Hollywood

by Ed Nelson

  I called home and found out that Mum had arrived okay. I told Dad about my conversation with Mark Downing and that he was on board with the faucet program. How we both agreed that Detroit Faucet should become DF with a nice logo. From there we talked about the dryers. I asked him to deliver one to Mrs. Bailey, also to mail as a gift from them to each of my godparents.

  I really surprised him when I asked two to be wrapped separately and taken to the school office for Miss Bales and Mr. Hurley and to include a note of thanks for all the help in school. I then thought of Miss Powell and Miss Sperry. I would present them one also. Thinking of it I had better give one to Mr. Danson for his wife or he would feel slighted.

  I had better have one sent to Mark Downing at DF and make certain that Don Thompson and Paul Samson the engineers on the project had one. Dad told me he planned to hand them out to my Aunts and female cousins. I suppose this was the right thing to do, but as a group they didn’t thrill me.

  I talked to Mum for a few minutes. She was tired from her trip. She gave me greetings from my Godmother and Grandmother. She added that this was the most exhilaration she had in years. I know a trip home to England would be exciting for her, but exhilarating?

  She wanted to know how my bruises were from my beating. I told her they were a fading memory. In turn I asked if she knew about what happened to Paul Grant, and she responded that she knew very well and good riddance to bad rubbish. My Mum had never come across as the forgiving type.

  I talked to Denny, Eddie and Mary briefly. They all wanted to know why I hadn’t gone to Disneyland yet. They couldn’t understand why I hadn’t gone my first day in California. I told them it would be soon.

  That night I dug into my stash of Astounding Magazine which I had brought with me. I read about Slippery Jim diGritz robbing a bank and the Special Corp. That Harold Inskipp was certainly a dangerous one. It was pure space opera, but a lot of fun.

  Chapter 45

  Thursday was work, work, and more work. I was in scenes all morning long. One was a real surprise. It turns out my mother in the movie was being played by Anna Romanov. It was a cameo appearance for her. She had no lines. She just had to give me a hug as I was leaving the house to go to America. Of course she did it in style. The look of tragedy on her face told the entire story of a mother’s heartbreak and worry.

  After that scene I thought how my Mum would have played it. The answer was she wouldn’t. If you tried to do something to one of her children, that she didn’t care for, hell wouldn’t hold it.

  By lunch time I was ready for a break. An afternoon of testing was looking good by comparison. I’m such a wimp!

  My exams were in the same room with the same guy that looked like he had sucked on a lemon. He performed the all but strip search, gave the same dry instructions. When I was asked if I had any questions I gave an original.

  “None, sir.”

  I didn’t want to be seen as boring and repetitious like some other people in the room.

  It was such a relief to get to the physical part of my day. Who would have thought holding two swords out straight for ten minutes would be relaxing, that lifting one hundred pound weights soothing or getting hit in the face repeatedly calming. Well, maybe getting hit in the face with a boxing glove isn’t calming but it was certainly more interesting than those exams.

  On the way home I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some items. It was surprising how fast things went and what they cost. I was spending close to ten dollars a week on groceries! There was a car wash on my route so I ran the T-Bird through.

  I decided that I had studied as much as I needed for my exams and gave myself the night off. I watched TV for several hours and then read. Tonight it was about Lorenzo substituting for the Right Honorable John Joseph Bonforte who was missing. I had read it before but it was still a lot of fun. I could now relate to the actor.

  Friday was fun, after my morning exercises, and run with Dick, I stopped at his apartment and presented Janice with a hairdryer. She promised to try it this very morning. At the studio I gifted one to each of the two make up girls, then one to Mr. Wayne for his wife, and another to Anna Romanov. This left two, one for Nina and a spare for whomever I had forgot. Actually I would order another run of one hundred and present one to everyone on the set.

  Miss Romanov’s reaction was the most interesting. Everyone else received it as an interesting and probably useful device. She turned it on to see how it performed. She then told me that I was a very intelligent person, and that this would greatly influence her new idea.

  We then went to work. Again it was a serious day of filming. Every day the pace seemed to pick up. At the same time I was becoming comfortable with the process. I paid attention to what the Director was trying to achieve with each scene. Mr. Wayne told me that he tried to work with Ron Dodge whenever he could because he always had a clear vision of the movie in his head.

  Having a vision of the story he was telling was a huge part of success. Many a Director was known for shooting as much film as they could, then trying to pull a story out of the resulting mess. This usually failed.

  Today I had a gunfight with one of the Hole in the Wall gang. As could be predicted I won. The only difference between this and most westerns I had to pretend to throw up afterwards. This was the first time that Sir Nicklaus had killed a man and Ron wanted it to be a defining moment. Sir Nicklaus could kill and do it very well, but it would never become normal to him.

  Of course this endeared him to Lilly played by Ellen even more. In the movie this scene is followed by one where Big Jim played by Mr. Wayne told him that is how real men felt. Only heartless killers felt no remorse. One more step towards Sir Nicklaus’s growing up. These scenes left me very uncomfortable. I had killed two bank robbers and felt no remorse. Was I a heartless killer?

