I may be wrong about needing those “notes to self” and not being retarded, because this guy is positively talking to a retarded person . . . and he’s addressing his comments to me.
I’m trying to think of something smart to say, but nothing is coming. C. B. asks for me to come over to where he has the camera set up, and yells at Phil, “Quit talking to the actors!”
The sun has finally come up, but they have the old cellar door lit anyway. The crew guy, whose sandwich I ate, gives me a nod as he adjusts a light. I nod back.
C. B. looks up from his camera and tells the guy, “You’re in frame,” and he moves his light again. Then C. B. asks me, “You ready to try one?”
I nod and smile, but I can’t speak and my hands are shaking all the sudden. He takes my response to mean that I am not ready to try one, so he says, “That’s fine, bro. We’re just keepin’ it loose. It’s okay to be nervous. Let’s just rehearse one for camera. You know what you’re doing?”
I violently nod that I do, so he announces, “Okay, just a walk-through, people! Half speed. Carter’s going to pantomime the motion with the rock and the entrance to the house. This is MOS, camera ready, and—”
I yell, “Wait . . . I’m sorry. What am I doing with the rock? And I don’t know what MOS is!”
I see Phil shake his head out the corner of my eye. C. B. responds, “MOS just means we’re not recording sound, so nobody has to be quiet. And you’re just showing us what you’re going to do with the rock.”
I softly try to clarify, “Throw it, right?”
He doesn’t hear me, and yells, “Rehearsal’s up! Ready? And Carter . . . ACTION!”
I bust out laughing. Dang it! I’ve heard movie director’s yell “ACTION” a million times on TV and stuff, but it’s never been directed at me. C. B. looks up from his camera, annoyed. He shows me his knuckle tattoos and grunts, “Stay focused.” I jump up and down and shake my head around, trying to pull myself together before reaching down and opening the cellar doors. I think about how hard it is to live on the streets, totally exposed to the elements, and how much better life would be if I could get inside that basement. Yeah, I’m feeling it! I look around before pulling the biggest, heaviest piece of concrete out of the crumbling wall. I draw it behind my head like a soccer ball and heave it with an “Uhhh!” CRASH!!! The glass smashes into a million pieces. I’m not sure if they want me to go into the basement or not, so I look back at C. B. to see. It seems like something is wrong. He and the rest of the crew look shocked.
Phil yells at me, “Idiot! You broke the damn window!”
I ask, “Huh?”
C. B. jumps up from the camera and barks, “Shut up, Phil!”
He retorts, “The kid obviously has no experience. . . . We’re dead meat. The studio is going to pull the plug!”
C. B. pushes Phil backward, and seethes, “If you break my actor’s confidence, I’ll kill you! Got it?”
I look at the crew guy and whisper, “Wasn’t I supposed to break the glass?”
He replies, “Yeah, but we were just rehearsing, so you were just supposed to pantomime.”
“Ohhh, pantomime!” I cringe.
He explains, “We have three other windows, so don’t sweat it. Producers are just bitches about money.” He points a gloved finger to the lights, and explains, “A movie set like this breaks down to roughly a thousand dollars a minute. It’ll take us about twenty to replace the window, so you just cost him twenty grand, is all.”
Dang it. As they clean up my expensive mistake, C. B. comes over and tells me that I did a great job and not to listen to Phil and not to look at the camera next time. He sets up his shot and then comes back over to give me a pep talk. “You want inside that house, man. You’re on the run, you’re desperate and hungry. This house is going to save you. Everything you’ve ever wanted and need is in there. Can you imagine that?”
I nod that I can, so he calmly says, “Okay, let’s roll this one. Camera ready . . . Speed?”
A big guy with headphones on yells back, “Speeding!”
I don’t stop to ask what that means, because C. B. says, “Carter . . . action when you’re ready.”
I don’t laugh this time and I’m not ready, so I jump up and down a few more times and think about what I want more than anything. What is this perfect thing that’s going to make my life complete, the ideal that’s just on the other side of that door? I think about Ferraris . . . Playboy centerfolds . . . armored trucks filled with money . . . and then, for some reason (ADD), my mind drifts to an image of Abby inside that basement. She’s wearing roller skates, and she’s laughing at me.
