Rough Cut

by Brian Pinkerton

  Stegman nodded. “On the case.” He appeared startled that Harry was moving to end the meeting. Harry felt guilty because this guy wanted to chat, but he simply didn’t have an hour or two to spare, to discuss this kid’s project and the history of horror films.

  Harry moved to the door, and Stegman had no choice but to rise from the table and follow.

  “What’s your next picture about?” asked Stegman.

  “Vampires,” said Harry, continuing to the front entrance.

  “My favorite vampire movie is the original Nosferatu,” said Stegman, trailing behind him. “Max Schreck. Do you think Schreck really was a vampire?”

  “There’s not a lot of history on him. He was a bit of an enigma, so it’s easy to speculate.”

  “Wouldn’t it be awesome if he really was a vampire?”

  They reached the glass doors.

  Harry stuck out his hand. “Nice meeting you, Marcus. Best of luck to you.”

  As they shook hands, Harry felt something drop on his wrist. He looked down. It was a red spot of blood.

  He pulled back his hand.

  “Shit, sorry,” said Stegman.

  Harry looked at him, startled.

  Stegman had a bloody nose.

  “I get these all the time,” said Stegman, tipping his head back, feeling in a pocket. “Ever since I was little. I have a deviated septum, born with it. I hope I didn’t freak you out. Here...” Stegman produced a tissue and offered it to Harry.

  Harry wiped the spot of blood off his wrist. Stegman took another tissue and held it to his nostril. “Such a nuisance,” he said. “Great timing, huh?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Harry. He couldn’t wait to wash his hands with lots of soap.

  They exchanged farewells.

  Stegman departed for the elevators, head still tilted, tissue pressed against his nose.

  Harry quickly went to the kitchenette to clean his hands, disturbed. Yuck. What if I had an open cut? Who knows what I could catch from him?

  After thoroughly scrubbing his hands with soap and water, he retrieved the DVD from the conference room.

  “Deadly Desires,” he mumbled to himself. He slipped the plastic DVD case back into the manila envelope.

  Harry walked down the corridor and took a left into one of the storage rooms. He flipped a light switch and said hello to the monster known as Mount Slushmore.

  Mount Slushmore was the name he and Paul had given to the big pile of unsolicited screenplays, treatments, query letters, tapes and DVDs they received from Hollywood hopefuls. Everyday, the mail delivery brought more. It was staggering and heartbreaking to see dreams pour into the office and unceremoniously get dumped into the slush pile. Harry always had good intentions of reviewing some of the submissions, maybe even responding to a few with constructive criticism; but it was a bottomless pit and there was never enough time. Also, it was sadly unrewarding. Many of the scripts were in the wrong format, the wrong length, or simply horribly written. Too many of them were blatant rip-offs of existing movies. People even sent in scripts featuring characters or adapting books they didn’t even have the rights to. And most of the tapes and DVDs were simply unwatchable.

  It was no secret how the submissions found them. The mailing address of PJ Productions had wound up on web sites and in directories catering to the legions of wannabe moviemakers. So every day Mount Slushmore grew bigger and bigger, out of control, the potential subject for its own horror film perhaps. Every six months, Harry and Paul sent the stacks off for recycling. The following day, a new pile was born.

  Harry placed Marcus Stegman’s envelope on the top of the pile. In a couple of days, it would be buried beneath more scripts and pitches, disappearing from view. It made Harry sad for a moment.

  He stepped out of the storage room and turned off the lights. The door closed, and Mount Slushmore went dark.

  8

  Rachel Stoller stepped into her apartment and almost got kicked in the head. Her roommate Maria was rehearsing dance moves for a music video for the hip hop group Dog Bowl, scheduled for taping the following morning on an outdoor basketball court in South Central LA. A compact stereo pounded out beats from a prerelease CDR, and she did not hear Rachel enter the room.

  After the near miss, they both broke up laughing. “Join me, girl,” said Maria, and Rachel dumped her purse and portfolio, and started to bump and grind alongside Maria, trying to mimic her moves. They were hopelessly out of sync, and then Rachel banged into a coffee table and swallowed her gum.

