Sharon Farrell

            On Wednesday I worked on my journal and in the late afternoon I took a bike ride. Almost every time I go out for a ride, when I get to the light at Brock and College there is a middle-aged East Asian woman on a kid’s bike ahead of me. This time there was room to come up on her right and so I commented, “I see you every day right here!” She smiled and vigorously nodded the way people do when they don’t know the language very well or when they think you are out of your mind and they are trying to humour you.

            This time I rode as far as Pape and then went back and down Yonge Street to Queen and then west. When I got home I went out to get a can of beer.

            I watched an Alfred Hitchcock Hour teleplay that was one of those stock horror stories in which an urbanite gets stuck in a small town populated by psychos. Cliff, a young television writer is driving out to Hollywood when a pretty young woman named Rosie flags him down. At first she says she’s just going to the next town but when she hears where Cliff is going she begs him to take her with him. He agrees but shortly after that a patrol car pulls them over. Cliff is charged with going 50 km an hour through the town that he’d just passed when the speedlimit is 25, but he’s also in trouble because the sheriff knows Rosie is only 17. On top of that Rosie lies and tells the sheriff that Cliff made her get in the car. Cliff is told to follow the patrol car back to town but his car won’t start and so he has to wait for a tow. In town the mechanic tells Cliff it will take a couple of days to fix his automobile so he rents a room at the only hotel in town. The place is run by a former Vaudevillian named Rudolph. It turns out that Rosie works for Rudolph. She takes Cliff to his cabin and tries to explain that she would have gotten in trouble with Rudy if she’d told the sheriff the truth. Later Rudy tells Cliff that he’d been married and his wife had been his partner and that he and his wife took care of Rosie after her parents died, but then his wife died as well. He says that he wants to start up his act again and so he’s training Rosie. Their act is old style pun comedy such as Rosie carrying a suitcase and Rudy asking her what she’s doing with it “I’m taking my case to court!” The she comes back in the other direction with the case and a step ladder and he asks her what she’s doing. “I’m taking my case to a higher court.” Rudycan also juggle but he tells Cliff he has yet to show him his specialty. It is revealed that Rudy plans to marry Rosie as soon as she turns 18. She makes it clear to Cliff that she doesn’t want to marry Rudy and so when Cliff gets his car he arranges to take her away. But when he drives up, Rudy approaches to tell him that Rosie said to tell Cliff she doesn’t want to go away after all. Cliff insists on hearing it from Rosie and so Rudy says to come to the theatre where they are rehearsing his specialty act. Cliff sees Rosie wearing a wedding dress and sitting very still next to Rudy, who has his arm around her. Cliff hears Rosie tell him that she’s changed her mind and she wants to stay with Rudy. Cliff leaves and does not see that she’s dead from a knife in her back and that Rudy’s specialty is ventriloquism.
            Rosie was played by Sharon Farrell, who started out as a ballet dancer.