by Paul Slatter
Rock Mason stopped talking and looked at this guy who used to be able to play the guitar and said, “Trust who?”
“Trust Me—it’s my slogan for when I’m campaigning for Mayor of Vancouver. I’ve been using it since I was fourteen and schoolboy president.”
What the fuck? Patrick thought, as he finished typing something about the girl’s ass into his phone and looked up to hear Clive Sonic carry on, “Sebastian’s running my campaign. In a moment, we’re doing some photo stills—that’s why I’m in today.”
Rock Mason got it now, there was another reason the kid was here: so he could latch onto him, chumming it up for a photo op that he could use on the campaign trail. He said, “How do you know I support your policies?”
Not getting it for the moment, Clive Sonic looked over to Sebastian, who did. He said, “Clive’s not looking for an endorsement, Rock.”
“Well if he wants one, it’ll cost.”
“He doesn’t.”
Rock Mason leaned back in his chair and looked Clive Sonic straight in the eye, then said, “Biggest mistake any politician can make is to turn down a photo endorsement with a world-famous celebrity. It’s what wins elections.”
Even if he is an egotistical prick, he isn’t half wrong there, Sebastian thought, but would he ever give the man the satisfaction? Not a chance.
“So, kid, are you in or out, you want to be mayor or what?”
Clive Sonic looked at Sebastian, then to Patrick, who was still on his phone, and then to Rock Mason with his million-dollar smile. He said, “I’m not sure, how much would it be?”
“For you kid, it’d be $250,000—and that’s because I like you.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” said Sebastian straight back, “if we spend that kind of money it’d be better to put it into a park,” which now thinking about it wasn’t actually a bad idea.
“Suit yourself,” said Rock Mason as he turned back to the monitors to watch nothing, and then carried on with, “and when you lose the election, you can go both go sit on the swings and cry.”
************
Five hours later, at just after five in the afternoon, there was a commotion at the door to the entrance way of the old corrugated steel factory and Marshaa and a small host of others walked in. Reaching the monitors with Buffy at her side and carrying a huge Prada bag, she hugged Patrick first, air kissed Sebastian, ignored Adalia and Rock Mason, looked at Clive Sonic, then said, “I’m sorry I’m late, I got held up in Chena.”
And she had, held up in Guangzhou, China, because she’d seen the same Prada bag she now held on sale in the window of a shop in the departure lounge, which had cost her $550 plus another $20,000 in first class tickets because she’d missed the plane. Completely ignoring the fact Buffy was standing right next to her, she carried on with, “And Buffy let the real plane go without me, so we had to get some Chena one that didn’t speak English.”
And it was true, Buffy had let the plane go without her. After all she had been standing at the departure gate, listening to the staff calling out Marshaa’s name, giving her the final call announcement over and over while Marshaa tried to work out if she’d have the bag in blue. Buffy having apologized and spent half an hour running back and forth to the store pleading with Marshaa to hurry up to no avail.
“Oh, well at least you’re here now,” Sebastian said, understanding everything and smiling to Buffy as he politely gestured his arms towards the two superstars.
“Marshaa dear, of course you remember Mazzi?”
She didn’t.
“And this is Adalia Seychan, and this is Rock Mason.”
“Oh, hey, yeah,” is all she said, not giving a shit and playing with her phone with one hand and holding out her other to shake both of theirs. Then turning back to Sebastian and Patrick, she asked, “Where’s Dan?”
“I think you’ll find him in his trailer, love. He seems to like it there on his own,” answered Sebastian.
Marshaa asked, “Does he know I’m here?”
He did, and seeing her come through the door with the entourage of people she’d managed to collect since arriving at the airport, he’d disappeared into his own Airstream Classic, which was rapidly starting to smell like his room in his mother’s basement. Not that he would have noticed, since he still had his helmet on. Now though, he could see her through his misty helmet standing by the monitors with all these people he’d never seen before waiting in the wings. The supermodel there in amongst them all faffing her long blond hair all about the place and looking beautiful. Adalia standing next to her looking coy, trying desperately not to be out-staged, smiling, then taking a peek at Marshaa’s ass as Rock Mason did the same.
