This Location of Unknown Possibilities

by Brett Josef Grubisic

  “Christ, what a jerk. There’s a rent-a-cop in the making,” Lora said as Marta drew into the makeshift lot. She waved to men smoking near the horse trailers. “Animal handlers and extras wrangling, it’s a virtual rodeo here today. At least there’s a bit of a gust now.”

  Marta could ignore bladder alerts no longer. “Lora, before we take another step, is there, well, a dedicated trailer for washrooms?”

  “No sweetie, it’s all for one and one for all here unless you’re royalty on the talent totem.” With a sly smile, she jerked her head at the turquoise row. “I’ll wait over there under the extras tent.”

  “Do you mind?” She handed Lora the tote bag.

  Abuzz with flies, the cubicle’s semiopaque, off-gassing plastic walls also oozed an aura of blistering heat while the liquid chemicals and body excretion stew below suggested toxic waste and recent mass graves. Marta pulled a sanitary seat cover from the dispenser and sat reluctantly. Once finished reading the maintenance schedule with its commonsense warning—“Excessive use will result in unsatisfactory conditions before the next regular servicing”—she focussed on the company’s humble motto: “We’re #2 in Number Two.” She imagined a cutthroat rivalry with the frontrunner in the portable toilet sector—industrial espionage, kickbacks, headhunted sales staff: who could say?

  “Pretty ripe, eh?” Lora sat under the shade of a tent. “I always go back at the office.” The plastic rental tables remained unoccupied except for a group of swarthy men throwing down pennies and cards.

  “That’s a good call; I’ll remember for next time.”

  “Shall we take a stroll down the hill, my dear?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  Another PA stood guard at the rim of the pit, the young man’s hand gestures as standardized as sign language: halt, the camera is rolling, there’s radio silence, all non-essential personnel need to hold their tongues and keep still, thanks for being patient.

  When the walkie-talkie squawked two minutes later, he muttered into the receiver. “Alright, ladies. It’s a go. Watch your step, we’ve had a few twisted ankles on that hill already.”

  “No snakes?” Lora raised her sunglasses to peer down the slope.

  “Not a one, ma’am.”

  “Let’s go. We’ll find Jake and station ourselves by him.” Lora took the lead.

  Congested and to all appearances volatile—well-behaved movie house patrons the instant someone shrieks “Fire!”—the scene below struck Marta as textbook Hollywood film set. Radiating from the bull’s eye plot of gravel, now void of the actors who’d finished speaking their lines a minute earlier: a thriving settlement’s worth of tasks and sweat-drenched personalities—handlers corralling excitable horses, extras in desert garb smoking by a butt receptacle, tradesmen inspecting generators, electrical cables, and the camera track, PAs receiving instructions and hustling from A to B, urgent conversationalists on walkie-talkies, capped men adjusting equipment under a miscellany of spindle-legged white canopies that Marta ordinarily associated with outdoor weddings, underling slackers in twos and threes chatting as they awaited instructions, and complete strangers standing docile with hands deep in front pockets. At the far periphery a young woman in a peasant skirt and print head kerchief held a green hose and misted the powdery ground.

  “Craft service has a coffee slash snack bar set up over yonder,” Lora said. “Most of the talent is usually huddled there, or smoking out of sight if there’s a big break between takes. I figure we have a couple of minutes before they’re ready to go again. I’m going to grab a cup.”

  Marta followed. She wanted to stand at a central but safely tucked away spot from which to watch the proceedings and considered Lora—winding through the crowd while tapping a message—an invaluable guide.

  “Can’t figure out where Jake and the boys could have disappeared to. No answers from them, either.” Lora reached into her satchel. “Cappuccino?”

  “Do you think they have soy milk?”

  “Oh, I’d say so. Craft Service is used to special needs diets, so they’ll have all those kinds of products. Agave syrup too if you’re vegan. Or watching your glycemic load.”

  3.