  Maria turned off the stereo, laughing again. “I think you should audition for the Comedy Channel.”

  “Great, a bruise,” said Rachel, clutching her shin. “Good thing I don’t have any modeling gigs coming up.”

  “You could do an ad for Band-Aid,” said Maria.

  Rachel wobbled over to the couch and fell into a seated position. She put her feet on the coffee table. “I’m wiped.”

  “How was the audition for the pilot?”

  “A cattle call. The whole town was there.”

  “So were you any good?”

  “It was just a cold read, no sides. I didn’t stink, but I didn’t blow anybody away, either.”

  “Maybe my dance instructor could get you in some music videos.”

  “I’m not a dancer,” said Rachel. “I want to act.”

  “Sometimes you have to take what you can get so you can get some exposure.”

  “Been there, done that,” said Rachel. She had performed in her share of commercials for cell phones, slim wear pantyhose, and yogurt. Because of her youthful face, she had been cast in cornball PSAs for teen runaways and teen alcoholism. She had appeared as an extra in crowd scenes and accepted nonspeaking roles as “customer number 3” or “girl reporter number 2.”

  “I want a big, meaty role with range,” she told her roommate. “Something dramatic I can really sink my teeth into.”

  “Sure thing, honey,” said Maria. “You and about a million other girls.”

  Rachel threw a sofa pillow at her. She was used to Maria’s tough talk. They had been close for more than a year, first meeting through a “roommate wanted” classified in the L.A. Weekly. Maria was a Hispanic model from Texas, a former cheerleader. She marketed her good looks and had no interest in acting. “I don’t feel comfortable speaking other people’s words,” she once said.

  Rachel, on the other hand, was a native Californian with family roots in the entertainment industry and a strong passion for acting. Rachel’s father was a production designer, and her mother had worked many years in wardrobe and now owned a boutique on La Cienega Boulevard. They began whisking Rachel to auditions before she was old enough to speak. Rachel the infant appeared on television and in print ads for everything from diapers to baby food. During high school, she was among the youngest students to take classes at the famed Creative Actor’s Workshop and study under Grant Pole, a method guru.

  After high school, she attended UCLA for two years, an inevitable drama major. She performed in local stage productions at the Footlights Playhouse and specialized in Children’s Theater. On the side, she auditioned for TV roles, sometimes landing small parts, but more frequently losing plum opportunities by a millimeter. She seemed to be everybody’s favorite second choice.

  After leaving UCLA, Rachel moved to West Hollywood, a wonderful madhouse of 40,000 people packed into less than two square miles. Her first roommate, Margaret, another fledgling actress, went broke after six months and retreated to Seattle to teach grammar school. Soon after, Rachel moved in with Maria; and they hit it off right away.

  Maria had a fierce and contagious energy. She showed Rachel how to market herself, finding her a better talent agency, encouraging her to create a personal web site, and helping her to spice up her bland resume.

  Maria also shared her boyfriend’s subscription copies of Backstage with Rachel, circling promising opportunities with a red marker.

  “We gotta help each other,” said Ma
ria, “because no one else will. It’s dog-eat-dog, cat-eat-cat out there.”

  As Rachel sat on the couch, feeling the pain from her shin subside, she noticed a small box on the coffee table and asked about it.

  “Special delivery to Rachel Stoller,” said Maria, picking it up and handing it to her. “It came this morning.”

  Rachel looked at the return address. “Harry Tuttle, PJ Productions. Hey, this is the director I met at that party last weekend. He said he was going to send me a script and some of his movies.”

  “Awesome,” said Maria. “Open up, let’s see.”

  Rachel found a pair of scissors and used the blade to slice the packing tape. She opened the flaps on the box. Maria watched over her shoulder.

  A shrieking, bloody face greeted them.

  Maria wrinkled her nose. “What the heck is that?”

  Rachel took out three DVDs packaged in bright, lurid slipcase art.

