Fight the Rooster

by Nick Cole

  All he would have to do is call his wife. She’ll come get him. Take him to the hospital. And maybe everything will be okay.

  But the movie… the movie will not be okay. These people have risked everything to make right what he has tried to destroy. He looks at his phone and realizes he cannot even dial his wife’s number. She’d know. She would hear the worry he feels in his voice. Maybe he’d even break down and tell her.

  His eyes begin to tear up as he thinks about dying, which seems fairly imminent as his chest refuses to expand. He thinks about never seeing his wife again. He wants to tell her he loves her. Just one more time.

  He wipes away the tears, catches his breath, and turns back to work. He is getting weaker.

  ***

  An hour later, the opening battle sequence starts. No helicopters this time, but a fair amount of special effects. Flashes of light in a row of buildings down the street are used to simulate machine-gun fire. The real kickers are the explosions. Two brief fireballs simulate mortar strikes. Kurt and his platoon move up the street into a simulated enemy ambush. The soldiers at the front of the attack scramble for cover as a few are wounded. A group of stuntmen, with a second-unit camera covering the moments just before their demise, are blown into the air. It’s a lengthy shot with a lot of action. A camera crew covers Kurt’s movements. Like the television show COPS, they trail right behind him, following him as he ducks for cover, low-crawls to a wounded comrade, and carries him out of harm’s way. This is repeated three times with different wounded men. Scott the AD side-directs the action over the bullhorn. Explosions and men scatter everywhere.

  “Cut!” is eventually called, and the action stops.

  The crew begins to set up for the next scene, in which Kurt will be fatally wounded while trying to rescue another soldier. The scene calls for numerous special effects explosions. Two more giant fireballs. Bullets ricocheting off concrete. One final blast from an artillery shell will cap the scene. It will take a while to set all that up. Thankfully, it will be the second-to-last scene they need to shoot, the last being Kurt’s death. The Great Director imagines a close-up of Kurt’s body lying on the concrete. Then a tight shot moving directly onto his eyes as they close. This shot will begin, and end, the movie.

  “Two things.” Jay again. The Great Director swings dizzily about to face this new crisis. He’s having a hard time maintaining his focus. Still he keeps it together. “County says no more explosions. It’s too much for a weekend. Second thing, and this is a possible deal killer.” Jay takes a deep breath and sighs. “The Fat Man is coming to the set.”

  The Great Director says nothing and stares ahead, the words seemingly audible still, even half a second after they’re spoken.

  “He’s got an injunction halting the film. He wants to see us in court on Monday.”

  After a pause, the Great Director speaks. “But we can’t shoot after today.” His tongue is thick. “Got to get it today, or…” He trails off. He’s too weak to finish the sentence.

  “I know, I know.” Jay pauses a moment, thinking. “Listen, the Fat Man’s coming with his lawyers. We have until then to get it done. I just got this from my sources. Somehow he got a judge to get up on Saturday morning and write the order. Until he delivers it we can keep shooting. So get as much as you can. If we fail… I’ll try to get us another day. But that looks extremely doubtful.”

  The Great Director thinks slowly, going back to the injunction. There is a question there. But he can’t think of how to articulate it.

  “Why?” he manages.

  “He says the new scenes we’re shooting are violating the artistic intent of his book. There’s a clause in his contract that protects his vision. I don’t know if that’s true. But for today it might as well be.”

  “Oh,” mumbles the Great Director. He is so tired. If he could just sleep for a moment, he thinks. That’s all he needs. Just some rest. A nice cool place to stretch out. Then he remembers the injunction. The film. His wife.

  “Use the helicopters.”

  “What?” asks Jay. They haven’t planned to use the helicopters again until this evening, when a camera crew will fly back with the choppers to their base in Los Alamitos. A body bag, supposedly containing Kurt, will be filmed resting on the floor of the helicopter as it returns to base. This will be used in the credits.

  “Use the choppers. I want everything in this scene. I want to stage an attack right in the middle of battle. Just keep them circling and making low passes. Okay?”

