Welcome to Golden, Chapter 3

The Golden School was an imposing brick building, three stories high. Its design was that of a typical American high school built as part of the numerous Great Depression work projects. The school's serious facade said only one thing — this is an official place of learning; and it was completely fake. Billy realized this one night when he caught an episode of “Andy and Agnes” on TV. Young Freddie McKenzie attended a Riverside High School on the show that looked eerily similar to the Golden School. In a life spent on Hollywood sets, it was the only connection Fred had to a “normal” life.

One of the ongoing arguments that Billy and Jenny had with Fred was that Golden looked too much like a movie set. Everything was bright and shiny; weeds did not exist on the lawns in Golden and there were no cracks in any of the sidewalks, nor were there any dying trees or potholes. There was no use in trying to convince him that his version of a small town was not even close to anything in the real world.

“You two don't know anything about what people my age want,” he told Billy. “We don't mind the veneer of truth, it's what we've always wanted.” And that was that. Fred was right, though, the residents loved Golden just the way it was.

Billy was a little down as he made his way to the school, still thinking about Peter Boone's exit from life. No matter who was dying, Billy always felt a little morose. Death was an odd and constant presence in Golden; every resident was terminal. While most would have preferred to have family and friends close by, the sad fact was that it was almost always Billy who saw them off. Empathy was a large requirement of his job, and he couldn't help but feel sadness when one of his patients died. As a psychiatrist, he knew that his empathy twisted and toyed with his own emotions. It was something he dealt with constantly, and sometimes with a stiff drink.

Billy was lost in these thoughts as he walked down Main Street toward the school, but was snapped out of his reverie when he saw Elvis again. The King was inspecting the flag pole outside the Golden Volunteer Fire Department when Billy noticed him two blocks away. Curious, Billy picked up his pace to get a closer look. Before he could get close, though, Elvis seemed to notice him and quickly walked behind the department and disappeared. Shaking it off as a new Seegee that had been introduced into Golden's programming, Billy continued to the school.

He entered through the front doors of the building and into the foyer feeling a slight hiccup in his movement as though his body had been delayed briefly then caught up to its action. This was due to the change in computer interface between Golden's servers and the school's servers. The school's floors were highly polished wood and the administration office was directly in front of him. Outside the office was a chalkboard that had the numbers 100 through 110, 200 through 226 and 300 through 326 painted in boxes, of which there was enough room in the box to write a name. About a third of the boxes had names written in them in yellow chalk, essentially giving ownership of that room over to a resident.

While the Golden School looked like a school, it didn't have classes. The whole building was basically a group of art studios that allowed the residents to exercise their creative desires without disrupting the town. The classrooms were essentially free space that allowed the residents to “make” what they wanted. For instance, if you wanted to recreate your college dorm room or your honeymoon suite, you could do it in one of the rooms. In the early days of Golden, problems developed with some of the residents; they liked the town but were bored. So some would take to changing things, like turning grass purple, redesigning buildings and the like. That, of course, would lead to arguments — one man's treasure was another man's trash. It was difficult to control a group of people who had the power within their own minds to change their environment. No one except the consulting psychiatrists had even considered such a problem, but the fact was that residents with active minds were going to use them and they were willing to experiment.

More rigid rules were instituted in the town, and the school was set aside for experimentation. Residents could pick a room and render whatever they wanted — it was some real cutting edge technology. Some, like Fred and Yuri Stanlowitcz, (who died not long after the school was opened) were experts at rendering, creating vast new worlds within those school classrooms. Computing power was an issue for a while, but soon a grant to the foundation from a video game manufacturer made those problems disappear.

Some residents, like Scott Bryant, had gone beyond the creation of simple environments to an attempt at creating scenarios, games really. Scott had made three already, all film noir type murder mysteries and just about everyone in Golden had played them. They were very rudimentary, the computer generated characters that populated the games were very simple and those who “played” these scenarios had limited options. Despite that, Scott — sometimes with Fred's help — was making headway in designing something incredible.