  I must have looked troubled because Mr. Wayne later on asked me what was wrong. I unburdened to him.

  “Ricky, this is a movie not real life. The script writers wrote all of our words. They are trying to convey a simple message. It would be a poor and boring movie if we explained everything in the detail it deserves. You know what my biggest concern about some of the movies I’ve been in?”

  “No, what,” I asked?

  “That some poor kid out there will take things literally and pull some damn fool stunt he has seen in the movie thinking life is like that. They can’t see what things we do behind the scenes or understand that our words are simplified to tell a story, and that is all it is a story, not real life.”

  “I had never thought of what we are doing in that light. Should we be doing it?”

  “Ricky, people have been telling stories which simplify life ever since Homer was a pup.”

  “I guess you are right, but I’m going to think of what stories I want to help tell in the future.”

  “Now you are getting it, you need to read scripts to see if they match your goals and if they match your beliefs. There are very few actors that can play a part that they don’t believe in.”

  That was quite an insight that I had just received. This would give me food for thought for some time to come.

  Speaking of food it was lunch time and I was starved. No heavy thinking was going to put me off my food. After lunch I headed to the office where I had been taking my tests. Mr. Congeniality was waiting. He was like a robot as he went through his routine, when he asked if I had any questions about the examination.

  I responded with, “No Amigo.”

  After all it is my Spanish exam today.

  It took longer than I expected, most of the three hours. When I turned my result in I went to leave. Sour face cleared his throat and said.

  “Mr. Jackson I’ve been proctoring these exams for ten years. It has been a pleasure working with you. I cannot begin to tell you how many times a student hasn’t a clue about how to take an exam. They whine and repeatedly ask questions. Worse yet there is about a fifty percent attempted cheat rate on these exams.”

&n
bsp; “I would wish you luck on your results but I know luck has nothing to do with them in your case. You have earned them.”

  He then extended his hand. The weirdest thing was he had a smile. I didn’t think that face was even capable of smiling.

  I replied, “Thank you sir” as I shook his hand.

  As I walked to the stunt area I thought about what just happened. You just never know about people unless you know all about their background. I started laughing. That was the second serious thought I had for the day. I hope they didn’t bump into each other in my head and get hurt.

  When I reached my refuge from thought the stunt area, where I just did things, I refused to recognize that this might be a third idea. I mean my head is only so big and there might be a traffic jam if I kept this up.

  A quick bout with real swords cleared my mind. It is hard to think philosophical thoughts while someone is trying to beat on you with an iron bar which has a sharp edge and a pointy end.

  After a good brisk workout with swords I did my weight lifting. I was able to up the weights again. There was some wishful thinking going on, but I was definitely getting some definition in my muscle groups, and from the way my shirt sleeves were feeling a little tighter I was bulking up.

  Coach wasn’t there to beat me up at boxing so I had a good work out with the bags and called it a day. Once I was home I was at loose ends so I called Nina. She suggested I meet her at the Hamburger Hamlet in Beverly Hills. That’s where she and her classmates hung out on a Friday evening.

  I showered and shaved, not that I really needed to shave, it just felt clean. Wearing the Hollywood teenage uniform of slacks, golf shirt and blazer I headed out. It is a good thing that I had bought that map. Between it and the yellow pages for the address I was able to get there.

  Chapter 46

  The Hamburger Hamlet was a sit down restaurant with booths. Unlike Don’s in Bellefontaine it had waitresses. Many of the waitresses would never have got a job in Bellefontaine, they were black! They were also good at their job and cheerful while doing it.

  Nina was at a table with three friends, but they scooted another table up to it so I could join them. This also opened up seating for two more to join us which promptly happened. Nina was with three girls, I was joined by two guys. It was like they had wanted to join the girls, but afraid to ask. Nina introduced me around. Even to the guys.

  The girls had a hot round of gossip going so I talked to the guys, Rob and Bob. They immediately reminded me of the two Toms in Bellefontaine. Here Bob was the class clown. I figured that out when he grabbed a bunch of straws and tore one end off. He then would blow into the straw, launching the wrapper towards kids at other tables.

  They basically ignored him unless he got a good hit. That lasted until one of the waitresses slapped him lightly up the side of his head.

  “Bobbie how many times have I told you not to do that? Now get up and pick up all those wrappers or I will tell your parents later.”

  It seemed Bob’s parents were frequent customers and the waitresses weren’t going to put up with his nonsense.

  Bob retrieved the straw wrappers while getting mostly good natured comments from his classmates about crawling on the floor.

  One of the girls remarked, “Bob that is the second Friday in a row you have done this, it is time for you to grow up.”

  From the look on Bob’s face I knew this story. Bob had been trying to get her attention. He had, just not in the way he wanted to.

  You could see Bob swell up to make a smart remark, which would have been anything but smart. He was sitting at the end of the table next to me so I distracted him by grabbing his arm and told him.

  “Bob, Natalie is right you need some new material.”

  He looked at me like a deer in the headlights.

