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Flower Power Fatality

By Sally Carpenter

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Chapter 1: Baby The Rain Must Fall
Saturday, 1967

The Winter Witch sneered at the elves of Santa’s workshop during the evening performance. On the metal benches in front of the outdoor stage, a handful of families sat huddled against the light rain. The early morning sunshine had tricked the tourists, so they’d arrived at the Country Christmas Family Fun Park without rain slickers or umbrellas. From the stage, Noelle McNabb, dressed as the Witch in a floor-length black dress, waved her broomstick and yelled at her fellow cast members. From the corner of her eye she spied the miserable guests scattered throughout the seats. Nothing was worse than playing to a near-empty house on an overcast day in April when most of the fine folk of Yuletide, Indiana, were snug in their cozy homes. Despite the temptation to rush through her lines so she could leave the stage, Noelle stayed in character.

“There’ll be no Christmas this year!” She gave her most gruesome cackle, first to the elves and then the audience. Usually the kids watching reacted to her, but this group was more interested in staying dry than in following the story. Blank stares greeted her scowl. The elves, played by high schoolers clad in colorful tights and leotards, cringed at the Witch’s threat. Or were they just shivering from the cold wind?

“You mean . . . no presents?” asked one elf.

“No carols?” said another.

“No sleigh rides?” added a third.

Noelle let out her loudest evil laugh. She cranked up her energy in an attempt to wake up the audience. “Indubitably! If I can’t be glad, then I’ll just stay mad, and everyone will be sad, with no Christmas cheer for anyone, from the oldest adult to the youngest lad!” If she could make this cornball dialogue sound good, she could handle any role.

The Witch chased the elves around the wooden stage that creaked beneath their footsteps. At least the movement kept her muscles from cramping. At six feet tall, Noelle towered over the young actors. She plucked the jingle bell cap off one elf and tossed it at the benches. Usually the kids in the audience clamored to claim the cap for their own, but nobody moved. The overhead stage lights provided no heat against the chill. A roof above the stage kept the rain off Noelle, but the wind cut through her long-sleeve costume and blew raindrops onto her face. She touched her cheek. Was her green makeup running? Some day she’d have to ask the park director why the Candy Cane Capers show couldn’t be moved indoors during inclement weather, which, in rural southwest Indiana, was most of the year.

“Special delivery!” An actor in a brown reindeer costume ran onto the stage. The papier-mâché deer head muffled his voice. “I have a special delivery for the Winter Witch!” He skidded to a stop beside Noelle. “Are you Miss Witch? Or just a miss fit?”

“My name fits me snug as a bug,” she replied.

“I’m Rudolph, and I have a package for you from Santa!” He held out a large box wrapped in foil and ribbon.

“Phooey! For me? From Santa? He never gives me presents ‘cause I’m a bad, bad girl.” Noelle took the box and pressed her ear against it. “Hmmm, I hear ticking. Is it a bomb?”

One of the elves giggled. “If it’s a gift for the witch, it’s bound to be a dud!”

Another elf said, “Hey, witch, open the box and we’ll have an explosive finish!”

No chuckles from the audience. Normally at this point, Noelle waited for the laughter to subside, but this soggy crowd wouldn’t giggle if Rudolph dropped his furry pants. She jumped into her next line.

“Stand back, kiddies! If this is a bomb, we’ll all be in orbit with Sputnik!” The reference to the space race usually sailed over the heads of the watching tykes and, apparently for this show, their parents as well.

The elves rushed to the back of the stage and covered their faces with their hands. Noelle yanked off the box lid and reached it. She removed an ornate clock covered in holly. A card was tied to the clock.

“Tell us what it says,” the reindeer asked.

“Don’t rush me!” she replied. “I only have a third-grade education! If I had finished school, I wouldn’t be so mean!” Noelle held up the card and pretended to read it. “It says, ‘It’s time for you to be a nicer person.’” She handed the clock to Rudolph and peered into the box. “But wait, there’s more!” From the box she removed a baby doll. “Awww! If I’d had such a beautiful dolly when I was a little girl, I wouldn’t have grown up into a cranky old witch! And look!” She raised the doll so the audience could see the huge red valentine heart sewn to its stuffed chest. “It’s all heart!”

