Chapter 32: Home Again

Carrie and Jerry arrived back in L.A. on Saturday on a British Airways flight that landed just after lunch. Both had caught up on their sleep on the plane, and felt they were back on Pacific Daylight Time when they landed. Because of our VIP status, I was allowed to meet Carrie at the gate as they disembarked. We hugged and kissed, and then quickly walked to the waiting limousine to ride home. Neither of them had checked luggage.

Monday, Carrie was back at work and eager to restart her role in Earth Abides. She thought it interesting and appropriate that her character was Em in the movie, a shortened name for her sister. Ethan Vinson, the handsome star, was playing Ish, the main male character.

Ish finds Em, and they attempt to re-start civilization in the Bay Area, collecting a few of the other survivors of the deadly pandemic around them. He hopes to preserve society by teaching the younger generation reading, math, and science, but they opt for more immediate survival skills as the old infrastructure around them crumbles, decays, and dies. The old basis of critical human knowledge is fragile and soon erodes away.

As Ish and Em grow old, they realize that humanity endures, but not in the way they expected. The earth, uncaring and resilient, outlasts civilization just as it always has. They find solace in the enduring rhythms of nature. In the end, he passes away, yielding an old hammer – the symbol of leadership – to his son, the new leader of the growing tribe.

Em is Ish’s partner and counterpoint throughout the movie, often being more of leader to him than he is to the tribe that has gathered around him. They have their triumphs and failures as they age in the shattered world.

Ang was ecstatic to have Carrie back, and she was on deck for filming from that Monday morning on through the rest of the months making the movie. More and more characters were added to the film as more survivors were found or that found them. Thus, both Ellen and Beth also became main supporting actresses in the movie after a week or two.

At Carrie’s insistence, I was present when the nude love scene with Ethan was filmed. The two-hour filming was what Carrie called a ‘Nothing Burger’. It was a non-event, and barely worth mentioning except that it would provide some T&A in the movie, with a frontal flash of Carrie’s body – maybe two seconds’ worth in the final film.

After that, Ang harangued everyone to get the film back on schedule, which they did, and then to even finish early, which they also did by ten days over the six months shooting schedule. Sony was happy. The film had been in the editors’ hands after the first two weeks of shooting. A premiere was planned for about two weeks before Christmas.

Despite the misgivings of the older members of the royal family, we continued to go to what I called weekly Hollywood parties. The hosts weren’t all in the movie industry, but the attendees were heavily represented from that industry.

I was surprised at the guarded presence of so many ‘A’-list stars – both males and females, at the parties. People that I thought were untouchables eagerly arrived, partied, enjoyed some sex, and departed with the public none the wiser. Given our rising status in the industry, mainly thanks to Carrie, we each met and enjoyed sexual sessions with other notables in the industry.

I felt as though the paparazzi had agreed that the parties were off-limits to write about or photograph. Certainly, if they started reporting on the real gossip and happenings, the parties would have stopped completely. Since I met and even interacted with some members of the press at the events, I suspected that they kept a finger on the pulse of what was going on, but didn’t specifically mention it; only the non-party-related news they might discover.

With more than a couple of stars attending the events, there were more than a couple of security or bodyguards present. Jerry was only one of many, as it turned out. He’d go out of his way to introduce himself to the others, or vice versa. A few of the other bodyguards – male and female – also participated in the main party activity.

One of the primary tasks of the guards was to be sure that no one was photographing or videoing what was going on, especially when the rather open sex started on the patio or in the primary living and bedroom spaces of the hosting home. More than one camera was confiscated and rendered ‘new’ by restoring the device to factory settings before returning the device at the end of the night. Other photographic equipment just disappeared.

Ang declared victory in the filming of the movie one Thursday; Carrie and I returned home to Maryland the next day. We knew the day was coming and we’d been packed for a week. We kept the apartment in Culver City near the studio, almost having a feeling that it would be needed again and again. We’d also been talking to Marjorie almost daily over the five months of filming since she saw us last.