Burn My Shadow

by Tyler Knight

  The machine rumbles and I’m leaning my back against it staring at the picture on the box when the cell phone vibrates in my pocket, breaking my trance.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, okay. I just spoke to Shylock and he says the scene is going to stay on for tomorrow.”

  “Same girl?”

  “Apparently.”

  The lady at the machine next to mine is pulling her items out so my hands dig into my laundry bag and pull out the shirt and the pants. I say, “Who is the girl, anyway?”

  “Don’t know, honey. All he would say is, ‘She’s new’…whatever that means.”

  We hang up and I text the driver telling him to ignore my last: the scene is still tomorrow, and as I send the text off the cell vibrates in my hands. My agent, again.

  “Okay, scratch that,” she says, “the scene is back on for today.”

  I sigh. “Cindy…”

  “I know, dear. Same call time and location. Can you make it?”

  I stuff the shirt and jeans back into the bag. “Yeah.”

  • • •

  I take the subway to the Valley, where my driver awaits me at my agent’s office. It usually takes a few moments for people to figure out where they’ve seen me before. It’s like watching the process of thought on a game show contestant’s face as they come up with the correct answer right as the buzzer goes off. The facial expressions are often my only warning to slip from “Erik” into “Tyler” mode. For this person, a weasel-faced man with a guitar slung over his shoulder, flash of recognition is instant.

  He says, “OH SHIT!” the micro-second he steps onboard and sees me.

  The other rush hour passengers on the subway car look over to see what the commotion is. The train doors snap shut behind him.

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! Y’ALL NIGGAS KNOW WHO THIS NIGGA IS UP IN THIS MOTHAFUCKA WIT US?”

  I place my finger to my lips in an attempt to shush him down. He gets the hint but gives me a surprised look, like: You’re on TV, what do you expect, nigga?

  “Tyler Knight!” He stands right in front of my seat. He smells like he took a bath in Colt 45. He says, “Me and my shorty was just watchin you get down on them hos in your Tyler’s Wood movie last night!” He smiles wide and his lips, framed by a goatee, look like flapping vulva with teeth. “Yo nigga, you got how that nigga, Tiger, be talkin’ down cold!”

  Many of the passengers have turned away, but a few of the nearby riders still burn holes into my face with their eyes. I think of ways to make myself small in my seat. Then I think of pressure point neck pinches like they do in the movies to knock him out.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He says, “That scene where you was all dressed up like a BITCH! What was that? A French maid, right? Yeah, nigga, you was DRESSED LIKE A BITCH!”

  He makes a fist to give me a pound, and in hopes of placating him I make a fist and bump knuckles with him. The train speeds under the Hollywood Hills. I want the train doors to open. I’d take my chances and jump out. “Tyler, you was dressed up like a whore maid from like, France n shit, wearing all that make-up? AND THEN YOUR ASSHOLE WAS HANGING THE FUCK OUT! And then. And then. And then-then-then, them FAT-ASSED PORNO HOs? They had the whips n shit? Nigga, that was some cold shit right there, nigga—”

  He laughs.

  “THEY BEAT YOUR MOTHERFUCKIN’ ASS! AND YOU WAS DRESSED LIKE A WOMAN!”

  A pair of wild-eyed surfer dudes with questions on their lips are pushing their way toward me through the crowded subway car.

  Pussy Mouth is still talking, “—WHADDAYA THINK THAT NIGGA, TIGER, AND THOSE STANK-ASS MISTRESSES THINK ABOUT YOU PLAYIN THEM IN THE POOOOOOOOOORNOOOOOOOOOOOS?”

  Over the PA system the conductor’s metallic voice says, “Next stop: Universal City.”

  My eyes dart up and down the train until they settle on a sign that says, “You never know, the person next to you on Metro could be an undercover cop!” and I mumble, “I’m the least of his problems.”

  Only a few people stand between me and the approaching surfer dudes, and this close, it’s clear there’s something off about them. The train slows down as one of them, pushing a passenger out of the way, opens his mouth to speak; the train door slaps open; I bolt off the train and up the stairs and go through the turnstile and up another flight of stairs and into the sizzling sun of the parking lot where I see my driver’s waiting car; I rip open the car door to the eardrum rupturing sound of techno, dive in, and slam the door shut.

