Heartland (28 page)

JayJay asked the mayor, “You're in favor of this?”

“I got to tell you, this thing just might have some legs.” Miller rose and pointed out his rear window at the highway and the town beyond. “Salton City is facing the same predicament as the rest of the San Joaquin. All these towns are split into three camps and fighting hard. There's the farmers and the water crisis. Then we got a huge migrant labor population, poor as the Okies were back in the thirties, and a lot of children living a life we shouldn't be seeing in a country rich as ours.”

Peter said, “The migrant camp looks like a picture from Central America. They spread down a valley east of here. No electricity. Plastic sheets for walls. No plumbing.”

Miller went on, “For the past ten years we've had an invasion of developers. Building houses and malls fast as they can get the zoning permits. Drawing in folks who can't afford a decent place closer to the ocean, looking for a home where they don't need bars on the windows.”

Peter went on, “The new developments have skewed the voting population. The farmers aren't in control of local government anymore. The water rights that keep them alive are being stripped away.”

Miller said, “Your pal here and I got to talking after church one day. Then I didn't think any more about it until a few days back, when he comes in and springs his idea on me.”

Peter said, “For this new scene, you go before a town meeting. We fill the hall with real people. Miller writes your speech. He uses this to get their attention.”

Miller leaned back in his chair, the oversize grin back in place. “Now tell him the good part.”

Chapter 31

M
iller did not stick JayJay nearly as hard as he could have over the truck's price. He also agreed to fit a new exhaust system, one that would not awaken the next county when JayJay dug in his spurs, and deliver it to the hotel by close of business.

When they got back to the hotel, JayJay went by Kelly's room. No one answered his knock. He returned to the suite, packed his personal items into a suitcase he borrowed from Peter, and transferred over to the room Peter was vacating. He was hugged repeatedly by an extremely pregnant lady with all the world's warmth shining from her face. One look at the two of them together was enough to assure JayJay they were going to make great parents.

Kelly was also not at the ranch. Nor was the limo. Gladys spotted him pretending not to search every corner and said Kelly had received a phone call, something urgent. Britt had given her permission to take a couple of days off. A family thing, was all Gladys knew.

The next three days were a very intense blur. Cynthia, Peter's wife, took over the Bible reading. She had a warm glow about her that bathed the entire gathering. The first morning, she included a suggestion that they pray for Kelly's grandmother, who had taken a bad fall and was in the hospital. JayJay tried hard to bury the hurt over hearing the news from someone other than the lady herself.

On the set, Claire took up coaching him in basic points of acting. How to extend. How to find an internal source of emotion and fire the flames. How to speak more naturally. How to identify what he was feeling inside and turn it to his advantage. How to link himself tightly to some specific trait he'd identified in his character. How to play for his audience, the unseen people watching from the other side of the camera. How to work, act, move, speak,
breathe
, from the very core. He wasn't sure how well he was doing with the lessons. But Britt's instructions became increasingly limited to hitting the scene. JayJay worked harder than he ever thought possible, standing around and claiming lines as his own. He did as Claire ordered to make the process real, picking out one person there behind the cameras, and reaching out with everything he had in him, doing his best to
connect
.

Only his target was not on the set at all, but rather off in Sioux Falls, silent and distant.

On his time off he started teaching those who were interested what it meant to ride the high range. Derek had probably the worst seat on a horse of anybody JayJay had ever come across. But the guy was sure game. Peter too. Even Claire started coming out with them. When she was along, though, she made him practice his lines to the forests and the birds and the clouds. Shouting out the words, yelling himself hoarse, learning what it meant to test his limits. He never got over his embarrassment, but he learned to shove it aside, back with all the other questions he was doing his best to leave up to God.

He ate his dinners with Peter and Cynthia. Afternoons she came out to the set by limo and either walked the ranch trails or rested in JayJay's trailer. Soon as they were done, they took off in his truck, the limo driver standing by his empty machine and watching their cloud of dust. They avoided Salton City, where word was out about JayJay Parsons and his upcoming talk. They explored the region, looping through dusty towns and miles of citrus groves and fields of asparagus and artichokes. The twisting highland roads left Cynthia queasy, so where possible they held to the valley floors. They ate when they grew tired of driving. Their talk was of life beyond the set, JayJay asking but never giving much. After he deflected their questions a few times, they stopped enquiring. Too close to him now to pry. Satisfied just to forget for a few hours that there was anything out there called Hollywood.

Saturday was the longest workday yet, longer even than the studio shoot. They started while sunrise was a faint eastern promise and worked long after night had taken control. The entire day was spent on the streets of Salton City, doing the setup for Monday's assembly. JayJay worked against a variety of add-ons, actors whose single lines of dialogue were listed in the script under names like “First Developer,” “Second Mexican Farmer,” “Shopkeeper's Wife.” Everywhere they went, they stopped traffic. The crowds were a problem until Britt hired the Ford salesman named Piston to call for silence before each take. Piston had a hog-caller's yell that halted traffic on the interstate. The locals minded him far better than they did Kip.

They had taken over the Main Street Diner as a location center. Deep into a grueling sunset scene, Britt drew JayJay into the diner's back room. “How are you holding up?”

JayJay collapsed into a seat, too tired even to complain when the makeup person started dabbing his forehead. “Wore plumb to a nub.”

“I want you to see something.”

Derek hit a switch. JayJay groaned. There before him was the same scene Britt had shown him in his suite. Wooden as a plug nickel. JayJay complained, “Why don't you just take me out back and shoot my sorry hide?”

“That was then,” Britt said. He waited until Derek gave him the nod, and said, “This is now.”

