Lights! Camera! Dissatisfaction...

by Kim Cayer

  As soon as my eyes opened, they began tearing from the smoke in the truck. Flames were licking up from the seat. “Barney!! Fire!!” I screamed. The truck veered to the right and I ended up sliding onto the hotspot. “Stop, Barney!” I yelled.

  Barney paid me no heed. His head was slumped onto his chest, one hand on the wheel, the other holding a cigarette that was burning a huge hole in the truck’s upholstery.

  I was confused. Should I grab the wheel or should I stamp out the fire? In complete hysterics, I started shrieking, “Barney! Barney! Barney! Barney!”

  He awoke and immediately pretended that he hadn’t fallen asleep. He brought his cigarette to his lips to take a drag. Meanwhile, the truck began fishtailing. I braced myself, praying the seatbelt would stop me from flying through the windshield when we hit one of the rock cuts by the side of the road. Barney noticed the smoke and more than likely felt some heat by his butt. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, BITCH?” he freaked out at me.

  Now that burned. As soon as I knew whether I’d live through this, I planned on giving Barney a couple days of silent treatment. Barney finally slammed on the brakes, sending the truck into a spin. We came to a halt mere inches from the mini-mountains on the side of the road, our truck pointed back in the direction of Niagara Falls.

  I counted my blessings for a moment then yelled at Barney. “You fell asleep at the wheel, you DOPE!” I opened the door to air out the truck.

  Barney started stamping out the seat fire with his Birkenstock’s. “Maybe if you’d drive a bit more, I wouldn’t get so tired, you COW.”

  I returned with an armful of snow and threw it on the seat. “You started the fire, ASSHOLE!” I shouted. “This is all your fault!”

  “You’re a whiny old NAG,” Barney said.

  “You’re a burnt-out HIPPIE,” I countered.

  “You can be a real CUNT,” he replied.

  “You’re a fucking FAGGOT!” I answered.

  That was just the appetizers leading to the worst fight Barney and I had yet on tour. I felt sure we would come to fisticuffs and I wanted him. Eventually the yelling was starting to affect our already overworked damaged voices. Suddenly I did something I didn’t want to do – I began to cry.

  Barney obviously thought I’d pulled a dirty move. “Aahhh…come on. Let’s get to Sudbury already. You drive,” he muttered as he got back into the truck. I got into the new bucket seat, lit a cigarette and took off.

  Our last show was to be held in Northern Ontario in a desolate area known as the Pocolocum Indian Reservation. I don’t want to appear prejudiced but I was nervous about this show. “Why do you think this is the last show to be scheduled?” I asked Barney. We were again on civil terms although Barney still hadn’t consented to take the blame for the charred hole in the middle of the truck seat. “For some reason, I fear for my scalp.”

  “What are you worried about?” Barney asked.

  I took a little nip out of the whiskey bottle I had bought that morning. I’d hidden it all day in the hole in the seat of the truck, but now Barney saw it out in the open. “They’re full-blooded Indians,” I replied.

  “Well, then, I wouldn’t bring any liquor into town,” Barney prejudicedly warned. “Come on, Alice! One show left! You don’t need that stuff,” he said fatherly, as he rolled a joint while steering with his knees.

  The reservation itself didn’t help my anxiety. It was almost entirely made up of trailer homes. Packs of dogs roamed the streets and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at us as we drove by. “Barn, let’s skip this show,” I said. “I have a bad feeling.”

  “Don’t be such a bigot, Alice,” Barney said. “Unity in the World, remember?”

  We were greeted like royalty when we arrived at the dilapidated school. I was wary though, and never had my back to anyone. I think my eyes started squinting. Through the curtain backstage, I watched the children enter in an orderly manner. They all sat quietly, hands in their laps, no one uttering a sound. “Watch it, Barn,” I cautioned. “Looks like an ambush.”

  Showtime! I bounded on, wondering if some youngster brought his bow and arrow. Look, Ma! Rabbit stew! I waited for the pierce but instead heard laughter wafting from the audience.

  More than anywhere else we’d toured, these kids really appreciated the show. I thought the hug between Betsy and Farmer Dell at the end, considering this was our last show, had extra poignancy. As soon as the children started clapping, Barney shoved me away from him. “Thank God I don’t have to smell that stinky suit anymore,” he touchingly said.

