by Rowe, Brian
“OK.”
Vivien stood back up and let Brandon have his chair back. He glanced at the screen one more time.
“All right. This is it, V. Your last chance to change your mind. It’s not too late. Are you absolutely, positively sure you want to do this?”
“Brandon?”
“Yes?”
“Hit the fucking send button.”
He laughed and sent the e-mail to the writers at Breakdown Services.
Five minutes later, every talent agent in Los Angeles was looking through the breakdown for The Men, written by Brandon Reed, directed by David Smith, and produced by renowned casting director Vivien Slate.
By the end of Friday night, there were over 4,000 submissions.
-27-
Nathan had only been at the gym for forty-five minutes, but he was already thinking about leaving. He typically spent at least two hours working out every day, but he was starting to get bored with his typical routine. He grabbed his water bottle and towel and headed over to the free weights section of the unusually crowded twenty-four-hour fitness center.
On his long walk over to the other side of the room, he caught himself in one of the six giant mirrors. He lifted up his tank top and checked out his muscular body. He didn’t look good. He looked amazing.
Despite Nathan’s lack of substantial acting jobs since his move to Los Angeles two years ago, he kept up with his healthy eating and workout regimens on an almost obsessive basis, taking breaks only for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the occasional Saturday night binge. As a kid, he loved eating cookie dough out of the carton. Lately he had become married to all those chocolate treats at Trader Joe’s.
He got closer to the mirror and stared at his face. His cheekbones looked strong and defined. His hair had lengthened a considerable amount since his last trimming, and his eyebrows had finally started behaving themselves.
Nathan tilted his head back and examined the scar. He had started rubbing a new herbal lotion on it every night for the last few months, but the tiny pink detriment still made itself known to anybody who looked at him. It was something so miniscule, so faint, that in any other profession, nobody would care. But in this town, in this industry, he was less than. He wasn’t perfect.
He patted his gym shorts and sighed, feeling a flimsy card sticking out from his right pocket.
He lay down on his back with two fifty-pound weights and started clinking them together up above his head. Nathan looked to his left to see a beautiful woman, maybe a year or two younger than he, lifting some smaller weights. She looked at him and smiled. He returned a big grin and sat up.
He took one of the weights and started doing curls. He spread his legs out to do the exercise, and he hoped she would do the same.
“Hi,” she said.
He brought his eyes to hers, but he kept his head down. “Oh. Hello.”
“How’s it going?”
“Good, you?”
“Good. It’s super hot out today, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I know,” Nathan replied. “I don’t know about you but I can’t stand the summer months in the Valley.”
“Yeah, I’ve been living in Sherman Oaks for about a month now. I love the cheap rent, but it’s seriously like living in an oven.”
Nathan laughed. “Yeah, I just try to stay indoors whenever possible.”
She grinned again and started lifting some heavier weights. Nathan finished his three sets and sat up. He took a deep breath and wiped his face down with his towel.
“So what’s your name?” he asked.
“Yvonne.”
Nathan stood up and put his weights away. He walked up to her and put his hand out with the grace of a perfect gentleman. “Nice to meet you. I’m Nathan.”
She shook his hand, this time with a smile that seemed more faked than before. She politely nodded and walked over to the elliptical machines.
He stared at her for another minute or so, but she didn’t look his way again.
Nathan frowned and turned to his left to see his face again in the mirror. The scar on his chin was redder than it was before, clearly aggravated from all his sweating.
The fucking scar.
He barely had time to register that tears were forming in his eyes. He turned around to make sure nobody was looking at him. He started blotting at his face with his towel to make it look like he was trying to wipe away sweat.
Nathan got up and started walking toward the gym’s exit. He looked at the elliptical machines to see the Yvonne girl with her headphones on, blankly staring up at one of the seventeen television screens, acting as if their little conversation had never taken place.
He sighed and pushed the heavy door open. He was met without kindness from the outside heat, which pulsated down on him like the unnatural waves of Hell. He got inside his car, slammed the door, and wiped away the tears. He was upset—extremely so—but his desire to massacre everyone in the gym with a Smith & Wesson 9mm had passed.
Maybe I should just leave this rotten city and give up once and for all.
He patted the side of his right pocket again and felt the rough texture of the card. He stretched out his arms and moved his head around in circles to try to forget it was there. But he couldn’t help it.
He took the card out of his pocket. He turned on the car light above him and read through every word. His agent Tyler had given him the card a few weeks back, and he had only been looking at it seriously in the last few days.
The card was for Dr. Robert Chase, a Los Angeles plastic surgeon whose specialty was in scar reconstructive surgery. He was cheaper than most of the other L.A. doctors who specialized in this treatment, but he was just as good, if not better.
Nathan didn’t have a lot of money and had recently needed his father to help him out with payments on his apartment. His dad had said, for what seemed to be the last time, that he would not be donating any more of his money if he continued to pursue an acting career. Nathan knew he needed to change something fast.
