In the Night of the Heat (8 page)

Then I saw a handsome black boy who looked about ten waiting in the wings with a woman I guessed was his mother, who had a face suited for the camera herself. Since the only other black cast member was the male captain, who was in his sixties, I knew that kid was mine. My lines hadn't been cut!

We were all grinning as I walked toward them. We needed each other to survive.

The boy stood up, straight and prim. Even from a distance, I could see that he'd curbed any childish tendencies toward twitching and playing in his quest to be an actor. He stepped before his mother, hand outstretched as if he'd just come from etiquette class.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hardwick,” the boy said, eager to let me know he had memorized my name. He gave me two firm pumps, adult-style. I noticed that the boy's complexion and facial structure
were
an eerie match for my own. Casting had done a good job.

He told me his name, Darnell, and dutifully ran through his credits:
House of Payne, Cold Case
, and even
Sesame Street
when he was three. His work had been steadier than mine. His mother beamed, but she kept a distance with a steady gaze that told me she would scratch my eyeballs out if I gave her a reason. I hoped a tigress for a mother would be enough to safeguard her son's passage to adulthood, but I know too many child actors who've grown up too fast and lost their way. I'm glad I didn't step in front of a camera until I was grown.
I had enough problems without jumping on the Hollywood Bullshit-Go-Round.

Elliot the Makeup Guy motioned over at me from the hall. Elliot looked like a teamster, in jeans and his trademark white sleeveless tees to show off his weight-room physique.

“Gotta go,” I told Darnell. “See you in a few.”

“I look forward to working with you, Mr. Hardwick!” Darnell piped with another perfect handshake. I hoped Darnell raised a little hell at home—at least a messy room.
Something
. Kids trained from diapers to be that eager to please everyone are in for a rude awakening.

The narrow makeup room was a wall of mirrors and three empty chairs. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, dressed in a suit and tie just like Dad always wanted for me, and my imagination dared to dream. What if the kid became a semiregular? What if the writers created a home life for me—an honor reserved only for the leads?
What if…?

“Congratulate me,” I told Elliot, easing into his chair. “I'm a dad. Wish I had a cigar.”

Elliot made a clucking sound. Half his conversations were sound effects, not words. In that way, he reminded me of Dad.

“What's that mean?” I said.

Elliot made a two-toned humming sound, dusting my forehead with brown powder. “Kid or no kid, watch your ass today, Tin-Man.” His nickname for me—as in heartless, since he considers my strict heterosexuality a sin against all gaykind.

You'd rather watch my ass
for
me,
I thought. I'm comfortable around anybody, but Elliot's bold stares had taken some getting used to, especially since it was his job to put his hands on me every day. I checked Elliot's face in the mirror. His usual flirty smile wasn't in sight. The vanity lights gleamed across his bald-shaved scalp.

“What's up, man?” I said.

He pursed his lips. “A lot of mouths talking a lot of shit.” Elliot's voice rumbled like a Brooklyn cabbie's.

“Man, just come out with it. I don't need melodrama today.”

Elliot shrugged, his jaw flexed. “There's gonna be blood. Bang, bang.” He motioned his head toward the countertop at the other end of the room. I saw a row of small crimson squibs lined up—plastic packs used to simulate gunshot wounds.

“Perry's out this week,” I said. Not soon enough for me. The actor who played the mole, Kelsey—I'll call him Perry—was ending his guest-starring stint in a hail of FBI-issue “bullets.” He was a former A-lister who'd starred in my favorite buddy cop movie when I was in high school, and I'd considered myself a true fan, not just the Hollywoodspeak kind. When I went up to him to introduce myself the first day he appeared on the set, he gave me a contemptuous look and asked for a decaf latte. Prick.

“Not just him,” Elliot said.

“Nobody else eats lead in the script.”

Elliot's throat burred. “Not yet. But after lunch? Who knows?” He whistled a long tone, a human teakettle. “I hear the writers were working all weekend. Tap, tap.” Elliot also spoke in monosyllabic repetitions. “Like I said: Watch your ass.”

