City of Flickering Light

by Juliette Fay

  Betty Blythe rode in a chariot driven by a handsome extra, bare-chested and wearing a leather skirt. She herself was wearing a cloak, but the director wanted it to come loose and expose her scanty costume underneath as the wind blew against them.

  “Fine by me,” said Betty Blythe. “It’s hell on a griddle out here.”

  As the chariot headed through the dunes and rocky outcroppings toward the camera, Betty let the cloak slip from her shoulders. Her costume was a sort of filmy net vest that came only to her navel, and revealed her nipples almost as clearly as if she were stark naked. Betty was amply endowed, and as those lovely orbs approached, the barest whisper of a sigh went up from the male extras hanging around behind the camera in their palace guard costumes.

  Eva Crown shook her head. The cameraman, a short burly man named Wilson Grimes, the same one Henry had seen that first day at the studio, groaned.

  “What are you two griping about?” said Oberhouser. “It was perfect.”

  “Apparently you weren’t watching her driver,” said Eva.

  Wilson called out to the young man. “You got a cold?”

  “I’m fine!”

  “You sure?”

  “Ab-so—” And then his chest began convulsing. He kept his mouth clamped shut, but he was clearly coughing. Betty leaned away from him, face pinched in distaste.

  “He hacked like that all through the take,” said Eva.

  “Dammit,” muttered Oberhouser. “All right, let’s get someone else in there.”

  “All the men are dressed in their palace costumes,” said Eva. “It’ll take time to get someone switched out and switched back. We need to get the palace scene in by nightfall, or it’ll mean another day of on-location production costs.”

  “Henry could do it!” a voice called out from the scrum of queen’s handmaidens, and Henry recognized Gert Turner’s voice.

  “Who in the hell is Henry?” said Wilson.

  Henry rose hesitantly from his chair. “I believe she means me.”

  Oberhouser, Eva, and Wilson stared at him a moment.

  Then Oberhouser smiled. “Hello, Henry.”

  Henry and the coughing extra went behind the equipment truck. Henry stripped and put on the leather skirt, and the other guy covered his nakedness with King Solomon’s robes. Then a makeup person was called in to slather Henry with brown grease paint and outline his eyes with black liner.

  “Have you ever driven a chariot, Henry?” asked Oberhouser wryly.

  “I grew up in New York City, sir,” said Henry. “The only thing I’ve ever driven is a hard bargain.”

  The director nodded appreciatively. “You’re about to make an addition to your résumé.”

  It was both harder and easier than it looked. With the whole cast and crew waiting, the horse trainer gave Henry a speedy and anxiety-producing lesson on how to use the reins, what to say to get the horse to go or stop, and most concerning of all, what to do if the horse got spooked and took off, which mostly amounted to letting the animal run himself out. Oberhouser, on the other hand, was far more concerned with Betty Blythe’s safety and general happiness, and instructed Henry to control the animal at all costs.

  Fear crackling through him like a faulty electrical cord, Henry got into the two-wheeled chariot and immediately unbalanced it. He barely caught himself before he tumbled out, leather skirt flinging itself around his thighs. The girl extras let out a little cheer at this, which did nothing to assuage his anxiety.

  He got himself situated, reins in hand, legs spread wide for stability. Then Betty Blythe stepped in and tripped over his foot. She went down like a sack of scantily clad flour into the front of the chariot, and Henry had a terrible time hanging on to the reins and trying to help her.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Blythe . . . terribly sorry . . . are you all right? . . . Should I—?”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” she said, grabbing onto the side of the chariot and pulling herself up. “You keep to your side of this bucket, and I’ll keep to mine, okay, Tarzan?”

  The easy part began once he’d cracked the reins and yelled “Yah!” as loudly as he’d been instructed. The horse took off at a stately trot, and all Henry had to do was keep himself upright. He hoped Miss Blythe could do the same, but if she couldn’t . . . well, that was her problem.

