by Nick Cole
Kip was silent. He licked his lips and then whispered quietly, “I don’t know.” Then he held up one dirty index finger and disappeared back into his office for a moment. He returned with armfuls of new receipts. She began to tremble, and her eyes gave every intention that if they could, they would cry. Thankfully they had done too much in recent days and thus there were no tears left to give.
She mouthed the word “No” as he pressed the receipts onto her. Still gazing at her like a survivor might gaze upon a fellow passenger left behind on a doomed ocean liner as the last lifeboat is lowered into the water, he closed the door. Her pain-filled eyes existed no more to him. At least until the next fiscal crisis. Or for as long as he could avoid thinking about her.
By late Thursday evening, Kip Jameson, in the guise of his brother Jay Jameson, had managed to bail too little water from the sinking ship that was the production. The desertion of the crew had reached its high water mark at eleven thirty that morning, with over forty-five percent of the crew abandoning en masse. The one bright spot in the exodus was that most of the key people had decided not to leave. Desertions were primarily among the mid- and low-level members of the production staff. People who could be replaced and were supposed to replace themselves. Often the promise of vowing to find a replacement—which followed the apology as the crewmember turned in their resignation, vowing to finish out the week—was an empty one.
Now as the evening turned toward morning, Kip Jameson lay on the Persian rugs in his office. Sandalwood incense curled into the air all around. Blind Melon’s Greatest Hits melted its way through the darkness and into his mind, dancing and exploring its chemically swollen halls, looking for a new treasure and a sunny day.
But his conscious mind, the one that had been ever more active with his producer hat on, scrambled to organize the critical problems facing the production. Without crew, there would be no need for transportation because there would be no way to shoot the picture. So crew was important, then transportation. But where to fill all these positions? Their functions and requirements were myriad, and as of yet, there was no central clearinghouse for employment within the film industry. He would have to deal separately with, he was guessing, over ten different unions. And tomorrow was Friday. He was supposed to fill the remaining empty crew slots by Monday morning.
Secretly, and sometimes openly to a select few, Kip would confess his longing to be Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. There was something about Kirk and the way he handled hopeless, desperate situations that attracted Kip. Maybe that was a clue to his own life’s constant circus of failures. Maybe that was why time and again he got in over his head, hoping to pull off an impossible victory in true Kirk-like fashion, beating the seemingly impossible odds. This was certainly one of those times when a Kirk-worthy gambit seemed the only answer. Like winning the lottery on the day you got fired.
The Klingon warbirds of doubt swirled over him as he lay among the intricate patterns of his Persian rugs.
And then, he had it.
He had a plan.
The only thing missing from his performance as James T. Kirk when he picked up his expensive smartphone, courtesy of the production accounts, was the light. A “special,” the grips called it. Aimed directly at his forehead, just above his eyes.
Very Shatner.
“Kip to Parker.”
A groggy Parker yawned as the line connected somewhere in the early morning, crossing the sodium orange arc-lit streets of a sleeping Los Angeles.
“Fire up the Enterprise,” Kip said, meaning the little red Yugo. “Set course for Long Beach.” Shatnerian pause. “Warp factor nine.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sunday Night
On Sunday evening Kurt flipped over the card he’d just been dealt. He considered bluffing but realized that once again he had no hand. Roger laughed as Kurt folded, his face glistening and brown from the golden Christmas lights that hung over the tree in the back yard year round. Roger’s grandfather, hands on his knees, watched as the cards were shuffled and dealt again. Occasionally he would steal glances at the bushes. A single string was at the ready, draped across his knee.
On Sunday evening Terri McCall, bags packed and by the front door, went to bed alone, promising that she would not cry herself to sleep. She had so many things to be happy about. She was getting to act tomorrow, her third favorite thing in the whole world. But that made her cry because she didn’t think there were too many of those days ahead. And of course there was the doll. The doll was not packed. Instead it lay on the nightstand where it always waited. Waiting until she stuffed it into the black binder she always carried with her. The doll was waiting and staring. Just like the truth inside her. The truth about the doll.
On Sunday evening, Langley Banks packed his bags late into the night. He was going, even though his agents told him he did not have to go. His contract specified that he didn’t have to ride on public transportation and that he was to be given a star trailer of such-and-such dimensions along with a litany of other contract riders. All of which were not being met and in some cases were being clearly violated. But Langley Banks knew this was his chance. His chance to break out of teen superstardom and sex comedy and cross over into legit drama. Important Work. The word around town was that this film was generating buzz. Important Buzz. He knew that being a part of this film was like being part of a great ball club. Like the Amazing Mets or something. If he didn’t go, he would miss something important. That much was clear.
On Sunday evening, Goreitsky lay next to his wife in bed in the back of the little RV. He was wide awake.
“Maybe this thing he asks me to do is not so good,” he said quietly in the dark.
Silence.
“I am worried and being afraid,” he said. “What if I do not paint with film like I used to? What if it is not good and people laugh? What if there is no more work?”
“Don’t worry. I will be with you,” she said and squeezed his hand.
