Backdrop

by C. G. Cooper

  “You’re a Marine?” she said, squinting at him, head cocked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Tell me, which one of those kids out there in the hallway would be able to convince you he was a Marine?”

  Andy raised an eyebrow. “None of them?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Then which one’s the closest? Bring him in.”

  So that was how it was going to be. He stepped back out into the corridor, closed the door behind him, and scanned up and down the line. None of them had it, as far as he was concerned—but then he wasn’t trying to pick out which one of them was actually a Marine. Just one who could play one... or Hollywood’s idea of one.

  Just one problem.

  He didn’t give a damn and was finding it hard to pretend that he did. But Coles was going to rip him a new one if he didn’t play along. That didn’t mean he had to make it easy for the casting director.

  He pointed at a random kid, and said, “You. Come with me.”

  The kid stood up. Medium height and scrawny. A pat of butter in a blue polo shirt. He’d shaved his head recently, ostensibly in the hopes that it would suggest a high and tight. Not even close, pal.

  The other kids narrowed their gazes on the one he’d singled out.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sir, Freddie Dell, sir.”

  Andy stopped. “You're kidding, right?”

  “Sir?”

  “Drop the 'sir.' It's not going to win you the part. Where'd you learn that anyway? Full Metal Jacket?”

  The kid cleared his throat. “Maybe.”

  “Relax, Freddie Dell. You'll be fine.”

  “It's actually Frederick Dell. I have my headshot and resumé with me if you—”

  Andy thumped a hand on the kid’s shoulder. The kid braced himself for the beating of his life.

  “Freddie, I’m gonna give you a tip before we go in that room.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re not gonna make the cut.”

  The kid’s face fell.

  “Sorry, that’s just the way it is. You’re just not big enough to play an action hero in Hollywood.”

  “Am I at the wrong audition?”

  “No, you're in the right place.”

  “Then, why—?”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s some kind of joke they’ve got going on. The casting director took one look at me and decided to hate me. You know how it goes. She wants me to drag in someone who looks like a Marine so she can tell me why I picked the wrong guy and then toss him out.”

  “Aw, man,” said Freddie. He turned and started to walk away.

  Andy tightened his grip on his shoulder. “Hey, listen, just bear with me. Tell you what. Help me out here and I’ll send you home with pizza money. Besides, you look more like Marine than those yahoos in there will ever know.”

  Freddie Dell stood a little straighter after Andy’s last comment. “How much?”

  Andy mentally counted the contents of his wallet. “Forty bucks?”

  “Deal.”

  They shook hands on it. The kid’s hand was calloused, and his shake was as firm as he could make it. And he'd looked him square in the eye. Hardworking, with character and integrity. He did remind Andy of some of his Marines after all. They weren’t much to look at, but he’d take fifty Freddies over one muscled hulk.

  “What do I do?”

  Andy leaned in. "You're an actor, right? Act."

  “This is Freddie Dell,” Andy said as he marched the would-be Marine into the room. Freddie held out a manila folder to the women. After giving the kid the once over, Ashburn took it, flipped it open, and paged through the resumé without comment. The writer, Barnes, narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. After a couple of seconds, Ashburn handed the folder over to her with a facial expression that said, “Nothing impressive.”

  “Have a seat.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Freddie walked over to the two chairs and sat in one.

  Andy took the other, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Mr. Andrews? Over here, please.”

  Andy met Ashburn's steely gaze. “I’m participating in the scene.”

  “It’s a monologue.”

  So, a long speech with nobody to listen to it but a hostile casting director who might be on the take from a terrorist cell. It was a joke and he wasn’t having it.

  He stared at Ashburn and Barnes like they were every bureaucrat who had ever pissed him off, every corrupt officer, every Washington muckety muck.

  Like they were two halves of Coles.

  The kid began his speech in even tones, growing intense by slight increments as the speech went on.

  “I don’t want the promotion, sir. We all know that the orders were bad... it shouldn’t be Corporal Worthington who takes the blame for this. If you court martial him, it’s just as good as saying as it should have happened the way it happened. There was no way for us to defend that position in Fallujah... not out of ammo and with a traitor in our ranks. The corporal did the best he could, sir. He held his position for six hours when you told him it would be thirty minutes. He kept everyone going. He never let up even when…”

  It came out alright; the kid had his lines perfectly memorized and didn’t stumble. The anger, Andy surmised, was fresh and green, Freddie having just gotten a glimpse into a system that lacked romance and fairness. Outside, the young actor might have ad-libbed, was a room full of honest young men having their time wasted.

