Carter's Big Break

by Brent Crawford

  C. B. seems impressed by how prepared I am. He refers to my “raw talent” a few times, but I know that if I’d relied solely on that raw talent he would have thought he cast a retarded kid in his movie. We go over the crying scene a few times, but it doesn’t go very well. I did so well at the audition, but I can’t seem to get as angry or sad or disappointed or whatever it was I was feeling that day. He tells me not to sweat it, but I can tell he’s starting to worry, and that makes me even more nervous. The script says it plain as day, “Chris breaks down. Maggie sobs.”

  After rehearsal one day, McDougle tells me I’m doing a really good job. It was supposed to be a compliment, but she said it with such surprise that I couldn’t help but get a bit offended. And then, out of the blue, C. B. suggests that I start taking cold showers.

  I ask him, “Have I been gawking? Do I need to raise my gaze?”

  He laughs. “No, you’re doing pretty good with that. The cold showers will help you get into the character, I think. See, I had to use that rusty pump in the basement, even in the winter. It’ll make you appreciate hot water and the other blessings in your life like nothing else.”

  (I try it that night, and he’s right, it sucks . . . and it really does help with horniness, too.) * * *

  During our extra week of rehearsal, I’ve had to make some adjustments to my “preparation.” I’ve stopped running from the police, because a cop turned on his lights when I ran from him the other day, and I had to hide out in a Dumpster for twenty minutes. It was good research but I almost puked. It’s bad to mix raw fear and rancid food.

  The coolest thing to come from the rehearsals is that Hilary and I are really becoming friends. We’ve done Pilates again, and she introduced me to yoga and transcendental meditation. (It’s really relaxing but almost more difficult than the physical working out, because most of the time I try so hard not to space out that’s it’s tough for me to do it on purpose.) We hang out at the mansion and watch the construction. They seem like they know what they’re doing (most of the time). We eat take-out food and take long walks and talk about our characters. Matilda is never far away, and people will look at Hilary sometimes, but she doesn’t acknowledge them, so they must think, No way. Why would Hilary Idaho be walking down the street in Merrian?

  We tour my school and I show her all around. She’s running up and down the halls like it’s an amusement park and not a ratty old public high school. She wants to see my locker and all of the classrooms. She’s bummed that the cafeteria isn’t open for business, but I assure her that she is mistaken. “Just take your shoe off and try to eat it. That’s about what the food is like.”

  I’m showing her the drama department on our way out to the parking lot. We cruise through the auditorium and I tell her about Guys and Dolls and how C. B. read to us from the book Down Gets Out in here.

  She hops onto the stage and says, “Oh my God, that must have been so great for you guys!”

  I nod that it was, but I’ve worked with Hilary just long enough to know when she’s “acting,” and she’s not that impressed with Guys and Dolls or book readings. I don’t see any reason to lie about it, though. I also don’t see a need to call her on her BS, so we keep moving into the drama classroom. I was worried (hoping) that we would run into Abby and her College Carter Dumbass, but I guess the drama camp is on a field trip or something.

  Matilda seems more comfortable the longer I’m around, and Hilary gets really upset when I try to leave. I know that there is no way that Hilary Idaho is into me, but if anyone else held my hand and kissed me on the cheeks and hugged me all the time the way she does . . . I’d have to think that they were very into me. Lynn was steaming clothes the other day and was watching Hilary and me goofing around. Hilary was flirting, saying how we need to rehearse the make-out scene, and getting really close to my face. Hilary was laughing, but I could see the wheels spinning inside my sister’s head. She was trying to figure out what was going on; I don’t think she came to any conclusions before she steamed her hand by accident and started screaming.

  I haven’t tried to sleep at the mansion again (because of the construction, not because I’m scared). But I have slept at the President Hotel a few times . . . in the living room area on the floor, of course. I pretend I’m stealing from the continental breakfast buffet. Hilary and her mom wake me up every morning by shouting at each other. It turns out I’m a light sleeper when I don’t get to sleep on a bed. Her mom will usually yell, “You can’t fire me, I’m your mother!” It really makes me appreciate the fact that my parents don’t rely on me for their paychecks. My folks would be dead meat, and they would have fired me a long time ago.