“How is it that you can love a man who is so, so… so fearful?”
“How can you love a woman who is so old and not beautiful?”
“Lies! Lies!” Goreitsky was suddenly indignant and flushed with hot anger. He rose up on one elbow to look at her in the orange light of the beach parking lot that came through the blinds of the RV’s bedroom. “You are still to be beautiful. More beautiful than that silly girl I met long ago who was you. She was not beautiful compared to you. She knew nothing about real beauty.”
She squeezed his hand tighter.
“I would kill for you, anyone who says not the same as I do,” he finished with one finger raised in the dark. “Anyone!”
He leaned close, his eyes a fierce blue.
“One day your beauty shall kill me because my breath will not come back from looking at you.”
She drew him close to her, his head on her shoulder. Soon they were asleep, for a while. And the night wore on.
On Sunday evening the Great Director watched a DVD of Bones Wilson’s life that he’d found at the store that day.
A poor sharecropper’s child from the South, Bones first learned to play the guitar when he was just six. He’d made a living playing the blues and traveling all through the South for a time. Until he learned the tenor saxophone and took up a tragic career in jazz. The Great Director learned all about Bones Wilson and how he had started out full of promise and opportunity back in the long lost fifties. He learned about the failed marriages and the doomed romance with Renata Flambé, the opera singer. He also learned about Blastissimo Calderon, the tenor who took her away from Bones. He learned about Bones Wilson’s long slide into jazz obscurity and about the plane crash that killed Renata and Blastissimo and how Bones Wilson, far past his prime, began a new career again as a blues guitarist just like he’d once been. The second half of Bones Wilson’s life was spent doing what he truly loved. Playing the blues gu
itar.
The Great Director liked that a lot.
Bones Wilson had started over.
Maybe it was possible for the Great Director to also start over.
On the couch next to him, his Perfect Robot Wife cared for the Ugly Cat. Doctors and others had come offering promises and pills. She’d tried them all. All the therapies and treatments. All to no avail.
On Sunday night, the Ugly Cat was definitely getting sicker.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mutiny
While everyone is still sleeping, Manny the Bus Driver is awake.
His wife Carmen rose as he did, one headed for the shower, the other for the kitchen. By the time Manny the Bus Driver made it to the kitchen, Carmen had a brown bag full of different tamales ready, cinnamon and raisin being Manny’s favorite for breakfast, the other varieties for him to have throughout the long day ahead. As he passed by, he pinched her butt through the peach bathrobe she wore. An uncontrollable girlish giggle quickly turned to an admonishment in their native Spanish. They only spoke Spanish in the morning darkness before their three children, two boys and a girl, awoke. English was to be spoken after that. Now, in the morning, in the dark, before the serious faces must be worn and work must be done, they played and giggled in their native tongue like the children they’d once been in Mexico.
The door slammed and again she uttered more native annoyances. Outside, moments later, the powerful diesel of Manny’s bus roared to life. Carmen finished a thermos full of coffee the way Manny liked it, heavy leche, by twisting the lid on just tight enough that he could open it easily with one hand as he drove the large bus.
In the details, one could find her love for him.
Soon Manny was back, passing her quickly, moving swiftly down the hall. He checked on the two boys, one so much like the other, both sleeping heavily, dark hair wild, brown chests rising slowly, almost breathing in unison. The oldest one was doing well in school and working hard. The youngest one was doing poorly and working harder. His teacher had expressed that there might be a mild learning disability. Without outward hesitation, Manny and his wife had immediately committed their youngest boy to a special tutor. Inwardly, as it had always been, and always would be, they worried about the money. But the tutor seemed to be making a difference. The anger and frustration and sometimes even the tears the boy had experienced were fading. He was learning a new way to study and work. Don’t worry, everything will be okay. Here’s a secret I’ll tell you now. Someday the boy would become a doctor. A very successful doctor, and he would buy his parents a house and very nice cars. But they would still worry about the money. They couldn’t help it.
Next Manny checked on his youngest, moving soundlessly across the floor so as not to wake her. He had to move silently to steal a kiss, because she was made of porcelain, or at least she looked that way to him. Her eyes fluttered as he approached, and silently he laid a kiss upon her forehead and crept back to the door. He turned once again to look at her. Her folded hands, her round face, her short wavy dark hair. The ruffles of her peach nightdress poking up from beneath the undisturbed sheets she’d been tucked into the night before. He closed the door and was gone like a ghost.
In the kitchen he kissed Carmen a long goodbye, hoping to dissuade her from following him out onto the wet grass. Still, she followed. He got the bus in order and in gear and left quickly, easing out onto the night streets.
Across LA, Manny maneuvered the bus and soon found the studio where, after a short security search, he was waved through. He couldn’t help looking for movie stars, eyes wide as he scanned the narrow streets, heading for the pick-up area marked on the studio map given him by security. This was his first time on a movie studio backlot.
He was hoping it wouldn’t be his last.
