Page 4 of Lost Souls

Relishing the effect he is clearly having, her heartless tormentor proceeds with gusto. “What you also are is the job-less. The brain-less. What youreallyare is the fired-less. The fired!”

“Again?Arnie, it’s me, Cleo. Okay, Ada. Have youforgotten last night? Oil massage,Casablancaon Netflix, the shocker…” She sits down, eyes brimming with tears.

The entire room is glaring at Arnie. He shifts focus to address them all. “What am I paying you morons for?”

At this point, the director, a small, bespectacled, unassuming guy with bad skin and the accent of a Southern gentleman, feels duty-bound to intervene and speak up for his cast.

“If I may interrupt, Mistuh Garth – Arnie. Miss Cleo here was the only lady in this scene. As you doubtless are aware from the script – an excellent script, by the way, one of your finest – she is the dedicated nurse and Brent the eminent gynaecologist who is very kindly giving her a courtesy examination.”

Arnie, never immune to flattery, nods in agreement, as he recalls some of his earlier triumphs. Yet they can’t entirely quench his anger this morning. He is still smarting from today’s emailed rebuke from the powerful plumbers’ union. In the same way that the public has been led unrealistically to believe from police shows that every crime can be solved within the hour, viewers of Arnie’s movies now apparently have the unreasonable expectation that plumbers and other tradesmen, pool cleaners included, will always turn up within minutes or even seconds of a phone call from the lady or female employee of the house.

Instead of answering the man directly, Arnie looks around the room. His eyes fall on the sweet young wardrobe woman, who is oiling the zip on a pair of workman’s overalls in preparation for a future production.

“You!” he says, quite shocking her.

She looks up, her lubricating hand just beginning to shake.

“Wanna be in movies?”

The young woman nods, too intimidated to refuse.

“Cleo. Guess what: you’re rehired. As wardrobe. Take this young lady’s oil can and give her your outfit.”

He grabs the nervous young woman by the shoulders. “Kid, you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come like a star!”

To her own annoyance, all that Cleo Cleaves can hear herself saying is, “Thank you, Arnie,” which the choleric man doesn’t hear anyway, what with all the feverish pacing, the crazy, incessant hammering in his head and the now almost flesh-removing assault by his own hands on his tormented temples. He really should remove all the gold jewellery from his fingers before segueing into heavy stress mode.

“Listen up, people,” he announces, clapping his hands. “We are on day seven of a two-day shoot – and I wanna see orgasms! Great big, earth-quaking, San Andreas friggin’ fault orgasms.” He watches his crew as they simply stare at him, scared and transfixed. “You know how to have an orgasm, don’t you? You just pucker up your lips and go…” Arnie Garth suddenly grabs his head. “Ohhhhh!”

The cast all look at each other, then – what the hell? – they grab their own heads and imitate the maestro. “Ohhhhh!”

“Gaghhhh!” says Arnie, which is kind of a new one on them, but when in Rome…

“Gaghhhh!” comes the echo.

Now their tutor staggers sideways. So, in unison, thegroup staggers sideways, which is weird but sort of fun in its own way.

“Hghhhkkk!” continues Arnie, dropping to the floor on his knees.

Quite a climax, think his imitators, far from unimpressed. And not a little envious. They drop down too, with an equally heartfelt and expressive, “Hghhhkkk!”

Finally, or at least they hope finally, because they’ve had enough now with the earth-moving, their boss and mentor gives a long, wavering sigh and sprawls backwards, banging his head on the floor. And so the cast, thinking almost wistfully ofWhen Harry Met Sally, do the selfsame dramatically painful sprawl.

“So, was it good for you, Arnie?” murmurs Cleo from her prone position, her face almost scraping the makeshift studio floor. She only begins to be slightly concerned when she sees her producer just lying there, staring upwards, drooling and glassy-eyed.

“Arnie?ARNIE!”

Chapter Two

With a sweet tongue and kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair.

(Persian proverb)

Imagine, if youwill, a place as far away as you can get from the hedonistic fleshpots of Hollywood, California, USA. And from the salads.

We are not just talking miles here. We are talking lifestyle, outlook, ambience. We’re talking culture, politics, attitudes.

We are talking rain.