Private Dick!; Chapter Seven

The following may be grammatically incorrect, to highlight the

main character's lack of smarts! 

Chapter Seven:

     I was extremely bored, yet-again, or should I say still? I wasn’t sure, but I was starting to think that having zero clients was part of the cause. Survey had said,

     “You’re a fricking loser; you are without a doubt the most boring person I have ever met; you’re driving away viewers faster that a rocket to the moon. I know that we’re still years away from this, but mark my words, someday a man will walk on the moon, and be returned safely to the Earth!”

     Well, that sealed it; I had officially gone round the bend. Even Survey would never say something that absurd, and he dared to imagine the make-believe world! He had used me, then dumped me faster than a hydroplane. That was about as good of description of something fast that I could think of; my mind had sludge in the pan. Amazingly, I was just thinking of going to a movie, when one called me. My phone rang:

     “Havelock Investigations, Havelock speaking.”

     “Yes, hello Mr. Havelock; My name is Trevor McCloud, and I recently saw “A Day in the Life of a Dick”, and think you’d be perfect for the lead in a new television drama series I’m producing called “Sheet of Flame in the Big City”, about a hard-boiled, wise-cracking private eye. Would you be interested?”

     I looked around at my silent office, and replied, “Well, I guess I can put my cases (what cases?) on hold for awhile, but I have no acting experience.”

     “Oh, it’s just like riding a bicycle,” If you go riding in front of several million people, McCloud thought; “once you learn how, you’ll never forget.”

     “Well then, let’s give it a go!”

 

     I hung up the phone, and exclaimed, “Yes!” It would be perfect. I was a little nervous about acting, but I’d get the hang of it.

 

     I was feeling extremely out-of-sorts because of the long plane ride when I stepped onto the television soundstage at Mammoth Studios in Los Angeles. Trevor McCloud strode over and said,

     “Welcome to California, My Havelock; I trust you had a good flight?”

     If you consider I hate flying, and got airsick and zooked in a bag a good flight, then, “Yes, it was fine.”

     “Great; I’ll take you over to meet the director, and then I’ll let you let you work,” and he lead me over to a smallish man wearing a pink suit coat over a white tee shirt with no tie, and upon meeting him, I’d already pegged him as hollow and a mean little man; McCloud said,

     “Hello, Henrico, meet your new star, Butch Havelock. Butch, this is the director, Henrico Balustrade.

     With his first words to me, I immediately added ‘d**k-head’ to my impression of him.

     “Hello, please don’t cost us more money than absolutely necessary. Where’d you find this one, McCloud, the Low-Budget Retread Company?”

     I was immediately angry, “McCloud, I don’t need this s**t (like hell I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to be put down by some kid clown in a pink suit!), get yourself another dick!”

     McCloud said, “Oh, now come on, Henrico’s tough on everybody.”

     I really needed the money, and, if I was being perfectly honest with myself, I didn’t want to walk away from the recognition and adulation that would probably result from this. “Okay, I’ll stick around; where do you want me Henrico?”

     “Well, you’re not really my type, but I’ll say on a blanket in front of a roaring fire, just for the sake of argument!”

     Great! “No, where do you want me to watch the shooting?” They couldn’t do any filming with me in it, because, even though my instructions were to learn my lines from the script they had sent me, while flying in, I hadn’t had learned them; in fact, I been so airsick, I hadn’t even picked up the script. There was no way.

     “Oh well, you can’t blame a guy for trying! Oh, I suppose on the set of your office.”

     There was a false-front with a “Gary Flame Investigations” sign above the door. Wonderful, my name was Gary Flame. Now the tile may as well be ‘Flame Takes a Sheet in the Big City.’ “I don’t if I should point this out, but there’s no office here.”

     “Well, whoopty-fricking-do, where the hell’s the office? Someone kindly explain to this moron that the set for the office is on a different soundstage!”

 

     I was angry, but I found myself on another soundstage, this was for interior shooting of my office. I had always assumed that what you saw on the screen was the way it was. Boy, did I have a lot to learn!

 

     Turns out, I had my very own trailer, and when I walked onto the set for interior shooting, I got withering glances from the other actors on the set. I’m not an expert at reading non-criminal’s body language, but you had to have been a moron not to pick up on their dislike of the situation. I briefly wondered which of theses scowling actors I’d be watching in the scene. Just then, a moron called out, “Let’s shoot scene one.” Okay, it wasn’t a moron, it was Henrico Balustrade.

     Scene one? “But I haven’t learned my lines yet. I figured I would just be watching today.”

     “Watching?, no, I don’t believe in wasting time. We’ll just write your lines down on cue cards, and you can glance at them from time to time.”

    

     And so I found myself seated in a chair on the set, trying not to panic. Let ‘s see, I’ve never acted before, and to add to my anxiety, I’m expected to try and read my lines off of cue cards? No problem!

     “And action!” shouted Balustrade.

     Suddenly, the red light of the camera pointed at me lit up, looking like an anxiety highlighter, and it was time for me to start acting. “It’s another day of detecting for me, and I’ve got to announced the murder of another nameless victim. I--”

     “Cut!” yelled Balustrade; “What the hell was that, Havelock?”

     “What? I just read what was on the cards.”

     “Like hell you did; “I’ve got to announced the murder of another nameless victim?” That makes no sense!”

     “Well, that’s what the cards said.”

     “This is what I get; being handed an amateur pile of s**t, who can’t walk and chew gum at the same--”

     “I’m sorry, Mr. Balustrade, I put the cue cards in the wrong order,” interjected an assistant standing behind the camera pointed at me.

     “What? What? Well of all the incompetent...”

     “Look, what more do you want from me? I already said I was sorry!”

     Before Balustrade could rudely reply to this statement, a man in a fedora hat and gray suit stepped forward, and said, “This shoot is over. I--”

     Balustrade went nuts, screaming, “And who are you to tell me the shooting’s over? I’m the director, and I’ll decide when we’re done!”

     “I’m union rep Clay Dice, and I’m pulling all my workers until you can be more civil. My workers shouldn’t feel intimidated or threatened on the job.”

     Balustrade just stared at Dice for an uncomfortable length of time, then launched into a profanity-laced tirade, which translated roughly into, “Screw you!”

 

     So ended my big break, acting in a television series. The whole production was shut down, because all the union members walked off the set. Back I flew to an airport near Chum, once again zooking the whole way, and me vowing never to leave the Earth again.

 

     As I opened the front door to my office, I was hit by the thought of being back at a place I should have never left. I was a dick, not an actor!