
“It smells disgusting down here, Jay,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“That’s the trash collection,” he said. “All of the trash from all of the trashcans in the park comes down here through a series of vacuum tubes.” He pointed up at the pipes. “This time of year it’s not so terrible. But wait until the summer comes around. The stench is overwhelming!”
“And the employee cafeteria is down here? Lovely.”
“Yeah, it’s just over this way.”
We walked a bit and were almost run down by a few golf carts zooming around. I noticed a lot of people in regular clothes going past us.
“So anybody is allowed down here?” I asked.
“No, no, definitely not,” responded Jay. “These people are all Cast Members. Not that it ever happens, but if Security thinks you look suspicious, they’ll ask for your Cast Member ID. And if you don’t have it and can’t prove you work here, you will be thrown out of the park and possibly trespassed and BOLO’d.”
“What is ‘BOLO’d’?”
“’Be on the look-out for’. It means they’ll take your picture and put it up everywhere, and if someone sees you in the park you’ll be arrested for trespassing.”
“Oh.” I thought for a second. “Wait a minute, what the hell are you doing down here, then? You’re not a Cast Member.”
“Dating the hottest princess on property does have its advantages,” said Jay. “But honestly, I’ve been friends with a lot of people here for years. Some of them started in janitorial and have since moved up to management. I do them favors, and they do me favors, like letting me into the parks for free and letting me roam around wherever I want.”
“What kind of favors do you do for them?”
“I… procure things for them.”
Just as I was about to press him for more details, we stopped at Mouseketeria. It was pretty nice, but the best part was that it was filled with Cast Members in their uniforms, all eating and talking together. It was funny seeing Captain Jack talking to a headless Mickey, who was actually a forty-something lady.
“The food here is the same stuff you’d get upstairs,” said Jay as we got into line. “Except it’s half as cheap. I love this place.”
I ordered a soft pretzel and a soda, and Jay got some fries and a bottled water. I paid for both of us. Jay was right, it was dirt cheap. We took our food and sat down.
“So,” started Jay, “you think you can come over for dinner this evening?”
“Yeah, I’ve got absolutely nothing planned tonight. Tomorrow I’m supposed to be having cocktails with your buddy ‘Charles the Greeter’, but other than that my schedule is wide open for the foreseeable future.”
Jay stopped chewing. “Charles… is not the most stable person.”
“No shit,” I said. “Dude nearly accosted me in the elevator the other day. What’s his beef with you?”
“Charles had some problems years ago, and he blames them all on me. Needless to say, take anything he says about me with a grain of salt.”
“I kinda figured. So what’s his story?”
“Given his current revered status at The Beach Club, it wouldn’t really be appropriate for me to reveal much. If he wants to tell you about his sordid past, that’s totally up to him. But, like I said, just remember that there are two sides to every story.”
“Okay, fair enough,” I said. “All I know is that you’ve been totally cool to me since the moment we met, whereas the first time I met Charles all he did was act like a psychopath. But I can’t say I’m not curious to hear what he has to tell me.”
“Yes. It should be interesting.”
We finished our food in silence. I started thinking about Charles’s warning, and for a second had a flash of worry that maybe he was right, maybe Jay was the bad guy here. I looked up from my plate at him, and he smiled that heartwarming smile, and I just couldn’t believe that this dude was anything other than a saint. And he had a really hot girlfriend that I kinda wanted to get to know better… in a purely platonic way, of course. I mean, Jay seemed like an awesome guy, and messing around with his girlfriend would not be a cool thing to do. Then again, if she tried to seduce me, I’m not sure I’d be able to turn her down.
Oh, yeah, right. I couldn’t even talk to Semi-Hot Sandra at the Concierge Lounge without sounding like a complete douchebag. My chances of getting seduced by Snow White were less than zero.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t fun to think about….
After we’d finished eating, Jay walked me up a ramp and into the employee parking lot. I spied the limo parked all the way in the far corner. Fuck yeah, traveling in style.
We strode up to the limo like a couple of badasses. If it had been a movie we would’ve been going in slow-mo. Cast Members stared at us, and I was feeling like a rock star.
Jay opened the back door of the limo, and my cool demeanor immediately flew north for the summer when I saw Lisa in the backseat, a glass of champagne in one hand, and a bottle of some sort of makeup remover in the other. She was wearing a green flannel and jeans, and was, astoundingly, even hotter without her costume and makeup.
“Hey there, handsome,” she said in that low, husky, sultry voice. “Why don’t you stop staring and get in the fucking car?”
Holy shit. Snow White had a foul mouth!
“Uh, yep, that’s, uh, yeah…” I mumbled incoherently, as I slid into the backseat of the limo.
Jay pointed to me. “Lisa, this is Blaine. Blaine, this is Lisa. Give the man a drink, Lisa, and watch your language!”
“Aye aye, Captain!” she said, saluting at him as he rolled his eyes and closed the door.
She shoved a glass in my hand. “What’s your poison, dear?”
“Um, I, uh, mostly I drink, um…” Fuck!
“Champagne it is!” she said, pouring me a glass from the already half-empty bottle.