At least I understood why it had been so quiet. Someone was going to be written out—maybe Darla, who complained incessantly about her salary. Or Vick, who had made it loudly known that he'd been offered a part in a Bruckenheimer movie. Then again, Elliot enjoyed his role as the ears to all, and sometimes he took his soothsayer bit too far.

My scenes were up first, so I had to get to work.

My exchange with Darnell was in a corner of the set fashioned to look like the break room, a few tables and vending machines. I saw Darnell walking in a circle in the corner, reciting his lines with a fur
rowed brow. The director, Avery, took us through the blocking, and Darnell sailed through, playing the kid like an angry wiseass. He reminded me of Chela. He was convincing, so I sparked off him. For those few minutes, he
was
my son—hell, he was
me,
déjà vu. When I snapped my lines, Dad's voice came out of my mouth.

Cut. Done. Darnell's mother clapped for us, full of praises for both. For the millionth time, I wondered how my life might have been different if I'd had a mother.

While catering set up the table with aromatic pasta salad, sandwiches, and fresh cookies, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Rewrite,” said Benny, the wide-bodied head writer, handing me a stack of blue pages. I only saw his broad back retreating as fast as it could.

Apparently, everyone else had gotten their scripts while I was shooting. Three or four sets of eyes dashed away like rabbits running for the bushes.

Elliot motioned for me again. He had the blue pages, too.

I sighed and headed for makeup. I wasn't going to read bad news in front of a crowd.

“Sorry,” Elliot murmured.

I took my chair again. “Give me a minute. I haven't seen it yet.”

Maybe I would only be injured. Maybe…

A TV script title page is like a production in itself, with the show's logo, the episode's title, and a list of personnel including the gaggle of producers, the director, and the writers. The first time I got a
Homeland
script with my name on a label, I kept it as proof that I was in control of my life again. I hoped this wouldn't be my last—not now.

Elliot read over my shoulder when I flipped open the pages, one of my pet peeves, but I was too worried to swat him away. He could probably hear my heart racing as I scanned deeper through the script, looking for my moment of glory. But the scene I remembered was
gone. Over the weekend the writers had rewritten the entire third act. My eyes rushed over the jumble, trying to catch the gist: The mole, a guy named Kelsey, had shot someone.

Jalil had more lines, calling
Dad, Dad
! But where was Sanford? My stomachache came back with a kicking sensation as I fanned through the pages to see what I'd missed.

“There,” Elliot said gently, pointing on chapter 4.

No dialogue, but I finally let myself see the stage direction:
Sanford reels backward, falling across his desk. Sanford holds his neck with bloodied fingers, twitching and gasping. CLOSE ON SANFORD'S FACE: He is dead. Agents whisk JALIL to safety behind a cubicle, ducking. JALIL cries.

I had to blink once, then again. The squibs were for me. That's how it is in this business. No courtesy call over the weekend. No notifying my agent. No good-bye party. No
Hey, sorry.
Cold-ass motherfuckers.

“Sons of
bitches
…” I couldn't always find work, and I'd shot a couple of pilots that hadn't gone anywhere, but I'd never been fired from an acting job.

Elliot rested a brotherly hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, Tin-Man.”

“If they're killing him off, why'd they hire this kid…?”

Bam. I
got
it. It was just like in a horror movie: If a character mentions a fiancé or a kid, you can bet they're about to die. And it was worse than that: Horror and sci-fi movies became notorious for always killing the
brother
first. Traditionally in Hollywood horror or action films, killing a black man was a cheap death—a little pinch, but he wasn't quite a real person, a sort of inoculation against the
real
horror to come: threatening a pretty young white girl of child-bearing age. Of course, even better was if that black man died protecting that pretty white girl, so that the hero could screw her later.

The worst thing about
this
situation was introducing the kid just in time to leave another black boy without a father! It wasn't like me, but I was ready to call the NAACP and Al Sharpton.

“How'd you know?” I asked Elliot.

“I knew something was up, and your name was floating around. They're a bunch of bastards anyway, Ten. Fuck 'em.”

