“I’m not sure I understand,” I said.
“Oh. Well, that was Colin Jang on the phone. You know him, the ac-actor. There I g-go again.” He paused and breathed in and out a few times. “Sorry. Well, Colin is flying in tonight to take over the lead in the film I’m directing. I couldn’t be happier. You were apparently instrumental in getting rid of Johnny Random, or maybe he got rid of himself. Whatever. He just wasn’t working out and there was no way I could break his contract without Pocket Money Pictures paying out a fortune. But then you came along. There was one clause in the contract that gave us an out. If Johnny Random fell ill and couldn’t continue on schedule, we were off the hook. I believe his drinking and your sandwich did the trick. He knew he wasn’t supposed to mi-mix al-alcohol and pep-peppers.” He paused to breathe again. “This breathing business — it’s a trick an old lady actor friend taught me. Anyway, it was Johnny’s own fault, so to speak. He might have had a slight reaction to the peppers, but with the booze, he did himself in. He won’t recover for at least ten days, and it lets Pocket Money off the hook. They won’t have to shell out much to break the contract, and I’ve been able to get the star I want, Colin Jang. And, we’ve only just started shooting. It couldn’t have worked out better. Is there anything, apart from getting your job back, that I can do for you?”
I hesitated. “Would there be any chance of getting a job in the film as an extra?”
“Is that all? Done. I’ll write you a note for Henry Orsini. He’s in charge of the extras and getting the battle scenes organized. Oh, you’ll have to take a few days off school. Would you like me to call someone there to fix it?”
“Just Mr. Shamberg.”
I almost whooped.
I was going to be in the movies!
17
“YOU’RE WHAT?” DAD LOOKED up at the ceiling the way he always does when he wants you to think what he’s just heard is totally unbelievable.
“I’m in Funeral at Feng-t’ai,” I repeated.
“So what happened to the great job you had at The Ritz? Did you quit?”
“Not exactly.”
“Fired. I thought so.” This time Dad only gave the ceiling a cursory glance. “Did Aunt Phyllis put you up to this?”
“Now George,” Mom interjected, “Aunt Phyllis had nothing to do with it.”
“Nothing to do with what?” Aunt Phyllis had just come into the kitchen.
“Oh,” Mom said. “Harry got a part as an extra in the movie.”
“Oh my!” Aunt Phyllis exclaimed. “Another actor in the family!”
“Yeah,” Dad said, “just what we need. You know you could have been making good money on the assembly line at Luxottica, and maybe getting a future career for yourself. This movie thing will only be for a few days.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, George,” Mom said. “Don’t start harping on that again. Harry just isn’t interested in working at Luxottica. He has other interests. You’re just going to have to accept that.”
“If I’d known you were interested, Harry,” Aunt Phyllis interrupted, “I could have spoken to Robert on your behalf. But what about school?”
“I’m getting the time off as part of the work experience program, and it’s only for a few days.”
“Yeah, right,” Dad mumbled.
“There was a rumour going around the set today that Johnny Random won’t be starring in the film anymore, and he’s been replaced by Colin Jang. I didn’t get a chance to speak to Robert today, but if it’s true, he’ll be delighted.”
“He was,” I blurted. I couldn’t help myself.
“You spoke to him?” Aunt Phyllis looked startled.
“Um, briefly.” Now I wished I’d kept my mouth shut and hadn’t said anything about talking to Robert Rudsnicker. I didn’t want to explain the real reason for getting fired. Dad would only make it sound really dumb.
“So what got you the part?” Dad asked. “Your hairstyle?”
“No. You might say Robert Rudsnicker just knows how to spot a good actor when he sees one.” I grinned and winked at Aunt Phyllis, who grinned back.
“Well, it’s your funeral,” Dad said.
“No, it’s Funeral at Feng-t’ai,” Aunt Phyllis and I chorused together and laughed.
“Well, whosever funeral it is, it isn’t going to get supper ready,” Mom said. “Oh, you’d better set your alarm early, Harry, if you’re going to have to be at the film set early with Aunt Phyllis. I expect you can get a ride with her.”
