Memphis Movie

by Corey Mesler

  “What? I thought it would be great since we’re all working together now,” Jimbo said. “Hey, you wanna stop off at Houston’s for a beer first?”

  “It’s 11 a.m.,” Eric said, peevishly.

  “Ok,” Jimbo said. He knit his brow for a moment. Then his smile crept back into place like a dog reprimanded who knows he is still the favored pet.

  Surprisingly, Kimberly Winks still lived in the same house where she had lived two decades or more earlier when she and Eric had been an item. It was a house willed to her by her parents who were both killed in a car accident on Mendenhall Road within a mile from home. It was not the house she grew up in, she was quick to tell anyone interested; that house, which was burnt to the ground when the family was on vacation, was in a tonier neighborhood in Germantown. Jimbo pulled into the driveway as if he had been coming here for years.

  He honked the horn once and turned to look at Eric.

  “You wanna go in?” he asked.

  “No,” Eric said. What he really wanted was to go back to Hollywood, eat shit and get a job on a no-budget Disney film or TV show remake or Showtime production. He wanted to kick himself in the ass every morning for the rest of his days and die of skin cancer and be memorialized posthumously with an autographed photo hung at Planet Hollywood. For this moment what he wanted was for Kimberly Winks to not walk out that door and back into his life. He wanted her to forever not walk out that door.

  Kimberly Winks walked out the door.

  She stood in the bright sunshine and put her forearm to her forehead to shade her eyes. “Eric?” she twittered.

  She looked great. Eric hated her now more than ever.

  “Hey, Kim,” Jimbo called out.

  “Hey, Jimbo.”

  Behind Kimberly Winks’s shoulder Aileen’s little otter face appeared. She had a black eye.

  “Eric, get out of that car,” Kimberly said now.

  In the sun the dress she was wearing appeared to be gossamer, or perhaps spider webs. Kimberly must have been past 40 by now but she looked 25. She still had her figure, a body that made Eric roil inside as if he had eaten some bad broccoli. She was blonde and white. Her hair was cornsilk and her pale face was expertly dotted with freckles. Her mouth was wide and full-lipped. She was as beautiful as a yellow egg.

  He reluctantly unfolded himself from the passenger seat of the PT Cruiser.

  “Hello, Kimberly,” he said.

  She worked her way around the car and put her arms around Eric’s neck.

  “Oh, I’m so proud of you,” she said into his hair.

  “And you, look at you landing a part in my film,” he said. Suddenly he hated himself also.

  “Oh, it’s just a little bitty part,” Kimberly said. “I tried out for Mandy.”

  Eric couldn’t remember who Mandy was. A character in his movie presumably.

  “What are y’all doing this morning?” Kimberly asked.

  “Jimbo’s scouting locations for us. He’s found a few houses for us to look at.”

  “Don’t y’all do that like way ahead of time?”

  “Yes,” Eric said. His weariness made every word a weight. “There has already been groundwork done for us and filming will start almost right away. However, in small productions like this, it is common to fly by the seat of the pants, finding the right locations quickly and shooting and moving on. It’s economic more than anything.”

  He was boring her on purpose. Because she bored him.

  He also wanted to see her naked again right away.

  “Well, do y’all mind if I tag along?”

  She had already used up her day’s worth of y’alls.

  “Sure, it’s apparently a delegation,” Eric said.

  “Hello, Eric,” Aileen said in her soft, brown voice.

  “Hi, Aileen.” He bussed her cheek.

  “So Hollywood,” was her comment.

  “Kissing the cheek is Hollywood?” Eric asked.

  “Let’s roll,” Jimbo said. Then after a moment, “Now that’s real Hollywood talk. Let’s roll.”

  The women took the back seat. At least that. Eric didn’t think he could stand being in the back seat alone with Kimberly Winks.

  The drive was pleasant enough. It was a crisp day—Eric thought they called such days crisp—and they drove with the windows down. The houses Jimbo had chosen seemed to all be in a small area of East Memphis. And they all looked alike. Mostly Eric signaled Jimbo to just slow down and then he waved him on. The coffee he had consumed earlier was a small flame behind his sternum.

