by Rick Copp
Once Isis had deposited me in the white loading zone at United Airlines, I took one last look around at the sea of travelers lined up with their bags for curbside check-in. I half expected to see Wendell’s eerily serene yet maniacal face staring at me. I walked into the terminal, momentarily disoriented by the late-morning chaos, and dragged my bags to the endless line of economy passengers waiting for their boarding passes. Since this was a low-budget production, first-class travel was not an option, especially for a supporting player in the cast like me. The last time I had done a feature film I hadn’t even started shaving yet.
I stood there, people watching to pass the time. And then I saw him. Wendell. He was in a wheelchair being pushed by an airport employee. No, wait. He was over to the right. In a USC football jersey and cutoff jeans. No. Behind the counter in a blue jacket and tie, checking in first-class passengers. Wendell Butterworth was everywhere. In my head. I needed a sedative, or at the very least, a stiff drink.
What I really needed was my boyfriend. I needed Charlie. And it finally dawned on me that I could not get on that plane without clearing the air. I didn’t want to give us both some breathing room as Isis had suggested. No. I wanted to see him now. I gathered up my bags, left the line, and bustled back out to the curb, where I glimpsed a cab dropping off another traveler. Wendell stepped out of the back. Or it could’ve been Wendell if he’d had gray, wispy hair pulled into a bun, a hunched back half concealed by a bulky blue overcoat, and was a four-foot-eight-inch-tall grandmother. I was really losing it.
After helping the old woman deliver her bags to a curbside check-in attendant, I hopped into the cab and instructed the driver to take me downtown to the Los Angeles County Courthouse, where I knew Charlie would be just about finished testifying at the gang-related assault trial.
As we raced along the 105 Imperial Freeway, connecting to the 110 Harbor Freeway that stretched north toward the shiny, pristine skyline of downtown LA, I imagined the perfect movie moment ending with me showing up in the courtroom in a surprise last-minute appearance. Charlie would be sitting on the stand, relating the events of the night in question. I would sweep in, momentarily distracting him. He would fumble in his testimony, fight back a smile, and continue on, ever the consummate professional police officer. Once the judge allowed him to step down, we would meet outside in the hallway for an embrace, and then retreat to an empty courtroom for some hot, passionate sex on top of a hard wooden table usually reserved for the defendant and his attorneys. I was flushed just thinking about it as I sat in the back seat of the taxi.
When I arrived at the LA courthouse, the line to pass through security took forty minutes. I had to take off my belt, shoes, and jacket, and my three pieces of luggage I was hauling had to be carefully sorted through. Who showed up at the courthouse with a month’s wardrobe? Once cleared, I took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor of the criminal courts building and to the room where Charlie had mentioned he would be testifying.
I opened the room, and quietly entered, expecting to slide into an empty seat off to the side and wait for the judge to call a lunch break. But to my surprise, the room was empty. This was odd. It was a four-day trial that had just begun yesterday. I couldn’t understand where everybody had gone. I looked around for a stenographer, bailiff, anybody to enlighten me. But nobody was around. I walked back out into the hallway, where a tiny woman in her late twenties, wearing a suit jacket with a matching short skirt, her face hidden in a massive array of light brown curls, jotted furiously in her notebook. I glanced down and recognized Charlie’s name in her scratchings.
“Are you one of the lawyers for the assault trial that’s supposed to be going on in there?” I asked.
She nodded, not bothering to even look up.
“I’m looking for Charlie Peters.”
“We’re on a break. Judge Yellin asked to see him in his chambers.”
“Could you tell me where I can find Judge Yellin’s chambers?”
“Down the hall to your right,” she said, and then snapped her notebook shut, annoyed at my intrusion. She stood up and clicked down the hall in her high heels. Definitely a big fan of the canceled Ally McBeal show.
“Thank you,” I called after her, but she didn’t respond. She just disappeared around a corner. I followed her directions, and found a door marked JUDGE YELLIN. I knocked softly, but got no answer. I tried again. I pressed my ear to the door, hoping to hear if he was on the phone or something, but all the commotion in the hall made it impossible to hear anything. I tried the door. It was unlocked. Should I just barge into a judge’s chambers unannounced? I should’ve tried Charlie’s cell phone instead, but I didn’t want to cheat myself out of all the bells and whistles of an emotional reunion. Alerting him by phone would diminish the impact. So I opened the door and stepped inside.