  I decide to sleep in my own bed the night before shooting starts, but I’m regretting it by dinnertime. I know that my family just wants to help me, and since I’ve been such a dumbass my whole life, they feel like they have to. But they’re starting to piss me off. All they want to talk about is the movie, and I’m sick of it. I made the mistake of allowing them to help me work on the lines once, and they loved it so much that they want to rehearse all the time. I tell them to “give it a rest,” but they still keep talking about the movie.

  Mom wants Dad to wake up at five a.m. to drive me to the set, but I tell them that riding my bike will help me wake up and keep me from being too nervous. It will also seem cool to be the star of a movie and roll up on a Redline. She yells at me for wearing my ratty old Nikes when I have newer pairs, so I have to explain how Marlon Brando would change out of his character’s costume but wouldn’t take off the shoes, to stay connected to the character at all times.

  She tells me, “I can smell them from across the room!” and we decide that Brando wouldn’t object to a few shots of Febreze.

  My dad wants to know why I keep rubbing my back all the time, and so I have to explain why I sleep on the floor now, and how Daniel Day-Lewis locked himself in a prison cell for months to get ready for a role. Dad doesn’t understand how that would help an actor say his lines better, and I don’t know how it’s going to help either, but I’m doing it and I’m sick of TALKING ABOUT IT!

  They beg me for one more rehearsal, and I don’t have the heart to tell them no. We go over a few scenes in the living room, but my character is supposed to be pretty miserable, and they’re laughing and carrying on like all of this work is sooo much fun. My dad is correcting me on the little details of the lines, and I’m not even supposed to have them memorized. My sister is reading Maggie’s part, but she’s doing an impression of Hilary when she does it and flipping her hair around. She’s supposed to say this line, “Oh my God!” all serious when she sees that I got beaten up and thrown into a Dumpster, but my sister makes it all melodramatic and puts on a valley-girl accent, “Ohhh myyy GOD!”

  I yell at them, “That’s it, we’re done! You people suck! In the future, if I want your help, I will ask for it!”

  I’m down in the basement going over the crying scene again. I’m not sad but I’m so frustrated that I feel like I could burst into tears at any moment, but when I actually try to use it . . . nothing! We don’t shoot this thing for a few weeks, but it’s stressing me. What if I can’t cry? What if C. B. calls “action” and I just scrunch up my face and go, “Boo, hoo!” He’ll kick the crap out of me for wrecking his film. Sport Coat Phil will probably sue my family for “failure to weep.”

  If I just keep looking at it, it’ll come to me. I’ll magically figure out what to do if I concentrate hard enough and focus on something sad. I’m taking deep breaths and saying the lines out loud, but I’m thinking about my grandma’s funeral and how sad my mom was that day. Grandma was old, but Mom seemed really surprised when she finally kicked. I’m sure my mom was thinking about old times, like when her mom made her prom dress or baked her cakes. I seem to remember her getting really pissed off at Grandma all the time and yelling at her for buying Lynn and me toys or trying to clean our house when Mom was at work. Maybe she was feeling regret for not being nicer. Maybe she yelled a
t her mom the day before she bit it. Eventually this line of thinking leads me to consider that my mom will die someday. And how she won’t always be around to nag me. For some reason, that is a very sad thought. I look around the basement and think about a time when I’ll have to come down here and clean all this crap out. This is where we store all the junk that’s no longer fit to show people. The plastic Christmas tree lives down here under the shelves of old books. Lynn’s and my framed artwork is all over the place. It used to be cute for people to look at when we were little, but started to get a little pathetic in the past few years. Somebody might get the idea that I’d just done one of these finger paintings and think, Something is goofed up with that Carter boy. I chuckle to myself, but soon find warm tears streaming down my cheeks. I reach for the script while looking at the box of stuffed animals that will wind up in a Dumpster someday. . . . Oh, Snoopy! I try to say a few of the lines, but it’s hard for me to talk. I’m so sad. Tinky-Winky! Old friend! Just as I start to pull myself together and find the balance between blubbering and talking, the basement door flies open and my sister bounds down the stairs to yell at me.

