No Fire Escape in Hell Read online

  First published by Roundfire Books, 2016

  Roundfire Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach, Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

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  Text copyright: Kim Cayer 2015

  ISBN: 978 1 78535 225 6

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015946050

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

  The rights of Kim Cayer as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

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  Chapter One

  My bags were packed. I knew this day was coming and today was the day. I was leaving my husband. For the past two weeks, I’d kept a suitcase packed with a few changes of clothes, the usual assorted socks and underwear, a couple good books. In the garage, in a black garbage bag, I had hidden a sleeping bag and pillow. And in a huge storage box that had once held a tent and camping supplies, I’d stuffed the most important tools of my trade. They absolutely had to come with me. Without the gorilla, my Madonna and Marilyn Monroe, I’d be without work as well as a home.

  To outsiders, Mrs. Ben Magee had it made. Nice house, two cars in the drive, a child who was pretty decent, and a great job. I didn’t work anywhere near forty hours a week yet I earned enough that I could afford to keep my husband at home. What the world did not see – what I didn’t even let my closest friends or family see – was that this was one marriage that had totally unravelled.

  When Ben and I first met, I had just started in my line of work. Purely by fluke, I found myself in the singing-telegram business. My best friend was an aspiring actress and had landed a role in a community play. Directed by a guy we also knew as the local Dollar Giant owner, my pal Peggy had an impressive part. On opening night, the first of their three performances, she wished that someone would send her a good-luck telegram. I tried to get her one, but time was of the essence, and I procrastinated (nothing new with me). At the last minute, and because the play was a murder mystery set among celebrities, I got dolled up as Marilyn Monroe and wrote a song wishing Peggy luck. I was able to see her before the curtain went up. I did my best impression of Marilyn, sang her the telegram (and admired how I used ‘Peg’ to rhyme with ‘Break a leg’) and then left to take my seat. I figured I’d make a quick side trip to the ladies’ room and wash off the fake beauty mark, remove the wig and put on less-revealing clothes.

  However, I was barely out of the dressing-room door (also known as the Chem Lab at the Central Tech High School) when I almost ran into a man who strongly resembled Santa Claus. I gawked at him before I stammered, “Ooops, sorry… Wow, you look like Santa!”

  “It’s what I do,” the stranger said. “And you look like Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Actually, no, I don’t,” I corrected him. “It’s just a get-up, like a costume, you know? I gave my friend a singing-telegram kind of thing.”

  “Really? I’ve heard of that kind of thing…more in the US than here in Canada.”

  “Yeah, same here, that’s what gave me the idea,” I replied.

  “Hhmm,” the man mused, giving me a strange look. “I think I could use someone like you.”

  Before I could even inquire as to what he meant, a voice came over the school’s speakers. “CURTAIN IS IN FIVE MINUTES. TAKE YOUR SEATS, PLEASE.”

  The man quickly reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card. “Take this, and give me a call,” he urged. “I’ve got to give these flowers to my wife.” With that, he entered the chem lab/dressing room.

  I was left wondering what he saw in me. Yes, I was dressed in a white halter dress with my breasts half-hanging out, I was wearing a lot of make-up and a sexy platinum wig…but he did mention his wife within the first thirty seconds of our meeting. I didn’t think he had romance on his mind. How could he “use” me?

  It was about a month later that I decided to contact him. Our chance encounter kept running through my mind while I went through the motions at work. If he had a job offer in mind, I was ready to accept it. Anything would be better than the job I was working, even though the title of Conveyor Belt Inspector held a certain eminence. But what I did was inspect the conveyor belt as it sent sheets of cookies past me. Any that were broken or misshapen were thrown away or eaten by me. Hey, it was the best job I could find after two months of looking. So much for my idea of forgoing a university education.

