It was a hot spring evening in Hollywood.

I had just settled down to watch The Maher when a call interrupted my weekly dose of reality.

It was a dame.

It's always a dame.

She was crying, didn't know where else to turn, and she needed my help.

I told her to pull herself together, hit the John, and get dried out.

I know just what she needed.

It was me.

I got my tools, I took everything, you never know what you're going to need, you know?

I told my roommate, my day walker nephew, who was pacing back and forth on the balcony, learning his lines, that I was going out.

Out onto the 101, the Ventura Freeway, over to a forgotten corner of tinsel town.

Toluca Lake.

I pulled up outside a row of shacks.

Leftover vintage bungalows where old man Warner used to warehouse his talent.

I took my tools and casually made my way to the scene of the crime.

There it was, a big ugly lump lying across a table, bits and pieces strewn about with no intelligent regard.

I turned the lump over, noted what I had to do.

I could hear the young woman still crying in her hovel as I went to work on the monstrosity.

I hammered that son of a bitch over and over again.

I felt a set of pleading eyes burn a hole in the back of my neck.

It was the dame standing in the doorway, her voice on lockdown.

Would the lump crack?

Then snap!

The monster was free; it was finished.

The dame called me her hero.

It seems she sculpted a monster head; her mold was stuck together.

Her naiveté and my expertise made for some horror romance that night.

Lucky, the neighbors didn't call the cops on us for all the hammering.

As I got into my car, the dame's lipstick still hot on my cheek, I looked over at the Warner water tower.

In my rearview mirror, I could see Universal by the light of the full moon.

I wiped the good sweat from my face and smiled.

Monster making in Hollywood.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Visit the dame at KateFreysfx.com