  Jay says nothing.

  “Do it. Okay?” pleads the Great Director. “If this is it, I want to get everything. Make it big. Use all the extras, all the explosives, everything. Cover everything. Got it?”

  The Great Director looks at Jay weakly.

  “Okay.”

  ***

  The Great Director wanders away, seeking shade. He has no trailer to retreat to. He just needs some shade. For a moment he dreams. He dreams of finding a quiet café down one of these deserted side streets. A nice place. A cool drink and a date mamul.

  He wanders farther away from the production than he should. He is seeking something that does not exist. Halfway down a darkening alley, the big one hits. It’s a chest pain like no other. From the moment it starts, he knows he has gone too far. This is the one he’s been waiting his entire life for.

  This is it.

  His shoulder blade grinds into his spine. His already tightening rib cage seems to close over his heart like an iron vise. He staggers toward the entrance of an alleyway, hoping to find anyone to call him an ambulance. By the time he reaches the entrance, he is listing so badly he has to lie back against the face of a deserted building. He is panting. His breathing is raspy and ragged. Sweat pours down his face. He is too weak to even call for help, and he knows the pain is getting exponentially worse.

  He has failed them. He’s tried to save the film, but it’s too late. Now he will either die or get to a hospital in time. Whichever, the film will not be finished. For a brief second he wishes, hopes, prays he can merely get back up and return to the set, that he can at least finish the shots they will need. Then he can die.

  The Editor can make sense of it all.

  Just let me finish.

  “Please!” he prays.

  Down the street from where the production crew is working, too far away and probably too absorbed to even hear his cry for that matter, is a speeding peach-colored Volkswagen Bug. The Great Director hopes the driver will recognize his obvious distress.

  He raises his hand weakly, pleading for assistance.

  The car continues to accelerate. As it approaches, his arm fails and he knows the vehicle will not stop. This is it, he decides. Another wave of pain arches across his face. He knows he is just moments away from expiring.

  The Volkswagen skids to a stop. The skid begins just as the car is about to pass him. The door opens, and his savior comes racing around the side of the car.

  Whoever it is, the Great Director knows he has a chance now. All they have to do is call the paramedics on their cell phone. Or better yet, with the seriousness of it, just drive him up to the entrance of an emergency room and yell “Cardiac patient!” His mother has told him to do that if he ever feels he is having a heart attack. Just drive up and say those two words. The staff will drop everything to save you. He has been practicing since he was twenty-two. Now he is ready to do it for real. He feels a sick kind of satisfaction at his preparedness. The kind only a true hypochondriac can appreciate.

  He reaches his trembling hand up once again toward his savior. He feels a brief easing of the iron clamp that surrounds his chest. He squints, looking into the bright mid-morning sun, trying to see who it is that has come to his rescue. Appropriately, the savior’s head is shrouded in a deserved halo of sunburst.

  “Oh, Mr. Director, what are you doing down there on the ground?” />
  Mindy.

  “You know they’re serving lunch back at the set. We’re having Turkish hot dogs. They’re the latest! I just talked to one of my contacts over at Tale of Two Cities 2, you know, Darnay’s Revenge, and they said the entire cast flipped over these things. Apparently they’re completely low-carb. I hear Fortune, you know the pop singer, has them flown in for all her concerts. My personal power group thinks it’s just a ploy to divert the paparazzi from all those anorexia stories, so…”

  “Mindy, I’m sick. I can’t breathe. You have to get me to a doctor,” says the Great Director weakly.

  “You’re not sick!” With surprising strength, she hauls him to his feet, pulling at his extended arm while stepping on his foot to accomplish the task. “You just need a glass of water. The air is really dry because it’s so hot, you silly. So even though it looks like spring it’s really winter. That’s why a lot of people die of dehydration during winter. I learned that during my junior year winter-break wilderness survival and personal empowerment weekend. It was taught by Michael Ovitz. He flew in by helicopter for two hours on the last day and gave us our certificates and made us sign some paperwork which was all kind of hazy because I had been eating twigs for three days and I had gotten lost from my tribe so I was really weak and hungry and Michael let me eat the olive out of his martini after I won a challenge round in which you had to pick the three stars who would most likely guarantee seventy-five percent net returns in a feature about the Vietnam War in which the entire catalogue of Iron Butterfly was available for use in the soundtrack. I picked Tom—”

  “Mindy! Please get me to a doctor or call a paramedic.”