  The brief meeting between Santa and I led me to believe that, if there were a job offer on the table, it would be distasteful. I mean, the guy caught a good eyeful of 36DDs, and that’s probably what registered. If googling had been around back then, I may have assuaged my fears with a couple internet searches. But all I had to go on was his business card, which read ‘Harry Goldblum Agency – I Can Supply All Your Needs’ and listed his phone number. Fearing he was the owner of an escort agency is what delayed my calling him. What finally prompted the call was the batch of chocolate cookies that came through on the conveyor belt, missing the white filling. Since management didn’t care what we did with the discards, I ate about eighty of them. The stomach-ache afterward was the sign I needed a new line of work.

  It’s funny when I remember my first call to Harry. He recalled who I was and suggested I drop in for an interview. When I asked him what he had in mind, he simply asked, “Well, how would you like to earn a few more dollars a week at a part-time job?” Ah ha! I just knew my suspicions were going to be true! Yet something made me ask for his address and we settled on a meeting for the next day.

  Before we disconnected, he shouted, “Oh! Madeline! Make sure you come dressed EXACTLY like you were when I first saw you.”

  “That was a costume,” I reminded him. “I don’t really look like that.”

  “That’s the look I want to see,” he stated firmly. “OK? Noon tomorrow.”

  The next day, I got myself dressed up again as Marilyn Monroe. I took a lot of time getting ready, but it still felt like I was entering a Halloween Best-Dressed competition. The Harry Goldblum Agency was located in downtown Toronto and I had to park quite some distance away from his location. I felt like a fool as I parked my car, walked three blocks to the office building and waited for an elevator with twelve other people, all pretending not to look at me. I was only too happy to escape on Floor 14 and scurry down the hall to 1414, the Harry Goldblum Agency.

  I opened the door and saw a sight that gave me deja vu. I swear I’d viewed this scene in some black-and-white movie, or seen it in an old comic book. Upon entering, I immediately saw rows and rows of photos. They weren’t lewd photos of semi-dressed women; instead I saw images of jugglers, acrobats, magicians, fire breathers, puppeteers. I even saw a photo of a heavyset Marilyn Monroe. A voice brought me back to earth. “Hello, can I help you?”

  Full of gratitude that my fears were unfounded, I beamed at the receptionist. “Yes! Hello! How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she replied. She looked at me over the top of her little round John Lennon-type glasses. “Did you have an appointment?”

  “Yes, I’m sup—” I did a double-take a
t the employee. Why, with her hair in those corn rows, and those glasses, and the fact she was black… “—supposed to see Harry Goldblum at noon.” Then I stated the obvious. “Boy, do you ever look like Whoopi Goldberg!”

  “No kidding, do you have a job for me?” she said. In response to my curious look, she continued. “It used to be Whoopi was so popular. What happened? Anyhow, Harry’s a bit backed up. Take a seat.”

  And this is where the deja vu feeling continued. Whoopi pointed to a section of the room with a couple couches. There was a guy sitting there with a colourful crank box and a monkey. Obviously an organ grinder. The monkey was so lifeless, I feared it was drugged. Next to him was a man who kept clinking and clanking, what with the tambourines between his knees, cymbals at his elbows and drums at his hips. I surmised he was a one-man band. Across from them was a beautiful woman, sitting in a beaded gown, with twenty or thirty hula hoops leaning against her. I took the seat next to her and brazenly checked out the hoop dancer. Up close she wasn’t as young as I’d thought; she could have been up to twenty years older! Yet her facial life lines were artfully camouflaged, and I saw the gown was reinforced with a lot of whalebone action. When I caught the hoopster’s eye, I was about to speak up and ask just what the hell this place was. Harry took that moment to walk into the room.

  He held out an envelope to the one-man band. “Here’s the pay for your last two shows and the details for the gig this afternoon.” He turned to the organ grinder. “Sandro, I told you, buddy, I would call you if I had work for you. I don’t need to see your act again.”

  “Puh-leeze, Mr. Goldblum,” the organ grinder beseeched. “Me and monkey, we got a new trick. I show it to you.”

  Harry looked at the animal. “That monkey looks sick.”

  “It’s only because he no work! Me, I can paint houses. The monkey, this is all he know!” Sandro prodded his pet. “Monkey! Loop de loop time! Wake up!”