Dan’s phone beeped and he picked it up and looked at the messages he’d received from her over the last day or so. The first read: ‘seems like some peeps think shopping not important!!!!’
The second read: ‘here in Vanc….at fucking last!!! Stupid Bitch!!!’ And a third that must have just been sent that simply said. ‘Where the fuck r u…… 2 many old people.’ Seconds later she was at his trailer door.
Adalia Seychan looked on from afar, and if she’d had a bazooka rocket handy she’d have used it on the bitch. Fuck, she thought, why had she played it cool with the kid like she had instead of just drawing him dick first to her with sex? The boy should be in her trailer now while they waited for this Swedish guy with the black eyes to finish moving lights around. Then the skinny bitch could have seen Dan, and seen that he was fucking her, and then the illiterate bitch could have gone running back with her stupid bag to ‘Chena’.
Then all of a sudden, with her entourage in tow, Marshaa was walking back towards the monitors. Reaching them, Adalia asked with a smile, “Is he not there?”
And Marshaa answered shaking her head completely confused, “No, that’s not his trailer, it’s a spaceman’s.”
“Oh okay,” Adalia answered. As the words ‘dumb bitch’ materialized in her mind, then she heard Rock Mason pipe in as usual, “That’s because today we are spacemen baby, even you, you’ve got off one plane and now you’re getting on another, and this one’s going to Mars. Before you know it baby, you’ll be in one of these crazy suits and space walking with the rest of us.”
Marshaa looked around, she couldn’t see any space, all she could see was a green screen that was three times the size of the ones she usually had to work her stuff in. She also didn’t remember Patrick telling her she had another plane to catch. She said, “So, is Dan not here then?”
And before Rock Mason could spout off any more bullshit, Patrick stepped in, saying, “He’s here baby, the king of the world’s here. He’ll go crazy when he sees you, he’s been waiting all day for you to get here, it’s all he’s been talking about.”
How? Adalia thought, had he been talking ‘all day’ about the skinny bitch? All she’d seen of him since he arrived late, as usual, was Dan wearing his suit with his helmet on—and he’d only taken that off to fill his face with food. She said, “Patrick dear, you’re too kind, don’t lead the girl up the garden path, you know his mind’s elsewhere at the moment.”
My God, give it up woman and know when you’re done, Sebastian thought, as he once again, for what felt like the one hundredth time, wondered what the hell he had gotten himself into. How on earth could she think she could compete against Marshaa for fucksake? At least one thing was certain, the whole circus was taking his mind off of Fluffy—and that was a good thing.
He looked around the place missing his little boy, who’d loved it here—loved running about the place, but not too far. Then out of the blue, Marshaa caught his ear as right on cue to no one in particular, she said out loud, “Hey, where’s little Fluffy?”
Sebastian turned around as the words cut through his already broken heart, then smiling and reaching out he took Marshaa by the hands and said sweetly, “The little lad passed on dear; he was such a lovely dog.”
As always, Rock Mason piped in his two cents’ worth
of wisdom, looking around and saying, “You know what I say when I hear a pet dog’s died? One less piece of shit to pick up in the park.”
Taking a deep breath, Sebastian counted to ten then politely asked, “I take it you’re not an animal lover then, Rock?”
“As far as I’m concerned, a pet dog is about one rung down from a model turned actor. You see, what you need to understand is that bringing in dogs or models doesn’t make a movie, it’s not all about looking good—you need talent.”
God the man was irritating and with the upset of losing his dog and an earful of listening to the man’s condescending bullshit all day, Sebastian’s normally cool demeanor slipped away from him and looking back over he said, “Well from what I’ve seen so far, from now on you’d be better off playing Goofy at Disneyland as talent’s seemingly not on the menu.”
