Chapter 4: That’s a Wrap

Thursday May 26

I had another day off today. They were still working out the kinks caused by Kimberly, my main love interest in the film, quitting. The press had been all over her about why she left. For now, she was going with the ‘safety on set’ story. Leaping crocodiles were enough to scare anyone. I had a feeling if the studio pushed back, she might reveal the whole reason she made her exit, mainly Laurent forcing her to have sex to get the role.

Because I’d been one of the people that Kimberly had slept with at Laurent’s behest, Frank Ingram, my publicity agent, wanted to have a chat.

“Tell me everything,” Frank said.

I noticed that Caryn, Cassidy, Fritz and Paul all seemed to show up to my suite about the time Frank called. I made a hand motion that they should all leave, but Caryn shook her head ‘no.’ I gave up and put him on speakerphone.

“You want the facts? Or do you want me to tell it to you chronologically what happened?” I asked.

“Let’s do it in order, and if I have questions we can come back to them.”

“I was born in ... ow!” I complained when Cassidy jabbed me in the ribs.

“Don’t make me really hurt you,” she warned.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and then got serious. “Kimberly came to my suite a couple of times with a group in the evenings. We all would watch movies, some cocktails were served, and I played a little poker. There was never much one-on-one interaction. I liked her, but it never was going to be anything other than us working together.

“After a few nights I shut down the after-work get-togethers. I did that for two reasons. One was that I didn’t want to get the reputation as the ‘party guy.’ Since then I’ve lent my DVD collection, player and monitor to others who want to hold a movie night,” I said.

“What DVDs were played? Please tell me they weren’t porn,” Frank worried.

“No. Rita James wasn’t happy with my movie knowledge. She gave me classic movies that highlighted good acting.”

“That’s a relief. These gatherings never turned into anything other than what you described, correct?” Frank asked.

“No, we were good. If anything was going on, I had my security people with me and they would have stopped it,” I said hopefully.

“Frank, this is Fritz. David’s right. There wasn’t anything sexual or illegal happening that you need to worry about.”

“Good, good. Not that I think David would be into anything illegal ... the sex...” Frank left hanging.

“Anyways,” I said to get the conversation back on track, “Kimberly showed up after work one night. She seemed nervous and I thought about sending her away, but ... ah ... ya know ... she went down on me,” I finished in a rush.

“I think I get the picture. Unless you did something kinky, let’s assume I can figure the rest out,” Frank said.

“What do you mean by kinky?” I asked to tease him.

“If you don’t know, have Fritz send you his recent browser history,” Frank said.

“Hey,” Fritz said, sounding offended.

We all just smiled at him and he took it the way Frank intended instead of getting offended. It was hard to offend an ex-military guy.

“Nothing kinky,” I assured Frank. “Cassidy woke me up in the morning and told me that Kimberly was much younger than I thought she was. I’d guessed she was in her early twenties. It just seems that all the actors playing teens are about that age.”

“So you had no idea she was younger than you?” Frank asked.

“No, but I probably should’ve asked.”

“How did you find out that Laurent asked her to come visit you that night?” Frank asked.

“Cassidy told me. She and Kimberly had started to become friends. There aren’t that many people our age here, so they bonded.”

“I won’t even ask why she didn’t warn you ahead of time,” Frank stated. An excellent topic I needed to talk about with Cassidy. “What did you do when you found out?”

“I gathered my team and we came up with a plan. Cassidy was assigned to watch Kimberly to keep Laurent away from her. I called Bev Mass to see if she could find out anything about Laurent and if he’d done anything like this before. Ari talked to the studio and expressed our concerns.

“There wasn’t much we could do when Kimberly wouldn’t go against him for fear he could damage her career,” I said.

“Now that she’s quit the film, she doesn’t have that same constraint,” Frank reasoned.

“I got the impression that this happened before with other roles she received. As much as I would like to expose the ‘casting couch’ dirty little not-so-secret, I can’t make unfounded accusations.”

“True. I don’t think she’ll say anything, but if she does, I need to be ready.”