  At least he had someone to take his side through this farce.

  Finally the torture ended. The speech was over.

  Freddie had hunched forward by the end of the speech; now he straightened up.

  The writer said, “Let’s give him a cold read. I have some pages we could use. The new ones I wrote last night.”

  Ashburn rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Mr. Dell, if you could step up to the table for a moment?”

  He did, stiff-legged. They handed him a pair of papers and sent him back to the chair. Freddie looked at the pages for a moment, then gave one to Andy. His hand was shaking.

  “Keep it cool,” Andy said. “Don’t let them get to you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Andy skimmed the page. He had lines; the kid had one- or two-word responses.

  “Don’t look at me,” Andy said. “You’re getting your ass chewed. Looking a man in the eye when he’s ripping you a new one is like staring into the eyes of a rabid dog. He hates you for what you’re making him do. Just look straight through me. Understand?”

  The kid's eyes were even and flatly focused at his chest. “Yes, sir.”

  “Just like that.”

  They ran through the lines. It went something like, “Private Whatsyername, you disobeyed orders, blah blah blah a bunch of specifics, at this time, in this place, against the direct orders of a superior officer, so on and so forth. Something in the phrasing made Andy wonder if the guy was ashamed of the kid or proud of him.

  Andy barked out his lines and the kid stayed flat: “Yes, sir... No, sir... Yes, sir... ”

  The page ended faster than he expected. He handed it back to the kid and stood up. “Okay, I think we’ve tortured Freddie enough.”

  Ashburn gave him a thin-lidded look. “You may go, Mr. Dell.”

  Freddie stood up. His shoulders no longer slumped, his head held high: he still looked too scrawny. Andy walked him to the door, let him out, and closed it behind them. In the corridor, still thick with the fug of twenty young men all hoping for the chance to stand on some Hollywood set instead of doing something useful with their lives, he shook Fred’s hand and pulled forty bucks out of his wallet.

  Fred shook his head. “Thanks, man. But I don’t need it.” And walked off toward the stairs.

  Back in the room, Andy stood in front of the table with his arms at his sides. “Alright, I’ve jumped through your little hoop. What’s next?”

  “Pick another one,” Ashburn said.

  “What do you mean
, another one?”

  “I mean, pick another one.”

  Barnes pushed her chair back with a scrape. “I’m gonna go get some coffee. Either of you need anything?”

  “Coffee, black,” Ashburn said, her eyes still glued on Andy.

  “Same here.”

  Barnes left the room.

  “I don’t like you,” Ashburn said, as soon as the door was closed.

  “Gee, that's too bad. And here I thought we were getting along swimmingly.”

  “I also don’t like that you’re here as a favor to your buddy, the Washington bigwig. I don’t like it when people get foisted off on me.”

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t like getting foisted off on people.”

  It felt like an argument in a bad movie. But the specter of Coles loomed large, and that brought everything crashing back into reality. Either she knew Coles had sent him, or Coles had another layer of lies at play here. Probably option B. Coles was bad, but he wasn't stupid. The man created insulation the way normal people produced sweat.

  “Listen,” said Ashburn. “I have actual work that needs to be done.” She tucked some of her shoulder-length brown hair behind one ear. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we need to get through that entire corridor of fake Marines out there by five o’clock, or else we’re going to have to call them back again tomorrow. As heartless as you might think I am, I hate dragging them back in twice. Every single one of those guys will have to arrange for someone to cover a shift at a day job in order to get here. They’ll have to come up with cash to get here, too. They live in tiny roach-filled apartments and work minimum-wage jobs just so they can show up and have us tell them no. The very least I can do is not force them to do it twice. They’re not union. It’s not like we pay them for sitting around. Also, seeing's how we already have fifteen auditions scheduled tomorrow, you can understand why I'm not exactly in the mood to be standing around trading barbs with you. So, you can either make this job easier or harder. Because Marjorie and I are going to be here tonight as long as it takes.”

  He almost found himself making an apology. But then caught a slight eye roll as she turned. He would have excused her turning from him the way she did, but the eye roll implied that he wasn't worth the time it would take to explain to him how intellectually beneath her she considered him to be.

