02: SKYRANCH
 

 I always enjoyed the end of the ride, the approach to the house at the top of the long and winding road called Oakfield. Sometime ago, there must have been a field of Oaks around here, but there was no trace of such now. In the valley below it was all streets, parking lots, and shopping malls, so it seemed irrelevant.
 I chose to take the front way in, since the back outlet is a stretch of fire road, dirt and rocks mostly. The paved front better suited the classic Triumph. Leaning into turns you could feel the stiffness of the bike's age. Revving high into the straight-away, it shook with power and venerability. Mid-way up the hill, overlooking Beverly Glen Canyon, stood the majestic, pea-green Skyranch.
 Skyranch was a fitting name. It was a ranch-style house, cantilevered out over the canyon side, supported by stilts protruding from the inclined terrain. It made for breathtaking views from the back terrace, where you stood out in the canyon, high above it. Predatory hawks circled the sky during the daytime, and at night coyotes roamed the brush below.
 The dusk was always dramatic as the sun set over the next ridge, etching a vivid orange silhouette. The hill would fall into blackness, but you could still see the detailed outline of the fancy houses accented by surrounding palm trees at the peak. It looked like some ornate carving of ebony set against a shimmering color in a picture frame, everyday a different brilliant hue. I loved to sit there on that musty old couch, and watch the day dissolve in technicolor splendor.
 Skyranch was wide open; all glass along the canyon wall, with sliding doors to the terrace and curtains that never got drawn. A large room with a bar and sofa surrounded by three bedrooms, a kitchen and a garage. It was perfect. I marveled at it as I pulled into the garage. Bold California architecture that mastered the terrain, the spoils of living there mine for the taking.
 The garage was my temple for a while, as I struggled to piece together and restore the Triumph. A place where I got absorbed in a difficult and challenging task, where I stepped outside of my everyday concerns with greasy hands and soiled jeans. Ideas and thoughts had no place here. This was a place of schematics and design, the world of physics, a place we live in but so rarely notice. Here, I dallied with the underlying forces of the universe: electricity, magnetism, combustion, propulsion...
 The house was silent. I let myself into the kitchen through the garage entrance and noticed the absence of my housemates. It was always so quiet when no one was around. Skully was a musician, and had just recently brought a drum set home. He didn't even really play drums, he played guitar. Somebody was selling it real cheap, and he couldn't pass it up.
 It was a test of my patience, because every person that set foot in the house would inevitably wind up banging on those skins. But then again, so would I. You couldn't help it sometimes-- it was the perfect release for aggravated tension, with excellent angry sounds. And sometimes I would do it just to piss off Skully.
 Mark Sculloni was his real name, but our other roommate was also Mark, Mark Welder. "Skully" always brought to mind images of a defamed, deranged, one-time glorious pirate captain now living in squalor. The name was fun to say with a raspy slur, so it stuck. Welder got to keep being called Mark, even though we still seemed to always call him Welder.
 It was getting close to the magic hour, those still meditative dusk moments of terrace-sitting, I thought as I put down my keys and slumped over the bar. The bar was an ideal centerpiece in the home, I discovered. Besides the convenience of a wet bar, it has a special comfort of sitting upright, so you don't have to get up when you stop sitting. You just sort of come down off your barstool.
 The only people that hung around this bar were my friends. It was the place we would convene, both a clubhouse and war-room for drinking, eating, or fighting about the phone bill. Friends would stop by and small parties would develop. It had the ambiance of a dive-bar, and we were right at home.
 Damn you Amanda, I thought as I sat there. Why did things have to be so complicated. It was the first time in a while that a woman had maintained my interest for any extended period of time. We had laid down foundations for a relationship in the previous months. I was reluctant to give that up and be thrown back in an angry boat full of disgruntled fishermen looking for their catch.
 I heard a familiar roar approaching from the drive, which would be Mark's bike. Welder, that is. He rode a Japanese crotch-rocket, the performance kind. He was techno-minded, a geek with a brain for numbers and equations. He would think through figmentary diagrammed equations that finally translated to some colloquial truth which followed perfect logic. But sometimes, on occasion of human interest, he'd totally miss the mark. It was like he forgot to factor emotion in. Part man, part robot-- everything had to be correct. That was Welder. He was a nice contrast to Skully, who was both musician and artistic vagabond.
