I stood on the sidewalk, staring at the sign on the building in from of me. The Strip Joint glowed in hot pink flashing neon.
“This can’t be right,” I muttered. The building was very shabby with tiny windows and built out of dreary gray stucco. I looked down at the piece of paper in my hand. I had hastily written down the address and now wasn’t sure if I had deciphered my own scrawl correctly. I went through each number one at a time. 3-6-5-4-0 Westwood Boulevard. I squinted at the number tiles on the wall above the main entrance to the club. They were cracked and broken, but the numbers were still readable. This was it.
“It’s a strip club,” a voice next to me stated matter-of-factly. “What were you expecting, red carpet? Velvet ropes?”
I turned to my left and glanced at the round-faced redhead standing next to me. Fiercely loyal, incredibly independent and strongly opinionated. Her name was Caroline Brennan and she was my best friend. I shrugged. “It looks a bit seedy for a film set, that’s all.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” Caroline said as she looked at her watch. “We’re wicked late. Let’s just go in. Hopefully someone can help us – hey, look.” She pointed to a young man who had appeared in front of the building. He was smiling through a stubbly beard and waved as he navigated his way across the street to us. He was tall, stick thin with a slight hunch in his shoulders and wore tight jeans that were slung low on his hips with a wide black belt. Hooked to the belt on one hip was a walkie talkie connected to a microphone, one that cops wear on their shoulders, only his was clipped onto his fitted tee shirt. The weight of it was too much for the thin fabric and it pulled at the collar. When he got to us, he extended his hand towards me first and we shook.
“Hi, I’m Josh Beader,” he said as he pushed his aviator sunglasses off his face and into his mop of curly brown hair. His face was warm and kind, and even when his mouth stopped smiling his eyes did not.
“Yes of course. We spoke to on the phone,” I said. I gestured to Caroline. “This is the friend I told you about, Caroline,” I said. Josh let go of my hand to take hers.
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
“I’m so sorry we’re late,” she blurted out. She pointed to me with an accusing finger. “She’s new to LA and I let her drive. Big mistake.”
“I’m an excellent driver,” I announced to Josh in a voice louder than was necessary. He looked back and forth between the two of us, a small smile in the corner of his mouth.
“You two have been friends for a long time,” he said.
“Since we were nine,” I answered, my voice back at a normal volume. Josh nodded as if he expected this.
“Well, you made it and that’s what matters. Come on, this way.” He shoved his sunglasses back on his face and stepped off the curb back towards the strip club. We followed.
“Sorry about throwing you under the bus,” Caroline murmured to me as we jogged to keep up with Josh’s long strides.
“It’s fine,” I murmured back.
“I didn’t mean it was a big mistake to let you drive because you’re a bad driver. I just meant because you don’t know the city that well yet-”
“Yes you did. And it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Caroline had been a little sensitive about my driving ever since we were seniors in high school. I was driving her home from seeing a movie on a rainy fall night, down her very windy and poorly lit street. As I came around a turn, I hit a deer that was standing in the middle of the road. My car was totaled. We used her car most of the time after that.
“So, you said you don’t have any experience working on a film set, right?” he asked, glancing back at us.
“No, but I learn quickly,” I said.
“I went to college here, so I’ve had some experience,” replied Caroline. “I’d like to help any way I can.”
“Great,” said Josh. He led the way around the corner to the back of the strip club. There was a big parking lot with a large group of people milling around a small table with bagels and donuts on it. There were also a couple of small trucks, a motor home, and a bunch of film equipment scattered around the back door of the building. On the far side of the parking lot along the street were several more trailers.
Josh breezed through the lot, passed the food table and opened the back door of the club, holding it open for us. He brought his hand to his mic. “Hey Jess, can I get a couple of walkies with headsets to the parking lot please?” There was a pause.
“Copy that,” a bored voice squawked through his mic.
“Thanks,” Josh replied. He turned to us. “I’m going to show you around and then you can grab something to eat if you want.”
I turned to Caroline. “Free food? Awesome!”
“Yes, it’s the best thing ever,” she answered sarcastically. Josh disappeared into the club. We followed him.
