The lost expert, p.14
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The Lost Expert, page 14

 

The Lost Expert
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  “Lookee here,” said Reed, his thick finger trailing off the map and pointing into a slight opening in the forest wall. “That’s an old logging road. Goes right to the top, I think.” Map dangling from his thick hand, Reed stepped to the gap in the trees and squinted.

  “Yup,” Reed boomed. “This is it! Let’s saddle up.”

  The going was easier on what had, indeed, been a rough road, though it hadn’t been used for at least ten years. The tracks, pushed into the hard dirt by who knows how many successive waves of thick truck tires, overflowed with sharp weeds. The flat part of the road had sprouted everything from sickly saplings to creeping raspberry and blackberry vines to feral thigh-high grass gone dry and yellow, thick straw clinging at them as they pushed through. They were moving faster now, steadily ascending despite the crew’s curses and gasps. Reed, who seemed to have given himself over to wherever the track lay, had gone voluble, waving his arms as he monologued.

  “People think film is about bringing things to life, bringing things into the light. But it’s exactly the opposite, you know, Holmes?” Reed, swinging his arms and marching belly first, didn’t wait for a reply. “It’s about capturing life, using it, sucking up life and processing it. We have more in common with whoever made this road, with the loggers and poachers and zookeepers, than we do with the great artists of our time. No offence there, Holmes, but it’s true. We put people in cages and we aim our cameras at them and we take what we want, or at least what we can get from them. We don’t bring things to light; we use up all the light there is, all the light people have.”

  Reed uttered his trademark guffaw, which promptly turned into his trademark dry cough punctuated by muttered expletives. Still coughing and clearing his throat, he suddenly shot forward, turned a corner, and disappeared. Way ahead of the rest of the crew, Chris quickly followed, thinking that enough world-famous Hollywood types had already disappeared on his watch. He found himself striding up the last particularly steep patch of obsolescent road before lurching to a halt to avoid bumping into Reed, who was standing guard at the abrupt conclusion of their journey. Chris pushed in beside Reed, and the two of them stood, silent, transfixed, momentarily dumbstruck.

  THE CREW SET UP to film. Reed oversaw the process, whispering and plotting with his director of photography, a dour, almost-mute German fellow who had resolutely marched in the rear, all but buried in a tangle of devices. The German was rumoured to vastly prefer collaborating with his fellow countrymen, having worked with all the greats from Wim Wenders to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, his name regularly associated with the films of Krunk’s all-time hero, Werner Herzog, who was — Reed had jealously told Chris as an aside a few days ago — almost done raising money for a feature filmed exclusively inside an active volcano. With nothing to do, Chris reflexively felt for his phone to text Krunk, then remembered where he was. Or maybe who he was. Self-consciously, he slowly took his hands out of his coat pockets then slid them back in. As he fidgeted, he pondered the weird detail that in cold weather, Krunk always wore gloves with no fingers, ready at any moment to roll a joint or grab cellphone footage for his experimental collage project featuring nothing but stripped abandoned bicycles and ripped billowing plastic bags caught in the limbs of the city’s sickliest trees. It was cold, getting colder, and Chris wasn’t wearing his gloves. He shivered in a spasm that knocked his knees together and almost knocked him down. Reed steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “I know it,” he muttered, believing that Chris had been shaken by the view splayed before them.

  Hadn’t he?

  Ahead was an eerie, vast clear-cut. The slope down, the long valley, and the next gentle cresting hill over — all stripped down, nothing but scrub and dirt for miles in either direction: the panorama Reed was looking for — or, at least, Chris thought, the one he’d found. Behind them, the thick woods — oaks, tall, thin birches, copses of firs and pines — closed ranks in mute judgment. In front, there was nothing left, no judge, no jury, no witnesses. Extending up and down the hills, bordered by a lake on one side and vast empty horizon to the north and east, was nothing but stumps, thousands upon thousands of stumps dotting the landscape, a world remade by some mad pointillist. Only the desolate vastness formed no image, assumed no gradual reveal of purpose or pattern. There was the barren earth, windswept and dry without the protection of the trees. And there were the stumps, not yet decaying or decomposing, simply there, under a sallow sun and blue sky, the whole scene a cipher, raw material, an absent purpose. Reed was right, Chris thought. It wasn’t about life at all. How could it be? Death provides. Where had he heard that before? Something Krunk had said? The title of a Communist-era underground film they’d shown at a screening of celluloid samizdat. No, he remembered now. It was the Lost Expert who’d said it. Wasn’t it?

