“Do you really think so?”
She nodded. “I really do,” she said. “Maybe you should try to write about that sort of thing as well. I think you’d be really good at it.”
And before he could reply, she strode off, heading over to the Nerdlys to get a baby fix of her own.
Three hours later, two time zones to the east in the Chicago suburb of Joliet, the sun had gone down, and Greg Oldfellow was standing in the living room of an average, everyday suburban tract house. It was a postwar two-story on a quiet residential street on Joliet’s west side that was owned and occupied by an actual Chicago Police Department patrol sergeant. The displaced Sergeant Mackle, his wife, and their three children were now being paid quite handsomely by the movie studio for the one-month rental of their domicile so it could be used for filming the domestic scenes of Us and Them in a realistic setting. In addition to the rent, the Mackles were being housed in first-class accommodations in the same five-star hotel where the studio staff and the actors were staying. Mrs. Mackle, who worked as a commercial real estate agent, and the Mackle children, all of whom were enrolled in public schools of the Joliet School District, were all being taken to and from their daily obligations by a studio-funded limousine service. And as if that were not enough, the good sergeant himself was being used as one of the project’s technical advisers and his time off from work for this duty was being compensated as well.
The Mackle’s living room, which opened up in a wide floor plan from the front door, had been set up with two 35mm cameras, a sound set with a boom microphone, two lighting units on the ceiling, a complete crew of camera operators, two sound technicians, the gaffer and his best boy, the script supervisor, and Georgie Fletcher, the director of the film. All of these people were gathered in the southwest corner of the room, out of the view of the cameras, which were focusing on the front door of the house and the couch area near the television. Sitting on the couch was actress Marlene Canon, who was playing Delores, the wife of Chicago police officer Frank Haverty, Greg’s character. The drama they were about to play out was one of the earlier scenes in the film, an establishing character moment when Haverty, after a hard tour on the day shift and three hours spent at a cop bar after, comes staggering home to a confrontation with his long suffering good Catholic spouse.
“All right, remember,” Fletcher told Greg, who was standing just inside the open doorway, wearing a pair of faded jeans, a button-up shirt that was wrinkled, disheveled, and had several stains on it. “You’re drunk, you’re stumbling, your temper is on edge. You’re tired of being nagged by this bitch every flippin’ day.”
“Hey now,” said Marlene with an amused smile. She was wearing an old housecoat and had her hair done up in curlers. A weathered crucifix hung around her neck and a small wedding ring was on her left hand. A veteran character actress who had never had a leading role, she was nevertheless a consummate professional with girl next door beauty that they had had to use some makeup and hairstyling to tone down a bit for this role, making her look more plain and homely than she actually was. “I don’t call you derogatory sexist names.”
Fletcher shot her a look of annoyance but said nothing. Instead, he turned back to Greg. “Are you feeling the scene, Greg?”
“I’m feeling the scene,” he assured him with a sigh. He was not particularly enjoying his association with Fletcher so far. The man was a micromanager to the tenth degree. They had just spent all of the daylight hours filming scenes in the patrol car out on the streets of the east side while the traffic was light. Fletcher had sat in the backseat for each take between Greg and actor Lewis Stone, the young up-and-coming African-American who was playing Haverty’s rookie patrol partner, Clay “Boot” Jackson. He had had the balls to suggest method acting tips to Greg there as well.
“All right then,” Fletcher said, scratching at his bald head. “Let’s give it go then. When I say action, you fumble through the door and enter.”
“Fumble through and enter,” Greg said, holding the fake key ring prop in his hand.
“Maybe we should muss his hair up a little more?” suggested Lane Casper, the grizzled old woman who served as the script supervisor. Lane was almost psychotically obsessive-compulsive, which made her an annoying human being but a superb script supervisor. It was said that no film she had ever worked on in her thirty-five years in the profession had ever been found to have a visual continuity error. “Remember, he’s coming in hammered drunk after a long tour on the streets and time spent in a bar. He should look messy.”
Fletcher thought this over for a moment and then nodded. “Good point,” he said. “Muss up your hair a little more, Greg. Make yourself look like shit.”
Greg dutifully ran his hands through his hair a few times, trying to rumple it. It was a hard thing to do, however, since makeup had sprayed enough hairspray in his locks to hold it down in a hurricane.
“All right,” Fletcher said after examining Greg’s efforts. “Let’s do this. Camera one on Marlene. Camera two, focus on the door and then follow Greg through the scene.”
“That’s what we were already doing,” sighed one of the camera operators, obviously not appreciating Fletcher’s micromanagement style either.
Fletcher ignored this remark and pointed at the door. Greg dutifully went outside and closed it behind him. He heard a bustle of excited conversation from the sidewalk as many of Mackle’s neighbors and other onlookers, who knew from the rumor mill that a movie starring Greg Oldfellow and Mindy Snow was being shot inside (and had discerned from the studio vans and the two armed security guards keeping everyone back that such action was taking place right this moment) and had gathered on the sidewalk to watch, suddenly realized who they were looking at.
“It’s him!”
“That’s Greg Oldfellow!”
“I wonder if Mindy Snow is in there too!”
“Hey, Greg! How’s it going?”
“I hope this flick is better than that one with the elephants.”
“Do you think Celia’s in there with him?”
He ignored all the remarks and chatter, not even glancing in their direction. Instead, he listened for his cue, which came when he heard Fletcher shout “Action!”
He began to fumble with the doorknob, as if having trouble getting his key in the lock. I’m a drunk street cop, he told himself, letting the character possess him. I’m coming in after a shitty day on the job. My wife is a bitch and I know she’s going to start nagging at me again as soon as I walk through the door. And I’m already pissed off about it.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, staggering a little, dropping his keys to the ground and then fumbling to pick them back up. He did not look at the cameras, did not even think about them. He was no longer Greg Oldfellow. He was Frank Haverty, Chicago PD, south division patrol officer, and that bitch on the couch with her hair up in curlers was not Marlene Canon (who had an amazing set of legs and a wonderful ass when you saw her dressed like a real person), she was his wife.
It took five takes to film the first scene in the living room, but they got it done in less than an hour. The scene was six minutes long and consisted entirely of a marital argument. Delores nagged Frank for being drunk and missing dinnertime again. He told her that she had no idea of what he had been through out on the streets, because if she did, she’d be drunk too. She said that she was always there to listen to him, but he never talked, never opened up to her. He got pissed and told her about how a baby had been beaten to death today by his teenage mother’s boyfriend and the mother in question had tried to cover up for him—is that the kind of shit you want to hear me tell you every fucking day? Delores then crossed herself and started to cry. Frank declared this whole conversation was fucking useless and headed for the staircase to go up to the spare room, where he would be sleeping again.