  “Okay, if you’re going to be a whiny bear!” She sighs deeply and begins to make clucking noises, the kind a farmer’s wife might make while removing chickens from the front porch of a cabin located in the Ozarks. She ushers the Great Director into the back seat of her too-tiny car. He lies down. In the silence between her closing the passenger door and her reopening the driver’s door and flinging herself into her seat, the Great Director feels a momentary sense of shame welling up within. In the rearview mirror he can see the tail end of the production crew poking out of the alley. It’s all over now. He has finally failed them. Mindy will take him to the hospital. He will be admitted. Within hours, they will either stop the heart attack, or he will be gone from this world.

  The thought dispels his shame. A heart attack! His demise is imminent. It is going to happen. He knows with every fiber of his being they will use the paddles.

  They will definitely use the paddles.

  There will be a moment when his life hangs in the balance—a moment after the doctors have tried the paddles a number of times. A moment spent waiting to see if his heart will fire one last time. The young, good-looking doctor will look at the young, good-looking nurse. Then the clock. Then will come the words. The words that officially end your life.

  “Time of death occurred at…”

  Silence.

  Mindy starts the car and turns on her CD player. Instantly the sounds of Chumbawamba come banging out of her speakers. “This is my Spirit Mix from my first year at college,” she announces.

  The Great Director tries to get comfortable as best he can. His spine is grinding itself into his shoulder. The English band sings energetically about the sadness of drinking.

  He grits his teeth as Mindy takes a corner at top speed. At least, thinks the Great Director, her speed indicates she understands I’m not doing well.

  He feels his chest tighten fiercely. He holds his breath. He does not know how much more he can take. If he can just get to an emergency room and say those two words.

  “Cardiac patient!”

  All the shock paddles, adrenaline shots, and aspirin he can do will be just moments away. There is a possibility that he can make it.

  All he has to do is hang on.

  The minutes crawl by as Mindy races the streets of East Los Angeles, winding her way back to the edge of Hollywood. As she flips through the tracks on her Spirit Mix, she regales the Great Director with more long-winded monologues of her many adventures, numerous for someone who only graduated college a year ago. With blatant nonchalance she drops the names of restaurants she has been to and people she has had meetings with. She gives him her candid opinions on the industry and the trends currently affecting it. She tells him where it’s going and how it might be saved. She has high hopes for reality movies, the next generation of reality shows, and for product placement being used with more and more abandon, or “bravery” as she terms it. The tricky question is how to get Julius Caesar to indicate he’s wearing the Latin equivalent of Nikes when he comes, he sees, and he conquers.

  How indeed, wonders the Great Director distantly through a fresh new wave of pain.

  The car slams to a stop, causing the Great Director to slide off the back seat and onto the floor. He groans through clenched teeth. Mindy opens her door, expecting him to climb out. When he does not, she drags him through the slim opening between the front and back seats. Halfway through the door he becomes stuck, and she tugs for a moment until they both realize she can pull the front seat forward and allow him to escape.

  He stands up expecting to see the shady entrance of an emergency room. Perhaps an ambulance parked in the driveway, scrub-wearing young doctors or techs chatting easily with a white-coated chief of staff. Everyone conveniently available to notice him, see his condition, recognize instantly that he is in a great amount of pain, and call for the paddles. He prepares to yell “Cardiac patient!”

  Instead he sees a quiet office park. An empty parking lot. A low flat building of mirrored glass, denoting private offices and suites rather than a state-of-the-art hospital. He senses the inside of this building will be quiet carpeted hallways, Kenny G, and plaqued doors. Not the hustle and bustle of a brimming emergency room that he so desperately needs at this moment.