The strong smell of musty carpet, stale alcohol and body oil was the first thing that hit me once we stepped inside.
“Sweet lord,” Caroline muttered as she cupped her hand over her mouth and nose. The door closed behind us with a resounding slam.
“This way,” I heard Josh say from several feet away. Caroline put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a little push, indicating I was to venture first into the gloom. I followed Josh’s voice down a long hallway, widening my eyes as far as they would go in a vain attempt to make them adjust to the darkness as quickly as possible.
“Don’t touch the walls in here,” warned Caroline.
“Believe me, I wasn’t going to,” I replied. My intuition had already told me not to touch any surface unless absolutely necessary. I almost bumped into Josh when he stopped at a door towards the end of the hall.
“You two have to go first,” he said. “Let me know if they’re decent, then I’ll come in after you.”
“Who are you talking about?” I asked.
“The strippers,” he said as if it were obvious.
“Okay sure, no problem,” Caroline cut in. She gestured to me to open the door and I turned the knob.
We stepped into a dressing room. The room was rectangular in shape and we were at a shorter end. Along each long side were long vanity counters with mirrors that ran the length of the room. Each woman, I counted eight in all, had claimed a section of table as their own, marking their territory with what seemed like an unnecessary amount of beauty products. Along the shorter opposite end were racks of clothes. Well. Not so much clothing as underwear.
I looked around at the women. There was nothing uniform about them. Two were tall and stick-like, though one was a redhead and the other had raven black hair and a heart tattoo on her collarbone. One was African American and within the normal spectrum of height and weight, there was also a short curvy one with dyed brassy blonde hair. An olive-skinned brunette, a petit Hispanic with a boy cropped haircut, a fair-skinned Swedish-looking blonde and a barely legal looking Asian rounded out the rest of them. A few were putting on makeup, others were fixing their hair. Some were topless, but most of them were wearing robes. They were talking amongst themselves and hadn’t even noticed that we were in the room.
“So, what do we do?” I asked Caroline. She shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But whatever it is, you’re doing it.”
“Why me?” I asked sharply.
“Because, you are the reason we’re here. You were the one who found this job on craigslist. I think that means you should talk to them.”
“But, you’re so good at addressing large groups of people,” I said.
“Do you think complimenting me is the only thing you have to do to get me to do what you want?” she asked.
“No,” I lied. “Please? I hate public speaking.”
“I know. And I hardly call eight half-naked women in a dressing room the public, but whatever. Fine.” She drew a deep breath, turning back towards the room. “Ladies, may I have your attention please?” she bellowed.
The whole room went completely silent and everybody’s attention turned to us. She really was good at addressing groups of people.
“I…we were sent in here by Josh because he wants to come in here…to…” Her voice trailed off and I realized the same time she did that we didn’t really know what Josh wanted with them.
“He just wants to talk to you,” I said, finding my voice and trying to give Caroline a hand.
“Right, so we just need to make sure everyone is decent before he comes in, that’s all.”
“Yes, so if everyone wants to get…decent, we’ll bring him in.”
“Not that we’re judging you if you consider yourself decent right now,” Caroline said quickly.
“Oh, of course not,” I added. “We hold no judgment. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be naked.”
“Or at least being comfortable being naked in front of strangers,” Caroline tried to correct me.
“Yes, it’s something that must come in very handy in your line of work,” I said. “It’s a gift really. Being comfortable. With yourself…” The more Caroline and I tried to be conversational with nakedness, the further we inadvertently shoved our proverbial feet down our throats. We both paused, trying to regroup.
“We just need to change the subject,” I whispered in Caroline’s ear.
“Yeah, only the subject we need to talk to them about is not being naked anymore,” she breathed.
We looked at the strippers. They were staring back at us, amused.
“You can bring him in,” said the tall leggy brunette with a heart tattoo on her collarbone. “We are, ahem, decent.”
“Great!” we both said in unison.
“Thank God for her,” I murmured.
“Yes, she’s my favorite so far,” Caroline murmured back. I opened the dressing room door and Josh stepped in.
