by Greg Jolley
I had worried that the packets of cash would be ruined by years under the soil, but while the money had a foul odor, it was otherwise intact. I thanked the briefcase for its durability and decided to bring it along.
Flight
The act or flying; a passing
through the air by the help
of wings; mode or style of flying.
Scene 13
When Mother’s mansion sold and all the attached loans were paid off, my offer was accepted on a house in the working town of La Habra. The place had a side-yard swimming pool and was forty minutes from Hollywood. This was the last time during my marriage that I chose where we would live. I learned from the Doc that Mother was distraught about the change, but he promised to keep her calm and medicated.
As moving day drew closer, Hilda and Ira shared their plans to rent themselves a loft apartment in Hollywood, near Regency Films, where he worked as a director of photography.
Moving the boys and Baby Ruth was a breeze, but Mother’s transport was difficult. Even though sedated, she was in a wild panic, foul-mouthed, and raging with anger.
“Don’t you dare!” she chanted, each time louder.
“It’s for the best,” the Doc tried. “You’ll be fine.”
“This can’t be! BB! You useless sack of—”
The Doc plunged a second syringe, and she fell back on the gurney.
I was saving her by getting her to a house we could afford. Maybe someday she would come around and appreciate what all I had done for her. Maybe crows would learn how to drive automobiles.
With the Doc’s medicinal assistance, we moved her in a nonemergency ambulance that had blinds that could be drawn. Prior to her arrival at the La Habra house, the Doc helped me replicate her Hollywood bedroom. We painted her new room—the master bedroom—a deep, pine green and furnished it with some of her furniture from the mansion.
After getting her situated in her room, she pointed from her bed to the balcony over the pool.
“Close those,” she muttered, the drugs taking some of the edge off her voice.
Doc drew the heavy curtains once and for good.
Upstairs, beside Mother’s room, Baby Ruth had her own room, and Pierce and Jared shared the other. I had the cozy sun porch downstairs behind the kitchen. My first load of wash was the cash, which I laundered on the soft cycle with a half cup of detergent.
Gone were the days of Mother’s staff and assistants, although from what I saw, she snared Doc closer. Time and again, I saw him on the stairs to her room delivering meals or carrying his small, black bag. When the ranch-style house beside ours went on the market, he bought it.
In the middle of that year of transition, I was hired by Blue Coast Pictures, which was not in Hollywood but in the practical, low-cost outskirts of Burbank. At Blue Coast—a small studio—I had two jobs. I did rewrites of scene sequences in the writers’ office when I wasn’t assigned to the second-unit shoots to make rewrites on the fly.
During that first year, I only had to open IM’s briefcase one time. Baby Ruth’s school counselor asked to meet. Following a review of Baby Ruth’s academic achievements, the counselor laid some brochures on his desk.
“Baby Ruth is both brilliant and curious, but I fear she’s wilting in her current life and this school. If you wish to save her from a life of the mundane, I recommend any of these three prep schools.”
“Save her,” was all I heard.
Two days later, having read about the suggested schools, I paid forward for her first year’s boarding and tuition with three packets.
JARED SAT beside Baby Ruth in the back seat when I drove her to the train depot, and after curbing her bags, I sat in the automobile while they entered the terminal to say their good-byes. When he returned, he sat up front beside me, dry-eyed and expressionless, and talked conversationally with himself. I noted for the first time on that drive home that he might not be speaking to himself but to the passenger-side mirror.
I spent that same evening in my sun porch sitting before the typewriter on the table at the window. I thought about loading a sheet of paper, but for the longest time—the next year or so—the Underwood grew nothing but dust.
PIERCE AND Jared made movies everywhere—in the yards, in the garage, and in the orange grove across the two-lane road. I liked to watch. Pierce directed and operated the viewfinder, and handsome, pensive Jared fulfilled whichever role his brother devised. Ira arranged for an internship for Pierce at his studio, and he began working after school and on weekends. They had him building and moving props that sometimes found their way to our house instead of into the studio’s storage. The various film props transformed the pool yard and the boy’s homegrown films. At different times, the pool yard resembled a WWII battlefield, a Western cowboy camp with a Styrofoam rock campfire, and the interior of a ship’s helm.
With Pierce’s school and work schedule, the boys often filmed at night under the stars within the varying types of lighting he borrowed from the studio. I often went to sleep with Pierce’s voice directing and Jared either rehearsing his lines or performing them. Other nights, I would sit in my deck chair outside the sun porch and watch their movie making from the shadows. What I admired about Pierce and Jared’s moviemaking was their nonuse of film. In fact, they rarely used cameras. Instead, Pierce would form a rectangular viewfinder by touching his thumbs and fingertips. To me, it seemed they were focused on the creativity and the process instead of the end result.
At the beginning of our second year in La Habra, both boys invited me inside their filmset along the far side of the pool. I entered the detailed interior of a yacht, and we sat at the galley table where Pierce lit a lantern. Jared sat so that his eyes were in darkness, and the rest of his lovely face was lit in amber. Pierce told me that he was done with schooling and was taking a full-time job at the studio. He described his choice as risky but making good sense. He wasn’t looking for permission, but agreement. I turned my goggles to him and gave him a grin, all my teeth showing.