  Marta had re-read the pages of the crash site scene in anticipation of Luna’s morning audition. Outwardly fearless, Lady Swinburne—Delacroix’s heroic Liberty, but possessing heavily-draped Victorian propriety—led the ragtag entourage toward a destination of unclear significance. Though the script skipped details, Marta supposed that the farmhands and servants would look shifty-eyed and reluctant, instinct in the form of raised arm hairs having whispered “Pawn! Cannon fodder!” and summoned gory scenarios to show how better off they’d be fleeing in the opposite direction.

  As Lora and Marta approached the crew cluster, the AD relayed word from the director. “Okay, okay, listen up, folks,” he said, pausing until the group fell silent. “We need more of a gap between Swinburne and the rest. It’s like she’s the warrior and then the other riders are a bit chicken shit and the villagers have been ready to crap their pants since they left, got it?”

  Murmurs of assent sounded.

  The AD clapped. “Alright. Everyone ready in place in two.”

  4.

  “The powers that be now want a practice run for the rear guard,” Lora said. “It’s easy to see how going over budget is par for the course.”

  Horses cocked their ears as Dr. Potter, Lizzie, and a pair of nameless male villagers drew closer to the crashed spacecraft; a mute handful of scared villagers—raised scythes, machetes, and sticks in hand—filed in behind. It might as well be outside of Frankenstein’s laboratory, Marta thought, the only items missing are fiery torches.

  Watching Luna, Marta felt impressed by the apparent veteran confidence; she rode naturally, unfazed by the swirl of cameras, mikes, and crew. “Won’t the wind interfere with sound quality?”

  “Oh it will, but that’s no big deal. They’ll re-record chunks of it later, under studio conditions. Always do.”

  5.

  On the ninth take, Tracy Scoggins achieved the desired balance of dignity, sensible trepidation, and steely martial ferocity.

  A tantrum eruption—“Will you please . . . and by that I mean are you truly capable of letting me speak without stepping all over my lines? Is that too much to ask? Is it?”—following an unbidden burst of laughter, two wardrobe malfunctions, flubbed lines, a stumbling extra, horse dung clean up, and technical glitches turned the preceding takes into editing screen trash.

  Watching with mounting boredom, Marta wanted to applaud when the scene finally hit its stride: with so many handicaps failure seemed fated, an ironclad guarantee. Besides heat, extras, crew, equipment, horses, and other actors, the star rode swaddled by a heavy linen caftan; further encumbrance by a red wool tunic and equestrian boots with brass spurs restricted her movements. And in keeping with historical portraits of Lady Hester Stanhope, a woman notorious for donning the attire of manor-born Levantine males (here interpreted as a fur-trimmed cloak and epauletted ceremonial finery that could have inspired Michael Jackson’s latter years), Lady Swinburne wore an embroidered turban. Errant strands of the actress’s signature chestnut hair slipped out behind her left ear. The costumer’s inspiration also included a decorated steel scimitar, positioned to face the camera.

  Seeing the wardrobe here in the Middle East’s body double convinced Marta that madness underlaid Lady Stanhope’s legendary eccentricity: besides unwieldy, the layered ensemble would have been oven hot after ten minutes of riding. Small wonder elaborate visions of grandeur assailed the woman: she’d been slow-roasting herself into a delirium.

  And for these takes Marta exhaled slowly, relieved that not a word deviated from the pages. Double-checking the script, she heard no note of improv or free association with the characters’ personalities—

  EXT. CRASH SITE - DAY

  LADY S
WINBURNE

  It is my sense, Dr. Potter, that the facts of the matter cannot be ascertained until we discover what tumbled from the heavens.

  Otherwise, we shall continue only to blunder like a company of dunces.

  Potter rides closer to Swinburne to catch all her words.

  DR. POTTER

  We share one thought, Lady.

  SWINBURNE

  Lizzie, fall to the rear with haste.

  Misplacing villagers in this dusty maze is a fate we must avoid.

  LIZZIE

  Yes, milady.

  They halt their horses as they approach the crash site.

  SWINBURNE

  Merciful heavens!

  It appears to be a mechanical device, but as nothing I have before witnessed.

  POTTER

  I concur, Lady.

  (nods)

  Not even within the great mills of Lancashire have I seen such a leviathan mechanism.

  LIZZIE

  The villagers have fallen back, whispering of protection from demons. Perhaps it is a craft, milady?

