Heartland

by Davis Bunn

  There was a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil, and the lights bright as outdoors dimmed to nothing. JayJay’s chest lost its crimping iron band. He managed a decent breath. He pressed his fist to his heart, willing it to stop racing so.

  “Here, hon.” Peggy was a muscular lady with a flinty voice and eyes to match. She pressed a hot damp towel into JayJay’s hands. “Wipe off the gunk and we’ll start over.”

  “I still don’t get why I’m supposed to be wearing this stuff anyway.”

  “Don’t tell me this is your first time on a set.”

  “First time anywhere.” JayJay scrubbed his face clean, then saw what he’d done. “Lookit this. Now I’ve ruined your clean towel.”

  “That’s okay, hon. We’ve got plenty.” Peggy tilted her head to one side. Dark eyes glittered with humor and something more. “You shouldn’t let the AD get to you so.”

  “It isn’t him. It’s the whole shooting match.”

  “I hear you.” She spun JayJay about. “See that door over there? Go find the welcome wagon and tell him you want a double espresso with a shot of butterscotch and a dollop of whipped cream. I’d suggest something stronger, but they’d come down on us both with a ton of trouble, after the misery we’ve had with Townsend.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Never you mind.” She prodded JayJay forward. “Just tell them you want one of Peggy’s special pick-me-ups for a very hard day.”

  JayJay managed to cross the warehouse floor without looking once at the thing cast in shadows now that the lights were off. But it didn’t do him any good. He couldn’t just pretend it had gone away. He had seen it. He had touched it. And the result had been a branding hot as any iron straight from the fire.

  The shadows could not completely hide the fact that there, taking up the left-hand side of this huge building, was his home.

  But not his home.

  This cabin was segmented, like a giant had attacked it with scissors. Each room was split off from the other. One wall was missing from each room. His whole life, his whole world, chopped up and split apart.

  And everybody kept watching him.

  JayJay couldn’t get a hold on how many people were in the building because they kept coming and going. JayJay had offered the strangers a couple of polite howdy’s, but they’d just stared back. Mute as nervous cattle. All clustered together and staring at him like they were watching a ghost cross their path.

  But soon as he pushed open the rear door and stepped into the sunlight, things only got worse.

  Because leaning against the little chuck wagon was his sister. Clara. Wearing a blouse he had picked out for her special. Her sunbonnet was off and sat on the counter. And she was smoking.

  “Clara!”

  “Oh, please.” She dropped her cigarette to the concrete and ground it out with her boot. “Not you too.”

  “You don’t smoke!”

  “Wait, let me guess. You’re straight out of method school. Where was it, Chicago?” She looked at him, Clara but not Clara. His sister, but hard-eyed and giving him an attitude like he’d been caught doing something awful. “Never mind. This is the real world, bub. I don’t care how much you look like my long-lost little brother. You want to do television, you arrive on time and you hit your mark and you deliver your lines. You read me?”

  JayJay felt like his mind had been force-fed a pile of rocks, not words. Nothing she’d said made the tiniest bit of sense. He was trying to figure out what to ask her, when somebody or something bellowed from inside the building.

  “Oh no.” Clara paled. “Don’t tell me.”

  The metal door slammed open. A beast staggered out.

  JayJay gripped the counter. The nightmares just kept piling on top of one another.

  He felt like he was staring into a funhouse mirror. This distorted beast of a twin lurched toward them, his arms waving and a foul stream spewing from his mouth.

  JayJay flushed at what he was hearing. Or at least what he thought the stranger was yelling. The words were so slurred and distorted it was hard to be certain. But he knew a drunk. And his sister was scared. There was just one thing to do.

  JayJay stepped forward. “Now you just hush up, mister. There’s women in range.”

  The man blinked and swayed. JayJay had seen bulls do the very same thing. Trying to decide whether to charge. “Don’t you go pawing the earth, now. You just turn yourself around and head on back where you came from.”

