Chapter seven

“And here’s your StarBash host, the Tinseltown terminator himself, Micah Bailey!”

“Hello, America, and welcome to StarBash 2020! Last week we threw the party of the year, and our movie stars dazzled all night long, even letting loose with some unexpected fireworks at the end. To reward them for a job well done, we let the actors choose this week’s activity, and they unanimously voted to take a vacation. So we stocked the limo, loaded up our little troupe of plastic pretenders, and we hit the road. And then disaster struck. The limo broke down. And it didn’t break down in a convenient place like Manhattan or Scarsdale or Old Greenwich. It broke down right here, on good ol’ Main Street USA.

“I’m standing in front of Joe’s Jingletown Tavern. Jingletown is a factory bar in a factory town that has lost all of its factories. At one time, the factories on this street alone provided jobs to over ten thousand workers. If you drive it today, you will find five miles of boarded-up buildings and a street that employs less than three hundred workers. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Joe’s Jingletown is still here, and our beloved actors have a place to rest while their limo gets repaired. Let’s go inside and see how they’re coping with this tragic ordeal.”

 

***

 

Bakersfield in the middle of the night, that’s how far Cass had fallen, and it didn’t seem possible that her foul mood could turn any more rancid. Then she saw the inside of the bar. If Joe’s Jingletown Tavern sounded even remotely like a pleasant destination, then it needed to be renamed. Immediately. A better name might’ve been Joe’s Black Mold Lounge or Joe’s Too Broke Too Buy Sanitizer. And the handful of customers who slouched at the bar didn’t do much to enhance the atmosphere. They wore dirty work clothes and, judging by the aroma, an alarming degree of hygienic neglect.

Cass stood with the others in front of a small stage, waiting to shoot Micah’s challenge to them. Brandi stood off a few feet from the group, brewing in her perpetual persecution complex. At one point she’d said, “So how much are you offering this week, Cass? Hopefully the price has gone up after your big flop last week.”

If she’d hoped to get a laugh out of the group, it didn’t work. Cass ignored her, as did everyone else.

A microphone on a stand had been placed at the front of the scruffy-looking stage, and an old upright piano sat at the back, against the wall. The piano had been thoroughly pasted with old bumper stickers. One said, “I Shot J. R.” Another said, “Billy Beer & Pork Rinds, Breakfast of Fat Champions.” A sorry-looking guitar rested against the side of the piano. Opposite the stage, behind where the actors stood, the bartender had stacked chairs onto half a dozen small tables and was currently mopping the floor with dirty water. Overgrown red sideburns framed his skinny face, and he grumbled with each stroke of the mop. No one in the bar had acknowledged the actors’ entrance earlier that evening. Tuxedos and evening gowns—their attire for the night—must be a common occurrence in this fine establishment, thought Cass. Or they’d been hired by StarBash and told exactly how to play it out. Or they really didn’t give a shit—which also described Cass’s attitude. She just wanted the cameras to roll and to get it over with, which finally started happening at a little past midnight. It was Micah time, every redneck’s favorite time of day.

He boldly pushed through the swinging doors like he’d just made history at the O. K. Corral. After a brief, somber pose for the cameras, he moseyed to the microphone on the stage and addressed the actors.

“Wow! Look how things have changed! Last week, my dear stranded thespians, your playground was a luxurious grand ballroom with an orchestra and flowing champagne. This week it’s a dive bar, a jukebox, and cheap beer. Isn’t it strange how life throws these curveballs at us?

“But maybe it’s not strange at all. Maybe it’s divine intervention. After all, the only way to win StarBash is to successfully travel from the very top of society all the way down to the very bottom. Maybe Joe’s Jingletown Tavern is meant to be part of that journey? Maybe this is where you will prove to America that you are more than just actors. What do you say, team? Do you want to give it a try?”

The group clapped compliantly.

“Actors, please say hello to Walter.” Micah pointed to the bartender with the mop and then said, “Walter has agreed to judge our competition. Isn’t that right, Walter?”

“Like I told the lady with the clipboard and the spike in her nose, I got a bar to close. I’ll judge your contest, but I got a bar to close, and that comes first.”