  They stopped at one home. Kimberly and Eric stood alone in the bedroom. Eric was trying to visualize the scene he wanted to shoot there. Kimberly was doing her best to stay quiet while the genius worked. In truth Eric couldn’t remember the scene exactly, something about an early morning disagreement . . . no, that was another character.

  Eric sighed.

  Kimberly Winks took it as an opening.

  “So who’s playing Mandy?” she said right at his shoulder.

  He looked at her with the look that had withered many a grip.

  She didn’t wither. Her broad, bright face made Eric want to cry.

  “Suze Everingham.”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “She’s very good. Guns Along Main Street. The Escapers.”

  “I didn’t see those.”

  “She’s quite good.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Oh, yes,” Eric said. He tried to bring his focus back to the task at hand.

  “Prettier than me?”

  Now he turned toward her slowly.

  “Kimberly, you gotta understand how these things work. Suze Everingham has a track record, a fan base even. She’s a known quantity. Known quantities get films made. The money is there for known quantities alone.”

  “I don’t understand any of it except that my lover is the director.” She allowed herself a sly smile, as if to say, you and I understand each other.

  “Ex, yes,” Eric said. He was tiring of Kimberly already.

  “Oh, Eric, there’s a part of us that is still alive, don’t you feel it?”

  “Do you really want to do this here, now?”

  “Certainly,” Kimberly said and sidled up to him. She actually sidled.

  They were in a bedroom in a strange house. In the other room Jimbo and Aileen were laughing in loud snorts.

  Kimberly sat on the edge of the strangers’ bed. She crossed her still beautiful legs.

  “First, and this is just first, not having anything to do with how movies are made, first, you dumped me without rhyme or reason. Many, many years ago, you dumped me.”

  “Eric, sit here,” Kimberly patted the bed as if calling a dog.

  Eric reluctantly sat.

  “I had my reasons. Don’t think it was easy for me.”

  “Ok. Let’s have them. You could have given them to me years ago and I wouldn’t have had to live with this hole in my life, a hole of uncertainty that spreads like a stain—”

  “You say the prettiest things.”

  “So, that hole, forget that hole. Now you wanna talk to me. Now that I have returned. Now that I am making a movie, a movie, it does not escape me, that you would like to have a part in.”

  Eric was almost too weary to form the words.

  He picked an Ativan out of the small quantity he kept in his pocket and fisted it into his mouth, surreptitiously, bringing a small amount of lint up, too.

  “So, you think I only want a part.”

  “Yes. That is what I think.”

  “Oh, hmp.”

  “Yes, there it is.”

  “You poor sweet thing. You know I don’t think a week’s gone by that I haven’t thought about you.”

  “I find that incredible, Kim. I find that without merit.”

  “Oh, Babe.”

  “Don’t call me Babe.”

  “I always, I always—”

  “I know. It’s dead. The name is as dead as Carole Lom
bard.”

  “Why Carole Lombard?”

  “I don’t know, she’s always seemed deader than most other stars, perhaps because she died so long ago, at such a young age. Partly because I wish I had known her.”

  “Oh, Ba—sorry, Eric—listen. I think we need to hash this out. If we’re gonna work together.”

  “I don’t—”

  “There’s a fucking water bed in this other room. Did you see this?” Jimbo was in the doorway.

  “Huh—” Eric said, rising.

  “Oh, sorry—”

  “We’re just about—”

  “Did you two want this room, that is, do you want us to ride around some?”

  “Jimbo. I think we’ve seen enough here.”

  “Oh—ok—you like this one?”

  “It’s ok. Let’s see something else. This room is right but I don’t like that patio. It looks like something from an Elvis movie.”

  6.

  The quartet stopped at Houston’s for lunch. Jimbo’s choice. Aileen knew the cook there. It was a dreadful place full of loud diners all dressed in chic casual and all forking oversize portions into their prattling gobs while their wilding children spat food into the aisles and the waitpeople sang and bopped and skipped and the muzak was all Golden Oldies done by soulless muzak bands. Eric thought it was how Hollywood phony culture had become mainstream Americana. He felt dead, dead.

