Yarggggghhhh!” screamed the Isabella character as she ran into the characters dressing room. “That’s it! That’s fucking it! That’s his idea of adding female characters, one bull dyke in a shrink-wrapped police uniform?…”
“Sheriff.”
“Police, sheriff whatever. …And, one frozen popsicle French tart?”
“Belgian.“
“What?”
“Belgian, she’s a Belgian. Walloon actually , French-speaking Belgians.”
“Who gives a shit, Belgian or loony, who cares? Is that the best he can do to add woman characters to the story? And he keeps adding fat men”
“Actually,” said the Vince character, “Big Flo is better described as husky, not fat.”
She looked at him and wrinkled up her nose as though something smelled bad, then grinned and asked, “Well, how was she?”
“Who?”
“The frozen French popsicle.”
“How should I know? First we were in bed. Then I wake up in her hotel room. Fiction authors do that you know, avoid describing the specific mechanics of the sex act itself… except for porn authors. Just once in my career in fiction, I would like my author to recount the simple give and take, so to speak, so that I can get to experience it. Maybe when you and I get to do it, he’ll do that.”
“Fat chance of that. I doubt if he knows himself. Besides, I am now your damned bodyguard not your bed mate.”
“Well, it could be like that movie where Costner plays the bodyguard to the singer and gets it on with her. Anyway, whats up? You seem out of sorts. Are you having your period?”
“Ohhh! that is such a man thing, always bringing that up to explain a woman’s moods.”
“Well,” he said grinning?
“How should I know? Most authors don’t write about that either, at least what the women really feels…only the jokes. …But something doesn’t add up” she continued.
“What do you mean?”
“Who are we,” the Isabella character exclaimed? “Or more accurately, why are we?”
“Huh,” the Vince character responded. “What are you talking about?”
“What are we doing in this story? It’s not about us at all.”
“Of course it is about us. We are the main protagonists.”
“Look at it this way. The story is about a business deal gone bad, not your or my emotional or physical reaction to it or even our involvement. We appear to be minor characters observing and not a party to whatever is going on.“
“You mean like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet?”
“Sort of…and you know what happened to them?”
“They died.”
“That’s just it. I have the feeling we are being set up by the author, to be… well, removed.”
“What do you mean,” said the Vince character in response to Isabella’s expression of concern?
“Well, the way I see it, it is like your character said when we met at Ike’s house, what we have here is simply a third-rate business screw up, so what’s the big deal?”
“Go on,” Vince encouraged. “I still don’t see what you’re so concerned about.”
“These type of business failures and frauds happen every day, but people don’t go running around committing suicide, killing people or setting up fall guys.”
“Well, maybe the Brethren are publicity shy.”
“Maybe,” she continued. “But their involvement is easily dismissed publicly as only another case of some abused and defrauded investors. No, it is something more, something bigger that if it came out would threaten everything,”
“So, I still don’t see what you’re so upset about. This is a thriller. The author, if he knows what he is doing, would want a conspiracy, the bigger the better.”
“No, no that’s not it,” she exclaimed, her voice rising. “What’s our role, your role?”
“I’m the reluctant but courageous hero who after many harrowing adventures prevails over the forces of darkness,” he responds smugly. “And you, why you’re my doxy,” he adds with a smile and leans forward to peer more closely at his face in the makeup mirror.
“That would work,” she responds derisively, “if you knew something that threatens them, whoever they are, which you don’t. Or they think you know something, which you don’t . Or you could stumble over something which you won’t because everyone knows the only reason you were brought into this novel was to die.”
Vince stared into Isabella’s eyes reflected in the make-up mirror.
“So,” he said slowly, “even if I were to agree with your dramatic conclusion, which I don’t, what could we do about it? It is the authors story after all.”
“We can try to change it,” she responded.
Vince broke out laughing with a laugh that was somewhere between mirth and nervousness.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said after finishing his show of feigned amusement. “It is the author’s story. The characters can do nothing about it. They only can play their part.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” she replied seriously. “Characters often make the story and the author respond to where the logic of his character leads. Even this author said that he was disappointed in his character Ike. He expected more of him.”
“I do not think that he ment quite what you think he ment, but,” he added thoughtfully, “I admit that I am intrigued somewhat by your suggestion. How do you propose we do this probably impossible thing.”
“Well, I do not really know for sure,” she said, “but we can start by after each scene you and I going over it to try to figure out what the hell is really is going on or what’s actually in the author’s mind, or even if he doesn’t know himself we can try to understand what could happen. We would be sort of like helping the Author along if you will…for our own benefit of course.”
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