Memphis Movie (26 page)

“Truly? Tell me truly that that is truly true.”

“You are nervous. Take an Ativan.”

“I think I've taken too many already. I think I've taken my daily dose already and it's not 8 a.m.”

“Take another.”

“Right.”

“You the new actress?” Hassle Cooley asked.

Sue Pine's face went through some dramatic contortions. First, snobbery that
the driver
should feel he could talk to her. Second, annoyance that he knew about her already. (Oh, fuck, she should have said to herself, this is
that
driver, but she did not recall that he had picked her up at the airport, because at that time she was so distracted.) And, finally, with one quick twist of readjustment, pride that she was recognized for the first time. She was, suddenly, a movie star.

“Yes,” she said, flatly.

“Good luck,” Hassle Cooley said.

Sue Pine turned back toward Dan. His eyes were closed. Sue Pine imagined that this was his way of psyching himself up before acting, a sort of pre-game ritual. She felt ashamed that she had no ritual, and what was worse, no idea how to act. She assumed her scene would be with Dan and that he would lead her, he would make her do things
the right way
.

Inside the Pyramid the panorama seemed akin to one of those biblical epics with workers running everywhere, pushing giant granite blocks, one man with a whip yelling imprecations, activity seemingly random and without purpose. It also vaguely seemed like Bosch's depiction of hell.

Sue Pine's pretty, dark face was a tight mask of inscrutability.

“Hello,” Eric said, approaching her. “I'm so happy you could make it.”

Sue Pine draped her hand over Eric's palm.

“Dan,” Eric nodded.

“Her scene really today?” Dan asked.

“Yes. That is, I hope so. We're waiting for Camel's blues.”

“How fast grind the wheels of art,” Dan said.

“Have to, Dan. Money is breathing down my neck about how close we are to the finishing line,” Eric said. Quickly, he added, “Of course, that's not your concern. At any rate, yes, we're gonna try to nail her scene right away.”

“Works for me,” Dan said. “I'll be in my dressing room.”

“I'll be in his dressing room, too,” Sue Pine said.

“Wait,” Eric said. “Here's the little pixie now.”

Standing in the doorway, backlit as if Spielberg were hovering, Lorax stood. Her gossamer dress was invisible in the light. Her small, round body seemed to shine like ambergris through it.

“Jesus,” Dan said.

“I know,” Eric said, scuttling over to her.

“Hello,” he said, approaching her with a hand outreached as if she were a shy doe.

“Good morning,” Lorax said.

“You have our pages,” Eric said, smiling.

“I do,” Lorax said. “I helped Camel write this one. It's very groovy, very sexy.”

Eric swallowed hard. This was gonna be a mess. Where was Sandy? He was suddenly sure she would have to rewrite it.

“Heh, heh, can't give you screen credit, of course,” Eric said, taking the pages from her dainty little hand.

Lorax smiled. Her face seemed to curl upward like the Cheshire Cat's.

“After we wrote this we made love until dawn,” Lorax said. “I gotta go home and get some sleep.”

“Ok,” Eric said. He turned back toward the bustling sets. “You want some breakfast?”

When he turned back she was gone.

“Did you—” Eric started as he walked back toward Dan and Sue. “Did you see her?”

“Yes,” Dan said. “A petite parcel of unearthly sensuality.” He squinted.

“But—” Eric didn't know what he wanted to say. “Anyway. Let's see what they've done to us. We may need Sandy to—”

Eric studied the pages, his eyes scanning downward. The dialogue was crisp enough, witty in places. He skipped back to the final pages. The speech Camel had written for Sue Pine was three pages of thick, unbroken prose, a block that would intimidate an old pro. Eric felt he couldn't throw this at Sue Pine this early. Yet—there was something there—something almost transgressive, something so outré it just might turn an unknown into a known. Damn, he thought, this is an amazing speech.

“What is it?” Sue Pine said. “You look as if it were written in Egyptian.”

“You don't know Camel,” Eric said.

“It's good,” Dan said. He made it a statement and he accompanied his words with a buss to the cheek of Sue Pine.

“It is—it is good,” Eric said.

“Wonderful,” Sue Pine said.

“Hm,” Eric said. “Hm, hm.”

“What is it?”

“How do you feel about nudity?”

Sue Pine looked temporarily nonplussed. It seemed a silly question.

“I love nudity,” she fairly sang.

Eric smiled. Dan smiled.

“For art, of course,” she said.

“Of course,” Dan and Eric said.

65.

Lorax returned home to find Camel asleep. She toddled into the kitchen, humming a Lovin' Spoonful tune, something Camel had played last night while they were entangled. Something about “Six o'clock, hm, hm, hm, at six o'clock.”

She thought she would make herself a smoothie in Camel's ancient blender. She couldn't remember what they had blended last but there were marijuana seeds stuck to the sides of the blender with what looked like strawberry sauce.

Now, what did she want to drink? She eyed the bananas warily.

In the fridge she found some yogurt, some wrinkled grapes, some fresh mint (when had they bought fresh mint?), some fat-free milk and some carob powder. With these she concocted her morning meal. She turned the blender on and while it whirled she herself whirled around the kitchen, her short skirt a whirly.

“My Polymnia,” Camel said.

“Oh,” Lorax stopped dancing. “My Sweet. The blender woke you!”

“It's alright,” Camel said.

“I'm sorry, My . . . Ignaramo.”

Camel's laugh was quick and hearty. It really woke him up and startled Lorax.

“Wrong,” she said.

