Sky Tongues

by Gina Ranalli

  I gaped at him. “You’re a Split?”

  “Damn right. A proud one too!”

  Shocked, I couldn’t say another word. Splits were the lowest of Mues, even lower than Norms. They were mostly man-made and therefore, not considered Mues at all by some, my father included.

  Hillel, an Outie like myself, spoke up. “You have something against Splits, Sky?” he asked, clearly ready to defend Gus if it came to that.

  “No,” I said quickly. “I’m just surprised. I didn’t know.” I faked a chuckle, putting all of my training into it, and smacked my tongues into my forehead. “Gods, what an idiot I am.”

  The tension that had been building in the air quickly dissipated and everyone went back to their cards and Gus’s guitar once again twanged out its folksy tune.

  It seemed that my father had been wrong yet again and yet again, the thought made me smile.

  19

  Towards the end of summer, the carnival traveled to the west coast where both the weather and the people were always beautiful. We were in San Diego, both Milo and I leaning on our counter watching the marks go by, one of us occasionally shouting at them to come and try their luck, when Milo said, “You know where we’re going in a couple days, right?”

  I didn’t, nor did I particularly care. Every place, I learned, was pretty much the same as the last and so were all the people. At first, I’d been excited to travel around and see new places but basically the only things that ever changed were the accents.

  “L.A.,” Milo told me, a tinge of excitement edging her voice.

  “Yeah?” I tried to feign interest. “Cool. But isn’t there a lot of pollution there? I’ve heard it’s kinda gross.”

  “Sky! Who cares if it’s gross! It’s LA! Do you know what that means?”

  I shrugged. “What?”

  “Hollywood!” she practically shouted. “We could get our big break!”

  “Ohhh.” I reached under the counter and grabbed a cigarette. I’d been smoking quite a bit by this time. I’d even mastered holding them only by the filter so my tongues wouldn’t make them too soggy to smoke.

  Milo gave me a look. “You don’t seem very excited for someone who feels she was born to act.”

  Dragging on my cigarette, I said, “Hollywood is about movies and that kind of shit. That’s not what I want.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure they have theaters there, Sky. Gods!”

  It was then that two teenage marks strolled up to our booth and wanted to toss a few rings around, so we got to back work and the subject was forgotten about for a while.

  20

  Everything I’d heard about LA was true.

  The pollution can cause your eyes to water and birds fall from the sky choking so frequently that no one even pays attention to it. The streets are littered with every kind of imaginable debris and then some unimaginable. The people are rude and mostly not as beautiful as the media wants you to think. I hated the city immediately but fortunately, we set up in a parking lot across from a beach, which wasn’t bad. It kind of reminded me of home a little bit. It was August and little kids, Mues and otherwise, ran around with sunburns and sticky faces, having themselves a good old time. It was fun and I spent a lot of my time off riding the Ferris wheel over and over, looking out for miles across the blue Pacific ocean.

  While we were closing up a little after midnight of our first night there, Milo said she’d bought a paper on her break and circled all the open-call auditions. “You wouldn’t believe how many there are!” she declared, grinning from scale to scale. “Like, hundreds! I figure we can ask Gus for some time off and check out a few of them. It couldn’t hurt right?”

  On the contrary, I knew that auditions could often hurt quite a bit, but I kept my mouth closed on the subject. Instead, I said, “What makes you think he’ll give us the time off? He’s never given us time off.”

  “That’s my point. We haven’t had a single day off the entire summer. I’m sure if we beg enough he’ll say ok, especially if we can get Hillel to run our booth for a while.”

  “And why would Hillel do that?”

  Milo wiggled her eyebrows up and down. “Let me worry about that.”

  I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right? Hillel?”

  Laughing, she continued packing up all the plush prizes and never did answer me.

  21

  That night Milo cornered Gus and begged him for the following day off.

  “No way,” he said quickly. “I need your booth open.”

  “Hillel will cover for us!” she insisted.

  Gus eyed her skeptically. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. Go ahead and ask him.”

  “Hillel is the laziest son-of-a-bitch gods ever put on this planet.”

  Milo repeated her statement, telling Gus to ask him, which Gus immediately did, calling Hillel away from his hackey sack game.

  “Yeah, I’ll do it,” Hillel said. “No problem, boss.”

  Looking even more skeptical, Gus gave in, shrugging his shoulders. “Alright then, but if any of you kids give me any grief, if I lose even a single dollar tomorrow, you’re all gonna be on my shit list for a year.”

  Milo jumped up and hugged him around his neck. “You won’t lose a penny, Gus. We promise!” She then proceeded to thank him about a hundred times.

  To myself, I was wondering about the “we” shit she was promising, but as usual, I didn’t say a word.

  22

  In the morning, before I was even fully awake, Milo began showing me the things she’d circled in the paper and pointing out bus routes on a map. I had to forsake a shower and get dressed as fast as I could, gloves and all, and then we were on our way, a mere twenty minutes after she’d shaken me awake.

