NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 30 -by Peter Nolan Smith

THIRTY

The man in the black suit stands before a deserted ranch house. A crow bar in his hands. He walks up to the padlocked door. The older woman in the car shouts out, "Don't."
"Why not?” the younger girl in the car asks, "There is no one left. Just us."
"Which means everything belongs to us.” the man says, prying the lock off the door.
"Cut.” Sherri yelled, jumping off the car. "That's it."
When the camera stopped rolling, Sean exited from the ramshackle house slightly bewildered, for he was too exhausted from the two weeks of eighteen-hour days, the starvation diet, and last night with Sherri to comprehend what had happened. "You mean, "That's it.” No more takes?"
"No more takes, no more scenes. It's a wrap. THE END.” Sherri clapped her hands together. "What are you all waiting for? Don't you want to go home."
The haggard crew cheered for a few seconds and immediately set to the task of breaking down the equipment. Lights were taken apart. The reel of film unloaded from the camera into a tin can. Wires were gathered in coils. The entire atmosphere reminded Sean of the circus folding the big tent. At in the beginning everyone was busy, except Sean and Lena, who sat on the hood of the Skylark and he was about to walk over to thank her for everything. The young actress must have sensed his intentions, for she slipped off the car and ran down a dusty ravine.
When several of the techs glared a warning for him not to follow, Sean froze in the midday sun. What had been happening between Sherri and him off-camera was no secret to the crew and their rabid antagonism toward him had increased geometrically with Sherri's treason to her half of the species and betrayal of Lena.
The smell of ozone foretold the approach of a strong storm system into Death Valley and Sherri watched the thick rain clouds crawled over the peaks of the Argus Range. She had beaten the weather, but this film might have cost exactly what she wanted to save and when the man in the black suit approached her, she asked, "What do you want?"
"Is there anything I can do?" Sean wearily scratched at his beard. Once he was back to the motel, it was coming off.
"Nothing here."
"So that's it?'
"Yes, and once we get to LA, you sign a release form, get paid, after which you can go wherever you want." He could go to Hell for all she cared, for Sherri had already decided to cut this man out of the post-production process in Los Angeles.
"What's a release?"
"A document saying you were paid and not taken advantage of. You don't have a problem with signing that, do you?"
"None that I can think of.” Sean was too tired to squawk about any mistreatment or being underpaid or overworked, since he had agreed unconditionally to their proposal and he would have to stick by that decision.
"Good. Make sure we spell your name right on the release, so when you become famous, everyone will know who you are."
"That's all?"
"Just one more thing."
"Yes?"
In order to avoid any confusion now or later Sherri said, "Whatever we did meant nothing."
"Of course, it doesn’t.” Sean was too old to mistake their physical one-on-one with either love or lust. Soon they would be driving back to LA. He would sign whatever was necessary. She would pay him. He would get out of town, only to exist for these women as a character on film. They would all be happier that way. "So I can eat."
"You can do whatever you like.” She meant every word.
As he walked away, she realized where she had seen him before. An after-hours club in New York. He had been playing pinball. She had tilted the machine. His face had been awestruck, when she had some bikers toss him out more than twenty years ago. She shook her head in disbelief that someone so insignificant would pop up in a critical role in her movie. It made little sense, but nothing would, until she made things right with Lena.
Reaching the van, Sean dug into a paper bag and took out the roast beef sandwich he had ordered from the diner this morning. He sat on a rock sculpted by wind-driven sand and his mouth watered in anticipation of that first morsel swarming over his taste buds, yet he hesitated before biting into the sandwich only for a second, because no one told him to stop. He was back in the world where was a nobody who could do whatever he wanted and that freedom like that almost tasted as good as the sandwich.