  The horse trotted by the camera, and Henry hauled back on the reins as he’d been told. In his eagerness to bring the whole episode to an end, however, he may have tugged a little too forcefully because the horse suddenly reared up on his hind legs and dropped down to a hard stop. Henry and Miss Blythe both went crashing into the front of the chariot, and the leading lady would’ve flipped completely out of it if Henry hadn’t gotten a hand on the back of the flimsy vest and held fast.

  She turned around quickly, twisting herself out of his grasp. “For godsake,” she hissed, “what were you raised by, grizzlies? Quit pawing me!”

  She flounced out of the chariot and over to the director, who was conferring with Wilson, the cameraman. Henry followed a few paces behind, mortified, exhausted, and just glad the whole thing was over.

  “Did you get it?” Betty asked Oberhouser.

  “I’m so sorry, darling, but the horse was too slow.”

  “Too slow? We were about to break our necks out there!” She shot her thumb at Henry. “If he hadn’t grabbed me, I’d be lying in about sixty pieces in the sand.”

  Oberhouser gave Henry a little nod of gratitude and said, “I know it felt like that, but I can only say it looked like you were trotting off to a picnic, not speeding toward an appointment with the King of Israel.”

  Miss Blythe let out a string of curses (some combinations of which were new to Henry) ending with, “And if I break my dimpled ass, your picture is in the shitter!”

  “I’m sorry, dear, but the shot requires—”

  “Uh, actually, Obie?” said Wilson. “The horse doesn’t have to go much faster.” They all turned to the cameraman. “If he does it at a slightly quicker clip, but I turn the crank slower—maybe ten frames a second—when it plays at the standard sixteen, it’ll look like the horse is galloping when it’s only cantering.”

  The horse and chariot were brought back to the start, and Henry and Miss Blythe climbed reluctantly back in. She turned to him just before Oberhouser called for action and snarled, “Hold on to your nuts, Tarzan, because this is the last take I’m doing.”

  She grabbed his hand that was wrapped around the reins, lifted it high and brought it down fast, making the reins slap hard onto the horse’s back. “Haw!” she hollered, and they were suddenly flying across the desert, Betty with her shoulders back, chest out, smiling for godsake, as the robe slipped down and revealed all that God and random luck had given her.

  Henry was furious. Just for spite, he let the horse run himself out before reining him in. Betty ordered, “Get this rig back. There’s a drink with my name on it.”

  The horse circled back on his own, his eye on the trainer holding out an apple. When he came to a stop, Betty got out and headed directly for her car, a champagne-colored Pierce-Arrow that gleamed like amber, the driver with a cocktail shaker in hand.

  “Henry!” called Oberhouser, and Henry made his way over to the director, knees still a little shaky from the hellacious ride.

  “I’ll go and change now,” he said. “I’m sure I need to put a stitch or two into her costume where I grabbed it.”

  “Never mind that,” said Oberhouser. “You were quite impressive. That ferocious look you gave made a great improvement to the scene.”

  Henry chuckled. “That was no look.”

  Oberhouser took a step closer. “She’s insufferable,” he murmured. “They all are.”

  “How do you stand it?”

  “I was a high school dramatics teacher before I became a film director. Same job, much better pay.”

  Henry was told to stay in costume. They shot a scene with the queen disembarking from the chariot and heading toward King Solomo
n’s palace—which wasn’t actually there, of course. They’d shoot that angle when they got back to the lot, where a palace exterior had been built. But Oberhouser wanted realism, and the wind had kicked up. Sand swirled dramatically, and he couldn’t resist an opportunity to show the fortitude of the great Queen of Sheba as she battled her way toward her destination. Betty had fortitude in spades, as it turned out, fortified as she was by several rounds from her driver’s cocktail shaker.

  The scenario called for her to march toward the palace guards, head high, which she was able to accomplish for a couple of steps until she tripped over a stone (or possibly her costume, or possibly nothing at all), and began to crumple to the ground. Henry had been told to follow her while holding his ferociously protective look and was able to catch her under the armpits before she hit the dirt.

  She looked up at him with a boozy smile. “Tryin’a touch my tits?”

