Memphis Movie by Corey Mesler Page B

is what I’m saying.”
    â€œAh,” Eric said, stalling. “You—you’ve never worked with him.”
    â€œOh, I love Dan. Yes, we’ve done two films together. You know , Meanwhile in Love ? He is wonderful. What I am asking is, will he say these lines? I’m betting not. You know he’s a notorious ad-libber, rewriting his lines at will?”
    â€œYes, I know. This is something Sandy and I have discussed. It’ll be fine. But you—you’re lost as to what is going to happen here if Dan goes off on his own?”
    â€œYes, I guess that’s a good way of putting it.”
    The meeting went a little smoother after this.
    Eric almost relaxed. They ran lines for a while, Eric, who was no actor, feeding her Dan’s lines, sometimes giving her a couple of options, a couple of maybe lines, some ways Dan Yumont might take his character.
    They drank a bit more. Once Hope Davis laid her hand on Eric’s arm. It was what the character might have done. Yet it hit Eric like the spark Prometheus stole. He wanted her to do it again, he wanted her to do it forever, but the gesture was never repeated.
    He tried to keep his mind on his movie. His movie. Hope Davis was so committed, so professional. He thought that she could seethat he was faking it, going through the motions. Perhaps not; perhaps it was only his personal mistrust.
    At the end of the evening, he kissed Hope Davis on the cheek.
    â€œTomorrow will be grand,” she said. Was this to comfort him? Did he seem at sea to her, in need of rescuing?
    â€œYes,” he answered.
    All the way back to his house his lips were numb as if he had ingested alum.
    He recalled a line he had read once but could not remember where: “Hope has left you like a painted dream.”

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    REEL TWO: UNFAITHFULNESS
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    I have a lot of tics and phobias. I hate to travel. I hate to go to festivals. I hate it when somebody gets close behind me. I’m scared of the darkness. I hate open doors.
    â€”Ingmar Bergman

30.
    There was one long table, where kings of ancient civilizations might have held their summits, a coarse, wooden monstrosity surrounded by folding chairs like suckling pups. Eric sat at one end of it, Sandy just to his right. It was early in the morning and there were a lot of groans and a lot of jokes about coffee.
    Here it is, Eric thought as he surveyed the table. Here is my movie.
    Even saying it he didn’t believe it. Didn’t believe it was his. Didn’t believe it would ever get made. It had been a rough road getting here.
    The missing chair just next to Sandy’s was Dan Yumont’s. The places weren’t marked but it was left empty anyway, in deference to him, the wayward star.
    Eric rose reluctantly.
    He had no prepared words. These read-throughs—how many had he managed in his long career? They were tiresome, being the first step, the baby step before the movie learned how to walk, much less dance.
    â€œIt is with a heavy heart that I tell you that we are about to begin the long and arduous process of dragging this movie into the light.”
    There were smiles. He was being breezy, he thought. Perhaps breezy was beyond him. Perhaps it was behind him.
    â€œOk, so Dan’s not here yet. I’ll read for him. Any questions before we begin? I’ve talked to all of you individually so you know the score here. The script is almost finished. If it seems that we’re on a road to nowhere, fret not. Sandy has written some pages that are shimmeringly beautiful. And, many of you may already know this: we’ve hired Camel Eros, the famous beat poet, to punch up the story, to add Memphis Mojo. His blues—that is, his blue sheets, should be with us in the coming days.”
    Sandy added: “The story hasn’t completely come together yet but I’ve got a visual concept, at least that, a good visual concept.”
    He looked up and down the table. These were pros. They