Memphis Movie

by Corey Mesler

  Fuck it, Eric said to himself.

  To those gathered there he said, portentously, a corny line he didn’t remember ever speaking before: “Let’s make a movie.”

  41.

  The day’s shoot had gone well, all things considered. Dan was particularly sharp and the scene, shot ten different ways to accommodate his eruption of ideas, was made whole, was realized like Eric never thought it would be. Perhaps, he thought, for the umpteenth time, we have a movie after all.

  During the course of the day Eric was also aware, on the periphery of his concentration—and he concentrated well when filming—that Sandy was angry. Her eyes shone with a fire that he had rarely seen. Upon reflection he began to think that her perturbation had something to do with Kimberly and Ike Bana.

  Being driven back to the house that evening Eric kept his cell phone to his ear. Partly because he had to make his daily calls, with rue to Eden Forbes, and with growing concern to Mimsy. He had been unable to reach her all day. Her cell phone was sending a strange message, something about members punching in their numbers at the beep. Eric assumed they were connecting that night—he prayed it was so, since Mimsy had become his anchor as he free-floated through this nightmare. No, it wasn’t a nightmare. They had shot some film today. It was what he did, directed. It was good.

  Partly he kept the phone to his ear to prevent Hassle Cooley from spewing forth new ideas for movies. This evening, though, Hassle seemed off in his own little universe and he didn’t even glance backward at Eric. Eric’s cell phone mummery was perhaps pointless.

  Eric was not using Hassle Cooley to avoid his old running buddy Jimbo. Jimbo had been assigned to scout and he hadn’t been around much. This neither concerned Eric nor pleased him. Jimbo was part of his sticky past. Eric did not want to shed that past, even as he had moved so far from it.

  Working with Rica Sash was a pleasure. His ideas on every shot were inspired. He was a quiet man, short like Roman Polanski, with black eyes and dark bangs. He spoke only to Eric and then it was in a confidential whisper. His voice low, he would suggest something in Eric’s ear. It was always exactly what was called for. Eric wondered, not for the first time, if a film could be made without a director. After all, the screenwriter and the cinematographer and the great unwashed cattle (actors) all seemed to work independently of him. Not to mention all the techies who did their particular jobs with quiet integrity, rarely seeking or needing instruction from Eric. It relaxed him somewhat to think he was not necessary. To think that this million-dollar boondoggle wasn’t all his responsibility.

  When Eric arrived back at the house, the setting sun coated the front door and walkway with red light. Eric thought perhaps he was entering a gate to Hell. He was surprised to find Sandy inside when he entered.

  “Hey, you,” she said.

  “Hey, why didn’t you just ride back with me?” Eric asked.

  “I had to talk to Ike Bana about some of his lines. He was, uh, stuck.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Uh-huh, Mr. Articulate. What are you doing tonight?”

  It seemed an innocent question. It never was for them. It was always barbed, weighted.

  “I don’t know,” Eric answered, truthfully.

  “Ok,” Sandy said.

  “Ok. What—what are you going to do?”

  “Right now, I am going to shower. After that, once cleansed from dome to arch, I am at loose ends. Up for just about anything really.”

  This chipperness rubbed Eric the wrong way. He wanted—well, he didn’t know what he wanted from Sandy anymore—something different.

  “So to the shower,” Sandy said. But she stood there.

  Eric was looking into the middle distance. He felt as if he were standing on a ledge above a street peopled from Actor’s Equity.

  “Join me,” Sandy said. She said it simply, without real feeling. But she smiled. And Eric loved her smile.

  In the shower they lathered each other like kids. And when Eric slid into her from behind, standing up, he felt like a kid again. This was the sort of unexpected sexual horseplay they used to engage in frequently. They were younger then. It was an old story.

  Yet, as Eric hung there in the warm mist, joined to Sandy at the waist, his arms around her as if she were a life raft, his mouth on her wet neck, Sandy muttered loving endearments, the kind of thing missing from their lives.

  Sandy said, “There, there now, My Little Cabbage, there, there now, it’s all ok, yes, yes, let it all go, there you go, let it flow into me, it’s all gonna work out fine, you know it is, yes, yes, yes.”