  After the kids had finished helping us load our truck and we’d signed autographs like we were big rock stars, Barney and I drove off. We were Toronto-bound! If we sped a little, we figured we’d make it in under eight hours.

  The cop clocked me at 130 km/h in a 90 km/h zone. I jumped out of the truck before the officer reached me as I didn’t want him smelling the seven joints Barney had smoked so far. “Do you know how fast you were going?” the cop asked.

  “About a hundred k’s?” I hopefully replied. He snorted and handed me a ticket for my entire week’s pay.

  By the time we arrived in Toronto, it was late and my good feeling had waned quite a bit. Barney and I had one last fight for old time’s sake when he refused to stop for a piss break because we were only two hours out of Toronto. To prove I was right, I had an accident.

  Reaching my apartment late that night, I trudged up the stairs and put my key in the lock. The door grudgingly opened, seeming to drag on something. I looked and saw a greenish dry puddle. Peering around the room, I saw puddles everywhere.

  “Lunchpail?” I called out as I went into the kitchen. Every bowl had been licked clean. I stepped into a wet mess and noticed green leaves sticking to my foot. “Yuk! What the…?!” I said as I went into the living room.

  Lunchpail was in the process of ralphing up a new puddle, green leaves spewing out of his mouth. I went to grab him but thought, What’s one more puddle?And what’s that green stuff? Did his food go bad?

  Lunchpail finished vomiting and then walked towards my fern. “Lunchpail!” I hollered as he started chewing at the few remaining leaves. The fern was demolished. I was now irrigating a stalk.

  After cleaning up about eighty piles of cat puke, I surmised (judging by the freshness of the piles) that Lunchpail had been hungry for about a week. Some piles were hard and crusty while some were still warm and moist.

  I wondered if I should let myself have an all-out depression. The tour had been murder on my system; my nails wouldn’t grow, I hadn’t gotten my period in three months, my voice was just a rasp and I had the worse case of acne this side of a pizza. Now Lunchpail looked like he needed his stomach pumped.

  Then I remembered my pact with Paul. One play and that’s it! Giving Lunchpail some frozen hamburger to eat, I thought happily of the offer the Spottle’s had made me.

  “If you want to do the next tour,” Eliza sweetly said, “we’d love to have you back.”

  I didn’t exactly say yes or no. I said, “I think I’ll throw myself in front of the subway before that would happen.”

  I left it up to them to decipher what I meant.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You have a crowd scene tomorrow in Scarborough, on Tuesday you’ll be a housewife in a supermarket, and on Wednesday, a high-school student,” Paul dictated my agenda for the week.

  “More extra work, huh?” I said with distaste.

  “You said you’d go back to film after that tour,” Paul reminded me.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. But, Paul,” I hesitantly went on, “I want to change a few things.” I had been thinking of the play I’d just finished. All weekend, I relived my lines. ‘Oh, no! Farmer! Run!’ My mouth started watering at the thought of spoken lines again. I broached my thoughts carefully to Paul. “I think, Paul, that you…WE have to work harder at promoting me. I’ve been doing extra work for close to three years now. It’s time I had a shot at a line in some bigger things, l
ike the American shows shooting here.”

  Paul interrupted. “Alice, you’re not in the union. They can’t hire you.”

  “Well, how do I get in the union?” I asked.

  “You have to do six union jobs,” Paul replied.

  I huffed. “Catch-22, isn’t it?”

  “You have to start on smaller films, namely non-union and low-budget,” Paul stated. “Sometimes they pay even less than extra work.”

  “That’s alright!” I excitedly said. Now Paul huffed. I pressed on. “At least that’d be lines! I could put it on my resume. You know I can’t put background work on resumes. Can’t you try and find me a job like that? One with lines?” I was pushing Paul.

  “Hhmmm…I may know of one, come to think of it. Look, I’ll make a few calls. Meanwhile, you’ll do more extra work?”

  “Just a few more,” I said before Paul could hang up on me. “I really want to move up in this business.”

  I called Paul on my second day of extra work. I wanted to cancel Wednesday’s job. I’d already had enough of background work and didn’t particularly feel like seeing the inside of a school again. “Hi, Paul, it’s Alice.”