  “Hey,” he said, “if you really want to quit wasting their time, send ’em all home.”

  She turned back to him with a glare. “You do it. You go out in that corridor, look in their eyes, and send them home.”

  He’d given tougher orders in his lifetime. “If you say so.”

  She seemed to pick up immediately on his tone. “Oh, just... go pick one, or go trotting back to East Weewah or wherever it is they found you.”

  He let go of a smirk and shook his head. “I would love to, but I’m really enjoying hating your guts.”

  “Feeling’s mutual,” she said without even a ghost of a smile.

  Chapter Four

  When the last of the kids were gone, Andy stretched in his chair.

  “What time is it?” he asked, suppressing a yawn.

  Barnes put her palms to her eyes. “Nine o’clock. God, I can’t believe we have to do this again tomorrow.”

  “I told you I could handle it,” said Ashburn. “Don’t you need to be doing writer things?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  They gathered up their things, leaving their scripts behind, and walked out the door. Ashburn waited for Andy to step out, then closed and locked the door behind them.

  “I’ve heard those lines fifty times today. Sixty? I don’t know. They never work for me. They’re still just placeholders for the real dialogue I want to write. Plus if I stay at home or go to the set, Thompson will give me a half-dozen major revisions that he’s going to change back the next day. I’m safer here. Anyway, where else am I going to max out on my Axe body spray addiction?”

  They walked down the corridor. Half the lights were dimmed. When they reached the lobby, the receptionist was gone.

  “Why don’t you ask the consultant?” Ashburn asked. “I’m sure he knows what dialogue you should write.”

  “I leave speaking to the professionals,” Andy said.

  Barnes chuckled. Ashburn did not.

  “We’re going to a Chinese place down the street,” Barnes said. “Come with us. Where are you staying?”

  “Place in Burbank.”

  “Shit, Burbank?”

  “All the banal California bullshit without any of the tinsel.”

  She chuckled again. “That’s true. Still a drive, though. There’s a pizza place you should check out... ”

  “Big Lucky’s?”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Sometimes even dumb grunts get stuck in Burbank.”

  Inventory: Ashburn, piece of work. Barnes, alright. He accepted the offer of Chinese. He planned to spend the time needling Ashburn. One of the many lessons he’d learned in the Corps was that if you wanted to find out how someone ticked, you didn’t need to walk a mile in their shoes—you just needed to find out what got under their skin. With tact, of course.

  Pow Pow Chinese Restaurant was as American as pizza, hamburgers, and class action lawsuits. It had the same menu you could find from coast to coast across the United States. (General Tso is General Tso, no matter the climate.) It was clean and bright, with sturdy chairs made of red plastic. The walls were decorated with flat-screen TVs showing a Dodgers baseball game and a rerun of the Charlie’s Angels remake. The owner, who sounded more South Korean than Chinese, had a density through his compact shoulders that spoke of solid muscle tissue. He floated through the room, hands clasped before him, all courtesy.

  They had just ordered when a familiar face walked in. It belonged to a guy that Andy hadn’t seriously thought about in close to two decades. An actor. A famous one.

  Barnes glanced at his face and snorted. “Don’t look now but I think the Leatherneck is having a fanboy moment.”

  Ashburn looked up, her face brightening. She slid out of her chair and greeted the actor with a hug.

  “Andrews,” Ashburn said. “This is Jack Cooper.”

  As if he hadn’t known that. Andy hopped to his feet and offered Jack Cooper his hand. The man had a solid grip, even if the skin was thin and smooth.

  The man had to be eighty-five if he was a day. Still looking good, as upright as a steel rod. Clint Eastwood-esque with a splash of charm. Clear eyed, a smile full of perfectly white teeth. He gave the cheap restaurant a kind of glow that made it feel like anything could happen. Andy had spent about a hundred years watching his movies. Detective movies, Westerns, war movies, historicals, sci-fi flicks, the man had been in everything but comedies and romances.

  The owner smiled at him. “Jack! How are you?”

  “Ticker’s still tickin’,” said the actor. Then he turned to Andy and said, “What brings you to town? Moreover, what landed you in the company of these two hooligans?”