Jenny, having the business mind that she did, quickly put together a partnership with the game manufacturer that was funding the school. It would be several years before there would be a commercially available game, but the company and the Foundation figured that it could be financially lucrative to patent much of what was being developed. Golden itself was proprietary, but, because of the government charter to operate it, nearly everything about it was available to anyone with an internet connection. That is, everything was public except very few people knew for sure what everything in Golden looked like — Jenny and the foundation lawyers were able to keep that confidential. That's why the foundation had lots of lawyers; and gamers speculated fiercely what all these patents that were being filed meant. After seeing some of the things created by Golden's residents, Billy figured that those who speculated on the town would be amazed. He knew he was.

Some residents had more prurient thoughts in mind when it came to the school's rooms. On the top floor, far away from the spot where Billy stood, Cal Everitt had created what could only best be described as a strip club and whore house. Billy had been opposed to that kind of use of the rooms, but he was outvoted both inside and outside of Golden. While Jenny saw it as a business opportunity, it was one she was not willing explore. However, the board of psychiatrists that oversaw the project insisted that Golden's residents should be able to find relief in their sexual tendencies, and Fred agreed. Cal and his cronies — Anne and Andrew — were regulars at the club, but not recently.

He may not have been able to stop its construction and use, but Billy was able to use access to the school as a way to assure the rules in Golden were followed. If anyone screwed up, Billy had the authority to keep residents from entering the school. Anne, Cal and Andrew all currently were restricted from the building until further notice. The best way to deal with problem children is to take away their toys.

Billy checked the chalkboard to see if he could find Fred. It was marked in chalk that Fred had four rooms he was using, all on the second floor. Billy checked in on all the rooms in the school as often as he could, mostly on orders from Jenny. She wanted reports on what was going on and whether there was anything salable. Before heading to Fred's rooms, Billy decided to check out what Frank Horner was up to. The last time Billy had looked in on his room, Frank was in the middle of creating a rooftop garden with a view of Manhattan. Frank had lived in New York and had two loves; the city and plants. In its unfinished stages, Billy could see where work needed to be done. There were holes in the cityscape filled by buildings that didn't quite look right, like they had been Photoshopped in. Frank, like everyone working at the school, was relying on his memory to put things in place. Where the memory failed, the imagination had to be used. For some reason, imagined creations were the most difficult to make look right.

Billy took the stairs up to the third floor and walked down the hallway to the right. At room 325, he knocked. Knocking was a courtesy, all the doors in the school were unlocked. The work was meant to be shared. That was the first rule for the school rooms. The second came about when people other than the creators started making changes in a room. So a rule was instituted that any changes to a room must be cleared with the room’s owner. Some people were very possessive of their work, others didn't care. Fred was in between the two; he loved the collaborative process and welcomed other residents making changes to his vision, but only in half of his rooms. The other two were off limits to changes.

On Frank's door were the words, “Changes with permission only” marked in chalk and Billy thought he heard people talking on the other side. He opened the door to a penthouse apartment tastefully decorated in the latest in art deco. There was a wet bar at which a young Frank was shaking a chrome drink mixer. At the stools, laughing, were Marie Engel, Noah Harper — a newer resident — and Nancy Warner.

“Dr. Watson!” Frank gleefully shouted above the cool jazz playing from hidden speakers. “It's so nice to see you.”

Billy entered and shut the door, looking at the apartment and expecting a few Playboy bunnies to offer him a drink. In front of him was the bar, but off to his right was a wall of glass that led out to the rooftop garden. It was dark outside, and Billy could see the lights of New York City, including the Empire State Building. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought he had walked into a penthouse apartment in New York City in 1964. Frank had obviously improved his rendering skills.

“Thanks Frank,” Billy said. “I was on my way to meet Fred and thought I'd stop by and see how you were coming along. Last time I was here, the apartment was much different. It looks like you've been busy.”

Billy walked over to the bar and exchanged pleasantries with Frank's guests. He knew Marie and Nancy fairly well, but hadn't much of a chance to talk with Noah Harper; a small man with small mannerisms. It didn't surprise him to see Marie and Nancy there ­— they shared Frank's sensibilities for adult fun. They didn't go much for the teenager stuff, instead enjoying cocktail and dinner parties. He didn't know much about Noah — having only met with him once when he arrived two days before — but was glad he was with “Frank and the gals,” as they sometimes called themselves.

“I wasn't liking where it was going, it just didn't seem right. Then Noah suggested that the apartment be like that old show, Playboy After Dark. It was a stroke of genius.”