  The stranger lifted his arms and roared his first clear words. “The role is mine! All mine! ”

  He took a wild swing at JayJay. If it had connected it probably would have taken his head off. But JayJay just backed off a notch. The stranger might as well have mailed JayJay a letter with the day and time.

  JayJay let the fist swing past, then stepped in. And hammered the stranger straight over the heart.

  The stranger coughed a fetid breath. His eyes went wide. His arms dropped.

  JayJay could have stopped then. He probably should have. But his sister was not somebody to be talked to in such a way, not even if she was a stranger walking around in Clara’s skin.

  So he popped the guy on the chin. A measured blow. His fist didn’t move more than twelve inches. Just enough force to cause the guy’s eyes to drift back.

  JayJay was there to catch him. The stranger’s weight caused him to stagger a little. But JayJay had been raised lifting cattle from the byre. He shifted the guy around to the rear of the chuck wagon and settled him down on the pavement with his back against the wall. “You rest easy, friend. And lay off the hard stuff, that’s my advice. A man’s gotta know his limits, or he don’t have any business setting down that road.”

  Clara said, “I know that line.”

  JayJay took a step back and stared down at the stranger. “Like looking at my evil twin, ain’t it?”

  “Wait, wait, it’ll come to me. The episode with the three tornadoes, right?”

  “Clara, you ain’t making any more sense than that stranger I just decked.” He stared more closely. She looked like his sister. But the edges of her eyes were pinched up tight. And her voice might as well have been beaten out on the blacksmith’s anvil. “You mind if I ask who you really are?”

  “Really?” She smiled. Once again it was her and not her. Clara with a citified edge. “You just saved me from a man I’ve spent six seasons loathing. Right now I could be just about anybody you’d like me to be. How does that sound?”

  JayJay backed off so fast he stumbled over the stranger’s sprawled legs and almost went down. “Now you just keep your distance, whoever you are.”

  “What, you never liked the idea of a little incest?” Clara fished another cigarette from the pack by her sunbonnet and pointed at the stranger, who was now snoring. “He sure did.”

  “That’s it. I am plumb done with you and everything else around here, wherever here is.”

  But the only way out of the alley was back through the building. And once inside the building the first voice he heard was the gnat’s. “Okay, everybody. The male hick has decided to grace us with his presence. Gladys, give him his shirt, and Peggy, would you please do something about his face! Somebody find us little miss country tramp, maybe we can wrap this thing up and go—”

  JayJay didn’t mind being called a hick. Why should he. He was one. Matter of fact, he always thought it was a sideways compliment. And he shouldn’t get too riled over what the gnat was saying about Clara. Especially since he’d just been thinking the very same thing. It was more the way Kip Denderhoff stood over there, all five-foot-nothing of him, waving his arms and doing that little twirling two-step, bossing and throwing scorn at everybody in reach. Not even that was much of an excuse. But just then, the lights came back on. And JayJay was trapped once more in the headlights of this mysterious place, staring at his disemboweled home.

  “You there, hickster! Stop gawking! We’re on the clock here! Tick, tick, time is money in Gotham. Peggy, do his face, darling, and
this time get it right or you’ll be out fast as hickster there. Lighting, lighting! I told you to damp that kitchen, it looks like you’re trying to parboil the table! And why isn’t the a/c cranked up?”

  JayJay spun about, plucked out his knife, and sent it flying.

  The blade caught a billion lights as it spun across the room. Somebody gasped, maybe a couple of people. JayJay knew he was being watched again by everybody in the room except the gnat. Maybe that was why the little guy had such an attitude problem, he hated being ignored. JayJay had time for all those thoughts before the blade slammed into the door beside the gnat. Bam! The gnat saw the blade and shrieked. It was the most satisfying sound JayJay had heard all day.

  The door opened. Two people stepped through. The first man said, “Why aren’t we filming?”

  Kip’s voice had lifted a full two octaves. “That man just threw a machete at my head!”

  “On account of you making the whole world nervous.” JayJay walked over. “I swear, you make more noise than a herd in a twister.”