  The driver accelerates, snapping my neck back, and my head thuds against the headrest and we’re out of the parking lot barreling down the freeway on-ramp picking up speed; he threads the needle between slower cars and merges onto the freeway. He uses The Force to weave a through-line past the slower traffic while he fucks with the stereo with one hand, and uses his “free” hand to pull up GPS on his iPhone, steering with his knees. In a Texan drawl, he says, “What’s with the on again, off again nonsense with VELVET?”

  He slows down and looks up from his cell phone and up to the road, and steers with a part of his body that’s actually above his waist. I relax my asshole by degrees.

  “The fuck if I know,” I say, still catching my breath from running up several flights of stairs, “New girl. Guessing they wanna shoot the movie before she has a vision of Jesus moment about making porn and disappears.” I say to the passenger side window, as an afterthought, “It smells like pussy in here.”

  “Yeah,” he says, almost irritated, as though I’m pointing out that water is wet, then, “Who’s the girl?”

  “Nobody’s telling me shit, dude.”

  We drive past the VELVET building. Its garish neon sign blares right across the freeway from the Universal Studios family theme park.

  “What if they call you while we’re on the way and cancel again?”

  I glance at my cell for any missed calls while I was underground and out of service range. None.

  “Fuck ’em. They can tell me in person.”

  • • •

  There are no luxury cars or grip trucks lining the driveway and street, no equipment-carrying crew members wandering back and forth from truck to house or any of the usual signs that scream “porn shoot location”, so the driver almost circles past the house. This home, situated at the back of the cul-de-sac on the top of one of the highest hills in one of the farthest points in The Valley, is unremarkable.

  Since there’s no way to be sure how long this will take, I tell the driver I’ll text him when I’m done. I watch him fly down the hill to his next pick-up. The engine buzzes as the car twists along the road that snakes along the hill below me. Doppler shift stretches the sound of the exhaust out to nothing. Silence replaces the buzzing, and tiny red dots flare up as he on occasion taps the brakes.

  My hand twists the front doorknob expecting it to yield as they always do so I can help myself inside. It doesn’t. Walking around the property reveals the curtains over all the windows are drawn shut, and the garage, door pulled down, is also locked. As I make my way back to the front door I pass my eyes over the neighborhood… No activity. I give the front door a gentle knock. I wait.

  • • •

  Another house, years ago, I entered and noticed a faint scent of jasmine and cinnamon in the air. I wandered around calling out for the director so I could fill out the paperwork, not finding him (or anyone else), then decided to look for a bathroom so I can clean up before the scene. The home’s interior was decorated with rococo furniture was incongruent with its mid-century-minimalist architecture. I followed the sound of a TV, which led me to the master bedroom…a Louis XV, four-poster bed with heavy velvet drapes dominated the room…a twentieth century television set with rabbit ears sat on a cart…paintings with serious-looking men in powdered wigs loomed from the walls, and an ottoman, with a copy of Reader’s Digest and a National Audubon Society pam
phlet resting on it, sat at the foot of the bed. There was a gilded writing desk with the roll-down top. Sitting on it was what looked to be the start of a handwritten letter (who still hand writes letters?) on personalized stationery…and three volumes of Collier’s Encyclopedias.

  The scent was stronger in the master bathroom. The bottle of Chanel No. 5 on the counter told me why. The lone towel, monogrammed, which hung on the rack, was still damp…As if it was just used. There were no fresh ones, so I couldn’t take a shower, so instead I snatched a clean washcloth, also monogrammed, dropped my pants, soaped the cloth in the sink and proceeded to clean the space between my scrotum and legs. Next, I lathered up my dick making sure to clean under the foreskin well, wringing the washcloth into the sink, and splashed fresh water over the cock to rinse it off when I noticed I could no longer hear the TV set. What I did hear were tentative footfalls on carpet, then—“Please! Don’t!”

