Letter to the editor

I’ve been asked to leave the Tinsel Town Mall’s management office twice now, and been told by detectives with the local PD that wasting their time with false reports is a crime and that I’ll be charged with mischief if I come back with the same “story”, so I’m writing to you as my last hope for … I don’t know.  An explanation? Closure? I can’t imagine what sort of justice I would get.

On Sunday of last weekend I was phoned by a young man who identified himself as Parth and went on to tell me that my fiance Fallen was being detained by Tinsel Town security and asked that I make my way there promptly to either collect him or follow him to the police station pending their decision.

There were no police when I arrived, and by the time the whole thing was over none ever came.  The whole time it was just my poor fiance, this security kid, the mall Santa and his photographer, and some assistant manager who wasn’t very talkative.  They were arguing as I arrived and I stood for some time trying to get answers.  Fallen kept quiet for his part, just staring out the window at a pale and greasy Italian looking man who stared back at him from outside the security office drinking an Orange Julius.

By the third time I loudly asked exactly what had he done, without looking up the security guard described what he’d seen.  I can’t imagine Fallen behaving this way but by the terrified look on his face I could tell he’d done something.  “...  and there he was running around the Santa’s village photo booth”, Parth was saying, “talking like a terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger demanding an Action Man doll and screaming at everyone to get away from his wife’s cookies”.

“Well that is just plain ridiculous”, I insisted, “tell them it was someone else Fallen!” But he wouldn’t look at me, he just kept nervously eyeing the pasty guy outside.  That guy had been staring for so long, and just as I thought Fallen might speak up for himself he shook his head slightly.  Then he raised his fist and studied it as though he’d just noticed something interesting, spit on it suggestively and twisted it around nodding and looking back to Fallen only to shake his head after a moment of thought and wipe it dry again, smiling this odd smile as though he’d made the right decision and turning a hard gaze and a raised brow back at my defeated fiance.

When they finally let me take Fallen out of there I marched right up to Mr.  Greasebag but before I could ask anything Fallen blurted out “I’m sorry Akira!”

“You were supposed to keep it up for the full hour”, he said, slowly pumping his hips but seemingly oblivious of the fact.  “Cocks Fallen.  Cocks for breakfast.  Cocks stacked like cordwood, cock’s to the fucking rafters.  I told you you’d be chugging cocks till Easter if you didn’t keep it up the full hour didn’t I?”

We were both too stunned to speak, I wasn’t sure what was happening but I was too mesmerized by how seriously he seemed to taking this situation to do the sensible thing and lead my fiance out of there.

“Well it doesn’t have to be that way.  That’s not what I want.  That’s not what anyone wants of course”, he chuckled amiably as though it all made perfect sense.  “But so help me Fallen, I swear on that Bourbon stinking mall Santa and his snot nosed fucking elf, I will put on that rubber glove and you will taste knuckles LONG before I run out of arm if you don’t keep it up for the full god damned hour do you understand me?”

Fallen barely moved but I heard him breathe a shallow “yes”.

The greasy pale guy stood staring for a long moment then seemed to approve of what he saw in my fiance’s eyes.

“Okay have you ever seen Last Action Hero?”

- Emma Louise