“That sounds expensive,” Caryn chimed in.

“What is peace of mind really worth?” Frank asked.

“But he didn’t do anything wrong,” Caryn said.

“You think the press will care? I thought you had that figured out by now,” Frank shot back.

I sighed. I’d only recently gotten a graduate-level education in how the press might react.

“Do what you need to,” I said.

“Two more things...” Frank began.

“Yes?” I asked.

“When were you going to tell me about you hooking up with the Cuban dancer?”

I turned to Paul with a confused look on my face.

“The picture,” he reminded me.

The club owner had shot a promotional photo of the two of us.

“I didn’t hook up with her. I just danced with her and she asked me to get her a job,” I said.

“Doing what?” Frank asked.

“I put her in touch with Adrienne about modeling. I sent Adrienne pictures of Bianca and she’s supposed to get back to me if she thinks Bianca could do it,” I said.

“What kind of pictures? From the rumors, when you left her dressing room, she was only in her panties and bra,” Frank said.

“How the heck did you know that?” I asked.

“I would assume she or one of her people leaked it. You know how that works,” Frank said.

Yes I did, unfortunately.

“David, you’ve got to get your head in the game a bit more than you’ve been doing,” Frank said. “Now, our last agenda item. We’ve got a settlement with the outlets that kept the ‘anti-feminist’ story going after we’d sent them the unedited footage of your interview by the feminist activists. They’re going to run a retraction on their broadcasts, the same ones they published the doctored videos on. They’re also paying all your legal bills, including my fees.”

I was perplexed.

“Why didn’t Ms. Dixon run it by me?”

“Your mom and dad okayed it. You’re still a minor, remember?”

I didn’t even need eyes to see Frank’s smirk.

“Seriously,” he said, “I’m glad it’s done, and it’s time to let that whole issue die a rapid and quiet death. Tracy’s video is what tipped the scales, because it showed the outlet actively fabricating negative information about you, rather than just taking on faith something someone else gave them.

“From this point forward, you’re going to be vulnerable to people wanting to tag you with this kind of stuff, so at least try to be more careful, okay?” Frank asked.

“Okay, I’ll be more careful,” I said.

Sometimes having a high ‘Q Rating’ really sucked. I consoled myself with the thought that the PR and legal money I’d been hemorrhaging was being replaced, at least.

I called Coach Conde because I wanted to do some batting practice today. He suggested that if I would pay a few American dollars, he could organize some decent pitching. I warned him that they couldn’t be professionals, because I didn’t need trouble from the NCAA. So far, I’d only seen him pitch batting practice, and with all due respect, Cassidy could hit him. I told him to set it up.

Fritz, Paul and Cassidy joined me for baseball practice. Cassidy was feeling better and told me that I wasn’t getting out of sixty minutes of hell. It looked like she planned to kill me today because she’d packed my weighted vest.

Coach Conde showed up early with a couple of pitchers I’d not met before. One was a big lanky kid who looked to be my age or a little older. He was at least six-six, and as he warmed up he threw some serious heat. His only problem was he was a one-trick pony that only threw a fastball. He would be perfect for the closer role, but he needed to learn to throw a changeup. Otherwise, players would just learn to time his pitches and light him up. That was exactly what I did.

After I parked him three straight pitches, the tall kid started to get frustrated. Coach Conde stepped in and reminded both of us that this was batting practice. He changed the focus to situational hitting, which forced me to try to hit the ball to different locations and even to bunt.

When the kid began to tire, the other pitcher was brought in who was much older. I would guess that he was in his late twenties or early thirties and had command of all the pitches. He was a crafty veteran who set you up with his varied pitches and locations. There were times he had me tied up in knots, trying to guess what he would throw next. What he didn’t have was a commanding fastball.

Then he broke out a pitch I had never faced before, the knuckleball. I honestly didn’t think he knew where it was going. I watched a baseball move in ways I didn’t know were possible. You throw the knuckleball with minimal spin. The lack of spin causes the air to push on the seams of the ball, the effect of which is an erratic, unpredictable flight path. It was almost like the ball was dancing as it approached the plate.