Rudolph said, “Yeah, you can have heart-to-heart talks with your new dolly friend!” Then he spoke directly to the audience. “And you can have one too. Heart-full dolls are available at Santa’s Bag gift shop right here in the park!”

The crass commercialism annoyed Noelle more than the dopey script, but she carried on like a professional. “Gosh, yes! And I’ve been so heartless to my friends, the elves.” She moved to the front of the stage and spoke directly to the audience, “And it’s time for all of us to be nicer to our friends and families, isn’t it?” Rudolph stood beside her. In the humid weather his shaggy costume emitted a strong musty odor. “It sure is! And remember, kids, nobody is so bad that a little love won’t fix them!”

The Witch and Rudolph stepped aside so the elves could come downstage for the closing musical number. Children dressed as snowflakes entered from the wings and joined the dance. A couple of the dancers slipped on the wet stage. When finished, everyone froze in place for the usual audience applause, which tonight consisted of guests slapping their hands together in an effort to stay warm. After a quick group bow the cast rushed off stage into the wings and down the stairs to the basement dressing rooms.

Seated at her mirror in the women’s dressing room, Noelle tossed the witch’s hat onto the makeup counter. She pulled off her wig and brushed her brown hair. She’d recently had her long tresses cut into a smart bob with a small pointed curl plastered on each cheek. Keeping up with the latest hairstyles in this hick town was a challenge. The other female cast members still wore their hair long and straight.

The overhead fluorescent light flickered. “Brrrr! It’s colder in here than outside!” said one of the girls.

Another elf stripped off her damp costume. “Yeah, you know old man Ferguson,” the owner/director of the theme park. “He can buy billboards for the highways, but he can’t afford heat for his slaves.”

While Noelle rubbed her face with cold cream to remove the green makeup, the girls changed into their street clothes and chattered. At age 25, Noelle was the oldest of the cast members and as such seldom socialized with the “kids,” as she called them. Many of the park employees came from the local schools. When school was in session, the park was only open weekends, due to fewer tourists and the schedules of the younger workers. After graduation most of the older youths moved on to other jobs, college, marriage or the armed forces, but a constant crop of new kids kept the park positions filled.

“Thank goodness that was the last show of the day,” one girl said. “I’m going home to warm up in a hot tub.”

“Why does Fergy keep the park open in spring when it rains every day?” said another.

“We’re lucky he does.” Noelle pulled off her fake bushy eyebrows. “We don’t get paid when the park’s closed.”
The girls didn’t care about money because they lived with their parents and spent their wages on clothes and movies. But Noelle needed her earnings for rent and food.

“It won’t matter to you, Noelle, when you become a big movie star. You’ll have a swimming pool full of cash!” The girl laughed.

Another one took up the jest. “Yeah, Noelle, in Los Angeles it’s hot and sunny all the time and you won’t have to do shows in the rain!”

Noelle turned to face them, her blue eyes blazing. “At least I have dreams! If the rest of you want to rot away in this wide-spot-in-the-road for the rest of your lives, be my guest!”

The other girls had finished dressing. They left their dirty costumes on the floor, which they knew was against the rules. One said, “Let’s go so the drama queen can polish her Oscar.” The girls giggled on their way out the door.

Alone at last. Noelle was glad to be rid of the immature urchins but sadden by her status. She planned to move to Hollywood as soon as she’d saved enough money, but on her meager park wages that could take years. The ceiling lights hummed and the steam radiator banged. The empty room had an eerie feel. Having the most makeup to remove, Noelle was always the last one out the door at the end of a long workday. With her face clean, she rested her elbows on the Formica counter and starred into the light-rimmed mirror.

“Mirror, mirror on my table, who’s the fairest hard luck actress of them all?” Was her skin starting to take on a green hue from the cosmetics? If she didn’t get to the West Coast soon, the only role she’d be playing would be as a green bean in a vegetable commercial.