  Eric began to cry quietly. Sandy put her cheek to the tile and felt as if she could sleep there, as if the world had suddenly stopped and peace had entered them, the peace of the affectionate estranged.

  42.

  Camel was smoking his hookah pipe with the TV burbling lowly, a Gilligan’s Island episode that Camel could recite along with the actors, such was his knowledge of all things Gilligan. But he wasn’t reciting witticisms from the castaways. He was writing lines of dialogue for Eric’s movie. His pen was flowing over the pad of blue paper in his lap. He was also humming “Take It Back,” Cream’s version.

  His mind was crackling with purple and green fire. This was the old magic. Camel recognized it as such.

  Lorax came in from the backyard. She had been practicing her yoga, naked, on a towel. Which was quite a feat since the outdoor temperature was a crisp 45. Her skin was red as if rough-toweled. Her hair hung in squiggly lines over and around her round face.

  “Camel,” she crooned from the kitchen, “why is there a bowl of peel-less bananas in here?”

  “I didn’t need the meat, Sweet,” he returned.

  “Camel, Camel, Camel,” she sang as she danced through the house. “How I love my Camel, tra la la,” she sang.

  Camel smiled. “You are my Ianthe, you know,” he called out. “Though I know an actual Ianthe, Richard’s daughter, a lovely woman. Ianthe, traditionally, is a woman conjured by poetry. What say?”

  The world seemed a hospitable place at that moment and Camel was not one to let such a realization pass him by. He paused and smiled. He smiled at his hookah pipe. He smiled at the blue paper on his lap, covered with magickal words, enchanted words. He smiled at Alan Hale, Jr., doing his best (or worst) Oliver Hardy. And he smiled at Lorax as she pirouetted in front of him, her lovely young puckery body a peach blur.

  “Hey, hey, Camel,” she trilled. “You writin’?”

  “I am, My Dear.”

  “That’s a wonderful thing, Camel. That’s a solid gold wonderful thing.”

  “Thank you. It is. When it works it’s the world’s best theurgy.”

  “You say good things, Camel.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “Hey, hey, Camel,” she said and stopped. Her body made Camel’s heart swell. She was just about the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. And he thought of his lost Allen. Lorax’s bright, shiny youth recalled Allen’s bright, shiny youth, beauty speaking to beauty. “What’s that poem you recited to me? You know, the one with machines in it.”

  “Yes. ‘All watched over by machines of loving grace.’”

  “Yes, that’s it!” Lorax’s eyes grew wide and shimmering. “Did you write that, Camel? Did you write that beautiful line?”

  She was breathless.

  “No. My friend Richard wrote that.”

  “It sure is nice. Where’s Richard now, Camel?”

  “He’s with Allen, Baby. He’s with the angels, the angels of the last rebellion.”

  “Aw, Camel. Aw, Camel.”

  “So many,” Camel said. “So many gone.”

  Lorax moved toward Camel. She placed her rounded belly against his cheek. Camel looked up into her young eyes, eyes that had seen nothing, nothing. Eyes that would, inevitably, see too much. He put his hoary hands around her and pressed his cheek harder against her midsection. He gently began to caress her bottom as if it were a holy orb.

  “Oh
, Camel, Baby, oh my Camel,” she crooned over his head.

  43.

  Twilight. Carmine smudges on Big Muddy.

  Dan Yumont had done good work that day and he knew it. He could pull his particular gift out of a hat. It’s what made Dan Yumont Dan Yumont. And after a good day’s work he wanted simple things, human things: drink, food and sex.

  He took his teenage lover with him to a park by the river. They walked there from the Pyramid, hand in hand, like childhood sweethearts. The park was a long sward of green, manicured and benched and designed for the tony upscale community that had sprung up like prefab glamour on the northern end of Mud Island. Dan knew none of this. He only knew that it was the kind of place that sent thumps through the hearts of young women. It was also the kind of place where you could stand on a bluff and squint into the distance across the chugging, chocolate waters.

  Dudu hung on Dan like a fallen comrade. She was agog after watching him work.