  I continued, “Natalie cares enough to notice what you are doing, don’t bore or embarrass her by being repetitive.”

  I wasn’t going to criticize him for shooting straw wrappers across the room, which was good fun. However, he had achieved his objective, and now had to move on, or in this case, move in on Natalie.

  Bob was smart enough to shut up. Well at least change the subject. He started telling us about how a friend of a cousin out in Riverside had seen two guys pull a trick on the cops. They had crept behind a patrol car that was sitting near a pole waiting on speeders. They put a heavy duty cable around the rear axle and the pole, locking it in place.

  They went back to their car and sped past the cop car. The cops started chasing them until it reached the end of the one hundred foot cable which promptly stopped the car by the rear axle. The front end of the car kept going. Everyone at the table was listening to the story by the time he was finished.

  I didn’t burst his bubble by telling him that I had heard it had happened down the road from Bellefontaine in Urbana or how my Uncle Wally said it was done by the brother of a guy he knew back in the 1930’s. The one thing in common with all the stories, it wasn’t anyone they knew directly, and it had happened elsewhere.

  It still made a good story and I bet it would work, at least in a movie someday.

  We ate burgers, surprise! We talked about nothing, well the latest Hollywood gossip which seemed strange because the girls in Bellefontaine discussed the Hollywood gossip. The only difference here was the kids personally knew the players and some of them were parents of those present.

  When it was time to leave I found that Nina had rode with one of the other girls and would be delighted to have me take her home. She gave directions and the next thing I knew we were parked high above the lights of Los Angeles. There was a line of cars parked there not that close to each other, but still quite a few. One thing led to another and we were panting pretty hard when she broke away and told me we had better get home.

  I asked her if she had a curfew and she told me, “No, I’m afraid of what I want you to do.”

  What can you say to that, no comment that I could think of would do anything but cause trouble so I kept my mouth shut. I was finding that to be a good tactic with women.

  As we were leaving a police car on patrol pulled up and started chasing the other parked cars out. I asked if the police ever arrested anyone.

  “Not very often, they come by at least once an hour so you don’t have a lot of time to get in trouble. Only if you don’t have any clothes on will they haul you in.”

  That was good information to have, but how did Nina know?

  I asked her and she giggled as she let me know.

  “All the girls share the best parking spots and the rules.”

  “Are there spots without rules?”

  “Yes, but we have to be serious before I will show you those.”

  Open mouth, shut mouth. Remember good tactics.

  At her house I opened the trunk and pulled out a hairdryer which I had paid a woman in the front office to gift wrap. I walked her to her door, intending to hand it to her and say goodnight after a nice kiss. As usual this plan went awry when her Dad opened the door.

  He invited me in and called out to Nina. He was about to leave us, but he noticed the present and inquired about it. Dads and guys giving their daughters a gift were an explosion waiting to happen. Luckily for me my gift was so unusual that it triggered curiosity questions. When I explained what it was and how it was used Nina had to plug it in.

  Her father wanted to know where I had found such a different item. When I explained that I had invented it and had the patents in process it led to an hour long discussion. Along the way I shared the fact that I had designed and patented an adjustable shower head and was collecting royalties, already you could see him re-evaluating me.

  I took the chance and explained the studio had a collection of faucets which interested me. I had taken pictures and intended sharing them with my design person as inspiration.

  “Your design person,” he questioned?

  That is when I told him about owning thirty percent of Detroit Faucet or DF as its new n
ame would be. This led into the direct product placement in the movie, a clip in the movie in the TV special and DF being a major sponsor of the show. He was nodding his head as I brought each point up.

  Nina was beaming like her hunter had brought home a whole bunch of rabbits.

  I was told that the prop men had checked and there were no patent numbers on any of the faucets. They had been in storage so long no one really knew where they came from. Most had been there since the 1920’s so if there were any patents they had expired.

  Mr. Monroe said, “Of course I have to check all that out but if it is true I think we can strike a deal. In your catalog you can use the name of the Warner Brothers movie they appeared in. You could list it as a style used in whatever movie it was. Giving the studio credit will be enough for us. It isn’t like we make our money on faucets.”

  “That would be wonderful,” I replied.

  How I didn’t run about the room making strange sounds I don’t know. This was wonderful.

  Mr. Monroe mused, “As long as it wasn’t a movie like Doorway to Hell.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good fashion statement, Daddy,” put in Nina.

  “No it doesn’t, but that wouldn’t have been the sort of movie that special props would’ve been made for, it was just an example.”

  “Rick, you are different than any other fifteen year old I’ve ever met, why is that?”

  “I had to grow up fast last summer.”

  “What happened last summer?” Nina’s Dad questioned.

  I told them the whole story, well everything but the gold, for some reason no one outside of my parents would hear about that. Mr. Monroe winced, when I got to the bank robbers. Both he and Nina thought the rustler part was good. It turns out that Nina was a huge fan of the Beach Boys. She hadn’t connected me with Rock and Roll Cowboy. She had the grace to admit the only reason she listened to it was because of the backup band.

  I told her we both had something in common, we hated the song.

  Nina turned to her Dad.