Dreams Come to Life Page 6

  Dave was older than all of us and his skin was as thin and dry as a piece of paper. After Dot had explained what had happened in the studio after the war, I wondered how an older fellow like him felt about taking orders from a woman, if he was stuck in old traditions and stuff. But he didn’t seem to care much. He didn’t do anything, apparently, but draw and take long lunch breaks. He didn’t really talk with anyone. He turned in his work on time and went home on time, except when the department was under deadline.

  But because my job was a gofer, as they called it, I got to know people outside just my department. Generally I took things from one person and gave them to another. There was a lot of coordinating that had to go on in the building, and I was the one bringing everyone together. I felt like that alone ought to have earned me a bit more respect, but I was definitely the lowest rung on the ladder, for now. So I brought scripts from the Story Department to the Art Department. Sheet music from the Music Department to the Animation Lab. Receipts from everyone to Accounting, and bills from Accounting to everyone. I got to know the secretaries. I got to know the bosses.

  I got to learn that “Sammy” was Samuel Lawrence, composer, award-winning musician, and head of the Music Department. Seeing him not covered in ink for the first time was strange for me. The angles of his body were even more pronounced now that he wasn’t hidden under the goopy ink. He kind of looked like a bird. Especially when he’d sit at the conductor’s stand during rehearsals. The violinist still gave me the creeps.

  I got to know Norman Polk, the guy who’d led me upstairs during the blackout, though he had no interest in getting to know me. He ran the projector, which I learned happened when they needed to synch up sound with a moving image. So there was a projector booth up in the Music Room like I’d noticed that time. And there was one in the Voice Recording Studio too. Norman knew all the actors and musicians, and he watched when they performed, I could tell that. He watched from behind the flashing light of the projector. I didn’t know him super well, but the few times we interacted I got the feeling he didn’t like me. Called me “Drew’s gofer,” which wasn’t true. But also I didn’t know what was wrong with that. It was almost like he didn’t like Mister Drew or something. Which I didn’t understand. How could you not like him?

  I’d only met an actor once in those first few weeks. I’d held the door for her on the way into the building and was struck by how not-like anyone else in the studio she looked. I mean, she looked like she stepped right out of the pictures. On the day when I held the door for her, she was wearing a light gray skirt and jacket with a pink blouse underneath. She wore a small hat with a lace front that covered one of her eyes, but not completely. I have to say, I never understood why she was a voice actress. She was just as pretty as Ginger Rogers. With the same kind of platinum-blonde hair too. We’d ended up in the elevator together, and I’ll tell you, she was very nice. Said thank you when I held the grate for her and even asked me my name.

  “Buddy.” It was all I could manage to say. I couldn’t even ask what hers was.

  “Well, I’m Allison, which is funny, right?” she said with a smile as we rose.

  I didn’t want to stare, and I didn’t understand why “Allison” was funny, so I just shifted from foot to foot on the floor of the elevator.

  “Because of Alice. Allison. Alice. It’s so close, see?” I could tell she was looking at me. She wanted me to find it funny and clever. Come on, Buddy, come on …

  “Oh! You’re the voice of Alice Angel!” I said loudly as the elevator landed on my floor.

  Allison laughed. “Yes! Well, it looks like this is your stop. Nice to meet you, Buddy.” She stuck out her small gloved hand and I took it quickly in my sweaty one, shook once, and practically ran out of the elevator into the Art Department.

  Hadn’t seen her since then and, honestly, I was relieved by that.

  I did get to see Dot more often. Ever since our strange adventure, she’d decided we were friends, and while I still didn’t exactly get why she’d decided that, I didn’t mind it either. It was nice when she sought me out at lunch. Or showed me a new script she was working on and explained it to me instead of just handing it to me and ignoring me like the other writers did. Maybe it was because we were close to the same age. Maybe it was because even though she got to actually write and wasn’t a gofer like me, it still seemed like she was getting the grunt work of the Story Department and was on the lowest rung like I was. She mostly corrected spelling and grammar from what I could tell. But at lunch she’d sit at my desk in the dark corner of the Art Department as the pipes overhead made their grunts and groans, and tell me all about different Bendy stories she’d come up with.

  “I’ve got a great one with him as a cowboy,” she said, biting into her sandwich.

  “I like cowboys,” I replied.

  Maybe it was just her gut instinct about me that made us friends.

  I didn’t really care. It was nice to have a pal.

  The one person I didn’t see, however, not once the whole time, was Mister Drew. I understood he was busy. He was in charge of the whole thing. I hadn’t expected that he would come and check on me in person. Or invite me to lunch. Or anything like that. But I did think that maybe, I dunno, maybe he’d want to follow up at least once after hiring me. Maybe I’d just been imagining things like I did, but I really thought he’d liked me.

  “That’s just Mister Drew,” Dot said.

  She’d convinced me to go out after work to the pub across the street. It was a small, crowded hole-in-the-wall down a couple stairs where clearly a lot of after-work types hung around. The place was full of men and even some women crowded against the bar and sitting at the few tables by the door and in the back. The air was so thick with cigarette smoke it made me cough at first. Dot was eighteen, so she could drink, but I was a little relieved when she grabbed a root beer instead. Helped me not feel quite so babyish. We’d collected our beverages from the bartender and found a spot by the wall.

