Holli let me sleep a little longer.
I think I got three twitchy hours in.
Apparently Jerry had been calling me since noon.
Jerry Pucelord is the UPM.
I had to look that up.
Unit Production Manager.
That means he makes decisions with a credit card.
Jerry had wanted me up earlier than 4pm to pick up two more RV's.
Holli told him I would be ready by 4:30.
Jerry waited in the lobby while I showered.
RV Army
In the lobby, Jerry waved me over with the annoyed snap of old money.
Suddenly I was "the help" on one of his private, whites only ranches.
He and his friend Franklin pulled up in a jeep.
I climbed in the back and laid down.
They were listening to weird music.
Like Atlantic Starr but updated.
It sounded like stuff my mom once aerobicized to.
Music from my puberty.
Jerry and Franklin were talking business.
You have to be 25 years old to drive an RV.
Jerry was qualified.
Franklin wasn't old enough.
"Is Tony old enough?" he wondered.
"Hey, Tony," called Jerry, "How old are you?"
I raised my head up from its rest.
"I'm old!"
We drove the rest of the way in silence, save for the respectable level of contemporary mom music.
At the RV wonderland we signed contracts.
An overly chipper woman talked our ears off.
She was blond and fat and a little white trash.
She poked fun at my lack of enthusiasm.
"Yeah, man, totally," she said, mistaking my lack of sleep and desire to be there for a marijuana addiction from the 1980's.
I understood that she meant no harm.
The RV was a Chevy or a Ford probably.
I turned on the engine.
The CD player blared some mysterious German punk polka.
Thinking this to be a moment, I recorded myself pulling out onto the highway with the camera accidentally upside-down.
But it seems this angle more accurately captures the spirit of "the morning."
Breakfast Fast
Rush hour allowed us to take too long in arriving on set.
By the time I got there, the breakfast of Italian Beef sandwiches had all been eaten.
I put a steamed sweet pepper into a bun and called it food.
Summer Camp
I realized today that I would be seeing these same people over and over again every day and every night for the next three weeks.
Dan likened it to summer camp.
I never went to summer camp.
When I was a kid, my mom used to threaten to send to me to camp when I acted like a little asshole.
I begged her not to.
Being around strangers in a competitive environment with no privacy sounded like hell on earth to me.
Three decades later, the littlest asshole was right.
Watching Talking Walking Watching
The police closed the main drag for filming.
People watched.
There wasn't much to see, but we all watched anyway.
A couple of guys in cop outfits walking and talking.
We couldn't hear what they were saying.
But we watched them talk.
Some people watched until 1 or 2am.
Super-PA!
Dan and Holli hired another PA to help out.
His name was Alex.
He raced down from Michigan.
He was fast.
He was a go-getter.
He got the go.
He knew how to fly.
He wore a cape.
He did all the things I was supposed to do, but faster.
There Once Was A Tent From Nantucket
Some of the production tents sucked cock.
One of them in particular sucked the most cock.
It had a damaged ring on its retractable pole.
This tent sliced my forefinger at the joint below the tip.
I bled a bunch, enough for it to suck lots of cock.
I found a band aid from 1989 in an antique first aid kit.
I applied it to my futuristic wound.
It took about an hour for the everything to stop sucking cock.
Learning Curve
I wrote in my diary tonight that things seemed to be going a little better.
I had learned some new lingo.
Hot Brick - a new, charged battery for a walkie talkie
Moho - abbreviation for motor home
That's about it.
"We need a hot brick to set," said Holli.
Alex had already given out all of his hot bricks, so it was up to me.
I gave one of my hot bricks to Mort, a nerd chic kid in skinny jeans.
He was the head of the art department.
Later, a grip requested a hot brick as well.
"That guy with the moustache has them," said Mort.
I was sitting next to him.
"My name is Tony," I said.
It started to drizzle.
Between takes Alex and Mikey would help the art department wipe the police car down.
Alex's towel blazed with precision.
He made the rain afraid.
The actors got in the cruiser and drove it out of the frame 674 times.
They backed it up and got out of the cruiser 673 times.
Around 5am one of Ft. Floyd's Finest screeched a U-turn and raced the cruiser down the main drag across the Waagosh River. After each take the officer directing traffic heckled him.
"Screwed it up again," she jeered.
They got a decent take before the rain came down hard.
My historic band aid flapped uselessly while I collected radios from the groggy soggy crew.
In the mad wet dash, Holli should me the proper way to wrap a D-chair.
By the time production had wrapped, so had the rain.
Morningcap
At the hotel Holli and I had a glass of red wine, followed by Jameson.
"If you didn't have to work, what would you do?" she asked.
"Travel and write."
Holli expressed an interest in doing something humanitarian.
Something that meant something.
Something real.
After a few glasses, sleep still hadn't arrived.
We decided to take a dip in the pool.
It was a cloudy morning in the deep end.
The mist from a drizzle tickled my face.
Piped-in instrumentals from the 60's complimented my dumb buzz.
I hadn't wanted to quit or kill myself today.
It felt good.
Verdict: Win
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