  Dan was thinking about Dudu’s work on the set. She was set to read lines with Hope Davis and it was horrible, embarrassing in a way that left a stench in the room. Eric kindly put her on gofer status for most of the afternoon. Dudu, for her part, didn’t seem to be fazed by her public awfulness. Dudu was blissfully unaware of her Duduness.

  Dan was not unaffected by her young body in heat, yet he seemed far away. He was almost introspective.

  “What is it, Dan? Tell Dudu.”

  “Nothing, child. Nothing. Thinking about my part, working some things out in my head.”

  “You’re beautiful when you act. You’re dreamy.”

  Dan supposed that dreamy was part of the youthful argot currently.

  “Thank you, Dear. Let us repair to yonder village and see about some libations and alimentation.” Dan gestured toward the upscale village.

  “Sure, Baby, sure. I’m ravished.”

  Dan smiled at the misspeak.

  “Soon you shall be, Sweetmeat,” Dan said.

  They were seated at a small restaurant, a cozy place with little business. The menu was eclectic, which normally meant nothing was bad and nothing was that good either. Dan wanted a steak, a big red steak. Dudu, predictably, ordered a salad, though her chunky, overly voluptuous body was not built with salads.

  “This is a great place,” she said, holding Dan’s hand, nervously pulling his ring off and on.

  “Only the best for you,” Dan said.

  “My parents took me and my little brother here once. My brother freaked out. He had to be talked back to his seat and assured that there wasn’t really something called Death by Chocolate.”

  “Ha, that’s funny,” Dan said.

  But something was bothering him. Something was prickling his nape. He did a slow turn and there, about 15 feet away, in a booth, sat two college-type beauties. Dan squinted. One of the beauties looked up.

  It was Ray Verbely.

  She recognized him immediately and four or five emotions flashed across her face. Dan smiled. She didn’t return the smile but she didn’t look away.

  “Hang on a minute, Baby,” Dan said to Dudu. “I see someone I need to confer with briefly.”

  “Sure, Love,” Dudu said, reluctantly letting go of his hand.

  Dan moved into the booth beside Ray. He sat so close to her she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  “Stranger,” she said.

  “Ray, Ray,” Dan crooned.

  “Stranger, this is my friend, Sansher Myers.”

  “Sansher?” Dan said.

  “Yes, don’t ask.”

  Sansher Myers was small and dark like an idol. Her close-cropped hair surrounded a girlish face and an extremely wide and wet mouth, with substantial lips. Dan couldn’t take his eyes off that mouth. Dan held her small, moist hand for a good minute.

  “Sansher is a barber,” Ray said.

  Sansher pulled her hand out of Dan’s so she could take a mock swat at her friend.

  “I cut hair,” she said. “I own Hair of the Dog out in Bartlett.”

  “Dan could care less. Though he still wanted to think about her mouth.

  “So, Mr. Big Shot, how’s the movie going?”

  “Oh, shit,” Sansher Myers said. “Goddamn. You’re Dan Yumont. Fuck me.”

  “Yes,” Dan said.

  Surprising, really, that Ray had not mentioned her tryst with a movie star to her friend. Perhaps their relationship was not like that. Or perhaps Ray was just that private.

  Ray looked at him as if he were a hoodoo.

  “Well,” she said, the kind of prelim to conversational conclusion that was universally recognized.

  Dan took his eyes off the barber’s mouth and turned to Ray. He leaned even closer. She moved slightly away, and slightly back, such was her ambivalence.

  “I’ll ditch my date. You ditch yours,” he whispered.

  Ray pulled away. Her look of shock was short-lived. Dan’s face was composed iniquity.

  “I’m gonna go to the bathroom in a minute. Meet me out back. I hope you have a car.” He didn’t wait for a response but returned to his table.

  “Who’s that?” Dudu asked, her teenage emotions bubbling so close to the surface Dan thought she might cry or worse. “I didn’t see her on the set.”

  “She’s the producer’s secretary,” Dan said. It was such a smooth lie Dudu bought it at once.

  “Where’s our food?” she said now, brightening.

  “Hm, yes. I’ll check. But first I must air the pizzle.”

