Where Dreams Come True

His thankless job was to patrol the hotel grounds each morning looking for dead bodies. The Disneyland Hotel had the highest suicide rate of any lodging in the United States. At a park with such a cheery public image it was important that any "situations" be handled quickly and delicately. He did not wear an obvious security guard uniform, but a blue blazer pinned with an oval ID badge. It said "Ruben" (not his real name), "Disneyland" and had a Sleeping Beauty Castle embossed in gold.

It was a month and a half since he had found a dead body. We are falling behind, he thought. He smiled a wicked smile. That was bad luck. He retracted the thought. Then his heavy shoe hit a stiff leg encased in a nylon stocking. On the ground was the body of a woman about 5'10". If she had fallen a couple of feet to the right a topiary hippo would have saved her life. She had blond hair, disheveled from the fall, expensive makeup, a string of pearls and a tight green dress. Hither and thither on the perfectly trimmed grass past the sidewalk were her very green high heels and her black briefcase that almost made it all the way to the miniature remote-control Jungle Boats in the lagoon.

He collected the heels, which aroused him, and the briefcase. Inside the briefcase was a faux leather daytimer. It showed her schedule for a sales convention that day at the Anaheim Convention Center. Organizations were not required to have conventions in Anaheim, but the city had excellent convention facilities, many hotels and, of course, Disneyland. No doubt she billed the $350 a night corporate hotel rate to her company. They trained trainers to train salespeople on how to sell more products. The training they sold was called Framework for Enterprise Empowerment (FEE).

Maybe she was going through a divorce. Maybe she had blown that big sale. These answers were too simple. What was it that all the departed guests of the Disneyland Hotel had in common? The stress of a vacation or a conference? Why was he thinking so much as he nervously hid her body with his shadow? He should be radioing for a tarp. In his seven years he saw a chorus line of dead bodies and he wanted an answer. This was the Kobayashi Maru of Disneyland. What was it about Disneyland? Maybe it did not always provide the promised happiness .