Hive Ave Fall2024 - Flipbook - Page 38
Fiction
Hive Avenue Literary Journal
The Uninvited
(novel excerpt from
EXECUTIVES OF THE WORLD)
Dave Barrett
Ben Ailing was trying to remember the name of that late
night movie he was watching years ago in South San Francisco
when a crazed high school kid drove his Camaro into the side
of the Ailing’s house on Arbor Drive: hitting the power box so,
at 昀椀rst, they all thought this was 昀椀nally it: the next big San
Francisco earthquake.
It was three in the a.m. and Ben was sitting alone on a barstool in his empty Cactus Room bar at the Sombrero in downtown Republic, smoking his last Marlboro cigarette, drinking his
昀椀rst cup of co昀昀ee (with a little Baileys Irish Cream in it). Ben, Jr.
had called in sick and Ben was doing account books again.
Thank God he’d been taking those 昀椀sh oil pills for his
dementia!
The bar and restaurant was decorated with lots of red,
white and blue for the 4th of July celebration that weekend. In
this business, it seemed there was always some big new celebration at hand: Valentine’s Day, St. Pat’s, Cinco de Mayo and
now the 4th. It was nice getting all the free swag for the festivities from the beer and liquor out昀椀ts though—napkins, coasters
and posters. Cut down on overhead costs.
It was a Wednesday night and the tile counter was littered
with more than a dozen 昀椀fths of alcohol, indicating liquor sales
were up again. A good thing! The banquet room—where the
kids staged their Hole In the Wall shows—was still a mess. But
Billy, the dishwasher, would get to it in the morning.
Blessedly, Will, Jerry and their new friend, Ted Yorker, had
昀椀nally stopped their whooping, laughing and hollering in the
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Boom Boom Room directly over Ben’s head. The Yorker fellow
was a bit of an odd duck, Ben thought. A big gangly kid who
looked a lot like Ben’s younger brother, Malachy (or the Disney
character Goofy)! A nice enough kid though, very personable
and all that. But Yorker had a pair of lungs on him that rattled
Ben’s nerves. And it was on this last thought, as Ben sat there
taking in the quiet of his dimly lit bar—the whirr of the ice
machine downstairs and the occasional sound of falling chunks
of ice—that the name of the 昀椀lm occur to him:
The Uninvited: an old 1940’s black and white horror 昀氀ick
starring Ray Milland.
If Ben remembered correctly (an open question these
days!), in the 昀椀lm a pair of very prickly ghosts had ensconced
themselves in the attic of an old mansion a rich American had
bought in the English countryside (and later wormed their way
into every nook and cranny of the house), tormenting the new
inhabitants to no end.
Those ghosts in The Uninvited were like his own wild boys
and his boy’s wild friends: their recent antics at the Sombrero
not unlike those prickly—and dangerous—ghosts in that old
English mansion. At times, Ben wanted to grab a broom and
pound on the ceiling overhead: wanted to tell Will and Jerry to
vacate their upstairs hideaway—tell them to grow up and get a
rental like everyone else in this mean old world! But Ben was a
softie at heart with his boys. He just was. Maybe out of quilt of
not being the best father or role model to them when they were
growing up. Or maybe because he experienced a kind of second-hand thrill watching them enjoy their youth. Or, maybe
(and this was most likely it) because the restaurant had been
making money hand over 昀椀st of late because of the popularity
of these Hole In the Wall shows. And, honestly, now that they
were 昀椀nally getting out of the black, the last thing Ben wanted
to do was upset the apple-cart just when things were on the
up-and-up at El Sombrero.
Get it while the getting’s good! had always been a principle