  Andy felt his face turn hot. “I’m... just... here on a... job.... ”

  He couldn’t believe how he was acting. But this was his boyhood hero. He’d faced Generals with less intimidation.

  Jack Cooper chuckled. “I hope you’re not waiting for a photo op. Nobody wants to see my ugly old phiz. What kind of job you do, son?”

  “He’s consulting on the Thompson project,” Ashburn said.

  “Consulting, huh? Stunt team?”

  “Marine.”

  “Marine? Now I’m in trouble.” He took the empty seat next to him. “I don’t want to know how bad we got it wrong on some of those pictures. They were made cheap and fast. And besides, I just don’t give a damn about them anymore.”

  “Wasn’t planning to discuss them, sir.” Andy could’ve kicked himself for saying ‘sir.’ He had a firm rule now: ‘Sirs’ were reserved for grandfathers and the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

  “Ever been to Hollywood?”


  “California, yes Hollywood, no.”

  “And what do you think of our bejeweled little slum?”

  “In all truth, it reminds me of Turkey.”

  Jack Cooper pointed at Ashburn. “That little lady over there used to be my great-granddaughter’s best friend. Of course, they were both a couple of idiots back then. Now my Esme lives in Utah, and Serena settled into this godforsaken industry. But that’s the breaks. Esme just wasn’t good enough to be an actress and wouldn’t settle for anything less. For a while there you didn’t need talent. You could just be pretty and know how to walk into a room. But not anymore... too much professional competition.”

  Andy felt himself pulling back from the man. Old and full of Hollywood. What should I have expected?

  Barnes gave him a knowing look. Ashburn and Jack Cooper chatted, a young woman speaking respectfully to a family friend.

  Somewhere out in the dark were multimillion-dollar mansions where the A-list actors lived and played, holding extravagant parties and wining and dining the world’s truly rich and famous. The people Andy was supposed to be investigating. Instead, he was at a cheap Chinese place next to Jack Cooper, losing the last bits of the illusion that Hollywood was anything but a layer of gold paint thrown over plywood.

  “Take our Green Beret over here.... ”

  Andy snapped out of his momentary lapse. “I’m sorry?”

  “I was just sayin’,” said Cooper, “that you live around here long enough, you forget what ordinary people are supposed to look and act like. You don’t mind me sayin’, son, you kinda stick out like a bruise on a bikini body.”

  Andy smiled and nodded deferentially to the actor. Cooper’s eyes focused on him. He was waiting for Andy’s response.

  The beauty of being a Marine is readiness: prepared for the unknown, whether that unknown be death or a chance meeting with your boyhood hero who turns out to be less than his work. So he sat up in his seat and looked the actor in his clear blue eyes.

  “I came back from a tour and was in a restaurant just like this one. You don’t need to know where, it doesn’t matter. I took a seat up at the sushi counter and watched the chef work. He was like an artist. With an artist’s hands. It was incredible. I’d never seen it up close before. The place was really bustling, just like this one. I tuned out the crowd and just focused on this underappreciated artist turning out masterworks by the dozen right in front of me. Suddenly I became aware of a couple of sounds. The first was a child’s voice; the second belonged to its mother. The child kept saying, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ and the mother kept shushing it. Something made me turn toward them. The kid couldn’t have been more than two. He had his arm out, reaching toward me, almost falling out of his high chair, and he was calling, ‘Daddy, Daddy!’ His mother noticed I was looking, and in the middle of shushing him, she said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ The woman was mortified. I smiled and told her it was okay. What else can you do? ‘That’s not Daddy,’ she said. Then she said to me, ‘His father’s in Iraq. I mean, his body’s still in Iraq. They haven’t... you know. It’s taking them a long time. Anyway, this little guy’s having a hard time understanding the concept, you know?’ Well, you can imagine how I felt then. I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to marry that woman right then and there out of sheer pity. Then I thought, that’s the last thing she needs. She has a long road ahead of her. She’ll have pride in her husband, she’ll hate him for his loyalty to God and country, and she’ll forever have to wrestle with those two things. And for a while, maybe forever, she’ll have to go it alone. She needs recognition, not pity. And she’s not the only one. I’ve known many guys who never made it home. Where are their stories? And where are the stories of their survivors back home who have to look at an empty seat at the table and that flag in the shadowbox on the mantle? Anyway, that’s what non-Hollywood people look like, in case you were wondering.”