  The monkey woke up, blinked two times and went back into its stupor. Harry just shook his head. “I hate to say it, but Monkey may be getting old. Isn’t he the same one you started with?”

  “Yes, but monkeys live a long time,” Sandro explained. “Maybe I can wait until Monkey wake up.”

  Harry looked like he would prefer Sandro to leave but after a moment, he shrugged his shoulders. He looked over at the hula-hoop gal. “Lena, you ready? okay, go in the office. And fix your cleavage, something’s off.” He turned to me. “Madeline, I’m glad you made it. I’ll only be a few minutes. In the meantime, can you sign this form?” He placed a piece of paper and a pen on the coffee table in front of me and walked away.

  The form basically allowed me to grant all parties the right to photograph, videotape or vocally record me. I signed it and waited my turn to see Harry. I could tell he was taking photographs of Lena! The Hula Hoop Sensation! Flashes of light kept illuminating the office and Harry could be heard encouraging her. “Come on! Another one! Two more! Spin ‘em, Lena! Faster!” Eventually there was a loud crash, a moment of silence and then Lena exited the office with all her hoops. Harry called me in.

  A coat-stand had been knocked over, along with a large standup fan and a plant. Harry was putting his office back to order and offered me a seat. “I want to thank you for wearing the Marilyn look,” he said, picking up his camera. “May I?”

  “May you what? Take a photo of me?” I put the permission form on his desk. “Go ahead, I guess.”

  Harry took a couple shots and I smiled brightly. But he didn’t look happy. “No, that’s not right. Can you smile with your mouth wide open?” I did as he asked, but it just felt so awkward. “Try tilting your head back, it will feel more natural,” Harry suggested. And what do you know? It felt much better. Harry snapped off a few more photos and then put the camera away.

  “Ok, I’m going to develop those, and we can get some better ones made up later,” he said. I still didn’t know why I was there.

  “Uh, Harry? Is this about a job of some kind?”

  “Only if you’re looking for a job,” Harry said. “And I really think you could work out.” It turned out Harry ran some kind of talent agency, where you could find acts that were off the beaten path. Unusual acts. One-of-a-kind acts. Or acts that just didn’t fit into the usual categories.

  “So you would want me as a Marilyn Monroe?” I asked.

  “In a way,” he said, pulling out a folder with a label declaring it HOLLYWOOD STARS. From that he pulled out four photographs. They were of different women, all portraying Marilyn Monroe. “Two of these girls work non-stop,” he said. “They sing live, so they do all the stage shows. And this girl is pregnant, she won’t be working for awhile, and my fourth Marilyn is…well, she just doesn’t know how to work a crowd.”

  “Oh, boy, this all sounds exciting, Harry, but I can’t sing,” I said. “I couldn’t carry a tune if it had handles.”

  “I heard you sing that song to your friend,” he reminded me.

  “Yeah, but no, but yeah, but…” and I stopped to gather my wits. Wow, he was talking showbiz to me! It can get to a girl’s head, you know. “I guess I have an okay voice, but I was always better at putting on a character voice—”

  Harry cut in. “Look, here is what I’m going to suggest. I need somebody to do singing telegrams. The main thing we supply for is birthdays, and do you know how many times I get people asking for somebody to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ the way Marilyn Monroe sang to President Kennedy? I’ve asked my other Marilyns to do it, but they’re used to the big bucks from the stage shows. They won’t condescend to singing telegrams. I told them – this ain’t corporate. This is some private joe who’s sending this as a gift.”

  “So you’d like me to do Marilyn Monroe singing telegrams?” I asked, just to get it straight in my head.

  “That’s it. But tell me first, what are you gonna charge me?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was currently making a tiny bit more than minimum wage; so if he could beat that…? Instead, I countered with, “What were you thinking of paying me?”

  Twenty years ago this was. He offered me $60 a show and I jumped on that so fast, you would have thought it was an escort agency.