 I heard him walking through the kitchen. I didn't even notice his or Skully's bike wasn't in the garage when I walked in. My mind was busy pushing out thoughts of Amanda. Would she really prefer if I had a mistress? That would sure shake things up.
 "What's up, dude?" Mark greeted me as he entered the room.
 "Nothing. I just got back five minutes ago. Where's Skully?"
 "I think he's at his guitar lesson."
 Skully had begun to take his music seriously. He came to Hollywood to work on movies, like Mark and I, but his heart was in playing the guitar. Now he was considering going back east to study at the Berkelee School of Music. He was waiting to see if he got accepted.
 I remember when he first brought up the idea to me. We were sitting on the terrace. It was a still night and you could see the mist traveling in along the canyon. It raked up the hilltop, slowly enveloping the murky distance detail, leaving a dense backdrop of fog that trapped the moonlight.
 I encouraged him to go, to do what he felt in his heart. I admired him making such a bold move. I wished I had somewhere to go myself, but I knew my future, for the time being, was right here.
 "Oh yeah--Buck Nottingham called for you..." Mark spoke to me as he puttered around the room. "And there's gonna be a job with Rudolfo next week, probably Wednesday or Thursday."
 "Cool." Rudolfo was a cameraman we worked with. He and Mark had established a good working relationship; Mark was his gaffer, and I was Mark's best boy. Rudolfo was landing more and more music videos and we were along for the ride. We never knew when it was, who it was for, or what it was about until right before it happened. It was like being in the CIA in clandestine operations.
 It took us on some wild adventures. We drove out en masse to a dry lake bed in the middle of the desert once, and shot all day in blistering heat with no shelter from the sun. At dusk it was sunchaser chaos as we frantically tried to capture the last precious moments of daylight. When it was finally time to leave, after we had put away all the equipment, shut the work-light and sent the generator away with the transportation department, it was pitch-black darkness. We had no landmarks in the dry sparseness and no compass. All of the company had left with the usual urgency after wrap; as we drove alone, we realized we had no sense of direction at all.
 I loved the feeling of bewilderment, not knowing where we were going, and I just kept on driving, ignoring the logical reasoning of Rudolfo and Mark. Finally, they stopped talking when they realized they were making no progress. For a timeless period we roamed in the no-time world, the no-direction world, the world of darkness with only a sparkling twilight to navigate by, headed toward a future uncertain.
 When, eternities later, we found ourselves let out on a main road somewhere not far from where we had intended to go, it was only moments that we were lost. I immediately felt the oppressiveness of time hung back upon my shoulders, pulling me down. I wanted to turn back into the desert and drive aimlessly, seeing only the eight feet of scrub-brush the headlights illuminated, and kicking up a storm of dust behind me. I had found Nirvana in nowhere.
 The Skyranch got quiet again as Mark disappeared and I got absorbed in my thoughts. Then I heard him shouting from his room to me; "Dude I'm gonna go intercept Skully at his lesson and drag him over to the driving range. You want to go?"
 Golf was their latest indulgence. It seemed quirky to me, something the dorky kid down the block did with his grandpa because he made him. But I had been once or twice now, and had a good time. The driving range is intense at sundown; you stand at the tee, rifling off Superflights at a sinking ball of fire. Bathing in the amber glow with arms extended at the swing's maximum, your eyes search for the speck's landing, unlikely to find it as it burns and disintegrates in the distance.
 "Not tonight, thanks." Tonight I wanted to sit, and not busy the day's end with anything more than my thoughts.

*****

 "Uunngh."
 The California sun was hot on everything outside my window, reflecting light in of great intensity. I instinctively knew that it was about eleven o'clock. That was the time that the earth's rotation and the planetary alignment got together with the sun to wake me up every day. Today I could resist and pull the covers over my head, since I had no job to go to. That was the luxury of working freelance.
 I finally got up and brewed myself a pot of coffee, savoring it with the first cigarette. The daily morning ritual that I took hedonistic pleasure in. Then I loafed around for a while, for lack of motivation.
