The exercise:
Write something which takes place on: the movie set.
Took a family trip to Penticton this morning for a couple appointments and to get some groceries. Managed to get back home before the heat reached excessive levels.
This afternoon those excessive levels were reached, so I turned on the sprinklers in the yard and hung out in the shade of the walnut tree with the boys. Miles loves playing in the water and it's a great way to keep us all cool.
Back to town work tomorrow. Going to be hooooooot.
Mine:
"Quiet on the set!"
"What's the old fart yelling about then?"
"Who knows. He's always shouting about something though, isn't he?"
"Right? I don't know how he expects to make any friends here with a disposition like that."
"Probably just needs to relax, hey? Is your nephew still going to school to become a masseuse? You should give him a call, see if he can swing by and work some stress balls out of this guy's shoulders."
"I said quiet on the set!"
"There he goes again. Can you make out what he's upset about?"
"Oh, no. The battery on my hearing aid died on me last week and I haven't had a chance to replace it yet. You?"
"No. But I'm sure if it's important he'll come over here and tell us to our faces. You know, instead of raising his voice like an overtired toddler."
"Oh goodness, you're quite right. Do you remember when Kevin threw that tantrum in the grocery store when he was two?"
"How could I forget? They still won't let me shop in that place. Talk about holding a grudge!"
"Quiet!"
Sprinklers in the yard with the kids sounds like a great way to beat the heat of summerr :)
ReplyDeleteHaha, I love the banter between these two, and their approach to life. The dead battery is a lovely detail, as is the reference to the overtired toddler and holding a grudge. The flow of the conversation is exactly right too, with all the right tangents and distractions. Lovely.
[I should probably note that the nephew is going to become a masseur unless he's also having a sex change... which given these two probably isn't that unlikely!]
The movie set
"They're paying money and the road-repair fund doesn't top itself up magically, Baines. Issue the licence and find four of your force who are good at 'standing around duty' and put them on it."
"Yes, Miss Monkeybutt."
*
The cast and crew had parked trailers in the parking lot of the Myxamatosis Lounge ("where Playboy bunnies come to die") and the cameras and lighting rigs were set up across the intersection. Traffic had been diverted into jams and confusion elsewhere in the city, pedestrians had been told to stay out by the police force, on pain of having their legs broken, and there was a man on standby with an air-rifle in case any of the city's rabid pigeon population attempted to land. The director of the film was sitting in his reinforced canvas chair eating M&Ms by the double-fistful and barking orders about the script to his assistant, who was speckled with chocolate. Actors were slowly coming out of the trailers and the make-up artists were darting around them like butterflies or weaver-birds, fixing this and adjusting that.
"Is that my coffee?" snarled a Heavy Grip who was overseeing the placement of vehicles for the next shot. He turned his head, salt'n'peppper hair waving in a way that had made him a fortune as a hair-model ten years earlier, and snatched the cup from McArthur's hand.
"You look like a damned derelict," he said, tasting the drink. "And this is... surprisingly good." His mood softened. "Smoky, like a Lapsang Souchong only coffee... sweet hot damn, I like this. What's your name? Your my runner now."
"MacArthur." Mac didn't bother to offer to shake hands: it only ever engendered revulsion and occasionally people spraying him with anti-bacterial handwash.
"Mac huh? Well Mac, you make a mean coffee and I'm a mean sumbitch so I think we'll make a good couple." The Heavy Grip looked a little more carefully at MacArthur and decided to avoid ambiguity. "A good working partnership."
"Thanks, boss," said Mac, his voice so gravelly from overuse and cigarettes that there could have been an ocean of sarcasm in there and it would have been undetectable. "Is Jeannie around?"
"Trailer 6. Tell her she's on in forty after we blow the hydrants up. Hey, Charlie! Did we get permission from the city to blow the hydrants up yet?"
Across the general noise of the set came a thin, reedy voice.
"The amount that unintelligible charging us we can unintelligible the city and the population for all I care!"
"Sweet."
Mac smiled, the skin around his lips cracking and starting to bleed, and drifted over to Trailer 6.
Greg - ah, masseuse was an honest mistake... but now I honestly prefer the sex change interpretation, so never you mind about that 'mistake' business...
ReplyDeleteThe 'speckled with chocolate' detail is my favorite thing about this piece. Other than the surprising revelation that Mac makes good coffee.