  POTTER

  (impatient, dismissing the idea with his hand)

  Nonsense, chavette.

  LIZZIE

  (shades her eyes)

  What is your supposition, then, good Doctor?

  POTTER

  I cannot hazard a guess.

  SWINBURNE

  It is a scientific marvel, sprung from minds greater than those of the Royal Society.

  We must investigate!

  LIZZIE

  Take care, Milady. There is darkness to it, an evil.

  Marta grasped the fact of a direct relationship between what she observed under bright lighting on the scraped floor of a gravel pit carved from a field miles from the nearest town and what would eventually broadcast in the near future on the Psy/Fi Network and its international affiliates. Lack of experience forced her to speculate about the relationship’s exact nature—what would be edited out, how well would Luna come across, what impressions would Lady Swinburne, weighted down by a museum’s display of costumery, make, how much difference did the visual field outside the lens frame cause, and how would computer wizardry affect the tone or look of the finished product? Answers, she knew, existed short months into the future.

  Lora had pitched Lady Swinburne as larger than life—as Amazonian, as Lara Croft and Eleanor Ripley combined, as fearsome warrior material—but here, despite intermittent seconds of heroic chin and fiery eyes, the thrift store layering recalled a character Carol Burnett might have played in one of the affectionate movie travesties of her variety show. To a casual viewer Swinburne passed as an eccentric traveling merchant, literally carrying wares on her back.

  Marta pictured her excitement to see the finished product as a house sitting on wobbly stilts; the whole edifice swayed precariously, poised to collapse at the next slightest tremor.

  A GIDDY THING

  1.

  “That’s a wrap, folks,” the AD announced, sliding off bulky grey headphones. He wound the long coiled cable around puffy ear cups and heaved the set toward the sun. “Woo fucking hoo!”

  The loud round of cheering abruptly ceased. Expecting a roaring, rowdy atmosphere of TGIF celebration, Marta mouthed “What?” when the crew began swapping instructions, dialing calls, and busying themselves with equipment. Others dispersed, wiping dusty faces streaked with sweat as they strode toward the pit’s narrow road. Of course, Marta thought. They’d been under the sun and breathing dust for days; icy beer and showers or lake water would easily best another minute milling about and talking shop inside a rocky heat trap of a hole.

  As Lora made a call, Marta watched the animal handlers assist with dismounts, waving when Luna approached.

  “Hey. They need me ‘right away’ at some trailer up above.” She kept the index finger quotation marks raised high. “So can I talk with you later?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Except for this godawful blanket and getting orders and ‘advice’ from every direction, that was fun, way better than the used car commercial, so thanks again.” Luna patted her forehead with a linen sleeve and joined the cast exodus. “We have to do interior shots next week, so they’re flying me down to the studio.”

  “Great. I was glad to help.” Luna turned as Marta spoke, waved, and trailed the others. She mimed “two minutes,” and Marta tracked the practiced efficiency of the crew who, she supposed, could strike a set in their sleep like carnies.

  “Well, here’s to another fine quality MOW almost ready to be launched at chubby faces across couch potato land,” Lora said, offering a toast with a styrofoam coffee cup. “It’s a living anyway,” she added, studying Marta. “Keeps the repo guys at bay too.”

  “What’s next?” Marta felt eager to change the topic. Judgmental muscle tugs reflecting half-baked thoughts about Marx and worker alienation during Lora’s speech had apparently registered across her face.

  “They’ll shoot the rest back in the city and ship it over to the CGI guys. Oh, you mean for us? Back to the office, tie up loose ends, et cetera, et cetera, get ready to say goodbye to Joan’s and this burg. Shall we?” Motioning toward the incline road, Lora secured the indigo bucket hat and began to walk. “You know, ‘Shooting on location’ has a nice ring to it, like ‘Going to Hawaii,’ but in truth after the first twenty-four hours or so everyone’s just itching to get back home again. Keyword is, be careful what you wish for. We shot a snowboarder comedy a couple of years back, Shreddin’ Too or Boardin’ II or something memorably sequel-y like that, at two ski hills hours apart. It shoulda been called Cabin Fever Revisited. Christ, I thought the whole crew was going to go all Jack Nicholson. We could not get out of there fast enough.”

