the whole slip shod shebang (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ethrosdemon) wrote,@ 2005-06-05 16:39:00 |
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Joel Plaskett’s a musician, the CBC is the Canadian national radio system (also television, but we avoid that at all costs), Dalhousie is a school, Lars Von Trier is an “auteur” who makes movies I hate (SCARRED FOR LIFE!), a PSP is a gaming device (boiled down a lot), Cronenberg is another crappy “arty” director I hate, and there is meta because I can not help it. It bleeds through. If you don’t know Charlie Kaufman, please head to the back of the line.
This is how I feel about fic: it’s not real, so why pin myself down with “facts”? If something doesn’t fit, force it.
Let's try Hayden on for size.
The Color of Wheat
Hayden is flipping through a brochure from Dalhousie and wondering if Nova Scotia would really be as moody and dramatic as he remembers it from his childhood when his phone rings. The ring tone, Mozart’s Requiem, alerts him to the fact it’s his agent, Maya.
“Not buying whatever you’re selling,” Halifax has a great music scene. Maybe he can meet Joel Plaskett.
“Oh, you will, youngling.” Maya likes to make Star Wars jokes, and Hayden lets her get away with it because he has a weakness for Indian chicks. His first true love, in second grade, was Neera Singh and he’s never really gotten over that.
“Do things blow up, are there space ships, horses, swashbuckling?” Hayden misses winter, plus the junior hockey down east is great.
“No, no, no, and no. Wait, there might be horses. And it’s not that Charlie Kaufman project I keep trying to get you to see the light about, either.” Hayden smiles to himself, pleased with his own obstinacy.
“I’m not Elijah.” Not that he really has anything against the guy, but Hayden doesn’t have to prove he can beat his most famous role. He’s not going to be that guy. He’d rather give it up, call Ewan, and take a bike trip through India.
“Well aware, babe. But you’re going to love this. They’re calling this kid the next von Trier.” She pauses, knowing he’s hooked.
“Yeah, ok, sell me.” There’s no chance. He’s going to university, but she likes her job, so he lets her try.
“A guy and his son, during pioneer times, keep plowing the same field, with a broken-down old ox. These scenes are intercut with the son obsessively pleasing himself manually and then going into town to have random sex with women in a brothel. The dad and son have all these philosophical conversations I don’t get. Apparently the entire thing is an allegory for the futility of life. Something like that. It’s called The Color of Wheat.”
Hayden is mildly interested. “Sounds like von Trier, true. Throw in some deeply buried political commentary and rape, you got him.” He’s not really a fan, but he respects the idea behind the art.
“I didn’t even get to the best part!” She’s excited. Hayden sets the brochure on his knee and waits. “Guess who’s signed on to be the dad? Inked the deal, signed, everything!”
The immediate roll of his stomach is followed by the face that he’s trying to not think of so much anymore. He doesn’t say Ewan; Maya’s too smart for that. “Viggo Mortensen.”
“What? How did you know that?” She’s really annoyed he burst her bubble, but Hayden was joking. Working with Viggo is something close to the holy grail. The guy’s like two years in the Actor’s Studio, free.
“Wait, no fucking way!” He leans forward, the brochure falling on the floor. “Send me the script.” He doesn’t pretend to be cool.
He’s not cool, man, he’s Hayden.
*
The script’s dense, hard material. It’s not even light enough to get a good showing at Sundance. It’s Euro audience and Toronto Filmfest material. Perfect. Hayden’s enough of a Canadian to have a latent disdain for Americans. Maybe if they get the right director this can be CanCon, and he can roll it into a whole Canadian thing. He’s wanted to do that for a while. Viggo has a relationship with Cronenberg, right?
Hayden doesn’t pretend to be anything but completely on-board when he calls Maya. He leaves the negotiating to Maya but tells her not to press; he has enough money.
He asks if she knows how much Viggo’s getting for the project. Scale. Viggo’s taking scale. She’s pissed at him for asking, but she knows she’s not going to be able to demand much more because Hayden is Hayden.
“Ewan doesn’t work for scale.” She’s really pissed. She probably wanted to ski in Chamonix.
“Look, why don’t you and Mimi use my place in Banff? Seriously.” He feels guilty. The girl’s got to make a living, got to justify him to her wife. Maybe he should tell her to fire him so she can take on an A-lister.
