Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  Wait a minute! This was the first shoot wherein he felt constrained and consigned to restrictions that sought to limit his contributions, not expand them. Might it have something to do with the fact that he was accessing his director’s queme needs on a daily basis, and she was servicing him in like manner, on a similar schedule?

  ‘Lover-mate?’

  His voice echoed, somewhat dully, due to the cold-sweat humidity.

  The director followed up her ‘Lo’ line with:

  ‘Hey. Over here.’

  She sat on the hard, black-washed pew, crotch exposed, discreet enough as far as lack of prying eyes were concerned, the perfect opportunity for randy lovers to chalk up a novelty fuck, into their trophy bar of wacky sites to laugh over later.

  He drew closer, and prepared to join her in the complex of c.1914 carpentry, in which she not unattractively displayed herself.

  He knew she needed it for her directorial inspiration. It was not an unreasonable want. Hell, some directors need cigars, or beverage alcohol, or a casting couch boost on break. Some just get by on zen pills or a hazelnut sandwich.

  There was nothing untoward about Jana’s advance on him at this moment. He was no boy-toy, no servant to the exalted. He knew she just dug him and wanted an inspirational do-dad in the midst of all this Jugendstil solemnity. Plus, she loved to show herself off to him with a sort of naughty pride.

  ‘Good stuff’, was their usual mutual compliment of choice.

  And when he drew nigh to that exposed corner of sweet, sulky cunnilingual personality, the seductive scent caught his tongue muscles and commanded him to magnetize to the proper destination.

  Only, there was a resistance. Perhaps it was the sickening two-tone lighting plot; the depth of the blue and orange now cast down upon them was really the worst of all possible endowments. As if a bilious response had been expected by the atheistic Soviet society that willingly upgraded the church’s window needs in the late 1940s, after consulting psychologists in search of colors conducive to cults of personality.

  But no, it wasn’t the colors cast upon this actor who was so familiar with gel-light spread upon him, in keeping with scripted dramatic moods. No such simple effect could possibly command in-depth control on one so used to interpretation of both script and superficial ambience, as required by director and lighting cameraperson. He was just too multi-dimensional an actor for such surface dictations to sway his judgment of performance, be it private or public, or even before the private camera, as conduit for public exhibition.

  No directorial mandate commanded him right now. But why the reticence?

  It was just that, she was not the one. That is, she was not the one to do such a thing in such a place. Not that he needed qualifiers, but there was too much of the cynical about this situation and not enough of the loving. It was all too mechanical. Not enough passion. Too much hubris, as if a notch was all that would result in whatever his/her orgasms might result from this job of sex.

  Very male.

  His nose went up toward the stained glass, instead of in for the bulls-eye.

  ‘Why no kiss?’ demanded Jana. ‘Why no smooch? You always do. I always do to you, too. Why, I ask you?’

  The air in the church seemed to die. The orange and blue retreated, as if commanded by the cinema director.

  ‘Well, I…’

  She flipped the coyly supple flap of her miniskirt down over her coiffed bush, reeled in the expansive angle of her knees, and stood her six feet above her actor’s crumpled posture in the pew-cubby. It wasn’t as if she had to make obvious statements of body politic for him to get the message. It was just that both knew of the cramped, churchy-funky logistics in play right now. This, in the midst of a demanding but successful shoot. Each, usually in favor of sexy fun, seemed at a loss for the failure that occurred just now.

  Later, in front of the cameras, the afternoon filming in the church actually went extremely well. It was almost as if their short-circuited reliability route to easy sexual completion heightened their dramatic creativity on this occasion.

  However, in their private realm within the railway station hotel that served the cast and crew in this coastal town, Jana smoldered, then blew up at her bedmate and star. A belated reaction, but at least it was after the moneyed business of the day had been completed and spectacular footage was in the can.

  ‘How the fuck could you refuse me like that?? And in such a place?? Such a place, and one that meant so much to me??’

  ‘Well, I…’ was all Butterbugs could muster.

  ‘Because, why??’