  “This is insane,” I told her while we sat on the bus among a few dozen other people who all seemed to smell bad. “It’s hot and I’ve given up a day’s pay.”

  “Quit whining,” she said, staring out the window at the ugly landscape. “If I get even one of these jobs, I’ll pay for the damn day myself.”

  I sat back and pouted, mentally preparing myself for what I knew was going to be a long-ass day.

  23

  By mid-afternoon the temperature was well over a hundred degrees, my tongues were miserably parched and Milo had yet to receive any positive feedback from any casting directors.

  “I need to find water for my tongues,” I told her.

  “Ok, just one more place first,” she said. “This audition is for an ice cream commercial, so it’ll be nice and cool inside. We might even get free ice cream!”

  I made a face behind her back but followed her onto the bus and to the next destination.

  24

  We arrived late. The waiting room only contained only one actor who held a script close to his face and moved his lips while he read.

  Milo signed in, received her script and sat down beside me. “I told you it would be cooler in here.”

  Ignoring her, I pulled off my gloves and began licking my tongues to get them at least somewhat moist. A few minutes passed and a door opened. An actor came out looking dejected and the one who had been waiting went in. Impatient, I asked the receptionist if there was a water cooler around and she told me where I could find one down the hall a ways.

  By the time I returned with my tiny cup of water, Milo was gone, off to do her audition. I sat and sipped water, occasionally dipping my tongues despite the looks of disgust the receptionist was giving me. I glared right back and went on with my business.

  The water was gone by the time Milo emerged with the casting director. “We’ll give you a call,” he was saying. “But, just for future reference, you really should get yourself some headshots and a portfolio.”

  She smiled sweetly, saying yes and thank you, blah, blah, blah. I was just anxious to get the hell out of there and find a place where I could get a proper glass of water.

  “Ok, you’re up,” The director said.

  I sighed
and licked my pinky tongue.

  “Young lady? It’s your turn.”

  Milo laughed and said, “Oh, she’s not auditioning. She’s just here for moral support.” And that’s when I looked up, realizing he’d been talking to me.

  “Oh, you’re kidding! With hands like that! Oh, no way. C’mon, get up.” He was waving a hand at me motioning for me to come with him through the door.

  I looked at Milo, who shrugged.

  “You want me to audition?” I asked the director.

  “Hell, yes. Now come on! Time is money.”

  “I don’t know…” And I really didn’t.

  “Free ice cream,” Milo smiled, showing me a cone of chocolate chip.

  It sure looked good. “Ok,” I said, getting up. “What the hell, right?”

  “What the hell, indeed,” the director agreed.

  I followed him through the door and to an extremely fake looking set pretending to be a suburban kitchen. “I don’t have a portfolio either, you know,” I told him.

  “Eh. Who cares? It’s always a good excuse to say that to some people though.” He grinned at as if we were best friends and I had to suppress a gag.

  There were a few people hanging around the set, camera, light and sound people by the looks of them. The director told me to go sit on a stool at the fake counter and face the camera, which was easy enough. Then someone handed me a bowl of ice cream.

  “Ok,” the director said, as he sat in his special director’s chair. “Now just act like you’re enjoying it. Like you’re really loving the shit out of that ice cream. It’s the best you’ve ever had in your entire life.”

  “Umm…ok.” I picked up a spoonful of ice cream, put it in my mouth and made a face of ecstasy.

  “No, no, no,” the director said, “use your hands.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your hands. The tongues on your hands?”

  “But…they don’t really taste that well. Only if something is really strong—”

  “Do I give a shit about that? No! How is anyone else gonna know if you can’t really taste with them, huh? They aren’t! So, just act like you can and what they’re tasting is delicious. Go on now, stick your tongues right in there.”

  I looked around at the whole crew staring at me. “So…uh…how much would I get paid if I got this thing anyway?”

  Five seconds later, I was sticking all ten of my tongues in that bowl and enjoying every bit of it.

  25

  I got the job and Milo took the news much better than I had hoped.

  Gus, on the other hand, was extremely unhappy when I told him I’d have to stay in LA for perhaps as long as a week. “No way,” he said firmly. “I won’t allow it. Who knows what kind of trouble you could get into on your own. These people are vultures! Absolutely not.”

  I told him how much I’d be making for the work and he whistled. “Holy shit! Well, I can see why you’re tempted, Sky, but the answer is still no. I need you here. We still have the whole pacific coastline to do. Maybe I can send you back once we’re done, but—”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “You think they’ll just wait for me? They won’t wait, they’ll hire someone else! And you know damn well I could work for you for a month and not get that amount of money!”

  “Sorry, darlin’. You know if I could afford to pay you that, I would. Hell, I’d pay you all you kids that but you know I can’t. Just wait until the end of the season and you can come back here. There’ll be other jobs.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said. “I’m staying and I’m gonna do this. You can’t stop me.”