Rock Mason sat there in Sebastian’s chair as the rest of the group pretended not to have heard and with a smug grin that had a full career spanning some 135 films behind it said, “135 films buddy, come see me when you’ve got 10% of that.”
And as soon as he’d said it, his fate was sealed. Being the man he was, Sebastian had done his homework. And without the slightest hesitation he said, “135 films, of which most where bit parts in B movies until you got a lucky break, since then you’ve managed one more hit, so it reads to me as 123 shit films, 10 okay-ish ones and 2 which were great and they probably only achieved greatness because you kept your mouth shut, did as you were told, and let someone with talent make you look good.”
Rock Mason didn’t say anything for a moment and instead just sat there taking it in. Yeah, the guy was right, there’d been a few embarrassments along the way—but hey, that was the price you paid on the way to stardom. Anyway, what did this shithead know about the price of fish? The best he and his shitty little Slave Media company could do with any of the films he’d done good or bad was put a poster together and stick it on a billboard. So, fuck him. He said, “The difference between me and you or any of your people you’ve bought to this charade is that I have talent and your people pout. I, on the other hand, can be anything that’s put in front of me on a well scripted page. You want me to be an astronaut, I’ll be it. You want me to be a boxer, I’m there. A paraplegic, I’m there. You dress me up as a turkey and I’ll lay a golden egg then knock it out the ballpark. I can sing, I can dance, I can do anything asked of me—except listen to someone pretending to be something they’re not. And that someone’s you and the crew of pouting kids you’re bringing into my world.”
“Really, you can dance?” Sebastian replied without the slightest of upset showing from within.
“Yeah really, you bring that kid out here and let him go one on one with me on the floor and I’ll show you. You bring in a dance troupe of nimble fucking sex kittens and I’ll hold my own dressed only in my boxers. You know why? Because, I’m trained—trained to perform, not trained to pout. And that’s what you’ve matched me with here on this fucking piece of shit excuse for a production.”
Within the hour, Sebastian had shut the production down for the day and had his chain-smoking friend who liked to laugh at Alan’s jokes on the lookout for a dance troupe of young nubile girls, and at the same time Clive Sonic’s girl on the lookout for an adult size turkey suit along with a golden egg. Yes, he knew fucking with the man and changing things around was going to cost another $200,000 on top of the already spiraling budget, but what did he care? Everyone was being paid and the money was coming straight out of his bank account so he could play with the man for as long as he had him on contract.
************
Mazzi Hegan wondered what the hell was going on. He was there working and completely in charge of the photography of his first feature film and it was going to shit. He’d been lighting it well, he had the crew Roger had brought in for him to do the heavy work, but things were still falling behind and he couldn’t seem to summon up the energy to actually care. Now Sebastian had just called all in a fluster and asked for the stage to be lit ready in the morning for a dance scene. A month ago, if he’d heard things were changing at such short notice, he’d have had a hissy fit and all of Vancouver would have heard, but now he just didn’t care that much, a bit, but not enough that he’d need to go see his hair stylist to get over it. Is this it? he thought, is this the way straight guys feel when they get fucked about? He walked over and shared the news with his Gaffer and Key Grip, who would need to arrange the changes, and all they did was roll their eyes a bit and then said, “Sure.”
He walked outside and got into his Ferrari and pulled his big boots off so he could hit the pedals properly. The car now had paperwork and litter on the floor. Looking over, he saw Marshaa standing there in amongst her entourage. He put the boots back on and got back out of the car, and said as he reached her, “Hey Marshaa, how you doing, what’s up?”
Marshaa stared at him, first wondering who the guy was, then why this slightly effeminate builder who looked familiar was hitting on her. She said, “Hey?”
Mazzi held out his hand and smiled, “It’s Mazzi. I shot all your stuff here when we did the Blue Boy campaign.”
Then Marshaa got it and recognized him now. She said, “Hey yeah, you’re the gay guy?” Mazzi shook himself from side to side slightly, not knowing how to react to that one. The hairs now beginning to grow out on his legs were itching him as he stood there. In his day, he’d have slapped back at her with something like—“Yeah well at least I eat.” But now it didn’t seem him. So, he just said instead, “Well you know how it is, the more you ham it up and pretend, the more they pay you.”
