The sign said Harbinger Studios and had a faded, yellow arrow pointing up a flight of wooden stairs. Country doublechecked the address on the card. He had imagined something quite different than what awaited. Fancier, perhaps. More professional. Clean. The second-floor storefront looked less like a casting office than a place where surfers would go to wash the sea salt off their bodies after a long day in the water.
He rubbed his head, trying to erase the effects of his first visit to a bar. “And the last,” he told himself. “I’m not sure why I let that guy from my class talk me into going.” His palms were cold and damp. His face felt hot. A couple dozen caterpillars had apparently taken up residence on his tongue. He looked at his reflection in the first-floor window. His regular pink tongue gazed back at him.
I look a mess, Country thought. There’s no way they’ll give me a part. I’ve never done any acting at all. Never even taken a small role in a school play. I don’t even want to be here. What was I thinking? Me. An actor. That’s ridiculous. Besides, this is Hollywood. There aren’t exactly a lot of parts for people of my, let’s say, timbre. Unless you’re Denzel, of course. Sure, he’s the finest actor that has ever lived, but throw a brother a bone. Leave some crumbs for the rest of us. Not like I want to be here in the first place. Why am I so sweaty?
“Trying to convince yourself to go up there?”
Country turned to see a man, not much older than he was but of a much paler complexion standing by his side.
“I suppose,” Country said.
“First time here?” the man asked. “I saw you looking at the sign. And the card in your hand. Sorry for being nosy.” His face twitched, and he looked as if he would run away at any minute.
“First time ever,” Country said.
The man nodded as if he understood there was more to the story. “Normally, I’d try to talk you out of going up there. Make it sound more awful than it really is. Eliminate the competition, you know, but you seem like a nice guy. Can’t imagine you and I will be reading for the same parts either.” He let out a short laugh. “Who gave you the card? Was it Penelope? Sasha? Mickey? It was Mickey, wasn’t it? I can see it in your eyes. I’m able to read people. Some people say I’m psychic. A mind reader of sorts. A bit of a fortune teller. Touch of the wizard in me. Try me.”
“No thanks,” Country said. “I try to stay away from psychos.”
“Psychics.”
“Mm hmm.”
“Come on. Give it a whirl. Like right now, I can tell you’re thinking about … let me see.” The man touched Country’s face, resting his fingers in his hairline and his thumbs right below the eyes, and proceeded to knead Country’s forehead. “Fish sticks. You’re definitely thinking about fish sticks. With a fine layer of grape jelly and just a dash of tartar sauce. The way Jacques Cousteau would’ve ordered them.”
Country shook his head. The man’s fingers smushed his face.
“No? Hmm. Must’ve been the beans I ate last night. They’re messing with my telekineedling.” Smush, smush. “Ahh. Of course. There it is. The Violence Against Women Act that Bill Clinton signed a few days ago. Has there ever been a bigger champion in the White House for women’s rights? I think not.”
Country felt a premonitory sense of irony creep into his guts. “Not exactly,” he said.
“Common sense gun legislation?”
“I own fourteen guns.”
“So, I’m right?” the man asked hopefully.
Country shook his head again.
“There’s something wrong with my psychic flow,” the man said. “Maybe the static electricity in the air is messing with my qi.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re a loonbag,” Country said.
Ignoring or perhaps not hearing the comment, the man withdrew his hands, stared at his fingers, stuck his tongue out to lick them, and returned them to Country’s head. An odor somewhere between grape jelly and tartar sauce invaded Country’s nostrils.
“Barry Manilow! That’s what’s on your mind.” The man started singing the whitest version of Copacabana since Barry Manilow.
Country gently grabbed the man’s hands and removed them from his face. “Yeah, you got it.”
“Scary, isn’t it?” the man said.
“Quite,” Country said, wiping his face with antiseptic tissues Genny had given him as a birthday present. “I should send her a thank you note,” he said to himself.
“So, tell me. Who gave you the card?” the man said as though the whole episode was how Californians introduced themselves, which, in Country’s experience, was pretty close.
“Ms. Hutchins.”
The man’s demeanor changed in an instant. “Oh,” he said. “What part are you reading for?” He asked as though he already knew the answer.
