Carrying Albert Home

by Homer Hickam

  38

  TO HOMER’S ASTONISHMENT, THAT NIGHT ELSIE CLIMBED in bed with him, just as any married woman would with her husband. She was obviously in the mood for romance and Homer cautiously complied although he feared her favors were only temporary. The next day, they read over the movie script and, because Elsie insisted on it, practiced some of the scenes. Homer felt ridiculous doing the scenes. His part mostly called for grunting.

  Elsie clasped the script to her chest and said, “You were raised by apes, it is true, but you are not an ape. You are a man! A man, Tarzan! A human man. Do you understand me?”

  “I don’t know, Elsie,” Homer said, lowering his script. “It seems to me Tarzan would have kind of noticed he wasn’t an ape. I mean, why else would he have fashioned a loincloth? Apes don’t wear them, far as I know.”

  Elsie glared at him. “Do you always have to be so literal?”

  Homer gave her question some thought, then said, “Maybe it’s a coal mining thing. If you don’t look at the roof literally, it might fall literally on top of your head.”

  Elsie opened her mouth as if to argue, then shook her head and flipped the pages of the script. “All right, let’s do this one. Jane sees Tarzan up in a tree and tries to coax him down.”

  Homer flipped to the scene. “I don’t have any lines.”

  “Perfect,” Elsie said, then launched into hers. Homer went to the refrigerator for orange juice.

  Later that afternoon, Miss Trumball arranged for Homer and Elsie and Albert to go aboard a glass-bottomed boat. The water of Silver Springs was so clear that when Homer looked through the glass, it appeared that the boat was floating on air.

  Albert started making his yeah-yeah-yeah happy sound and then over the side of the boat he went. Elsie was astonished to see him through the glass bottom. He was effortlessly keeping up with the boat while making corkscrew spirals through the water. “My little boy,” she swooned. “He’s such a good swimmer.”

  “I guess he is, Elsie,” Homer allowed. “He is, after all, an alligator.”

  “I bet he can outswim any alligator there ever was.”

  Homer didn’t argue; Albert had twice saved him in the ocean. But then a big, dark shape swept past the glass. Homer realized it was another alligator and it was a lot bigger than Albert.

  “Oh, my stars!” Elsie screamed. “He’s after Albert!” She turned to the boat operator. “Do something!”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, “but there’s nothing to be done. That’s a bull alligator and he don’t much like another gator come sniffin’ around his harem. Reckon you just lost your pet.”

  Homer confidently predicted to himself the next three words out of Elsie’s mouth and was not surprised. “Homer, do something!”

  Homer rose from his seat and picked up a boat hook that was leaning in the corner of the boat. “Follow those alligators!” he demanded.

  The boat operator could tell Homer was serious, mainly because he was holding the boat hook like he might use it on him, so he turned after the two alligators. When they came alongside the big bull, Homer climbed up on the bow and jabbed him in the head. The alligator abruptly turned away.

  A minute later the boat caught up with Albert. Seeing no recourse, Homer leapt into the water, grabbed him by his tail, turned him around, and then put his arm across him for support. “Come on, Albert,” he said, “you’re worrying your mother.” Albert waved his head back and forth, perhaps looking for the big bull, and then pulled Homer back to the boat.

  Homer, kicking hard, handed Albert up to Elsie, who grabbed him beneath his front legs, the boat operator helping. Elsie fell back into the boat with her arms around her alligator. “Oh, Albert, I was sure you were going to be eaten!”

  Homer, climbing aboard, started to remind her that, had the big bull alligator decided to turn around, he, Homer, could have been eaten, too, but recognized the futility of it.

  “She surely loves that gator,” the boat operator said.

  “More than anything,” Homer said, “or anybody.”

  That night, Miss Trumball came by their cottage. “Tomorrow’s an important day,” she said. “We’re doing the tree house scene and you’ll stand in for Buster and Maude. You saw that warehouse down by the boat dock? That’s where the set is. You’ll need to be there precisely at six A.M. Here’s an alarm clock. Don’t be late!”