“Absolutely, Walter, you close your bar, and whatever you have left for our fearless players will be fine.” Micah turned to a different camera. “And, just in case there’s a tie or Walter gets too busy scraping gum off the floor, over here at the bar we have six of Jingletown’s best customers, and they have graciously volunteered to be our alternate judges. Gentlemen, please say hello to our audience by waving to the cameras.”

The men at the bar stayed hunched over their drinks with their backs to the world. They displayed an impressive assortment of plumber’s cracks but didn’t wave to anybody.

“As you can see,” continued Micah, “our alternate judges are men of extreme focus.” He turned back to the group. “Actors! Do you know that all of you have something special in common? That’s right, all of you have won at least one competition that required you to make a speech. Between the nine of you, we have winners of beauty pageants, Daytime Emmys, Emmys, and even an Oscar. And tonight it is my privilege to announce that StarBash, in cooperation with Joe’s Jingletown Tavern, will be transporting each of you back to that very moment when the historic envelope got torn open and the presenter proclaimed your name to the world. You are going to experience the ecstasy all over again, including the tearful gasp, the walk of fame, and the immortal speech that you shared with the world. And let me tell you this right now. Some of you are going shine extra bright tonight. I can just feel it. Your movie-star magnetism is going to zap that mop right out of Walter’s hands and magically whisk him out of Joe’s Jingletown Tavern and straight to the glittery world of a genuine Hollywood production! Are you ready to do that?”

The actors clapped eagerly and hugged one another with excitement. Cass felt her brain cells dying a billion at a time.

“Now, actors,” continued Micah, “we have your original speeches all printed up, and your challenge is to recreate the magic as it actually happened. Walter will judge the content of your speech as well as the quality of delivery. Are you ready, Walter?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Walter, without bothering to look up from his mopping.

And Cass was ready, too, because she completely understood the game at hand. StarBash planned to make them look like complete idiots. Come one, come all, come see the self-absorbed rich actress stand in a stinking shithole while dressed in a sequined evening gown and diamond tiara. Watch her gush about all the “little people” to a bored man with a mop. Watch the world-famous butt-crack brothers turn their backs on her. The only thing missing from this freak show was a flashing sign that said, Genuine Hollywood Narcissist Now on Display. Cass saw it all very clearly and intended to have nothing to do with it. She’d read her speech—since she saw no reasonable way out of it—but she’d read it like a brain-dead zombie. With any luck she would stink it up enough to get fired.

The actors took their seats around the rickety round tables where Walter had just mopped. He kept mopping in another section of the room. The lights dimmed, a spotlight illuminated the microphone, and the StarBash announcer’s voice reverberated through the little bar. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the award for outstanding supporting actor in a daytime drama series, please welcome Micah Bailey!”

A few of the actors clapped, but Micah bounced into the spotlight like it had been a standing ovation. He wore a big smile, and Cass knew he had to be enjoying this shit. He dramatically tore open a big black envelope and said, “And the winner is…Calvin Robbs!” Calvin, who sat at the table next to Cass, jumped to his feet. But then Micah said, “Unfortunately, Calvin is currently in rehab and is unable to join us this evening. Here to accept the award on behalf of Calvin Robbs is his mother, Golde Silverman.”

The actors offered a smattering of confused applause, Calvin sat down, and an old lady with a gray bun on the top of her head stepped into the spotlight. She wore a sagging green sweater with bulging pockets over a nondescript knee-length print dress. Her nylon stockings had gathered just above the tops of her tan therapy shoes. The microphone towered two feet over her head. She stared at it like it had just insulted her. Micah lowered it. She spoke into the microphone and said, “So who is this Calvin Robbs, anyway? Such a big shot, making up fancy names and taking home shiny trophies. All his life he was Clarence Rothstein, a good boy who wanted to be a dentist, and then he went to live with his father in California, and this is what you get. But who am I? Just his mother, so I’ll do what he said. I wrote it down so I’ll do it. Just a second.” She rummaged through one of her sweater pockets, and then the other. Calvin groaned. She finally retrieved a folded piece of paper. She unfolded the paper and tried unsuccessfully to read it. She put on the reading glasses that hung on a chain around her neck and, after clearing her throat, read the speech, which said, “Thank you for this award and goodbye.” Then she left the stage. Calvin slumped in his seat like a man who’d just been convicted of murder.