“Really? You know I love you, right? Mimi loves you, too.” She laughs and so does he, because Mimi fucking hates him for refusing to take the right roles in the big movies that would make Maya rich.
*
Hayden flies to L.A. for some read-throughs and crap Hollywood parties.
When he shows up for the first read-through he decides he’s really cool with the project. The screenwriter and director turn out to be a team, Scott and Bran. Whatever works for them.
They are Canadian, but so is half of L.A. Habs fans, but what can you do?
They’re around his age, not nearly as snobby and retarded as Hayden expects “intellectuals” to be. Bran’s all flipped out about his PSP, and Hayden pulls his out of his pocket and admits he’s an addict.
“I wish I had the hand-eye coordination to get into that subculture. Too many drugs.” Hayden turns towards the rattley, breathy voice, and Viggo Mortensen smiles at him, all crinkly, blueblue eyes and weird teeth. “Son.”
Viggo grabs him and hugs him like his long-lost, best-loved child. Hayden hugs him back and feels almost like crying from joy. He takes this to be his first method acting lesson.
*
Since they’re shooting in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere Saskatchewan, because this tiny, tiny town has the best preserved 19th century downtown in all of the prairies, Hayden rents a vacant house. There are a lot of vacant houses in Brixton, Saskatchewan.
As he spreads his sleeping bag on the worn floorboards the first night in town, he thinks about the loss of family farms and the decline of small town life. He feels a general ennui. He decides to sink into that, to become Thomas McLaren, his character. Tom has some issues. Tom has oedipal issues, and Hayden hopes the whole “I want to kill my father figure” motif isn't some kind of weird type-casting.
Later, he sits on the back porch wondering if he should walk to the general store and buy some candles. He’s got his lines for the first several scenes memorized, but in a couple days he’ll need some kind of light. Not that it gets dark before ten in the middle of summer, but after that.
“I have beer, sandwiches and an oil lamp.” Hayden glances down to the foot of the steps of the porch. Viggo’s holding a bag and a 12 pack of beer. His pants are thin, cotton, held up by suspenders and his shirt’s a dull, brown and cream check.
“Where’d you get those clothes?” Hayden rubs his leg through jeans and smiles. This is going to be fun.
“Wardrobe lady. If you offer to pay for them, they always give you the extras. First tip.” He sits down on the rocker next to Hayden’s, slides the beer over with his foot. Viggo clicks open a Zippo and lights a cigarette as Hayden leans down and rips open the top of the case of Kokanee. “Lots of room here.”
“Wanna move in?” Hayden glances over, big smile to blunt a rejection if it comes.
“Need to get some furniture.” Viggo accepts the beer Hayden offers.
The backyard ends at the drainage ditch for a field of wheat. The melancholy sinks back in as Hayden chews his ham sandwich, watching the long slide of evening on the prairie. He feels tiny in a huge world.
“It doesn’t get better, just shifts focus.” Viggo says around a mouthful of tuna.
*
Viggo finds a fishing hole the second day of principal photography. Hayden thinks fishing is just about the coolest shit ever. He catches nothing because every time something bites his line he yanks it out of the water in excitement.
Viggo catches five fish and makes Hayden gut them. Hayden is less thrilled with this part of the project. He doesn’t even think about telling Viggo to fuck off and do it himself.
*
There are some heavy rewrites thinning the heavy dialogue.
Hayden’s ennui presses towards depression during the second week of shooting.
“Maybe we should get the phone turned on.” Viggo runs his hand through his hair. There’s blue paint under his nails. The entire backyard has become an open-air studio.
“Yeah, I guess.” Hayden doesn’t feel like talking. He goes and sits in the backyard by Viggo’s painting. The blue spirals across a field of grayish green. Words sprawl on the opposite corner the sky presses me down with a promise of darkness to follow.
Hayden can feel that.
“Want to go for a drive?” Viggo blocks the sun, his head backlit, and offers his stained hand down to Hayden.
Hayden takes it and lets Viggo pull him up, wrap an arm around his shoulders and see-saw him to the beat-the-fuck-up pick up that Viggo had driven all the way from L.A. to Saskatchewan.
The drive is uneventful. Viggo likes the CBC. He patters out a running commentary about Canadian politics that Hayden would be amazed at if Viggo was anyone else. Instead, Hayden sees it as sort of a challenge to pay more attention to the boring-ass happenings in Ottawa.