It's hard to say
Fuck 'em
when you still remember being broke. Marcela cost three grand a month, and that wasn't counting Dad's physical therapist. That wasn't counting a whole lot. So much for my savings account. How long would the money last before my next job?

I wanted to call April, and I couldn't even do that. She hadn't sent me her number yet.

Instead, I tried to call Len Shemin, my agent. He was in a meeting. I left an urgent message, but it was a miracle to get Len on the phone before seven, his last call of the day. I couldn't bring myself to tell his assistant, Giovanni, what the problem was.

“What's next, Tin-Man?” The fond sadness in Elliot's voice made me feel more alone.

I wanted to go home, and in hindsight I wish I had. Fuck appearances. But I was a pro, and a pro does the job. I would stay to spite them, to show them what professionalism looked like. They could take notes and kiss my ass. That's what I thought.

“Put on the goddamn squibs,” I said.

That day, there would be blood.

 

I deserved an award for my performance the rest of that day.

All afternoon, I ignored the flimsy, tight-lipped masks hastily slipped over my coworkers' curiosity. Suddenly, I was the bad luck nobody wanted to rub off on them.

I saw the head writer, Benny, picking over the sandwiches on the catering table, but he made sure I could only see his profile. Most writers are humble folk—an industrywide lack of respect knocks the asshole out of most people pretty quick—but Benny was an exception. He'd always been a pompous ass, and it seemed like the perfect moment to tell him so.

I also wanted to tell the director he had no imagination, the female lead that her hair extensions made her look like a Shetland pony, and remind the male lead that his name hadn't opened a movie since 1986, so maybe he could stop strutting around like Russell Crowe.

But I didn't. I did my job.

Television and movie gunshots are fake, usually without even blanks, but no production takes gun scenes lightly—especially since Bruce Lee's son, Brandon, died after being shot with a blank while filming
The Crow.
If there is a weapon on the set, everyone has to be present for the safety meeting—just in case. At the scene's start, Perry and other agents would fire guns with blanks so the gunfire would look and sound realistic. But for my close-up, Perry would switch guns and fire one
without
blanks against the side of my neck. The assistant director ran us through the motions with two black Glock 22s.40 caliber, standard-issue FBI. One empty, one loaded with blanks.

“Yeah, yeah. Are we done with the hand-holding?” Perry groused to his coffee, loudly enough to be heard. “I've done this a hundred times.”

I glared at the wiry, white-haired actor whose performance had once delighted me—even inspired me. He was one or two words away from a plastic surgeon. Like I said, a prick.

“You got a problem?” I said.

Perry shrugged. “This is the biz, kid. You want steady? Get a law degree.”

The director, Avery, gave Perry an irritated look, then he waved
his hand over his head in his circular signal for
Let's get moving.
Finally. I was ready to shoot the scene and go home before I did something that would make the tabloids.

Avery motioned me to my cubicle on the set before my death scene. He knew I could have made his life hell that day, and he looked grateful I was still there.

“Wasn't my call,” Avery said quietly, his obligation. He was olive-skinned and balding.

“Whatever. What do you need?”

Avery ran us through the scene: a quiet moment at the office interrupted by gunfire from Kelsey. Finally, with a sigh, Avery pointed to my character's desk, which was as spare as my undeveloped character. I noticed that someone from Props had added a framed photo of me and Darnell, expertly Photoshopped. Nice afterthought, but it was too little, too late.

“OK, Ten, so it's
bam-bam
to the chest…” Avery tapped the squibs strapped beneath my shirt, which would splatter after a radio signal coordinated with the gunshots. Low-rent productions use plastic baggies, but
Homeland
could afford better effects. “The squibs go off, bloodstains, yada yada, you fall down. Then Perry comes behind you—last
bam
, to the neck. Left side. Your hand slaps your neck with a squib,
splat,
you're dead. And that's it.”

I could hear the relief in his voice at the idea.

Any other day I would have had a dozen thoughts on how to play the hell out of even a passive scene like that one, and maybe a few questions. Instead, I just nodded.