“Hey Honey, Shylock at VELVET just called,” she says. “They’re rescheduling tomorrow’s scene.”
“Sure, what day did they have in mind?”
“Today, three hours from now. Are you available?”
I’m unwashed, three days growth covers my face and I’m standing knee-deep in a pile of dirty laundry at the laundromat, which is full today, so I only have one machine. The first loads of white clothes are already soaking. Fuck.
“Same movie?” I ask.
“Yeah, apparently there’s some drama on set and he wants to see if they can get the scene shot-out today.”
“Drama? That’s never good, Cindy. What kind of drama?”
She says, “I asked but he wouldn’t say. I have to call him back to let him know if you’re available right away.”
Even if I only wash and dry the clothes that are already soaking I’ll have little time to get ready and make it from where I am in Hollywood to where the set is on the far end of the Valley near the LA/Ventura county line. And it’s going to be rush hour when I head out. My printer’s out of ink so I have to run by an Internet cafe to print a copy of my HIV test but doing that won’t leave time to run to the pharmacy to get my “in case of emergency” Viagra in the event the girl I’m working can’t lock her psychosis down long enough to shoot a half-hour sex scene. The test is mandatory, the drugs–somewhat. Although I’ve done scenes hundreds of times drug-free I never, never do it without the insurance in my possession. Still, this is a chance to add to my fuck you stack–my savings for the next phase of my life–that erodes month by month as the DVD porn studios lose their asses to the free product fire sale via the torrent websites. Fuck it, it’ll be okay.
“Whatever, that’s cool,” I say, “it’s better than a cancellation.”
“Okay, Hon.”
She hangs up and I text the driver to tell him to pick me up at the agency today instead of tomorrow, then I go to the vending machine for a mini-box of powdered detergent. I put the quarters in and the box of Tide drops. Looking to save time, I lift the washing machine lid and stuff some dark clothes in with the whites then add the detergent hoping it will be okay. All the darks wont fit in the washing machine so some clothes, like: a couple of pairs of jeans and a red shirt will have to stay soiled. My lips move as I read the detergent box:
“No time to separate the whites from the coloreds? Use Tide! It keeps the whites white, and the colors from running!”
The machine rumbles and I’m leaning my back against it staring at the picture on the box–a target–when the cellphone vibrates in my pocket, breaking my trance.
“Yeah.”
“So, okay…I just spoke to Shylock and he says the scene is going to stay on for tomorrow.”
“Same girl?”
“Apparently.”
The lady at the machine next to mine is pulling her items out so my hands dig into my laundry bag and pull out the shirt and the pants. I say, “Who is the girl, anyway?”
“Don’t know, honey. All he would say is, ‘She’s new’, whatever that means.”
We hang up and I text the driver telling him to ignore my last: the scene is still tomorrow, and as I send the text off the cell vibrates in my hands. My agent, again.
“Okay, scratch that,” she says, “the scene is back on for today.”
I sigh. “Cindy…”
“I know, dear. Same call time and location. Can you make it?”
I stuff the shirt and jeans back into the bag. “Yeah.”
________
It usually takes a few moments for people to figure out where they’ve seen me before. It’s like watching the process of thought on a game show contestant’s face as they come up with the correct answer right before the buzzer is about to go off. The facial expressions are often my only warning to slip from “Eric” into “Tyler” mode. For this kid, a weasel-faced twenty-something with a guitar slung over his shoulder, flash of recognition is instant.
He says, “OH SHIT!”, the micro-second he steps onboard and sees me.
The other rush-hour passengers on the subway car look over to see what the commotion is and the train doors snap shut behind him, trapping me inside.
“–and the colors from running!”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! Y’ALL NIGGAS KNOW WHO THIS NIGGA IS UP IN THIS MOTHAFUCKA WIT US?”
I place my finger to my lips in an attempt to shush him down. He gets the hint but gives me a surprised look, like: you’re on TV, what do you expect, nigga?