Manny had owned the bus for just over a year now. He hired it out for charter, mainly for gambling junkets to Las Vegas and Laughlin and sometimes Mexico. Now he was hoping to get in with the “movie people,” as all the charter drivers called them. It was a chance to make some big money, and Manny had spent the entire weekend, since getting the call Saturday morning, making sure everything was ready. He had washed and waxed the entire bus—no small feat. Then he and Carmen, along with their children, had cleaned the interior, conditioning all the leather seats and scrubbing the floors and bathroom.
By late Saturday evening the bus was clean. The gold-flecked paint in the words Golden Getaway on the side of the bus sparkled seductively in the light from the open kitchen door. Manny knew he was ready.
Except for one thing.
On Sunday they dressed in their best clothing. His wife and daughter in soft peach dresses. The boys and Manny in their Norteño formal wear with accompanying Stetson hats. They went to church. In the dark of the cathedral with jasmine drifting on the breeze through the open doors of the warm sunlit Sunday morning, he prayed.
Now, as Manny maneuvered the Golden Getaway into position with the other two buses, he was excited. He was ready. He exited the bus, letting it idle, and joined two other men much like himself. They stood silently looking at their buses.
The sun rose over Pasadena. New sunlight began at the top of the buses and slowly moved down across their sides. The men stood, watching silently. First the Lucky Traveler was illuminated, its lettering green and flecked with gold, the name Lucinda written in script near the door. Then the Sunset Express, its lettering red and flecked with gold, the name Maria scripted near the door. Manny’s bus, the Golden Getaway, with Carmen’s name in the place of honor, came last.
All the years of hard, backbreaking work and sacrifice finally had the chance to pay off. These men had picked fruit, washed dishes, worked in warehouses, gardened, cut razor sharp fronds from dangerously high palms, bussed tables, built houses, and done every job imaginable to get to this parking lot. Now, the morning sun was rising. The day was beginning. Soon a movie crew would come and load themselves onto these, their buses.
They waited.
The buses rumbled, and the morning traffic began.
Amazingly, Kip was the first to arrive, accompanied by Parker, now officially on the payroll as Kip’s assistant. Parker carried a clipboard, which contained a series of notes barely decipherable even to Kip, the author of the notes. It may or may not have contained a plan to load and account for the entire crew.
As the crew began to arrive, Kip directed each of them by asking what department they were with and then pointing them toward a particular bus. As subsequent members of the departments arrived, Kip tried to remember where he had sent the previous members and then directed the newcomer to the same bus. Hopefully. This tactic did not seem to have a high rate of success.
Soon the four equipment trucks were lined up, and most of the crew that had promised to return—which seemed a pathetic number in the clear light of cold morning—milled about. A small number of replacements had also arrived.
The newly arrived Great Director, leather bags packed, approached Kip after surveying the buses.
“Are we going to have enough?” he said, trying to conceal the glee he felt as he eyed the understaffed crew. He congratulated himself for his decision to take the show on the road. Could it be possible, he wondered, that this course of action was already proving to be too disastrous? That they might not even have enough crew to get off the lot? That would surely draw the attention of the studio. The department heads would freak out. The brass would get involved. A lot of questions would be asked. Questions he happily had no answer for. Then one of two things would happen. Either they would remove him from the picture on the grounds that he was completely incompetent, or they would halt the production, causing the budget to escalate significantly. He would count either of these options as a win.
Standing in the parking lot, Kip stared intently at his clipboard, pretending to comprehend the hieroglyphics his notes had become. He mumbled meaningless numbers as he sim
ulated a count.
Just then, a caravan of ten cars arrived through the gate in the lot. They were directed into the parking lot by a wildly gesticulating Parker. Soon they began to arrange themselves in a somewhat organized fashion.
These ten cars were different and all the same at once. They were not the expensive sport utility trucks of the camera and lighting staff. They were not the stylized SUVs most of the rest of the crew drove, nor anything like the little sports cars a few industry players cherished and displayed with pleasure. No, these were definitely the cars of college students. Not the college students of the East, who went to Ivy League schools and belonged to status-devoted fraternal orders and secret societies bent on advancing some worldwide agenda, but first-generation college students. These were the cars they had been handed by their working class parents. The cars they had coaxed and begged, cajoled and cursed, all the way through high school and across the long highways of the land.
These cars wore the badges of their existence. The rusted side door that had been replaced after the first one had been torn off during a student film shoot. The bashed fender acquired in the Burning Man parking lot. The multitudinous stickers pledging allegiance to bands never to be heard on easy listening stations or adult contemporary top forty shills. Stickers admonishing lifestyles and advocating the owner’s intentions. Stickers letting you know exactly whom you were following. Windows that didn’t work, wipers gone missing. And not one car in the bunch could muster a complete set of regulation safety lights.
“Here’s the rest of the crew,” announced Kip triumphantly to all.
The film students began piling out of their cars, some shirtless in the cold morning air, some smoking, holding impossibly large cups of coffee. All were unshaven and in serious need of a haircut, or so the adults thought. They began to unload duffel bags, backpacks, and an occasional suitcase colored dirty butterscotch or DMV green. Music blared from cheap speakers.
