Pennington looked in the morning mirror, and rather liked what he saw. Shoulders squared. Posture erect. Clipped mustache. Gray hair carefully pomaded straight back to hide the thinning crown. A tasteful Harris tweed jacket. At age 71, he wryly acknowledged that the look was less David Niven and more Neville Chamberlain; yet, he was satisfied that he looked sufficiently distinguished to effectively discharge his duties as a guide showing tourists the sights of the Old City. He had taken this position after his retirement as a minor postal official. One had to find something to fill one’s one’s retirement. It would not do to sit in his modest apartment and leaf through the Encylopaedia Britannica until his time eventually came.
The tour business blossomed like phlox in the summer, and it was time to head out to meet this morning’s tour group. Pennington’s carefully refined summer routine, however, had been unexpectedly complicated by some urgent family matters. His daughter, Jeanette (now relocated to the USA), had been accepted into a three-week writer’s program in Iowa. A single mother, she had persuaded him to watch her son by ingeniously applying a poultice of flattery and guilt, against which Pennington was powerless. The eight-year-old boy was absurdly named Morrissey, after a minor British pop star beloved by his mother.
Since his arrival, Morrissey had essentially barricaded himself in the guest bedroom. He made clear, in the hundreds of ways that only a disgruntled child can, his unhappiness. Pennington had no choice but to endure the daily symphony of grunts, sighs, and scoffs performed by Morrissey since his arrival.
Morrissey’s chief interest was watching and absorbing Universal Classic Monster movies from the ‘30s through the 50’s (Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc.), which he obsessively watched on his iPad for hours on end. Why, he had even asked Pennington to let him look up “monsters” in the pleasingly dogeared Britannica, an endeavor which yielded disappointing results (although Pennington was pleased that Morrissey had thought to obtain information from something that was not on an illuminated screen).
The lovely summer dawn, though, brought with it a problem. Mrs. Siegel, the stout and kindly babysitter retained to watch Morrissey, had telephoned with the regrettable news that she had tested positive for COVID, and would he forgive her? Of course, he had assured her, but he immediately realized that he was going to have to lug Morrissey with him on today’s three-hour tour of the Old City. Pennington walked into the guest bedroom to find Morrissey riveted by “The Creature From The Black Lagoon.”
“Lad, look alive. Mrs. Siegel has taken ill, and you will, until further notice, have the propitious opportunity to see the sights of the Old City with me on a daily basis,” Pennington advised Morrissey.
Morrissey’s disappointed scowl suggested that the news was far less than propitious and would hamper his viewing schedule (he had hoped to finally watch the Bela Lugosi “Dracula”). He knew by now, though, that Pennington ran a bit of a tight ship, and that resistance was, at best, futile. This inauspicious development, though, knocked Morrissey’s summer off its axis in a most disappointing fashion.
They descended the four flights from Pennington’s flat, and travelled down the twisty streets toward the greenly oxidated statue of an alpaca that was the rendezvous for the tour of the Old City.
Pennington wore a small flag of a Union Jack in the brim of his dun-colored homburg to identify to the customers that he was their guide for the day. In due course, the 12 tourists coalesced around the statue. It was the usual flock of boorish Americans; Japanese with expensive Leica cameras; and a smattering of motley Europeans. Pennington gave his traditional introductory speech, with its signature concoction of welcome and warning, and herded his flock to the first attraction, a few blocks from the alpaca statue.
“Here we see the Dalbec Clock, a rather remarkable example of a public timepiece in which the hands were fashioned, from an alloy of zinc and nickel, in the shape of human bones as a memorial for the fallen in what has been popularly known as the “War of the Puppies.”
The tourists dutifully nodded, perhaps less entranced than Pennington would have deemed appropriate. He turned to face the group, and immediately noticed, with a panic that began in his stomach and radiated through his heart to his fingers, that Morrissey was nowhere to be seen. Keep calm, Pennington sternly instructed himself.
“Has anyone seen Morrissey?” Pennington tensely inquired to the crowd, suppressing his panic.
“Yeah, I saw him in New York in 2004. He sucked,” volunteered a 40-something American, wearing an absurd Nickelback T-shirt emblazoned with a flaming (and clearly inauthentic) heraldic crest with “NB” in gothic letters.
“No, you fool! I mean the boy, Morrissey. My grandson!” snapped Pennington, shedding his usual dignified mien. The tourists looked blankly at each other, and then back at Pennington.
Time was critical; the Old City was unfettered by the usual constraints of polite society and who knew what awaited a pale eight-year-old adrift of a summer morning?
He snapped into action. He popped open his trusty Motorola Star-Tac and called Miranda, the tour company owner, to request an immediate emergency replacement. He announced that a replacement tour guide, Trevor, would be joining them to replace Pennington while he searched for Morrissey. After what seemed like hours (but was in reality fewer than 11 minutes) Trevor arrived and Pennington fled, backtracking their steps to find the boy.
