“Let’s get out of here,” said Damone, and he and The Rat ran in the opposite direction.
“Where do you want to go? On the bumper cars?”
“The bumper cars are pussy.”
They decided on the Haunted House. On the way there, they spotted two girls in the gift shop. Damone wandered in nonchalantly, browsed a moment, then held up a leather fringed jacket to the two girls.
“Is this me?” he asked.
The girls laughed and ran out of the gift shop.
“It’s a start,” said The Rat. “It’s a start.”
The Haunted House was a fifteen-minute wait and—as Damone put it—for what? A bunch of kids—or was that sardines—were ushered into a tall-ceilinged room where the doors clanged shut, and, as soon as the room started to shrink and get really scary, here came The Voice again. How could The Voice scare you? You’d been hearing it since you were a baby.
“You’re about to experience a disquieting metamorphosis. Is this Haunted Room actually shrinking. Or is it just your imagination?” The room filled with exaggerated sounds of horror from jaded teenagers.
“Or consider this dismaying observation. This chamber has no windows! And no doors! And your challenge is to find a way OUT.”
The Voice let loose with another demented laugh that couldn’t scare a child over two. The Rat turned to the attendant. “Who is that guy with The Voice?”
She smiled and shrugged.
The Rat and Mike exited the Haunted House and decided to scout Tom Sawyer Island, home of the hidden Jack Daniel’s bottle.
“Let’s get the booze,” said Damone.
They arrived at the island to find a terrible surprise. Not only was Tom Sawyer Island closed for the evening, it had been partially converted into a stage for a disco dance band.
“FUCK.” Damone collapsed on a bench. “I have to think about this.”
“Looks like no booze for us tonight.”
“Are you crazy? I had to pay for that and everything! Let’s go ride the Monorail and figure this out.”
The Disneyland Monorail System was built as an ultra-modern transport system in 1965. Meant to “rocket” guests around the perimeter of the Magic Kingdom, it stopped at every quarter of the park and even at Disneyland Hotel across the street.
The Rat and Damone fell into a couple of window seats.
“During our journey,” The Voice began, air-transport style, “please see to it that you keep your head and arms inside the cabin at all times. You are riding aboard a Mark III system . . .”
At the next stop two dark-haired girls entered the compartment. One was wearing a red dress, the other a clingy blue gown. They cruised slowly by Damone and The Rat.
The boys offered them nothing less than The Attitude. Supreme indifference.
The girls sat behind them and started talking loudly.
“I couldn’t believe our bus, could you? First the clutch went out . . . then the gear shift. We’re luuuuuuu-cky to make it here alive.”
“At least the radio was good,” said the girl in red.
Then they sang a line from a song in unison, probably the last song they’d heard on the bus ride up: “Wa-tching the De-tect-tives. Don’ they look cute?” Then the girls broke up laughing.
The Voice began again: “Welcome aboard the Disneyland Monorail. America’s first daily operating monorail system. We ask only that you keep your head and arms inside the cabin at all times . . .”
The laughing died down, and the two girls realized there was a war of nerves going on. Neither of the couples wanted to let the moment pass, but neither wanted to make the first move.
Finally Red Dress spoke first. “You guys staying for the weekend?”
“Who, us?” asked Damone.
“Yeah.”
“No, we’re going back tonight.”
“Where are you guys from?”
“Ridgemont. How about you?”
They answered in unison. “We’re from Flag.”
“What’s Flag.”
“Flagstaff, Arizona!” The boys nodded. “We’re gonna be here till Monday ’cause our bus broke down. We’re staying at the Wagon Train Motel on the other side of Disneyland.”
“Yeah. We’re all doubled up, and every third room is a chaperone.”
The two girls looked at each other. “Wa-tching the De-tect-tives . . .” Then they broke up again.
The Rat and Mike nodded distractedly. More Attitude for these girls. Why, there was plenty of other things to do than try and get these girls to go back to their motel rooms with them.
The Voice: “We’re now in a reentry pattern back into the Magic Kingdom. Destination? Tomorrowland. World of the Future . . .”
“Aren’t we supposed to get out here?”
“We’ll just tell ’em we got tired and fell asleep on the Monorail.” The girl in the blue gown looked at The Rat. “Do you know anyone from Flag?”
“Just you,” said The Rat. Damone looked at him approvingly.
They introduced themselves: Becky (blue dress) and Stephanie (red dress).
“Hey, you know what?” said Damone.
“What?”
“We have booze.”
“You have booze?”
“Yes. I can’t even tell you where it’s hidden. But why don’t we go there?”
“Wow!” said Becky.
“Let’s go get the booze,” said Stephanie. “And then we’ll take it back to our motel!”
The Rat and Joe looked out the window. That would be acceptable.
The fifth of Jack Daniel’s was hidden in a small crevice in the southwestern caves on Tom Sawyer Island. The compartment had been made five years earlier by Damone’s brother, Art, on vacation no less. It had been a tradition for all of Art’s friends to use the hiding place. Now it was Mike’s turn.
“You can’t go on Tom Sawyer Island tonight,” said Becky. “They’ve got a band out there tonight.”
“I have an idea,” said Damone. “There is a way.”
The only way out to the man-made island at the center of Disneyland was by wooden raft. The raft was ferried back and forth all day by a Disneyland employee in riverboat get-up. And they had chosen this Grad Nite to quit running the raft.
But the raft was still there, sitting calmly by the deserted and darkened dock. It was held only by a rope.
Damone gave the instructions. He would untie the rope, and they would float across to the island, lying low on the raft.
“No way,” said The Rat. “They’ll catch us.”
“Come on,” said Becky. “Don’t be a wussy.”
“You have that word, too?”
They floated across the moat to the other side, undetected. Once on shore, Damone led them to the back caves, to the site he had meticulously outlined for Laurie Beckman.
Damone reached up, found the compartment, and the knapsack containing a sealed bottle of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7.
They took a few slugs, then quickly returned to the greater Magic Kingdom. Paddling back across the moat, the four hit the dock and scattered in different directions, according to plan. They were to meet at Jungle Cruise.
Damone was just about to round the corner and head out of Frontierland when he felt an arm grab him from behind. Then another arm.
“Come along with us.”
He turned to see two Disneyland security officers dressed as old-time coppers. They had already confiscated his Jack Daniel’s knapsack.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To the holding office.”
The holding tank! Shades of Mark Huffman!
“I heard about that place,” said Damone. “It’s underground, isn’t it?”
“You’re thinking of Disney World. That’s in Florida. They have an underground security office.”