HOLLYWOOD ENDING

by Shelia Bone © 2003

Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January 21, 1936. Sticking to everything: awnings, boulevards, eyelashes.

Outside the orphanage a woman is waiting. Mrs. McKee, kind-faced and cheery, her hand outstretched. Snow flakes melting on her open palm. Too ladylike to lick, as she once did, when she was a child. That was in 1901. A light dusting in 1922, but other than that, snowless winters here in Hollywood. Snowless unless you count the studio sets at Paramount, MGM, RKO...

“Gracie!” a young girl cries.

Sound of a door creaking open. McKee shuts her palm. The girl runs from the doorway into a full embrace. Whitish-blonde hair spills over Ms. McKee’s chest. “Norma Jeane.”

”I’m just so happy you telephoned ahead!”

“How’s the orphanage Norma Jeane? How do they treat you?”

Norma Jeane steps back. Her eyes glitter like the white treasure tumbling from the darkness of heaven. “None of the other kids can go out. But I can. Because I know you. Because you came.”

”That’s right, Norma Jeane. I came as soon as I saw the snow. A girl ought to have one chance to play in the snow when she’s young.” Big hand takes little hand. They walk along the boulevard in the snow.

They are followed. Man with a pistol in his coat pocket. His eyes on the McKee purse, bobbing up and down at her shoulder.

(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January 21, 1936.)

Standing at the window of his house, looking down at the intersection of Poinsettia Road and Dahlia street, Gregory Matthews picks up the telephone and cranks.

“Hello. Operator. Get me the public works department, City Hall.”

The squeal of breaks. Matthews runs to the window. Another near-miss. Another automobile sitting crookedly in the road, these drivers who have never seen snow.

Matthews is from Long Island. He is here to become a cameraman in the film business.

”Public Works,” says a man’s voice at last.

”Yes, you need to get a salt-man down to the intersection of Poinsettia Road and Dahlia. It’s a mess. Slippery. Someone’s going to get killed.”

There is a pause.

”Salt-man?” the voice says. “Is this a joke?”

(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January 21, 1936.)

Larisa Alcott has short black hair and high cheekbones, her lips pouting and her eyes turned down at the corners. She is wearing a pearl necklace. That is all she is wearing.

“Explain to me again,” Larisa sighs, “Why you must go so soon?”

“Official city duty,” the man mutters. His name is Bryan O’Malley, he’s Irish, and he has all of his clothes on. He stands opposite the bed near the telephone.

”Don’t go,” Larisa sighs. “Please. I want you to stay longer.”

”Why?”

”I am in love with you.”

The man laughs, his mouth tugging into a smirk. “Is that why you come to my apartment every thursday night, allow me the pleasure of watching you undress, and then don’t let me come near you? Is that love?”

Larisa pouts more deeply. “But Bryan. My parents...”

”Would never find out.” He throws his coat over his shoulders. “Some fool order to scatter salt on an intersection...gotta be done right away...” he mutters. “Get your clothes on. Let yourself out. See you next week, Larisa Alcott.”

He opens the door.

Larisa gasps: “Wait!”

He shuts the door halfway. Widens his eyes. “Yes?”

“Take me,” Larisa whispers.

O’Malley closes the door. “You’re sure?”

She stretches her naked body across his bed. “Yes,” she whispers. “You have never left me before. I have always been the one to leave. But now I realize just how much I desire you...”

The public servant stands a moment, thinking of duty. Then he begins to undress.

(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January 21, 1936.)

“This is an All Point’s Bulletin, an APB,” crackles the police radio. “All available squad cars proceed to the intersection of Sunset and 5th, repeat, Sunset and 5th. Mugging in progress. A woman and her daughter. Over.”

“Over,” says Police Sergeant Waterson. He’s close. Just a couple blocks away...

He flicks the lights. Cranks the siren up. Snow flakes splatter against the windshield as he watches the wide boulevards of the city fly past. Cars pulling over. Good. Poinsettia, just a couple more blocks...

The car fishtails and goes into a spin.

Smacks into a light post. Waterson blinking, stunned. Tries to get the engine to turn over.

But it’s dead.

(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January 21, 1936.)

Gun discharging. Two shots. A man runs, his feet making tracks in the snow. Nobody will follow. Grace McKee bends over the body of her best friend’s daughter, Norma Jeane. Her last words were threats. I’m gonna scream.

“I called the police four minutes ago,” a stranger says, coming up at a breakneck run and sliding a little on the wet snow. “From my house. Don’t know why they didn’t come. Hope the ambulance is on time.”

The man knows some first aid. He rolls her over. “God, but she’s a pretty young thing...” he says, his breath making cotton clouds in the winter evening.

(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January 21, 1936.)

Nobody remembers Norma Jeane. She was put to rest in a cemetery somewhere near Hollywood. But everyone in America knows Betty Alcott, and that famous still frame image of her removing a long pearl necklace from her bodice is a chunk of Americana just as much as the Statute of Liberty.

Betty Alcott was a child film star with an unknown Irish father and a crazy, outcast mother. She was perhaps most famous for her film *Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes* and her unhappy marriage to Joe DiMaggio.

Born in 1936.

Died in 1972.

Died of a drug overdose.

Saw interesting times.

(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January 21, 1936.)

Some things are meant to happen no matter what.

x x x




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