The Hollywood Trilogy

by Don Carpenter

  “I have to get back to the set,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left at all.”

  Jody turned on him, still naked. “Listen, goddamnit, I just spent the fucking day flying around and I got tired and fell asleep. If you don’t like it, you can just fuck off.”

  Harry stood up and put his hands against his cheeks. “What’s the matter with me?” he said in a strained voice. “I just got so goddamn mad on the set. I thought you either missed the plane or got drunk in Atlanta or something. It never occurred to me that you’d fall asleep and the kid wouldn’t know enough to knock on your door. He’s still out there waiting for you.”

  “Well, for your information I didn’t have a single damned drink for the entire trip.”

  “Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” he said and hugged her tightly. “Maybe you should just go on to bed and I’ll see you tomorrow. We got another two hours tonight I think and we’re behind schedule already.”

  “I can be dressed in five minutes,” Jody said. “I want to come out to the set with you.”

  “You might as well,” Harry said. “Everybody wants to get a look at you.”

  He still did not seem normal to her. Even under the worst pressures of pre-production he had not gotten this uptight. As they drove though the darkness he told her in rapid disconnected sentences about the problems they had been having—rainfall, a grip dropped a hammer on somebody’s foot, a couple of locations had come unstuck, equipment on the Cinemobile had had to be sent back and they needed it—problems Jody did not think sounded nearly as urgent as Harry made them.

  They were driving down a narrow dirt country road through forest until at last Jody could see in front of them a mass of light coming eerily through the mist and darkness, and then she could make out the bulk of trucks, buses and cars. Harry pulled up behind a big bus with the word CINEMOBILE on its side. Harry said, “Shit, I don’t think they’ve lit the fucker yet,” and got out of the car, leaving Jody to find her way over to the set by herself.

  There were a lot of people Jody did not recognize standing around in the humid night while hundreds of insects flew in and out of the light from the big hissing arc lamp. There seemed to be around forty people there, and the only ones doing anything were apparently trying to get a little spotlight off in the woods to stand up by itself. Harry was with them and she could also see Lew Gargolian the production manager. She did not see any actors she recognized and she did not see Jack Meltzer, but after only a few minutes of standing there Jack came up to her from out of the gloom.

  “Hey, I’m glad to see you!” he said. Unlike Harry, Jack seemed to be in excellent spirits. “Hey, come on, meet some of the people,” he said, and took her back to a trailer where the three principals were sitting jammed into a tiny room overflowing with costumes, clothes, boots, hats, bottles and scripts. All three of them were covered with dried mud and makeup, their costumes in rags.

  “Hello friend,” Maggie Magnuson said to her with a happy grin. “You catch me in my trick suit.”

  Jonathan Bridger and Elaine Rudman were polite and shook hands with her, giving Jody a little thrill, as it always did, to be close to people whose faces she recognized; and then Jack said, “Hey, come on, I want to show you something,” and took her hand.

  “When are they going to be lit?” Jonathan Bridger asked.

  “Any minute now,” Jack said, and took Jody off with him to where there were five or six canvas chairs, all inhabited by people, lined up a few yards behind the big camera.

  “Get your ass off that seat,” Jack said not unkindly to a young man, and he jumped up and disappeared, leaving Jody looking down at her name, JODY McKEEGAN, on the chair.

  “Sit down,” Jack said proudly. “That’s your chair.”

  Jody sat down and smiled up at him, and Harry came over grinning and said, “I see you found your chair,” and the two men had a nice laugh together and then walked off into the woods talking quietly. Jody stayed in her chair and watched the electricians fiddling with the light. At last a man in a striped tee shirt yelled, “All right, settle down, people, this is going to be a take!” Nobody seemed to pay much attention to him. No one went near the camera. But then the three actors and Jack came out from behind Jody and went into the woods in front of the camera. “All right, SHUT UP, EVERYBODY!” the man in the striped tee shirt yelled. “THIS IS A REHEARSAL!”

  Jack came back and threw himself into a chair, crossed his ankles and wiped his forehead. The three actors had disappeared into the woods. “All right,” Jack said in a slightly-louder-than-normal voice, “Action . . .” While Jody watched, the three actors ran crashing through the underbrush, the girl falling down and being picked up by one of the men, and then they came to a forked tree where most of the lights seemed to be concentrated, and Bridger looked through the fork almost right into the camera.

  “Cut,” Jack said. “That was fine, let’s do it.” They shot two takes and then the little light they had been fussing with when Jody had arrived did something wrong and everything ground to a halt while the electrical crew tried to fix it.

  “Don’t we have it?” Maggie said to Jack. “I thought those were pretty good takes.”

  The man with the striped tee shirt walked past, saying in a loud voice, “If you people think we’re going into golden time, you’re sadly mistaken,” and Jody heard one of the technicians say, “Aw, stick it.”

  “I want one more take,” Jack said to Harry, who was standing next to Jody looking worried.

  “What didn’t you get?” Harry asked.

  “Those face shadows are tricky,” Jack said.

