Fairy Tale: Winter's Bite

Chapter 2: Sleepless (Part 2)

"Excuse me!" Joseph MacRae shouted for the third time.

Once again, his voice didn't pierce through the noise. The shirtless monstrosity still stood before him and didn't budge from the doorway.

Joe looked around for an alternate route. There was another passage behind the bar, but the bar was next to the DJ, and the promise of free drinks and music had attracted a sea of bouncing bodies. With five cocktails in hand, Joe decided to press onward rather than backtrack.

He elbowed past the people who had seeped into the cracks of free space during his moment of hesitation. When the man in his way swayed to the side with deep, hyena-like laughter, Joe capitalized on the opportunity to sneak by. As soon as he had, the man swayed back into his original position and crashed into Joe's drinks.

Joe fumbled to hold on to the glasses while the cosmopolitan, the Midori sour, the rum and Coke, and the Bloody Mary sloshed onto the man's white silk boxers. Then his clear gin and tonic shifted forward and splashed too. It mixed everything into a mire of brown, red, and green.

Joe's eyes had a long way to travel before they reached the man's face. Despite the pom-pom of a Santa hat bouncing against his temple, he did not look cheerful.

"Watch it, Four-Eyes."

Joe hadn't heard an insult that pathetic since elementary school. A few snarky comebacks came to mind, as always, but he didn't have a death wish. He kept even his smirk internal. "Uh, sorry." Joe averted his face and tried to edge through the doorway.

When the man put his arm down, it made for an impressive barrier. "Where do you think you're going?"

The room was warm and the situation made it seem warmer. Joe could feel his glasses sliding off the bump of his nose. With his hands still full, he couldn't even correct their position. And perhaps it didn't matter; they would probably be broken in a few seconds anyway. Sure enough, a sloppy swing rose for his face in double—one image hazy, one crisp and clear. He ducked, turned, and watched in awe as the punch hit the girl behind him. While her hands lifted to her nose, the man next to her sent another swing floating through space.

Joe may have started the fight, but he wasn't going to stick around and wait for its conclusion. He scurried off before the brawlers realized he was gone. And he couldn't help but wonder how his life had come to this.

He had come to L.A. to write screenplays. Unfortunately, he hadn't been writing much lately, not anything he wanted to write, that is. He had a few touch-ups to complete on the horror movie script he'd co-written, but otherwise, he had become the errand boy for the project. And since the project had run out of money, he was essentially working for free—something he could not afford to do much longer.

So money was the reason the film crew was mixing business with pleasure at Walter Burbank's Christmas party. Walt was a notorious Hollywood socialite who, while his parents were Christmassing at their Italian villa, had decided to throw the party of the year. Eddie, the horror movie's charming and eye-catching male lead, had secured the invitation, and Annie, their production manager, saw Walt's party as a business endeavor. She'd insisted that some essential members of the cast and crew attend to generate buzz while she secured a future meeting with Walt's "people."

It was a good thing Annie was capable of taking the reins on the business end of things, because everyone else just wanted to have a good time. Working on Christmas resulted in a feeling of distaste, even among those whose dysfunctional families left them free of holiday commitments. Joe included himself in this group; his mother was dead, his father apparently vanished off the face of the earth, and he and his only brother were not on speaking terms.