“Hello, ladies,” he said. He didn’t seem at all fazed by the few nipples that were looking at him. They murmured hello back, not fazed either. He gestured to us and continued, “So you’ve met these two young women, they will be your guides today. Anything you need, they are the ones you go to. You can finish getting ready and then relax in here until we are close to shooting, which will hopefully be soon. Thanks!” Satisfied, he left the room, motioning us to follow him. We gratefully did.
He opened the back door and we stepped back out into the blinding Los Angeles sun. He glanced at us and put his hand to the mic clipped onto his shirt.
“Jess, how are those walkies coming?”
“I’m walking over now,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said into his mic. He turned to us. “So your job is pretty simple. You guys have to keep track of the strippers, make sure they know what’s going on, and most importantly, make sure they are ready to go when we are ready to bring them to set.”
“What exactly is this movie about?” I asked, trying to sound innocent. “It didn’t say anything in the ad on craigslist about this being porn.”
“It’s not porn, it’s low budget,” replied Josh, not taking offense from my question. “It’s a modern-day remake of Little Women. You know the story?” he asked.
“We’re from suburban Boston, so yes. We know the story,” answered Caroline.
“Is one of the sisters a stripper?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Josh after a moment.
“Wow,” Caroline said out of the corner of her mouth to me. “What a way to butcher a classic.”
“I know,” Josh said to us. “This movie isn’t going to be winning any Oscars, but sometimes you just need to work on a job for the experience, so you can be better when a project comes around that you really believe in. That’s what I’m doing. And by being here, you are too.”
Caroline and I nodded in agreement.
“I suppose that’s true,” I said.
“Are these the stripper wranglers?” a young woman said as she came up to us. She was short with a mane of unruly curly brown hair that she attempted to control by tying it all in a bun directly on top of her head. In each hand she held a walkie and what I guessed was the headset to match.
“This is my sister, Jess,” Josh said, mimicking her bored tone. “Jess, this is-“
“Josh!” a voice barked through his mic. Josh put his hand to his mic.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Get over to set, we need to talk about the schedule for tomorrow,” the voice said. It did not sound happy.
“Copy that,” said Josh. He turned to Jess. “Jess, can you show our newcomers-”
“Yeah, I think I can handle it,” she said as she shooed him away. “Go talk to Alex, he sounds pissed.”
“I’ll have Damon come out and get you,” he said to me. “He can show you the ropes.” With that, he hurried into the strip club. I looked around the parking lot and realized that it had emptied out considerably, and those who were left were hauling the remaining film equipment inside.
“All right, pay attention,” Jess said. She shoved one of her walkie and headset combos into my hands, while she held up the other. She chewed a big wad of gum and cracked it as she talked to us. “This is your walkie. Your walkie is your lifeline on a movie set. To turn it on, you twist this knob here.” She turned a knob on the top. It double beeped. “The double beep means the battery is good. This knob also controls the volume. Now this knob,” she said, fingering a second knob with numbers at the base of it, “This one controls what channel you are on. Production is on channel one. To transmit, you just push this big button down.” She turned the walkie over on its side, and tapped a big black flat button. “Don’t talk on the walkie unless absolutely necessary,” she added.
“Why not?” I asked. She rolled her eyes.
“Because, you are both green. The last thing Alex needs is some new girl stepping all over him when he’s trying to run the set.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean. And who’s Alex?,” Caroline said.
“Just don’t talk on the walkie unless someone specifically calls for you, okay?” She reached over and stuck the headset she was holding on Caroline’s head like a headband, then adjusted the little mic so that it was right in front of her mouth. She looked like she was a window employee at Burger King. Once Jess was satisfied the headset was secure, she clipped the walkie onto the front pocket of her jeans.
“Do I need to dress you too?” she asked me.
“No,” I answered defensively. “I can do it.”
“Good,” she said, “Take one of these.” She handed us each a flat black hunk of what looked like plastic. It had a clip on one side of it that looked just like the one on my walkie. “It’s a spare walkie battery,” she said, exasperated that we didn’t know. “Keep it on you.” With that, she walked away towards the trailers that were along the street.
