William Kitcher

Where Are You?

The actor John, portraying Uncle Ted, opened the door slowly, stepped through the shaft of light into semi-darkness, and, accompanied by a grin reminiscent of a lusty demon and a rumbling raspy voice born in a Kolkata sewer, said, “Where are you?” He hunched his back like a leprous wolf, spittle dripping from the corners of his gaping maw.

“Cut!” called the director. He pondered the moment as he gestured to his First A.D., Amy, to open the closet where the children were huddled. “John, you made some interesting choices there. Good for you playing with the words. The downside is that this isn’t a horror film. It’s a happy story about Uncle Ted playing with his niece and nephew when he’s babysitting them.”

“So, too much, then?” asked John, determined to do the best he could in his first film.

“Yeah,” said the director. “Rein it in, perhaps say ‘where are you?’ as if you’re playing a game of hide-and-seek, which is actually what you’re supposed to be doing.” The director remembered John was the grandson of the woman who was financing the movie. “Oh, and don’t step through the light. Stop right there so we can see your face.”

“Got it,” said John.

The children in the closet had finally stopped crying, and they were all ready for another take.

After the standard lightscameraaction, John opened the door and stepped into the light. “Stepped” is not the correct word. It was more of a hop/prance/pirouette/twirl followed by an ancient Greek eunuch’s “Where are you?”

“Cut!” said the director.

The children ran out of the closet to their respective agents, and were never seen again.

“How can I say this?” said the director. “That was a little too ‘light’, if you know what I mean.”

“So, somewhere in between,” said John.

“Good note,” said the director. “Amy, can you find a couple of kids who aren’t so easily, uh, terrified?”

“On it,” said Amy, who immediately called her sister, who had her kids on set within three minutes because they were waiting outside, expecting the prima donna kids to fail. Amy and her sister understood that their family progeny were too “animated” to originally get the parts but they knew the film biz was mercurial, so…

Takethreecameralightsactionallthat.

John opened the door and stepped into the light. As neutral as neutral can be, he said, “Where are you?”

The new children exploded out of the cupboard. The little boy launched himself at the waist of the drained ogre, and knocked him to the concrete carpet. The little girl sank her teeth into John’s left cheek (face, not bum), tore away a chunk of pasty flesh, and spat it out.

“Method actors,” said the director to himself, disapprovingly.

The little boy stuck his fist into the left side of John’s mouth, and yanked, creating a perfect twisted smile on John’s left-half-face.

John convulsed for a few moments as his face gushed. The camera continued to roll while the kids explored their characters and the inside of John’s skull.

John’s body shuddered three times and then was still. His death scene was better than Spencer Tracy or Walter Huston or Robert De Niro ever did, probably because none of them ever died on screen and in real life at the same time.

The camera continued to roll as Amy’s nephew and niece pursued their acting careers.

There was a lot of blood but actually not as much as you might expect.

Peace. Depending on your definition.

The set settled.

Someone called Emergency Medical Services but they were apparently busy with other things.

The director said, “I think we have something here.” He wandered around the set for a while, then said, “We might need a re-write. Maybe something that fits in with these new, uh, uh, developments… Where’s the writer?”

“I’m over here,” I said. “In fact, what you have here is the original script I wrote before all you assholes tinkered with it beyond recognition and turned it into some lame Hallmark weepy. Well, ‘original script’ except for the idea you killed the actor. Outside of that, it’s pretty much the same screenplay. How about we shoot the scene where the kids eat Uncle Ted? I mean, he’s already there, and I think we have a small window of opportunity before EMS shows up.”