Scene 14
The seasons changed, and three years unfurled and little changed in our daily lives.
Baby Ruth came home for the first week of November, and like past years, her arrival was a gift. She and Jared and Pierce took up with each other quickly, the boys absorbing her into the crew for their current film, Sergeant Jared and the Nazis. She happily applied Jared’s battle face makeup and bruises while Pierce talked about the lenses and points of view he wanted to use. I listened from the sun porch, the windows angled open, letting in the colors of their voices and rain and cold air. My three were sitting at the umbrella table back away from the deep end of the pool. They were planning to film in the fading gray light and continue into the night. Pierce was concerned about running the set lights in the rain.
Baby Ruth reminded the boys—and me, indirectly—that the night’s work needed to end early, so we could be up at dawn to celebrate daylight saving time. For the past three years, the changing of the clocks and time had caused my brain to unwind, affecting my motor skills for two days, sometimes three. So my three gathered at least twice a year to linger near me while also making a party of the change.
At dawn, I woke to, “Happy DST!”
My three squeezed into the sun porch carrying breakfast trays, and we sat scrunched, me still in bed, Baby Ruth and Jared sitting on the desk, and Pierce in the desk chair. It was raining, the sound of drops coming in through the angled window. Baby Ruth wore a sheer summer dress and no shoes, jewelry, and any other adornment she had. Jared was still in his battlefield makeup and uniform. My old Tewe director’s lens hung from Pierce’s neck, sweeping as he talked. He was dressed haphazardly as always—a green and white striped shirt over a pair of red and orange plaid shorts.
Baby Ruth stepped over from the desk and sat beside me and changed the time on my nightstand windup. She handed me the clock, and I held it in both hands as she kissed my brow and suggested I wait an hour before I stood.
I agreed.
“Boob,” Pierce commented.
Baby Ruth looked down and covered her budding, errant breast with a tug of her dress top. She gave Pierce her landmark sideways grin and shrug. Jared turned from the mirror, hanging from the back of my bedroom door, his lips whispering. He dropped his worried expression and offered his rare and beautiful smile to Baby Ruth.
We ate breakfast, and they talked, each in their own distinct ways, loudly and happily, mostly about the day’s shoot. Pierce was worried about the planned shoot for the day because of the weather, and it was Jared who quietly suggested a change to the storyline. He described a scene of Sergeant Jared still stateside and departing for military service. Pierce fleshed out the idea with specifics, mostly camera angle concerns, and they decided to film in the garage. They invited me to come and watch.
“This will have to be in black and white if we’re gonna film in Mother’s pink car. We could use BB’s, but it’s out in the rain.”
The black Lincoln was parked in the driveway. I had learned not to garage it during the time change, not wanting my unsteady hands to drive it into the garage door frames. Throughout the past two years, my brain had changed in other ways. Clocks and calendars became suspect. With each daylight-saving-time change came spells of unsettling confusion as though my place on the earth had slid out of kilter.
“I like the idea of black and white,” Baby Ruth told Pierce. “Love to see my Jared’s beautiful face in those hues.”
I watched the three of them discuss and work out the last details for the shoot. After we had finished breakfast, Jared and Baby Ruth carried the trays to the kitchen before heading off to join Pierce in the garage.
I got out of bed and had a brief bout of vertigo, my vision flickering like an old movie projector. I stood very still waiting for it to settle. Jared came into the sun porch and stood silently at my side. He took my hand and turned to the pool area. I did the same, and both of us gazed out at the surface of the water, disrupted and electric with raindrops.
I was the first to look away, back to my son’s handsome face. He was studying the pool surface, its reflection marred by the rain. His lips were forming silent words. Leaning forward to catch his eye, to nudge his focus, I examined his lovely face with the brown and black smudges of war paint. My darling Jared shook his head, muttered under his breath, and continued to face the pool but turned his eyes and winked at me.
I squeezed his warm hand and panned my head very slowly looking at the change in time on my alarm clock. Five silent minutes later, I gave his hand another squeeze and said, “It’s show time.”
MOTHER’S LINCOLN had years of dust on it and was parked on the right side of the garage on its cracked flat tires. In the space for my automobile, Pierce had set out patio chairs in a row. The big door to my side was open letting the rain in. Jared guided me to a chair, and I sat between Pierce and Baby Ruth. Pierce held his dual-sided clipboard in his lap with the pages on both sides covered with diagrams of overhead camera placements and movements as well as inked notes and arrows.
Baby Ruth had pulled on her royal-blue great coat from school and sat with her bare feet on the seat of her chair, her cocoa knees raised. She was taking bites from a peach and nodding to the one-sided conversation that Pierce was leading. She had a fresh civilian shirt for Jared and a damp cloth to remove his battle makeup. Pierce clipped fresh, blank pages to his board and drew as he explored and explained, talking his way through the story and design of what sounded like a new movie, or perhaps a different set of scenes for Sergeant Jared and the Nazis. He explained to us the importance of Civilian Jared’s departure from his small-town home to the big, new world.