As I finished putting my walkie on, a slight Asian kid with spiky blue hair busted out of the back door to the strip club. He spotted us and walked over to where we were standing. He was wearing big black clunky boots, baggy cargo pants and a collared shirt that was a few sizes too big. It was like he was trying to make up for his small stature by wearing huge clothes.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m Damon, I’m the key PA.” He put his fist out towards us. We stared at him. I had no idea what a key PA was, but after a minute I put up my fist out and he bumped it. Hard.
“Hi,” I said as I rubbed my knuckles. Damon didn’t seem to notice, he was too busy bumping fists with Caroline. After seeing our exchange, she took the offensive and practically bashed her knuckles into his.
“Whoa, hard bump,” he said half pained, half impressed. “C’mon. I’m going to show you around and introduce you to some people,” he said.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“We met the strippers already,” Caroline added.
“Yeah, maybe you’ll introduce me to some later,” he said, smiling at the prospect. When we didn’t answer he grew serious. “I was just kidding.”
He held the door open for us and we went back into the club. Once inside, we followed Damon down the same hallway we had been in with Josh. We went through a different door to another hallway with a bunch of small rooms off of it. A glimpse through an open door of one of these rooms made it clear that we were in a hallway of private rooms, where a guy sits in a chair and watches as a stripper dances for him behind a glass wall. Most of the equipment that had been outside of the club was now being put into this hallway or in these small rooms.
“Our first scene is in the private room at the end of the hall,” Damon said.
“Oh, okay,” I answered. A burly guy passed us grumbling something incoherently. As we continued down the hallway, the angry buzzing in the air grew louder and louder. Everyone was annoyed about something.
“What’s going on?” Caroline asked.
“We weren’t supposed to do this scene today, we were supposed to do it tomorrow,” Damon answered. “So not everyone is prepared to do it and it’s causing tension amongst the crew.”
Just then, Josh popped out of the room at the end of the hall. His bright eyes were dulled, his expression very serious. He spotted us standing with Damon and came over.
“Okay, you know how I told you two that you’d be hanging out with the strippers all day?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, forget all that. Now they aren’t going to work until later in the day. You both can be of other use in the meantime. You can stay here and help Damon on set,” he said to me. “Caroline, come with me please.” Caroline nodded and left with Josh, disappearing down the hall.
“All right, well. Let’s get you acclimated,” Damon said.
He introduced me to a lot of different crew members. He told me their names and job titles, but there were so many of them that there were very few names that I actually retained. My introductions were met with a wide range of responses, from enthusiastic to apathetic to mildly annoyed. Most were too busy to talk to me very long, something that Damon didn’t pick up on until they were literally walking away.
I did meet Alex, one of the few names I did remember. He was a tall man who wore a baseball cap and a headset that looked like he was in the secret service.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said when Damon introduced us. He shook my hand and smiled at me in a tired and stressed out sort of way.
The director was named Zach and easy to spot – he was tall, had a shaved head and wore a Lakers Jersey. Alex stuck to him like glue. I learned quickly that Zach was a jerk. The room we were filming in was small, so Damon stationed me way down the hallway in what he called a “lock up.” When we started rolling, and I heard Alex say it in my headset, I was supposed to yell “Rolling!” and make sure everyone in the hallway was quiet. I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do when we weren’t rolling, but I didn’t want to leave my post in case we started and I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I passed most of the time humming to myself and trying to observe what was going on around me, which wasn’t much. People came and went from that little room, brushing by me and most didn’t even acknowledge I was there. I tried to make eye contact with people and smile at them, hoping it would spark up a conversation, or at the very least a hello. But most were too stressed out to notice or care about the awkward humming blonde girl who went into full body spasms every time she forgot Caroline’s warning and absentmindedly leaned against the wall.
Zach had a booming voice, something that he seemed completely unaware of. Everything he said carried down the hallway to where I was stationed, and almost everything that came out of his mouth was a complaint about something.
“The light in here sucks, Archie!” I heard him yell for the third time. “What is this, a Paris Hilton home video? We aren’t in film school anymore, get some goddamn light in here that doesn’t make Julie look like she’s giving her lap dance in some guy’s basement!”