  Whatever the assistant director saw in JayJay’s face caused him to shriek once more and flee. Or try to. But he got his feet tangled in a folding chair and went down hard. “Somebody save me!”

  The newcomer watched JayJay pry the knife from the door and said, “Out here, fellow, we have other ways of warning somebody to be quiet.”

  “I wasn’t warning nobody.” JayJay eyed the gnat as he slipped the knife back into the sheath. “I missed.”

  The newcomer’s laugh echoed through the silent hall. He clapped his hands. “All right, everybody. Let’s get this action on film!”

  Chapter 5

  Centurion Studios was one of the few midsize production units that had managed to survive the merger craze of the nineties. Old Carter Dawes controlled the majority of Centurion stock. And he wasn’t selling. Carter Dawes’ grip was subtle. So long as Martin Allerby kept delivering hits and did not stray from Carter Dawes’ directives, Martin Allerby was allowed to rule Centurion as his own fiefdom.

  Even so, Dawes’ control chafed on Martin Allerby. His general loathing of Carter Dawes and everything he stood for had steadily increased over the seven years Allerby had held the position. And nothing abraded Martin Allerby more than the directive that Centurion’s business was strictly television.

  Centurion held the enviable position of having prime-time hits running on two of the three networks, known as majors, and two cable stations. They averaged nine movie-of-the-weeks a year. A new pilot from Centurion normally resulted in a bidding frenzy.

  But Centurion was still television. Centurion’s lot encompassed forty-three acres in the wasteland between Riverside and Barstow. Most of their staff lived in the San Bernardino Valley, light-years removed from the mythical realms of Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Malibu Beach might be forty miles away, but the average Riverside family saw the Pacific Ocean less than once a year. This isolation from Hollywood’s wealth promoted both loyalty and frugality. Whenever Martin Allerby had trouble getting an actor for the price Centurion was willing to pay, he invited the star and their agent out for lunch on the lot. One look around the neighborhood was worth a billion words between dueling attorneys.

  Martin Allerby hated their studio’s second-rate location with a silent, seething passion.

  A typical valley haze obliterated the afternoon as Martin Allerby left his office and took the stairs down three floors to the viewing room. He slipped into the central sofa. The table to his right held a phone and a notepad and a carafe of coffee. Once a young director had decided to sit in Allerby’s place when Allerby had been in New York. The director had been sacked even before Allerby had returned to LA, his contract paid off, and he had never worked for Centurion again. As far as Allerby was concerned, a simple act like this served far better than a thousand interoffice memos.

  He nodded to the assembled crew and punched the speakerphone button. “I skipped lunch. Anybody want something?”

  Britt Turner was so nervous he almost danced in his seat. “I’ll have a tuna on wheat, lettuce and cucumber, hold the mayo.”

  “You get that, Gloria?”

  His ever-calm secretary asked through the speakerphone, “What about you?”

  “Chicken salad, rye crackers, Perrier with ice and lemon.”

  “You want the Sinatra or the Chasen’s?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Sinatra is oil and a trace of vinegar, Chasen’s is mayo.”

  “Whichever you can get here faster. And bring us some more coffee mugs.” He cut the connection and said to Britt, “What’s this I hear about a knife fight?”

  “It wasn’t a fight. He tossed the blade to shut up my AD. Knowing my AD, the guy probably deserved worse.”

  “Okay. Tell me why I’m here.”

  Britt bounded from his chair. “You got to understand, the guy has never seen a script before.”

  “What, any script?”

  “Not a script, not a studio, not a camera.”

  Allerby realized the director was not nervous. He was thrilled. “You’re wasting my time over some wannabe who’s totally new to television? In case you’ve forgotten, rule one in television is you don’t introduce—”

  “A new face to a hit series. I know the rules, Martin. I wrote some of them. This is different.”

  Martin Allerby prided himself on never losing his cool. Never showing the blade in public. The old adage had always worked well for him. Never complain, never explain. If somebody stepped out of line, do them fast and silently. The fear factor was amped as a result. Nobody ever knew for certain where they stood.