  Henry smiled back tightly and said, “Trying to keep your costume clean.” (The title cards would later say “THANK YOU, LOYAL SERVANT!” and “I REVERE YOU, MY QUEEN!”)

  Oberhouser and Eva Crown were happy. It was over in one take.

  That evening, after slathering himself in cold cream to get the greasepaint off his face and torso and taking the longest shower of his life to get the cold cream off, Henry went down to the Harvey House dining room for dinner. He scanned the hall crowded with cast and crew and remembered the last time he was here, a month ago now, with Irene and Millie. He missed them, his only two friends in the world at the moment, and wished they were there so he could regale them with the story of his brief stint as Betty Blythe’s chariot driver and stumble catcher.

  There was an open seat at Oberhouser’s table, and Henry felt a brief jolt of excitement at the possibility of sharing a meal with the great director. But his courage failed him when he saw that the others at the table were Eva Crown, Wilson Grimes, and Fritz Leiber, the leading man. Henry knew he was far down the food chain from the likes of them.

  There were a few open spots, and he noticed several of the girl extras glancing his way. Nothing like being bare-chested with the leading lady to spark interest, he thought. But then he caught site of Gert Turner. She simply tipped her head toward the seat next to her, as if she didn’t care if he took it but was pretty sure he probably would.

  And, of course, he did. They were friends now, after all.

  15

  When I went to work in a studio, I took my pride and made a nice little ball of it and threw it right out the window.

  Dorothy Arzner, writer, editor, director

  Irene watched Millie hook her arm with that idiot, Wally, her shoes dangling from her fingertips, all giggles and fake innocence, and made a mental note to give her a good talking to when they got back to Ringa’s. For a girl who’d been on her own for the last three years, since the tender age of sixteen, she could be such a dunce.

  Wordlessly, Carter watched them go, too.

  “Your friend’s an idiot,” said Irene.

  “We’re not really friends,” said Carter. “And your pal isn’t exactly Madame Curie.”

  Point taken, thought Irene.

  She stared out at the black water, light flickering off it like a thousand skipped rocks. The Pacific Ocean. She’d seen it before from the train window when they’d traveled down the coast from Seattle once, but she’d never touched it. And now here she was, ankle deep.

  “Ummm . . .” said Carter, an obvious and awkward search for something, anything, to talk about. “How do you like Hollywood?”

  So far it’s awful, she wanted to say. But that wasn’t really date conversation, was it? And yet, how could she respond without lying completely?

  “To be honest, it would be a lot more enjoyable if I had a job. We’ll be out of money soon.” She had just handed Ringa another eighteen dollars for their fifth week of rent. The tea set money was gone, and Henry was paying for them now. He kept saying he was certain something would turn up, but it was all starting to feel pretty dire.

  Carter nodded and squinted in thought. “I can probably get you a little work as an extra.”

  “Really?” Irene felt her body surge with real hope for the first time in weeks. “Because we’ll take anything you’ve got.”

  He frowned. “Except the next picture I’m working on is Lewis and Clark, and either you’re Sacagawea or you’re out of luck. They’ve already got Betty Blythe lined up for the role, so it’ll be at least a month or two before anything new comes up.”

  A MONTH OR TWO? she wanted to scream. Why had he even bothered to mention it?

  Her feet were cold, and she began to wonder if maybe there was a burlesque house around that she could look into. Just for the short term, she told herself. Just till something better came along. Of course, there was always that dance hall Ringa’s brother owned, but Irene suspected there was more to it than that. The girls who worked there came back looking dead-eyed—and occasionally unaccountably bruised.

  “Can you type?” Carter said suddenly.

  “Type?”

  “Yeah, you know.” He wiggled his fingers out in front of him.

  Her aunt was a secretary and owned her own typewriter, an outrageous luxury. She used it for practice, claiming that girls who could type over a hundred words per minute got all the jobs. She had often let Irene and Ivy practice and given them simple drills to do.

  “I can type,” said Irene.