“I’m just here to interview,” Country said.
“Not if Ms. Hutchins gave you the card.”
Country shrugged and held out his hand. “I don’t know, then. I met her yesterday, and she gave me this. That’s all I know. By the way, my name’s Marvin,” he said.
“Hanson.” He shook Country’s reluctant hand. “Good to meet you. Come on with me. I’ll introduce you to the receptionist.”
Country used another antiseptic wipe and followed Hanson up the rickety stairs into the tiny space which served as a casting office. No fewer than twenty people sat in chairs scribbling away at some sort of form set on clipboards. Permanent smiles, either from the excitement of the moment or elevated doses of Botox, garnished the faces of all but one lady, who bore the perpetual scowl of shattered dreams.
“Hi, Dana,” Hanson said to the scowler. “This is Marvin. He’s here to see Courtney.”
“Ms. Hutchins is not in today,” Dana said. She looked at Country from top to bottom. “You must be the one Ms. Hutchins called me about yesterday afternoon. Have a seat over there and fill these out. I’ll let you know when she arrives.” Her frown turned upside down for a moment. Country kindly picked her off the floor and set her right side up.
He found the only remaining unoccupied seat and offered it to Hanson, who declined with a, “I’ve already filled out my paperwork.” Country squeezed in between a twenty-something blonde on his right and a portly, middle-aged man on his left who smelled faintly of rancid bacon.
The blonde smiled at him, exposing a trio of missing teeth. “I’m here to audition for the part of Margaret. She has scurvy. I knocked my teeth out myself to look more authentic.” A string of bloody drool leaked down her chin.
Country nodded politely. “Best of luck,” he said and started to read the application form, which belonged more in a doctor’s office than it did in a casting office. The man on his left sneezed and began to sweat profusely. A greasy, white substance leaked out of his pores.
“I’m auditioning for ….”
Country walked off before the man could finish and re-squeezed himself in elsewhere. The wannabe actors scooted down to make way for his tush.
“Let’s see,” he said to himself. “Name. Address. Social. Pretty typical.”
He filled in the information.
“Race.”
Country checked the correct box.
“Oh,” a voice on his left said. “You don’t want to do that.”
Country looked over. A person who could’ve been Hanson’s twin, complete with blond hair, fair skin, and pale, blue eyes looked back.
“If you mark ‘Black,’ you’ll never get hired. Unless you’re Denzel, of course. They frown on that sort of stuff here.”
“What sort of stuff?” Country asked.
“You know. Being, um, how do I say this politely? Darkly pigmented.”
“I think they’ll be able to tell,” Country said.
“Not if you do what I did,” Hanson’s twin said. He held out his arm. “Twice daily skin bleachings for two years. Sure, it cost around a hundred grand, and it felt like my skin was being set on fire. But it was well worth it. Nobody can even tell I’m Chinese.” He looked around nervously. “Shh. Don’t let anyone know. It’ll be our little secret.”
“How many roles have you been offered?” Country asked out of curiosity.
“If I get this one ….” He stared at the ceiling and counted on his fingers. “It’ll be my first.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Country said and continued filling out the form, this time in silence. Reading each line, he checked the appropriate box. With every check, the blond Chinese guy squirmed in his seat a little more. After the tenth one, he spoke up.
“No, no, no. You’re doing that all wrong,” he said. He rubbed his face as though trying to wipe away the exasperation. “Nobody’s going to hire you if you say that.” He stuck a bony finger onto Country’s application.
“Right here. Change this to ‘yes’.”
“But I’ve never acted before,” Country said.
“That doesn’t matter,” the ‘white’ guy said. “All that matters is that they think you have.”
“Isn’t that lying?” Country said, with a pretty good guess at the answer.
The man snorted not once, nor twice, but thrice. “Lying? It’s what we actors do. Constantly. As if we were incapable of anything else.” The man continued as if morals weren’t a thing. “And this? Republican? Never put that. It’s a trick question. Always put Democrat. Or if you want to sound exotic, claim to be a Libertarian. No one knows what that is.” His hand went back to his face for more rubbing. “What are you thinking?” A deep sigh escaped from the depths of where his soul used to be. “No. No. No. Yes. That’s what you put? For each of those? You’re never going to get a part with an attitude like that.”
