Chapter 31

It didn’t surprise Harry that, being another younger version of him, albeit genetically rather than actually, three of the auditioners had auditioned for young Rancid. He predicted the pretty boy version rather than Pete or the Harry clone would get the role, or would be at least in the running, until a last addition swooped in, one in which the auditions had waited for. Not being hep to current films or television, Harry had no idea this actor was a catch, an audience draw. The man, with his presence and his cocksureness, passing the thirties threshold but looking younger, his hair a blonder version of Harry’s, handsome but not in a generic way, was a shoo-in. Especially when he embraced Trina, and Trina asked what changed his mind.

“The script,” the man, whom Trina introduced as Carl, replied. “Definitely not the pay.”

“You wanted to pursue him,” the casting director admitted. “So I sent him the revised script and kept things open so he could make the audition.”

“It really was shit before,” Trina agreed.

“Definitely not good enough for you,” Carl nodded. “About the best script doctoring I’ve seen.”

“You can thank Harry for that,” Trina said.

“And you,” said Harry, which made her blush.

Harry could see a passing resemblance, a possibility of the man being his son, though inches shorter being an inch or too over six feet, in the sweet spot for male modelling which Harry figured Carl had been before becoming a successful actor. But of course there had been some horrible casting choices in the past, like Dustin Hoffman being Sean Connery’s son, and this wouldn’t be anywhere near that ridiculous.

He thought Carl was a stiffer actor than any of the familiar ones Harry had auditioned with, especially Pete, but that was when they traded dialogue. There was a much better rapport, and Carl relaxed much more, when he worked with Trina. And the chemistry was there. Of course that’s what mattered. His character and Carl’s didn’t have much screen time together, and Carl would be Trina’s costar.

It didn’t surprise Harry that Trina invited Carl to dinner after, even wondering if he’d be a third wheel since Trina was giving Harry a ride home. “Are you jealous?” she smirked as soon as he settled into the passenger seat.

“How long have you known each other?” Harry asked.

“You mean how long have we been intimate?”

“Simone did mention you had trysts on sets lasting as long as the shoots last.”

“And Carl was one of my first,” Trina admitted. “Way before I met Simone. The indie film put me on the map had come out the year before, and I’d gotten a few roles as the tough tits Latina or the sidekick, essentially what I’ve been doing for years, by the time Carl got his first role besides commercials in one of my films. So I was the veteran and he was uncomfortable.”

“To tell you the truth, he doesn’t seem all that great an actor,” Harry said.

“He’s always been shit at auditions, because he really has to get comfortable.”

“Which he was with you. I saw that.”

“Yep. But yeah, he’s no character actor. He’s best at playing himself. Fortunately a tall, good looking white guy who’s got real presence on film is not a rare thing in movies or television. You didn’t know who he was before I introduced you.”

“I guess I could tell he was someone since we put things on pause until he arrived.”

“A surprise to me as well. Paula didn’t say anything, just that there was one more actor, maybe in case he didn’t show up, or she wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted him because we’ve always worked well together and I knew we’d have chemistry. I always had him in mind when I read the script, and it hurt me when he rejected it.”

“Is he all that savvy reading scripts?” Harry asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Just my Hollywood paranoia kicking in, but maybe George knew you had something going with him and he had Carl’s agent discourage him, telling him the script was shit.”

“What about you?”

“George wouldn’t know we’d been having this teasing thing, and that it ended up going beyond that. Or maybe it was a way for him to give you something after taking Carl away from the picture.”

“So George was worried about the comparison between his old flesh and Carl’s vital manliness?”

“Or it was just another way to exert control.”

“But it makes sense. I mean the timing. The blackmail. I know Paula’s close with George’s assistant who maybe leaked what she’d helped happen. Maybe the assistant let her in on the campaign against having Carl involved. Maybe it is us blowing up what’s going on, but as we both know, sex and control is coins of the realm in Hollywood.”

“Carl mentioned his pay,” Harry remembered. “Maybe that changed too?”

“Why would it? That’s George’s purview.”

“Except he no longer has his Latin doll to play with. Maybe cut his losses, meaning using you, and improving the stakes, meaning getting someone you’d be happy with and who everyone knew you had proved chemistry with.”

