Chapter 9: Setting the Stage

Chicago, Illinois

May 21, 1995

The primary staging location for the cast and crew of Us and Them was the Chicago Police Department’s 4^th District station on East 103^rd Street in the heart of the southside, the same station that Greg had deployed out of during his ride-a-long period of preproduction. It was a simple single-story brick building that had been constructed in the early 1950s and had long since become outdated for the size and the call volume of the district it covered. In the back parking lot of the station, a parking lot that was already too small by far, the movie studio trailers had been parked. There were six of them in all, powered by a generator truck that sat in the middle of the formation and constantly spewed out diesel exhaust into the air. Several times a day the catering trucks and the limousines would invade as well. The cops who worked out of the station—they tended to be the younger members of the force, as District 4 was a rookie assignment for patrol officers and a first supervisory position for newly promoted sergeants and lieutenants—were greatly inconvenienced by all of this, particularly when it came to parking, but they remained good natured and polite about it. After all, they were making a movie out of their station, a movie starring Greg Oldfellow and Mindy Snow. How freaking cool was that?

At nine-thirty in the morning, Greg Oldfellow walked into the combination wardrobe and makeup trailer to start his day’s work. Today they would be filming a variety of patrol scenes both inside of the car and outside in rented tenement apartments and on the streets around the station. Mindy was already in the makeup chair when he entered. She was wearing a white robe to cover her upper body and a pair of tan dress slacks with tennis shoes on her legs and feet. Her hair had been pulled up into a bun that would have complied with CPD regulations for female uniformed officers. This had been one of the suggestions of Sergeant Mackle, their technical advisor, who had told them that if a reporter were actually riding along for more than a month in the manner that Lyndsay was doing in the film, the cops escorting her would have insisted upon such a hairstyle and that she wear a bullet-proof vest. Fletcher had balked at this initially, stating that the viewers wanted to see Mindy’s hair down and the swell of her tits in the scenes they were doing, but Mindy herself had pushed for the modifications to the wardrobe and makeup, stating that realism trumped tits any day, and, besides, the viewers were going to get a very good eyeful of her naked tits not just once, but twice in later scenes.

“Good morning,” Mindy greeted as Greg entered the room. Julie, the thirty-something year old makeup artist assigned to Mindy was currently brushing blush onto her cheeks.

“Good morning,” Greg returned. He was wearing a pair of dress slacks and a button-up Pierre Cardan long sleeved shirt. His makeup artist was Bradley Stout, a late-forties, flamboyantly gay man who fussed and fretted dramatically but was considered one of the best in the business. Also, there was little chance of Greg initiating an affair with him, a factor that may or may not have gone into Fletcher’s decision to assign him to Greg. Bradley was wearing a pair of tight, custom-fit jeans and a salmon colored shirt. His hair was done up just so and his little doorknocker beard (he enjoyed calling it “my target”) was neatly trimmed.

“It’s about time you got here,” Bradley said in disapproval. “I really wish you would make more of an effort to be punctual, Greg.”

Greg looked at his watch. “It’s nine-thirty,” he told him. “That is what time I’m supposed to report for makeup and wardrobe.”

“That is merely the official time,” Bradley insisted. “It is, however, understood that one should show up at least ten minutes early for the pre-makeup briefing.”

“The pre-makeup briefing?” Greg asked. He had never heard this term used before.

“That is correct,” Bradley said. “The briefing in which we discuss the scenes you will be shooting today and the proper application of makeup for what is being planned.”

“Fletcher sends one of his assistants over with a set of directions for that each morning, doesn’t he?”

“Of course he does,” Bradley said. “And it is then my responsibility to go over the proper use and care of the application with you.”

“I’m aware of what scenes I’m shooting when I walk in here,” Greg told him, starting to get annoyed now. “That information is given to me the night before by Fletcher himself.”

“Nevertheless,” Bradley said, “it is customary to arrive ten minutes earlier than required so that we can make sure we’re on the same page.”

“I have never heard of this custom,” Greg said. “I’ve been doing this acting thing for a few years now and I’ve always shown up at the time requested.”

“But now you are working with me,” Bradley said. “And when you’re working with me, the standard is ten minutes early. Please see that you adhere to that from here on out.”

