Chapter 11
Five AM was the call time for the Super Jesus 2 reshoots, but Isaac didn’t arrive at the Fox lot until well after mid-morning. Liz made a note of it. She also noticed how Isaac didn’t let his tardiness stop him from getting breakfast. She caught him at the craft service table, wolfing down a lox bagel with extra red onions. Liz touched the corner of her lip to indicate to Isaac where a schmear of cream cheese clung to his mouth for dear life. “So great to see you again. I hope you’ve been keeping out of trouble.”
“Doing my best,” Isaac said and took a credential from her with a sweaty hand. He was unsure if the source of his sweat was from normal first-day-of-school jitters with his new job or from the sexual tension he felt towards Liz. She looked good enough to eat. He licked his lips and captured the glob of curdled cream cheese. Yum.
“I hope you’re not nervous.”
Isaac grunted, admittedly overwhelmed. When her gaze didn’t enchant him, his eyes whirled around set, but there was too much activity to track. It was a system of organized chaos: rolling racks of costumes zooming by and wild-eyed extras searching high and low for their big break. Those big, furry sound sticks circled over Isaac’s head like predatory birds. He ducked as one dive-bombed him when its operator bent over to pour himself an OJ made from concentrate. The juice came from the spigot of a giant Gatorade athletic jug labeled “Staff.” The OJ set aside for the “Talent” was presented in a crystal pitcher so the fresh-squeezed pulp could remain visible. Isaac wondered where a simple screenwriter stood in the food chain.
“Mr. Lennox wants to see some new pages from you.”
“About that,” Isaac rubbed the back of his neck, stalling, “I’m still working on the ideas for the whole thing. Outlining.”
“You know, the last screenwriter told me once that writer’s block is one of the most important and necessary stages in the creative process.”
“Absolutely. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You can’t rush perfection.”
“I can’t. But Mr. Lennox can. That last screenwriter no longer works here,” Liz said, baring her teeth in a smile. “I’m sorry, but you should take it as a compliment. Normally he doesn’t read the scripts, preferring to farm out his opinions to focus groups and interns, but you gave him something that really caught his eye.”
“You serious?”
“Always, especially when directives from Mr. Lennox are involved. So, what gets you in the mood to write? Coffee? A controlled substance? A room of one’s own?”
“I think a meeting with Super Jesus would go a long way in helping me get those creative juices going. You know, get a sense of where he wants to take the character.”
Liz blinked and arched her eyebrows, taking a moment to deliberate. “I can’t offer you a one-on-one with him. The best I can give you is a chance to watch him shoot a couple of scenes.”
“I need him alone.”
“I assure you that it’s nothing personal. His schedule is incredibly tight. It’s the preference of the production. You’re describing a scenario that is simply out of my hands.”
“You remind me of a tour guide I had once.”
“What a sweet sentiment to share.” She pursed her lips.
“Is there somewhere private where I can work on my pages then?” Isaac knew he’d have to go it alone. He had now felt Liz out enough to realize she was no ally to him or his clandestine affairs, plus he figured it would be wise not to mix business with pleasure.
“We do have a dedicated writers’ room if you’re interested,” Liz suggested. Then, in what seemed like a passive-aggressive dig at Isaac’s indulgent salmon-laden breakfast, she took a humble spotted banana from the fruit bowl before leading him to his new office.
Together, they weaved through waves of PAs and picked their way over dolly tracks to get to the writers’ room. When they arrived at the door, Liz reviewed the day’s schedule before opening it. Isaac struggled to listen. There was a loud commotion coming from inside the writer’s room, literal hooting and hollering.
Mr. Lennox wanted ten pages by EOD, Liz said. Lunch would be provided. Her phone number was listed on the call sheet if he needed anything. Isaac blushed, his heart gushing. The feeling was foreign. It was not often someone entrusted him with a phone number, never mind their own.
“Welcome to the team.” Liz opened the door. She tossed in her banana as one does a hand grenade. Isaac watched the banana loop through the air, following a perfect parabola, before it landed with a splat in the middle of a conference table. Then, there was a flurry of fur as a room full of stinking monkeys leaped over their keyboards to get to the treat.
“Good luck!” Liz screamed over the screeching monkeys, pushing Isaac inside the writer's room and closing the door behind him. She did not look back. She had to prepare for bigger and better things than babysitting a screenwriter.