  There was no reason to come down on her. He knew she was under a lot of pressure with this production, what with the tricky locations, the humming across the countryside, the setups, the euphoria of possibilities, the excitement of sharing a vision for the screen, the satisfaction of presentation, the dailies’ promise, the inevitable lowered boom of the studio dudes…bazaar. Such a package was all part of the splendor of location shooting. The freedom, the expansive stretching-out, the orgiastic thrill of monochrome heath and shaggy wood, the modest mountain and the tidal flood.

  If he withdrew, ever so slightly, reins would be perceived as taking control, thus lessening the splendor. Such were the sensitivities of those who made movies, who also led caravans of pricey baggage of camera-and-cable, necessary to realize their vision. It was a mad enterprise, but because of producers’ trust and producers’ greed, huge allowances were made if the product was delivered.

  Jana stood at the arrowhead of the charge, and hell, she just needed a bit of TLC, for crying out loud. Besides, she had the most head-turning private parts in the Industry, at least on the directors’ chair level.

  Yet! She was not the one.

  He thought it prudent to suspend sleeping with her.

  Later, locations crossed into Lithuania.

  In a dark forest of birch, fir and indeterminate saplings, interior monologues took seed and grew amongst the fertile density. The freshness of the silence in this profoundly natural spot, flourishing in the face of a retreating Earth’s real self, reminded his soul of the necessity of retreat.

  Because of his inexperience with failure with women (not only to his mind, but to theirs as well), Butterbugs could not help but brood. Aided by the melancholy landscape, which exhilarated him as much as it melancholized – (Savrasov could have captured it on canvas! or in winter, Vereshchagin!) – he thought himself a failure in this respect. That is, why was this rather spectacular woman flipping out over his quite mundane reticence?

  There was a rustling amongst some of the sproutlings, yonder. Someone was advancing towards him through the gentle Euro-turf. But the plantings were so thick that uncertain shadows were all that represented a presence behind the foliage. Surely she had come, to tell him her tale, to make up. Or else there was a derringer tucked in her garter, way up her sleek thigh. He already scanned the immediate vicinity, scouting out potential backrests for their love-hungry poses; a mossy fringe in sunlight, next to the warm darkness of contrasting deepwoods, perfect for orgasm in the morn.

  However, instead of Jana’s long bare legs stepping into this blessed realm, with expected Daisy Mae-frilled hot pants (which she’d worn on set), the equally trim but furred fetlocks of Lietuva’s chicest doe demurely appeared, an entrance made under the most optimum conditions of appreciation possible.

  The human mindset always presumes their own kind shall always command the destinies of ‘lesser’ creatures, such as wilderland deer. Today though, it was the doe who was in charge. With a guest like Butterbugs, in his reduced, even pathetic circumstances, there was no doubt where authority lay. Therefore she stood fast, albeit in gorgeous pose. Stylish, but with assertive and statuesque certitude.

  Butterbugs gasped – with discretion. The vision was achingly beautiful. He thought it so fragile, he dare not breathe. But when he saw the doe discreetly but inexorably drew nigh to him, to inspect and perhaps approve of his very presence in her thicket, he i
mmediately complied in adopting meekness. Or at the very least, acquiescence to the actual Mistress of the Forest.

  She duly approached, and because he was in awe and chose submission, she had to find out what he felt, and what he sought. Ears at full attention, she cared enough to prepare for nuzzling, for this weak one seemed in need of nurture. With leg movements akin to the most wistful of danseurs’ entries into a pas de deux of dramatic resolve, she made contact with the spellbound actor, and plainly, clearly, and dispassionately made herself available to provide comfort, without conditions, and with purity of purpose.

  He hugged the supple neck with all the dramatic emotion that conveyed sincerity above all else. In his mind, a sadly sweet music started to play. Even though Peteris Vasks was scoring the very picture in which he was appearing, the star’s sentiments were pure Herbert Stothart in their melody.

  Beholding the poor abandoned soul’s sorrow, the doe’s eyes welled up. Nose extended around, reaching the hugger, she sought to lick encouragement and good sense into this wobbling offspring. Even though there were no Bambi speckles on his back, her tongue reached his teary cheek. Such an attentive gesture, given in confidence, brought the actor out of himself, and he looked into his benefactor’s eyes.

