Episode 13.3
"Come on, move on!" Joey yelled as he honked furiously behind the blue Lincoln Town Car with the custom license plate grndpa7. Caught in the huge queue of passenger-filled rental cars and vans slowly pulling into the Walt Disney World parking lot, Joey was about to yank the steering wheel off the dashboard. If you! Step on the gas and take your boat on wheels to Dopey 110! Just follow the other cars! Dopey 110!
"Aren't you enjoying your Disney experience?" Noreen asked in her ear.
-At last! Joey announced as they reached the top of the line. She was about to speed up, but a Disney employee in a yellow vest was blocking the road and waving her to the left as if he were a runway signal man.
"All vehicles to the left, ma'am," he called as politely as possible.
Joey slammed on the brakes, refusing to turn anywhere.
"I need to get to the front door!" -She said.
"All vehicles to the left," the clerk in yellow repeated.
Joey stayed where she was. "Haven't you heard what...?" A few seconds later, another two
employees approached her window. "Ma'am, do you have a problem?" I need to get to the door.
major. Now!
—You know that our trams
they come by every few minutes and…" said the shorter of the two.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," added the other.
employee-. But unless you have a disabled person sticker, you'll have to park here like everyone else and...
Joey pulled out her father's badge and shoved it in the clerk's face.
"Do you know what this means, Walt?" It means I'm not parking at 110 Dopey!
The two clerks stepped back without saying anything and waved to the guy in yellow to let her through. Joey stepped on the accelerator and headed for the main gates of the Magic Kingdom.
"Get down," Charlie urges me, tugging on my leg.
I hit the carpet violently and feel a searing pain at the tip of my chin. On the far right is the silhouette of our assailant, standing in a corner, trying to see something in the shadows. He is crouched. Loading his gun...
But I'm not going to give it another chance. I get up and run towards the silhouette that stands out in the dark. Another bang is heard. But not
it's a shot... an explosion... one after another... like a fireworks display. Before our assailant even realizes I'm there, I pounce on him and wrap both arms around his waist. It's like tackling a vacuum cleaner. We fall to the ground with a metallic sound.
The room begins to slowly light up and I can see the person I have pinned down on the carpet. It's John F. Kennedy.
"In this Hall of Presidents, we reflect in a mirror of ourselves," Maya's recorded voice
Angelón resounds on the other side of the blue curtain. Along the wall are an Andrew Jackson robot with one leg missing, a wicker basket filled with ties and bow ties, and a foam head in a fuzzy wig marked "Bill Clinton." It's the racks, it's just the racks.
"Ladies and gentlemen... the President of the United States!" announces Maya Angelou. Trumpets sound, the crowd applauds, and I look up at the ceiling, where automatic pulleys raise the curtain. The blue velvet curtain that hides us is still in place.
"Come on, Oswald, let's get out of here," Charlie says, holding out his hand so I can pick myself up.
To our right, a man in a Paul Revere garb appears out of a side door. He takes a quick look at us standing next to JFK and the transmitter flies to his lips.
"Security… I have a twenty-two here… I need someone at the HOP.
Charlie tugs on my arm, and as I try to stand up, I bump into JKF's mechanical chest. Gillian is already running towards the side door to our left. charlie does
We pause, deciding if we should follow her, but the only other alternatives are to Paul Revere, under the curtain and to the five hundred people in the audience, or back the way we came. I run and grab Charlie by the collar of his shirt, forcing him to follow me. Even he is capable of realizing when there is no other option. We both follow Gillian.
Rushing through the side door, Gillian leads us into a red-carpeted room filled with fake antique furniture and colonial American flags. Charlie
grab a rocking chair and lock the door we just left behind with it. Paul Revere punches and yells loudly on the other side of the metal surface.
In the room there are three other doors. The two to our right have no light at the bottom. They are the ones that lead back to the theater. The one directly in front of us shows the last gasp of the setting sun filtering through the edge of the carpet. It is the exit.
Gillian opens the door and we are overwhelmed by the sudden expanse of space. Compared to the oppressive gray walls of the tunnels and the darkness of the
Hall of the Presidents, the luminous amplitude of the Plaza de la Libertad forces me to squint at the Disney city of the revolutionary era.
"Let's follow the crowd," Charlie says, gesturing toward the human tide that fills the streets. To my left, dozens of kids line up waiting to stick their heads through a fake fence for their parents to take the obligatory photos. To my right, hundreds of tourists wait to take the safest river trip in the world. Everyone else is out on the streets, thousands of them heading toward the Old West town on the Frontier. It's the week before Christmas at Disney World. Getting lost is the easiest part.
"We must move slowly now," Gillian warns us as we plunge into the swarm of tourists crowding in front of the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon. A few steps further, the Plaza de la Libertad - red, white and blue - has been replaced by the earthy browns of the old General Store of the Border. Gillian lowers her head and adjusts to the pace of the slow crowd. Charlie wants nothing to do with it and she steps forward, making her way through the crowd.
"Charlie... wait...!" she yelled.
But Charlie doesn't even turn his head. I go after him, but he is already four families ahead of us. Giving little hops to get a better view, I follow his blond hair as he waves through the crowd. As he passes the Country Bear Jamboree, he glances back to make sure I'm following, but the more I try to catch up, the further Gillian falls behind. Advancing between the two of them, I try to do my best to keep the distance equidistant, but sooner or later one of the two will have to give in.
I look over my shoulder at Gillian and see that she has finally managed to pick up her pace.
-Come on! I say, motioning for him to hurry up. I pass a family with a child in a stroller and accelerate. But when I look ahead for Charlie, he's nowhere to be seen. I turn my neck and scan the heads of the crowd, looking for his blond hair. He is not there. I check again. Nothing. I don't care how crazy he may be; there's no way he got off without me.
Feeling the same knot in my stomach as when we parted before, I hit the panic button and lunge forward.
"Sorry… I'm coming…" I yell to the crowd as I twist to get past them. When Gillian meets me I'm still looking for Charlie's blond head in the middle of the crowd. The short blonde hair with the fat family... the reddish-blond hair tangled with the Louisiana State baseball cap... even the blonde dyed with black roots. I check each of the heads. Charlie has to be somewhere. Across the street, a boy of about ten shoots his sister's cork in the face with a shotgun. Behind me, two kids are chasing each other, flashing their tongues colored the purple of cotton candy. Next to me, a child cries and his father threatens to take him back home. Yankee Doodle blares from speakers attached to streetlights. It's hard for me to even think. Gillian tries to take my hand. But that's not what I want right now. In front of us the street turns to the left. I'm running out of space. I try for the last time.
"Charlie!" -shout.
Thirty feet ahead of me, a familiar blond head peeks out from behind the coon hat stand. Charlie!
"Charlie!" I yell again, waving both hands above my head.
"Get down!" he motions to me, patting the air with his palms down.
"What are you...?"
"Get down! Now!"
He looks across the street and I follow his gaze through the crowd to the far corner of the Pecos Bill Café. I spot two dark suits standing among the crowd in Mickey Mouse T-shirts. And then they see me.
Gallo's eyes narrow into a dark glare. Making his way between a young couple, he wades into the crowd. DeSanctis is right behind him.