Isaac looked on in terror as the monkeys fought a tug-of-war for what remained of the banana and its peel. There were two warring factions. When Mr. Lennox said he wanted a diverse portfolio of writers for the franchise, Isaac didn’t expect it to include monkeys, never mind two species worth. Eventually, the rhesus monkeys prevailed over the diminutive capuchins, as Isaac had expected. It was survival of the fittest here. Isaac couldn’t help but spy the Gatorade jug in the corner, putting Isaac in his place in the pecking order between “Talent” and “Staff.”
Anxious, Isaac peeked at one of the pages a monkey had jammed into the nearest typewriter, trying to get a feel for his competition. His stomach dropped. He was horrified to see that he would have his work cut out for him to become Mr. Lennox’s favorite. Isaac didn’t know the poem he was reading was a sonnet, but he knew he was emotionally affected by it.
“My beloved banana, ripe and sweet
Symbol for the vigor I once held dear
It was a source of pride, a lovely treat
That I could share with someone, far or near
But, oh, alas, my banana is lost
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It slipped off, like leaves from the autumn tree
The price of my pain, I can’t guess the cost
But now, I'm left here, with a dusty wheeze
For I can't replace this sweet, yellow fruit
It's part of me that's never to return
But I bid farewell and am resolute
And carry on, though my spent heart does yearn
For my banana, once creamy and fair
I’ll miss thee, but at least no mo’ child care.”
Isaac picked up the poem to pocket it, hoping to pass it off to Liz whenever she asked for what he wrote today. But it wasn’t meant to be. Instead, Isaac’s sobbing due to the sonnet’s tender words drew the monkeys' attention. Rhesus monkeys may share 93% of their DNA with humans, but with curled lips and sharp teeth, they appeared more in common with vampires than humans as the creatures stalked Isaac, looking to take their poem back by force.
“I can explain!” Isaac pleaded.
But the monkeys had closed ranks, both species working in unison now to encircle him. Isaac had no choice but to return the sonnet he stole. He balled it up and threw it across the room. They chased his diversion, and he left the room as fast as he could, knowing the doorknob wouldn’t provide much of an obstacle for his opposable-thumbed cousins.
He ran. And ran.
It wasn’t until he left the sound stage and felt the sun on his face dry his tears that Isaac’s gait and breath fell back to an average pace, but it quickened again when he saw the twin towers of Century City lording over him in the distance. They teased him. He imagined what the skyline would look like without them. He shook his head to chase away the thought.
Tracking down Super Jesus would be more complex than it first appeared. That was the bad news. The good news was that he ditched his chaperone, Liz, so he was free to do what he wanted. Now was the time to don his proverbial deerstalker hat and question his first witness.
Isaac wandered around until he found a security guard. After Isaac flashed his credentials and sold a story about needing to “punch up some jokes,” the guard pointed Isaac towards Super Jesus’s Star Wagon. Isaac grinned, ready to finally get some answers from the superhero. No one was going to stop him now. No person, anyway. But what about a cat?
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Captain Flapjacks. Isaac didn’t have to think twice, choosing to chase down the cat instead of Super Jesus. A woman in a flamboyant, floral muumuu dress carried the cat in a crate. Isaac’s heart was racing again as he sprinted after her, dodging coffee-carrying gofers and celebrity-commandeered golf carts to catch his quarry.
Isaac watched her as she entered sound stage 33. It didn’t seem to matter how fast he ran, she always seemed to be one step ahead of him, but he finally caught up with her when there was nowhere else to go. Isaac was now in a hall with a single door at the end. He tumbled through it and came out on the other side in a dreamscape where the woman in the muumuu and 16 Captain Flapjacks cats greeted him.
“¡Dios Mio!” the woman cried, startled by Isaac’s intrusion. She had been tending to the cats as they slept, napped, and snoozed, but they all awoke as soon as the door slammed shut behind Isaac. They stared at him with 32 glowing, icy blue eyes. He was frozen. How curious. He felt naked, transfixed under their collective gaze as if it were a cold spotlight. It was eerie how similar they all looked to one another. He couldn’t tell them apart. This wasn’t a case where they were simply all the same species. Instead, they were carbon copies of each other, with identical markings and the same orange-cream coloring on their faces.
Isaac wanted to get closer to them to confirm his theory, but the woman stepped between him and them. Even a flash of his credentials didn’t get her to budge.
“You like my cats?” she asked.
“I love them,” Isaac assured her, and she took a breath of relief, allowing the cats to break their synchronistic movements. Some cats went back to sleep, some stretched, but some kept a watchful eye on Isaac.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” The woman beamed with pride. “I bred them.”
