ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AGAIN, I AM indebted to stunt coordinator and director Carolyn Day, to writer Linda Grant, and to my superb editors Michele Slung and Roxanna Aliaga. And, as always, to my agent Dominick Abel.
WHERE THE HELL is Guthrie?
Hell be here by call. He always is, Jed.
The second unit director nodded, and I subtracted a big bite from my account in the Stunt Doubles Bank of Trust. This gag was part of a sequence in the planning for over a month. Id been to the preproduction meeting, noted the storyboarding, and choreographed my part. My name would be in the credit roll. I always want gags to go right, but this one was special: it could make or break my future. Not to mention my neck.
Wed had a top-notch wheelman in on the planning and ready with his truck, but hed downed some bad crab last night and itd been all he could manage to lift the phone this morning. So Id called Damon Guthrie. Id vouched for him, promised he was a quick study, had a good resume, and, most important nowwas reliable.
Youve known him a long time?
Never missed a call. That I know of. Hes on his way.
Driving the rig? A flash of feareconomic fearwhitened Jed Elliots already pale face. Id worked with him beforeturned a busted fire gag into a showstopper and left him grinning ear to ear. Still, every time I saw him I was struck by what a worrier he was. So, I swallowed a retort and went for over-the-top reassurance.
Guthriell get here. Listen, hes the best. Hes modified that rig of his till its like a Swiss watch. He hits a button and the payload swings like a salsa dancers butt. Hes invested everything in that truck. Hes not going to blow this chance to recoup.
Yeah, but rehearsals
Tell him what you want and hell make it happen.
Minimally, hes going to need to scope the layout.
Sure. But were on a loading dock here. Its an easy drive. He comes full speed around that corner onto the pier, starts toward the ship. Im riding the bike, catch the tire in a rut, and do a fall, go into a power slide. He jackknifes and I go straight under his truck. Hell handle it.
Jed shot a glance at the second unit crewthe camera operators, lighting guys, wardrobe mistress, and landscapers making final adjustments to an arbor that would hide a cameraalong with everyone else hanging around, waiting for the truck to arrive and the days shoot to finish up. If Guthrie threw off the schedule and sent the shoot into tomorrow, paying the Port of Oakland for an extra day would pretty much blow the entire second unit budget, if we could get the dock at all.
Already the lighting tech was eyeing the bank lights hed used for a dusk shot, and it didnt take a mind reader to know he was gauging how long he could stretch daylight without losing continuity. We might squeeze out another quarter of an hour if we shot against the beige buildings rather than the cargo ship, but then thered be no point in being on the dock.
The photographer from the Oakland Tribune whod been clicking away when I did the first half of the gag had left, but the woman from the San Francisco Chronicle was after the city angle: San Francisco Girl Makes Good. She wanted to catch me coming out of the slide, and I wasnt about to turn down publicity.
Jed was staring at something on his clipboard. I dont know, Darcy. Its a split-second gag. If he screws up, theres no leeway. Without rehearsals
Well handle it.
Jed looked dubious, as well he might. A moment passed before he said, Its your head. The rate this fogs flooding in, were not going to get more than one shot.
I need to do a final run-through. Need to get out of this conversation and hope to hell Im right about my good friend Guthrie.
I loped toward the end of the pier. Mo Mason, in the camera cart that would be running next to me for the close-up, tooled it alongside me now. At the end of the dock, he cut in front and started bitching about Guthrie. You sure about the guy?
Never seen him fail.
You know him... well. It wasnt a question.
I thought wed been more subtle.
Listen, Ive worked with Guthrie before, he went on, but that doesnt mean I know him. Nobody does... except maybe you?
I stared down at him. Hes always shown up, right? Always aced the gag, right?
Yeah, but used to be hed cut it close, then pull out the gag, and afterwards hed take the crew out for a beer. By the end of the night he was everybodys best friend and no one remembered that half hour cooling our heels. But the last couple of times, it was just shoot and Im out of here. No drinks, no jokes, all business... like he was a different guy, you know?
Actually, I dont. Havent seen him in a year.
But youre the one who vouched for him. Arent you two
No. I forced a grin for him. Its complicated. And anything but full-time. But I love the guy even when hes off my radar. Uh-oh, look at the fog!
The startling wall of white was banked thick and high behind San Francisco across the Bay. Only the Sutro Tower was holding it back. Jed Elliot was right: in a few minutes itd stream over Twin Peaks and flood down the hills into downtown. Then, in a flash, itd be across the Bay and turning our shoot into mush.
Where the hell are you, Guthrie? No problem, you said. Youd be on the road by ten, here by four.
I understood there was a wildness about him. But Id always been a sucker for that in a guy, something I wasnt about to admit at this particular juncture. Guthries intensity burst out full force when he plotted a stunt, tossing out ideas like Frisbees to see which would be caught and brought back in, hunting down the cable with the least give or the most, finding an angle no one had tried, pushing the limits with each gag. But hed always kept that wildness under some control, like a thoroughbred in a fenced pasture. And as far as I knew, he had never, ever, blown a gag or held up production.
Until now. Where are you? Its my neck on the line here!
And itd be my body if I didnt do just what I told Jed Id come down here to domentally run through the gag one last time. I had the feeling Mo was thinking similarly. Driving the camera cart wasnt the same as doing the stunt, but it wasnt tooling along the freeway, either. You had to be alert for obstacles, figure where to move in close, gauge your speed, all the while keeping your target front and center. More than one cart guy had ended up on the paramedics gurney.
Enormous metal cranes stand at this end of the Port of Oakland loading docks as if ready to take the Bay in three steps and devour San Francisco. Id see them when I drove the Bay Bridge; I thought of them as Trojan birds, though the last thing they could have done was hide anything in their bellies. They hadnt eaten the city, but theyd made a meal of its port. Now San Francisco piers held shops and restaurants, while lowly Oakland sported the fifth-largest container port in the country.
My ride, an old fat-wheel bicycle, was lying at the tip of the dock where the last scene had ended. I balanced astride it, let my eyes go blank, and felt the wind snapping my hair, icing my bare neck. I heard the slap of the Bay, the whoosh of water as distant boats cut through the briny smell. For a moment I didnt name the sounds or smells, merely met them, as Id do on the cushion in the zendo. There, it wasnt a centering technique but an outcome of zazen, for no purpose but itself. Here, though, it shifted my focus away from Guthrieaway from Guthrie and meto the gag.
It was a timing gag. Easy. Guthrie and I had done this kind of thing together three or four times before, made it look deadly. Then celebrated after. And the next morning before dawn, one of us would be gone.