  “What’s ‘just’ Mister Drew?” I asked, almost yelling above the noise.

  “Disappearing. That’s what he does. Just stick with your work, that’s all you need to do.”

  I sighed, but I knew Dot couldn’t hear it. I leaned in to talk into her ear. “It’s just that—I’m not doing the work I want to do. I need him to tell Ms. Lambert to let me draw.”

  Dot shook her head and gave me a small smile.

  “You don’t need permission, Buddy,” she shouted back. “Just do it. Draw.”

  I shook my head. “No. No, I don’t have time. I’m running around all day. You know that.”

  “Then do it at home, draw some Bendy stuff. Show Ms. Lambert.”

  On what? I asked myself. With what? Dot didn’t understand. Yeah, I had a pencil and scrap paper, but I needed proper tools. The paper at the studio was thick and crisp and absorbed the ink. I couldn’t just hand over the back of a grocery receipt. I didn’t want to anyway, didn’t want them to see how little we spent on food.

  “I … can’t …”

  Dot looked at me. I was getting used to the look now. So I just looked back. If she could read my mind, if she could just figure out my issue without me having to tell her, that would be great.

  And then, she did.

  Not really of course. She just had this way of knowing what people were actually thinking, not what they said they were thinking.

  She didn’t say anything. She just reached into her pocket and passed me her key. “Borrow it. I’ll keep it in my desk from now on in case you need it again.”

  I didn’t take it, just stared at it.

  “You want me to use this?” I said slowly.

  “Yes.”

  “To …”

  “Get yourself the right materials, Buddy. Get yourself some paper and some ink.”

  I shook my head. “That’s stealing.”

  “It’s borrowing. You’re doing this for the sake of the studio after all. On your own time no less. And anyway,
you want to show some initiative. This is how you do it.”

  On the one hand she was right, it didn’t seem like that big a deal. It wasn’t like I was going to take the stuff and then sell it to the kids in the neighborhood or anything. On the other hand …

  “Think about it,” she said.

  I pocketed the key quickly. “You’re a bad influence,” I said with a little laugh.

  Dot shrugged, like she did. “Maybe just more of a pragmatic influence. They hired you for a job. So do your job.”

  Pragmatic. Didn’t know that word at the time. I looked it up later. Pragmatic. Meant dealing with stuff “sensibly.” Taking out the emotion. Making a choice because it’s practical. Didn’t think I agreed with her that that’s what this was, but I wanted to.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  And I did.

  I thought about it all night, lying there in bed next to the bony figure of my grandfather, whistling rhythmically through his nose as he slept. I must have dozed off at some point, but it felt like I had spent hours awake, thinking. Thinking about living like this, with my ma, now with my grandfather. Sleeping here in the big bed. In the big room. In an apartment hardly big enough for a single person, let alone a family. All the other families in my building living with five people or more. This big room that used to belong to my parents. Until my pa died, and then it belonged to me. “You’re so tall now, Buddy,” Ma had said. “I don’t need that much room.”

  Tall like he’d been tall.

  Imagine more rooms. Imagine an apartment that didn’t suck in the heat and suffocate you inside. Imagine owning a suit. Couldn’t borrow my pa’s. I couldn’t put it on. I just couldn’t.

  I wasn’t going to have more rooms and a suit as a gofer. I was too old to be a delivery boy.

  And anyway, the studio had so much paper and ink it was drowning in it. Like Sammy. Covered in ink. Running through actual pipes apparently.

  When I woke up in the morning, I decided I knew what to do. Dot was right. It was the pragmatic choice.

  It was the only choice.

  The art supply closet was off down a hallway behind my desk, but I was too afraid of getting caught. So I turned to the only other place that I knew had Art Department supplies, whether Sammy approved of it or not: the sheet music closet in the Music Department. That was an advantage. Being the gofer meant that folks were used to me walking around in different parts of the studio and doing whatever I was doing. I figured this would make my task pretty easy. But I still wanted to wait until lunch when I was alone.

  Which I did.

  I waited five minutes or so, making sure no one came back all of a sudden because they’d forgot their hat or something. Then I got up from my desk and made my way down to the Music Department, through the winding path of hallways, and to the closet. I glanced back up the hallway and then down the other direction that led … well, I didn’t really know. I’d never gone farther than the closet before, and I assumed it must lead to some kind of dead end eventually. Then again, this place was so mazelike. Maybe there was something else deep in the shadows. I grinned thinking maybe there was a sphinx or something, guarding a secret entrance, quizzing employees and choosing if it would let them past.

  No. No more imagining. Stop it, Buddy! I quickly unlocked the closet door, went inside, and pulled the chain for the light. I leaned down and picked up a small stack of thick, crisp white paper. The difference in quality between kinds of paper was amazing. I hadn’t thought much about it before I’d started working here. Then I looked around for ink. There was a cardboard box on the floor, and I opened it carefully. There they were, little glass bottles full of black. I gingerly pulled one out. I still needed a pen. It was while I was searching the narrow shelves that I heard the voices.