I noticed a worried look cross Aunt Phyllis’s face and I thought I could guess the reason.
* * *
I was up and ready to go by 5 a.m. Aunt Phyllis came rushing up from the basement at the last minute.
“What’s the weather like?” she asked.
“I think it’s going to be a sunny day.”
“Oh good,” Aunt Phyllis said. “This will probably be the first day of real shooting. So far it’s been only practice. In a way, I’ll be glad when it’s over. I’m finding these early mornings rather tiring.”
When we got to the corner of Aspen Street, where I’d been told I’d be picked up by the Pocket Money Pictures mini-bus, Aunt Phyllis looked a bit uneasy. She looked at her watch. “The limousine is a little late this morning.”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew Aunt Phyllis didn’t get picked up in a limo. Celia had told me she rode the same mini-bus with Aunt Phyllis every morning. Celia got picked up a few blocks away with another group and the bus driver was actually going a few blocks out of the way to pick up Aunt Phyllis. Aunt Phyllis had been late once and the bus had to wait. She’d arrived at the last minute, out of breath, a few other times. Celia said the bus driver was a pretty decent guy and he had offered to pick up Aunt Phyllis outside our house, but it was Aunt Phyllis who’d suggested Aspen Street, a block away.
When I’d phoned Celia’s number last night to tell her the good news about being hired as an extra, I’d left it too late and her mom said she’d already gone to bed. It was going to be a real surprise when I boarded the bus.
The mini-bus rounded the corner.
“Oh dear, the limousine must have broken down,” Aunt Phyllis said.
I followed her onto the bus and the bus driver greeted her with a cheery smile. “Hi Ms. Papineau. You’re bright and early today.” Aunt Phyllis gave him a little smile, looked embarrassed, and hurried to find a seat.
“Hello young fella. You Harry?” The driver grinned. “Welcome aboard.”
“Thanks.”
Celia looked surprised and waved to me from a seat near the back. I was going to go and sit with her when I noticed Aunt Phyllis sitting by herself, staring out the window, and wiping away a tear.
I motioned to Celia I was going to sit with Aunt Phyllis and she smiled back at me.
I sat down as Aunt Phyllis brushed another tear from her lined cheek.
“Oh Harry, I’m just a foolish old lady. You knew all along that I didn’t ride in a limousine, and my part in the movie is really tiny. I only pretended I was more important because your father always makes me feel foolish. It’s silly, I know, but I do exaggerate. I always have. You must think I’m a compulsive liar. But I do know Robert Rudsnicker. That part is true. He did give me the part, even if it is small.” Aunt Phyllis looked crestfallen. “This will be my last acting job. I’ll retire after this. I’m just getting too old.”
“It’s okay, Aunt Phyllis,” I said. “I know you know Robert Rudsnicker. He’s grateful for what you did to help him with his stammer. He told me so himself.”
Aunt Phyllis’s face lit up. “He told you that?”
I nodded. “And don’t worry about Dad. He doesn’t really mean any harm. It’s just the way he is. He bugs me too. If you want to let Dad keep on thinking you’re picked up in a limo every day, your secret is safe with me. But I don’t think he’d really care. He wanted me to work at Luxottica Lighting. It’s the only job he’s ever had and he’s happy there, and he hoped I’d work there too. But
what I really want to do is get into acting, like you.”
Aunt Phyllis was smiling. “It isn’t easy, but it can be a wonderful life.”
“I think I’d like to go to acting school if I can get in after I finish at Crestwood.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful.” Aunt Phyllis beamed. “I’d love to have gone to acting school when I was young but we never had any money. I ran away from home to follow an acting life and my father never forgave me. I have a little money set aside now, and I’d be more than happy to help you after you finish school. It would make me very happy, in fact.” She squeezed my hand.
“Thanks, Aunt Phyllis.” I gave her a quick peck on the cheek and half expected a few hoots or catcalls from some of the people on the bus, but nobody said anything. If the bus had been filled with Crestwood kids, I’d have really heard about it, but the only one from Crestwood was Celia. I glanced back and smiled at her. Most of the others seemed to be catching up on their sleep.