The scar was the answer. He thought for the last two years that the scar was the root of every problem—no jobs, no girlfriend, no confidence, no success at much of anything. He tried for a while to believe that the scar wasn’t a big deal. Besides, as his agent had told him in their beginning stages, Harrison Ford has a scar on his chin, and look where he’s gotten.
But even Nathan recognized that the skin tone of his face and the lightness of his hair just didn’t gel with the shape and darker color of the scar.
His agent knew it, he knew it, even Yvonne superbitch knew it.
It was time for the scar to go.
He took his cell phone out of the glove compartment and started dialing the plastic surgeon’s number, when an incoming call stopped him in his tracks. The call was from his agent, who rarely called him on weekends. He switched over instantly.
“Tyler?”
“Nathan, hey.”
“Uhh, hi. What’s going on?”
There was silence at first, followed by a strange string of manly giggles.
“What is it?” Nathan asked.
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”
“You can’t believe what?”
“This new breakdown that came out on Friday. Somehow I didn’t see it until this morning.”
“The breakdown? What does it say?”
“It doesn’t look like much. I mean, I’ve never heard of the writer or director. Vivien Slate is casting it, as well as producing it. She’s the only name I recognize.”
“Vivien Slate?”
“Yeah, she cast some big studio movies in the 90’s. Her last ten years have been mostly indies, but I’ve seen a few of them. She’s good at her job. She’s legit.”
“Yeah? Well that’s great, Tyler. What does this have to do with me?”
Even through the silence, Nathan could see Tyler smiling.
“She just released a new breakdown for a feature film. It’s got a cast of mostly young guys. Th
ere’s five leads total. There’s a role for a twenty-five-year-old. Nathan, fuckin’ A, you were made for this part.”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“This role is perfect for you because it describes your look in almost exact detail, including your hair color and overall physique.”
Nathan perked up a bit. “Well that’s good, I guess.”
“But that’s not all.”
“What?” Nathan was hoping for a miracle.
“The character also has a facial flaw,” Tyler said. “A scar, Nathan.”
Nathan sat in silence. He forgot to breathe for a moment.
When the conversation ended, he put his phone, as well as the plastic surgeon’s card, down on the floor.
The tears started again.
This is it.
This is my shot.
-28-
Vivien could see the excitement on Brandon’s face all week—it was as if she had promised him a field trip to West Hollywood for Friday afternoon. She always tried to imagine what Brandon did on his nights and weekends. She had heard him in passing talking on his cell phone to whom she believed to be his boyfriend. His joie de vivre that week showed that either his boyfriend wasn’t giving Brandon what he wanted or that Brandon was just the horniest gay man ever to grace the planet Earth.
When the big day finally arrived, Vivien stepped into her office and peered into the waiting room to see more than a dozen young actors. Her heart dropped.
Oh my God, she thought. These kids look fucking twelve.
Vivien was ready to see some cute twinks just as much as Brandon, who she imagined was jerking off in the men’s bathroom right now so he would behave himself today, but she didn’t like the idea of fantasizing over guys who looked as young as her own son.
She stepped over to the intern’s desk to find Alyson staring blankly at her computer screen, while Brandon on the other side of her looked to have been salivating for the last half hour.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning,” Vivien responded, throwing her purse down in her private office. “Is the camera set up?”
“Yeah, I’m charging the battery right now.”
“Do we have a session sheet?”
“Printing!” Alyson shouted.
“Perfect. I’m gonna get a Diet Coke.”
Vivien stepped into the hallway and walked toward the soda dispenser. She was almost there, when a clatter of thunderous footsteps in the distance stopped her. She looked down the hallway to see a line of young men walking toward her, all with headshots, all with adorable smiles on their faces. There must have been seven or more.
“Excuse me,” one of the young actors said. “Can you tell me where the casting room is?”
Vivien said nothing. She just pointed toward her office.
The actors nodded and continued walking down the hallway, some chatting in packs, others keeping to themselves.
Vivien put in her sixty cents and grabbed her soda. She took a sip.
There’s so many of them.
She was already suspicious from previous sessions that Brandon liked to set up actors that she hadn’t pre-approved. Just a month ago she had set up only five actors to read for the role of a twenty-four-year-old male pornography star, but at least twenty actors mysteriously showed up.
Now Brandon had actually written a script for her, for a fake movie no less, that would act as a vehicle for Vivien to get laid. He had agonized over this script for days. To him, she knew, The Men was his baby.
Vivien took another sip of her soda and walked down the hallway. She could hear more footsteps behind her.
She looked in through the window to see a line of guys signing in. The last time there had been a line of actors this long in her waiting area had been in 1998 when she originally got the job to cast American Beauty. She tried not to remember the crack whore who had taken that amazing opportunity away.
Vivien turned around and looked at the printer. She could see some papers in it. A typical session sheet was between five to eight pages. She imagined that if there were no more than ten, the day would be a smooth one. She didn’t, after all, want to be in the office until four in the morning.