  I froze in place and listened hard. You’d think with my big ears I’d have a better sense of hearing, but the way they stuck out so much never seemed to make a difference. But I could tell, at least, like anyone probably could have, that the voices were coming from the dark part of the hall, not the Music Department. I was starting to get anxious. I couldn’t get caught; if I did I’d definitely be fired. I needed the job, and I was starting to really regret doing this.

  I slipped inside the closet and closed the door behind me. Then I pulled the chain for the light and stood stock-still with an arm full of paper in the pitch darkness. The voices got louder and I could hear footsteps now. They were almost right there in front of my door before they stopped. There was the sound of a scuffle.

  “Don’t grab me again, Mr. Lawrence,” said a stern voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Then listen to me when I’m talking to you!” That was definitely Sammy’s voice, that one I knew for sure. It was lower than the frantic cries I’d heard on our first encounter, but it had that same edge to it. Always just a little angry.

  “I’ve heard you, and I don’t believe you,” said the other voice.

  “Why not?” It was almost a squeak the way he said it.

  “I’ve seen you sneaking around my work station. I’ve seen you at the machine. Last Friday you asked my worker where we kept the ink. So don’t you go on about being all innocent. I’m going to Mister Drew.”

  “Tom, come on, why would I want your ink?” asked Sammy.

  Tom … I still didn’t know who that was.

  “It’s Mr. Connor,” replied Tom coldly.

  “Why can’t I call you Tom?”

  “Because we’re not friends. And you will give me the respect I deserve.” There was a long pause then. I couldn’t decide if I wanted the two of them to move on down the hall already or for them to stick around so I could hear more. When Sammy didn’t say anything, Tom added, “What’s the matter, Mr. Lawrence? Not used to giving someone like me respect?”

  “What’s that mean, ‘someone like you’?” Sammy’s tone had gone from angry to threatening.

  “You know what it means,” replied Tom.

  There was a long pause.

  “Leave me alone,” said Sammy. I heard the sound of footsteps as he marched away back down the dark part of the hallway.

  “Leave my ink alone!” Tom called out after him.

  I was suddenly very aware of the small inkwell in my hands. It seemed much heavier than it had a moment ago. I was also aware now of how loud my breath sounded in the small confined space. I had no idea that ink was so important. And that it was so important to Tom Connor.

  That man I’d seen only once before, waiting for Mister Drew that first day.

  Tom let out a huff outside my door, and finally I heard his boots also stomping off in the direction of the dark hallway. I kept still, straining to hear more footsteps. To see if either of them was coming back. But the longer I waited, I realized, the more likely it was someone eventually would come by, and lunch was probably going to be over soon anyway. So I had no choice. I carefully opened the door.

  No one.

  Quickly I turned around and grabbed the first refillable pen I could find. And then I was out of there, locking the door behind me, dashing back to my desk, and hiding the supplies in the garbage bin under it. I sat there, still for a moment, and then took in a deep breath. I was more scared than I’d been at first. Sure, stealing wasn’t something I was keen on, but I really didn’t think that ink was such a big deal. Not like Tom was making it out to be.

  I felt the key in my pocket.

  I stood and headed for the elevator just as it opened and Jacob came back from lunch. “Hey, Buddy,” he said as he passed, all casual, like nothing weird was going on in the studio.

  Probably because he didn’t know.

  Probably because I was overthinking it.

  I went down a level to Story and luckily found Dot at her desk, her sandwich unwrapped before her, her head bent so low over her paper her nose was practically touching it.

  I wasn’t sure if it was right to interrupt her, but she made the decision for me. With one swift movement she was suddenly sitting up looking
at me.

  “Whoa, you scared me,” I said, taking a step back.

  “I scared you? You were the one sneaking up on me,” replied Dot, matter-of-fact.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked, looking at me closely like she was trying to read my brain.

  “I, uh …” I looked over my shoulder, but no one was nearby. “I wanted to return, you know.”

  Dot nodded and opened her drawer. I quickly dropped the key inside and she bent over, placing it between the pages of a book. The Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it said in gold lettering on the cover.

  “Thanks.”

  I just stood there. I couldn’t decide if I should tell her what I’d heard.

  “So did you get what you needed?” she asked after a moment.

  “Yeah.” I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I was just panicking about being a thief now.

  “What’s on your mind, Buddy?” she asked, leaning back in her chair.

  Okay, fine. “Do you know anything about a man named Tom Connor?” I asked quietly.

  Dot thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I just overheard him and Sammy talking about ink.”

  “Ink?”

  “Yeah, it sounded like this Tom guy thought Sammy was stealing ink.” I remembered something else then. “And also there was talk of a machine.”

  “Machine?” Dot furrowed her eyebrows at me. “What kind of machine?”

  “I don’t know. I just was curious because, well, as you know, I just …” I lowered my voice to a whisper even though no one was close by. “I just stole some ink. And I’m worried this could be a bigger deal than we thought.”

  Dot shook her head. “No, that’s silly.”

  I didn’t like that. It wasn’t silly. She wouldn’t be thinking that if she’d heard what I’d heard.

  “I’ll look into it,” she said.