Noelle switched off the mirror lights and removed her street clothes from her metal wall locker. She changed into a warm pullover sweater and slipped a skirt over her pantyhose. She dropped the witch’s costume into the hamper for the overnight laundry service to clean. Nimble fingers unwrapped her clear plastic rain bonnet and tied the straps under her chin. At least she had brought her raingear, thanks to watching her cousin, the WOWS-TV weather girl, the night before. With her knee-high vinyl boots she didn’t need those ugly plastic rain boots her mom pestered her to wear. Noelle slipped on her raincoat, picked up her purse, turned off the ceiling lights and shut the dressing room door behind her.

Darkness had fallen, and the theme park was closing for the night. On her way to the staff parking lot, Noelle passed the carousel dislodging the last riders from the hand-painted wooden ponies. Didn’t Fergy worry about the electrical systems short-circuiting in the rain? The lights on the merry-go-round switched off, and the taped hurdy-gurdy organ music abruptly ceased. The shopkeepers of the various buildings rolled down the metal shutters over the service windows. In the center of the park, the sparkly lights on the twenty-foot-tall living Christmas tree, kept decorated year round, snapped off. The animal handlers herded the live reindeer from the open coral and into their stalls for the night.

As soon as Noelle got into her 1965 blue Volkswagen Beetle, the clouds let loose with the rain. At least the deluge had waited until the tourists had cleared the park. She turned on the headlights and windshield wipers before heading home in the gloom. On Kringle Avenue, the main drag through downtown, the sidewalks were empty, as the shops had closed for the day. On a Saturday night in Yuletide, the only signs of life could be found at the Lollipop Lanes bowling alley, the roller-skating rink, the single-screen Holiday Cinema or The Barn dance hall.

“Strawberry Fields Forever,” The Beatles’ most recent single, played on the car radio. Noelle kept her radio dial set on the rock-and-roll station that broadcasted from Riverbend, the metropolis five miles south, but her parents preferred WEEK-AM, the hometown station with its format of easy listening and farm reports.

The music faded out for the news. “The top story this hour: This afternoon about a hundred students from Ohio River College in Riverbend gathered in Veterans Park to protest the Vietnam War. The demonstration began peaceably as the students sang anti-war songs and carried placards. But the protest turned chaotic as about dozen young men set a fire in a trash bin and burned their draft cards. The demonstrators then lit firecrackers to throw at the local law enforcement. The police broke up the riot and arrested several protesters.”

Nothing exciting like that ever happened in this humdrum town. Noelle turned onto to a two-lane country road, expertly dodging the potholes. She stopped beside two metal mailboxes sharing a wooden post. One mailbox belonged to her landlords. Her box was labeled 113A Ornament Lane. Her landlords, the occupants of the larger house on the property, were out of town on one of their frequent trips, so she picked up their mail to give to them later. Noelle didn’t check the plastic newspaper holder beneath the mailboxes as the Yuletide Herald was only published on weekdays. She pulled onto the gravel driveway that wound past the main house and went deep into the wooded acreage. At the end of the drive stood the one-bedroom cottage and a one-car detached garage that she rented. A modest pad, but at least she had her own space away from her parents and annoying siblings.
At the sound of her car engine, a fat black cat ran from the woods. Noelle slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the animal as it stopped smack in front of the car. Exasperated, she rolled down the window and poked out her head.

“Ceebee! Will you move! I have to park!”

The cat stared, the headlights reflecting in its yellow eyes.

“Don’t make me come out there and get you!”

They’d played this game many times before. Noelle threw the stick shift into park, stepped out of the car and pushed up the garage door. Then she picked up the cat and deposited him on the passenger seat. Ceebee clawed the car seat. Noelle parked the Bug inside the garage as the rain blew in. With purse and cat in hand, she pulled down the garage door and hurried along the concrete walkway to the front door, ducking her head to keep the rain out of her face. She had the foresight earlier in the day to leave on the porch light so she could see the way after dark. Ceebee jumped from her arms and pressed against the screen door so she couldn’t open it. Noelle yanked the door open hard enough to push Ceebee aside, then held the screen door open with her hip so she could unlock the front door.