The regular lights came back up. Micah retook the stage, and his smile had grown. Cass knew that smile. She had personally experienced it. Micah smelled blood in the water. He said, “Wow, Calvin, so many things going on here. Let’s start with the way you jumped up when I called your name. Did you forget that your mom had to accept the award for you?”

Calvin rubbed his eyes and didn’t answer.

“Very good,” said Micah. “We’ll take that as a definitive ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Let’s move on to the speech…er…if you can call it that. It had a beginning and an ending but not much in the middle. But maybe that’s just me. Let’s see what our judge has to say. Walter?”

Walter leaned against his mop like Moses leaning against his staff and said, “I liked it. From now on I think it should only be the moms and dads. It makes things more interesting. In ten seconds I figured out why he ran off to California, why he changed his name, and why he has to go to rehab. And I liked the speech, too. It was the perfect length. On the Budweiser six-pack scoring scale, I give it four out of six Budweisers.”

“OK…wow…very good…that’s a bit of a surprise,” said Micah. “Let’s check in with our alternate judges to get their feedback.”

The camera panned over to the men at the bar just in time to catch absolutely nothing.

“Very good, gentlemen, keep up the good work,” said Micah. Then he turned to Calvin, who’s green complexion had improved somewhat. “Wow! Calvin Robbs! You just scored four Budweisers. What do you have say about that?”

Calvin raised a timid fist into the air, and that was pretty much how the rest of the night unfolded. One by one StarBash portrayed the actors as self-indulgent idiots who didn’t even have enough sense to know they were idiots. Except for Brandi. Her blue-collar crassness sold well in Joe’s Jingletown Tavern. She got five Budweisers and blessed the world with another one of her honkytonk dances.

Cass’s speech came from her best actress academy award, and she’d correctly guessed that StarBash would save it for last. She’d also assumed that since each of her colleagues had survived their ambush in the spotlight, more or less, she would, too. That had been a mistake, which she soon found out.

“Presenting the award for best actress in a leading role, please welcome Micah Bailey.”

Micah opened the envelope, called her name, and Cass walked to the stage—no smile, no emotion, and hopefully no satisfaction for StarBash. Let them eat zombie shit. Just to cause maximum aggravation, she held the printed speech high enough to keep the cameras from getting a clear shot of her face. And then she read it like a dyslexic first grader. She made it as painful as humanly possible.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am so overwhelmed right now. I forgot everything I wanted to say. One thing I will never forget, though, is the day Harold Wasser handed me the script for Megabit and introduced me to a little hurricane named Sassie Manners. She changed my life that day, and she has not stopped yet. Thank you, Harold. Oh…so many others…thank you to Danny Myers and the rest of the gang at BFD Productions. Thank you to Joel Rooney and Rachel York and Rick Sprague and Karen Powell and Val Dedic and Ralph Maloof and Kim Laurela and Barn Hendricks and…Freddie Garcielo and…and…if I left you out, please forgive me. You know I love you. I love all of you. I never worked so hard on anything in my life. We literally slogged through eighteen-hour days for six straight exhausting weeks. And I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. That is how much I love this character. Thank you…thank you.” She left the stage like a robot, just as she’d entered it, and sat back in her chair.

Micah said, “OK, thank you, Cassandra Moreaux, for reading the phone book to us. The whole world is now truly inspired. Hopefully, Walter will be able to choke back the tears long enough to give us your score. Walter?”

The cameras focused on Walter. He looked different. For some reason the grumbling drudgery had suddenly ceased. He now stood at attention and appeared agitated. His white knuckles shook as they choked the life out of the mop handle. Then they released their grip, and the mop fell to the floor with a loud bang. He looked at Cass with piercing eyes and said, “Listen, young lady, I got something to tell you. You got a lot of things most of us can’t never even dream about, and maybe you deserve them, but that don’t mean you can take what don’t belong to you. You dance, and you sing, and you pretend. And we pay money to see you do it. And we work hard for that money. Harder than you’ll ever know, and I don’t care if you put in eighteen-hour days or twenty-four-hour days. It don’t compare. I hated your speech because you tried to take what don’t belong to you. One Budweiser, and I’m done with this shit.” And then he walked away, exiting through a swinging door by the bar counter.