Greg opened his mouth to light into him, to say something that Jake would likely have applauded, but then closed it again. This was one of those pick your battles kind of situations, he decided. If this prima donna cosmetologist wanted him to show up ten minutes early so they could discuss the day’s scenes, well ... why not?

“All right, Bradley,” he said with a sigh. “Ten minutes early from here on out.”

“Very good,” Bradley said with a smile. “Now go get changed. We’ll have to hold the briefing while I get started.”

“Sounds good,” Greg said.

He stepped into the wardrobe room and shut the door behind him. There were three cubby holes in the room, one for him, one for Mindy, and one for Lewis Stone, who played Boot, Haverty’s partner. In Greg’s and Lewis’ holes were authentic Chicago PD uniforms consisting of dark blue pants and light blue summer shirts complete with five-pointed star shaped badges (the cops always called them “stars”, never “badges”, according to Sergeant Mackle). In all three holes were authentic CPD issued Kevlar ballistic vests. Greg and Lewis would wear theirs under their uniform shirts. Mindy would wear hers over her shirts. All three actors had discovered how uncomfortable the vests were in the muggy late spring of the Midwest.

Greg unbuttoned his dress shirt and pulled it off, leaving him only in a plain white t-shirt above the waist. He hung up the dress shirt in his cubby and then pulled out the white robe he used for the makeup sessions. He left the t-shirt on, as it would go under his wardrobe uniform. And, since he was doing no shirtless scenes today, there was no need to put the pancake makeup all over his torso.

He put the robe on and walked back out into the main makeup area. He settled into his seat and Bradley delivered his pre-makeup briefing, explaining the scenes that Greg already knew he would be filming today and how that corresponded with the makeup and hairstyle he would be utilizing.

“Sounds good, Bradley,” Greg told him when the briefing was over. “Good talk.”

Bradley, satisfied that he was an essential production partner with a stake in how the project came out, then went to work on him, starting with his hair. He combed it out until it was as smooth as silk and then arranged it into a style that looked random and careless, to go along with the characterization of Frank Haverty, but was actually a meticulously planned and executed masterpiece. Once the hair was to his liking, he sprayed about a quarter of a can of maximum hold hairspray on it to cement it into place. He then began to work on Greg’s face, which, while quite handsome in person, would look pale and drawn on camera without a layer of pancake to darken it up.

“Hey, Greg,” Mindy said as Julie finished up her face area and began working on her neck. “I was wondering if you’ve heard from your agent today?”

“Johnny?” Greg said. “No. I haven’t talked to him in a few days now. Why do you ask?”

“Uh ... well ... there’s a little something coming down the pipeline,” she said, seemingly embarrassed. “Something about you and me.”

“You and me?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well ... mostly me,” she said. “It has to do with my ex-boyfriend.”

“Which ex-boyfriend?” he asked. A fair question, he thought. She’d had a few, all of them extensively reported on in the entertainment media. “Are you talking about Jake?”

“No, not Jake,” she said. “My most recent ex-boyfriend. Raphael, the personal trainer. The one I broke up with just before coming to Chicago.”

“Your Michelangelo carving. What does he have to do with me?”

“Well ... it seems that he ... oh ... that he didn’t take the breakup very well. Can you imagine? I paid his rent for three months at a very high-end condo just outside of Hollywood, and I gave him ten grand to live on, and that came with the understanding that he would keep his mouth shut about personal details.”

Greg looked into the mirror before him, using it to take in Mindy’s reflection on the other side of the room. Her eyes would not meet his. Both Bradley and Julie impassively continued to work, behaving as they weren’t hearing a single thing being said. “What are we talking about here, Mindy?” he asked her.

“I got a call from Georgette this morning,” she said. Georgette was her long-time agent and manager who had been with her since the days she was a teenager on The Slow Lane. “She tells me that reporters from Entertainment Reports contacted her to see if I wanted to give a statement to them for the record.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Greg asked. ER, as it was called, was perhaps the most malicious and cruel of the gossip media that hounded celebrities.

She sighed. “It seems that Raphael has recorded a tell-all interview with them that will air on the show’s Friday night broadcast. It’s a tell-all about what it was like to live with Mindy Snow, including why we broke up.”