 Welder was already up and out of the house, and Skully was just coming to. He joined me for coffee at the bar, and we decided to go out for breakfast. It gave us somewhere to go in the morning when nothing else was on the agenda. This was L.A.; it could easily lead to something else.
 We went to Scoletti's, a deli with good food and prompt service. Our waiter, Larry, had an attitude. I liked him-- he reminded me of a New York waiter. I didn't have to pretend to be nice in the morning, when all I wanted was more coffee and food--no smiles and giggles or penned-in personal "thank-you" on the check from Debbie, your waitress.
 Skully and I didn't talk much today, we didn't have to. There was some kind of camaraderie in being aimless together.  But now he had found a purpose and another direction, and soon he would be gone. Where would that leave me, in Scoletti's, eating at the counter by myself? I didn't know. I had a purpose, I kept telling myself, and I was here in Hollywood seeing it through. But was I?
 My film was still sitting in my closet back in New York. Welder and I had produced it when we were at film school. It was completely shot, "in the can" as they say here in Hollywood. I wrote and directed it, Mark was the director of photography. We were prodigious students carrying out an ambitious project, barreling forward at any cost. We had lots of drive, and hadn't tasted the mechanics of the real world entertainment industry.
  When we graduated, we still hadn't completed post-production. We ran out of money, a problem common to ambitious filmmakers. The editing and printing and other technical finishing processes proved to be very costly and demanding.
 We started working on low-budget shows which didn't pay much and made you a slave. Something was lost. School was over, and we were working our way into the movie business. Winter came, and New York production got slow. We moved west and the film cans got left behind.
 Now, it all seemed so far away. We were on the verge of breaking into the union now. Sure, it was all about money and connections, just like they said, and a little nepotism didn't hurt. Nonetheless, we the uninitiated kept surviving, working the non-union jobs off the major lots until our time came.
 I was currently day-playing on the hottest show on television for the moment, Beverly Hills 90210, and it was poised to organize. That meant I would get my union card, and I could work on the major studio's multi-million dollar films. Though I should have been, I wasn't excited about it. It meant establishing myself as a professional lighting technician, swearing an oath to the brotherhood, and a commitment to the job. It was the next step. I was an independent filmmaker, as much as a lighting tech, or so I thought; I was afraid of it.
 When we got back to the house, there were a few messages on the answering machine. Buck Nottingham said something about a party tonight. Cool. Also, my buddy Rick Martinez had called, he wanted me to work on 90210 tonight. Condor duty. It was short notice, and I'd have to bag the party, but what the hell-- it always is. It was easy money, and I could use the cash. I paged him at the studio, he called me right back and I told him I'd be there. I had about two hours to get myself together.
 Forget calling Amanda. If she didn't miss me, she didn't need to know where I was. I just wanted to get her off of my mind. It was hard.
 What had happened to that sprightly little wood nymph that I had grown so fond of so quickly? We met on a film set and the attraction was magnetic. We were shooting a big party scene of a movie job shot locally. We made eye contact, and a strange hypnosis temporarily possessed me. When it passed, she was gone and I was left dazed. Being preoccupied with work and distressed by women, I shook it off and went about my work.
 Later that day, in a room full of people, I felt a sensation behind me and turned to meet her face-to-face. We could not ignore the chemistry that had taken hold of us. Now the pot was boiling.
 Tonight on 90210 we would be on location. It was better than being on stage-- that's like working in a coal mine. You went in early in the morning, and locked out the light of day. When you came out it was dark. If you peeked outside during lunch, the sun was so bright it would burn your eyes and make them tear. This evening we were at some rich Valley home, and we didn't start shooting until about four o'clock. That meant we'd be there until at least about four in the morning-- so much for Nottingham's party.
 The studio was near the Skyranch, just at the bottom of the hill in Van Nuys. So were most of the locations, due to their proximity to the stages. Today we were in Encino, the next town over. It was a wealthy area that could double for the show's setting of Beverly Hills, where shooting permits were difficult and expensive to obtain.
 I descended into the valley from our mountain retreat, got in a little early, and hit the caterer for some chow. That was one great thing about working on a show-- there was always an everlasting buffet, with hot meals every six hours. Now that's entertainment.