“It wasn't that big of a deal,” Noah said. “Besides, I didn't do anything, it was all you.”

Billy caught a glimpse from Noah that looked a bit like envy. It wouldn't be the first time – or the last time — that rendering skills fomented competition and jealousy.

“Don't worry, Noah. With a little practice, you'll be able to render. Shoot, I wouldn't have got half the plants right without Nancy, and Marie was invaluable creating the skyline. Come on doctor, let me show you around.”

Frank led Billy around the apartment, pointing out details like carved end tables and crown molding. Billy was impressed, this much detail was difficult to render. It required a lot of concentration to create an apple, so landscapes and plants were even more difficult. Some people had a knack for it. Frank was clearly one of those people. Noah, it seemed, was not. The pair led Billy out to the garden. Despite the beautiful plants, the first thing Billy noticed was the faint sounds. He looked down to see the cars and street life hundreds of feet below. Again, the details were incredible, far better than what he expected from Frank. After staring down for at least five minutes while Frank talked about the skyline, Billy started to notice the “loop,” the pattern the characters below repeated over and over again. Loops were the best way to create ambiance and from talking with Golden's computer jockeys the most work intensive to create. The longer the loop, the better; and Frank had created one at least three minutes in length.

“Pretty impressive, Frank,” Billy said. “You need to be careful, though. You can still fall off a building in a computer program.”

Noah piped up with genuine curiosity. “I thought we were completely safe in Golden, that we couldn't come to harm.”

Billy smiled and moved away from the balcony. Noah, too, was moving away from the rail that stood between him and a long fall.

“You are, Mr. Harper,” Billy said. “I mean, you obviously can't be physically harmed here because in reality you aren't here. But the mind is a funny thing. When it perceives something as real, there can be real consequences. A fall here, for instance, would not break your bones. But your brain could convince the rest of your body that you are about to be flattened. You'd probably have a heart attack or a stroke in response to the perceived trauma.”

“Has this happened before?”

Billy really didn't want to talk much about the bad things that could go wrong in Golden, but the dangers were real and residents needed to be made aware. If Jenny were there, she would be glaring at him with her startling blue eyes telling him to shut up.

“We've had a few mishaps, mostly involving things like lawnmowers and power saws — nothing too serious.”

Noah nodded in understanding and took over the tour from Frank, especially when it came to the plants in the garden. There were numerous varieties of flowers, but Noah seemed to be especially fond of the daisies, fawning over Frank and his ability to render them.

“The detail on these daisies are impeccable,” Noah said. “You've got to teach me how to do that.”

With that, Frank ordered Noah to stand perfectly still and calm his breath.

“Now picture in your mind a daisy, its white petals, the yellow of its pistils sticking up in the air, grasping for pollen. Have you got it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Now picture it on the small table over by the ficus and hold that image.” Billy watched as both men stood stock still, their eyes closed. The silence was only interrupted by his own breathing. Then, on the table by the ficus, two flowers in small clay pots began to appear. On the left, a beautiful daisy. On the right... Well, it could have been a flower, but looked more like an incomplete drawing.

“I'll never get this,” Noah said, a hint of desperation in his voice. Noah’s frustration elicited some sympathy with Billy. He, more than anyone, knew what it felt like not to be able to render anything.

“Don't worry,” Frank interjected. “Anything you want I'll be happy to make for you. Some people take to rendering, some don't.”

Frank then offered to make more martinis and expounded on his theories of rendering and claimed that he would next work on creating a scenario. The challenge, he said, was creating people, Segees, that could interact with residents. Scott could do that, so could Fred and probably a handful of people in the whole wide world. Frank actually might be someone who could do it, but Billy doubted that he would go much beyond what he had created already. It clearly impressed Marie and Nancy. And clearly, Frank and Noah had invited them up to see their handiwork. Marie, a brown-eyed Mexican beauty who had married a German engineer in the real world, was clearly into Frank. The two of them made eyes at each other while Frank talked. Nancy — who Billy knew to be friendly to just about any man in Golden — refused to make eye contact with Noah. Both of them were more interested in Frank and Marie than each other.