  “Aren’t you at work,” he anxiously asked.

  “Of course I’m at work,” I bitchily replied. “Can’t you hear my brats?” The assistant director took one look at me and assigned me three small children, all under five, as my own kids. I guess I still hadn’t quite recovered from the tour. Two of the children were constantly wailing for their real moms and the other kept wanting to play hide n’ seek. He’d already been hiding for an hour and I was enjoying his absence.

  “Look, Paul, I’m cancelling tomorrow, OK?” I informed him. “I just can’t get my appetite back for extra work.”

  “If you cancel tomorrow, then I’ll cancel Thursday,” Paul childishly replied.

  “What’s Thursday?” I asked.

  “Only an ACTING JOB,” Paul said. “No audition necessary. Mind you, it’s only one line but there’s your start.”

  My heart fluttered; I thought I might faint. An acting job! Oh, Lord be praised! “Oh, thank you, Paul!” I effused. “What’s the film? Where do I get a script?”

  “The film…uh…Bed of Blood,” Paul said. “Horror flick, I guess. I’m supposed to just give you your line. You don’t need the script.”

  “Give it to me,” I said.

  “Huh? How did you know?” Paul asked, astounded.

  “Know what? Give it to me,” I repeated.

  “Yeah,” Paul said.

  “‘Yeah’? That’s my line?” I was confused.

  “Yeah,” Paul agreed. “What a good guess. Call me tomorrow…from your extra shoot…and I’ll have more details.”

  I walked back euphorically, almost stopping to say hi to Cameron Diaz. After all, weren’t we now in the same league? Instead, I went back to the holding pen to gloat to my fellow extras.

  * * *

  “Yeah? Yeah?” I snarled to myself in the mirror. I’d been rehearsing my line – my word – incessantly since I was aware of my new part. Sometimes I’d innocently whisper, “Yeah?” sometimes I’d just agree, “Yeah.” I wish I knew what the scene was about.

  I showed up at the studio at the appointed hour of 7 a.m. I was ushered into a hair and make-up room where I noticed a few ladies in various stages of undress. Pretty casual, I thought. I decided to keep my smock tightly drawn.

  “Who’re you?” one of the girls haughtily demanded. She was already made up and could afford to put on airs.

  “Alice Kumplunken,” I timidly replied.

  “No, who are you in the movie?” Miss Nose in the Air wanted to know. Obviously she was the lead actor and I was some lowly bit player who didn’t know much more than the film’s title.

  The make-up lady saved the day for me. “She’s the masochist,” she said, bored, having seen it all. The other girls giggled. All except for a girl sitting in the corner of a couch, weeping. She wore fishnet stockings and little else.

  “At least she doesn’t have nudity,” Fishnet whimpered.

  “Don’t you?” a buxom brunette asked me.

  “NO!” I snapped back, insulted.

  The assistant director came into the room. “OK, everyone! On set!” he yelled. The girls got up and filed past him, no one bothering to go to wardrobe for their costume. The A.D. didn’t make any bones about his ogling.

  “I’ve still got to do her face and hair,” the make-up lady said, pointing to me.

  “There’s still time for her,” the A.D. said, checking his call sheet.

  “What about my wardrobe?” I enquired.

  “What’ve you got on under your smock?” he asked.

  “N…nothing!” I replied, affronted.

  “So what are you supposed to wear?” he asked.

  “Something!”

  “Well, go to wardrobe when you’re done here. He’ll find you something,” the A.D. finally answered a question.

  The make-up lady was rather harsh with my make-up. Black lips, heavy black eyeliner and teased hair. I wanted to ask her about this masochist remark but she was engaged in heavy conversation with her assistant.

  “Jerome is sleeping with Janis, that’s what I heard.”

  “He is, but she’s sneaking around with Mark.”

  “Not Mark! He’s gay! I thought he was with the props guy.”

  “The props guy is married! Didn’t you know? His wife is our star.”

  I declined her kind offer of piercing my tongue. “Well, then, I guess you’re done,” she said, walking out with her mate.

  Someone pointed out where wardrobe was located. I walked in and saw a man sewing sequin onto a bra. “Hi,” I said, trying to appear warm and friendly regardless of how my face looked. “I’m here for my wardrobe?”