“We did have chemistry from the start.”

“You made him comfortable.”

“It’s ironic, because he played my rapist and murderer, you know the sidekick becoming catalyst for the heroine getting revenge. But first he needed to seduce me.”

“Like Mr. Goodbar?”

“What’s that?”

“A Dianne Keaton movie where she gets picked up at a bar and raped. Sort of an A level, R rated version of one of those afternoon special warning films.”

“As if women aren’t perfectly aware of that scenario. This was more about the heroine becoming a very clever vigilante, the death of a thousand cuts. It was well written and well-made and became a sleeper hit, launching Carl’s career.”

“Without you there to make him comfortable?”

“But I was there early on, like emergency intimate coaching, until he no longer needed it, mostly by seducing his costar or vice versa. And the couple other films we did together, we’d have our trysts.

“But it really did surprise me when he rejected the role. I mean I guess I didn’t see how shitty the script was, too excited to get my star turn, and that had other terrible consequences of course. It just seemed a good step for his career.”

“How so?” Harry asked.

“Since you obviously didn’t know who he was, you don’t know he’d become a household name starring in a sitcom, more a dramedy really, always the heavy handed message, in which he played the straight man, so to speak, to his wacky transvestite lover. A bit transgressive even in this day and age, but it became successful enough for him to reach a new level of stardom. Not only has the series withered on the vine, and I think he’s wrapping the final season, which would have made the timing perfect for him to be in my film, but it would have enabled him to get over the gay baggage, especially with the steamy sex scene.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yeah. So you never answered my question. Are you jealous?”

“The better question is whether Simone would be jealous.”

“I prefer being with you, Harry.”

“Now who’s avoiding the question?”

Trina laughed. “As long as I come home to her, and she sees it’s where I belong, none of that matters.”

“In a way I have the same answer. I’m happiest with my wife, even if I enjoy your company and not just when we’re intimate. As long as she’s okay with us being together which I don’t see changing, I’ll definitely appreciate those times. But...”

“You’re not jealous.”

“What would be the point?”

“I know Cliff likes his love scenes as realistic as possible. Just for that reason alone I imagine I’ll reacquaint myself with Carl’s body, probably a dry run, so to speak, before that. But other than that, and probably after we actually shoot it, I really do prefer being with you.

“The advantage he has over other dicks I’ve fucked,” Trina continued, “is that first time when I loosened him up with intimacy, part of it was cutting through his narcissism, getting past him seeing me as just another conquered cunt. Something I never had to deal with with you. Actors tend to be narcissists, him worse than most having been a male model, and those trysts I had with others, it could be like we were in character when we fucked, like the intimacy we sought was for our characters. But since Carl essentially plays himself...”

“It had to be more real, his being with you,” Harry finished.

“Yep. And out of that, we’ve become friends, and of course he’s more comfortable with me being his scene partner.”

“Thus the chemistry.”

“Yep. It’s physical too, but the emotional definitely adds to it.”

“One thing,” Harry asked. “This series he was in. Did Carl need to get comfortable with his costar?”

Trina laughed. “It’s Hollywood. Anything’s possible.”

As they ate the delicious seafood in Huntington Beach, Harry found Carl to not be the sharpest tool in the shed. For instance when Harry asked him about researching his part, the guy asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re an assistant DA, a prosecutor, with a chip on your shoulder, a bum for a father for instance to which you’re ashamed. Your backstory. And then you’re trying to prosecute Trina’s character for excessive force. What might the laws be, or the precedence? Maybe sit in on some trials, even get a prosecutor’s opinion on this fictional case?”

“The point is, it’s fictional, don’t you think,” Carl replied with no little condescension. “It’s what he feels about Trina’s character that matters, how complicated it is since she’s supposed to be the enemy. That’s the friction. That’s the emotional backbone. What? Are you going to be a bum for a while?”

“Why is she the enemy?”

“Because I’m prosecuting her?”

“It’s nothing to do with your dad having been a cop too? Someone who abandoned you and your mother?”

“It’s a rom com man,” Carl laughed. “It’s two attractive looking actors having a time of it.”