by Homer Hickam
“I’m doomed, Mildred. Doomed. I’m out of money and out of time and I have five exterior scenes yet to film.” Bakersfield tossed the script in the air. It landed with a thud.
“There is a way,” Miss Trumball said. “Omar and Eloise.”
Bakersfield chuckled mirthlessly. “They’re beautiful young people but despite that one scene they did, they’re still amateurs.”
“Listen, Eric. Before I became your Miss Do Everything for the Director, I was one of the best drama coaches on Broadway. I can train them to move just like Buster and Maude.”
“But even if you accomplish that,” the director said, “one look at their faces and the audience will know they aren’t Buster and Maude.”
“You’re the best director in Hollywood. You’re a camera master. You can have a head turned here, a distance shot there. When you get to the editing room, you’ll have miles of close-up footage of your stars to cut in.”
Bakersfield raised his head. “Do you really think it can be done?”
“I think you can do it.” She took his hand. “I know it.”
“Get them,” Bakersfield declared, giving her hand a squeeze. “Get those two wonderful, marvelous young people and let’s make a movie!”
“Here’s the setup, Omar,” Bakersfield said to Homer. “Eloise over there, aka Jane, has been captured by vicious pygmies and—”
“Vicious pygmies?” Homer asked. “I thought pygmies were nice.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“National Geographic magazine.”
“A scurrilous rag filled with falsehoods. You must get it into your head that there are no more vicious people in the world than pygmies. These particular pygmies are especially evil and they’re cannibals to boot. They’ve got Jane tied up, you see?”
Homer saw that Elsie was indeed tied up, her arms stretched between twin poles driven into the ground inside a fake pygmy village. Apparently, the pygmies didn’t like her clothes, either, as they had been partially torn off, leaving Jane in nothing but two strips of cloth artfully and necessarily placed for the edification of the censors. Homer was embarrassed to have his wife so displayed but Elsie seemed to be enjoying it.
“Shall we rehearse the scene, Mr. Bakersfield?” Elsie asked.
“We are rehearsing, my dear,” the director replied.
“Oh, help me,” wailed Elsie as the brown-painted midgets who’d been hired as pygmies gathered around. “I am so very much in trouble! These vicious pygmies are so mean and one of them—ouch!—pinched me!”
“You have no lines, dear,” Bakersfield pointed out. “Harry, stop that. I’ve warned you about pinching girls, haven’t I? So, anyway, Omar, put this knife in your mouth—no, the other way—and run in, knock the pygmies aside, and cut Jane loose. She will then faint and you will carry her—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Bakersfield,” Elsie interrupted. “Jane wouldn’t faint. She lives in the jungle. She’s very brave. Why would she faint?”
“Because it’s in the script,” Bakersfield replied.
When Elsie opened her mouth to argue, Miss Trumball interjected, “Because the pygmies haven’t fed her or given her anything to drink for days. She is about to pass out from the heat of their pressing bodies, too, so it’s coincidental that she faints just as Tarzan arrives.”
Elsie gave that explanation some thought, then said, “I can live with that.”
“Well, gooooood,” Bakersfield said, stretching out the o’s. “Now, Omar, are you ready?”
Homer was ready. He was even starting to believe he was good at the acting business. Maybe coal mining wasn’t all he could do, after all. “Yes, sir, I am,” he said with steely resolve.
“All right. Ready, Clarence?”
The cameraman shrugged and said, “Speed.”
“Action!”
When Bakersfield yelled “Cut!” after the scene, everybody cheered the grand new actors. The pygmies broke out the smokes.
“Now, dear,” Bakersfield said to Elsie as Chuck the reptile wrangler walked on set carrying a huge snake draped over his shoulders. “Take the snake and pretend it’s strangling you.”
Elsie’s eyes widened. “It’s awfully big.”
“Just relax,” Chuck said. “Her name is Gertrude. She recently ate so she’s sleepy. Don’t worry if she coils around you. That’s just her way of using you for support while she takes her nap.”