I hear Phil mutter, “For the love of God,” as I fling the cellar doors open and descend the stairs to look through the new glass on the old door. Inside, I can still see broken shards on the floor. With all the lights behind me I can also see myself in the reflection and the fear in my eyes, and I can hear Abby’s laughter ringing in my ears. She thinks I’ll screw this up, just like I did the dress rehearsal. . . . Everybody thinks I will. I may be looking into the eyes of the only person who thinks I won’t. I look back to the yard and pick up my rock. I take a deep breath and close my eyes to channel the anger. I reach it back and yell, “Shut UP!” before throwing the rock with all of my might. I hear a loud CRUNCH instead of the CRASH I was expecting. The rock misses the glass and smashes into the wooden part of the old door, splintering it into a thousand pieces and knocking it completely off its frame. Dang it. It’s still hanging by the top hinge, so I finish it off with a kick and walk over it as I step inside the basement. Then I dumbly pick it up and try to push it back into the opening . . . like nobody is going to notice this bazillion-dollar screwup! “No problem, people. Carter’s fixed it!” I step to the side of the door and softly beat my head against the stone wall.
I hear C. B. yell, “CUT!” and wonder what the record is for how fast an actor was fired off of a movie.
The first face I see is that of the pissed-off crew guy when he lifts the door out of his way and stomps into the basement to assess the damages. His expression suggests that this is a bigger goof up than eating his lunch, and although they had a couple more pieces of glass for me to break, they don’t have any more door frames.
Everyone is staring at me as I walk up the steps toward the camera. Phil is holding his head in his hands, but C. B. is smiling at me like I just gave him a puppy. He exclaims, “What’d I tell you about this kid’s instincts?! Marlon friggin’ Brando! Brilliant! If he breaks the glass, someone would notice, and it would let the cold air in during the winter! So he takes out the frame and puts it back! I wish I’d thought of it. Check the gate! That was perfect!”
Man, I want this guy around all the time to spin my screwups into “brilliant, perfect instincts.” I guess we’re done with that shot because an assistant takes me to an RV and tells me to hang out until they need me again. The door shuts and I immediately collapse to the floor. Oh my God, this is sooo STRESSFUL!!!
15. WINO
I’m not sure how long I was asleep when Hilary knocks on the door. In a fog, I open it and she walks in with a bathrobe on and curlers in her hair.
“Hey,” I say.
“Good morning,” she says, walking into the kitchen area and pulling a Diet Coke out of a mini-fridge. “Sorry I’m late.”
It’s my first day of filming the lead part in a movie. I’m alone in a trailer with an international superstar wearing a skimpy robe, and all I can think to say is, “Whoa, we have Cokes!”
She slides up onto the countertop and tells me that her mom got bored and went back to L.A. last night. She says that she’s glad she left, but I can tell she’s bummed.
I awkwardly ask, “Merrian was too much for her, huh?”
She looks out the window and sighs, “If I didn’t have to be stuck here, I guess I’d leave too.”
She’s fidgeting and doesn’t seem right this morning, so I ask, “You okay?”
She tells me that she’s ju
st amped up because she’s nervous. She really wants to do a good job on the scenes today and prove to the world that she’s a serious actress. Like me, she wants C. B. to see how great she can be.
I tell her what my mom told me as I was rolling out this morning: “You just have to relax and be yourself. Everybody loves you. You’re special, and you’re gonna be great!”
She shakes her hands around frantically, and angrily says, “Well, I’m trying!”
Mom also told me to take a deep breath, so I give her that one too. She does, but I can see her chest trembling as she inhales. I got a hug as well, so I pull Hilary off the counter and give her a good squeeze. I rock her back and forth a few times until she starts laughing, and I say, “Better? Good.”
She looks up at me with a smile, and we get a bit more serious. I may not be a Cassanova playa but I know a green light when I see it. Intellectually, I know that there is no way that this chick should be into me, but I know that look and she wants to kiss me! So I whisper, “You wanna work on the make-out scene?”