  Maria read the titles out loud: “Valley of the Zombies... Frightened Whispers...Slash.”

  “Horror movies,” said Rachel.

  “So he wants to paint you up like a zombie or something?”

  Rachel laughed. “I don’t know.” She reached into the box again and took out a screenplay, roughly one-hundred pages bound by two brass brads.

  “The Vampire of Sunset Strip!” said Maria, and she broke out laughing. “Oh well, I guess there’s an audience for everything.”

  Rachel took the Valley of the Zombies DVD case and opened it. “Let’s check this out.”

  She turned on the television and inserted the disc into the player. Then she joined Maria on the couch, and they watched the first ten minutes of the movie.

  The silence was broken when Maria said, “This is really bad.”

  Rachel shrugged. “It is what it is. He makes monster movies.”

  “Is this how you want to launch your career?” asked Maria. “As some kind of low-budget scream queen?”

  She sighed. “Probably not.”

  “I mean, do these things ever get shown anywhere? I’ve never heard of these titles. He probably makes them in the basement with his allowance money.”

  They both erupted into laughter.

  Maria opened the screenplay to The Vampire of Sunset Strip to a random page and began reciting some of the dialogue aloud, in a cartoony voice. Rachel giggled.

  “This is bad,” said Maria.

  “How do you know? Maybe your reading is bad,” teased Rachel. “You’re the one who says you’re not an actress.”

  “Fine, you read it.” Maria flipped the script into Rachel’s lap.

  She scanned a few pages. She read through part of a scene, then said, “It’s not so bad. Believe me, I’ve seen worse. It’s a horror movie, it’s not supposed to be Othello.”

  Maria said, “Sure, it could be a great movie, but if nobody sees it, what’s the point? Have you ever heard of this guy before?”

  “I don’t follow these types of movies.”

  “Who does? I’ll tell you who: creeps and wackos who like to watch blood and guts. This guy’s probably a pervert.”

  Rachel said, “You’re not being fair. I met him. He’s actually a very nice guy.”

  “That’s what they say about all serial killers.”

  Rachel moved the script off her lap. “Maria, you crack me up.”

  “I’m not half as funny as these movies. So, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “One of the choreographers for the video gave me tickets to see Shellshock at the Roxy. I think it’s sold out.”

  “Sure,” said Rachel. “I’m up for it. Any cute guys in the band?”

  “Yes. Just stay away from the bass player,” said Maria. “He’s mine.”

  On the television screen, a pair of zombies in tattered clothing staggered across a graveyard, arms outstretched.

  Rachel grabbed the remote for the DVD player. She pressed stop.

  9

  Fatty Arbuckle, wearing silk pajamas and a robe, chugged from a can of Mountain Dew. Harry bumped past Arbuckle on his way across Stage 18 on the Paramount lot, trying to keep up with the pimply production assistant. The soundstage had become a large, disheveled San Francisco hotel suite from the 1920s, the backdrop for a wild, prohibition-era party. A team of set decorators positioned liquor bottles, tipped glasses, scattered clothing, jazz 78s, and a large Victrola. Extras gathered on the sidelines, a parade of show girls with short hair, bare arms and legs, and baggy dresses with plenty of fringe.

  “I just saw her here a couple of minutes ago,” said the PA, and then his attention was pulled away by an actress looking for her wig, and a gaffer complaining about craft services.

  Harry continued forward, alone, into the hotel suite, carefully avoiding cables and lighting equipment, studying faces on the extras. Not her...not her...not her...

  Wait, it is her.

  His eyes bounced back to one of the show girls. It was Rachel, barely recognizable. She wore a short, sleek peroxide-blond wig, a black headband, long eyelashes, and a black feather boa.

  She spoke to another costumed extra, gesturing with a 12-inch cigarette holder. The layers of fringe on her black dress swayed with every move. She wore fishnet stockings, legs exposed from the knee down.

  She was beautiful in any era.

  Harry walked over, waited for a pause in Rachel’s conversation, and greeted her.