  Homer was not the type to be late for anything. He set the alarm clock for 4 A.M. and got up and made coffee, then woke Elsie up and fixed her buttered toast. “I could have made breakfast,” she said, stretching prettily in the silk pajamas that Miss Trumball had loaned her. She was a beautiful sight and it fairly took Homer’s breath away but he kept his focus on the day’s work. “This should be fun,” he said.

  “Do you have your costume?”

  “It’s not much to have. A loincloth. They said I could wear my underwear if it was black. I said I’d never heard of black underwear and for some reason they thought that was funny.”

  “I get to wear a safari outfit,” Elsie said. “Even a pith helmet!” She tried it on. “What do you think?”

  Homer thought she looked fetching in the pith helmet but said, just for fun, “You look ridiculous,” and got a frowny face for his trouble. It wasn’t a serious frowny face, though, and Homer thought maybe, just maybe, Elsie was ready for a kiss. He took a step toward her but she turned toward Albert and gave him a kiss atop his head.

  “Chuck the reptile wrangler is coming for you today, Albert,” she said. “He’s going to train you to wrestle with Buster Spurlock. Won’t that be fun?”

  Albert made his yeah-yeah-yeah sound.

  Homer watched Elsie hug the alligator and, at that moment, wished his blood were cold. “Come on, Elsie,” he said. “Let’s not be late the first day.”

  At the warehouse, the gaffers and grips and director and assistant director were working furiously to set up the scene while the script girls and the writers looked on with feigned interest and nursed their hangovers.

  “I’ll show those bastards who think they can cheat John Bakersfield!” Bakersfield yelled just as Homer and Elsie walked in. “I don’t need their soundstages. I can do it right here for nothing!”

  Miss Trumball came over to greet the couple. “Eric’s a little upset. He got a wire that the studio wants to charge us an exorbitant fee to use their soundstages for the interiors so John’s decided to shoot everything right here.”

  Elsie noticed the grass hut set. “It’s beautiful,” Elsie said, enthralled.

  “Glad you like it,” Miss Trumball replied. “You’re going to see a lot of it today.” She waved at one of the assistant directors, a trim young man in tight khakis and brown boots. “Donald? Come over here and escort our stand-ins to makeup.”

  Donald hustled over. “Go with this young man,” Miss Trumball ordered Homer and Elsie.

  Donald escorted Homer and Elsie to their makeup rooms, which were actually nothing more than curtained-off areas in the warehouse. In Homer’s room, a young woman holding a shaving mug and a razor, asked, “Would you mind if I shave your chest?”

  Homer blushed. “All right,” he said, giving in to the demands of the job.

  Elsie’s dressing area adjoined Homer’s. “Your skin is just perfect,” Homer overheard Trish say to her.

  “If it’s so perfect, why do you have to put all this stuff on my face?” Elsie responded.

  “The lights are harsh and the camera doesn’t always tell the truth,” Tommy explained. “Trust us. We know what we’re doing.”

  After Homer’s chest was shaved, and he and Elsie were properly powdered and lipsticked, they emerged from behind the curtains and were told by the second assistant director, a nice young man named Claus, to stand in front of the tree house. After that, they were directed to kneel, then hold each other. After that, Elsie was supposed to crawl into the hut and Homer was to follow. These things they accomplished while Bakersfield fiddled with the lights before ordering th
e setup for another shot.

  “That’s it?” Homer asked Miss Trumball.

  “What did you want to do? Load a few tons of coal? Movie acting is mostly waiting around.”

  Homer pondered Miss Trumball’s revelation. “I’m not very good at being still,” he confessed. “Maybe I could help sweep up or haul garbage.”

  Miss Trumball stood on her tiptoes and gave Homer a kiss on his cheek. “You are truly a piece of work! Are all coal miners like you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then, as soon as this movie is over, I’m going to rent a bus and ship as many coal miners as possible to Hollywood. It could use some men like you!”

  Elsie didn’t mind waiting around for the director and the lighting people and the gaffers and grips and cameramen to get the next shot ready. There were just so many interesting things to see! She could not recall ever having quite so much fun. She finally understood why Buddy had gone off to work in pictures.