Homer was proud of Elsie when she allowed the giant snake to be draped on her shoulders. It was clearly heavy because her knees buckled beneath it. She looked at him and said, “Save me, honey.” He looked at his script but didn’t see that line. She was apparently improvising again. He smiled at her while she looked back with what he took to be mock horror.
“All right, Omar,” Bakersfield said. “In this scene, Jane has been taking a little walk, sampling the delights of the jungle. But an evil snake has dropped from a tree and is determined to choke and eat her.”
The snake’s head had moved to circle around Elsie’s throat. “Um, excuse me, but—”
“You have no lines, dear,” the director interrupted her, then turned to the reptile wrangler, who was busily chatting up a script girl. “Chuck, kindly stop chatting up Martha there and tell Omar how best to peel Gertrude off Eloise.”
The wrangler stepped in, put his arm under the snake, ran his hand up to its head, and pulled it back. “There you go. Nothing to it.”
Elsie took a deep breath while Chuck held the snake but when he let it go, she bleated, “I can’t breathe!”
“If you had a line, that would be a good one,” Bakersfield said. “Okay, Omar. You’re up when I say action. Do you feel motivated?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Bakersfield,” Homer answered. He frowned at Elsie, who was staggering around, making choking sounds when the cameras weren’t even rolling and clearly overacting. “How does Tarzan know Jane is being attacked?”
“Hmmm, good question. Gawdammed writers didn’t make that clear.”
“Maybe she could yodel for help?”
“Yes, of course! Damn, Omar. You’re a better writer than the writers. Yes, she would yodel a kind of feminine version of the Tarzan yodel and then you—or Tarzan in real life or not real life or, oh, forget it—you would yodel back with your manly yodel and fly through the trees to save . . . Chuck, why has Eloise fallen down?”
When Elsie made a strangled and somewhat desperate yodel, the director rolled his eyes. “We’ll dub that in later. Clarence? Are you ready?”
“Speed,” came the laconic response.
“Action!” Bakersfield said.
Homer rushed in and pulled the snake off Elsie. Then he fell to the floor and pretended to wrestle with it while Elsie flopped around and sucked in air.
“Cut!” Bakersfield said at length. The snake had gone limp and was all but snoring. “Omar, that was perfect!”
The reptile wrangler took the snake away and Homer got up and walked over to Elsie, who was sitting up. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She looked at him in a way he’d never seen her look at him before. “You saved me,” she said.
“It was in the script,” he replied.
She stood and threw herself into his arms. “You saved me!”
Bakersfield looked at Miss Trumball and shrugged. “It was in the script,” he said.
Miss Trumball smiled benevolently at the embracing couple. “This part wasn’t in there, Eric,” she said, “but it should have been.”
It was the final scene. The cameras were in position by a lagoon where great cypresses hung over the water draped with Spanish moss and fake vines.
“Eloise,” Bakersfield said, “you go into the water. Albert will follow. The underwater camera, configured on that platform, will capture everything as he swims up to you. The next shot will be you yodeling on the surface for help.”
“Yes, sir, we can do that,” Elsie said. She reached down and patted Albert’s head. Albert responded with his yeah-yeah-
yeah sound. “But Mr. Bakersfield?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m wearing a swimsuit.”
“And a fetching one at that, my dear.”
“Where would Jane get a swimsuit?”
When the director faltered, Miss Trumball said, “Jane found it in a trunk that fell off a passing safari.”
“I don’t recall that in the script.”
“It’s, um, implied.”
Bakersfield intruded. “Clarence?”
“Yeah, okay. Speed.”
“Action!”
Elsie dived into the cold water. “Come on in, Albert! Come to mama!”
The reptile wrangler let Albert loose and he slid on his belly into the water and swam over to Elsie, who flailed her arms and sank. Albert sank with her. When Elsie came up, she was laughing. In fact, everyone was laughing. “I love you so much, little boy,” Elsie said, hugging Albert in close and being rewarded with a big grin.
“Cut,” Bakersfield said. “We’ll fix it in editing. Okay, Omar, you’re up.”