  ‘There, there, we all struggle in the forest of life. Come, take heart! Trot onward in the sunlight. Step lightly over fallen log and subtle spring. Take not of the majesty which surrounds you for your own, yet bathe in it, and pay heed to the passage of the day, for there is plenty of time devoted to the dark. We must make what we can of the light!’

  In the private repose of her director’s trailer, Jana spread her legs and liberated the feelings of a possessive pussy, which shed its own symbol of loss, a single honeyed droplet. Sorry to have blown it, but reticent to yield. So unlike the guile-less doe in the thicket, who bore no ill will to anyone. Least of all, to the culling hunter who would wait, several days hence.

  And Jana wept, in more than one location, for different reasons. She maintained her innocence, her correctness, her rightness. Not as director, but as possessor of a possession. Why should she yield to regression and predictable role-playing, when she must stand fast, not only to get this picture out, but to enact the directorial role itself – to command, control, and prevail?

  74.

  The Promise Of Joy

  The noontide sun was indeed hot, and Butterbugs was glad that he wore the wide-brimmed Amish-style hat.

  This morning’s squabble on the set was now remote to him. There had been ‘words’. Back, forth, up, around, curled & zigzagged.

  Unresolved, too.

  But dammit, he was proud of the fact that after his latest ten pictures – nine of them out-and-out runaway successes in the first weekend – he could jolly-well have a purposeful row with his director over ‘artistic differences’, without kowtowing to authority.

  Authority, he reckoned, for its own sake.

  She was a bitch, all right. Jana Share, that is. Just like Cody (de la Funk) had always said. Of course, they were rivals. A shame really, for two powerful, capable, creative women to get into a competitive power trip, but there it was. They had been roommates at Cottey College, and while Jana actually made it into the director’s chair, Cody had to be content doing her more subtle thing. True, Cody had originally wanted to helm films she dreamt of, but now that she was ensconced in the production side, she’d found contentment and fulfillment. And when Jana learned of her rival’s professional pleasure, it rankled all the more. As a filmmaker, she had yet to even approach the kind of artistic satisfaction she so craved. Her jealousy was deepest purple, and her envy a tweaked chartreuse.

  Because the brutal truth was, a thinking person had to be gracefully sculpted in stone to withstand the storm and stress of making it in this biz. But if their personalities were to be reverse-anthropomorphized, Cody’s would be of Pietra dura marble, while Jana’s was harsh granite.

  Perhaps, as the star walked away – way away – he would even scuttle this production if he felt like it. It had yet to feel right. ‘In The Years To Come’ (20th-Fox) was a great story, but how come it was all-wrong, thus far?

  So, hands behind back, in contemplative mode, he proceeded up the road, and departed the hip-cum-cool on-location world of transplants from Tinselton, who were running free in regions they knew not – and could not care less about.

  But Butterbugs felt anchored to the Earth. Glad to be away from the demands of the Industrial conurbation, he had no trouble re-attaching himself to the scale of the landscape itself. The somewhat troubling background of his youthful conflicts with surroundings and ambitions had dissolved into the clarity of this immense plateau.

  Here on the ground, there was no question, either of sense of place, or sense of ambition. This particular place simply was. No argument over an irrefutable fact. Why quibble over something so obvious, anyway? That was urban stuff, modern stuff, stressed-out stuff. Movie-set stuff!

  It wasn’t time for introspection. It was simply time to shape up.

  After about an hour of unfettered wandering in the general direction of the sun’s progress on this gifted late summer afternoon, the actor arrived at something of an impasse. The trail had petered out. There was nothing but scrubbly ground that had been pulverized by a probable hailstorm, who knows how long ago. Yet there were traces of thoroughfares, more artistically licensed than anything. He squatted down, and realized he was without water, or any other accouterment of survival, way out here in the deceptively good-hearted greatness of the West.

  To make sense of this mise en scène, a declaration had to be made.

  ‘I am a Westerner. I am of this kind of land. I am also humbled by it.’

  He raised his head in almost a pagan ministration to the land as mind.