  “Omar is so handsome, Eloise,” Trish gushed as she powdered Elsie’s nose.

  “You think so?”

  “Oh, we all do,” Tommy said. Elsie raised her eyebrows at him. He raised his eyebrows back. “Don’t look so surprised, honey,” he said. “You’re not the only pretty thing who likes boys with muscles.”

  Then Elsie overheard Bakersfield say, “I’d like to make a complete run-through of the seduction scene but we just don’t have time to teach these two amateurs their moves.”

  Elsie broke away from the makeup people and walked up to him. “Mr. Bakersfield,” she said, “I know all of Jane’s lines and Homer—um, I mean Omar—knows all of Tarzan’s. We’ve been practicing.”

  “Who gave you the right to practice anything?” Bakersfield growled. “Do you know the blocking, too?”

  “If it’s like it says in the script, we do.”

  Bakersfield shrugged. “All right. I’m desperate. Let’s give it a go.”

  And a go they gave. Elsie pretended to wake on the tree limb that held Tarzan’s hut and then when she saw Homer in his loincloth standing a few feet away, she screamed. In response, Homer walked along the limb and knelt in front of her and stared. In spunky fashion, Elsie demanded, “Who are you? What are you?” When Homer looked suitably confused, she said, “Why did you bring me here? What are you going to do to me? Are you going to kiss me?”

  “There’s no line about kissing,” a script girl said to the director.

  “Keep rolling,” Bakersfield snapped. “I like it!”

  “Do you want to kiss me?” Elsie demanded.

  “She’s acting her little heart out!” Miss Trumball said.

  “It ain’t her heart the men in the audience will notice,” Bakersfield replied. “Who unbuttoned her blouse?”

  “Well, I think she must have.”

  Homer had stopped acting. He was truly confused. Did Elsie really want him to kiss her or was it Jane asking Tarzan or Eloise asking Omar? Taking a gamble, Homer kissed Elsie. “Cut!” Bakersfield shouted. “Omar, act like you want to take her clothes off!”

  “Mr. Bakersfield?” Homer asked, turning and shielding his eyes against the glare of the lights. “What was that?”

  “Pull her clothes off, boy! Oh, I see. You want motivation. Well, your blood is up. Jane, you scream, resist, then give in. You got it?”

  “Yes, sir!” Elsie cried.

  “All right.” Bakersfield looked at the cameraman, who, despite the beret slung off-center on his head, looked more midwestern farmer than French. “Clarence, you ready?”

  Clarence hitched up the belt beneath his ample gut. “Just give me the word,” he replied in a laconic voice.

  “Word, gawdammit!”

  “Speed.”

  “Action!”

  Homer touched Elsie’s blouse but she grabbed his hand and pressed it to her chest. “Grab hold, buddy!” she hissed, and though he was initially shocked at her audacity, he played along because it was, after all, apparently his job. She pulled back, popping her blouse open, the buttons flying. Bakersfield rose from his chair. He began to cheer as Homer continued to tug at the blouse (with Elsie’s hand clasped over his, holding it in place). Stumbling, Elsie fell back into the tree house. Homer, after a moment of indecision, crawled in after her. Within seconds, Bakersfield came in on his hands and knees to join them. “Bravo, bravo! Now, if I can only get Buster and Maude to do it that way!”

  When Homer and Elsie and the director emerged from the tree house to the applause of the assembly, Buster Spurlock and Maude O’Leary had joined the set. Spurlock was conspicuously not applauding. When Bakersfield saw him, he demanded, “Did you see that performance, Buster? If I can get just half of that pure animal lust out of you, we’ll pack them in.”

  The actor pushed his chest out. “Are you saying my performance hasn’t been good enough?”

  “You said it, Buster. Not me.”

  Spurlock turned and stalked out of the warehouse and slammed the door behind him. Maude O’Leary laughed and said, “Shit, I’ll do that scene better. Just give me that man!”