It was dark. The shades were drawn, blocking the sunlight from the gorgeous day outside. I turned to leave, when I heard a rustling sound across the room. And heavy, intense breathing. I reached over and felt for a light switch. When I flipped it up with my index finger, I had a sinking feeling I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And as the fluorescent lights struggled to reach maximum capacity, I knew I had made a tragic mistake. On the couch, off to the right side of the door, I saw a man in a judge’s black robe, lying on top of another man. They were making out on the couch. The sudden flood of lights startled the judge, who despite being well north of fifty, was impressively distinguished with an immaculate head of silver hair and a tanned, handsome face. He leapt to his feet, in a state of shock and confusion.
“I’m sorry,” I said, embarrassed and mortified. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
My eyes fell on the man still sprawled out on the couch. His tie was askew, his dress shirt ripped open, his slacks had been hurriedly unzipped and wrenched halfway down to his lower thighs. It was Charlie. My Charlie. Detective Charlie Peters. Sucking face with a judge and about to do a whole lot more. As they used to say on Laugh-In, “Here cums da judge!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent to Miami. Please make sure your tray tables are in the upright position, and that all portable electronics have been turned off. We will be landing in approximately ten minutes.”
The soothing female flight attendant’s voice stirred me out of a deep sleep. Another flight attendant, this one male with a severe look and a prissy demeanor, scooped up the knocked-over plastic cup that sat wedged between my legs. I yawned, and the spittle caked onto both corners of my mouth cracked. Catching Charlie in a compromising position with a judge had just been a dream. But I knew if I didn’t make amends soon, it could become my reality.
I hadn’t rushed to the courthouse. Like the good SAG member I was, I had boarded my plane to Miami. With makeup and hair tests scheduled for the morning and wardrobe fittings in the afternoon, I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to keep in good stead with the independent film community.
After we landed and I retrieved my bags, I stepped out into the balmy air of south Florida and looked around for my ride. I immediately spotted a maroon van with a cardboard sign jammed into the dash that read, CREEPS—TRANSPORTATION CAPTAIN. A bouncy, chatty production assistant rolled down the window and called out to me, “Jarrod Jarvis?”
She didn’t wait for me to answer. She jumped out and threw open the back doors of the vehicle. She was short and had a cute little body tucked into an aqua blue T-shirt with Creeps emblazoned on the front and tight jeans that accentuated every delicious curve of her hips and legs.
“I’d recognize you anywhere,” she chirped. I knew it was coming. “Baby, don’t even go there!” She exploded with laughter. “God, that cracked me up when I was a kid.”
“You seem a little young to have been a fan of the show,” I said, guessing she was no more than nineteen or twenty.
“TV Land. They play all those moronic shows,” she said, and then caught herself. “Not that your show was moronic. I mean, it wasn’t Shakespeare or anything,
but it had its moments.” She wisely chose to change the subject. “I’m Amy Jo.”
“Hi, I’m Jarrod,” I said. She grabbed my bags and tossed them in the back, and then was behind the wheel in an instant. I was winded just trying to keep up with her. As we drove south toward Miami Beach, Amy Jo decided I was due to hear her long-range career goals in the film business. Despite her knowing the trademark line from my long-running sitcom, Amy Jo insisted she’d never watched much television growing up. Her parents had raised her as an artist, and after a brief stint at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York (she wasn’t asked back for vague reasons best described as political), she decided her future was behind the camera, and this gig as a PA would be the perfect way to kick off her foray into writing and directing and composing and editing. I loved the misguided idealism of youth. It just made me feel better about myself, being a bitter old pro in my thirties.