She leans in closer, closes her eyes and sighs, “Sure,” but just as our lips are about to meet, I catch a whiff of her breath. The “Sure” puffs out like a cloud, and it stinks . . . like alcohol.
My head automatically tilts back. Dang it, has she been drinking . . . at nine a.m.? I should be really turned on right now. This a very sexy situation, but I’m totally upset. I don’t want to flip out or seem like a choirboy, but I do not want to kiss her either. She seems aware of my stiffness and probably wonders why I’ve left her hanging.
She asks, “What’s wrong?”
I smell it again and I try not to make a face. I could be wrong, and I don’t want to accuse her of anything, so I say, “I-I-I’m just not sure if we should, you know? It’s the first time our characters kiss. It might be better to save this moment for the camera.”
She nods as her mind races. She looks angry but then decides not to be. She kind of slurs, “Sure, sure, sure. You are sooo right, Carter!” and kisses me on the cheek.
I reply, “I-I-I’m all about character!” as the door to the trailer flies open.
Matilda’s head bursts in just as Hilary’s lips are pulling away from my face. The trailer shakes as Matilda steps up and pushes me away from her client. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes!”
As Hilary’s being dragged out the door, she shoots me an embarrassed smile.
I tell her, “Don’t worry about it, my mom might fly through that door any minute and bust me for having soda this early.” The door slams and I try to laugh it off, but I need to sit down. I feel sick. Why would anyone get up in the morning and have a cocktail, especially Hilary Idaho? My boys have started drinking at parties, but I don’t think they hop out of bed and crack a beer. And this feels worse to me because Hilary has been to rehab. So she’s made a real effort to not use drugs or alcohol. I wonder if I should tell someone? Do they already know and not care? Her mom is out of the picture, and C. B. and Phil would flip out from the additional pressure, and Matilda would pull the plug on the whole movie. Am I looking out for Hilary or am I being selfish? Am I just using her like everyone else? I really want to talk to Abby.
Of course, when I step outside, she’s standing about fifty feet away from my trailer, and I immediately lock eyes with her. She’s standing next to the lighting guys, who are rushing around getting ready for Hilary’s and my first scenes. I’m so surprised and happy to see her that I forget about Hilary for a second and wave to her like a total idiot. “Abby! Hey!” If you can’t be cool when you’re starring in a movie, when can you? She only gives me a nod because the camera guy is holding a tape measure to her chin. He’s trying to figure out his focus, and she’s trying to ignore me and do her job. She’s all lit up beside the broken basement door. She looks so professional and sooo hot!
Hilary bounds out of her trailer a few minutes later, and she seems much better. She asks me, “Are you ready to shoot?”
I look at her suspiciously because she seems to have a lot more energy. She leans in to ask, “Are you okay?”
Her breath wafts into my nostrils after her “okay” and it smells like freshly added Listerine. I start acting a few minutes before the cameras roll by smiling and saying, “I’m great, let’s do it!”
She grabs my hand and tells me not to be nervous. Abby pretends that she doesn’t notice who I’m holding hands with.
Our first scenes go pretty well. It’s after I’ve broken into the house and she’s watched me crawling under the fence. She follows me inside the basement. They do a bunch of shots of us almost running into each other and me hearing a noise, and then we scare the crap out of each other in the doorway to the basement. We do some walking shots, and that’s not as easy as it looks! I had decided that when I tell her what happened to my parents, I wanted to try to cry a little bit, but C. B. can see what I’m doing and he knows it’s forced. He yells “CUT!” and looks up from the camera before he seethes, “Keep it real.”
I try to forget about Hilary’s breath, and I’m so glad we’ve been able to hang out like we have, because the characters are supposed to be friends. I’m still able to joke around with her, and I think it adds a layer to our friendship, now that I know how truly screwed up she is.
C. B. was right about doing the scenes a million times. It takes all day to shoot a little nothing-type scene. They shoot us from every angle you can think of. The crew guys tweak things a thousand times before they decide it’s right. They recheck their light meters and raise their gel stands a half an inch and lower them a sixteenth; they play with the microphones and boom poles every chance they get. You’d think that shadows or camera angles had the ability to make or break a movie, the way everyone worries about them. I think they’re all just trying to look busy. I do stuff like that a lot, so I can spot it. If you’re talking loud and hustling all over the place, who would dare accuse you of being a slacker?