“Oh,” Isaac sighed with disappointment. “I thought they were clones.”
The woman laughed. “Oh no. If it were that simple, I wouldn’t be so well paid. Sorry to bore you, but these are the seventeen representatives I selected from I don’t even know how many litters.”
“I can’t take my eyes off them,” Isaac admitted.
“Yes, they’re cream-point Birmans, after all,” the breeder explained. “It’s in their blood to be worshipped. Just look at them.”
image [https://i.imgur.com/z4GO77f.png]
“But who’s doing the worshiping?” Isaac wondered.
“Burma.”
“I believe it’s pronounced Myanmar.”
“No one knows their origin except that they were the favored cat of Burmese monks. So, they’re temple cats.” The woman dangled a string toy to one of them, who batted it around with lazy indifference. “Their beauty is only exceeded by their rarity.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, yes! The entire breed was nearly eradicated in World War II. Another mystery.”
“Nazi bastards,” Isaac hissed.
“By VE day, only two Birmans were left in the entire world. Orloff and Xenia Kaabaa were their names.”
“What beautiful names. But have you ever known a Birman named Captain Flapjacks?”
“No,” the woman said, but how she choked out the denial led Isaac to believe otherwise.
“I have it on good authority that a cat by the name of Captain Flapjacks went missing.”
“My cats are my everything. My babies. I would never let anything befall one of them or call them something as profane and demeaning as Captain Flapjacks.” The woman picked up the cat she was trying to play with, held it close to her chest, and shielded it from Isaac. “Who told you such a ridiculous and ludicrous fib?”
“A psychic. Her name’s Anne. Are you familiar with her work?”
“I don’t do any dealings with psychics,” the woman declared, and Isaac believed her. “These cats are easily corruptible by such cosmic suggestions.”
“Of course,” Isaac nodded. “Are any of your cats missing? Perhaps stolen in a heist orchestrated by Margot Robbie?”
“You must be joking. Are you trolling me? Can I see your credentials again?”
Isaac dodged eye contact with the woman, and his eyes stumbled upon a cat drinking water from a bowl fed by the same style of crystal carafe that served OJ to the “Talent.” “What role do these cats play in the movie? Are they main or supporting characters? What have you trained them to do? Do not even think about pleading the fifth with me.”
“You should know! Aren’t you the screenwriter?” the woman asked with incredulity after examining his credentials again. “I think you need to leave. My cats are very tired, and you’re disturbing them.” Isaac looked around at the cats to verify her assertion. They did look tired. They were all stone still except for their tails which swished back and forth in a hypnotic pattern. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Isaac’s neck mirrored their movements, as charmed as a cobra. The woman watched him with disgust. “Are you a Slytherin?” she hissed.
“No,” Isaac coughed, clutching his neck at the spot where his pearls would be, “I’m the screenwriter.” His mind was racing, hoping to find a way to salvage the whole operation. If nothing else, he could settle for appeasing Anne by trying to pass off one of these cats as her own. “Can I have one of your cats?”
The woman’s lips turned into a snarl, similar to his monkey colleagues, but Isaac could not hear her rejoinder because she was interrupted by two bruisers who burst into the room with Liz leading them. The men behind LIz wore guns on their hips, dressed in full tactical gear, everything from combat boots to Oakley sunglasses, and their faces were as hard as their Kevlar vests. Liz was about to release these hounds on the cat handler until she saw Isaac and shot him a look of “You again?”
“Jane Furbury,” Liz addressed the woman, “these men are here from the Humane Society. There have been anonymous reports of animal abuse on set, and we’re obligated to investigate. So you will have to come with them.”
Both Isaac and Jane were astonished. However, the cats remained unmoved, even after the muscle from the Humane Society herded their trainer from the room. And that’s how Isaac found himself alone with the cats from Super Jesus 2. There wasn’t much internal debate about what to do next. How could Anne curse him for a thousand years if he gave her a perfect doppelganger to Captain Flapjacks? Theoretically, any of these cats could very well be the cat in question, and if it wasn’t, then how could he be blamed for such an innocent mistake? It was the ultimate case of plausible deniability.
Isaac called “Captain Flapjacks” out to the room on the off chance the cat would respond like a dog, but it didn’t provoke a reaction from any of his audience members. So there was only one thing left to do. Isaac, the fledgling wizard, invoked the only divining incantation he knew, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe….”