  They shared a pitcher, of which Jimbo drank a full half before ordering another.

  “So, Scout, what do you think of Atticus, here?” Jimbo asked Kimberly.

  “Wouldn’t that work better if you said Scout and Jim? I mean, Eric is not her father, nor even a father figure.” Aileen smiled at her husband.

  “Whatever,” he answered her with a sour twist to his mouth.

  “It’s great to have him back. And to see y’all, too,” Kimberly said, smiling her Beauty Queen smile.

  “It’s been a long time,” Aileen said.

  “Kim, how come you’re not married? I mean, how come you live where you always lived.”

  “First, Jimbo. No one calls me Kim except Eric. And secondly, I was married. And we lived in that same house. Funny, huh? I’ve lived there my entire adult life.”

  “You were married?” Jimbo said, throwing back some beer.

  “I was. Dreadful.”

  “Dreadful, as in the whole damn institution or just your singular experience?” Jimbo could keep up this kind of chatter for days.

  “Both, I guess. He was a real asshole. All my friends told me so. I wanted to get married. Silly, really.”

  “This was when?”

  “Oh.” Kimberly waved a hand in the air.

  “Right after Eric, right?”

  “Y-yes, it was. Shortly afterward.”

  Eric opened his mouth. No sound came out. Kimberly looked at him with apprehension.

  “I know, I know. I told you I didn’t want to get serious. I didn’t. I can’t explain. Richard just came along at the right time when I was feeling at sea and I had no plans and, well, he seemed like the right square to jump to.”

  “Mixed metaphors aside, Kim, it doesn’t matter,” Eric said.

  Kimberly eyed him as if he were the judge who had just voted her off the island.

  “Don’t correct my grammar, Mr. Hollywood.” Just as suddenly she switched emotional tracks. “Honey, I wasn’t right for you then. Didn’t you sense it?”

  “No, frankly, I didn’t,” Eric said.

  The food arrived then and there was silence while the waitress, a buxom pre-med student, smiled and made phatic conversation, mostly, it seemed, to herself.

  “Dig in, comrades,” Jimbo said, his fork tearing into the greasy, overcooked pork of a pile of baby back ribs, slathered in spicy red barbecue sauce.

  Eric wasn’t finished talking. Now that the box had been opened he wanted all the devils out at once.

  “I assuredly did not sense it. You left me for no reason. We were sailing along, I was getting very seriously wrapped up in you, as you well knew, and you turned and ran. Still today I wonder why. We seemed, for a brief fiery time, to be just right for each other.”

  “Sweet,” Kimberly said, laying her own fork back down. “You were just more mature than me. I was a kid, I didn’t know what I wanted. If I had thought I broke your heart—”

  “Kim, you know damn well you broke my heart. I called you something like 20 times and said, ‘Kim, you’re breaking my heart.’ That seems pretty clear. You wouldn’t even talk to me.”

  Kimberly appeared to sulk.

  “Woody Allen says 50 percent of life is just showing up,” she said, after a pause.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Kimberly smiled a weak smile.

  “You didn’t show up,” Eric said. “That was just it. Suddenly, you stopped showing up.”

  The other 50 percent, someone had told Eric once—who?—was having the right office supplies.

  Aileen was looking at her plate in embarrassment. Jimbo was tucking it away.

  “Ok,” Kimberly said. “Ok. Here it is. I was seeing a married man.”

  The silence at the table was gelid. Even Jimbo stopped moving.

  “At the same time I was seeing you I was seeing this married man. He had told me, look, Kimberly, I am happily married, so if you want to do this it will be just sex. And I did want him, even in those circumstances. It was awful, a terrible situation. He would have sex with me, kiss my cheek and return home. And I would lie there and cry and cry. Eric, if you’d only known.”

  “Yes, if I had I could have dropped you like a replete leech.”

  “I don’t know what that means but it sounds nasty. I guess you want to be nasty to me.” Kimberly began to cry quietly. Eric was stunned.