Homer went into the water, dog-paddled beside Elsie, and waited for the director to say, “Action.” When he did, Homer grabbed Albert while Elsie swam away. Seeing her go, Albert tried to wiggle loose but Homer held on to him and let him struggle. Albert opened his mouth and brought his jaws down on Homer’s arm, although he stopped before he brought blood. “No, Albert, no!” Homer said and kept pretend-wrestling. Pretty soon, Albert understood the game and joined in.
“Cut, cut, cut, and that’s a wrap!” crowed Bakersfield. “Children, you have made my movie for me. We shall sell a million tickets!”
For Elsie, the wrap party was great fun. Everyone kept saying how wonderful she was and that maybe she and Omar might have a future in show business. Afterward, Miss Trumball sought the couple out. “What are your plans?” she asked.
Homer and Elsie looked at each other. “Maybe we can be actors,” Elsie proposed.
“I don’t think you’re cut out for show business,” Miss Trumball replied firmly. “It’s a tough business. It destroys most of the people who get into it, one way or the other. Trust me. Take this experience and savor it but let it end here.”
Homer nodded. “After we carry Albert home, I guess I’ll go back to coal mining,” he said.
He looked at Elsie, who shook her head. “I still don’t want to go back,” she said.
“Why is it necessary for either one of you to go back there?” Miss Trumball asked.
“Well, I’m a coal miner,” Homer explained. “And you just said I shouldn’t be an actor.”
“What if there was another kind of work you could do? Something a lot like coal mining that would let you stay in Florida?”
“There’s nothing like that here.”
Miss Trumball handed Homer a flyer. Elsie looked over his shoulder and read what the flyer said. “Could you?” Elsie asked Homer. “Would you?”
Homer looked at Elsie and his eyes softened. When she looked closer, she saw with a thrill that he had, at last, given in. “Yes,” she heard him say, resolutely. “I could. I would. And, if I can get this job, I will.”
The next morning, after packing up and carrying Albert in his washtub and placing him on the back seat, Homer and Elsie hugged the delegation of Hollywood folks, then waved their goodbyes. As Homer aimed the Buick out of Silver Springs, there was a flutter of feathers and the rooster landed inside the Buick. “Hey, rooster,” Homer said. “Where the heck have you been?” The rooster hopped over and stood on Homer’s shoulder, then settled by his ear.
Homer laughed and then, still with no map, turned at the entrance sign and steered south, ever south to their new life.
I was twenty-three and an army lieutenant assigned to the Fourth Infantry Division. We were headed to Vietnam. Just before we were to queue up and climb into our airplane for the long flight across the Pacific, I managed to find a telephone inside the terminal to call home. Mom wasn’t there but Dad was. Since I’d been in the army, Dad had never written to me or said anything about my service. He left all that to Mom. Not sure what to say, I settled on the obvious. “Well, I’m off pretty soon,” I told him.
“I’ll tell your mom you called,” came Dad’s reply.
“Thanks.”
With our conversation, such as it was, apparently exhausted, I started to say goodbye but then Dad suddenly said, “Before there’s trouble, there’s always signs. Get ahead of it by always paying attention to everything going on, even things that seem ordinary. Figure out what’s the worst thing that could happen and be prepared.”
I realized he was giving me advice about being in a dangerous place. “Like in the coal mine,” I said.
“Yes, but it was the hurricane where I really learned about paying attention to the signs.”
I could hear the NCOs calling out the names of the men in their platoons. “Dad, I’m going to have to go. Tell Mom I probably won’t be able to call but I’ll write.”
“Let me tell you about the hurricane.”
I glanced across the tarmac. The men were forming up. I waved at the first sergeant and pointed at the phone. He gave me a curt nod. I turned away and gripped the phone next to my ear. “Okay, Dad,” I said, “I’m listening.”
“Back then, I was full of myself,” he said. “Filled with piss and vinegar. Bulletproof. Indestructible. That’s because I was young—like you—and nothing bad was ever going to happen to me. But that’s when you can get into the most trouble. . . .”