  I spun around to face a woman with damp, thinning hair, clutching her monogrammed bathrobe shut with trembling liver-spotted hands. Her milky eyes dropped to my hanging penis, and my heart squeezed and released, squeezed and released, wringing out all its blood before sopping up more like the washcloth dripping in my hands, and visions of spending the rest of my life in a six-by-nine cell flashed. I mumbled something like, “sorry, wrong house”, as if that would explain everything when you discover some black guy washing his balls in your sink and leaving curly pubes and tan water in the basin. I pulled my pants up and brushed past her and out through the bedroom and into the foyer—the bedroom door slammed shut behind me—and I bolted out the front door and into the August humidity that stole my air like a punch to the gut between breaths, running across the lawn as my pulse screamed in my ears. Running. Monogrammed washcloth still in my hands.

  • • •

  The scraping sound of metal on metal rings out as a chain is undone and locks turn and tumble. I confirm the address on my handheld PDA. The door opens. Through its crack comes rock music, and I expect Shylock or a familiar face from the crew to greet me. Instead, a fresh-scrubbed woman with her hair pulled away from her face in a ponytail, wearing onion-skin running shorts and a T-shirt stares at me. Expressionless.

  “I, uh… Hi,” I say, “I’m looking for one-oh-eight Lemongrove Court?”

  She looks from me, to my laptop case slung over my shoulder, then back to me. She says, “This is it.” An involuntary exhalation of relief blows past my lips.

  She turns, leaving the door open, and swishes her hips into the home. She says, “Lock the door behind you.” Firm ass cheeks covered by flimsy fabric churn as she walks. I follow.

  Even though there’s music playing somewhere, out of habit I lower my voice to a whisper whenever I enter any shoot house. “I never ring doorbells in case cameras are rolling. Don’t want to ruin the shot.”

  She sighs. “Whatever. That’s the least of this production’s worries today.”

  We turn a corner. One song ends and fades into the next.

  “I’ll ask you to please observe the rules of my house while you are here. You’ll find them posted in the kitchen.”

  She leads me into the kitchen where she hands me off to Shylock and then disappears around a corner. A door slams.

  On the counter behind Shylock, the NBA finals play out on a muted TV. The announcer introduces the starting lineup. “Good to see you!” Shylock says. “Thanks a lot for being patient, dude.”

  Shylock reminds me of a young Donald Sutherland during his hippie phase. We shake hands.

  “No worries,” I say, “thanks for thinking of me.”

  He chuckles. “Oh, I didn’t. You were requested by female talent.”

  He hands me the paperwork and I hand him my IDs and HIV test. I say, “That’s cool. At least I know whomever I’m working with really wants to be here.”

  Shylock looks at me, and a smile flashes across his lips as if he remembers a funny punchline. When I finish with the forms I hand them back to him.

  He tosses the paperwork into a folder without giving them as much as a glance, and says, “Okay, so I’m the set’s designated ‘safety officer,’” he makes quotes with his fingers, “because Cal OSHA is on everybody’s asses from the HIV outbreak last year. Please note the hazardous waste bin—”

  He points across the kitchen the way an airline steward points to the emergency exits. There’s a red fifty-gallon garbage container with the word BIOHAZARD and the accompanying symbol stenciled on its side.

  “—and,” he continues his pitch in a mock gameshow host voice, “I’m supposed to show you a video on safety protocol—”

  “I’ve seen it, bro.”

  “Thank God.” He trots to the sliding glass door and gives a dramatic wave of the hand, and says, “And behind door number one…the girls.”

  The sliding door leads to the backyard. On the other side of the glass and off to the side are three bikini-clad women. They gyrate their hips in front of an infinity pool that seems to cascade off the grassy cliff and into the Valley below. Bass pumps, a camera flashes every now then, and women dance and change poses with looks of ecstasy on their faces. Except for the woman in the middle. Her lips are moving and she looks to be waving her pointer finger at something in front of her, as though she’s having a bad conversation with a pixie only she can see.

  They look familiar in the abstract. I say, “Who are they?”

  The woman in the middle plops on the ground, legs open, and swats at the air around her head while the other two continue vogue-ing for the pictures.