  “Hey, ladies,” Nicos yelled. “Puh-leeze wait the hell up, it’s not a forced march, you know. Chill for a sec.”

  “Well speak of the devil.” Lora said. Although the black sunglasses seemed impervious to light, she shielded her eyes as the men caught up. “Question: Where did you three disappear to?”

  “Out of sight, but actually in the vicinity,” Chaz said.

  “Yeah, Jake wanted to hang back by the video hut.” Nicos stood back and lit a cigarette.

  “I didn’t want to,” Jake said. “El cineasta wanted an information session, so I was obliged. I texted that, right?”

  “No, that’s not a courtesy you extended to me.”

  “Ah, well. Me bad. Anyway, you’re up to speed now.”

  “Thanks a heap.” Everyone watched their usual rowdy sibling badinage go off the rails; petty squabbling appeared to be the next destination.

  “Would anyone like coffee before Craft Service slams shut?” Marta said as Nicos asked, “Okay boss, where to, what next?”

  “Sure,” Chaz said.

  Marta stepped back from the informal circle, pleased with Chaz’s acknowledgement.

  “The Hebe farm, anywhere but this drought zone,” Jake said. “I need to check out how much is left to clean up. Then the office.” He addressed Chaz while checking for messages: “As for you, you can get coffee later.”

  “That’s where we’re heading, so let’s meet in an hour.” Lora tapped her watch. “Do you want me to write that down?” Phones in hand, Jake and Nicos turned their backs to the overhead glare.

  “We are going to the office now. We will see you in one hour,” Lora, speaking in a slow robot voice, directed the words at Chaz. “Six zero minutes.”

  “See you later, ladies,” Nicos said as he and Chaz scrambled to catch up with Jake.

  2.

  Speeding along White Lake Road, Marta listened politely. The receding location in the side view mirror provoked a twinge of wistfulness; second by second the crash site solidified as a pinpoint in history, an episode now relegated to memory.

  Lo
ra went over a raft of immediate goals and furiously tapped reminder notes. She apologized for thinking out loud and caving in to OCD. “Pulling up stakes is just a matter of checking off items from an accurate list.”

  “Then we disappear, like thieves in the night?”

  “Exactly, as if we were never here, ninja-style.”

  “I’m already half-packed.” As for why, Marta saw no legitimate reason to share.

  “Don’t forget to pick up your per diem,” Lora said as Marta approached Joan’s.

  “Thanks, I won’t. I have a few last-minute items to attend to as well, so I’ll grab it then.”

  3.

  Lora scurried to the front desk and unlocked a metal box in a lower drawer. The envelope she retrieved featured Marta’s name and a peel-on sticker of a roulette wheel.

  “Just a token,” Lora said.

  Marta checked inside: a printout of a map, casino tokens, and bills banded by a piece of folded paper that exclaimed, “What Happens in Penticton, Stays in Penticton!” The other side listed the specifics of the wrap party: time, place, dress code. “Come as you are!” she read.

  Marta caught up with work email within an hour; while deleting junk, departmental administrative updates, and the usual miscellany of queries and requests from incoming and outgoing students, textbook peddlers, and conference promoters, she scanned the tidings of sin dispensed by Exconfessio—the standard assemblage of guilt, misanthropy, and sexual misdeeds, with one poignant exception: “I have an overwhelming sense of not living up to my capacity, but can’t seem to generate the missing ingredient”—and weighed each word of an unexpected note from her Floridian publisher, its subject line characteristically direct: “Holiday Archetype Personality: 2.0???” She committed to holding off on that reply until resettling in the city.

  4.

  When Nicos drove by the trailer park at Vaseaux Lake, Jake snorted at seeing a lawn chair near a parked car. That figures, he thought. Xtina must be holed up there right now bored, alone, available at a computer screen, and trying her damnedest to lure visitors while he was stuck in the SUV’s passenger seat. He’d kill to be straddled across that warm body, building up to spray long strands of pearl necklace. It wouldn’t take a minute. Jake pulled the seat belt forward and turned to Chaz in the back seat.