Ceebee rubbed on her legs and fussed.

“All right, I can’t feed you until I get inside, okay?” Once the door was open, the feline raced inside and
left watery paw prints across the linoleum floor. The actress shut the door and snapped on the ceiling light as Ceebee yowled.

“Will you hush! Can I at least get my raincoat off?” More meowing from Ceebee. He pawed at her legs. “Don’t get your muddy paws on my boots!” She dropped her purse on the coffee table in the living room. “All right, I’ll feed your bottomless pit. Honestly, if you’re so hungry, go catch a mouse.”

Noelle headed for the kitchenette with the cat on her heels. She opened a wall cabinet and removed a frosted white Tupperware container full of dry cat chow. She filled a ceramic cat bowl with chow as Ceebee bounced around her ankles. After she set the bowl on the floor, Ceebee dug in. Noelle leaned over to pet him.

“Yeww! You’re soaking wet! Couldn’t you go inside your cathouse and stay dry? Silly poo!”

Her dad had built a little wooden house outside where Ceebee could escape the cold Hoosier winters, but during rainstorms the cat preferred to sit under a tree. Noelle pulled some paper towels off the wooden towel rack and wiped Ceebee. The cat purred as he inhaled the food.

“How’s my little cat burglar, huh? Did you have fun running around outside?” She had named him Ceebee because of his tendency to snatch anything that wasn’t nailed down.

Noelle shivered, not just from her wet clothes but also from the damp cold inside the house. But satisfying the cat always came first, even before switching on the heat. After tossing the wet paper towels into the waste can, Noelle turned up the round thermostat dial on the wall and the furnace kicked on. In the bathroom she dropped her soggy rain bonnet into the sink and hung the raincoat on the shower curtain rod to drip dry over the tub. But before she could change into dry clothes, from the kitchenette came a pitiful “mew.”

“The vet said you shouldn’t eat so much. You’re too fat.”

After another “mew,” a handful of kibble found its way into the bowl. Now that the cat had a full tummy, Noelle could finally take care of her own needs. She retreated into the bedroom and changed into flannel pajamas, a terrycloth robe and slippers.

The rain pattered on the windows as Ceebee vigorously washed his face. On a wall in the kitchenette, a black Felix The Cat clock ticked away with the cat’s tail and eyes moving back and forth with each tock. Noelle set the empty cat food bowl in the porcelain sink and lit two burners on the gas stove. She put on a pan on one burner to cook a grilled cheese sandwich made with white bread and Velveeta cheese slices. On the other burner she heated a can of Campbell’s cream of tomato soup with a cup of whole milk stirred in. A bowl of cherry Jell-O with fruit cocktail mixed in topped off the meal.

Noelle carried the food into the living room and set it on the metal TV tray in front of the sofa. She closed the window curtains and switched on the TV set that sat on a wheeled stand. She adjusted the long wire “rabbit ear” antenna to tune in the fuzzy picture. Often the electricity went out during rainstorms, causing Noelle to miss the conclusions her favorite shows and then wait until summer reruns to find out what happened. Noelle settled on one end of the couch—Ceebee hogged the middle, as usual—and ate dinner while the WOWS- TV local evening news unfolded in shades of gray on the black-and-white TV. The top story of the draft card burning in Riverbend included film footage of the participants.

After several ho-hum stories, weather girl Mamie Sprinkle finally came on. Thanks to the gal’s nutty but accurate forecasts, the station enjoyed the highest news ratings in the city. Dressed in casual pants and tops, Mamie, along with her folksy manner and black ponytail, provided a welcome change from the drab, suit-and-tie weathermen on the other local stations.

The weather segment opened with the forecaster standing, as usual, before her white plastic-coated wall map of the USA. She held an armful of stuffed toy animals. “Well, folks, it’s raining cats and dogs out there, but of course you already know that unless you’re living in a cave. So if you have to go out tonight, put on a slicker and put out some tuna for all the kitties pouring down.”