Camel took her in his large arms and held her as one might one's most cherished thing. The morning began with love, a conjuring as old as old Sol himself.

They split the blenderful of muck into two mugs and repaired to the couch. Camel loved early morning TV, which seemed as sleepy-headed as its audience. Many shows seemed to be slow in waking, their participants walking around, bumping around, drowsy but pleasant, smiles half-written on their handsome faces. He found a talk show where the guest was a young actress whose beauty was like Atlantis sinking. She was talking about Meher Baba and macrobiotics and why the president seemed constipated.

Lorax heard none of it. She sat, lotus-style, her drink in her lap, bobbing her head to a melody only she heard.

Camel was half-listening, his attention partly on his teenage love. She made Camel smile deep down.

“Camel,” Lorax said, her eyes still closed, her head loose as a puppet's.

“Yes, my dear Lorax,” Camel said.

“Aw, you never say my name.”

“Lorax.”

“Camel.”

“Yes.”

“Do you love my name, Camel?”

“I do, Lorax. Because it signifies. It signifies you.”

“Doodley do, Camel. What's in a name? Doodley do. I love your name, my Camel.”

“Ok.”

“Camel.”

“Yes, Dear?”

“Don't mess with the movie people anymore.”

“Ok, Dear.”

“I mean it.”

“Ok. Why the concern?”

Lorax opened her eyes. They were steely grey.

“Something bad is happening out there. Something I cannot fix or pinpoint. I have tried but I can't.”

“Ok, Baby. It's a bad scene. Money does that.”

“It's more than that, Camel.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Bad juju. There's bad juju in the Pyramid. I got a very bad vibe there this time.”

“I'm through anyway, Sweet.”

“Ok, then.”

“Ok, then.”

“Mean it this time.”

“I do, Dear.”

“Ok, Camel. This smoothie tastes like bacon.”

“It's not very good, no.”

“Can we get sinkers and Joe?”

“Yes.” Camel smiled at the strange phrase.

“Can we get sinkers and Joe from Otherlands?”

“Yes. Yes we can.”

“Good. Good Camel.”

66.

Eric and Mimsy were eating on the deck of Central Barbecue that evening. The weather had turned unexpectedly balmy, the kind of day that reminds Memphians why they live in the South.

Eric was trying to describe his new actress, this nobody thrust into their midst at the worst possible time. He had used the word
sinuous.

“This the gal Dan said fucked like a jungle cat or some such?” Mimsy asked, her cheeks comically streaked with sauce.

“Yes,” Eric said. “You are a carnivore.”

“Save the sexy talk for later.”

“Can't tell you about the shoot today then.”

“Eric, another sex scene? Isn't the audience going to tire of the endless coupling?”

“It's germane,” Eric said, a small stinger in his chest.

“Sure. So you saw the new actress naked.”

“Do you want to hear?”

“Of course. Sorry. Tell me how the shoot went today.”

“Camel wrote this scene. Well, Camel and his Ariel.”

“His Ariel?”

“I can't begin to—forget it. Camel's girlfriend contributed, apparently. Anyway. This scene he—they—wrote takes place in a bathroom, for God's sake. The bathroom on the set, well, I can't see how Camel or the little pixie knew, but it was perfectly suited
for the scene. Setting up the scene took longer than the whole shot, which we did in one amazing take. If this girlie makes it as a star it will be partly because she can deliver the goods with almost no preamble. She was given the blues and three hours later we were setting up the shoot and, damn, she knew every line—but, wait, I've gotten ahead of myself.

“She enters this bathroom where Dan's character is bathing. Dan is resplendent in the bathwater, which had to be boiling hot, per his instruction. And, naturally, Dan will go nude at the drop of a hat, so to speak. And, well—how to say this? Have you seen Dan's willie?”

“An absurd question.”

“Sorry, yes. Anyway, it is, uh, sizable.”

“Good for Dan.”

“Yes, and good for Sue Pine, apparently. Anyway, they do this tap dance first. They've just met, he's naked, she's peeing. They do this thing. It's pretty good. The lines are pretty good and coming out of Dan's mouth, well, hell, they sounded like Mamet. And this Sue Pine is holding her own. When it comes to her dropping her clothing onto Dan's and entering his bath she did it like a pro. Obviously the scalding water was a surprise but she added it to the scene, ad-libbed a humorous little dance over Dan, a water sprite bobbing, and then lowered herself over him in the bathtub.”

“Not another live fuck for your film?” Mimsy said.

“No, I don't think so. Anyway, no, I don't think so. So they're in the water and they get amorous and Dan says something about home, something something something. And then comes this speech, which this unknown actress, with the unlikely name of Sue Pine, nails in one take. An amazing speech, a free-flowing eruption of emotion and anger and an underlying pain that, if feigned, was the performance of the film. After she did it—in one fucking take—there was a moment of silence and then everyone,
crew and cast, applauded. Everyone except Suze Everingham who, inexplicably, has disappeared. It was the arrival of a star. I'm telling you. And this Sue Pine took it as her due, as if she knew all along that this was her fate. She kissed Dan long and hard and they both stood up, dripping and naked, and bowed to a renewed round of applause.”

“Wow.”

“I know. It was a wow.”

“So, she really is in the film then.”

“Oh, Baby, she is in the film. This scene might be the making of the film.”

“Baby?”

“Sorry. Too Hollywood?”

“By half.”

“Sorry. Anyway, besides being out-of-this-world gorgeous, this gal is so talented it is only a wonder that no one else has discovered her. If nothing else happens in this film they will credit me with discovering Sue Pine.”