The bus swung through the gates and coasted down the hill to a large parking lot out of sight of the set, and pulled up beside several other buses. We climbed off and Celia walked with me and Aunt Phyllis.
“Aunt Phyllis, I think you already know Celia, so I don’t really need to introduce you, right?”
“We’ve only just said hello a few times,” Celia said, “but I’ve heard a lot about you, Ms. Papineau, from Harry. He said you’ve had quite an acting career.”
Aunt Phyllis smiled and said, “Oh, I expect Harry was probably exaggerating. It runs in the family, you know.” Aunt Phyllis’s eyes were twinkling and I was grateful to Celia for saying just the right thing.
“I’m not working at The Ritz anymore.” I grinned at Celia. “I got hired as an extra and Mr. Shamberg okayed the whole thing. I’ll tell you about it later, but I’ve got to find Henry Orsini and find out what I’m supposed to do.”
“I expect the first thing he’ll do is send you to makeup,” Aunt Phyllis said. “You don’t look very Chinese to me. That’s where I’m headed. It’s that tent over there. And you’ll find Henry Orsini outside that green trailer, giving everyone their orders for the day.”
Celia looked pleased. “I’ll maybe see you at the lunch break and you can tell me all about how you got the job. Right now I’m off to make sure everything that’s supposed to be plugged in, is. Including the coffee pot.” Celia waved. “See you later.”
I found Henry Orsini where Aunt Phyllis said he would be. He was a tall, broad-shouldered guy with a drooping Mexican-style mustache and he was wearing an Australian bush hat. He was directing a group of Asian-looking guys to the costume tent as I approached.
“Crikey, mate! Who are you?” He gave me a broad grin as I handed him the note Robert Rudsnicker had given me.
He scanned it quickly. “Oh, Harry. Good on ya, mate. I’ve heard of you. I hear we can thank you for getting us a real actor for this film. It would have been a total flop otherwise. That Johnny Random was a real galah. So you want to be an extra. You don’t exactly match the part for a Chinese mob scene. And what happened to your hair? Well, never mind. Makeup can do wonders nowadays. Here. Sign this release form, and this, and you’ll get paid.”
I quickly signed the forms.
“Ya see that marquee over there.” Henry Orsini pointed. “Go in and tell them that Henry wants you to look like a young Chairman Mao.” He gave a hearty laugh. “They’ll fix you up. Then pick up a costume in that Quonset hut. I want all the extras up behind that hill over there,” he turned and pointed, “in a half an hour. Good luck. And as they say over here, have a nice day, mate.”
He turned to give instructions to someone else and I hurried to the large makeup tent he had called a marquee. Inside it seemed huge. Bright floodlights hung from a beam that ran along the inside of the peak of the roof, and along one wall a row of mirrors, each one surrounded by light bulbs, faced a row of chairs filled with actors getting made up. It was like a huge barber shop, only much more brightly lit.
“Can I help you?” A young, dark-haired guy in a smock approached me.
“I’m an extra for the mob scene. Henry Orsini wants me to look Chinese.”
He grinned. “Henry believes in miracles. But we’ll see what we can do. I’m Jack.” He showed me to a seat in front of one of the mirrors. The lights surrounding the mirror almost dazzled me.
Jack flung a smock over me and went to a table behind me to get something. I glanced down the length of the tent and was startled to see Aunt Phyllis. I didn’t recognize her at first. It was only the green slacks protruding from under her smock that gave her away. I was startled because Aunt Phyllis didn’t look like the Aunt Phyllis I knew anymore. She was now an aging dowager, like she’d said. Her hair was a huge jet-black wig done up in a bun, and her face looked decidedly Chinese. But it wasn’t just the makeup and wig. She was already into the role of the rich Chinese noblewoman, and she looked so aloof it gave me the impression everybody around her were merely there to attend her. I couldn’t believe the transformation. She really looked the part. There’s some hope for me, I thought.
Jack returned and started smearing brown makeup onto my face and up into where my hairline should have been. Then my jaw dropped open. In the mirror I saw Colin Jang walk behind me. He was about my height and size and was shorter than I’d thought when I’d seen him in the movies.