“Thanks,” I managed to get out.
“Everything okay back there?” asked Jay, rolling down the divider and turning to us from the front seat.
“Everything is awesome, baby! I’m gonna make Blaine help me with the Dermablend remover, since I know you hate the smell.”
“That would be great! You okay with that, Blaine?”
“What’s Dermablend?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” said Jay. “You’re going to love this, Blaine. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to put the barrier up so I don’t have to smell that stuff. It gives me a headache.”
“Uh… what?” I asked, worried I’d really gotten myself into some crazy shit here.
The divider rose, and Lisa and I were alone in the backseat of a limo.
“Put your champagne down. You’re going to need both hands for this,” she said.
I obediently put my glass into the cup-holder and she shoved a paper towel and the bottle of makeup remover into my hand.
“I really only need help with the back of my neck and shoulders,” said Lisa. “I can get the rest of it.”
She unbuttoned her flannel shirt down to below her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and the shirt was just barely covering her nipples. This was awesome.
“Sorry if I’m coming across as completely ignorant,” I said, flustered, “but I honestly don’t know what’s going on here. Is this like some normal chick thing, or does Disney make you wear some weird special makeup, or is it like…”
“Dude, I’m about to show you my tits,” she said, cutting me off.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah, really. But only if you’ll stop asking questions, put the makeup remover on the paper towel, and wipe my neck!”
I fumbled with the bottle and spilled a bit on my pants.
“Careful! That shit’s expensive!” shouted Lisa.
“Don’t yell at me. I’m already nervous here.”
Lisa sighed, and after a bit more fumbling, I finally got some of the liquid onto the paper towel. She turned and let her shirt fall from her shoulders, exposing her neck and back, but also completely uncovering her breasts. She lifted the hair off her neck with one hand, giving me an awesome side-boob view. Man, they were absolutely perfect. So fucking hot. This was total spank bank material.
“Blaine!” she yelled. “Hurry the fuck up, already!”
“Okay!” I said, tearing my gaze from her tits.
I ran the paper towel across her neck and the tops of her shoulders and nearly shit a brick as her skin completely changed color, from tan to all sorts of bright reds and blues. Tattoos! I wiped more, completely forgetting about her tits (well, not completely) as the tattoos revealed themselves. It was amazing. Once I was done, and before she buttoned herself back up, I got a full view: on her left shoulder was Figment in his astronaut outfit, on her neck were the skull and crossbones from Pirates of the Caribbean, and on her right shoulder were the three hitchhiking ghosts from The Haunted Mansion.
She buttoned up her shirt, took the paper towels and makeup remover from me, and started working on her hands. As the makeup slowly disappeared, I saw that each knuckle had one of the old EPCOT Center pavilion icons painted on it, with the main park logo split between the tops of her two hands.
“Omigodnofuckinway!” I shouted
She smiled and put her hands next to each other, showing me how it all fit together.
“And the pavilions are all in geographic order and divided properly between Future World East and West!” I squealed like a total nerd. I couldn’t help myself. It was easily one of the coolest things I’d seen.
“Yeah, they are!” she said. “Nobody ever notices that!”
She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I blushed, and popped another woody. She looked down at my crotch and smirked.
“You’re a nice guy, Blaine. Odd, and a bit sexually frustrated, but nice.”
“Uh, thanks? Wait, what? I’m not sexually frustrated!” I paused and thought of the past two nights in the Jacuzzi with Tracey from the Resort Channel. “Oh, wait, yeah. Yeah, I am. Never mind.” I sighed. “Can we change the subject?”
“Sure,” she said, picking up her champagne. Her EPCOT Center tattooed fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass. Goddamn that was sexy.
“So I guess nobody at work knows you have those?” I asked.
“A few people. Not my managers, though. They wouldn’t have hired me if they knew I had them. It’s against ‘The Disney Look’, which is a real book filled with all sorts of restrictions on Cast Members’ appearance, like how long your hair can be, and how many rings you can wear on each hand, and how you should pluck your eyebrows, and just tons of crazy shit like that. Tattoos are right at the top of the ‘hell no’ list, along with piercings. If a Guest ever saw any of them I’d get fired immediately. So I spend a shitload on this Dermablend crap. But it works really well.”
“It doesn’t rub off on your costume?”
“No, there’s a setting powder that keeps that from happening. It’s all very involved and expensive, and it took me a while to get it perfect. But I think it’s worth it. The hands are the most difficult, so I considered getting the knuckle tattoos removed. But I really like them, so I figure I’ll just keep pulling one over on The Mouse.”
“Yeah, the knuckle ones are awesome.”
“Thanks. It’s fun to show them off to an appreciative audience.” She smiled at me, and refilled her glass. “So how do you know Jay?”
“He picked me up at the airport a few days ago. Literally. Like, I was all drunk and he picked me up and I puked on his shoes, and….” This was not a good story to be telling a hot girl.
“And? And, what? And then you had buttsex?”
“What? No, we didn’t have buttsex! What the fuck?”
She doubled over laughing. It was a lovely, musical laugh, even if it was at my expense. I wanted to hear that laugh a lot more.