The reason why most pitchers don’t throw the knuckleball is that you really can’t control the pitch. That became apparent when a couple of them hit me. He apologized, but I asked him to keep throwing them. As a hitter, the knuckleball forced me to focus. Eye-hand coordination is what separates the average from the good hitters. In baseball, the difference isn’t that much. Just a few extra hits could cause your batting average to jump.

I knew when I went to try out for the Under-18 team that everyone there would be good. Someone had told me there were 760 high schools in my state alone. If you figured there was an average of fifteen baseball players for each school, then that was over eleven thousand kids. You had to be in the top four or five in a state our size to be invited. I would have to shine to separate myself from the other 107 participants who were already the best-of-the-best.

What I found was that when I focused hard enough, I began to drop into the zone. That was what I called the state of awareness where everything but hitting faded into the background. I did something similar when I played football. My mind would block out everything that was off the field, and I became hyperaware of my immediate surroundings. When that happened, my performance became much better. I discovered that I quit thinking about what I should do at the plate. When I was in LA, I was given the foundation I needed for hitting. Since then my focus was on the proper technique: good base, hands back, track the ball’s release point, nice level swing, and the other millions of details you needed to have happen to hit the ball.

Batting against a veteran pitcher throwing knuckleballs helped me fall into the zone. It was just me and the pitcher, and I just hit. I didn’t need to think about how. I’d done this enough that the muscle memory was there. It was like throwing a football; after you did it like a bazillion times, you just did it. It was the moment I became a hitter. With the switch flipped, I saw the ball and my body reacted.

For the next twenty minutes it was like I couldn’t miss. The crafty veteran threw everything he had at me and I hit it with authority.

When we were finally done, you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I paid both pitchers the equivalent of $30 each, which made their day. Coach Conde had told them they’d earn $10. I also gave Coach Conde $40. He was much cheaper than Bo Harrington had been. Of course, they wanted to know when I wanted to do this again. I had less than a month until I would be at the tryouts. Coach Conde assured me that he could find more pitchers for me to practice with.

During practice, I played center field and rotated with their regular starter. He didn’t seem happy, but Coach Conde told him to settle down. After we were done, Cassidy ran me through sixty minutes of hell. The Cuban baseball players thought I was nuts.

After baseball, my security team and I went to the dojo. We were in the middle of working on our forms when one of their instructors came over to introduce himself. His name was Carlos and he had an interesting offer.

“I’ve watched you practice and have noticed that you use a rather conventional approach. I was wondering if you would like to learn some effective ways to protect yourself?” he asked.

“You teach here?” Fritz asked.

“Yes. I was also in the Cuban army and taught hand-to-hand combat. Over the years I’ve learned a thing or two and thought you might be interested in some backstreet wisdom.”

We agreed and Carlos began our lesson.

“What is the most powerful strike you can do?” he asked me.

I thought about it for a minute.

“Probably a side kick. My legs are stronger than my arms and can generate a lot more force.”

“Good answer. Show me,” he said.

They had an oversized heavy bag. It touched the ground, which made it harder to move. I found my range, set my base and then kicked the bag as hard as I could. I was able to move the bag with a strong kick.

Carlos walked up to the bag and swung his arm as if he were throwing a hook, but hit it with his forearm. I watched in amazement as the bag moved more than my kick had done.

“How’d you do that?” Cassidy asked as she suddenly paid close attention.

“You can get more force using your torso and hitting the bag with your bone. I believe you can do more damage with a ‘bone strike’ than you can most other ways. Feel your forearm. In the middle, it is soft with muscle, but on the outsides, it’s hard. You can feel the bone.

“It’s the same with a ‘palm strike.’ You can knock the air out of someone easily, but if you tilt your hand back and strike with the heel of your palm and wrist, it’s bone. You can do some serious damage,” he explained.

I felt my palm and recognized I’d been using the meaty part of my palm when I hit someone. I felt just a little down and he was right. I could feel the bone.