At about six thirty p.m., Matilda tells Phil’s assistant to tell Phil to tell C. B. that Hilary has worked for eight hours and fifty-five minutes, and if they go ten minutes longer, she’ll call the starlet’s union and they’ll slap them with a child labor suit that will shut the movie down. We’re just about to shoot our first scene inside the house. It takes place during a thunderstorm, and the guys have just figured out how much rain to shoot onto the windows and how much lightning they can flash without it looking fake, but C. B. has to wrap for the day, and he’s pissed. I should point out that I started three hours before Hilary, and I’m actually younger, but it doesn’t seem like anyone would care, so I don’t.
I wash off my makeup bruises to let the real ones breathe. I remove my costume Levi’s and T-shirt to put on my own for the ride home. I’m just hopping on my bike when I see Abby walking out of one of the RVs. I really want to talk to her about Hilary’s booze breath this morning and what she thinks I should do, but since we haven’t hung out in such a long time, I don’t think I should just bombard her with my issues, so I hit her with a warm-up question. “Uh, how are you doing?”
She doesn’t stop to talk to me, though. She just keeps walking, and mutters, “I’m fine.”
I reply, “Great, great, so standing is okay. . . . Being a stand-in is going good, then?”
She’s directly in front of Hilary’s trailer when she stops and turns toward me (questions are so awesome). Unfortunately, Matilda is guarding the door and listening to our every word, so I’ll have to move this conversation if I’m going to get into the Hilary situation.
But all Abby’s able to say is, “Yeah, it’s not too—” before Hilary flies out of the RV and interrupts our first chat in weeks by yelling, “Carter!”
We both turn to see Hilary bounding out of the trailer, followed closely by Sport Coat Phil. Hilary gives me a couple winks before she asks, “Where are we having dinner again?”
I look at Abby, who raises her eyebrows. Ms. McDougle’s first rule of impov is, “Never deny.” So no matter what the ot
her actor gives you, you just have to roll with it. I’m pretty good at improv, so I calmly tell her, “Uh, weee . . . are going to eat at . . . my house?”
She smiles and says, “Perfect, I’d forgotten.” Then she jumps on my pegs like we weren’t pretending. Did I invite her to dinner and space it? I’ve never asked anyone to “have dinner,” so I doubt I’d forget. She theatrically yells to Phil and Matilda, “Yeah, so, I’m going to eat with Carter’s family, for research!”
Phil gives me a suspicious look, along with Matilda and Abby. How is this my fault . . . whatever this is?
Hilary smiles at Abby, then asks me, “Will your friend be joining us?”
I reply, “Uhhh—”
But Abby interrupts. “No.”
“Have you guys not met?” I ask. “Hilary this is my— uh, Abby.”
Pretty bitchily and almost in unison, they reply, “We’ve met.”
Abby looks slightly wounded when she says, “I’ll just see you guys tomorrow. . . . Have a good dinner,” and then walks down the driveway.
I watch her go and wait for the Escalade to fire up before rolling out. I guess I don’t really need Abby’s help. I make a right turn out of the driveway and pedal toward my house. Maybe I can find my own way to talk to Hilary.
We ride in silence for a while before I ask, “S’up?”
I was trying to ask her about her substance abuse problems, but my question may have been a little too open-ended. She tells me that Sport Coat Phil was just giving her a lecture in the trailer when she saw me ride by. “You totally saved me! Phil is so annoying.”
I really want to ask her what he was lecturing her about, and why her breath smelled like a wino’s this morning, but I chicken out and just explain that she’s having “breakfast for dinner” tonight. “It sounds weird, but we always do it on Tuesdays and it’s really good. It’s just, like, waffles and scrambled eggs.”
She giggles. “Sounds awesome, I can’t wait.”
“Yeah, my mom always makes extra food so my dad can take it to work the next day. . . . He won’t mind if Hilary Idaho eats his lunch.”
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