“So what about you two?” I asked, honestly curious. “How did you meet?”
“Well, it’s hard not to notice Jay. He’d been coming to the parks daily since way before I started working there, and everybody knew him and knew he was cool. So I wasn’t like creeped out or anything when I started noticing him standing around during my princess meet-and-greets. My handler was good friends with him…”
I stopped her. “Your what?”
“My handler? It’s the person who stays with the characters at all times while they’re onstage. You’ve never noticed that? All of the characters always have a Cast Member with them to make sure they don’t get manhandled, and to make sure they get backstage safely and in a manner that doesn’t disturb the Guests’ “magic”. So the handlers are always like, ‘Snow White has to go cook for the dwarfs now!’ or some shit like that. As opposed to, ‘Snow White is sweating like a fucking pig out here and seriously needs to take a piss!’ You get the idea, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. I guess it’s just so seamless and coordinated that I never paid attention. Wow.”
“Well, good. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Anyway, my handler knew Jay and invited me to a party at his place, and I guess we just sorta hit it off. Obviously I’m a big fan of Disney tattoos, so I spent the whole night looking at his, and he spent the whole night looking at all of mine,” she motioned to her back, “and so one thing led to another, and…. Well, he’s such a sweet guy and he really likes taking care of people, and I guess that’s kind of what I needed and wanted.”
I noticed that “needed” and “wanted” were past tense. I wondered if that was intentional….
“Anyway,” she continued, “that’s the way it happened! Any other questions, Mr. Paparazzi?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” I said, embarrassed.
“Dude, it was a joke!” She laughed at me again. “You can pry all you want. Just know that maybe sometimes you won’t like some of the answers, okay?”
“Okay. I probably just need to shut up, honestly.”
“No, no, it’s good, everything is cool. I’m enjoying my conversation with you, Blaine. Honestly.”
She put her hand on my leg. And, predictably, my erection returned in full-force.
“And you obviously like talking to me!” she said.
“Jesus, I need to wear baggier pants or something. This is ridiculously embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s sorta my job, right? Like, making people feel happy and excited and shit? I mean, there’s a reason why Walt didn’t make the princes and princesses butt-ugly. He knew the dads and moms were the ones spending the cash on the movies and merchandise. The man wasn’t dumb. Make Snow White a hottie and the dads aren’t gonna mind so much sitting through the movie, buying the dolls, and shelling out the cash so their kids could meet her in real life. It’s definitely a fine line appealing to both the kids and the adults.” She flipped her hair, batted her eyes, and spoke in what was her imitation of Snow White’s voice, “But I think I pull it off pretty well, don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, you do,” I lied. The voice was terrible. But she was so beautiful and nice that I couldn’t imagine anyone complaining, and I certainly wasn’t going to be the first.
She smiled, obviously pleased with her performance, and my subsequent praise.
“So, what about you, Blaine? What’s your story? Retired porn star, maybe? You certainly don’t have any trouble getting it up!”
“What? No! Leave my penis alone!” I yelled.
The divider rolled down.
“Did I just hear what I think I heard?” asked Jay. He looked down. “Oh, good. Everybody’s pants are still on. Don’t mind me.”
The divider rolled back up, and Lisa burst out laughing.
“You made him jealous!” she said.
“What? No, no, no!”
I banged on the partition.
“Jay, nothing is happening back here, I swear!”
The partition cracked a bit, and Jay’s voice filtered through it.
“Drink more champagne, Blaine. You’re way too uptight”
The divider closed again, and Lisa had a giggling fit that was so damned cute that I… well, I didn’t do anything. I just sat there with a stupid grin on my face, totally falling for this girl.
She stopped laughing, and wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, shit. I haven’t laughed like that in a while.”
“Glad I could be of service. Now, can we please leave my junk out of any future discussions?”
“I’m sorry, Blaine. I didn’t mean to… it’s just that you’re like a little middle school kid! You’re like someone I’d babysit!”
“What the fuck? No, I’m not! First of all, I’m thirty years old. And secondly, how many middle school kids do you know who are multi-millionaires?”
Well, that shut her up.
“You’re a multi-millionaire?” she asked, quietly, and with a sort of growl that made my downstairs bits all tingly again.
“Yeah, that’s what I was about to explain before you started going on about me being a porn star and shit. Yes, I have multiple millions of dollars in my bank accounts. I’m crazy stupid rich and it’s not as awesome as you think it is.”
She looked at me, obviously a bit stunned.
“Look,” I said, “it really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. I’m a grown ass man living at Walt Disney World. That should tell you something about the price I paid for my elite millionaire status,” I said, stressing the “elite” sarcastically.
Lisa was silent. Just staring at me. It was weird, but I didn’t mind her being captivated by me for a change.
“You’re going to get along really well with our dinner guests tonight, Blaine. I think they’re…” she paused, “I think we’re your kind of people.”
“I don’t know what my kind of people are,” I said.
“I’m your kind of people,” she said, moving closer.
I downed my champagne, reached over her, grabbed the bottle, poured another glass, downed that, and laughed.