She grabbed the session sheet from the printer.
It was thirty-six pages.
---
Vivien sat down in her favorite chair in the audition room and flipped through the session sheet. Brandon had set up three actors every five minutes, a proven method for chaos. But Vivien grabbed a copy of the scene and breathed a sigh of relief.
The scene each actor was reading, more like a monologue really, was barely half a page. The bit took place near the beginning of the movie, when the character tries to seduce a girl in the back of his car after a morning surfing trip.
She looked up to see Brandon walking into the room with a giant smile on his face and a fairly obvious erection in his pants.
“Are we ready?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let me just turn the camera on and we can start banging these out.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I mean… you know… bringing the actors in.”
“Right. Do they all have headshots?”
“Yep.” He powered up his camera. “Everybody’s been told they won’t be seen without a picture and resume.”
“OK, good.”
She studied Brandon and his camera. Something seemed different. She sat upright and clicked her pen. “Is that a new camera?”
He looked at Vivien and grinned like a pedophile. “That’s right. It’s my new HD Canon XH A1.”
“Wow! HD? That’s better, right?”
“Yeah, the quality’s way better. We’ll be able to see every detail of every guy who walks through that door.”
Vivien laughed. Brandon couldn’t be more obvious. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get going.”
Brandon moseyed up to the desk and leaned into her so close he could kiss her. “Vivien…”
“Yes?”
“I just want you to know I’m really happy to be helping you with this. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
She nodded and watched as he stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Vivien looked down again at her session sheet, and a sudden and overwhelming feeling of guilt rushed through her body. For the first time since starting this fake project, Vivien recognized that what she was doing was wrong—really wrong. She stretched out her arms, then her neck, and tried to shake the feeling. The realization finally hit her that hundreds of actors were traveling from all over town to audition for her, for a movie they would never get, for a movie that would never be, all so that she could find a cute guy to ultimately mess around with.
But then she remembered that most actors, especially young ones, were just grateful to be allowed the opportunity to step in front of a casting director. She knew that these up-and-comers were dying for a chance to show what they have, and that actually getting the part and acting in the movie was a different beast entirely. Also, she reminded herself that if she truly liked any actors from these sessions, she could always call them back for real movies in the future.
They’re the lucky ones, after all. They get to read for me.
She got comfy in her chair and readied the first actor.
After another minute, during which Vivien assumed her associate was giving half of the actors in the waiting room handjobs, Brandon walked in and tossed to her the first headshot.
“First up is Michael Gomez.”
She studied the headshot. Michael was a young Latin boy who she could already tell from his expression in the photo was gay.
“All right,” she said. “Bring him in.”
Michael walked in, set his bag down on the ground, and nodded to Vivien.
Brandon stood behind the camera and pressed the record button. “All right, if you could please slate your name for the camera.”
“Yes. Michael Gomez, reading for the role of Jesse.”
>
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Michael said, continuing to grin into the lens of the camera.
Vivien looked at Brandon, who was sweating with excitement.
Oh, brother.
Michael turned his attention toward Vivien. “Do you want me standing, or do you want me to sit in the chair?”
“You should sit, right?” She looked to her associate, the writer, for guidance.
“Yes,” Brandon said. “The scene’s in the back of a car, so you should sit.”
“OK.”
“Remember,” Brandon added, “that Laura is sleeping, so you don’t want to raise your voice too much.”
“Yes. Good note. Thank you.”
Vivien’s first thought about this boy was that he was all wrong for the role. She was under the impression that the character of Jesse was a Caucasian blond-haired surfer. Then she reminded herself that the movie was a sham and it didn’t really matter. But still, she figured Brandon could’ve had the decency to bring in more suitable actors.
Then she remembered that Brandon was just thinking with his dick.
Michael started the scene. “So I have something to confess to you, Laura. We’ve been coming out here morning after morning since the beginning of the semester, and the more I see you, the more I believe you just want me to be your friend. We’ve spent a lot of time together, and I think it’s appropriate that I be honest with you. I love you. I’ve loved you since freshman orientation. I don’t want to lose you by being honest. But I look at you right now and I know that there is nowhere else I’d rather be than right here. With you.”
He read the scene genuine and heart-felt. Vivien nodded, not impressed but not put to sleep. “All right, thank you very much.”
“Thank you,” Michael said to Vivien. Then he turned to Brandon. “And thank you, Brandon.” He gave Brandon a subtle wink as he walked out of the room.
Vivien looked at Brandon suspiciously. “What was that?”
“What?”
“What was he thanking you for?”
Brandon shrugged his shoulders. “For filming him, I guess. I don’t know.”
Without warning, Michael barged back into the room. He rushed up to Brandon. “Oh, and here’s another headshot in case you need it. I don’t have an agent or manager right now.” He smiled at Brandon and said the following words very slowly: “So you can just call me directly. My phone number is on the top right.”