  Since then, I’ve more than doubled my rate. Though I still work for Harry, word got out about me. Other agencies found out about my services and I expanded my clientele. But back then, I didn’t even know if I could pull off my first job. I expressed my doubts.

  “Look, Miss Madeline, this ain’t rocket science. It will be just like the thing you did for your pal. We’ll get some info on the guy and you write a song about them. Then you joke around, kid around, few laughs, you sing ‘Happy Birthday’ just like Marilyn sang to the President, and you’re outta there. Piece of cake,” Harry explained.

  “OK, I’ll give it a shot,” I decided. “And, Harry, I gotta clear up something you said when we first met. I said you looked like Santa and you said, ‘that’s what I do’. Do you really play Santa Claus?”

  “When it’s that time of year,” he agreed. “Christmas time is a bonanza for me.”

  I laughed. “Oh! I thought you were Jewish!”

  “I am, but that won’t stop me from playing Santa. Not when there’s so much money to be made! So just because you’re not a dead movie star shouldn’t stop you from pretending to be one. Give it one job, and see how you like it.”

  And a month after that meeting, I was giving my notice to the cookie company. That first show was nerve-wracking. I almost didn’t do it. But as far as shows go, it was as simple as they get. I went into a nursing home, was led to a room with the 90-year-old birthday boy, and sang my song. The nurses watching me didn’t bother me; neither did the senior citizen laying in the other bed. It was so easy, I couldn’t wait for my next one. A couple days later, Harry called and he had two gigs for the same day. I sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to the President of a tire company and then to a lowly worker at a dry-cleaning company.

  When the weekend rolled around, Harry had three mor
e. When it dawned on me that I could actually make a living doing this…when doing three telegrams a week basically equalled to me working 40 hours at my old job…well, Mama didn’t raise a fool. Even if this job was short-lived, I didn’t want to miss any potential bookings because of the cookie line.

  As I said, twenty years ago. Since then, I totally expanded my repertoire of costumes. Marilyn is still my bread and butter, but I get the occasional Madonna as well. Gorilla telegrams are huge, French maids, bag ladies, cops, nuns… And I was good at what I did. By some stroke of luck, God had given me a certain bone structure to my face. I was able to very convincingly pull off Madonna and Marilyn Monroe. If needed, I could look very beatific as a nun, or quite intimidating as a cop. I always felt like I was playing make-believe, and nobody would know who was really behind the mask…even if I wasn’t wearing a mask.

  If you saw me as myself and not a singing-telegram performer, you wouldn’t look twice. I have the blandest of all appearances. I’m not beautiful, but I’m not ugly. My height is normal, my clothes are unremarkable, my hair is almost always in a boring ponytail. But once I had a costume on, I became very funny, very engaging and flirtatious, quick with comebacks and bon mots.

  I was just getting the hang of the singing-telegram business when I met Ben. It was a dark night, and his sister had booked me to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to their uncle. After my act was done, Ben stepped forward and said the streetlights were out; did I want him to escort me to my car? I accepted, rather charmed, and I also gave up my phone number when he asked for it. I was single, so was he, he was also cute, and I was (in retrospect) a fool.

  Ben had a pretty decent job working as a carpenter for a housing development and his weekly paycheques were cause for useless purchases. However, he never saw a person make money like I could. Mind you, even I was amazed. And because I was brought up to save money for a rainy day, perhaps even a retirement, I socked away as much as I could.

  From meeting to marriage didn’t take long. Within a year we had announced our engagement. Maybe deep in my heart I didn’t feel quite ready, maybe I still had a few years to look around. Yes, Ben was handsome and he had a good job, but there were already things I didn’t like. Mainly, he wasn’t happy unless his bank account read nil and there wasn’t a penny to be found in his house or pocket. But in a moment of weakness (Was I drinking? Was I stoned?), I agreed. Oh well, I’ll be engaged for a couple months, I thought. A couple months later, I found myself pregnant. Rather than have his mother go into shock over the fact that her 28-year-old son was having sex, we decided to get married immediately.