Both Steadicams immediately surrounded Cass. She held up her head and looked straight ahead but could feel the other actors staring at her. Micah stared at her. Her emotions had been raw all night, and she finally broke. She said, “Really? I said I worked hard, so he storms out. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t exactly sound like the crime of the century!”

Nobody said a word. The cameras zoomed ever closer, hoping to capture any little nuance of guilt, begging for a full-blown meltdown. After a few seconds, in a quiet, hesitant voice, Micah said, “Cass, when a person gets paid millions of dollars for a two-month job, most people aren’t going to be interested in hearing about how difficult the work was. But you’re right, there is no crime here. You made an innocent statement that someone, for some reason, didn’t want to hear. Nothing more than that.” He then disconnected his body mic and said, “That’s it for me, guys. Let’s do the rest back at the ranch.” He looked sad.

On the drive back, Cass tried to let it go. She told herself that she had done nothing but hit a sore spot on a man who was probably excessively prickly. The real blame belonged to StarBash, but, of course, they didn’t care. Their exploitation bullshit had boiled over, and the cameras had scooped it up, just the way they had planned. And then Cass got an idea. She’d turn the tables on those shitheads and give them something really special to scoop up, and she’d give it to them Hollywood style. She unbuckled her seatbelt, stood up in the aisle, and yelled, “Stop the van!”

 

***

 

Micah got a call from the first AD, who had hitched a ride in one of the production trucks. She said, “Uh…Micah…I think we have a problem. Cass Moreaux jumped out of the actors’ van and looks like she’s heading back to the bar.”

Micah, who’d been the director for that night’s segment, said, “OK…get a camera on her and trail her…and make sure she stays safe. I’ll get everyone turned around.”

Micah and the lighting truck that carried him caught up with Cass about a half mile from the bar. She walked quickly and had a dozen strangers following along. At first this alarmed Micah—Cass had chosen to pull this stunt late at night and on the bad side of town—but then he watched her dart into a twenty-four-hour gasoline mini-mart and come out with six more people who seemed to happily follow along. Over the next several blocks, and after quick forays into another gas station, a taco stand, and a twenty-four-hour veterinary clinic, she steadily added to the group so that by the time she pushed into Joe’s Jingletown, Cass had rounded up a party of thirty or forty people.

“Does anyone have a knife?” Those comforting words greeted Micah when he reentered the bar. Cass had said them, and she now stood onstage with the old guitar in her hands. The Steadicams had the scene covered, and the rest of the crew had everything under control, so Micah relaxed against the back wall with the rest of the actors.

One of Cass’s posse, who had taken seats at the bar and around the tables, stood up and whipped out a large hunting knife.

“Mister, I said a knife, not a machete,” said Cass.

“Ah…this ain’t nothin’. You should see my other one,” said the knife wielder.

The crowd laughed. Cass said, “No thanks. That will do. Come up here and cut open my dress.”

The crowd hooted. The man came up onstage, and Cass showed him where to cut a slit in her evening gown. He smiled deviously for the crowd and obliged. Then she pushed him off the stage. Now Cass had some room to move. She put one foot up on the seat of a chair and straddled the guitar on her knee. She also exposed a portion of leg in the process. The crowd hooted some more. Shortly after this, the alternate judges at the bar abandoned their pledge of stoicism and turned around to watch the action. Walter, the prickly bartender, watched suspiciously as he scurried back and forth with foamy glasses of beer and shots of whiskey.

Cass calmly tuned the guitar and chatted with the audience.

She said, “What do you call a debutante with a broken nail? Depressed.”

The crowd offered up some groans and a few laughs.

“What do you call a debutante with five broken nails and a black eye? A prostitute.”

More groans and laughs.

“What do you call a debutante with ten broken nails? A car payment for Trang Nguyen.”

That one got mostly laughs.

“Hey, did you hear about the cowboy who rode his horse into the saloon?

“The bartender said, ‘Get that damn horse outta here.’

“The cowboy said, ‘But he’s a seeing-eye horse.’

“The bartender said, ‘Who you bullshittin’, mister? You ain’t blind.’

“‘Yeah, but I will be in about three hours.’”

More laughs. Cass gave the tune-up a final strum and said, “I’d like to play an old Johnny Cash song for you. It’s called ‘Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.’ The audience responded enthusiastically, including the six wise men at the bar. Even Walter flashed something that resembled a smile. Micah reached over to a small bank of light switches and dimmed the house lights. Cass gave him a quick wink, and Micah marveled at her composure. Seriously, how long has it been since this lady played a Johnny Cash song in front of an audience? he wondered. And now she’s up there like it’s just the next stop on a six-month tour.