“I see,” Greg said. “That is unfortunate, of course. One never wishes to be a point of discussion on that smear show. I still do not see what this has to do with me.”

“Well ... Raphael apparently told them that the reason he and I broke up was because I’ve ... I’ve always had a crush on you and that I’ve been trying for years to get close to you and now that I’ve landed a starring role opposite of you ... well ... I kicked him to the curb so I could ... you know ... go for it with you.”

Greg blinked slowly. He took a deep breath and then let it out. Meanwhile, Julie and Bradley kept right on powdering and puffing as if nothing was happening. “Why,” Greg finally asked, “would he say something like that? It’s not true, is it?”

“No, not really,” Mindy said.

“Not really? What does that mean?”

“He’s distorting something I said to him,” she said. “I bet those assholes at ER are paying him twenty or thirty grand for this shit and feeding his lines to him.”

“You are undoubtedly correct,” Greg said. “But what did you say to him that started this?”

“He’s not just talking about me having a crush on you,” Mindy said. “He’s talking about our sex life, about how I treated him at home, about some of the shit I used to say to him. All of it is a gross exaggeration at best, an out and out misrepresentation at worst.”

“I have no doubt about that either,” Greg said. “But my wife is probably going to be contacted about this as well, wouldn’t you think?”

“I’d be amazed if they hadn’t already done it,” Mindy said.

“I would like to be able to present some facts to Celia when I talk to her. Please tell me just what it is that you said to this Rafael creature that prompted him to say you broke up with him because of me.”

Mindy sighed again. “Well ... I did tell him a few times that I thought you were attractive. You are attractive, Greg, and I was just pointing out a fact.”

“And ... from that he comes up with you broke up with him because of me?”

“Well ... that and the fact that I jumped on this role when I found out you were going to be the star of the project. He did ask me about that once, why I suddenly became interested in the part once you were cast. The same thing you asked me.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing!” she said. “I just said that I had always wanted to work with you and the opportunity had come to do it. He seemed like he accepted that at the time. We went on with our lives for weeks after that and everything was just like normal.”

“But then you broke up with him,” Greg said.

“Well ... yeah,” she said. “I wasn’t going to drag his dumb ass across the country with me while I worked on the project. His time had come. He knew when we first hooked up that it was a limited-term relationship. Or, at least he should have known that. He couldn’t possibly have thought that I was going to marry a fucking personal trainer who can’t think his way out of a paper bag, right?”

“I’ve never met the man,” Greg said. “Therefore, I cannot speculate on what he may or may not have thought, but he does sound like a man you would not want to ask to do physics equations for you, correct?”

“Uh ... correct,” she said.

“In any case, that is neither here nor there. I trust you are planning to refute his accusation that you broke up with him because of a crush on me?”

“Georgette issued a brief statement to the ER reporter denying that particular accusation as well as most of the others.”

“Then I guess that is all there is to be done,” Greg said. “I’ll instruct Johnny to refuse comment on the issue completely other than to report that you and I hardly knew each other at all until being cast together and that we enjoy a strictly professional relationship now. I’ll suggest to Celia that she instruct Pauline Kingsley to make no comment on the matter either.”

Mindy nodded. “That sounds good, Greg. Exactly what I would have suggested.” She finally met his eyes in the mirror. “I’m sorry about all this.”

Greg shrugged. “Things happen,” he said. “As Jake always says, it’s part of the life we choose.”

“I suppose,” she said humbly.

Silence returned to the makeup room, broken only when Lewis came in to get into his wardrobe for the day. As a dark-skinned, short-haired man, Lewis did not need the layers of skin-darkening makeup or the tussling of his locks. Mindy and Greg greeted him warmly and they talked of the upcoming scenes for a few minutes before Lewis disappeared into the wardrobe area to get dressed.

Once he was gone, Greg took another glance at Mindy in the mirror. Her eyes were once again cast downward as Julie worked on her neck area. To facilitate this, her robe had been pulled down a bit and he could see the tops of her breasts. They were very appetizing to look at.

Did she really say she had a crush on me? he wondered. The idea did not seem ridiculous in the least. Nor was it really that offensive.

If fact, he was actually a bit flattered that it might be true.