  He looked up. “Who’re you in the script?”

  I looked ashamed. “I don’t know.”

  He didn’t appear to care. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Alice Kumplunkem,” I replied.

  He checked his call sheet. “Oh, the masochist! I’m just finishing your bra.” He held it up. The sequins on the black bra turned out to be spikes.

  “Is that it?” I asked, aghast.

  “Naaah…we have the whole number for you,” he said. He proceeded to put the bra on me plus a rubber skirt, thigh-high leather boots and to top it off, a dog collar. I was embarrassed when I saw myself in a full-length mirror.

  I heh-hehed a little then said, “Would it be possible to look at a script?”

  The A.D. ran into the room. “You’re needed on set now!”

  I followed him, feeling more foolish with each step. All the crew stopped to stare at me. “Whooo! Whip me, mama! Bite me! Spank me!” I zapped a disintegrating look at the creep who said that.

  He turned out to be the director. “OK, Alice, see that bed? I want you to sit right in the corner, tight to the wall. Pedro here, he’s the killer. He’s going to come in with a bat. You see him, say your line and that’s the scene. Short and sweet. Got it?” the director rat-a-tatted at me.

  Sounded simple enough. A killer was coming after me; I should be scared. I wondered how my line fit in.

  “Action!” was called. Pedro approached me, slapping his bat menacingly against his palms. I looked up at him fearfully and, wondering what he wanted, said, “Yes?”

  The script girl cut the scene short. “Wrong line!” she shouted. She was right! I was supposed to say, ‘Yeah’!

  Before I was fired, I blurted out an apology. “I’m sorry, I’ll get it right next time.”

  “Alright, take two,” the director said. “Action!”

  The killer came at me again. I gave it all I had; I cowered, covered my face with a pillow and, one eye peeking out, asked, “Yeah?”

  “Give it to me!” the script girl yelled. “That’s your line!”

  “Cut!” the director yelled. “Alice, your line is ‘Give it to me.’ You like pain. You want it. I want you to slid
e up the wall real sexy and beg for it. Got it? Action!”

  My mind was swirling. Pedro came at me again, I slid without realizing I was doing it and said, “Give it to me,” in a flat voice.

  “Cut! Print! Thanks, Alice, you’re wrapped. Moving on to the lesbians in the shower scene!” The director dismissed me.

  I walked away, wondering if we’d done the scene yet and should I perhaps mention I no longer wanted the part? Everything happened so quick. Oh well, it was done and over with and like the lady said, at least I didn’t have to do nudity.

  I left the studio and caught a bus home. It was 9 a.m. and everybody was going to work. I felt so dirty among them.

  * * *

  It was the Christmas break for the film business. That meant we were in mid-November and should get back to work around mid-February. Even if I wanted to do extra work, there was none to be had. I had to budget my money carefully. I was still left with a bad taste in my mouth about my one speaking part to date, although I couldn’t quite figure out why. Maybe my acting ability had rusted. I decided to take a few classes. Paul said the trick was to take a class being taught by a casting director; that way they got a chance to see your work. Only one was being taught by a casting director – Bluto Parker. I signed up. The other classes I planned on attending were Relaxing in Front of the Camera and How to Breathe During an Audition.

  * * *

  Did I ever mention that I had a boyfriend? His name’s Joe. Not much to look at but he sure gets work. I was looking forward to his arrival from Africa, where he’d landed a five-week shoot that turned into five months. I was going to spend Christmas with him, doing what we usually do. Make big plans to go out and then end up staying home, ordering pizza and a movie. It was a comfortable relationship.

  I got an email from Joe. My man wouldn’t be home for Christmas. He got another film that started immediately so he was just going to skip from Africa to Italy. Seemed the ‘movie girlfriend’ from the African film landed a role in an Italian film, but insisted that Joe be her co-star. The producers met her demand. It was hard to believe that just a year before, Joe wrote, produced, directed and starred in a one-man show that just took off. I begged him to write a role in it for me but he didn’t. Who knows what might have happened then? Maybe I’d be in France. Maybe the show would have bombed. I wished Joe all the best but I was jealous. My self-esteem was low.