Jared was, as always, listening carefully to his brother while looking over at the pink Lincoln to the door-side mirror. I panned my eyes slowly, and Baby Ruth’s free hand lowered from view, taking his. She spoke to me. “BB, Mother cornered me. Yelping from her room to mine.”
“And?” Pierce asked.
“The usual. Nonsense. You three. And your strange moviemaking.” She mimicked Mother sounding unhinged and hostile. “God’s the important camera. I believe that was aimed at you, BB. She likes to quote you in her nasty way.”
“BB?” Pierce started.
“Dad, please,” I said.
“Right. BB, how nuts is she?”
I didn’t reply.
“Anyway,” Baby Ruth continued. “Before I ditched her, she started in again on the Jared rant.”
Baby Ruth laughed before speaking again.
“She’s got a new plan for you, my favorite,” she said to Jared. “And by the way, you’re definitely not her favorite.”
“Who is?” Pierce chimed while he sketched with a smile in his voice.
Baby Ruth leaned forward to catch Jared’s attention which was focused on the automobile door mirror.
“Wants to have you diagnosed.”
Pierce laughed loudly. “How’s she gonna do that? Hasn’t left her room in years.”
“You mean her green womb?” Baby Ruth giggled.
Jared smiled in full and turned to her.
“All very interesting, but let’s focus, okay?” Pierce instructed.
“Right. Aye, aye, sir,” Baby Ruth agreed with her husky laugh.
“We’re going to do Civilian Jared’s Departure, starting with his drive from home to wherever his future is…”
“Not an asylum, okay?” Baby Ruth deadpanned and wiggled her shoulders in delight.
“Okay, yes. Not there. We’re going to stay with his planned trip to boot camp. BB?”
“Dad, please.”
“Right. I’ve come up with an idea for camera placement. On your car. Can we?”
Pierce handed me his clipboard, and I studied the top-down view of an accurate drawing of my Lincoln with the driver’s door open. There were angled lines from the door to the frame and a camera in silhouette centered on them.
“You can use it,” I agreed.
“Swell. I want an exterior shot looking back inside the car. We’ll get the car up to high speed and get all the wind washing Civilian Jared. Eighty miles an hour, driving through turns, no. Along the coast.”
“The wind will slap, slam that door shut,” Baby Ruth observed, leaning over to the drawing. “Or are those metal? Those door braces?”
“Yeah. Not too hard to make those.”
“I’d use a car jack,” Baby Ruth interrupted. “Bolt it to the frame with the cup thing against the open door.”
“That could work,” Pierce agreed. “That would let us adjust the angle by cranking the jack.”
“Kay, but hey, wait…” Baby Ruth’s delicate eyebrows furrowed.
“Okay. Waiting…”
Baby Ruth released Jared’s hand and circled Mother’s Lincoln with the half-eaten peach. She opened the driver’s door, studied it, and looked over the roof to Pierce.
“Pie?” she asked, using her nickname for him. “I didn’t get this, but now I do. Didn’t see why the jack mattered, but…you’re planning to use a real camera?”
I didn’t look for Pierce’s response because I saw it in Baby Ruth’s wise smile.
Jared asked, “And film, too?”
There was silence for another minute save for the patter of rain and a breeze through the big open door. Pierce broke it.
“Not decided on the need for film, but it’s a yes on the camera. Sure as hell don’t want to hang my ass out in high-speed wind for the shoot.”
Baby Ruth circled her chair, got her feet up on it, and retrieved Jared’s hand.
“I agree,” I offered. “A lot.”
“Thanks, BB,” Pierce said to his pen and paper. “I’ll get this built today, and we’ll film tomorrow.”
I believe all four of us were staring at Mother’s Lincoln. I didn’t want to turn and check. Sitting still, perfectly still, felt best. It was Jared who stirred the quiet.
“I’m good with the camera, but no film.”
His request w
as granted without discussion.
THE NEXT day, we had warm weather and a white, rain-free sky. My black Lincoln’s door was open, the jack had been installed low, so it was easy to step out over. Pierce had finished securing one of his rebuilt 35mm cameras with bolts and nuts and was adjusting the camera, talking, and looking through its viewfinder. I was sitting very still. We had moved our chairs to the driver’s side of the automobile. Baby Ruth sat beside me, her bare feet sweeping back and forth just above the dusty concrete floor. Jared was in behind the wheel and listening closely to Pierce directing and instructing him, telling him where to move and not to move and to stay in the frame.
“Jared?” Baby Ruth asked.
He was adjusting the review mirror and replied. “Yes?”
“Do you know how to drive?”
“Sort of.”
Baby Ruth laughed.
Pierce cursed then muttered, “BB?”
“Dad, please.”
“Right. I’m thinking. We do Jared getting in. Starting the motor and all…”
“And?” Baby Ruth asked.
“The high-speed shot is all about the wind and passing beach and ocean…”
“And?”
“BB? Would you mind? Driving for that shot?”
“If it’s later today, yes.”
“Still bobble-headed,” Baby Ruth explained for me.