When Amy Jo began a dissertation on her life-long devotion to Quentin Tarantino and how his films affected her on a deeply fundamental level, I whipped out the cell phone, begged my driver’s pardon, and tried to call Charlie. I got his voice mail. Maybe he really was banging the judge. No, I wasn’t going to go there. It had just been a silly, ridiculous dream. So we fought, and whenever we fought, Charlie always had to go blow off some steam, and what better way to blow off steam than to . . . No. I had to stop it. Otherwise, I was going to have Amy Jo turn the van around and drive me back to United, which would leave my career in tattered ruins. Or at least in more ruins than it already was.
Amy Jo dropped me off at the Ritz Plaza, one of the many hotels lining Miami’s historic South Beach. Although the film was shooting in a small wooded park in Coral Gables, the production was putting the cast up in downtown Miami Beach. I was ecstatic. There were lots of diversions here, and the Latin-heavy population was just gorgeous to look at. Unfortunately the hotel, surrounded by the more opulent and ornate establishments such as the Delano and the Marlin, was a decidedly lackluster affair. The box-like rooms with scuffed white walls and simple, uninspired furniture did nothing to excite one’s aesthetic sense. In fact, it downright depressed it.
I debated switching rooms, but I didn’t want to cause a fuss. I understood that I was not part of a Warner Brothers multimillion-dollar production starring Jennifer Lopez. So I kept mum and unpacked my clothes.
Amy Jo told me she would be back at 7 A.M. to pick me up for makeup and hair tests, which left me the rest of the evening to grab some dinner and stroll along the boardwalk of Ocean Avenue, which boasted dozens of outdoor cafés, shops, and bars. I showered, shaved, and changed into a light white shirt, white pants, dark blue blazer, and sandals, which seemed appropriate for a night out in South Beach.
When I stepped off the elevator into the lobby, I recognized the man checking in at the reception desk. It took me a moment to place him out of context, but then it came to me.
“Rudy? Rudy Pearson?”
He turned and looked at me. Sweat poured down his chubby cheeks. His skin was ruddy and pale. His linen suit was stained with sweat. Rudy, the soap journalist who had been ejected from Laurette’s wedding, had suddenly popped up in Miami.
Rudy knew exactly who I was, but in an attempt to put me on a more level playing field, he feigned ignorance. “I’m sorry . . . you are?”
“Jarrod Jarvis. We met at Laurette and Juan Carlos’s wedding.”
“Oh, right. I had to leave early that day for another appointment,” he said, rewriting history and completely blocking out the fact that he was tossed out of the Hearst Castle on his ass.
“What are you doing here in Miami?” I said.
“Officially, my magazine sent me down to cover a Days of Our Lives fan convention being held here this weekend,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth. I didn’t need a lie detector to tell that wasn’t what had brought him here.
“So if that’s the official reason, is there an unofficial reason?”
This caught him off guard. But he went with it. “Yes,” he said. I wasn’t expecting him to elaborate, but Rudy was a soap journalist after all, and all journalists are shameful, relentless gossips. “I’ve come across some interesting information about someone who is down here shooting a movie, and I’m going to make sure it gets out so the whole world knows.”
“I’m down here shooting a movie, so I sure hope it isn’t about me,” I said, nudging him gently.
He stepped back, surprised. Rudy apparently wasn’t used to people touching him. And from where I was standing, I’m sure they’re weren’t a lot of takers anyway. He just stared at me and then, in a soft voice, replied, “No, it’s not about you.”
This guy had not hit the jackpot in the lottery of social skills.
“What the hell are you doing here?” a voice bellowed behind us.
We both spun around to see Juan Carlos charging toward us.
“I’m . . . I’m in the movie,” I said. “Didn’t Laurette tell you?”
“Not you,” he barked, pointing a thick finger at Rudy. “I mean him!” If it hadn’t been obvious before, the subject of Rudy’s hatred was painfully obvious now.
Rudy, his ire up, straightened his drenched linen coat and lifted his nose as high as it could go. “It’s a free country. I can be wherever I want.”
“Not here,” Juan Carlos said, pushing me aside, and towering over the much shorter Rudy. “I want you out of here right now.”
“Make me,” Rudy squeaked, as he had probably done countless times on the playground when harassed by one of the many bullies who’d undoubtedly paraded through his miserable life.