  Chris shivered again, realized he’d been shivering all along. Sharp wind from the exposed lake sweeping through the denuded valley, buffeting them. Reed would want him to go down there, go into the wasteland, pick his way through what had once been a world. He’d do it, why not? What Reed had said: An entire village marched into the forest and shot. An emptiness and nothingness that festers and rots. Wasn’t that what the Lost Expert was all about? He wasn’t acting, exactly, just letting something he’d long shut out back in. But once the river flowed, what next? Chris turned to Reed. The director was gazing over the desolation with unencumbered lust. What did he see? Only its devastating beauty.

  Script 8

  EXT. TANOQUIN FOREST RESERVE — MORNING

  THE LOST EXPERT drives along a rutted track in a black, battered Ford pickup. Densely packed trees push against one another, their limbs encroaching onto the muddy road. The Lost Expert guns the loud engine up a crumbly hill and abruptly jams on the brakes at the top. He surveys the track in front of him, blocked by a fallen tree and a spreading swamp. He puts the truck into park. Still in the driver’s seat, he closes his eyes.

  CUT TO

  A TALL BLOND MAN in a trench coat ascends the stairs of Waverly House. There’s something in the way he holds his head: you can’t quite make out his features. He seems to be smiling, or grinning, or else his expression is perfectly empty.

  CUT TO

  MICHAEL listens to a record, his expression beatific.

  CUT TO

  The Lost Expert in the vehicle. He jerks out of his trance, clearly troubled.

  MUSIC

  (crackling gospel blues)

  Oh Lord … Oh Lord … Oh Lord, bring her back to me!

  EXT. THICK FOREST — AFTERNOON

  THE LOST EXPERT works through tightly packed, diminutive trees, their bare branches twisted into one another, struggling for space. He pushes through a grove of stunted cedars and stops abruptly, teetering on a rock jutting out over a dark lake. The lake is small, the forest on the other side clearly visible. The sun emerges from under a cloud, and the Lost Expert squints. He hears something in the underbrush and pulls out a small pair of binoculars. He scans the opposite bank. A moose breaks through and plunges into the water. The Lost Expert watches the moose swim to a marshy area and clamber up a steep bank before disappearing into the backwoods.

  EXT. CLEARING IN THE WOODS — DUSK

  THE LOST EXPERT stands over a SCRAWNY MAN who lies twitching in restless sleep next to the embers of a fire burning under a flapping canvas. Up close, it is abundantly clear that the man is not in good shape. His lips are cracked, and his face is sallow. The Lost Expert crouches next to the man, who blinks awake. He jerks, startled, and tries to get up. The Lost Expert restrains him with a broad, dirt-stained hand on his chest.

  THE LOST EXPERT

  Michael.

  Michael groans and struggles, shaking his head back and forth.

  THE LOST EXPERT (CONT’D)

  It’s all right. You’re all right now.

  Michael calms. The Lost Expert helps him to sit up. He takes out a canteen, gives him a sip of water. Michael coughs, sputters, then drinks hugely.

  EXT. CLEARING — EVENING

  MICHAEL and THE LOST EXPERT are eating beans from cans warmed up on the fire. The fire is built up high, and the two men sit as close to it as they can. A misty rain falls. The fire crackles, and occasionally a bird squawks.

  THE LOST EXPERT

  Did someone tell you to come here?

  Michael doesn’t answer. He finishes his beans and digs into the empty can for any remains, licking the sauce on the spoon.

  THE LOST EXPERT

  (removing the sketch drawn by Michael that he took from Waverly House)

  Do you know the man in this picture? Did he come to see you?