Cass plucked a single note on the guitar. The audience quieted. The easy humor on Cass’s face became sober and reflective. She plucked another note, and another, and then she sang the ballad about a gun, a cowboy, and a mother’s love. The audience leaned into it, following every step of the way, until Cass finally strummed out the mother’s sad plea one last time as her son lay dead on the floor. And then it ended, but the audience waited one beat, two beats, three beats before applauding. Nobody wanted to break the spell, so they waited until the dam burst under its own weight.

“How ’bout if we add a little pepper sauce to this party?” asked Cass.

The room responded with cheers and whistles and applause.

“The song is called ‘Jackson,’ and I need some help with it. What about you, Walter? Do you know that song?” Cass looked at Walter, and so did everyone else.

“That song’s been in the jukebox for fifty years, and I ain’t a moron, so what do you think?” said Walter.

“Good, then get your ass up here, and help me out!” said Cass.

Walter threw down his bar towel and hustled up to the stage.

And then they sang, and they sang like the moment had been made for them. Two people from worlds so far apart that it hardly seemed worthwhile even acknowledging each other’s existence. But here they were now, side by side, ignoring reality, creating a new existence that fit perfectly into their current time and place. Micah saw this, and for the first time in his life he recognized a different kind of human connection that was intimate and fleeting, senseless and void of expectation. It drank the wine of here and now because tomorrow the intoxicating moment would be long gone. Two people had stepped onto a ledge together, bolstered by nothing more than a willingness to take a chance on an opportunity that promised to quickly disappear forever. To Micah it felt vulnerable, admirable, and unfamiliar.

And who had been the instigator of this unusual brand of brotherly love? Cass Moreaux. Granted, after the earlier problem, maybe she thought she had a point to prove, but she didn’t have to throw herself out there like this. And then she actually pulled it off. She connected, not just with Walter but with Walter and everyone else she had packed into the place. Micah had caught a glimpse of this geniality before, when Cass had been goofing around with the guys in the shop, but now he saw it more clearly. She had once again turned his expectations upside down.

The duet had been a good finish to an eventful day, at least that’s what Micah had assumed. The clock on the wall read 2:00 a.m., alcohol curfew, and the time had come to clear everyone out. But then again, Cass was a performer, and every performer has to have a big finish, so what happened next shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. As the clapping and stomping and whistling died down, Walter leaned into the microphone, jabbed his finger at the camera, and said, “I want to change my vote. This lady here gets six Budweisers, and in my book, she deserves every one of them!”

“Thank you, Walter, that means a lot to me, and I’ll cherish this moment for the rest of my life.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, fuzzy sideburns and all, and then said, “I also have something to say, to the people at StarBash. I want you to take a good look at what happened tonight because this is exactly what actors around the world do every day. We give people something to sing about. We give them something to look at besides problems. And when we’re done, sometimes their problems don’t look quite as big as they did before. And sometimes that’s all it takes to make it through another day. We’re not perfect, but we try our best, and we deserve some respect. There, now you heard it, but I’m sure it won’t do any good because as far as I’m concerned, you are nothing but a bunch of ignorant assholes.”

 

***

 

Cass won that week’s contest. Micah announced it to the world but not until after the producers had huddled with her to explain that the official rules had been clarified so that winning actors were not permitted to fire themselves. And, furthermore, firing Brandi Bonacore had also been taken off the table because she had been granted a StarBash “death voucher”…on account of her win the previous week. It didn’t take a great imagination to see through all this: Cass had her eye on the exit; the producers had to stop her at any cost, so they “clarified” the rule. And then they invented the handy-dandy “death voucher” to protect their other asset. Neither Cass nor Brandi would be going home anytime soon.

And the big insult that Cass had hurled at StarBash—the sincerity of which Micah admired—probably didn’t have the effect Cass had hoped. Not only did it survive the cutting table and make it into the episode, but they even used snippets of it in the weekly television commercial to promote the episode. The audience loved it, and the ratings climbed even higher. Cass had poked the beast in the eye, and the beast had turned it to gold.