The Calling. Kim O'Neill

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       Chapter 5

       Barely Surviving My Day Job

      The old ship pitched and rolled on the heavy seas, just in sight of the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor. A man could be seen on the deck of the American vessel; explosions of cannon fire illuminated his face against the dark, starless night sky.

      Consumed with passion, he reached inside his uniform and pulled out a folded piece of paper and a writing instrument. The man unfolded the piece of paper on the ship’s battered, wooden rail and began to write with deliberate intent. After a few moments, he looked once again toward the fort under siege, tears welling in his eyes. Inexplicably, the corners of his mouth began to curl and he burst into uncontrollable laughter.

      “CUT!” yelled the director. “Goddamn, Jimmy—how many times we gonna shoot this scene? Get in character and stay there! You’re supposed to be Thomas Jefferson, the father of our country, for chrissakes!”

      “Francis Scott Key,” I corrected the director with a heavy sigh. I was thirty-two years old, and I co-owned an advertising agency. My partner was my ex-husband, with whom I had started the business five years earlier when we were still married. At that precise moment, I was in the process of shooting a TV commercial for one of my clients who had planned a big sale over the Memorial Day weekend. I had created the poignant TV spot for the T-shirt company to ignite a spark of patriotism in the Houston community and, more importantly, to allow my client to unload his huge surplus of T-shirts emblazoned with the Texas state flag.

      “Okay, Jimmy, you got your shit together now?” inquired the director.

      The actor made a thumbs-up gesture, indicating that he was ready to begin shooting again.

      “OKAY! QUIET ON THE SET!” the director barked. “ACTION!”

      Once again, strobe lights began to flash on the actor’s face to simulate “bombs bursting in air.” His expression was so moving that I knew it would be a real tearjerker of a spot—just the tone and mood I wanted.

      At the right moment, the actor reached inside the jacket of the rented military uniform for the paper and pen with which he would write the poem that was to become the Star Spangled Banner. He pulled out the piece of paper, but evidently, there was nothing else in there. Maintaining his expression and staying in character, he reached into the other side. Nothing in there, either. Suddenly, Francis Scott Key morphed back into Jimmy Willis, the fledgling actor from Driftwood, Texas.

      “This time it wasn’t my fault!” whined Jimmy. “Who took my pen?”

      At that moment, one of the big strobe lights exploded with an ear-splitting BOOM!

      “CUT!” bellowed the director. “BILL! Get that bulb replaced! I’m gonna be old and gray when this goddamned shoot is over!”

      “What do you mean, gonna be?” I teased him.

      “Yeah, you got that right,” he responded dryly. “And my mamma said I’d never make it in show business.” We both laughed. He then shouted, “Bill! Where are you?” When he got no response, he jumped up from his chair and strode off in search of his assistant.

      We obviously weren’t going to start shooting again for a few minutes, so I decided to call my office to check for messages. I held on the line while Shirley Stockwell, my receptionist and secretary, rifled through them one by one. First, the owner of the T-shirt company had called to say that his son, the advertising director of the family business, was on his way to the shoot. Second, the presentation I was supposed to give the following week to the big, new prospective client—a string of funeral homes—had been moved up to tomorrow, and I hadn’t even started to work on what was supposed to be an extensive and complicated proposal. Four angry suppliers had called for money and were waiting for me to get back with them; and, a client in the computer industry who owed me $80,000 had called, stating his intention not to pay the bill. What’s more, he informed Shirley that if I called him for the money, he’d consider it harassment. An unpaid debt like that could put our small firm out of business. Without it, we couldn’t even make payroll the next day. The receptionist then told me that David, my business partner and ex-husband, had decided to take the day off to go on a long motorcycle ride around Lake Conroe.

      I couldn’t believe that David would take a vacation day when all hell was breaking loose! Shaking with anger and frustration, I told Shirley to tell the staff we had to work late that night to put the proposal together, and that I’d meet them back at the agency as soon as I finished the shoot. Suddenly, shouting erupted on the set, so I quickly ended the call and dashed back into the studio. The actor and director were in a heated argument.

      “I simply will not do the scene again!” threatened Jimmy. “Everybody has their limits, and I’m creatively spent!”

      “WHAT?” shouted the outraged director. “You’ll do the scene as many times as I tell you to do it! Who do you think you are—Sir Laurence fucking Olivier?”

      I saw that my ultraconservative client had arrived while I was on the phone in the other room. He had never been to a shoot before to see the creative process at work. He stood there unobserved in the corner, motionless, aghast, eyes popping.

      “Hey, guys,” I called to the actor and director. “Let’s work out our little differences and finish the shoot.” They completely ignored me. I waved to my client. He ignored me, too.

      “And . . . I’m not going to wear this ridiculous wig,” cried the actor, yanking СКАЧАТЬ