After a half-hour of chit chat and one dry martini, Billy finally bid his leave and went up to see Fred. Golden's creator was probably its best architect; everyone knew that Fred was a genius and it only made sense that he would be able to manipulate the rooms in the school with relative ease. Billy first thought that intelligence was the most important factor in whether someone was good at rendering, but that was put to rest by Doris McNamara, a short-time resident who was nearly an idiot and very good at making weird animals that still haunted Billy's nightmares.

The first of Fred's rooms was empty, containing a single wooden chair and table in the middle. This room was probably the one that changed the most; Fred used it for new residents — to show them how to use their imaginations to render. Billy didn't even look in the second room, it hadn't been used by Fred for some time and was essentially a storage closet, or perhaps a workshop. It was a large room packed to the rafters with junk that Fred had created.

The third room was a project Fred had been working on for several months and it was his first attempt at creating a game. Visitors to the room would become part of an old murder mystery and it was based on an old McKenzie Family movie. Billy suspected that Fred actually created it so he could perform with his brothers and sisters again. Fred was the youngest of six kids – three girls and three boys, alternating in age – and he was the only one still alive. All of his siblings had died young and died of natural causes, except for his next oldest brother, Randy, who killed himself.

Billy knocked softly and entered the room without waiting for an answer. He walked into a darkened theater, the stage illuminated with footlights. A show was going on with a beautiful soprano singing a love song. Billy recognized the woman on stage as Sophie McKenzie, Fred's sister who gained as much fame as he did and who died at thirty-four from an aneurysm. Billy made it a point to find all of Sophie's albums. Fred obviously felt closest to her; seventeen years his senior, she was probably more of a mother to him than his actual mother.

Billy slowly walked down the aisle, looking for a seat. Not only was it the voice of an angel that Billy heard, but Sophie was also very pretty; dark hair and sad blue eyes. She sang of love lost and Billy was mesmerized.

“Psst!” he heard to his left. “Come sit.”

It was Ruth, beckoning him to a seat beside her. He made his way over and sat next to her. Billy tried to ask her where Fred was hiding, but she just shushed him. He soon got his answer as a young Freddie McKenzie came out onto the stage with his brother Miles, who died at forty-one of a heart attack. Fred, who was now about eleven years old, had a peach crate turned on its side and made a big show of pulling out three tattered cards which he proceeded to shuffle around on the top of the makeshift table. Three-card monte, Billy thought, Fred was probably pretty good at it too, watching the way his hands moved. As the child Fred moved his hands, he would mug to the audience, showing them cards he had up his sleeve or under his newsboy hat. He also started a chatter in his clear voice.

“Step right up, step right up,” Freddie would holler. “Play the fairest game on the South Side. A winner in every round.”

Miles walked up, a pretty girl on his arm.

“Say mister,” Freddie said. “How'd you like to show your girl how to win at a gentleman's game of chance?” He winked to the crowd, which elicited more laughs than Billy thought possible, but he did smile. Young Freddie McKenzie did have the charisma and the stage presence of an old pro.

“Games of chance are for suckers,” Miles said. “And you, you street urchin … shouldn't you be in school?”

“Naw, school is for suckers.”

“School is not for suckers,” Miles said in an affected tone. “I myself went to Harvard, Yale and Princeton. I have had the finest education money could buy.” Again, the audience chortled, this time at Miles' snobbishness.

“Well, an educated man such as yerself should have no problem beating the game. It's easy, all you gotta do is pick a card, any card. Then I shuffle them around and all ya gotta do is find yer card. It's so easy, I bet the dame could do it.” Freddie again winked at the audience as if they were in on the joke.

Over the next couple of minutes, Freddie and Miles played off each other, with Freddie always getting the best of his brother. Miles built up his frustration each time he lost in Freddie's schemes, coming up with one reason or another as to why the young scamp beat him, until finally a cop came along and notices the scene. In typical broad comedy, the cop made a coarse show of watching the proceedings, then finally stepping in.

“You young urchin!” the cop shouted. “How many times have I told you to leave the gentlemen of our city alone? I'm going to have to take you in. What's your name?”

“My name?” Freddie said, again indicating to the audience.

“Yes, what is your name?”

“Freddie,” Freddie said.

“Freddie who?”

“Freddie McKenzie.”

