WHY THEY CALL IT DRAMA

Where we left off yesterday: Our star had just quit, and e. was speaking from her local: "Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get this chick I just met on a barstool.  She's done performance art. If you take my meaning."

Now e. is not the sort of person who does verbal air quotes, so what was up with that? "She has a very authoritative air," she continued.  Oh.

 "You mean she speaks Phone Kitten?"

"More like Hellcat."

"Hire her."

"I already did."

Problem solved.

In the morning, e. would still have to make a Wal-Mart run for new granny pants before she picked up the Hellcat, but no big deal. That would give L. time to fire up the lights.

Eight-thirty came and went, with no B. and no L. Finally, at  ten after nine, L. arrived with nine thousand pounds of heavy equipment, half of which he proceeded to lug up the stairs. By Floor Three he didn't look right. Kind of celadon. Something, he explained, about a dubious soft-shell crab.

"You just sit down on that and rest," I pointed to one of his mammoth footlockers.

"Uh, maybe 911 instead?"

He was sort of kidding and sort of not, but the bottom line was this: No workee today.

Not to be callous, but I had a video to make. "Okay, okay," he managed to croak. "I'll see what I can do." Sliding pitifully off the trunk and onto the floor, he managed to dig his phone out of his pocket. I left him dialing in a crumpled heap while I went to let B. in and administer morphine when she heard the news. (Kidding, of course--it was actually high-octane coffee.)

And from his bed of pain, L. performed magic. By the time e. arrived with the granny pants and the star, we also had ace gaffer Keith, who hustled the rest of L's truckload onto the set before B. could finish her morphine drip.  Wait...coffee!

And then The Star arrived. Beautiful! An excellent actress, it turned out. And absolutely dead wrong for the part, which called for an overweight redhead. Well, forget overweight, the kitten was only barely chubby herself. But the hair. Inky black. Okay, a quick call to Fifi Mahony's, wiggers extraordinaire to the drag queens, Mardi Gras revelers, strippers, and performance artists of the French Quarter. Alas, not happening till noon.

 As it turned out, that was no problem at all. Although here was the deal:  The Star had only managed to work in the gig by giving away half her waitress shift, but she ABSOLUTELY, NO LEEWAY had to  be at work by five-thirty.

So good news and bad news: We had time to get a wig, but no time to make the video. Because the ace gaffer had to turn the set (aka my house) into a studio.

 Pretty soon I couldn't even find the dog's leash. Because by one-thirty p.m., my house was a studio. Miraculously,  though, the hellcat--now a redhead--had actually started to look the part.

By three-thirty they'd shot two out of twelve scenes.  I was never doing this to my house again. I was over all the personnel drama.
And the star was due at work at five-thirty. I took B. aside. "Look, if we don't get anyhting else, let's at least get the Big O scene. We can use it by itself if we have to."

Okay, she said, and, afraid of what I might do otherwise, I went in another room to rest my eyes. E. arrived shortly. "Got some black thread?"

 "Oh, sure," I said, "whatever you need." And then it occurred to
me to wonder what on earth they needed with black thread.  Black just wasn't in the phone kitten's pink-and-green palate. E. gave me a look I'd never seen on her face--a kind of braced-for-flight look. "Uh..."

"Come on You know I'll find out."

She spoke really fast, like maybe I wouldn't hear her that way. "They need to animate the roach."

YEEEEEK!  An hour and a half to go and they were animating roaches? Seeing my face, the hellcat
suddenly started purring: "Weeell...I guess I could cheat another half hour out of my shift."

Oh joy! A whole half hour!

"Could you just....do the Big O?" I croaked.

Nope. Not yet they couldn't. But damned if they didn't at approximately five-forty. We had to cut two scenes, but otherwise, guess what? We actually shot the video! I mean, they did.

There was only one other tiny mishap. At ten of six, The Star raced to the bathroom to change and next thing you know, wild shrieks issued out of there. This from a woman who'd work with roaches!  I was pretty sure she'd broken a leg, but e. knew exactly what the problem was. "Looked in the mirror, didn't you?" she asked. "With the granny pants on."

Yep. She had. Some things are worse than roaches.