One D.O.A., One On The Way. Mary Robison

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СКАЧАТЬ the room are powdery-white hallways, arched doors, a carved staircase. It would seem an enormous, lovely house where you could sit in an alcove on a bench and read, but it isn’t.

      I turn down the T.V. volume and switch around in my seat. “O.K., this is thirty. What are we tuning in?”

      “Like you’re staying,” he says.

      There is work waiting for me, true. Work that’ll keep me busy tonight, some of tomorrow. Work, though, that I would rather not go and do.

      Longing and resentment. Some of both in the way my husband is stamping out his cigarette.

      [16]

      I’ve motored out on the Great River Road toward Bayou Lafourche below Napoleonville. Here, I will see what I can see.

      You have to get up on the levee for a view of anything. Down by the river, there’s a pearly dawn over the blazing water, and an egret acting drunk on the banks. Otherwise, not a lot going on.

      Here are a couple guys, however, waltzing along.

      “Do you know anything about the riverboat schedules?” I ask.

      “No,” from these two, who are trying to act nonchalant, and as if they don’t live their lives in various abandoned vehicles.

      [17]

      Some Things, You Finish With and They’re Over

       Yesterday, for the last time in my life, I cleaned a broiler pan.

       I’m never again wearing anything bought at Lowe’s.

       I’m done drinking boilermakers.

       Spinning until dizzy on barstools is a thing of the past.

       No more pawning my luggage.

      [18]

      “Completion bonds,” I’m telling Lucien. We’re somewhere, parked in my location-scouting van. I’m giving a lesson.

      He says, “Does this have partly to do with a deaf couple and Tom Cruise?”

      “Nothing to do with them.”

      “Go on then,” says Lucien.

      “Completion bonds are something a film company acquires in advance. Then, if a production doesn’t finish filming on time, the money people don’t get fucked by the over-budget expenses. I guess the bonding people get fucked instead, but they must expect that to happen from time to time. It’s just insurance, O.K.? You see what I mean?”

      Lucien nods a few times while drawing on a cigarette. Now he holds it as though his hand is very, very tired.

      “After Katrina,” I say, “no one was willing to write completion bonds. Your thing’s about to drip ashes there, amigo. Nobody would, and that’s one of the biggest reasons the film companies took a hike.”

      “Ma’am?” says Lucien, and I’ll want to speak to him about that later on.

      “Just let me get through this,” I say.

      He settles back on the passenger seat, his smoking hand now dangled out the window. He watches me dully, as if he’ll soon be going to sleep.

      I say, “Even a more serious problem, is what went with the production companies on their way out of town. The crew base. We have a diminished and devalued crew base. Where you need a depth of three or four individuals in each and every skill. We’re down to one individual for some skills, and, for most skills, no individuals.”

      “That’s sad,” Lucien says.

      “Yep,” I say, turning the engine.

      He says, “You know what I think we should do? Like, immediately? Or, never mind. I’m not even going to suggest anything.”

      “You’re welcome to.”

      “No. Maybe you just better ignore me,” he says, as if that would not have occurred to me to do.

      [19]

      Hell, it’s a lucky day if I’m photographing real estate. Things will never get back. I’m out of business, and I ought to fucking move.

      What I do now, day in and day out, is all hypothetical. I’ve become a “what-if” location scout.

      [20]

      In a City That Is Only Seven Miles Long

       Alcoholic beverages are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

       Alcohol is the leading cause of death for Louisiana youth.

       Drinking in the street is acceptable and legal, although not from a glass or a bottle.

       Bars and clubs provide plastic go-cup containers.

       Most have walk-up windows for refills.

       More undergraduates die from alcohol-related causes than the number who receive advanced degrees.

      [21]

      The twins’ mother will say to me, at various times, she’ll say, “Don’t count on it,” or “Don’t be too sure.” She can respond this way on any subject. Whatever happens, whatever information I receive from anyone, the mother-in-law is there beside me, saying, “If you can put any faith in that,” or, “You’d like to think so,” or, “So I’m sure they would have you believe.”

      “Don’t you wish,” she has said to me, and “Don’t tell me you fell for that one.” She’ll ask me, “Are you thinking clearly? When are you going to stop kidding yourself?” and say, “It amazes me you’re so easily persuaded. You bought that one outright. Dream on. Dream away. You couldn’t be in your right mind. Have you lost all sense of proportion?”

      [22]

      “The way it works is,” I’m telling Lucien, “they send us a script or script treatment. We peruse it and come up with whatever location ideas we can. Then our fees are based on their budget and on what type of production they’re doing. They either pay us a day rate, or they can get a package deal that includes Prep days, Shooting days, and Strike days when we clean up the property. You have that? There are three classifications. A small still shoot with ten crew. A medium commercial with forty. Or a feature film with over a hundred.”

      He says, “Check. Got it. Small, medium, big. Now, I keep meaning to ask you and then I always forget. How do they decide about the amount we’re getting paid?”

      “Well,” I say, “it’s interesting. First, they are set rates. The rates for the package deal and the day rate. Set. I mean, in cement. And the day rate, at first blush, is going to seem high, because it’s three grand a day, or however much. But some companies will go ahead and agree to that, knowing they’re going to work you nineteen- or twenty-hour days, one day after another. When there’s nothing, at that point, you can do.”

      “Three СКАЧАТЬ