He ripped the pencil and the forms out of Country’s hands and erased the answers.
“Yes, you are willing to sleep with the producer.”
“Yes, you will bring in other women and men to sleep with the producer.”
“Yes, pederasty and pedophilia are acceptable forms of loving expression and should be normalized, so help me Dr. Kinsey.”
“No, you will not start an anti-harassment movement twenty years from now in which you condemn the producer only after you’ve made your millions and allowed him to seduce hundreds if not thousands of innocent victims. Damn, son. It’s like you want to be a waiter your entire life.”
Country retrieved his application and headed back to the receptionist.
“I’m going to need a new one,” he said, tearing the old application to shreds. “And would you possibly have a shower? Preferably one with enough water pressure to clean my insides.”
Dana took the torn pieces and threw them in the wastebasket. “Go on in,” she said in lieu of an answer. “They’re waiting for you.” She pointed towards a door behind her.
Country knocked twice and entered. The room was surprisingly large and had the feel of a study in a person’s home. Ms. Hutchins smiled from photos with some of the most famous actors who ever graced the silver screen. Citations and awards cluttered the walls and her desk. A brown leather sofa waited on the side of the room to comfort Country’s tush.
“Please. Have a seat.”
A middle-aged woman with an emaciated face from one too many fad diets directed him towards the sofa. The only other people in the room were a tall gentleman and a blonde girl with the cutest curls, who couldn’t have been more than nine years old.
“My name is Penelope,” the woman said. “Courtney hasn’t made it in yet, so I’ll be conducting this interview. Have you had a chance to fill out the application yet?”
“I was …,” Country began.
“He’s the one,” the blonde girl interrupted, twirling one large curl with a pair of fingers.
“Excuse me, Ms. Bubb,” Penelope said, “but I haven’t gone over his qualifications yet.”
The blonde girl had the most uninterested look on her face. “Jenkins,” she said without turning, “let her know that I’ve made up my mind.”
“She’s made up her mind,” the tall man said to Penelope.
“We don’t know anything about him,” Penelope protested. “He may be ….” She lowered her voice so Country couldn’t hear, although he could hear. Quite clearly. “He may be black. Or worse. A conservative.”
Cherie turned to Country. “Are you black?” she asked.
“Uh … yeah,” he said.
“He’s black,” Cherie said. “Now, that that’s out of the way. He’s the one.”
“But …,” Penelope began.
“Make it happen,” Cherie said.
“Ms. Bubb,” Penelope said. “I resent the fact that you come in here and think you can tell me what to do.”
Cherie’s face turned dark. “This discussion is over. I want him.”
“I can’t just do that,” Penelope said with disgust. With resignation, though, she said, “I’m going to have to make a call.” She dialed the phone and waited for the other end to pick up. “Roger, this is Penelope. I’m here with Ms. Bubb. Uh huh. Uh huh. No, she says she’s found the actor. He’s ….” She covered the phone speaker with her hand and whispered. “He’s black. I know. I tried to tell her, but she insists. Yes. Uh huh. I’ll hold.”
She arched her eyebrows in the body language of, ‘I told you so.’ Country shifted in his seat and longed to head to Mississippi where the people would treat him with respect. Cherie continued to twirl her hair with seeming indifference, although, if Country looked closely, he might have seen a hint of worry.
“Yes, Roger. I’m here. Huh? Really? If you say so. He says so? OK.” She paused. “You sure? OK.” Penelope hung up the phone. “The part is yours,” she told Country.
“Good,” Cherie said, this time with veiled surprise, and hopped out of the chair. “I’ll see you next week. Come on, Jenkins. It’s time to go.” She held out her hand to Country. “I’m Cherie, by the way. Cherie Bubb.”
Country took Cherie’s hand. Her grip was surprisingly firm. “Marvin Bivins. But my friends call me Country.”
“Nice to meet you, Country,” Cherie said.
“Nice to meet you too, Cherie,” he replied. He didn’t mean it. Not that it wasn’t nice. He just had an uncomfortable feeling that this wasn’t the first time they had met.