Mamie set aside the toys, picked up some black and red felt-tipped markers, and attacked the map for some serious weather prognostication. She drew in swirls of airstreams, dabs of raindrops, jags of lightening and arcs of fast-moving storm fronts. For travelers, Mamie wrote in the high temps across the nation. Soon her sketches filled the map. After the broadcast ended, she’d wiped the board clean to start fresh the next day. The weather girl predicted the rain would ease up soon, with on-and-off light showers throughout the following week.

When Mamie finished, Noelle turned off the set. The sports news followed, which didn’t interest her. After washing the dinner dishes, she heated up some milk and whisked in cocoa powder, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt for some delicious hot chocolate to warm her up. With mug in hand, she sat in the recliner chair in the living room to read the day’s mail that included a letter from a fellow Class of 1964 alumnus from the Indiana State University theater department. The envelope contained a brief note and a newspaper clipping. Her friend was appearing in a new play at a small theater in Chicago, and the clipping contained a glowing review of her performance. Noelle was happy for her classmate, but she still felt a twinge of envy. She longed for rave reviews too. Someday she’d give a performance that would set the critics clapping and put her on the road to stardom.

Noelle finished off the hot cocoa and tossed the mail onto the growing stack of newspapers, magazines and envelopes atop the coffee table. She scooped Ceebee off the sofa.

“Time for your lesson.”

She fetched a bag of cat treats from the kitchenette and squatted on the floor. Ceebee sat facing her. Holding a treat in her left hand, Noelle held out her right hand. “Shake.” The cat raised his right paw level with her hand. Noelle shook the paw and held out the treat, which he gulped down. Noelle repeated the command and Ceebee obeyed each time.

“Good boy! I’ll take you to Hollywood with me and we can be in movies together. I’ll be a big animal trainer along with Frank Inn. You can do tricks for the camera and we’ll be famous. What do you say to that?”

Ceebee raised a back leg and licked his butt.

The Felix the Cat clock gave the time as 7:45 p.m., fifteen minutes until her favorite TV show began. Noelle put away the cat treats, lit the stove and dug out a pan of Jiffy Pop popcorn. Holding the container’s wire handle, Noelle shook the pan over the hot burner until the foil cover expanded with popped kernels. When finished, she turned off the stovetop and retrieved an ice-cold Frostie root beer from the fridge. She uncapped the glass bottle, and filled a paper plate with her mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. Her cookie stash was running low. She’d better get more next time she visited her folks.

Noelle took the food into the living room and turned on the TV again, excited about the upcoming show. What nifty caper did the good guys have planned this week? She peeled back the foil on the Jiffy Pop and munched on the popcorn. After the top-of-the-hour station identification, a hand lit a fuse with a match and Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy theme music played over a montage of scenes from tonight’s episode of Mission: Impossible. Noelle’s favorite character on the fast-paced spy show was Cinnamon Carter, played by Barbara Bain with style, poise and elegance. Noelle longed to star in her own TV show, maybe a thriller like M:I, and be a great actress like Barbara. If only dreams came true.

Just as the agents got the mission underway, someone pounded on the front door. Who could it be? Her friends and parents always called before dropping by.

“Who is it?” she said. The knocking grew louder. Couldn’t the visitor at least wait until the commercial break?

“Mom, Dad, is that you?”

No answer. Noelle headed for the door. If only she could pause the TV to avoid missing her show or somehow save the episode so she could watch it later. Ceebee hid under the sofa. Noelle pushed back the window curtain and peeked out. Under the glow of the porch light stood a man she didn’t recognize. Average height, early 20s, dark hair below his ears, boyish face and good looking. Maybe his car had broken down or run out of gas. She’d call the Texaco station and get someone to come out and help. She knew better than to let strangers into her house.

Noelle cracked open the door. “Do you need a mechanic?”

A flash of lightening lit up the sky. The man said nothing, only moaned. His eyes were glazed with pain. One hand clutched his chest. The front of his black leather jacket glistened with rainwater—and blood.

He spoke in a whisper. “Help . . . me.”

“Do you need a doctor?”

Noelle opened the door wider. The man fell forward, landing face down on the floor.

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