Marshaa stared at him confused, then said with an air of realization that hit like a water balloon, “Oh, so you’re not gay. Okay, wow.”
Mazzi stood there, moving about in his builder’s boots that he’d never done up. He looked at the girl’s legs then took a swift peek at her ass, then her stomach and breasts, her face, her beautiful lips, her hair. Wow, he thought, wow, why had he never seen it before, when all he’d ever seen her for was a skinny dopey bitch? God he’d like to take her back to his place and spend the afternoon slamming her in his big fuck-you shower with the power heads turned on full.
It was tricky though, this straight world he was getting into now. You couldn’t just use ‘you wanna come over to my place so I can come in your face’ as an invitation as he used to. You needed to be subtle, more discrete. Smiling he said, “Hey, I’m going for dinner soon if you feel hungry.”
And Marshaa replied asking, “Have you seen Dan?”
Two minutes later, Marshaa had shaken off this weird guy who looked like a girl but was dressed like a man and had to take his boots off to drive his Ferrari. She made it to Dan’s trailer and stood there knocking until the spaceman opened the door. As she stepped inside uninvited and tried to look into Dan’s helmet. She said, “Is that you Dan.”
Dan nodded and said in a muffled voice she could barely hear, “I can’t get my helmet off.”
Marshaa looked at the metal clips on the neck area of the space suit and fearing she’d break a nail, pretended to try and unclasp it.
“Why don’t you go see someone?” she asked as she tried to look through the misted-up glass to see inside.
As she heard Dan’s muffled voice say, “I tried but I can’t get down the steps. They say these are real space suits from NASA, but I think they aren’t because in those they say you don’t sweat.”
Marshaa didn’t know that line of clothing, but she did have a jacket that was really good in the cold. She said, “Yeah you need to get them to get you one of those ski jackets, they’re really cool.”
Dan said, “I thought they’d be back. They came and said something and now it’s all quiet.”
“Oh,” said Marshaa, “you know Seb, he and that old guy had a fight and now we’re going dancing tomorrow.”
“What?” replied Dan, as he tried again to get the helmet off for real now.
“Seb and the old guy, Rock
Mason, they had a fight and now Seb told him he’s going to sing for his supper in the morning.”
And that is exactly what Sebastian had said as the two grown men parted company, or there about, as Sebastian called out the last word as he reached the door, “Tomorrow we’ll see just how talented you really are as you’re going to have to sing and dance for your supper and if you don’t like it—get the bus home and then go try and sue me for your million-dollar fee.”
Dan said, “Oh!” and felt his way to the bed, sat down on it, then laid down on it and looked out at the figure of Marshaa looking like a ghost through the misty visor. He said, “They came to the door and said something, but I wasn’t listening, so I said—‘sure.’”
Marshaa came over and sat next to him on the bed. She understood exactly what he was talking about. Nodding she said, “I do that too. It makes people go away.” Then she said, “You know I’ve been thinking about you all the time when I was on that stupid wall in Chena and more so on the funny plane on the way back and all I want to do is kiss you.”
Wow, Dan thought, as he saw the mist thicken on the inside of his space helmet. At last things were looking good. Then Marshaa said, “But last time we were together I felt that you thought I was such a slut asking you to come to my room like I did and then I was such a bitch for kicking you out and then you fell in love with that girl and, and, well, maybe it’s best, I don’t, you know, do anything.”
Dan shook his head inside his helmet and reached up and placed his thick padded gloved hand on Marshaa’s shoulder. This is all he needed. The most beautiful girl in the world on his bed and she wanted to leave so he’d respect her. He said with his voice echoing around his head in the helmet, “No, it’s cool, all’s cool. I’ve been feeling the same way,” which, being so pre-occupied with Adalia, was a full-on lie. Carrying on with it he said, “Please stay, I want to kiss you too.”