He grinned at me as he dropped into the chair beside me. “Hi kid. What’s your name?”
“Harry. Harry Flanagan,” I mumbled. Jack was smearing makeup around the corners of my mouth and I’m sure my words sounded distorted.
“I’m Colin Jang,” he said. “Are you part of my peasant mob?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, let’s make it a good one, Harry,” Colin Jang said, then closed his eyes and shut up when a girl started working on his face.
I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t have to say anything because Jack said, “Hold still now. Close your eyes and don’t talk.” He started doing something around my eyes with what felt like a soft, blunt pencil.
The next thing I felt was a wig being jammed onto my head, but before I could open my eyes, Jack said, “Keep your eyes closed please. I just have to add a bit more eyeliner.”
I couldn’t believe it when he finally allowed me to look at myself. It was unreal. Harry Flanagan had disappeared, and I was staring into the face of a real Chinese guy. The eyes, the skin colour, the jet-black hair — everything was perfect. A final bit of makeup on my hands, forearms, feet, and ankles completed the picture.
“Now try not to touch your face,” Jack said. “Costumes will set you up with the rest.”
Ten minutes later I was milling around with about five hundred similar-looking extras in a long, rocky gully behind the hill. Like most of the others, I was wearing a pair of ragged, somewhat short, baggy black pants and a pair of primitive-looking sandals. Now I understood the reason for the makeup on my feet and ankles. Quite a few of the crowd were wearing straw conical hats while others wore a kind of sweatband on their heads, or nothing at all. I’d been given a sweatband, which would help to hold on my wig.
I noticed several women in the crowd and a number of what appeared to be older people, and even a few younger kids. This was, of course, going to be a peasant uprising and not an organized army. For weapons we had an assortment of things. A few carried old muskets, a few more had old-looking swords, but most of us had long sticks, or wicked looking farm tools like sickles and forks. I’d been given one of the sticks.
I glanced at the guy beside me and grinned when I recognized Kin. He was dressed in the same kind of outfit that I had, except he was wearing a hat.
“Hello, Kin. You nearly had me fooled. For a minute there I thought you were really Chinese, but you couldn’t fool me,” I kidded. “I’d know a Vietnamese guy a mile away.”
He stared at me for a moment, then his face broke into a grin. “Harry! You look good. Like real human being now. You quit The Ritz?”
“Don’t worry, Harry. It was good training for this job. At The Ritz you fight with food, turning carrots, potatoes, melons. Here the only difference is we fight for food. I have to give you a new Chinese name now. Chan Mao. Hairy One.” He laughed.
“Okay everybody. Quiet!” Henry Orsini was standing on a huge rock above the gully, bellowing at us through a megaphone. “Now most of you went through this yesterday. Remember to spread out. You’re not a real army so you don’t have to march. You’ve walked a long way already. When you get to the top of the gully, hurry around behind the rocks and get back to the start of the gully as quickly as possible and start over. Remember, we want five hundred to look like two thousand. Where are the bullock carts? I want one of them at the head of the column and one about the middle. The bullock carts can only go through once or twice, so we need a few shots with them.”
A cart pulled by a couple of oxen and loaded with small barrels of gunpowder and a small cannon squelched past in the muddy gully. The wheels on the cart squealed like they needed oil as it took its place at the head of the column. I could see another one further back. Colin Jang appeared near the front and I saw a big boom camera loom up at the top of the gully. Robert Rudsnicker appeared on the rock beside Henry Orsini as Henry yelled “Ready!”
Someone ran to the front of the column with a clapper board and I heard the shout, “Action.”
My heart beat fast as I took what I hoped would be my first steps towards stardom. My film career had begun.
18
THE COLUMN WOUND ITS way up the gully and through the gap at the top. As soon as we reached the top, we raced around the side of the hill and entered the gully again at the other end. At the entrance, four or five people spaced us or combined us with other groups so that the column didn’t look exactly the same as we went through again. Some of those who were wearing the conical hats passed them to those who didn’t have one, and a few different-coloured sweatbands were added to bare-headed extras. Twice I ended up with a hat on my head.
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