  “Right,” Harry said. Lew Gargolian came over from the light, his forehead creased in a frown. “I think we got it now,” he said. He saw Jody and brightened. “Hi, friend. Glad you made it.” He reached out a big hand and gave her a firm warm dry handshake. Then the smile vanished from his face and he said to Harry, “Can I see you a minute?”

  Jack said to her, “Coffee or water’s on the front end of the truck, there,” and pointed. Then he too left her and she was alone. The three principals had disappeared as well, and so Jody wandered over to the truck and got herself a paper cup of bitter coffee and returned to her chair. She had just finished her coffee when the big insect hit the arc lamp and fell to the ground, fluttering like a wounded bird. Technicians gathered around like people at the scene of an accident.

  “God, look at her flop!” said one man.

  “The poor thing,” said another.

  Jody got up and went over to the light. The bug was on the ground, still flopping and clicking. Obviously the bug had hit the carbon arc and was dying. Jody took her paper coffee cup and trapped the insect inside. The thing was so big it almost filled the cup. Jody put the cup on the ground with the insect trapped under it and stamped down hard. The cup made a crunching sound.

  Jody looked around at the circle of faces.

  “Good God!” somebody said.

  “Better off dead,” Jody said and grinned. She went back to her chair and sat down. They shot the scene and Jack had what he wanted, and the man in the striped tee shirt said, “It’s a wrap!”

  Maggie Magnuson rode back to the motel with them. “Well, I guess everybody knows who you are now,” he said to Jody. “Heh heh.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  HARRY DID not get to see much of Jody the next day. Problems were mounting, and no matter how many times he had been through the process he always forgot how compelling each day’s new set of troubles could become. He had been almost vicious to her when she had arrived, totally absorbed as he was in his own paranoia, and then when everything was all calmed down and they had gone to bed in her room, the motel operator had found him, in her sweet stupid way: “Ah was just sure ah’d fand you. Miss Rudman would like you to telephone her.”

  “Yes, thanks,” Harry had said. He did not call Elaine Rudman though. He stayed in bed with Jody and hugged her until he fell asleep.

  He was glad the next day that he had not ans
wered Elaine Rudman’s call, because it would have ruined his sleep. Accidentally on purpose he ran into her in the dining room at around nine and sat down opposite her. Elaine Rudman was a slender beautiful woman of thirty who had been in pictures for a dozen years.

  “I hear you were looking for me late last night,” Harry said. He picked up a piece of her toast and began eating it.

  “I really wish you’d called me,” she said. “Were you with your girlfriend or something?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, I was talking to Burt last night. He’s in Pittsburgh and he won’t be able to come down here for at least another week.”

  Burt was her husband and business manager; as far as Harry knew he was also a highly successful investment broker. “Why does Burt have to be here?” he asked her, although in his heart he really knew. He had been dreading this moment, hoping this once it would not happen. But here it was. He could tell from her perfectly composed face that she was determined to win this argument.

  “It’s the riverbank scene,” she said. “You know that I wanted Burt here to help me with my decision on this matter.”

  “What do you mean, your decision?” Harry asked, pretending that he did not understand her.

  “About the clothes,” she said.

  And there it was. Elaine Rudman did not want to take off her clothes. It always happened.

  “You mean the nudity?” Harry said, as if he could not believe that this is what was bothering her.

  “I never appear nude,” she said.

  “But you signed a contract. You read the script. In fact if I remember correctly you even made some comment about how tasteful it was.”

  “I did. I think the script is beautiful. But I reserved, you can ask my agent, I reserved the right to discuss this matter with you and Jack with my husband here with me. And he can’t be here for at least another week. So you’re just going to have to postpone the riverbank scene.”

  Harry laughed and ran his piece of toast through her egg yolk and then ate it. After he finished he licked his fingers. “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “This isn’t a joke, Harry.”

  “You’re too much of a pro to pull this shit on me,” he said. “Think about it. The production board’s a mess as it is. Remember those two days of rain? Well, you wouldn’t believe what they did to our schedule. There is no way in the world we can take that scene and run it back a week. There is no room. Actors will be left hanging on the payroll. People who haven’t even showed up would be needed. Don’t kid me. You understand all this. What’er you pulling? What do you really want?”

  “You know what I want.”

  “You can’t have it. Period. We shoot this scene tomorrow, rain or shine.”

  “No, Harry,” she said. “I’m warning you, I’ll quit the picture first.”

  “Oh, Christ, now you threaten me with quitting. If you were a quitter I’d have known about it a long time ago. You’re no quitter. But you are threatening me, and goddamnit, I don’t like it. All right, all right, I know, you wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place if it didn’t mean a lot to you. So what is it, is it Jody McKeegan? Are you scared of working in the scene with her? Did Maggie tell you what happened with him?”

  “That’s not it at all,” she said. “I simply do not think appearing nude is going to help my career . . .”

  “Your career? You’re a fucking star!”

  “I do not think it is a good thing for me to do. I am perfectly willing to appear in the scene as if I were naked, you know, in the water all the time up to my shoulders, or perhaps a long shot of my back. You can’t tell me there’s an actual necessity for me to show my breasts. You tell me just what it is in that scene that requires the presence of nipples.”