It was the next morning, in the rehearsal studio in Santa Clarita, that Jake heard about the upcoming ER report. It was Celia who delivered the news to him as they sat down for the tuning of their instruments prior to the soundcheck. She did not just come out and say what was wrong with her, but Jake could tell something was bothering her because she was using more Spanish phrases than normal.

“What’s the deal, C?” Jake finally asked her. He was sitting next to Natalie (who had decided to join them for the production of the next CDs after Mark promised he would remain committed to her) and holding his black Les Paul in his hands. It was his day today and they were going to start by working on one of his hard-driving tunes.

“What’s the deal with what?” she asked shortly. She held her white Stratocaster in her hands as the tune required her to play distorted chords as backup.

“Oh, come on,” Jake chided. “I’ve known you long enough to know when something’s put a bug up your ass.”

“A bug up my ass?” she asked. “That’s rather crude, Jake.”

“Perhaps,” he allowed. “So, what kind of bug is it? Give it up.”

She sighed. “It’s that fucking puta!” she blurted.

“What fucking puta?” he asked.

“You never did tell me what that word means,” said Natalie as she tweaked her tuning knob a quarter turn.

Celia ignored her. “Mindy Snow,” she spat. “What other fucking puta would I be talking about?”

“Ahhh,” Jake said. “The queen of putas. What did she do now?”

“I got a call from Pauline yesterday,” Celia said. “Apparently Mindy’s ex-boyfriend is doing a tell-all interview on Entertainment Reports this Friday.”

“Which ex-boyfriend?” Jake asked. “She’s had a few.” Including me, he did not feel the need to point out.

“The most recent one,” Celia said. “The personal trainer who looks like he stepped out of a Greek God painting.”

Jake nodded. He had seen media reports of the man here and there in his travels and he thought that an accurate description. “What does that have to do with you?” he asked.

“Apparently he is alleging that the reason Mindy broke up with him is that she has always had a crush on Greg and wanted Adonis—or whatever the hell his name is—out of the way now that she managed to land a role with Greg.”

Jake raised his eyebrows a bit. “Really? Does Greg know about this?”

“He does now,” she said. “He called me last night to tell me what’s going on. Of course, by then, I already knew about it from Pauline, but he thought he should talk to me about it. He says that Mindy hit him with this shit yesterday morning during their makeup session. Mindy claims it isn’t true, that this loser of hers took a comment that she made once about Greg being attractive out of context and he’s just doing this interview because they’re paying him and so he can get back at her for breaking up.”

“Wow,” Liz said from her piano. “It kind of sounds like we wandered into the middle of a soap opera here.”

“No me digas! Jueputa!” Celia agreed sourly. “Anyway, Greg says Mindy seemed embarrassed by the whole thing.”

“Mindy, embarrassed?” Jake said with a harsh laugh. “That’ll be the day.”

“He said she seemed quite sincere,” Celia said.

“She’s a very good actress,” Jake said. “She can seem like anything she wants to seem like. I found that shit out the hard way.”

“He sure did,” said Coop, who was sitting on his drum chair, twirling a stick in his hand. “She played Jake like an accordion, bending and squeezing him every fuckin’ way.”

“Yeah,” Jake muttered.

“Didn’t you say she was really good in bed though?” asked Charlie. Now that he was allegedly heterosexual again, he tended to actively bring up and heartily participate in pussy stories—even when it was not really appropriate.

“Uh...” Jake stammered, looking over at Laura, who was frowning at the sudden turn of conversation, “well ... the fact of the matter is—”

“Oh, fuck yeah she was good!” Coop said enthusiastically. “She would get down and stinky at the drop of a fuckin’ hat! Jake used to tell us all about the shit they did when he was railing her. He said she was fuckin’ premo in the sack. What we call an NTN bitch.”

“NTN?” asked Sharon.

“Nothin’ too nasty,” Coop clarified. “You gotta love an NTN slut. Jake, remember that time you told us about how you nailed her while she was sitting on the railing of the balcony of your condo?”

“Uh ... yeah, Coop,” Jake said, blushing. “I remember that.”

“And this other time,” Coop went on, “she dressed up in the outfit she used to wear on the fucking Slow Lane and did her hair all up in that same style from the show so he could plow her while—”

“I think we all get the idea, Coop,” Jake said firmly.