  MICHAEL

  (furiously shaking his head) Him!

  THE LOST EXPERT

  Who is he? You wrote under the picture, “Beaoman.” Is that his name, Michael? Beaoman?

  MICHAEL

  (whisper-singing to a blues tune)God isn’t true / that’s nothing new / going deep underground / going to buy that promised land / all gonna come / before we even know / all gonna come / I think you know / how to / be a man / be a man /be a man.

  THE LOST EXPERT

  He gave you a record, didn’t he? Is that from the record he gave you, Michael?

  Michael leans into the fire, whispering and raving.

  MICHAEL

  Be a man! Be a man …

  Section 9

  THEY HURRIED THROUGH THE dark, their feet crunching leaves stiff with early frost, the hum of a portable generator getting louder as they approached Reed’s cabin. It was almost midnight. Alison had knocked on the door of Chris’s shack on the hill, summoning him to an urgent meeting.

  Reed’s domain was a gutted cabin, its interior now dominated by a long, battered wooden desk atop which perched several elongated computer screens angled together and attached by thick cables to a humming black box lodged down below. Surrounding the screens, and spilling onto the wall behind them, were an array of sticky notes, some crammed with tiny scribbles of writing, others sporting just one or two words written hurriedly in illegible, indelible Sharpie. The sticky notes formed an elaborate traffic pattern, a chronicle of potential intersections — to Chris they looked like an inverted map, roads to nowhere, accidents and dead ends. Bryant Reed sat at the desk, staring into nothing, dwarfed by his role as the cartographer. His face, shrouded by lamplight and computer screen, showed dark bags under his eyes.

  “What took you so long?” he asked, swivelling in a battered office chair and addressing nobody in particular. There was an open bottle of scotch on the desk next to a half-full glass. “Boy oh boy.” Reed rubbed his hands together in mock excitement, then clapped them hard on his own cheeks. “We’re in for it now!” Chris followed Alison into the cabin. “Sit down.” Reed swung out of the way to reveal a love seat jammed against the back wall. “Yeah, yeah, sit down.”

  Alison slipped by, twisting sideways to avoid touching Reed. Chris followed, brushing past the sour-smelling director and lowering himself down beside his assistant. The proximity was a shock. Alison felt it too, Chris was sure; the spots where their bodies touched, the gaps where they didn’t. “Have a drink.” Reed sloppily poured amber liquid into several smeared glasses before wheeling himself forward and proffering the scotch. “L’chaim,” Reed announced, sloshing his newly topped-up glass as they toasted. Chris sipped. He’d been worried on the way over — had he finally been discovered? But sitting next to Alison, immersed in the madness of this make-believe world, he was unbothered. I’m not here, he thought, stealing a glance at Alison’s perfectly angled cheek.

  The lamps flickered. Outside, crickets chirruped the end of summer. Alison turned her glass around in her hand, the golden brown liquid gently undulating. Nobody spoke.

  “So,” Chris finally felt compelled to say. “What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on?” Reed repeated dramatically. “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Just a little bit of mutiny is all, Holmes, nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.” Chris blinked at the venom in Reed’s voice. Reed was pissed. At him? He looked for a sign. Reed’s glower was directionless, seemingly aimed at everything.

  “Darlia,” Alison said evenly, “has threatened to leave the production.”

  “Threatened?!” Reed jolted back to life. “She’s packing her bags. She’s booking a flight.”

  “Why?” Chris said.

  “Why?” Reed gesticulated, spilling drink. “Because this isn’t the romantic bullshit she’s used to, with a script full of canned one-liners and a leading man with as much chest hair as brains. That’s why!”

  “She’s expressed concerns about the direction of the story,” said Alison.

  “It’s not working,” Reed said in a nasal imitation of a starlet falsetto. “It’s too hard.” Reed made a face like he was going to spit. “If she walks off, she’ll never work again. She’ll be sorry. It’ll be like she just disappeared.” Reed snapped his fingers. Chris felt the sound travel up his spine.

  “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Alison said primly.

  “Why is she blaming me?” Chris said. “I’m too what, exactly?”