“Here’s a tip,” Carlos said. “If you are in a fight with just one person, go ahead and use your fists and pound his jaw. The trick is to keep your fist tight at all times. Most people tighten their hand right before they hit someone. See this bump,” Carlos said as he showed a bump on the back of his hand.

“I learned that lesson the hard way. My opponent lunged forward as I threw a punch and because my fist was loose, I ended up breaking a bone in my hand.”

He was right. I normally had my hands loose before I threw a punch.

“What if you’re in a fight with multiple people?” I asked.

“Then use the palm or bone strike. If there are multiple attackers, the odds are that you will need to grapple with them, and you don’t want to have to take time to clench your fists,” Carlos explained.

“It sounds like you used to mix it up,” Fritz said.

“I’ve been in a bar fight or three in my time,” Carlos admitted.

“How would you go about it?” Fritz asked.

He pulled Paul onto the mat.

“Normally they will get in your face. You want to be in a defensive stance so you can protect yourself without being obvious,” Carlos explained.

He showed us how he would cross his left arm across his chest and held his right arm so that his elbow was against his side and his hand was up around his chin, as if he were thinking.

“With my arms like this I can bring up my left to fend off a punch or use my right to push them back if they get too close,” he said and demonstrated with Paul before he continued. “Because they are going to want to get in your face, if you can’t talk them out of it, you strike first by head-butting their nose with your forehead. It will stun them and give you a chance to jump them and give them a pounding.

“If they try to head-butt you, tuck your chin and let their nose hit your forehead. You end up with the same result,” Carlos taught.

“How do you use the forearm strike?” Cassidy asked.

“I’ll show you how to knock someone out with just one strike, and even you can do it,” he said to Cassidy.

“Hang on. She doesn’t need to know something like that,” I worried.

“You be quiet,” Cassidy threatened.

“Would you agree that Mike Tyson was probably the boxer best known for knocking people out?” Carlos asked.

“I’d agree with that,” Paul said.

“If you watch his fights, he is targeting just behind the ear with those massive hooks. I contend that he used palm strikes instead of hitting with his glove. Right in that area, you will feel a soft spot behind the ear, and if you feel a little lower that is where the jaw attaches to the skull. If you strike someone there, it will rattle their brain and it will be lights out.

“Who’s the toughest one of you?” Carlos asked.

“David,” Paul, Cassidy and Fritz all said at once.

This sounded like a setup.

“Would you volunteer? I promise not to hit you hard,” Carlos said.

“Sure.”

I’m not the brightest guy sometimes.

“Get into a fighting stance with your hands up.

“You can see he has covered up and getting a punch to his jaw is not going to be easy. If I do a bone strike from the side, I can hit him right behind the ear. Note that I bend my elbow slightly so that when I hit him I won’t hyperextend it,” he said as he demonstrated in slow motion.

“Are you ready? I’m just going to give you a little love tap,” Carlos told me.

I just nodded. He didn’t hit me hard. I sort of saw a bright flash and then I was on my ass and Carlos was holding me up in a seated position and rubbing my neck.

“You’re okay. Just breathe,” Carlos coached.

“Crap. How long was I out?” I asked.

“Just a couple of seconds.”

“I want to try,” Cassidy said.

“Your dad wouldn’t be happy if he heard you got knocked out,” I said.

“‘Stupid boy,’ I want to knock you out,” she clarified.

“No one is knocking anyone out. David has had concussions in the past and I’m not willing to risk it,” Fritz said, to earn himself a bonus.

I was a little unsteady, so Carlos helped me up. We practiced on the heavy bag doing our new strikes.

It looked like you were making a wild swing that would miss. The end result was devastating. You would be at your opponent’s mercy if you were lying on the ground like that.

Cassidy went with me to the concert with Luis and Sarita. The venue was an outdoor setting and they charged us $85 per person for a table closer to the front where there was a big band with dancers. I overheard another tourist say it reminded her of a Las Vegas show. It lasted a couple of hours and I was entertained, but I was tired of feeling like an ATM. I got the feeling that Sarita was using me to see things she normally couldn’t afford.