  Bakersfield gave the proposal some thought. “If Omar will turn his head just so . . . yes, I think it can be done. Get up there, Maude. Make it extemporaneous. You there, Eloise. Get down. Maude, there you go.”

  Homer watched Elsie reluctantly leave the set. “Do you want to kiss me, big boy?” O’Leary demanded before laughing raucously. “Yeah. You do. They all do!”

  “Speed,” Clarence the cameraman sighed.

  “Action!” Bakersfield bleated.

  “Why did you drag me up here, you big ape?” O’Leary demanded. “Oh, you think you’re so big and strong . . . well, you are big and strong . . . now listen, you, don’t even think about kissing me.”

  Homer, remembering how it was done with Elsie and presuming the director wanted him to do it again, put his hand on the actress’s blouse and gave it a tug. O’Leary quickly turned so the blouse tore, buttons flying. Satisfied, she shrieked and fell backward, her boots scrabbling against the leaves and sticks as she pushed herself on her back inside the tree house opening. Homer fell on his knees and scrambled in behind her.

  “Cut!” Bakersfield cried. “Oh, perfect, perfect. Oscar-winning performance, Maude. What an actress!”

  Inside the tree house, O’Leary grabbed Homer and dragged him down on top of her. “You know,” she said, “I never lock my cottage.”

  “We don’t, either,” Homer said. “Miss Trumball never gave us a key.”

  O’Leary laughed, then put her hand on the back of Homer’s head and pulled him in for a long kiss. “No underwear!” She laughed. “I like that in a man.” Shocked, he pulled away and rolled off of her. “Didn’t you like it?” she asked.

  He considered her question and told the truth. “I surely did,” he said. “But I knew it wasn’t right.”

  O’Leary laughed again. “Boy, if you were a box of chocolates in my house, all you’d be in ten minutes is empty little paper cups.”

  Outside, Bakersfield was still excited about what had just happened. “Mildred, that scene’s going to sell our movie.”

  Elsie, who was standing beside Tommy, sniffed. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

  Tommy grinned. “Girl,” he said, “that man looked like he truly was going in after Maude to make some hot love.”

  “Well, he can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s . . .” Elsie stopped and considered her next words, then said, “Because I’m his wife.”

  “Really? I’ve always wanted to be a wife.”

  “Me, too,” Elsie said in a wistful tone. “Me, too.”

  39

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN THE movies or, in this case, in the making of a movie. Spurlock was so mortified by the director’s praise for Homer that when Homer climbed up on a limb and swung from one vine to another vine for a long shot of Tarzan, Spurlock insisted on repeating the shot.

  “You can’t do tha
t, Buster,” Bakersfield replied. “If you get hurt, we have to shut down.”

  “If I’m your star, why didn’t you let me do that scene at the tree house with Maude?”

  “Because the way Omar did it was perfect. Don’t worry. He had his face turned so people will still think it’s you.”

  “But it wasn’t, and it won’t take too long before everybody knows that. I’ll be a laughingstock.”

  “Just stay off that rope, Buster, and that’s an order!”

  Spurlock waited until the director’s back was turned, then climbed up the ladder to the limb where the vine was hung. “Watch this,” he said and jumped, yelling the Tarzan yell all the way down until he hit the ground, whereupon he broke his arm.

  Then Maude O’Leary received an offer from John Ford to star in one of his westerns. “Sorry, darling, I’ve already been here longer than what the contract requires,” she said to Bakersfield, kissing him on his bald head. “And fame calls only once, you know.”

  “Ford will make you the drunk prostitute in the bar, you’ll be on-screen less than thirty seconds, and it’ll be the last anyone ever sees of you,” the director predicted. But he gave her a kiss on her cheek and sent her on her way. She left for California on the next train.

  Bakersfield slumped in his director’s chair while the gaffers and grips and assistant directors and writers slipped away and hid. The only person with courage was Miss Trumball, who pulled up an empty chair with MAUDE O’LEARY printed on the back and leaned forward with her elbows on her thighs and her chin cupped in her hands. “Speak to me,” she said. “Tell me all your troubles.”