The guard sat in the shack and waved at the cars as they passed through. He had fashioned his badge out of tin foil and discarded chewing gum. His gun was a prop. They gave him the impression of having authority, which was more than enough to fool visitors if they didn’t look too closely.
Country noticed, of course, as soon as the guard came out to stop him.
“The visitor’s entrance is around the corner. Tours start at nine a.m. You can get in that line which is already forming.” The guard held out a frail hand to indicate the direction.
“I’m here to see Paolo Medeiros,” Country said. “I’ve got a part in a movie. He told me to be here by eight.”
“I haven’t seen Mr. Medeiros yet. Tell me your name and have a seat in here with me out of the way of the cars. I’m going to have to give Sheila a call to see what’s going on.”
Country entered the shack and kept his eyes fixed on the guard. The gray, almost white hair and the deep wrinkles which adorned his face told a story, but only part of it. The guard was loved by the crew. The studio owners and most of the cast, on the other hand, treated him with the type of condescending tolerance a plantation owner would show a slave who was kept around because the wife insisted on it. Country observed all of that over the next fifteen minutes as he waited for the guard to receive confirmation. A piece of Country’s heart grew angry.
“I’m sorry to have to keep you here, young man,” the guard said. “I hadn’t received notice of your arrival, and Sheila’s not picking up. It’s still early. We don’t get many actors walking onto set. What’s your name again?”
“Marvin Bivins. But my friends call me Country.”
The guard made a half shrug. “Country. That’s a little unusual for a brother. I would’ve taken you for a Dominic or a T.J. but not a Country. Why do they call you that?”
“I love country music.”
“I guess that’s as good a reason as any.” He dialed the phone again. This time someone on the other end picked up. “Yeah. … in the guard shack. I got a Marvin Bivins saying he’s here to see Mr. Medeiros.” He turned to give Country another look. “Yep. That’s him. OK. I’ll let him know.” The phone clicked back into the receiver. “They’re sending someone to get you.”
“Thank you,” Country said.
A car pulled up, and the guard stepped outside. A sheepish grin spread over his face.
“Oh, sorry, Mr. Pearlman. I didn’t recognize the car.”
“You recognize the face don’t you, Frederick?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Then, do you mind moving out of the way? The car’s new, and I don’t want to scratch the bumper on your pant leg. It took Carlos all of yesterday afternoon to shine it.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
Frederick moved out of the way and waved as the car passed on by. He headed back inside the shack and pulled out a notebook.
“I should make a note of the new car so I don’t forget,” he said with a smile and jotted something down on a sheet of dirty, yellowing paper.
“Why’d you let him talk to you that way?” Country asked.
The guard didn’t seem aware of the irritation in Country’s voice. “Oh. That’s the way he is. The way a lot of them are. No use getting mad about it.”
“Yeah, but the way he treated you.” Country felt the bile rising in his throat. “I wouldn’t let him say those things to me. Not without giving him a piece of my mind, that is.”
Frederick put the pencil down and looked up at Country. “Some people can’t change, not after having so much anger in their heart for so long. Doesn’t mean I have to be like them or react in a way that brings me down to their level. I know what they think of me, and I know who I am. I got a wife of fifty years, a God who loves me, and a job that pays me to sit my tired old bones in a shack and wave at people all day.” He gave a short laugh. “Truth be told, I do this strictly to get out of the house, else Florence would be nagging at me to fix something or other. She means well. It’s just that she has that bossy, exasperated nature women get when they’ve spent their whole lives unsuccessfully trying to fix their stubborn husbands.” He gave Country a wink. “That’s the secret formula to a happy marriage. One part orneriness. One part annoyance. Two parts love.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Country said.
“Oh, I see Sheila’s on her way.” He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Marvin ‘Country’ Bivins. Best of luck. I look forward to seeing you on the big screen.”
“Nice to meet you too, Frederick ….” Country held on and waited for Frederick to complete his name.
“Right. Frederick Douglass Jackson at your service.”
Country spoke the obvious out loud. “Named after ….”
The guard finished for him. “Yep. Stonewall Jackson. Ironic, isn’t it?”
His eyes twinkled in a way that Country couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Country released his grip as a young redhead with a decidedly Nairobian accent entered the shack.
“You must be Marvin,” she said. “I’m Sheila. Come with me.”
Country gave the guard a quick wave and followed the redhead through the studio lot, which had started to teem with activity. Strange vehicles with long, mechanical arms drove slowly past large metallic warehouses. All sorts of people walked here and there in random directions, ants spilling out of their underground tunnels. A few held clipboards. Others pushed carts or carried tools. Women and men with white towels wrapped around their necks stared down at scripts while simultaneously walking and yelling at harried assistants who dabbed at faces with miniature brushes.
Not too far to the left, an explosion caught Country off guard. His feet did a startled dance. Shelia didn’t flinch but kept up her hurried pace.
“What was that?” Country said, his stoic façade crumbling from an internal terror.
“They’re filming Star Wars XLII, The Empire’s Jihad,” Sheila said. “It’s Yoda’s Bar Mitzvah scene.” Her face crinkled up. “I didn’t know Yoda was Muslim.”
Country figured it best neither to correct her nor ask for clarification.
A shortish woman, with a height somewhere between Reese Witherspoon and Ho Chi Minh, bounded up to them. Her brown ponytail swayed as she walked. Removing the mouthpiece of her headset, she addressed Sheila.
“We’ve got an issue on Lot 3,” she said.
“The elephants again?” Sheila asked.
“Yep.”
“What happened this time?”