 It can get rough, though-- not always fun and games. Obscure locations, intolerable hours and working conditions, a race against time. It could be a test of breaking strength. But this was a TV show, a more timid animal by nature. The crew had to do this everyday, so they made it easy on themselves. It was a great gig, if you could get it; steady work being deemed a good thing in a world of short-term employment.
 We had a little bit of interior work to do before we moved outside at nightfall. The Condor was there when I arrived, pre-rigged and retracted on the street, waiting to hold me above the trees in mid-air limbo. I preferred it to working on the ground sometimes, depending on my mood.
 Tonight it suited my relaxed temper. You position the light where they want it up in the sky, then sit back in the bucket and let everyone else run around on the ground. As a Dedicated Lamp Operator, high above it all, I had a great perspective of the laborious pursuits my colleagues entertained. Run the cable, bring in the lights, turn them on, focus and tweak them, then clean it all up and do it again. All that work to recreate reality.
 It wasn't reality, though, it was fantasy. Young adults portraying high-school kids in an elitist environment. Fancy cars, fancy clothes, and family values. I only hoped the kids who watched it knew.
 It was getting dark and I would be flying soon. I went to the bathroom in anticipation-- not that it was so exciting to me, I did it all the time (fly in a Condor). It was either that or piss in a cup seventy feet above everyone.
 I did my business at the honey-wagon and headed back to the set. On my way I passed a group of young girls who were hanging around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the heartthrob stars. Instead, they got me.
 "Excuse me..." I heard a voice say meekly. I turned and looked at the girl. She couldn't have been more than fourteen. "Do you know Luke Perry?"
 "Not really," I replied, "why?"
 "Because I love him!" was the matter of fact answer. Every girl about that age loved him.
 "But you don't even know him!" was my flabbergasted response. I was amazed at her seriousness, she really loved a fictional character created for the media.
 "Can you introduce me to him?" She was so out of touch with reality, it was beyond explanation.
 "I'll see what I can do, but I think he is busy with the filming of the show." I walked on, and from behind me I heard her drone "But I looove him..."
 I was merciful to spare her the truth. What could she possibly know about love? Let her fantasy-love exist in her mind. Then she'll learn about the world besides television. She'll outgrow her teen fantasy, settle with some guy, get married, and live in a modified fantasy world. Her kids will grow up the same way she did, watching TV, believing what she sees is out there. Tearing away the veil would only complicate matters for her right now.
 For me it was too late-- I was part of the machinery, a moving part. I was headed right into the belly of the whale. The illusion Hollywood worked so hard to create was disappearing into thin air right before my eyes.
 Rick caught up with me as I returned to the set, and he handed me a walkie-talkie. "Here's your radio. You better go get your bucket ready, he's gonna want to send you up before dark. Get something to eat and hit the bathroom if you haven't already. The boys can take care of the set."
 Rick landed this job only recently, right after we got back from a location shoot in New Mexico. Gas, Food and Lodging was a small-town script about a mom and her two daughters, that took us to the truck-stop town of Deming.
 Rick was the best boy, and it was just him, me, and a gaffer as the electrical crew. We worked hard and bonded, forming the core of a lasting friendship. That was the last film we would do together for while, since he got the call to do 90210 right when we got back. Now he busied himself with this television job everyday.
 I would come visit, day-playing, when he had extra man-days available, such as tonight. Being the best boy, Rick's concerns were manpower and equipment. He hired the electric crew, unless Anton the gaffer had specific picks he wanted in the roster. He also arranged to contract the additional equipment necessary for a shoot, such as the Condor, and lights to go in it, if necessary.
 Many electricians thought best boy was the sweet spot, because you really didn't have to do any lifting if you didn't want to. You could simply show your subordinates what needed to be done, and go on to the next task on your agenda, while they performed theirs.
 This was the case on a big show, when running multiple teams within a crew. Then a best boy couldn't stop to help out, he or she was too busy handing out orders keeping the grand procession moving. On the smaller shows one might pitch in, or oversee and conduct, such as was with these one-hour episodic dramas.