“She dressed up in the outfit from the Slow Lane for you?” Laura asked, her teeth clenched tightly.

“Uh ... well ... yeah, but...”

“I always noticed that Jake would come in limping after spending the night with Mindy,” Nerdly put in. “And sometimes he would have bruises on his arms or scratches on his back or handfuls of hair missing from his head. I must say that I suspected her of being physically abusive toward you, Jake, but male social norms of the time prohibited me from enquiring.”

“Uh ... she wasn’t abusive, Nerdly,” Jake assured him. “She was just ... you know...”

“Down and stinky?” Laura asked, her eyes shooting daggers at her husband.

“That’s a good way of putting it, I suppose,” he said. “Enough about me and Mindy though. We were talking about Greg and Mindy, right?”

“Right,” Celia said, the sour look still on her face, though there was also a hint of amusement there now. “Greg assures me that he believes Mindy is sincere in her embarrassment. He says she has been nothing but professional since they started working together.”

“And do you believe him?” Jake asked.

“I believe Greg,” she said. “But I don’t trust that puta. I don’t trust her at all. She is self-serving and doesn’t care about anyone but herself. I think she’s up to something.”

Jake nodded. “She’s always up to something,” he said. “Tell Greg to keep watching his ass.”

“What could she possibly be up to?” Laura asked.

Jake shook his head. “Only Mindy knows the answer to that.”

“Anyway,” Celia said, “Greg is having Johnny release a statement that says there is nothing but a professional relationship between he and Mindy. Pauline is releasing a statement from me saying that I take no stock in reports by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend and remain supportive of Greg. That is the only acknowledgement of this fiasco we will provide. Hopefully, after the other media shows and the tabloid rags have their say about it, things will go back to normal.”

“Hopefully,” Jake said.

“Didn’t you tell me that Greg and Mindy will be required to film a scene depicting nudity and simulated sexual activity?” Nerdly asked.

Celia sighed again. “Two of them actually,” she said slowly. “Thank you for reminding me, Bill.”

“You’re welcome,” Nerdly said. “I was just wondering whether the coming sexual depictions might have the effect of adding increased combustible material and oxidizer to the conflagration.”

“What?” Celia asked.

“Fuel to the fire,” Jake translated.

“Oh ... of course,” she said, shaking her head a little. “I’m really trying not to think too much about that, Bill. I have to trust that Greg will behave professionally even if Mindy does not.”

“Interesting,” Bill said. “I’m sure that seems a sound and reasonable course of action currently, but what about when...”

“Bill,” Sharon said, covering his mouth with her hand to shut him up. “Maybe it’s time to get on with the sound check?”

“Oh ... of course,” he said once his wife’s hand was removed. “Is everyone done tuning?”

Everyone was done tuning. They stopped talking of Greg and Mindy and Jake and getting down and stinky and went to work dialing in their audio for the day’s work. This took about thirty minutes to complete. By the time they were done, everyone was back in the music mode where they belonged.

“All right,” Jake told everyone. “We’re going to work on Dark Matter for the first part of the day. Is everyone up for that?”

“Fuckin’ A,” said Coop. “I’m liking where you’re going with this tune.”

“Me too,” said Charlie. “It rocks. Reminds me of the Intemperance days—well, you know, the good parts of those days.”

“Does it?” Jake asked, feeling a certain amount of trepidation at these words. Dark (as they would soon be calling it) was indeed a hard rocking tune as he envisioned it and was directing the other musicians to perform it. Like all of his songs, the basic melody and lyrics had been composed using only an acoustic guitar, but when it had come time to start working it up, it had seemed only natural to translate that melody into a distorted three-chord riff backed by a second distorted drop-D tuned guitar. And today he planned to have Liz start throwing in some basic fills with her piano to evolve the composition a little further. That was the formula that had made Intemperance so successful, that had actually spawned an entirely new genre of rock music. And it was a genre he had vowed to leave behind when he went solo.

The tune just sounds good played that way, he told himself. Besides, it’s fun to do hard rock. It gets the adrenaline rolling. The listeners are going to love it.

“All right,” he told the musicians. “We worked on the basic distorted melody and the beat last week. Charlie, Coop, are you two fairly comfortable with the basics?”