After the show was over, Luis wanted to go to a bar.

“I’ve got to work tomorrow. I think I’ll head back to the hotel.”

He seemed deflated.

“Why don’t you give him some money and I’ll come back with you,” Sarita suggested.

I think Cassidy had figured out I was being hustled. The problem was Mr. Happy reasoned I’d already spent almost $400 for the evening. I might want to just go with the flow. I handed Luis the equivalent of $20 and we left.

“You and I need to talk tomorrow,” Cassidy said when we got off the elevator.

“I look forward to it,” I responded, with my sarcasm level set to 11 out of 10.

I took Sarita back to my room and we had a good time. She wanted to spend the night, but I wouldn’t allow it. She was a little upset when I told her I couldn’t see her Friday night. Cassidy was right. This had gotten out of hand. Sarita reminded me that I needed to give her ‘cab money’ to get home.

I vowed this would be the last time I saw her.

Friday May 27

I woke to Cassidy smacking my butt.

“Get up,” she prodded.

I grabbed her and pulled her into bed with me. She let me wrap my arms around her and snuggle.

“What are you thinking?” Cassidy asked.

“That you have too many clothes on,” I teased.

“Slut.”

I kissed her neck.

“Stop that or I’ll tell Fritz that you sexually harassed me.”

“If I’m going to have to pay you for the lawsuit, I might as well make it worthwhile.”

“Don’t make me knock you out.”

“Fine, be that way,” I complained.

“What’s the deal with Sarita?” she asked, to circle back to why she was there.

“She’s my ‘Cuban girlfriend.’”

Cassidy had heard Fritz and Paul talk, so she knew what the phrase meant.

“You need to stop before this gets out of control. I talked to Fritz and Paul and they’re worried that it might get out. You don’t need to be doing something like that,” Cassidy warned.

“I know. At first, I thought she liked me. She threw me off when she invited me to church. I decided last night that she’s going to bleed me dry if I keep seeing her, so last night was it. If you want to go out with Luis, that’s fine,” I said.

“He’s a sexist pig.”

I had to laugh. It was the Cuban culture, where men were men and women knew their place. I made a note to myself to never say that to Cassidy now that she knew how to knock me out easily.

“Does that mean I don’t have to go out with him anymore?” Cassidy asked.

“You never did. I hope you know that,” I said, a little worried.

“I do. I’m just teasing you.”

She pushed me out of bed.

“Now go take your shower. You have to work today,” she ordered.

Now, this was how every scene should be. I spent the morning as background. My job was to sit in a lounge chair by the pool and watch pretty girls in period swimsuits.

“Dawson!” Laurent yelled to get my attention. “I’m not buying your performance.”

I wanted to flip him off. I put my lounge chair down another notch so I was more reclined.

“Better!” Laurent yelled.

The man irritated me, and I now had to worry about nodding off while I soaked in the rays. I didn’t think it would be right to get paid for sleeping.

When I got back to my room, Cassidy made me go out to the beach and we did sixty minutes of hell. Over dinner, we practiced Japanese. Cassidy had made sure I learned some each day.

Word had gotten out that I wasn’t going out tonight. Caryn had organized some food and a bar setup. Instead of watching a movie, we had music and soon had a party going. Most of the people were from the crew. The actors all wanted to go to the place I’d been to last night. The crew didn’t want to spend $85 just to get in.

The suit that the studio sent to watch Laurent had shown up. His name was Bob Trimble. It didn’t take long to figure out he had an agenda.

“What can you tell me about Kimberly leaving?” he asked.

“Crocodiles are scary.”

“Did you hear anything about her relationship with Laurent?” he asked.

I motioned Caryn over and we took Bob to my bedroom and closed the door. I told Caryn what he’d asked.

“Where’s this coming from?” Caryn asked.

“Your agent talked to some of our studio execs and filled us in. I was asked to confirm what Mr. Gould said.”