  Martin nodded his thanks as Gloria entered and set the tray down beside his elbow. She distributed the mugs, placed Britt’s lunch beside his chair, poured coffee, and left. Martin disliked thinking Britt might be slipping. They had enjoyed some good years together. But that was the trouble in this business. Things changed. If not the people, then the public’s tastes. Times like this, Martin was glad he never let anybody too close. There was no need for him to share the dagger’s pain.

  When the door clicked shut, Martin said, “What’s he done, stock theater?”

  “I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter.”

  Martin hid his displeasure by digging into his lunch. The time wasn’t a total waste. He needed to eat.

  “The only reason I mentioned it, his copy of the script never arrived. So we had him read off the teleprompter. But this kid, he didn’t have the sense to turn away. So it looks wooden.”

  Martin shrugged. “Townsend’s acting the last two seasons has resembled a carved totem.”

  “Right. Exactly. So we shot the one scene in the living room, you know, from the final script Peter’s still working on. And then we did something a little different. What you’re about to see hasn’t been cut at all. I mean, we haven’t edited a single second.”

  Martin wished he had brought his cigarettes. “Enough talk, Britt. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “Right. Sure.” The director bounded back to his seat, keyed the phone and said, “Roll the tape.”

  The lights dimmed. There was none of the flickering of old film. The last season, they had shifted Heartland to digital tape. Like most studios, Centurion had fiercely resisted the shift. They had finally taken the plunge because digital filming meant they could inspect takes as soon as they were shot. When dealing with someone in as poor a state as their former star, moving from scene to scene as swiftly as possible had been essential. There simply had not been that many hours when Townsend could function.

  But there had been a lot of problems in the beginning. The lead cameraman, a devotee of the old school, loathed digital. He had lit it as he had been doing it for years, leaving the scenes looking flat, the colors too harsh, the sense of three-dimensional reality totally lost. But Martin had backed Britt on the decision. Then Panavision had reworked the lenses, a critical issue with digital film. The focal viewpoint with a digital camera was less
than one-twentieth the size of a standard film camera. Which meant the lens had to be ground to NASA specifications. A digital camera lens cost more than a Lexus. But digital film saved so much time on editing it could earn back the extra cost in one decent series. Still, Martin missed the old days of flicker and focus and anticipation.

  The screen counted down. The electronic clipboard snapped. The scene was there in total digital clarity.

  Martin leaned forward. His half-finished plate dropped unnoticed to the carpet at his feet.

  “We used two cameras,” Britt said. “I know it’s not normal with a screen test, but—”

  “Be quiet,” Martin snapped.

  The close-up circled the pair. Off-camera Britt’s voice said, “Just hold it there, that’s it. Now say your name for the camera.”

  “You know it already. JayJay Parsons.”

  Someone off-camera laughed. Britt snapped, “Either shut up or take a walk. No, not you. I wasn’t asking for your stage name. What’s your other name, JayJay?”

  On camera the actor looked confused. But his speaking voice was excellent. More than that. It was incredible. “John Junior.”

  “Okay, Mr. Junior. Look at Clara now. Good.”

  Martin realized he had risen to his feet only when his head protruded onto the screen. He stepped to the left.

  JayJay Parsons was clearly uncomfortable under the lights. Twice his eyes flickered toward the camera, a serious no-no in filmdom. But it did not matter. Nothing did.

  The close-up camera swung in a gradual arc. Filming JayJay from every angle. Even the rear. The resulting three-dimensionality left Martin shivering.

  “Okay,” Britt said off-camera. “Read your lines on the teleprompter.”

  Clara took her brother’s hand. Her voice carried a flirting edge. “You sure you can’t make it back in time for dinner?”

  “I done told you already.”

  “But I’ve got your favorite dessert already half-finished, JayJay.” She swung his hand back and forth, holding it with both of hers. “Blackberry cobbler with molasses and a hint of fresh ginger.”