  “Well, sadly, that’s where you’re right. I can’t stop you. But, I’m asking you respectfully. Don’t do this. A young girl alone here in Los Angeles.” He shook his head. “That can only be trouble and I want to keep you safe.”

  I stared into his eyes, furious. He stared back helplessly, pleadingly.

  In the end though, I walked away from him. I walked away from all of them and a life that I had loved. I think now it was out of spite, out of resentment at being told what to do. I’d had enough of that shit from my parents and I told myself I would never let anyone order me around ever again.

  And, for the most part, I never did.

  26

  I camped out on the beach that night, listening to the waves gently tasting the shore.

  Sleep didn’t come for quite sometime, however, due to the beach itself being quite famous for its aqua-colored sand and tiny rainbow snails, which had tourists combing it night and day, bagging sand as souvenirs, or homeless folks looking for a tasty slimy snack. The snails were free, after all, and quite good when eaten raw.

  Later, I washed up in a restaurant bathroom and showed up for work on time. During the downtime, I went around asking the crew if they knew of any cheap places to stay and of course, they all did, but no place was cheap enough for my wallet. A homeless shelter was the best I could do for the time being.

  The day after that the ice cream director gave me a business card, telling me it was a friend of his, an agent who specialized in getting work for Mues. I called the guy and made an appointment for the following week.

  As I lay in the shelter night after night with druggies and drunks and people just down on their luck, I thought about Gus and Milo and all of the rest of the carnies and wondered where they were now. Portland? Seattle? I wondered if where they were was a prettier place than LA but of course I was just playing a game with myself. There was no doubt that wherever they were, it was better than here.

  27

  My agents name was Franz and he was a complete human, not a single drop of Mue blood in him, but he was nice enough and sent me out for job after job, without end. I got a few more commercials—enough to get me out of the shelter and into a tiny roach infested studio apartment where I shared a bathroom with other tenants—but not enough to get me much else. Rent in LA was obscene and I finally broke down and got a job working nights in a laundromat. The atmosphere was horrible, the pay was horrible and the customers where horrible, but I was desperate and took what I could get.

  I searched around for an acting class or program I could get into, but they were all out of my budget for the time being. Continuing to pound the pavement everyday, I was always tempted to drift into one of the theaters off Sunset but Franz was always discouraging me from doing so. He said my night job paid me more than they would and the real money was in film.

  “I can’t stress it enough, Sky!” he would say. “Film is the only thing worth your time.”

  I held out and got bit parts in a few sitcoms and another commercial or two. I had become a real working actor, complete with the headshots and the portfolio. Something was bound to break for me eventually. At least, that’s what Franz kept telling me.

  He was also convinced that I was not your average Outie. He kept insisting that I was also a Uni, the most rare of all Mues, those being unlike any others, having a deformity or mutation that was unlike anyone else’s in the entire world. They were unique, hence the name Uni.

  “I’m telling you, Sky,” Franz would say. “You are a Uni! An Outie-Uni!”

  “Please. I am not.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone else with tongues for fingers?”

  “No, but—”

  “I rest my case! I’m going to put in your resume that you’re a Uni!”

  “You can’t do that! It’s not true! You’ll get us both in trouble!”

  For months we had the argument over and over, until I’d gone about 11 weeks without getting a single job. I became convinced that my previous successes, however minor they had been, had only been due to luck. I obviously had no talent at all.

  Then I waited until the next time Franz brought up the Uni business and I agreed to let him put it in my resume. I figured, at that point, it sure as hell couldn’t hurt.

  28

  The very next week I landed a supporting part in an episode of a popular TV drama, playing the best friend of the
suspected villain. In the end, the villain turned out to be me.

  The ironic thing was that I hated television. Always have, always will. I think it is nothing but swill for the brainless but it certainly paid well. No doubt about that. I suspected I would be swallowing my pride quite a bit, ignoring my own opinions and values, showing up for the job and collecting that fat juicy paycheck.

  But, my personal feelings about television and television studios aside, there was still one more negative thing about working in TV. Despite all the positive things your co-workers could say about your performance, it was still months before anyone else saw the work, thereby making it the same as if you’d never done it when it came to meeting new casting directors.

  But I muddled through, forgetting about the show and continuing on to the next project, always keeping in mind that I was lucky to have a next project because there could easily come a day when I woke up and all the projects would be gone. I would be gone, before I’d even arrived.

  It was during this time that I was finally able to attend a few acting classes and it was there that I met Rimona Rishona, the famous porn star. She had decided that she had made enough porn movies (13) and now she wanted to have a “serious career.” She’d been laughed out of almost every audition, most of the casting directors telling her she needed to learn how to act without using her 3 vaginas. So, there she was, in an acting class with me and a bunch of other unknowns, learning monologues and method.

  One night, during a break she began asking me what I thought of her hot tub scene in To Have and Have Hot.

  “I didn’t see it,” I told her. “Sorry.”

  “Really?” She was quite surprised. “Well what about, Honey, I Screwed the Kids?”