The Accidental Siren

2.2 Mara

Her name was Ms. Grisham and she answered my knock through the two-inch seam that the chain allowed. “You know the rules, little boy. Off my porch or I'll eat your fingers for dinner.”

“Ma'am!” I said before she could slam the door. “I'm James Parker! I called you about the camera!”

Her colorless eye studied me through the crack, then she removed the chain with cautious enthusiasm, checked the street over my shoulder, allowed me in, and bolted the door three times behind us. “Jaaaames?” she said. “I mistook your voice for a woman’s. Silly me!” She was old; a-hundred-and-two I assumed at the time, but probably closer to sixty-five. She wore a strapless dress with a pattern like bathroom wallpaper, cream and blue flowers, sagging low enough to expose pursed, overly tan cleavage with a melanoma-worthy mole that danced on her right breast with every word. “My you're a big boy! Have a seat on the couch and I'll find you that camera.”

“Thanks,” I said, still a bit shaken from the absurdity of the evening. The couch was pink velvet with pleats, buttons, ruffles, pillows, and hose marks from a vacuum. I sat.

The living room was an ecosystem of pastel kitsch; resin and porcelain figurines that probably came to life at night, kept alive by a compressed atmosphere of bitter perfume that dizzied my senses. There were shelves on every wall lavished with doilies and candles and frilly dolls with lifeless eyes. The room was like a haunted antique store with peacock feathers, torn pages from a coloring book, collectable cards with saints instead of baseball players, frames with yellowed photographs, a row of encyclopedias, jade animals, rosary beads, angels, birdhouses, clowns, lamps, silverware, crucified Christs and more, all spotless and painfully free of dust.

The woman hummed an unfamiliar tune as she rummaged through a pile of junk on a game table. Behind her, a light-green stairwell ascended into plush darkness. On the third step, a discarded bandaid.

The room's centerpiece was not a TV, but one of those ancient phonographs with a brass crank and a speaker like a tuba. Was that the source of the beautiful song? An odd and intrusive platform stood beside the record player. It was narrow--only two feet wide and three from the ground--and draped in blood-red velour. Protruding from the center of the fabric square was a single, silver eye-hook.

“You say you want to make motion pictures,” asked Ms. Grisham.

“Yes, Ma'am. I--”

“I found it strange when you told me that on the telephone; filmmaking is not usually a woman's pursuit. But you're not a woman, are you Jaaames?”

“No, Ma'am.”

“I met Liz Taylor working reception at Turnberry Isle. Grey roots, she had. Can you imagine? A famous actress and roots as grey as an elephant's trunk.”

Before I could prove my ignorance for old film stars, the woman's head snapped around and her eyes locked on mine. “Is this a ploy?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Are you a sneaky little brat? Did you see my ad in the paper and get a perverted little idea in your perverted little brain? To sound like a woman to sneak your way in? I saw you eyeing the stairs, boy. Is there something you were looking for? Something more than a camera? Show me your money!”

“I-- I'm sorry?” I muttered again.

Her body twisted to align with her head. Her back arched like a hyena. 

I suddenly recalled the scene from The Goonies where that old hag nearly shoves the fat boy's hand in the blender. I began to panic.

“Show me that you're serious, little boy,” she growled. “Prove that you're here for my camera!”