“You're Freddie McKenzie?” the cop said; he even indicated what was coming.

“I yam!” Freddie said raising his hat and squishing up his face. The audience erupted and applauded wildly. Freddie and Miles took a quick bow and hustled off the stage. Even in the context of a show, Billy still didn't understand its appeal, but Ruth beside him was laughing so hard she was holding her sides. The next act was a stripper, an act that Billy completely understood.

The dancer, a girl with auburn hair and womanly curves, used opaque balloons to hide the goods. As she danced to a passage from “The Bartered Bride” she would pop the balloons one by one with a pin she took from her tightly wound hair, which caused the mane to cascade around her shoulders. She would work her way from one end of the stage to the other, vamping it up every time she got ready to pop a balloon. And once the orbs exploded, she would jump in surprise, causing all the other balloons to dance with her. To Billy, it was entrancing, the girl was so beautiful, but obviously very young. And she looked familiar, as if he knew her from a dream.

Ruth saw no more reason to sit around. She elbowed Billy in the ribs and motioned for him to rise and leave.

“Let's go backstage,” she whispered. She grabbed his hand and took him out to the lobby and through a door to the side of the concession stand. The smell of popcorn was as entrancing as the dancer. At first, Billy didn't think anything of it, but then was struck by the realization that he could smell popcorn in Golden, and that smell had been created by Fred. Before he could stop to savor the scent, he was whisked away by Ruth's insistent pulling.

“I'm going to have to commend Fred on his work,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The red head, the popcorn. I'm sure Fred explained how these rooms work. It's not something that everyone can do well. Most people who … render other people find that their creations don't really look real. It takes a great amount of concentration and mental control. And the popcorn smell is just incredible, it's a small detail — a sense memory that's hard to recreate and to do it so that everyone has the same response. It's amazing.”

Ruth laughed as she led him through a backstage door and past a bald stagehand who ignored them.

“Well, the girl was probably easy for him to create, he was married to her,” Ruth said with a small smile. “As for the popcorn, Fred didn't do that, it was me.”

That gave Billy two hard things to think about. The first was that in the short time he was in the theater he had developed a carnal crush on Jenny's mom. That she was in a McKenzie Family stage show was odd. Billy knew for a fact that Fred had met and married Jenny’s mom long after his show business career was over. And as far as he knew, she had never been a stripper. Billy’s second thought was that his grandmother had a knack for rendering. He'd worry about Jenny's mom and whether to bring it up with Fred at another time, for the moment he was more interested in Ruth.

“You?” he said. “How did you do it? Most people have no idea how to add smells.”

“I don't know,” she said, leading him to a dressing room through a maze of performers and props that were more like ghosts than the real thing. “I just saw the popcorn, thought about the smell of the Bijou in my hometown growing up and it just happened. Fred explained it to me, but I have no idea what he was saying, intuitive awareness or some other mumbo jumbo. I just think it's fun.”

“You should get a room of your own,” Billy said.

“I don't know. I'm not clever enough to come up with something like this,” she said motioning around her. “I'll probably just help other folks, if they want me to.”

Ruth had made it to a door with a gold star painted on it and the name Freddie stenciled below. She knocked quickly and walked in with Billy in tow. Inside, a young Fred was sitting at a dressing table, wiping off makeup and smoking a cigarette. On a small couch was a giggling blond girl, as if Fred had just finished telling an off color joke or an amusing anecdote. He saw Ruth and Billy and loudly said, “Stop!”

The blond stopped giggling and stopped moving. Fred quickly aged from a boy to a middle-aged man before Billy's eyes. No matter how many times he saw it happen, it still was creepy.

“So what do you think, Billy-boy?” Fred said, a huge grin on his face. “I figured I'd recreate one of my more popular movies, let folks watch the action from the inside, or play a role. I still have some work to do on it, but I think Ruth may be able to help out.”

It was an amazing effort, and Billy wished that he could help create things like this. Backstage in a Freddie McKenzie movie was okay, but his sensibilities were a little younger. Something like Star Wars would have been right up his alley.

Fred showed him around some more and let the “scenario” run for a while longer. Ruth made several suggestions, and before Billy realized it, it was time to leave. He bid his goodbyes and headed to his office in the Golden Bank and Trust to make the trip back to the real world.