  “Why are you being such a dick to Mom and Dad?!”

  I draw the script over my head and slam it down on an old chest. Dust flies into the air as I scream, “UUAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! Damn it!” The pages scatter.

  She looks totally shocked by my reaction, so I clarify. “I’m trying to do something down here!”

  She asks, “What’s your problem?”

  “I’m trying to concentrate and get into character. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m under a lot of pressure, and you people will not leave me alone! Get off my nuts!”

  She crosses her arms and glares at me. She knows that bitchiness runs in our family, but she’s never seen it in me before. She’s not sure if she wants to push her agenda or start cheering.

  She simply, pathetically says, “We’re just trying to help.”

  “So please do, and leave me alone!”

  In shock, she turns and walks back upstairs.

  God, these people! I can’t find the sadness again, but anger is ready to roll whenever I need to tap into it.

  14. ACTION!

  It’s technically morning when I take a fast freezing-cold shower and ride out of the driveway at five fifteen a.m. I guess nobody told the sun I was getting up this early. It’s still pitch-black when I take the shortcut behind Pizza Barn, and I decide not to take the jump. I wish I’d been able to sleep more, but I was just too fired up. This is probably why actors get into drugs. One pill to sleep, one to wake up, one to unwind, one to laugh, one to cry, and then you die on the toilet when you’re thirty. If they have any Cokes on the set, I’ll probably slam one. Caffeine was probably Heath Ledger’s gateway, too.

  The world is orange when I roll up to the set . . . fifteen minutes early! The mansion is surrounded by trucks and RVs. The house isn’t nearly as scary with all of these people bustling around. The crew guys are setting up lights and running wires into the basement as if they don’t mind monsters or rats. I ride up and give a nod to the guy I stole the sandwich from. He’s plugging cables into a generator and doesn’t return the nod, so I just keep looking for the Cokes.

  I’m warming up my voice and stretching, because that’s what actors do, when a Merrian cop car pulls into the gravel driveway. I recognize the guy from the D.A.R.E. program at my school, but I’m already so into character that I take off running. The cop must be perplexed as to why I did that, because he grabs his billy club and hops out of the car.

  In a deep cop voice he yells, “HEY!!!” and the entire crew stops what they’re doing, except me. I just keep running.

  After ducking behind the production trailer, I’m able to calm down for a second and ask myself, “What the hell are you doing, you dumbass?”

  The cop is jogging toward me when I step out from behind the RV, throw my hands up, and say, “Sorry about that, dude, I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m just trying to get into—”

  He interrupts. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  I smile with pride and reply, “Well, I-I-I’m starrin’ in this movie.”

  He puts his club in its holster and laughs. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Really?” I ask. (I’ve read the script a hundred times— could I have missed a cop character?)

  “Yeah, I’m playing the police officer.”

  “Huh? I didn’t even realize—”

  He interrupts me again. “My first line is: ‘This is a closed set, boy.’ And then I say, ‘Get the hell out of here!’”

  “Man, I just don’t remember—”

  He barks, “Beat it, before I cuff and stuff your ass!”

  Being a movie star doesn’t give you as much clout as I’d hoped. “I-I-I’m the star of this movie . . . seriously.”

  “Sure ya are,” he says, marching toward me. “Two choices! Go home, or go to jail.”

  I back away from him and stutter, “D-Dude, dude . . . okay, I’m not technically the star, but I’ve got a lot of lines!”

  He grabs my shirt and asks, “So we’re gonna have to do this the hard way?”

  “I guess we are, ’cause I’m not—”

  I’m on my face before I can finish the statement. Grass is up my nose as the cold steel cuffs lock my wrists together. All of these crew bastards are just watching the show, like they’ve worked with Robert Downey Jr. too many times and it’s natural to see their lead actor getting arrested on the first day of shooting.