  “Maybe there’s a spot in the scenario department. Most of the writers do their work in longhand at home. Then they send them in to have them typed up properly.”

  “How much does it pay?”

  “Not much, probably, but it’ll be a raise from what you’re getting now.”

  “Which is nothing.”

  “Exactly.”

  They stood there in the water, and Irene asked every question she could think of about the scenario department, the writers, how the scenarios got from one place to the next, who was in charge, and the like. Soon the waves were only lapping at their toes.

  Then she saw Millie.

  Irene had the strange sensation of having been punched in the stomach, all the air out of her, none coming in. She began to walk toward Millie, and the things she hadn’t quite noticed but had somehow sensed now came into sharper focus. Hair disheveled. Dress askew. And where were her shoes?

  Millie was saying something, her lips moving but not much sound coming out. At a few paces away, the word became clear. “Irene,” she whimpered. “Irene.”

  Irene grabbed her by the shoulders, and Millie leaned into her. “What happened?”

  “Just get me home.”

  Irene looked at Carter. He looked away.

  “Carter,” said Irene firmly.

  “Where is he?” Carter asked Millie.

  “He was in no hurry. He already got what he wanted.” To Irene she said, “Do we have cab fare?”

  Irene drilled Carter with a look. “No, we do not.”

  Carter shook his head and muttered something to himself, but Irene could make it out. Dumb bastard. She wondered if he meant Wally or himself for agreeing to go along on this miserable evening to begin with.

  “Come on,” he said and started up the beach.

  The ride back to Ringa’s was silent. Irene sat in back with Millie, who curled herself against Irene as if the car were Antarctica and Irene was the only warm blanket for miles. When they got there, Millie began to make her way slowly up the walkway.

  Irene went around to the driver’s-side window. “Thanks,” she said.

  Carter shrugged. “Least I could do, I guess.”

  “I’ll be in tomorrow first thing. You’ll take me to the scenario department, right?”

  He nodded, gazing back at her, and she could tell he wanted to kiss her. After everything he’d just seen. Millie all a mess. His friend, who wasn’t really a friend, left behind. The whole night gone to hell, and he still wanted to kiss her.

  But she needed that job—any job—and
she knew he was the one who might be able to help her get it. And so she leaned in.

  He pulled back, which surprised her.

  “I don’t kiss girls who don’t want to kiss me back.” He put the car in gear. “We’re not all Wally.” Irene stepped back onto the curb, and he pulled away.

  Millie was sitting on the front step. “I can’t go in just yet. I need a minute.”

  “Was it . . . was it your first time?”

  “No. But I never . . . I mean . . . no one ever, you know . . . hurt me like that.”

  “Sometimes they get a little . . . in a hurry.” Irene’s experience was limited to the occasional boy she’d flirted with and kissed during her time on the road with her sister. But shows only lasted a week before they moved on to the next town and the next new bill of performers, so none of it had ever gotten too serious. She’d been petted and pawed and done a little exploring of the male form herself, but that was as far as she’d gone.

  “This wasn’t just in a hurry, Irene.” Millie’s chin quivered and a tear rolled down her face. “He . . . he pinned me down.”

  An image of sweet little Millie struggling under the weight of that stupid oaf came to Irene, and she thought she might be sick. She wanted it to go away, to un-see it. She wanted the whole night to go away and wished Millie had never accepted the invitation to dinner to begin with. Hadn’t Irene warned her? Hadn’t she said this was just the kind of thing that could happen? She’d always heard it was the girl’s fault, that she must have been a “bad girl” and was asking for it in some way.

  But Irene knew Millie. And going off with Wally might not have been the brightest idea, but there was nothing about her that was “bad.” Irene herself had once sat on a hay bale in an empty barn and let a boy put his hands under her blouse. But when his fingers had roamed southward, and she’d whispered, “Okay, that’s enough,” he’d stopped. He hadn’t pinned her down and torn her dress and forced his manhood into places it wasn’t welcome.

  He’d stopped.

  Wally hadn’t. And that wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own.