Charley Makes a Break for It

Mel

At some point in the night, Charley leaves her room and goes down the stairs, creeping through a dim hallway that leads to the kitchen. There is a broad white door in this room with six paned glassed windows that are black from the lack of daylight. She opens this door to walk out down the cool porch stairs barefoot into the grass. She removes the foil hat and makes her way out the front gate. Standing there for a moment at the equidistance of what was and will be — breathing in the night air before stepping onto the cracked concrete sidewalk to follow its gray silver path into an engulfing night.

Michael

“Charley.” Houdini speaks, more gently and quietly than he ever has before, in Charley’s head. “What are you doing? Is everything all right?”

Mel

“Nothing is all right. I just need to go. No one can help me here.”

Michael

Houdini pauses, ponders as Charley makes her way down the block. “You know, I went off to work in the streets when I was not much older than you. Tout. Newsie. Shoeshine boy. Then a job backstage, then I was learning how to swing from the trapeze. But ... the streets, these streets now ... they aren’t for you, young girl. They are dangerous. Frightening.” Houdini, peering through Charley’s eyes, looks at the Ransoms’ affluent neighborhood, trying to evoke some sense of the dangers of San Francisco in 1973 to get her back into the house, and quite obviously fails. But as he scans the street, Houdini says, “What in the world …” as he sees Mitch.

Jeff

Mitch has been stumbling along, he thought he was walking to Chinatown from the St. Francis Hotel but he took a wrong turn and was too distracted to really notice. It’s midnight plus or minus an hour, hour and a half, right?

“Jesus, Charley? What are you —” Mitch realizes he’s like only a block or so from where the Ransoms had their BBQ.

Michael

Yeah! That sounds right to me.

Jeff

“Shit. Shoot. I said shoot.” Mitch’s bemusement fades quickly and he's all business. “What's the situation? What do you need? Is that leftovers?” The last question is punctuated with a gesture towards Charley’s tinfoil hat, which in the half-light might plausibly be mistaken for a bundle of short ribs.

Mel

“Ah?? What?” Charley glances at the foil cap in her hand. “No, it’s ... Well, it’s nothing. Why are you? Did they send you to come to get me?” Charley was startled by Mitch’s sudden appearance but is now nervous.

Jeff

“What? Ah?” Mitch glances around. “Send me? Who would send me? Is Archie not, uh, is there something happening?" He shakes his head. “I was going to get some dumplings, I got turned around.”

Mitch scans Charley’s aura.

>>> SUCCESS

Mel

“Dumplings ... Oh, ok.” Charley relaxes some then, looks down at her bare feet before putting the cap back on.

Jeff

Regardless of how the aura reading pans out, Mitch cocks his head quizzically. He lifts one hand to reach out towards Charley, then thinks better of it and takes a half-step backwards instead. “Seriously, what are you doing out here this time of night? Stargazing?”

Michael

Probably not too much of a stretch to say that Charley’s emotional aura is troubled, anxious. There are no supernatural or other taints on her aura, however, and health-wise apart from the anxiety and being up late, she is in fine shape.

Mel

“I guess. I wanted to get out to … Mitch … you said we could go camping. Can we go now?”

Jeff

“Right now, now? Are you — “ Mitch breaks off, tries to think before he speaks. "There's a little diner or something back that way, let’s get some coffee and, uh, apple pie or whatever.” (It’s 1973 so Mitch is less concerned than, say, I might be about taking somebody else’s underage daughter to a second location.)

Michael

(A (post-)hippie with a seven-year-old kid at a diner at 11 pm on a Thursday night in 1973 was probably a pretty common occurrence)

Mel

“Well, I am hungry. I’d like a chocolate milkshake.” Distracted by the thought of food Charley follows Mitch to where the pie, coffee and milkshakes live. And besides the occasional break of sidewalk, the path to the (Emerald) Diner is on a red brick road that looks almost gold in the glow of the street lights.