I caved and told them all about my day.
“I want to meet her,” Cassidy said.
“Why?”
“Your girlfriends will expect a report,” she said as if it were obvious.
“First of all, I don’t have girlfriends.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
◊◊◊
Today we were doing location scenes. I told Roger about the church I visited yesterday and the great square they had. He said he would check it out because it sounded perfect for what they planned for later in the week.
We were shooting in the old Partagás cigar factory. It was fascinating to watch them hand-make them. Everything there smelled of dried tobacco leaves. An older woman was there smoking a cigar while she worked rolling cigars. They used the whole leaves and stacked them up before rolling them tightly. They then cut off each end and put them in a container that looked like an egg crate for cigars. Once they had several full, they stacked them and then used a press to compact the cigars even tighter. Each step was done by hand.
We spent the morning shooting our scenes. Laurent wasn’t as much of an ass as he had been, but he still demanded perfection. At one point, I was forced to do a scene twenty-some times before he was happy. Still, it was better than ninety-something.
Once we were done filming, we all bought cigars. Their special cigar was called ‘Bolivar Belicoso.’ I got several boxes on Heath’s advice; he seemed to know about them. He said I could either save them for special occasions or give them as gifts.
◊◊◊
Our second stop of the day was at Zapata Swamp, which was two hours from Havana. They planned scenes of Kimberly and me running through the swamp to hide from the American Mafia. They were upset with her father and the restrictions the new government was putting on their casinos.
The first scene was set up so that Cici and my character Rick would run through calf-high water towards the camera.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a swamp, but it stunk to high heaven. On top of that, it was hot and humid, and I would guess there were about a million mosquitoes that were intent on sucking all the blood out of me. Both Kimberly and Cassidy were whining nonstop. I could have handled all that, but I noticed one small detail that concerned me: there were park employees with rifles watching the water.
They took us out to a little island on a johnboat, and as we stepped out of the boat, I noticed that Kimberly was wearing high heels.
“Are you planning on running in those?” I asked.
“I’ll just run on my toes,” she explained.
“You do realize that we’re running through swamp water, right?”
“Why should that matter?” she asked.
We could hear Laurent on a megaphone call out direction.
“Ready … Action!”
I stepped off the bank into the water. Kimberly must have thought if she leaped, it would be a shorter distance to the other shore. I stepped into muck up to my knee. Kimberly’s momentum caused her to face-plant into about the grossest water imaginable. She lifted her head, and you could see green slime in her hair. When she tried to push herself up, her hands began to sink into the mud. If I hadn’t been there, she might have been in real trouble.
Imagine the reaction of any teenage girl in a dress with heels on who’s now covered in stinky green slime. I expect bursting into tears would be right at the top of the list, which she did. Suddenly trying to climb up my body and shrieking like I was killing her was not something I expected. That was until two crocodiles eased out of the brush and started for us.
In a moment like that, all grace goes out the window. All I can say is it was good that I was an athlete. I might have set a new record for the forty as I pounded to the shore. I ran past the cameras because I figured it was every man or woman for themselves at that point. That was when I figured out why there were men with guns. What baffled me was that the crocodiles stopped short of the shore.
Cassidy ran over to make sure we were all right. She had to pry Kimberly off me, and that was when her stupid hat suddenly was caught in the wind and flew out over the water. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it: one of the crocodiles jumped out of the water and snatched the hat. Seriously, it jumped out of the water!
“No, I’m not getting it, and that’s final,” I told Cassidy before she asked.
Neither Kimberly nor I could be talked into getting back into the swamp water again. In fact, Kimberly quit on the spot.
I talked to one of the park rangers, and he told me about the Cuban crocodile.
“It is the smartest crocodile in the world. They know not to come ashore because we have trained them not to when people are present. If we’d known they were around, we would have put up nets and kept them out of the area you were working in. They also sometimes hunt in packs. What you observed was them doing that when you ran to the shore. The crocodiles only get to about six to eight feet in length and top out at about 180 pounds, so you would have been a challenge to bring down.
“Something else that makes them unique is they can jump. I’ve seen a crocodile take a duck right out of the air before, so it wasn’t a surprise when that one grabbed the hat. They’re also aggressive. Even though they are trained, we won’t turn our backs on them,” he explained.
That was all I needed to hear to convince me not to volunteer to get back into the water. That, and I would rather be about anywhere else at this point. I stunk, and so just shucked my shoes and pants to get the worst of it off me. I had my gym bag with me, so I put on shorts.
Laurent found me and wanted to talk.
“We need to get more footage. What we got was great, but we need to show other scenes of you in the swamp. I think I can get around not having Kimberly in the rest, but I can’t use this without the other scenes.”
“You’ve been a jerk to me since before this movie even started. Why would I help you out? And even if I wanted to, there’s no way I am going back into the water with those things,” I said.
“What if I could guarantee your safety?”
“If you went in first and proved it was safe, I might consider it, but that still doesn’t solve your being a jerk.”
“Do you really think there’s anything I could do not to be a jerk at this point?” he asked.
“Good point. I might actually enjoy you being gator food, so the only way I do it is if you do it first.”
I knew that Laurent would never go for it. Boy, was I wrong. That guy was crazy.
The park rangers chased off the two crocodiles and then put nets up to keep them out. They called in more rangers to watch the other side of the island, and we were set up again.
Laurent, true to his word, stepped into the muck. I had my phone film him in case one of those crocs decided to snatch his hat with his head in it. He didn’t appreciate me pointing and jumping at every little bubble or ripple in the water. I figured he deserved it.
They had another girl play Cici while planning not to show her face. The new girl wasn’t happy when they slimed her. Even I gagged a bit when she got near me. Laurent got his revenge when we got into the water, and a bunch of bubbles came up. I about peed my pants, but the water wasn’t deep enough to hide a crocodile where we were filming. I felt foolish but figured better safe than sorry.
Once we finished for the day, I put this down as something I would never ever do again.
◊◊◊
I came back to the hotel to find Caryn in my suite, talking on the phone to Megan.
“He’s back. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Caryn said and hung up. “How was your day?”
“I almost got eaten by a crocodile.”
“Okay, that sounds like fun. I have some recruiting news. Michigan has stepped up their game: they confirmed having a camp at Lincoln High this summer. Megan needs to send them dates when you’ll be in town and confirm your attendance.”