  ‘Please forgive me,’ he muttered. ‘I did not presume upon you as an entity for me to take advantage of…’

  It was his pleasure to play the lowly role of witness, entirely without eco-ego. Nevertheless, he had to live, and he did not wish to suffer out here in the unknown, just because of an ‘artistic difference’ with his regie.

  ‘I have been to Paris, which she who would direct me loves. But I have suffered in such a wasteland – which is what it is, if ye have no money!’ he yowled, relishing the ability to slightly let loose. Without witnesses for once, due to the demands of this not-necessarily hospitable environment. Ah, to indulge in a bit of overacting, instead of discipline, discipline, discipline! It was a good place to practice his lines, as certain experiences in the wilderness had allowed him to, in the past.

  What lines? His role was a huge one, with pages and pages of monologues. Now they would not come. Probably because he was distracted.

  Distracted by a sudden occurrence, off to the northwest. 20/20–360 was his scan of the horizon, in subconscious search of answers. Good, steady widescreen technique. And there they were: sketchy kinetics on the horizon. They, or it, drew closer, a long shot through deep focus, so that all in the frame was discerned with lucidity and equality. That’s why Butterbugs was a humanist, because all things were possible at all times. Nothing could alter his built-in sense of wonder, which the lightest of touches readily activated, in order to carry the day, if not the decade.

  So, something was happening off/out there on the horizon. And that something came hither.

  She was Prairie Browne. And she was riding a balloon-tired bike, for crying out loud.

  ‘Hey, Mister!’ she exclaimed. And after no reply came from whomever might be listening: ‘Hey, Sailor! Wanna get lucky?’

  He saw her. She: probably about fourteen, and full of as much sincerity as a 4-H sheep girl at the Unca-Donald county fair. Plainly, there was good reason to give her credit. She was probably ready to embark on a career of canoodling, if nothing else.

  ‘Who, me?’ Butterbugs asked, full of a premature sense of maturity, just because he was at least a decade or so older than she.

  ‘You’re catchin’ on!’r />
  Prairie Browne! For more than a minute, Butterbugs was in love. Freckle-tanned face, punky brown hair, button nose, and a trim little body with tantalizing midriff-strip, hip-hugger jeans ’n’ clunky shoes. Just what a Prairie Browne should be. If he’d retained any Junior High/Middle School crush-memories (which he hadn’t), that’s where he’d be, right now.

  Way out here in the West, who thought about chronology? Things were too Big for that, especially the Moment, always at hand.

  ‘Hey, Mister! C’mere!’

  Her little butt was just rising off the bike seat, so that she could steady herself.

  ‘Ya hungry? Ya sure look it! Well then! Come on up to the house ’n’ have dinner with us! Oh, why doncha?’

  It was then that she told him her name – which, in his sense of expectation, he already seemed to know.

  In the beauty of the moment, powder blue sky, ‘Oklahoma!’ (Magna, 1955)-style cirrus clouds, a lone shade tree, and straw-colored landscape, he thought, ‘Heavens above! Heaven on earth!’ And his emotionalism, schooled in recent emoting in picture shows, made him want to weep with gladness over finding such a scene, despite the fact that the globe at large was generally in crisis.

  ‘Here is a world,’ he thought, somewhat pompously. ‘Free-from-pretension – and no one knows who I am… I think…’

  Then he addressed her, somewhat formally, but in the style of his current role.

  ‘Ma’am – or Missy, as the case may be (don’t mind the way I talk, if it’s all right), I’d – I’d be honored. If you’ll have me. I’d be much obleeged. I reckon I’ve got a powerful hunger, all right.’

  ‘Then you’ve got the ‘ongrys’!… as my Uncle Boy would say!’ hooted Prairie, raring to go.

  She sped off on the bike, and he followed humbly, like a fellow who knows that the destination ahead is likely to be good. Maybe even remarkable. So, best to be modest about it all. Not that Butterbugs was an opportunist. He was simply experienced enough at being formerly obscure in the world, so that such things as invitations to dinner in the middle of nowhere, from one stranger to another, were unlikely in the first place. He’d certainly never acted in such a scene before, whether scripted or improvised. And if such things were to happen, it couldn’t possibly be based on his own merits, especially at first impression.