Monday Andrew called confirming the plans for the house.
"November 1st it's officially ours, but we can start moving in whenever we want."
Thank god for the second Diesel shoot, because now I needed to pay double rent for November and December.
Tuesday, the day before Halloween, Leah picked me up in her Jeep and we drove to Ralph's to get supplies for our homeless characters. Filling two shopping carts with cans of soda, bottled water, and the largest jug of Patron, we played bumper carts through the isles, and back out into the parking lot to load up the car.
After securing all the drinks in the front half of the Jeep, Leah turned and looked at me with her evil smile.
"Ready?"
"Ready!"
We carefully lifted the chosen shopping cart into the back of the Jeep, slammed the door, and sped away, like we robbed a bank.
Two hours emptying all the cans and bottles and securing them into our prop shopping cart, we lifted the heap back into the Jeep for safe keeping.
Halloween Eve, Leah let me celebrate my original plans, and we watched horror movies until four am.
"Next year we can watch Wild Child!" I remembered
Leah lit up and held me in a tight bear hug.
The hug didn't feel so bad.
*
Halloween day Leah's special effect and costume contacts arrived at her house to transform us into our desired homeless couple.
A balding, matted, mullet cap was expertly glued to my head, and Leah wore a knitted hat with bits of hair peeking through the bottom. Our teeth stained and blacked out. Dark circles around my eyes, with yellow jaundice contacts, inserted, and sunglasses for my blind mate. The clothes, actual wardrobe for homeless characters on Law and Order, and other crime dramas. Leah looked stunning in a moth-eaten flowery moo moo, and I wore ripped, stained, jeans, and an old Hooters shirt with brown, questionable splotches.
I carried a cardboard sign, Need Money For Food, misspelled, so it read, Nead Monie Fur Foood . Leah held our donation bucket and her walking stick. Neither of us wore shoes, and the makeup team painted our feet back and brown, and even added bits of blood. Our hands dirtied and our fingernails yellowed.
Leah hired a driver with a pickup truck to escort us to and from the party. Our driver dropped us off an hour before the party, and Sean met us outside to help us set up the shopping cart. Sean couldn't stop laughing, he almost started crying.
Leah, already in character, repeatedly bumped into every bush and shrubbery leading up to Sean's front door, and whacked both of us with her walking stick every few minutes. Sean left us on the stairs below the front door to finish getting ready. The sun disappeared, and we waited. Leah passed me a vial a coke and we snorted bumps until the first guest began to arrive. I grabbed our tequila, wrapped in a brown paper bag from our cart and Leah whispered, "Action!"
Barnabas and Ruby showed no mercy. The world so cruel to us, so we gave cruelty back to the world tenfold.
Begging for money, and cursing horrible epithets, Barnabas and Ruby razzed every single guest attempting to enter Sean's mansion. Ruby's walking stick tripped and hit, and Barnabas threw cans and bottles.
An attractive young couple laughed, loving the concept, and threw a $100 bill in Ruby's bucket.
"Pigs cunt bitch whore!" Ruby yelled swinging her walking stick at the couple.
Passing the booze back and forth, Barnabas and Ruby begged more desperately and grew angrier the drunker they became.
An hour later Sean helped us inside and we set up camp at the bottom of the grand staircase and continued to beg. Ruby roamed a few yards away from our cart bumping into people every few minutes, and Barnabas crawled around tapping people's shoes and feet each time she returned. Thirty minutes before midnight Sean stood in the middle of the staircase with a microphone to make a speech.
"Thank you for coming, this is my favorite night of the year as most of you know. Please enjoy yourselves and have a very happy Halloween! I also want to add... we are so fortunate and lucky to be successful in doing what we love to do every day. You might have noticed our charmless, lovely, homeless couple that somehow broke into my home tonight, and I urge you to give back and throw them a coin or two."
I heard a few people laugh.
Sean held up a check and walked down to toss it into Ruby's bucket.
"I myself am donating $5,000 to their cause."
"Fuck you!" Ruby yelled at Sean.
"100% of all donations will go directly to The Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership, an amazing organization here in Los Angles since 1982."
Applause and much more laughter followed the end of Sean's speech.
I looked at Ruby, in shock, and then back to Sean.
"And remember none of this would be possible without the help from these beautiful and selfless young members of our community."
On either side of the staircase, two canvas banners unfolded attached to the ceiling. To Sean's left a blown up picture of me from the fall Diesel ad, and to Sean's right a blown up still of Leah from the set of Wild Child.
More laughter and a thunder of applause.
"Genius!" someone yelled walking over to us. Brian Lowe and a beautiful woman with strawberry blonde hair walked up to us. Followed by Karen, and a group of older people dressed in various costumes I did not recognize. Cash and checks filled Ruby's bucket quickly, and for the next hour, we became the main attraction.
Barnabas and Ruby's mood in no way altered after the speech. In fact, we became more angry and rude as the night continued. Around two am, we dramatically gave our bucket to Sean, and pushed our cart out to Leah's hired driver in the pickup truck.
Leah yet again turned someone else's event into an attention-grabbing publicity stunt for both of us.
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General FictionAn aspiring actor detailing his first year in Los Angeles as he attempts to break into the Entertainment Industry. Eighteen-year-old Ryan Ash molds himself into an eclectic assortment of odd characters to survive while using these personalities to...