“Tyler Knight!” He stands right in front of my seat, and he smells like he took a shower in Colt 45. He says, “Me and my shorty was just watchin you get down on them hos in your Tyler’s Wood movie last night!” He smiles wide and his mouth, framed by a goatee, looks like flapping vulva with teeth. “Yo nigga, you got how that nigga, Tiger be talkin down cold!”
Many of the passengers have turned away but a few of the close-by still burn holes into my face with their eyes. I think of ways to make myself small in my seat, then I think of pressure point neck pinches to like they do in the movies to knock him out.
“Thanks,” I say.
He says, “That scene where you was all dressed up like a bitch…what was that?…a maid, right? Yeah, nigga, you was dressed like a bitch!”
He makes a fist to give me a pound and I don’t know why but I make a fist, too, bumping knuckles with him. I want the train doors to magically open, I’d take my chances and jump out at eighty miles per hour.
“Tyler, you was dressed up like a whore-maid from like, France n shit…wearing all that make-up? And then your asshole was all hangin tha fuck out! And then…and then…and then-then-then, them fat-assed porno ho’s? They had the whips n shit? Nigga, that was some cold shit right there, nigga–”
He laughs. Juicy meat-curtains-for-lips peel back and reveal slick, yellowed teeth, and it occurs to me that this man right here, the man standing in front of me, is my de-facto boss. That he’s stroked to me fucking enough times to actually recognize me. By name. I look around at the spectators as the train speeds and jostles underground toward Porn Valley. A middle-aged woman who has figured out who I am through the context of the conversation peers at me with derision. She folds her arms with flaps of hanging meat across her saggy chest, also with flaps of hanging meat. A pair of wild-eyed surfer dudes with questions on their lips are pushing their way toward me through the crowded subway car.
Pussy Mouth is still talking, “– whaddaya think that nigga, Tiger and them stank-assed mistresses think about you playin them in the POOOOORNOS!?”
Over the PA system the conductor’s metallic voice says, “Next stop: Universal City.”
My eyes dart up and down the train until they settle on a sign that says, “You never know, the person next to you on Metro could be an undercover cop!” and I mumble, “I’m the least of his problems.”
Only a few people stand between me and the approaching surfer dudes, and this close, it’s clear there’s something off about them. The train slows downs as one of them, pushing a passenger out-of-the-way, opens his mouth to speak; the train door slaps open; I bolt off the train and up the stairs and dash through the turnstile and up another flight of stairs and into the sizzling sun of the parking lot where I see my driver’s waiting car; I rip open the car door to the eardrum rupturing sound of techno, dive in, and slam the door shut.
The driver, an Abercrombie and Fitch, wholesome, boy next door with a heart the size of his home state of Texas, accelerates snapping my neck back until my head thuds against the headrest and we’re out of the parking lot barreling down the freeway on-ramp right–picking up speed; he threads the needle between slower cars and merges onto the freeway. He uses The Force to weave a through-line past the slower traffic while he fucks with the stereo with one hand, settling for a trip-hop song that goes, How should you feel when you’ve felt everything you can feel and you still feel unreal?, and uses his “free” hand to pull up GPS on his iPhone, steering with his knees, (or his cock, who the hell knows?) he drawls, “What’s with the on again, off again nonsense with VELVET?”
He slows down, looks up from the cellphone and to the road every ten seconds and steers with a part of his body that’s actually above his waist, and I relax my asshole by degrees.
“The fuck if I know,” I say, still catching my breath from running up two long assed flights of stairs, “New girl. Guessing they wanna shoot the movie before she has a vision of Jesus and disappears.” I say to the passenger side window, and as an afterthought, “It smells like pussy in here.”
“Yeah,” he says, almost irritated, as though I’m pointing out that water is wet, then, “Who’s the girl?”
“Nobody’s telling me shit, dude.”
We drive past the VELVET building, whose garish neon sign blares right across the freeway from the Universal Studios family theme park.
“What if they call you while we’re on the way and cancel again?”
I glance at my cell for any missed calls while I was underground and out of service range. None.
“Fuck em. They can tell me in person.”
CONTINUED…
Tagged: Creative Memoir
