Casual Friday

Part 6

The next day we showed up to the set and the place was buzzing with excitement. Peeka was showered with her usual Bukaki of praise and whisked into the makeup chair. The director—Special K (my new name for him)—sidled up to me with a sheepish look on his face. 

“Peeka’s assistant sent me the script sides for today,” he mumbled.

“And?” I said.

“I have a problem. They are not what I prepared.”

“You’ll have to take that up with Izzy.”

“Is he here?”

“No. But Peeka told me we need to start without him anyway. Show must go on, you know.”

His face turned beet red and he hissed something in Dutch.

“Is that what you think of me, Special K?”

“What?”

He almost fell over. I don’t understand Dutch. I just guessed he was insulting me.

“You speak Dutch.”

“Yeah, dumbass. I do.”

I grabbed him firmly by the elbow, like a misbehaving child, and led him off the set for a little come to Jesus.

“Listen Special K. Peeka thinks you’re a fucking hack. Frankly, I tend to agree with her. But this is your shot. So, if you want to start bitching like a little bitch, then be my guest. But just know that she’ll fire your ass on the spot, in front of all these good people, and your rapid flushing down the shit pipe will be on the cover of Variety tomorrow. So, you gonna play ball or sit on the bench?”

He was so red I thought his eyes were going to start to bleed. 

“I will play the ball,” he choked.

“Good. Now get your ass back to set. First setup is in an hour.”

The morning shoot, unbelievably, was very smooth. It turned out that Special K was a competent director and, for the most part, he covered the script as it had been written by Peeka and me. When we broke for lunch, everyone was in a positive mood and you could feel a sense of optimism that we might be onto something. For a minute, I even started to entertain the notion of finding a way to convince Bob to let me stay in LA to start my own life as a hyphenate: writer-director-assassin. And just as the happy bubble we created on the set was full to bursting, it popped and rained shit down on the whole crew. Izzy showed up. 

For starters, he was drunk. Not just a little tipsy from a three martini lunch, but honky tonk shit hammered with a stink that rivaled that of a slaughterhouse blood drain or a Juarez jail. His beard was speckled with what was either nacho cheese or puke or both and his eyes were the beet red bloodshot color normally reserved for hanging victims. 

“What the fuck is going on here?” He roared.

He was heading straight for Peeka and her security thugs formed a wall in front of her that you couldn’t have driven a dump truck through. When he saw that she was untouchable, he turned his sights on Special K, who promptly ran off the set whimpering like a whipped puppy. With nothing but pee-ons left, he twirled around wildly, searching for something to destroy, and his eyes rested on me. 

“Nobody. You back stabbing piece of shit!”

He ran at me. None of the security thugs made a move to save me because they weren’t on my payroll. So, I took a bullfighter step to the side and Izzy smashed into the craft services table. Coffee, Twizzlers, Donuts, and M&Ms exploded in a candy colored smart bomb all over the extras. They just stood there, scalded and covered with half melted confections, their accommodating ass kisser smiles quivering on their faces. The assistant directors quickly ushered them off the set, back to wardrobe so we wouldn’t miss a beat.