  Thank God, the Ferrari roars onto the set as I’m being stuffed into the back of the squad car. C. B. jumps out with his sunglasses on and cell phone pressed to his ear. He yells, “Sorry I’m late, guys!”

  Son of a bitch! He didn’t even notice me.

  “C. B.!!!” I yell.

  The cop responds, “Shut it, kid!”

  “Ceee-Beee!!!” I yell as the door slams in my face.

  Finally he turns and lowers his shades before asking, “Carter?”

  “YEAH!!!” I shout at the thick glass.

  I barely hear the cop ask, “You know this kid, Mr. Down?”

  “Yeah, he’s the lead actor in our movie. . . . What did he do?”

  I’m out of the car and the cuffs are off of me in an instant as the cop responds, “Nothing, I guess. He was just lippin’ off and took off running when I drove up. . . . It’s not the first time either. He’s ridden away from me a few times this week, like he’s up to something.”

  C. B. smiles like a proud parent and explains, “Yeah, we think he’s the next Daniel Day-Lewis.”

  The cop smiles and slyly adds, “Yeah, or Sean Penn.”

  Sport Coat Phil and his assistant walk up and yell at me to start getting ready. C. B. throws his arm around my shoulder and says, “Come on, ya menace, let’s get you into hair and makeup.”

  We step up into the beauty shop on wheels, and he introduces me to all the ladies who casually watched me getting “cuffed and stuffed” a few minutes ago. They toss their issues of US Weekly, People, and Star magazines on the counter and fawn all over me. I’ve gone from the scum of the earth to the most important guy on the planet because I walked in with the right person. This is the clout I was looking for!

  As they hose me down and make me up, C. B. explains, “We were going to start with interior shots. But I’ve heard Hilary is going to be running late . . . every day, so we might try to sneak in the scene where you break into the house for the first time. You wanna smash out a window?”

  “Hell, yeah,” I reply, and C. B. walks out of the trailer to get set up.

  A lady hands me an US Weekly and starts to wash all the “notes to self ” off my arms. I start to yell, “I NEED THOSE!!!” but hold it in. I’m not retarded. I know all my lines, and I even made it here early today. The scribbles may be like Dumbo’s lucky feather, and it’s time to let them go.

  They put anti-gel in my hair to make it look unwashed, and touch up my bruises with brushes and sponges. I
n the movie my character keeps getting into fights, so the wounds from my bike wreck work perfectly for some scenes, but not others.

  The makeup lady explains why she’s making me cry.

  “We’ve got to make your injuries look the same every day.”

  I’m guessing that this chick has read some of those acting books that say, “You must suffer for your craft!” because she’s poking at my wounds with a sharp pencil. I’m trying not to move, but my nervous system has a mind of its own, and it keeps dodging the blows.

  “Hold still!” she demands.

  “Sorry . . . th-th-those are actual cuts and bruises, you know?”

  She sighs without compassion, because C. B. is gone, and says, “Quit being a bitch,” like one of my boys.

  That’s not cool, we just met! I take the pain for six hundred and twelve more seconds by focusing on the latest Hollywood gossip and accidentally ripping out all the pages of US Weekly. Tears are shooting out of my eyes when she rips a scab off of my ear, then decides that she liked it better before and starts to draw it back on. I spring from the chair and bark, “You gotta be kiddin’ me!?”

  She looks pissed, but motions that I’m free to go.

  I’m sitting on a tree stump, trying to get back into character and regain the feeling in my face, when Phil walks up and puts on a plastic smile. “Hey, buddy!”

  I nod. “S’up?”

  “You ready to shoot your first scene in a Hollywood movie?”

  “Hollywood? I thought this was a Merrian film.” He doesn’t laugh, so I say, “Sorry, yeah, you want me to break a window?”

  He awkwardly tries to give me a high five and says, “You got it! You’re a step ahead of me already. You’re just going to walk up to that basement door, look around to see if the coast is clear, and then smash out the glass with a rock. Then you unlock the door and walk inside . . . Piece of cake, pal!”