  Mindy lowers herself under his armpit and begins to drag and carry him toward the front door.

  “Mindy, I need a doctor!”

  A pain begins—what he knows in his soul is the final assault on his overworked heart. His protests are weak and ineffective as she drags him toward his demise.

  “This is a doctor, LOL. Dr. Murata. He’s my chiropractor!” proclaims Mindy with an enthusiasm she hopes will be contagious.

  A chiropractor!

  So this is the end, thinks the Great Director. Misdiagnosed by a helpful idiot. Mindy has dragged him to a back specialist instead of one specializing in all things cardiac. He has money, power, and fame. All that is needed to guarantee him the best life-saving measures available.

  Instead, Mindy has happened to him.

  He will expire, and somehow he knows she will be praised for her valiant, though misdirected, efforts to save his life. Her star will rise through the firmament. The beginning of her ascent will erupt morbidly from the interviews she gives this evening regarding his Breaking Celebrity Death. Over the course of the next few days she’ll master the storyteller’s art as she recounts his last moments for yet another lurid tabloid interview. Then the meetings and deals will start. She will rise swiftly to the top. Within ten years she’ll probably run a major studio. And it all starts the moment she drags him through the glass doors of a quiet medical office park.

  He wishes her all the best. He hopes her dreams come true. He hopes she appreciates what he has not. She should enjoy the ride, the journey, for there are fewer tomorrows every day.

  The pain stops.

  Or at least it stops bothering him. He swallows. She labors with him, panting down a maroon-carpeted hallway. Kenny G murmurs softly in the ether of the Muzak sound system.

  This is the final shooting location for the end of his life. And it does not bother him anymore as it once would have. He knows the world will be okay without him. Or, it will just have to be.

  His ar
ms are beginning to go numb. Gray clouds form at the extremity of his vision.

  Everything will be okay without me, he thinks.

  Not because of Mindy. She’s part of the problem. There have always been “Mindys.” They were there all along.

  “Mindys” trying to take something away from the act of making film. Gossips murdering the reputations of others in the name of something noble. Helpful destroyers. Trying to make things better, and in the end, only making things worse.

  But there is something great about film, he realizes sickly, as Mindy bangs open a door and heaves him into a banal waiting room chair next to some magazines. Somewhere out there, in the great whatever, is a kid. A kid like him, or at least who he once was, out there with a Super-8, or some new digital camera. Making movies. On their own. Using friends and dogs and neighborhoods to tell stories about gangsters and war heroes and ultimately, ourselves. He wishes he could be there now with that kid. One last time.

  Mindy disappears into the back office.

  The Great Director wishes with all his heart he could be out there with those kids, making one last movie before the streetlights come on. Working fast to get the shot. Side-directing a neighborhood boy and girl in a garage made up to look like a police station. Racing home before dinner. Hearing his mom’s voice across the neighborhood, calling him home. Lying in bed that night, dreaming wide awake. Dreaming of the capture of light and sound.

  I would give anything to do all of it all over again, he thinks.

  He smiles and closes his eyes.

  I wish I could tell you the Great Director’s life up to this moment has been nothing more than a dream. That everything that’s happened to him thus far was merely the dream of a young boy waking to a new morning of fledgling neighborhood filmmaking. Out the window of his bedroom lies a greeting of early summer. Waffles, bacon, and maple syrup somewhere not far off. A brief moment of hesitation, wondering how he has dreamt an entire life and death in just one night. I wish I could tell you he’d dreamed of making all those films. That he’d known all those people in the dream, died in that office in the dream, all in one night. And then woke to his childhood. I wish I could tell you that as he woke that next morning as a mere boy again, the whole of his dream life seemed nothing more than that, and the first thing he saw was the Super-8 camera on his desk among baseball cards and comic books and all the other things we collect when we are children. As he dresses, putting on his new child self, that old Great Director self of his dreams slips back into the long night it has come from.