PART VIII
How Homer, Elsie, and Albert Endured a Hurricane, a Real One as Well as the One in Their Hearts
40
THE ROAD OUT OF MIAMI FOLLOWED THE COASTLINE past Homestead and kept going straight as an arrow across the vast soggy grasslands of the Everglades until it reached Key Largo, after which it followed a chain of coral islands, crossing a series of bridges and ferries, until it reached the last island of the American southern archipelago, called Key West.
The recently appointed chief rail inspector for the Florida East Coast Railway was a former coal miner named Homer Hickam, who was on an inspection trip to a new section of track on Key West. To journey there, he had received special permission to drive rather than take the train. This was so he might stop along the way, whenever he pleased, and inspect the track at his leisure. He was also given permission to take along his wife, one Elsie Lavender Hickam, who chose to carry with them her pet alligator, named Albert, as well as a rooster, unnamed.
Homer was enjoying the scenery provided by the narrow gray road that led across the keys. Key Largo was the first. It was a long, narrow island (thus its Spanish name) lined by mangroves and rocky beaches. Before they got to the first bridge, Elsie exclaimed, “Put the top down, Homer. Please! Put the top down!”
“I don’t know, Elsie. The sun’s pretty hot,” Homer replied. “Wouldn’t want you and Albert to get burned.”
“We’re tougher than that, boy,” Elsie declared.
Homer pulled over and put the top down, strapping it tight against the buffeting wind coming off the Atlantic. Above, seagulls wheeled in the sunlit sky, calling out to their companions. He took a deep breath and slowly released it. He’d never been so happy, which gave him tremendous concern. If past experience was any guide, something was going to happen to take his happiness away. “Your hair’s going to be a mess,” he advised his wife as he started out again but Elsie didn’t seem to care anything about her hair. In fact, she stood up and let the air blast into her face, her hair whipping back and forth like a flag.
“Please sit down, Elsie,” Homer urged.
“Homer, you’ve got to loosen up,” Elsie said. “We’re Floridians now. That means we can be a little crazy when we want to be. Look, we’re both young. We’re never going to be young again. Come on. Why don’t you take your shirt off, just fling it away? I’ll hold the wheel.”
Elsie sat down and held the wheel and Homer, after a moment of resistance, gave in and unbuttoned his shirt and too
k it off. He held it over the back seat to drop it beside Albert.
“Uh uh, boy,” Elsie said. “That won’t do. You got to fling it.” She grabbed his shirt and threw it in the air. It fluttered for a moment before flying off the bridge into the Atlantic below.
“Elsie, I loved that shirt!” Homer complained, but seeing the cheerful expression on his wife’s face, he smiled benevolently at her. “But it was just a shirt, after all. You’re not going to get naked, are you?”
“Don’t fret, Homer. I know that would embarrass you all over Florida. But I’m tempted!”
After crossing the bridge, they found themselves on Matecumbe Key. Homer stopped the car and put on a spare shirt, then drove on, soon encountering men who seemed to be moving in slow motion while working on the road. When the Buick rumbled by, they stopped even that motion and leaned on their shovels and watched with morose interest. Most of them had sad, gaunt faces, the pinkness about their eyes and noses indicating too much alcohol drunk too often.
“I read about these men,” Homer told Elsie. “They’ve been sent down here by the New Deal. Most of them are veterans of the Great War and desperate for jobs.”
To his astonishment, Homer recognized two of the men. “Slick and Huddie,” he said in disbelief.
The pair took note of the Buick and its passengers. “Help us!” Slick cried. Huddie grunted a desperate bleat. They were dressed in ragged clothes.
Homer was so moved by their sad appearance, he stopped. The two threw down their shovels and came running. Slick whipped a cloth cap off his head and held it pleadingly. “Might you help us, kind sir? Ma’am? Albert?”
“What are you doing here?” Homer demanded. “I thought you were surely lost at sea.”
“Them what washes ashore oft stays ashore,” Slick answered mysteriously. “Anyway, we have ended up here in this chickenshit outfit, pardon the language, ma’am, and we really need to get away. The mosquitoes here are so big, t’other day one lifted me clear off my feet. I ain’t got an inch on my body what ain’t been bit. Huddie’s in the same shape. They don’t feed us too well here, neither. How about a lift?”