  Alison turned toward him, her knees brushing his legs, a subtle shift.

  “She says she isn’t connecting with you,” Alison explained. “She says your energy is disturbing.”

  “Your energy!” Reed scoffed.

  “She’s really leaving?” Chris ran his fingers through his hair.

  “You know what she said?” Reed locked eyes with Chris, dropped his voice to a whisper. Alison gestured vaguely at Reed, a signal of censure he ignored.

  “She said you were like a different person.”

  Chris twitched out a smile.

  “She said you were a totally different person. And I said, ‘That’s called acting! That’s what he gets paid to do.’ She should try it sometime.”

  Chris felt Alison’s hand on his knee, gently squeezing. “You’re not responsible, Thomson. It’s just not what she was expecting.”

  Reed was getting loud again. “She has to work with an actual actor for a fucking change and it’s freaking her out.”

  Alison took a small sip of her scotch, an inscrutable expression on her face.

  “You’ve got to deal with this,” Reed said. “Lay on the old Thomson Holmes charm. Tell her how great she’s doing. Tell her she’s heading straight to the Oscars, for Christ’s sake. Bat those baby blues of yours and convince her to stay.”

  The tone was commanding. Reed pulled off his Penguins cap and mopped at his forehead with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. He needs me, Chris realized. What would happen if she really did leave? Would the studio pull the plug? Reed would go insane. The man was possessed. The Lost Expert was everything to him.

  “She’s in her hotel suite,” Alison explained. “She said she would at least sit down with you before she made any final decision. But, Bryant, I’m really not sure if this is the best way to —”

  Reed interrupted. “You’ll talk some sense into her, right Holmes?”

  “Me? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Holmes! You’re all I’ve got.”

  Alison leaned in and whispered a single word in his ear: “Hawaii.” Chris heard it as a sensation, lava flowing through him.

  “All right!” Reed shouted manically into his walkie-talkie. “He’s ready! Bring the car!”

  “HELLO? ANYONE HOME? DARLIA?”

  Darlia emerged, padding in petite bare feet across interlocking rugs.

  “Thomson,” she said with just a hint of a smile.

  Chris blinked, his eyes adjusting to this most recent gloomy interior. The suite had been custom decorated — throw rugs, framed paintings, chrome lamps exuding fuzzy non-directional light. Long, silkily diffuse curtains separated the front sitting room from the mysterious bulk of the space. Chris ran his fingers nervously through his hair. He’d seen her movies. Everyone had. A few of them were classics. The Boxer’s Daughter. Krunk had taken him to see it several years back, late-night double feature with Raging Bull at the rep cinema. Chris had liked it a lot. Afterwards Krunk had raved about it. He said it was a noir masterpiece, a reinvention of the character study that didn’t so much study as penetrate, strip away, relentlessly reveal.

  She’d been twenty-two when she’d made that movie. And right after it, the other big one she’d made, in which she affected a very Southern accent that made her seem both vulnerable and vengeful, deserving of what she got. Ten years ago. Another time. Today, people talked about her with a reverence reserved for the truly iconic. Even Krunk. Of course, he larded any compliment with a vitriolic rant against every movie she’d made since, including the handful that, as far as Chris could tell, had been pretty okay — at least by Hollywood standards.

  Hawaii, Chris repeated to himself in a mantra. Darlia wore black yoga pants and a yellow tank. She was fresh faced, like a college student off to Pilates. Her pouted mouth flickered with potential expressions she couldn’t decide to put on. Her green eyes were spiral orbits that would suck him in if he got too close. She looked like what she was: a star.

  “What are you staring at?” Darlia asked playfully, a coy grin on her face.

  “Oh — uh —” a nonplussed Chris muttered awkwardly. “Just, you know —”

  “Thomson!” She threw her arms around him. He stood, stiff, awkwardly holding her. She smelled of lemon and vanilla. “It’s all a big mess, isn’t it?” Then, lowering her head to his shoulder, she started to slowly cry.

  “Shush,” he said, patting her back as her small form trembled against him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said miserably.

  “It’s okay. Really.”

 
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