  “Ok, Kim. Ok. Stop. Let’s eat and go. Ok?”

  Kimberly was making little mewing sounds. Aileen reached across the table and gently took her wrist, circling it with her fingers as if with handcuffs.

  “What happened with you and the married man?” Jimbo broke the silence.

  “I married Richard to get away from him.”

  “Ok,” Eric said, apropos of nothing.

  Kimberly snuffled into a Kleenex.

  “Check,” Eric called out when he spotted their waitress.

  She bounced over. Her smile was frightening. She placed a warm hand on Eric’s shoulder and looked into his eyes.

  “Just the check, please,” he said.

  “You’re Eric Warberg,” she said.

  7.

  Eric’s cell phone was pregnant with too many messages. He thought it a good idea to return the calls right away. If nothing else it would protect him from the babble in the PT Cruiser.

  “Linn Sitler’s office.”

  “Hi, it’s Eric Warberg.”

  “Eric, yes, lemme get her.”

  Linn Sitler, a woman of infinite energy and generosity, was the head of the Memphis Film Commission.

  “Eric, hey.”

  “Hey, you called about tonight?”

  “I did. Just wanted to make sure you had everything you need, directions, etc.”

  “Yes, yes, I think so.”

  “Ok.”

  “Ok.”

  “Eric, listen. Little problem.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Dan Yumont never checked into his hotel.”

  “Christ.”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “I’ll handle it. Thanks.”

  “Ok, see you tonight.”

  Eric hung up. He put a forbidding finger up to stop Jimbo’s anxious question. He next called back Ricky Lime, the still photographer for the movie. Ricky was hired after Bill Eggleston opted out. Eric didn’t know Ricky and though he had no reason to not trust him, he didn’t trust him.

  “Hey, Ricky, it’s Eric Warberg.”

  “Eric, I think we need to talk.”

  “What’s up, Ricky?”

  “I have to show you something.”

  “
Can it wait? I’m looking at houses with Jimbo Cole.”

  “Um, yes. I guess so. Yes, I guess it can wait. But not long. I—I don’t quite know how to proceed from here.”

  “Trouble with the locations?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  Why was everyone so exasperating? Eric thought.

  “What—exactly?”

  “I have to show you something.”

  “You said that.”

  “Ok. I can wait.”

  “Keep taking pictures, Ricky.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that, Eric. I’m—I’m afraid.”

  Eric hung up. Jesus.

  “How about the place on Audubon?” Jimbo shot out before Eric could begin another call.

  “Yes, ok,” Eric said.

  There were calls from a couple of the stars. They wanted reassurance. Reassurance that the film was still on. Reassurance that there was money. Reassurance that they had the talent to assay their roles. Reassurance that the Big Earthquake scheduled for Memphis wouldn’t hit in the next month or six weeks. Eric spent half an hour making his actors feel okay about the unsophisticated town where they had just arrived.

  There was no call from Hope Davis. Eric wanted to call her anyway but didn’t.

  There was also a call from Eden Forbes, the Arizona moneyman. He had made his money in cattle, which Eric found hilarious, a cowboy entrepreneur. Eric didn’t imagine that men still made money from cattle. He pictured John Wayne in Red River, driving his herd relentlessly to market, men and weather and Indians be damned. Eden Forbes wanted to get into the motion picture business in the worst way, even if it meant giving money to a director who had produced an expensive flop and was going home to Memphis, Tennessee, to lick his wounds and make his next film.

  Eric didn’t really want to talk to Eden. He felt like a high-schooler called into the principal’s office, even though Eden was such a suck-up that he groveled at the feet of Eric Warberg.

  “Hi, Eden.”

  “Hey, Buddy. You in Memphis?”

  “Yes, Eden.”

  “You all got what you need? You got everything you need? Cuz if you don’t you need to holler. I don’t want this to be a second-rate production. You know that, right?”

  “I do, Eden. I appreciate you.” He didn’t want to mention to Eden Forbes that Dan Yumont was missing.