Tired as he was, JayJay came forward in his seat. There on the screen was a man he knew and yet didn't know. A man who wasn't fumbling through words that didn't fit inside his mouth. Instead, he saw a local rancher. A man weary and dusty from just another day with too many chores and too few hours. Talking to his neighbors and his friends. Sharing their woes. A man doing his best. Which wasn't enough to solve the problems they faced. But they faced the problems
together
. JayJay didn't need to say the words. It was there on the screen.

He was one of
them
.

When the screen went dark, Britt said, “You see?”

JayJay had not noticed Peter leaning against the back wall until then. “I wish you could know what it's like, seeing the images in my head come to life like that.”

Britt said, “That is
acting
.”

The makeup lady whispered, “I've got chills.”

Britt said, “I want to shoot one more scene.”

JayJay groaned.

“Hear me out. You've come into town, just doing your weekly run.

You've wound up hearing the same story told from five different angles. How the town is worried and hurting and doesn't have any answers. How good things are dying before they ever get a chance to live.”

JayJay said nothing.

“How the old ways are being lost. How people,
your
people, are adrift and confused. You didn't ask them to talk with you about their problems. But they've sought you out.”

JayJay sat and stared at the empty screen.

Britt said, “We can do this another day if you like.”

JayJay pushed himself from the chair. “I feel like a gunslinger facing down a wolf pack with one bullet left in his shooter.”

Britt actually smiled. “That is
exactly
what I intend to capture.”

When they were back outside, Britt continued with his instructions. “You don't want this new concern they're shoving at you. You wish the townspeople would just go away. But you've known these folks and this town all your life. They have come to you because you're one of them. They see in you what you don't want to see yourself.”

JayJay stood in the center of Main Street. Traffic was diverted to roads on either side. Derek was to his right, next to the camera on the dolly, a little vehicle with rubber wheels and a collapsible carriage that could move soundlessly from ground level to four stories high. Carpenters had laid out a carpeted lane of wooden planks hooked together that would smooth the dolly's progress and keep the camera from jiggling as it tracked JayJay's walk down the road.

A second camera was next to JayJay, armed with a close-up lens long as a Winchester barrel. Derek checked through the camera viewfinder, then used his walkie-talkie to communicate with the electricians manning the lights. There must have been a couple hundred people packed behind the rope barriers, filling the sidewalks, forming a human half-moon behind them. But they were so quiet JayJay could hear the electricians thumping on the lights with their little rubber mallets, readjusting the aim.

Britt said, “You are going to do the toughest thing an actor ever faces. You are going to communicate the tumult and the confusion and the fear. And you are going to do so without ever opening your mouth.”

There were a couple of police officers on crowd-control duty. But they had nothing to do. Children stood at the front of the crowd, but they were as quiet and still as their parents. Somewhere in the distance a bird chirped. Derek's walkie-talkie crackled. A carpenter whacked a final hook of Derek's carpeted lane into place.

“You are going to walk down this road. Up ahead is your enemy.” Britt's gesture took in the dark and empty street. “It's not just the night, though, is it.”

“No.”

“Don't tell me, JayJay. This isn't about telling.
Show
me you understand.
Show
me you see the enemy there inside yourself. Attacking now at your weakest. When you're not just tired. You're terrified. You're afraid of failing. Afraid of letting these people down. Afraid they'll see you for what you know you are.”

“Afraid of all the mysteries,” JayJay muttered.

This time Britt did not contradict. “These people believe you are the one to help them. The one with answers. But you know all the faults you carry. All the mysteries. All the doubts and questions without answers. They think you are
real
. But you know better.”

JayJay nodded slowly. Oh yes. He knew.

Britt let him study the empty road ahead. Giving him enough time to get so totally locked into the moment that all the people vanished. And the lights and the cameras. Until it all focused down to the choice.

“What are you going to do, JayJay? What decision are you going to make?”

JayJay did not look at him. It wasn't about Britt anymore. Or the night. It was just him.

“All right. Now go out there and show me what you've decided to do, and who you are going to be. For these people, and for yourself.”

Sunday was just another working day for about half the crew. They were busy turning a derelict dance hall into a civic center, their gift to the community in lieu of actually paying the extras—an idea hammered out between the mayor and Britt. At dawn JayJay held an abbreviated prayer time for those who were on duty—the set designers, carpenters, electricians, and camera crew. Cynthia was there, Peter was absent. Kelly was still away. For once, JayJay welcomed yesterday's residual fatigue. Being so tired made it easier to face having lost a good woman before the connection ever took hold.

He went back to his room and dozed for a couple more hours, then accompanied Cynthia to church. It was a modern facility built with a hometown flavor—stone walls, redwood beams, painted Mexican tiles for decorative artwork. JayJay sort of floated through the service, there but far away. Still coming to terms with the previous day—and what lay ahead. The next afternoon he was scheduled to address the town.

Peter and the mayor found him after the service was over. Miller wore his customary grin. “How's your new ride?”

“Makes getting out of bed worthwhile,” JayJay said.

“Had a bunch of folks come by, asking me why that actor feller is out tooling around town in my boy's truck.”

“I hope you'll excuse me for saying this. But your son needs a serious reality check, letting that truck go.”

“That ain't no newsbreak.” He pulled JayJay to one side. “I got a favor to ask.”

Peter said, “I thought you wanted me to handle this.”

“Yeah, I was gonna play the plucked chicken, but then I saw his face light up when I asked about his new toy. And I figured I was good for one more request.”

“Name it,” JayJay agreed.

“We're starting a Habitat for Humanity drive. The aim is to build two hundred houses by year's end. Biggest welfare project this town's seen since the Depression days. We just got to get those migrant kids into places with proper floors and running water. Those plastic hovels are nothing but a stain on our Christian walk, and that's the truth.”

“You'll be speaking about this tomorrow,” Peter reminded him. “It's in your speech.”