  He leaned over and kissed Dudu’s cheek and walked toward the rear of the restaurant without a glance back.

  Five minutes later Ray rose and met him out back. He was leaning against her car.

  “How did you know that’s my car?” she said.

  “There are free porno movies at my hotel,” Dan said.

  “Dan Yumont,” Ray said, unlocking the car, “you’re a bad man.”

  Dan squinted at her.

  “I skipped out on a steak, Baby,” he said. “Let’s get room service, too.”

  “Ok, Dan,” Ray said.

  “Your barber has a blowjob mouth,” Dan said as the car pulled away from the curb.

  44.

  “Do you want to have dinner together? That would be radical. That would shake up the tabloids,” Sandy said, smiling.

  “There are no tabloid reporters in Memphis,” Eric said. He was dressing. Sandy sat on the side of the bed, still wrapped in a towel.

  “Ok. So, dinner, that was the real point of my inquiry?”

  “Yes, yes, I do want to have dinner with you,” Eric said.

  “Where shall we go?”

  “I don’t care. You pick.”

  “Let’s get away from movie people. Movie people with their movie minds and their movie bodies and their profligate movie ways. I am tired today of movie people.”

  Eric barked a quick laugh.

  “East, let’s go further east. Perhaps Germantown—or Collierville. Or, if we keep going we’ll end up in Alabama. I know a great Mexican place in Tuscaloosa.”

  “I don’t want Mexican,” Sandy said.

  “Let’s drive to Germantown and see what inspires us.”

  “Yes, let’s,” Sandy said. And then, “Oh! Will they let us drive our own car?”

  “Yes, well, we won’t tell them,” Eric said.

  Sandy had a rental, an American compact.

  Eric’s cell phone rang. He prayed it wouldn’t be Eden, who during an earlier phone call was expressing his doubts about Camel Eros. He called him a beatnik and suggested another writer, a guy known primarily for his nonfiction, books about music and Memphis. He was ready to take Camel off the picture but Eric had talked him out of it. Eric had called Camel’s blues some of the wildest stuff he had ever seen for movie dialogue. He made “wildest” sound like the highest praise. For the record, it was more customary for added dialogue, for rewrites and revisions, to come in on multihued sheets so that the “final” script looked like a rainbow but Camel refused to work
on any color other than blue. “Blue is peace, well-being, heart’s ease,” he said. Hence, “Camel’s Blues” became a catchphrase on set.

  The call was from Mimsy.

  “Mimsy!” Eric fairly shouted. Sandy jumped and then left the room, dropping the towel behind her.

  “I’ve been trying to call you,” Eric said. “Your cell—”

  “I know. Sorry. Lemme make it up to you and take you to this great new fish restaurant in Cooper-Young. Can you come?”

  “Yes, of course I can. Should we meet there—or will you pick me up?”

  “Meet there. Can you do it in 45?”

  “Yes, yes,” Eric said. He felt like a yeanling.

  Sandy reentered the room. Magically she had dressed and seemed to shine with some kind of greedy lust—for something else, something Eric did not have.

  “Bye-bye,” she said.

  “Sandy, I—”

  “Skip it,” she said. “I have other plans, too.”

  Eric didn’t doubt that she did. His heart sank.

  “Sandy, I—well, fuck, I love you.”

  “I know, Cabbage. I know.”

  45.

  The restaurant’s interior was bathed in blue light. Eric sat nervously scraping the tines of his fork over his napkin. The nearly invisible rows he was making recalled some movie—what was it? Parallel lines played a part in some poor amnesiac’s mysterious past. Was it James Garner? Or Gregory Peck?

  Then Mimsy entered. She walked toward him and her body swayed with glittery magnetism. Eric’s admiration was palpable.

  “Mimsy, finally,” he said, as if they had been parted by the swells of time.

  “Hello, Sweet Man,” she said, bussing his cheek.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” Eric said.

  “Have you, Eric? I’ve had you on my mind a lot. I mean, a lot.”

  Eric felt the angels hover above them.

  “Where—where have you been?”

  “Working, you goob.”

  Mimsy Borogoves used words like goob. It broke Eric’s heart. It really did.