“Sheila” (no relation) “found the stash of peanuts we had saved to entice Cher to retire. Of course, Hannibal had to come charging across the set of The Rubicon like Julius Caesar crossing the Alps. Next thing we know, they’re lying on the floor, their trunks swollen and their giant hoof things clutching at their necks.”
“Did you use the epinephrine?” Sheila, the human, asked.
“We thought you had them.”
Sheila checked her pockets. “Oh, yeah. Here it is.” She pulled out a syringe as tall as she was with a needle longer than Country’s forearm. “Ten thousand elephants in the world and we find the two with peanut allergies.”
At least, that’s what Country thought he heard before a bout of unplanned feebleknees prefaced his short nap on the ground. Fortunately for his ego, Sheila’s back was turned long enough for him to regain his composure and his footing.
“Everything alright?” Sheila asked as Country dusted the dried tears of failed actors off his pants.
“Yep. Couldn’t be better,” he said, the image of the giant needle lingering in his memory, almost sending him to the ground again.
“Great. Let’s get you to your trailer.”
Easier said than done. Sheila couldn’t take more than a few steps without a caterer, gaffer, best boy, mediocre girl, or set designer pestering her with a thousand requests. Although never flustered, her tone became harsher with each demand. For their part, the crew members welcomed Country with warm smiles and offers to introduce him around after he got settled in.
Not what I imagined it would be like, Country thought. He began to feel relaxed, the crew’s friendliness overpowering his natural reticence, so much so that he actually decided to initiate contact with a pair of people holding scripts. Actors, he rightly surmised.
He extended his hand towards them. “Marvin,” he said. “My friends call me Country.”
The man looked at Country’s hand, then, back at his script. To the hand. To the script. Back to the hand. Flipping forward a few pages, he scanned the lines and mouthed the words. His eyes glanced suspiciously at Country. The actress by his side saw the guy’s nervousness and let out a shriek that momentarily shattered both of Country’s eardrums.
“For goodness’ sake,” Sheila said as she grabbed the actor’s hand and placed it inside Country’s, squeezing the fingers closed and moving the actor’s arm up and down in a shaking motion. “And what was the scream for, Elena?”
“I was improvising,” Elena said, her eyes bright with self-satisfaction.
Sheila lost her last shred of hope for humanity, but her body continued on, the only sign of her despair a puffed sigh through pursed lips. “Come on,” she said to Country.
Country followed again, turning to look behind him just enough to see the actor staring at his extended hand. “Cut!” he heard Sheila yell over her shoulder. The actor’s hand dropped to his side. Sheila and Country walked a few hundred uncontested feet and arrived at a short set of stairs leading up to a mobile home.
“Well, this is your trailer,” Sheila said. “You got the best one in the best location. Expect a little envy to be thrown your way.” She handed him a thick notebook. “And here’s your script. You’re starting on page forty-three in two hours.”
Country stared at her in a weird way. “Two hours? I don’t even know what part I’m playing.”
“No one told you?”
Country shook his head.
“You’re Brock Cabajhed. The lead role.” This time, Sheila shook her head. “I had hopes for this one,” she said under her breath. Out loud, she said., “Makeup and hair will be in an hour before you need to be on set. Make yourself comfortable and let Brenda know if you need anything.”
“Brenda?”
“Your assistant. She should arrive soon. And one piece of advice. Don’t sit on the couch.”
“Why not?” Country asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Sheila said and headed off.
Country stepped inside the trailer. A dim, yellow light illuminated the interior in a post-apocalyptic haze. A recliner and a sofa lay along the right side of the trailer. On the left, a chair sat in front of a mirror rimmed with overgrown lightbulbs. In the front was a miniature but well-stocked kitchen, and to the rear waited a bedroom and a bathroom. He barely had time to see if the recliner would comfortably support his tush when he heard a knock on the trailer door.
“Come in, Brenda,” he yelled out.
The doorknob turned and a small, curly-blonde head poked inside. “You must have me mistaken for someone else,” a precocious and somewhat irritated voice said.
Country jumped out of the recliner. “My apologies, Ms. Bubb. I thought you were my assistant.”
“Well, I’ve not been mistaken for anyone’s assistant for a long time,” she said.
Country thought he detected a note of irony.
“And call me Cherie,” she said. “Ms. Bubb makes me sound so … so old.” She set down a large gift basket she had been carrying.
“Cherie,” Country repeated. “Please, come in. I suspect you dropped by to welcome me. Everybody’s been so nice and ….”
Cherie cut him off. “Actually, I’m here to make sure you got your lines down. There’s nothing worse than having to share the screen with incompetent, unprepared actors. It’s not like I’ve got all day to wait around for you to figure things out. I already have my hands full with Elena and Kenneth, and I don’t want to regret my decision recommending you. So, make sure you’re ready when they come get you. Sound good?” She paused to make her point. “Good,” she answered for him, picking up the gift basket and exiting as fast as she had entered.
“Now, that’s what I was expecting,” Country said out loud. It was he who had begun to regret his decision to come there. “I might as well make the best of it,” he said, continuing his soliloquy. “Not like I need this job. Except for the fact that I’m almost out of money.”
He sighed and peered out the side window, watching as Cherie’s blonde curls bobbed in the distance. Just before she vanished from sight, she stopped and looked in all directions as though checking to see if she had been followed. When she was satisfied no one could see her, she knocked on the door of a small trailer near the back of the lot. A frail woman, whose bent frame betrayed her age, appeared in the doorway. Cherie handed her the gift basket, accepted a hug from the woman, and headed off again, checking once more to see if anyone had seen her.