He loped as best he could on his Vibram-soled Oxfords back through the Old City, squinting at the shops, restaurants and storefront offices lining the streets. After a little less than an hour, his eyes finally landed on a faded painted wood sign bearing the words “Creative Playtime,” in a part of the Old City eschewed by tourists. The door was open, but the shop was almost dark. On a hunch, he entered and let his eyes adjust to the gloom.
It was unlike any other toy store he had ever seen; devoid of bright colors intended to seduce the young eye and drain the pockets of the young eye’s parents. Instead, the store had one long, narrow aisle. On either side were stacked seemingly random, dusty old toy boxes as high as one could see, and higher still, although it was impossible to discern what those boxes contained.
In the center of the aisle, a battered oak worktable protruded from an alcove lined with faded toy posters from the 1950’s. At the table, under a narrow pool of light grudgingly provided by a single bulb hanging from a ceiling many feet above, was an elderly man, with unfortunate tufts of hair protruding from both ears, resplendent in a threadbare smock. And next to him, Morrissey.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Morrissey! Where the hell have you wondered off to! Your mother would...” Pennington trailed off, struck dumb by the mere thought of what that conversation would have sounded like.
“Grandpa! I mean...sir! Look what we found!” exclaimed the boy. Pennington looked down. On the table was a completed model figure of Dracula. The vampire was standing on a stony hardscape of rocks and dirt, next to the stump of a thwarted tree upon which a bat perched, improbably, at about 2 feet from the ground. His arms were held aloft in a vaguely threatening manner; his face scowling under beetled brows. The name “Dracula” was spelled on a plaque on the model’s front, in letters formed from what must have been intended to depict human bones.
“I take it the boy’s yours?” inquired the shopkeeper, with a wry twist of the mouth. Pennington nodded.
“Yes, he’s mine. Sir, I apologize for the intrusion; you must let me pay for the...what is it? A model?”
The shopkeeper nodded. “24 forint should cover it. The boy knows his monsters, I’ll give him that.”
Pennington paid the man and nodded, growling “You don’t know the half of it. Morrissey! Let’s go! It’s a long walk home and my feet are throbbing.” The boy meekly nodded, knowing that he had pushed his grandfather to the limit of what was approved behavior of a young foreign guest.
Morrissey and Pennington emerged from the murky store, with Morrissey triumphantly clutching the model, and began to weave through the crowded streets of the Old City. As they approached a florid-faced woman and her husband, Morrissey brandished the model at the couple and bellowed “DRAK—OO-LAAA”!! The woman looked ready to faint and clutched her husband’s arm as they hurried past Pennington and the boy.
“SILENCE!” roared Pennington, but the boy was undeterred. A moment later, Morrissey wielded the model at a gentleman in a natty blue suit, and shrieked, in a vaguely eastern European accent, “I VANT BLOOOOD!! YOU MUST GIVE ME BLOOOD!”
“Blood, huh?” asked the man, clearly charmed at the lad. He beckoned to Pennington; whispered in Pennington’s ear; and pointed. A vague ghost of a smile raised a corner of Pennington’s mouth, and he yanked Morrissey by the hand.
“Off we go, we have to stop somewhere,” he growled. Morrissey looked apprehensive, but knew that he had burned his bridges for the day and meekly followed. A few minutes later, they entered a shop bearing the sign “City Chemist”.
“Go look at comic books. I have to talk to someone,” said Pennington, shooting an I’ve-had-it-with-you glare at Morrissey. The boy meekly parked himself in front of a revolving rack of comics, and Pennington went to the gentleman at the front counter. He beckoned to the chemist to lean forward, and a murmured exchange followed. A moment later, the shopkeeper emerged with 5 small boxes and handed them to Pennington. Pennington paid for them; opened each box; and discarded 4 of the 5 contents of each box in the rubbish. They were small wax bottles with blue, green, yellow, and orange liquid inside.
“Morrissey! Front and center, son!” Morrissey walked to the front of the store, where Pennington was waiting.
Pennington gingerly kneeled and handed Morrissey 5 small waxy bottles filled with a red sugary fluid. “Here you go, boy. You asked for it and here it is, blood!”
Morrissey’s eyes glittered as he bit the top off each bottle and eagerly quaffed their contents. A small red trickle ran from his mouth down his chin as they left the store.
During the twenty-minute walk to Pennington’s flat, Morrissey warned numerous passersby of his bloody snack (“I HAVE DRUNK BLOOOOOD!”), and thrust the Dracula model at them as further proof of his magnificent power. By the time they arrived home, Morrissey reckoned that maybe the summer wouldn’t be so bad after all.
12/21/2023
10:55:09 AM