  She looked at him for a moment before remembering his name. “Harry. Harry Tuttle, right? How are you? What brings you here?”

  “Well, you know, I do a lot of business on the Paramount lot. It’s like my second home,” he lied.

  In actuality, Harry had gained entry to the set through an old friend, Shawn O’Malley, who happened to be Director of Photography on the project.

  “So this is the roaring twenties,” said Harry. “I feel like I just stepped off a time machine. Are you having fun?”

  “Sure —when the camera’s rolling. Otherwise, it’s a lot of hurry up and wait. I’m here all day for about two minutes of screen time.”

  “Do you have any lines?”

  “No. I just get drunk on bathtub gin and dance on the bed.”

  “Even better.”

  “Yeah, it’s my Oscar moment. I’m attending a party thrown by Fatty Arbuckle, a comedian from the silent movie days. He gets accused of raping and murdering a chorus girl.”

  “Ah, yes. Virginia Rappe. The first Hollywood scandal.”

  “That’s the part I really wanted. Instead, I got flapper number three.”

  “Pleased to meet you, flapper number three.” Harry then switched his tone to something more businesslike. “Listen, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I did come here with a purpose. I hope you got the package I sent. I’m in preproduction for my new movie, and I have a role saved just for you. I’d like to make you a formal offer. I can work through your agent, or we can talk direct, whatever you’d like.”

  Her bland expression immediately sent him warning signals. She struggled for the right words, but he knew what was coming. It created a sinking feeling in his gut.

  “Harry...” she said. “I really appreciate your interest. But I have to be honest. I watched the films you sent, and I took a look at the script; and it’s just not the right vehicle for me right now, at this time in my career.”

  “Oh,” said Harry. He mustered a smile. “That’s fine, that’s okay.”

  “Maybe another time, another project,” she offered, but it wasn’t very convincing.

  Harry found himself rambling, apologizing for the quality of his own work. “I know the movies aren’t very good. You can be honest. I don’t like them all that much either. Sometimes they’re embarrassing to watch. It’s the budgets. They’re real small —but they’re getting better. We’re really restricted —”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  “Sure. Some other time. Absolutely.”

  An assistant director started barking orders
to the crew. People began moving at a faster pace.

  “I have to go. They’re setting up the next shot,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Harry. “Have a good shoot. Tell Fatty ‘Hi’ for me. Whatever you do, don’t let him take you into the bedroom.”

  She laughed and said, “Right.”

  He watched Rachel join the other flappers as they prepared for the next scene. Harry turned to leave and nearly knocked into a tabletop of liquor bottles. He eyed the display, still dazed. A highball would be nice right now...

  “Sir, please don’t touch the props. You’ll mess up the continuity. We need you to clear the set.”

  It was another one of the ubiquitous PAs. Some kid half his age.

  “Sure,” said Harry. “Sorry. I’m leaving.”

  He saw Shawn O’Malley huddling with his technician crew, laboring over the framing and lighting. Harry waved goodbye to Shawn, but Shawn did not see him.

  Harry left the soundstage and stepped into an alley on the Paramount lot. A small cart honked, angry, and zipped around him. Two hulking medieval warriors in full armor sat in the back. One of them spoke into a cell phone.

  Harry drove home to Eagle Rock, a neighborhood in northeastern L.A. His house, nestled in dense foliage, wasn’t large by any means, but today it felt oversized. He wandered from room to room, restless.

  Aside from the heartbreak of rejection, he now had a big production problem to deal with. He had a hole in his cast.

  His new movie would soon enter principal photography. Rachel’s part needed to be filled immediately. Who would be available on short notice?

  As Harry paced, he brainstormed for possible actresses. Frances Walker was a safe bet. Frances worked part-time for an

  L.A. insurance broker, acted on the side, and was always game to ditch work to appear in a movie. She had appeared in several of his pictures, willing to do just about anything, including portraying a corpse with a mouthful of live worms.

  Harry called Frances. She said yes, but asked if she could bring Tiny, her poodle, to the set.