  “Those,” Shylock says, “are Tiger’s mistresses.”

  My gut sinks, like I’ve woken up just in time to feel myself rolling off the bed.

  “But. They’re…” Of all the questions swirling in my head I should have asked, I ask a stupid one. “I have to have sex with all of them?

  “Of course not, dude.” He points. “Just the one in the middle.”

  The woman in the middle pulls up clumps of grass.

  He slides open the glass door and the music is intermixed with a wailing car alarm from somewhere down the hill. “Come on, dude,” he says, “I’ll introduce you to them.”

  • • •

  I’m sitting on a stool clutching a wrinkled-to-hell call-sheet, still in the kitchen because I told Shylock I didn’t want to interrupt the stills for the box cover. The real reason is that I need time to work through my “Surprise, motherfucker!” moment, and I’m hoping Ashton Kutcher pops out of the red toxic waste bin with a camera in his hand, laughing his ass off, telling me, “This is all a joke! You just got Punk’d!” He doesn’t.

  How much do these women know about me satirizing them in my Tyler’s Wood movie/ Is that the reason I was requested? For revenge? Why didn’t VELVET just tell me upfront what the movie is about? If they did, would I have shown up?

  The photographer, Tom Tom, whom I’ve not seen in years, enters through the sliding door. We hug and talk, and this makes me feel better. We catch up, laughing about a time when Stan put a suction-cupped dildo on the trunk of his car, and Tom Tom drove along the freeway and all the way home with it flapping in the wind, only to discover it when he got home. I saw him on set the next week and said, “In five years it will be funny.” We hug again and he goes off into another room to set up the lights. On the TV, Pau Gasol drives to the basket, makes the shot, and draws a foul. The first mistress bounces into the room and stops at my side, close enough to feel heat radiating off her body and onto my arm. Because I’m seated, her tits hang eye-level at my profile and I have to crane my neck upward to see her face.

  She says, “Hiiiiii!” and tells me her name.

  I’m doing my best to match the name against the women I’ve satirized in my porn parody Tyler’s Wood. I look up into her smiling face. If she’s one of the women I’ve lampooned, it doesn’t seem to be bothering her.

  “Tyl
er.”

  “Pleased to meet you!”

  She offers her hand and we shake, then she just stands there. Smiling.

  Silence.

  She smiles. I smile. Seeing me smile, she smiles even harder.

  Outmatched, I break her stare and let my gaze drift down until my eyes snag on some Asian characters inked onto her skin. Capitulating to the pressure of the silence, I say, “Wow, uh, nice ink. What does it mean?”

  “Loyalty!!” she says down to the top of my head. “I’m loyal to a fault, which has always been my problem because I put other people before me like that asshole, you know who, but that dickhead stopped returning my texts after all the time we shared together—can you believe that? I mean, I’m super loyal. I’m not the kind of girl to go kiss and tell—”

  “Uh huh…”

  “—and yes I really used my real name with the media because I’m really a real person and I have nothing to be ashamed of because why should I be—”

  I feel like I’ve run up ten flights of stairs breathing through a snorkel. I look up at the woman and her eyes are half-lidded and transfixed in rapture as she details her relationship with Tiger and I realize she’s not looking at me. She’s looking through me.

  “Boy!” I slap my palms on my thighs. “I sure am thirsty! I’m gonna grab a Red Bull from the ice chest, can I get you a drink?”

  She takes a breath, then says, “Oooh, that’s so sweet. No thank you! But you know you could never buy me a drink in public because people will say we’re dating—”

  I escape across the kitchen and at the sliding glass door I’m intercepted by a woman whose mottled hair dye job resembles the coat of a German Shepherd. The Woman in the Middle. I can’t get out. She can’t get inside. Our eyes lock, and it occurs to me she’s not trying to get inside—she timed it so we’d meet face to face at the doorway.

  She says, “Our sex scene is going to suck.”

  “Wow,” I say, “that’s just swell.”

  “I am not looking forward to having sex with you. Not at all.”

  I attempt to maneuver around her. She mirrors me, blocking my path.