 The really wimpy ones will weasel out of any manual labor, laying claim to some diplomatic immunity that doesn't exist in a team environment. On one later venture when I was rigging gaffer (for a related crew that does the electrical rigging), I explained to the first unit best boy that we would move on to a new location and leave some equipment behind for he and his crew to wrap.
 "Oh, I don't touch the stuff," was his reply, and I wondered how he ever even got any work at all with an attitude like that.
 Rick, on the other hand, had a natural proclivity for the best boy position. "It isn't brain surgery," you would often hear him say. He knew how to run a team, was open to suggestions, but also knew when to put his foot down. True, you didn't have to be a genius, but a few IQ points didn't hurt nonetheless. No pocket protectors here, though-- the willingness to get dirty was pretty much prerequisite.
 Electricians were a peculiar bunch, that much was becoming clear as I met up with and surrounded myself with more of my kind. There were certain generalized caricatures that adhered to the different crew departments: the slovenly grip, the anal-retentive assistant director, the meticulously clean camera assistant. As for electricians, it was hard to put your finger on, though there was definitely some common denominator. You needed a head for numbers and math, muscle to move heavy equipment around, and the patience to de-tangle a string of knots a mile long. It called for some pretty interesting character profiles.
 How did I wind up in this eclectic bunch? I don't know, I guess I fit the description. My friends were electricians, which was a good thing, because friends were where you got your work from. More crucial than the skills you brought to the workplace was your personality, because no matter how good an electrician you were, you had to hang around the company twelve to twenty hours a day. If you were busy, which I was becoming more and more, your social and professional life began to merge, as I noticed was happening to me.
 "You're pretty psyched to go union?" I asked Rick as we readied the Condor.
 "Well, yeah-- I guess. The pay increase alone is enough to get psyched about. Then there's the health benefits and pension. Just think-- no more flat rates or cume-overtime deals; how cool is that?"
 They had already met with the union organizers, who came down and passed out blue cards indicating "authorization for representation." The show's producers would soon be faced with an ultimatum; go union, or hire a new crew and be picketed. A new show as this was, enjoying such success, would inevitably be forced to turn. Rick and the others would get their union cards, emancipated into the working-class ranks of filmdom.
 I had my foot in the door. When the show turned, any days I had previously worked would be retroactive, and I would be on "permit" status, allowing me to work union in the future. When I worked a total of thirty days, I would be eligible to join. With Rick on my side, that would only be a matter of time. Still, I had some trepidation, as I intoned.
 "Yeah, you're set up. You're on this show every day, you may as well get the benefits. Most of my work is non-union, though."
 "You'll meet people. You just got to get in the right circles."
 "Circles?"  I repeated, as my thoughts drifted off. I saw myself as a Hollywood technician, some years in the future. Rick's words broke me from the trance.
 "Yeah, dude. It's all about circles. You'll meet people here, and other guys we work with will turn. And then there'll be new people. We just have to expand the circle."
 What he said was true. After all, we had made it this far. He made it clear I wasn't alone, either. Who knew how long this job would last for him?
 "Yeah, I guess you're right..." I just wasn't so sure I liked what I heard. I had always steered clear of organizations and fraternities, my independent nature made it so. Then there was all that hearsay about the unions; the prohibitive atmosphere of the workplace, the begrudging attitude of the workers. I didn't know what to expect, didn't know if it was for me, and most of all, didn't want to commit.
 I liked the struggle of independent film. It was a challenge, coming to work everyday, overcoming the obstacles. You never knew what to expect, and it kept you on your toes. Of course, we were learning as we went along, so we didn't know any better. It might be nice to learn from the pros for a change, or be on a handsomely budgeted production. And then there's the pay increase, to union scale-- roughly double the steadily declining non-union rate.
 "...Circles." I repeated it again, as my thoughts of a future uncertain crashed around in my brain. Then I thought of the child, who one day imagined he would be here, working in film and television.
 "Totally circles. You'll see. Here, help me move this banded." He pointed to a few coils of banded cable lying in the gutter. As we transferred them to a cable-cart, I held one up.
 "Circles." I reiterated and confirmed, showing it to Rick.
 "It's all about circles."

*****