  “It’s Jody, isn’t it. You know the scene belongs to her. It’s not your scene and you’re jealous.”

  “Now look who’s doing the accusing. I’ve talked it over with Jack and he’s on my side.”

  “What do you mean, he’s on your side? You mean Jack doesn’t want you to undress for the scene, or Jack is willing to put it off.”

  “Put it off,” she said.

  “Well, see, that’s not Jack’s department. Jack is the director. You may not know it, but Jack and Lew and myself spent quite a little bit of time on that production board, because we barely have enough money to make this movie as it is. We are spending approximately twenty thousand dollars a day whether we shoot or not. Every interference with that board costs us days, and days cost us money. Now, you’re a star, and you’re already on a lot of this film, but there’s a break-even point, and when it costs more to have you than to lose you, well, you can see what happens. I’m really pissed off at you. I mean, to bring it up now.”

  “All I want is a week, so that Burt can come down,” she said. She did not seem to be weakening at all. Harry had a feeling that she was going to stick to it, and he was going to have the heartbreaking task of redoing the board. Lew would probably freak out. He was already wondering why they had so many scenes in the picture, and why Harry was insisting on such full coverage of everything. In fact he had said to Harry only a few days into the production, “Man, you’re shooting this like a four-million-dollar picture,” and Harry had laughed and put him off. But it was almost true, and it was squeezing the board.

  “Be practical,” he said. “Are you willing to reimburse the production company for the money your week will cost?”

  “No,” she said. She had finished her breakfast, and she stood up. “I want my week.”

  And that was that. Harry was almost certain that Elaine had pulled it just to throw Jody off balance so that when the time came to film this admittedly delicate scene, Elaine would stand a better chance. But he could not brood about it; the day was short and he had a lot of things to do before they went back to the woods to finish up the night chase sequence, this time with the police and the dogs instead of the principals.

  Harry did not knock on Jody’s door as he went past on the way to the production office. Hopefully, she was asleep. Lew Gargolian and Bud Hanzer the assistant director were in the office going over the production board. Bud was holding five or six strips of cardboard on his hands, strips that represented scenes they had not managed to fit into the schedule yet.

  “You ready?” Lew asked him.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He did not have the heart to tell Lew and Bud that the whole board from the second week on would have to be ripped out and painstakingly put together again. Elaine’s opening gun was going to cost them a lot of blood and sweat, but Harry could not really be angry with her. It was his own fault: this always happens when an actor has to appear naked for the first time. He should have allowed for it. The goddamn riverbank scene had not one but two women appearing naked for the first time, but fortunately Jody did not have the muscle or the know-how to cause a fuss. He hoped.

  Harry and Lew drove through Sugartown and out the highway to Danny’s Meadowbrook Cafe, pulling up into the graveled parking lot in front, the only car there at this time of day. Harry once again was amazed at how perfect a location the cafe was. This was the place where Jody and the others meet, in a scene they were going to probably have to shoot this week, but the owner had yesterday told the set dresser who had come around to look things over that he had reconsidered and would not let the company use his place. Lew and the local liaison man had gone to him immediately and Lew had offered more money while the local man had gently browbeaten the owner, but it had not worked, and so now it became Harry’s problem.

  They stepped into the air-conditioning of the cafe and sighed from their brief moments in the swelter of outside. The place was really too good: a row of cracked red leather stools, big glass counter full of pecan pies and stuffed plush toys for sale; a rack of Confederate flags and patriotic bumper stickers, two big revolving ceiling fans (no longer in use because of the air-conditioning, but Harry meant to have them on during the filming), and best
of all, room to shoot in and room for their lighting equipment.

  The owner came forward, wearing a white shirt and an apron over his dark pants. He was around fifty or sixty and appeared not to have any teeth. He did not want to meet Harry’s eye.

  “This is Mister Lexington,” Lew said. “Maybe he can straighten things out.” To Harry he said, “This is Mister Lorbun.”

  Harry said, without offering to shake hands, “What’s the matter?”

  “No trouble,” Mr. Lorbun said. “We are just sorry but we can’t let you use the place.”

  “Why not?”

  Lorbun looked over at an old woman sitting at the counter, the only other person in the room. The woman sat looking at them without expression, and said nothing.

  Lew said, “We had a deal.”

  “I can’t help that,” Mr. Lorbun said. He looked old and silly without his teeth, and kept looking over at the woman and getting no help from her.

  “Do you feel we aren’t compensating you properly?” Harry asked.

  Lew said, “No, we discussed that yesterday, and Mr. Lorbun agreed that the compensation was more than adequate. More’n they’d make during the same time period.”

  “So it isn’t money,” Harry said. “Frankly, I’m at a loss to know why you are letting us down like this.”

  Harry stared at the old man until he finally, with one last eye-rolling glance at the woman, said, “Well, my wife she says it would be immoral.”

  Harry looked over at the woman. She was a mess, her skin blotchy, her hair greasy and stringy, her body soft and shapeless under her dress. She nodded to Harry, confirming her husband’s admission. Harry walked over to her.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “It’s immoral,” she said, as if Harry had not heard correctly the first time.