“Zach, I am doing the best I can,” I strained to hear Archie say. “We just don’t have what is necessary to get what you want.”
“You have to make it work with what we have,” Zach snapped. “That or we need more lights. Where’s Marcus. Someone get me Marcus!”
“Everyone, can we look for Marcus please? Zach wants to talk to Marcus,” Alex’s tired voice said into the walkie. I looked around. I didn’t know who Marcus was or what he did, but Damon seemed to. He darted in and out of all the rooms until he got to me.
“Marcus is one of the producers,” Damon explained. “He’s a big guy, you’ll know him when you see him, can you shout it out if you do?” I nodded.
“I’ve got Marcus,” Jess said in the walkie. “He’s coming in.”
Moments later, a big guy with a handlebar mustache came lumbering by me eating a donut. He disappeared into the room we were using as our set. As he stepped in, several other crew members stepped out.
“Marcus, this is bullshit, it really is. How am I supposed to make this movie look decent if we can’t even afford the light package I need?” Zach shouted.
“We’ve been through this, Zach,” Marcus answered in a southern drawl. “We simply don’t have the money.”
They argued about this for a while. The rest of the crew hung out in the hallway like college students sex-iled from their dorm rooms. Everyone seemed used to this arrangement. After a lot more yelling on Zach’s part, Marcus came out of the room. The crew straightened up and got back to work. I stayed at my lock-up, tuning out most of Zach’s continued whiny complaints until I heard him say, “I really need a coffee.”
As much as I was learning to despise him, I was desperate both to get some fresh air and actually feel like I was doing something that was in the slightest way helpful. I leapt down the hall towards that little room and popped my head in the doorway.
“I could get that for you,” I breathed. The entire room of crew members, including Zach, turned and stared at me. “The coffee,” I explained, feeling my face flush, “I can get the coffee.”
“Fine, yeah,” Zach said dismissively.
“Thank you,” Alex said.
I hurled myself down the hall and out the door. In the parking lot, the table with food on it was still there, only it wasn’t the same food anymore. The donuts and bagels from the morning had been replaced by chips, nuts, crackers and a lame assortment of other bagged snacks. There was also coffee, and as I stood there waiting for the pot to finish brewing I realized that I didn’t ask Zach how he took his coffee. I shrugged to myself and decided to make him a black coffee, then nabbed a few creams and sugars so he could add them if he wanted to. I flew back to set as quickly as I could. When I handed the coffee to Zach triumphantly, he peered into the cup without taking it from me.
“What the hell is that? Black?” he asked sourly.
“Well, you didn’t specify how you wanted it, so I brought cream and sugar.” I held out the cream and sugar packets.
“I don’t put cream in my coffee, I use milk,” he spat at me, “And it better be in there when you bring it back to me. With one sugar.”
I rushed back to the food table to fix Zach’s coffee. It spilled all over my hand as I ran, but I was so flustered I barely noticed. It was such a simple task, something that was easy to do and I still managed to fuck it up. And even though the rational part of my brain told me that I did everything right, the paranoid part questioned whether or not I could’ve done something differently to avoid getting yelled at. I set the coffee down on the table, staring at its surface searching for the milk.
“Where the hell is the milk?” I retorted to myself. A guy with a long ponytail who I vaguely remember as being a part of the sound department looked up from the Fritos he was scarfing down and pointed beneath the table.
“It’s in the cooler down there,” he said with his mouth full. I knelt down and flipped open the lid to the cooler. The only choice in there was whole milk and I didn’t know Zach’s milk preference. I just prayed his palate was not sophisticated enough to know the difference. The sound guy watched as I shakily poured the milk into the cup.
“You should get used to getting people coffee,” he mused as he watched me stir in a packet of sugar. “It’s going to be one of your responsibilities when you start in this business no matter what job you have.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled and brushed past him, yanking the door open to go back into the club. When I handed the coffee back to Zach moments later, he took it without even looking at me. I happily went back to my place in the hall where I remained for the rest of the morning.
Please check back soon for Chapter One: Coffee, Buns and Strippers Part Two.
Tags: Chapter 1
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