Juan Carlos shrugged, then bunched up his fingers into a fist and let it fly smack into the middle of Rudy’s fleshy, pockmarked nose. Rudy stumbled back, his eyes wide with astonishment.
The hotel staff began congregating behind the reception desk, quietly debating on whether or not they should call the police, or handle the situation themselves.
Rudy rubbed his nose. A stream of blood trickled down his left nostril.
Juan Carlos took a step closer to him, and pointed to the door. “I’m not telling you again! Get out of here!”
Rudy, humiliated, tried sniffing the blood back up into his nose, but to no avail. It kept flowing. His hand was smeared with it, and some more had wiped off on his light-colored suit. But instead of retreating, Rudy let out an anguished roar, and with arms outstretched like an angry bear, he rushed at Juan Carlos. Rudy had at least a hundred pounds on him, so when they collided, I could feel the air whoosh right out of Juan Carlos’s body. I felt like I was watching a repeat of my own altercation with the fiery former soap star.
But what Rudy had in size, Juan Carlos made up for with street smarts. As I had already learned, Juan Carlos had a whole repertoire of dirty tricks at his disposal. He gouged Rudy’s right eye with one of his fingers, and bit hard into one of his fat cheeks.
The concierge grabbed the phone and punched in 911. My hand shot out to stop him. “No! I’ll take care of this!” This was not a heroic act on my part. I just didn’t want an arrest to hold up production on my big comeback movie.
I jumped in between Rudy and Juan Carlos. “Stop it right now, both of you!” But they were in the zone, too immersed in their battle to even realize I was attempting to pry them apart. Which was why I could never blame Rudy for socking me square in the right eye.
I sank to the ground. The room spun around me like some bad AFI student’s opening shot in his first short film. My eye throbbed with pain, and I managed to look up to see both Rudy and Juan Carlos, staring down at me as if noticing me for the first time. At least I got them to stop fighting.
Chapter 13
“Hi, this is Charlie Peters. You’ve reached my voice mail. You know what to do.”
Beep. This was the fourth time in an hour I had tried calling Charlie. Why wasn’t he picking up his messages? Was he embroiled in a big case I didn’t know about? Was he really screwing the judge presiding over the trial he was invo
lved in? I couldn’t let my paranoia consume me. I returned to the matter at hand.
Stella, a gloriously big-boned, brassy blond makeup stylist, was applying some pancake base to the corners of my right eye as I sat still in a director’s chair in the tight quarters of the makeup and hair trailer. It was obvious she was using the cheap stuff, because no matter how much she rubbed onto my face, it wasn’t enough to cover the dark bruise that made me look like half a raccoon.
Stella stepped back and inspected me. “Oh, honey, we’re going to need a little more.”
“But you’ve used almost the whole jar already,” I wailed. “We’re never going to be able to cover it up. Do you have something else?”
“This is all the budget allowed me to buy. Hell, this production is so cheap, I had to bring my own brushes and eyeliner pencils.”
“Maybe I can run out to the nearest Sav-On and find something,” I said, starting to stand up.
Stella pushed me back down in my seat. “There’s no time. They’re nearly done with the lighting out there. You’re probably going to be called to the set any minute now.”
The door to the trailer flew open and Larry Levant, the documentary wunderkind who was about to shoot his first narrative feature film, stuck his head in. He had obviously read his “How to Look Like You’re an Up-and-Coming Hollywood Film Director” handbook. He had taken great pains to dress the part. A baseball cap, T-shirt, brown leather jacket, blue jeans, and Reebok sneakers. He was a small guy, not much over five and a half feet, had a hawkish nose and tiny hands, and the cap covered what I was sure was premature balding.
“Hey, Jarrod, how’s the eye?”
“Can’t even tell,” I said hopefully, knowing full well I looked like a battered Farrah Fawcett in The Burning Bed.
Larry inspected me closely, unable to hide his obvious revulsion, and thought for a moment. He pressed a fist to his chin, and lowered his head like a Rodan statue. After a few painfully long seconds, he raised it again and this time had a twinkle in his eye.