“I’m down with it,” said Coop. “The basics anyway.”

“Me too,” said Charlie. “It’s not as repetitive as a pop beat, that’s for sure, but it’s not overly complex either.”

Jake nodded. “I’ll probably want to throw in some tempo changes for the intro and the bridge section as we work it up more.”

“Awesome, dude!” Coop said enthusiastically. He loved challenging drumming; and having multiple tempo changes and flourishes was sweeter than a hit of the finest green in his opinion.

“I thought you’d like that,” Jake said, smiling.

“Damn right I will,” Coop said.

“Me too,” Charlie said. “It really is like the old Intemp days, isn’t it?”

Jake glanced at him, that uneasy feeling coming back a bit. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I guess it is ... in a way, you know.” He looked over at Celia. “How about you, C. You feel comfortable with the rhythm?”

She gave him a little smile. “It’s a little harder than I’m used to—all of you keep your ‘that’s what she said’ jokes to yourself, thank you very much—but nothing I can’t handle.”

Jake smiled at her. “‘That’s what she said’ staying internal,” he said. He looked over at the piano and the quickly-approaching-middle-age woman sitting behind it. “Liz, I want to start having you throw some piano fills into the tune. Mostly on the changeovers for now, though I’ll likely want to see if we can have you do a section of primary melody in there somewhere, probably for the intro—kind of like in Playing Those Games, you know?”

Liz looked very doubtful at this. “I’ll see what I can do, Jake,” she promised. “I have to be honest though, this tune is a little higher and heavier on the rock music scale than anything I’ve done before.”

“Understood,” Jake said, nodding. “You’ll get the feel of it. You’re a professional with a good ear.”

“If you say so,” she said, not quite appeased.

Jake thought of giving her a little more encouragement, then decided against it. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get it on. I’ll open with the primary riff. Rhythm section, pick me up after the first rep. Celia, you jump in after the second rep, and then I’ll start putting down the lyrics. We’ll run through it a few times until we can make it to where the bridge will be and then shut it down. Liz, you just listen for now, plug yourself in the best you can, try to get in the groove, and then start thinking about where and how you could throw in those fills.”

Everyone gave their agreement with this plan.

“Let’s do it then,” Jake said, gripping his guitar and putting his pick in his fingers.

They did it. Everyone except Jake had their music scores in front of them to make it easier to follow along. Jake ground out the main riff. Coop and Charlie hammered the backbeat. Celia played the distorted rhythm. They ran through the first two reps and then Jake began to sing the lyrics he’d written. It was an intelligent, thoughtful tune using the concept of dark matter, the theoretical unseen matter that made up the majority of the mass of the universe and served, among other things, to help bind galaxies together (Nerdly had told Jake about dark matter one stoned night long ago and the subject had fascinated Jake ever since), as an analogy for the human need for socialization and companionship.

It was a rough draft of the tune, that was for sure. There were several instances of missed bars, missed timing, tempo slips, and sour notes as fingers that had not developed muscle memory quite yet fretted out unfamiliar chords. But, all in all, it came out sounding more or less like music—a coordinated effort of multiple instruments.

“Not bad,” Jake said with a shrug after the first run-through. “Maybe not Grammy material just yet, but we’re working on it.”

“Sorry about the sour notes on the changeovers,” Celia said. “My fingers just aren’t used to it yet.”

“It’ll come with repetition,” Jake said. “Let’s do it again.”

They did it again, and then again, and then two more times, getting a little better, a little smoother with each run-through, making it sound more and more like professionally produced music instead of a high school band in a basement. As they worked, Nerdly and Sharon played around with the board, communicating with each other all the while, both of them frequently making notes on their copies of the score. They both seemed to be getting into the tune quite nicely. Laura and Natalie simply watched from the sidelines; their instruments idle since they weren’t going to be used for this particular tune. Natalie seemed to be enjoying the song. She was smiling and nodding her head to the beat, her shoulders shrugging in time. Laura also seemed to at least have an appreciation for what they were trying to do. Her foot tapped to the beat, her expression thoughtful. Only Liz seemed to be having issues. Her foot stayed still, her shoulders immobile, a slight frown upon her face.