*
During a break from shooting, standing in ankle-deep mud leaning against the plow and chugging down water, Viggo turns to Hayden with a mild smile.
“The telephone works both ways.” He passes Hayden the bottle of water.
Hayden finishes it off. “He’s married.”
“I can respect limits, but don’t lie to yourself.” Viggo turns and struggles through the mud towards Scott, the director.
Hayden feels an inexplicable anger. Viggo doesn’t know anything. Things are easy for a guy like him, making his own rules as he goes along, nobody ever questioning him. He’s Viggo and can wear matador suits and build teepees in co-stars’ front yards and people just laugh and love him more. Hayden isn’t that kind of person!
He wants to tell Viggo to fuck off and die.
When his anger simmers down a bit, Hayden almost laughs as he recognizes the reaction to Viggo as what it is--adolescent rage at being busted with the truth. He’s lying to himself, but he isn’t sure how exactly.
*
Hayden doesn’t call Ewan. When the set wraps at the end of the day, he lays in the backyard letting the mosquitoes and black flies bite him until Viggo comes out to work on his painting. Viggo has a portable radio he always tunes to the CBC.
“You ski?” Viggo asks.
“I board.” Hayden answers.
“If I told you I’ve been there, would you tell me to fuck off?” Viggo’s voice rasps around a cigarette held in his teeth.
“Probably.” The answer’s really yes, and they both know that. “I want to be an architect.”
“Huh. So does this guy I know named Brad. You should hook up with him.” When Hayden turns his head to see if Viggo’s fucking with him, he’s scribbling in a notebook hunched over his canvas.
*
Nothing goes wrong. The shoot is smooth. Scott’s a quick learner. Viggo only needs about three words of direction and he can play a scene five different ways.
Hayden learns a lot.
Hayden doesn’t really feel like moving out of the house on Murray Street. His lease is paid until the end of the month, and the film wraps on the 7th.
He had stopped checking the voicemail on his phone a week into shooting. He calls his mom and Tove twice a week, so they don’t worry, and he answers when he hears it ringing with Maya’s tone. Otherwise, no way.
Viggo stands next to his truck with his head cocked. “Fishing, wanna come?”
“Nah, got wallowing to do.” He tries to smile, but his face resists. Hayden thinks he’s pretty lame, and if he was Viggo, he’d totally be annoyed with this whole depresso routine.
But Viggo just gets in his truck and pulls out of the driveway with the wild smile that would have scared Hayden if he wasn’t so committed to this boring-ass sulking thing.
*
Hayden starts going to bed earlier and earlier.
He jogs half-marathons around the sagging Victorian houses.
Gus, who runs the general store, tells him he needs to eat more red meat.
Viggo lingers. He brings home vegetables from the farmers who adore him, giving him produce and inviting him to play poker, to marry their daughters and take over the farm one day.
Hayden only eats when Viggo watches him. He gets the point here that Viggo’s trying to dad him out of the rut. That only makes things worse since Hayden’s not just depressed but guilty about it. He guesses Viggo can't move on from his role as his dad until Hayden can move past the role of being his stupid, self-involved son.
He’s bored with himself. He lays in a field of swaying wheat, feeling gravity sit right on his chest. Nova Scotia and the ocean seem like a dream world.
He drifts to sleep imaging the sea of wheat rocking him.
Hayden struggles up from depressed exhaustion to a voice singing Luck Be a Lady. He thinks he’s still asleep. The wheat makes a shushing sound around him. He feels the press of an arm against his.
“Viggo forced me to come over with a fucking picnic basket. I dinna know they really made fucking wicker baskets with red and white checks. D’ye suppose he made it himself?” Ewan shifts against Hayden’s side, and his depression smothers any embarrassment or excitement he might normally feel about this situation. Thank Ganesh for small favors.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” A hand slips behind his neck, tilting it to the side. Hayden opens his eyes and blinks at the sudden brightness of the sun and Ewan’s eyes.
“What d’I tell you?” He’d told Hayden a lot of things. But Hayden knows which thing he means.
“’London has an airport, no different from most cities.’” Hayden mimics Ewan’s accent gaining a smile.
“Aye, you’re a useless shite, I tell ya. When I was in Los fucking Angeles, where were you, then? Making Viggo’s life worthless. You’re as bad as…” Hayden rolls on his side, shoving Ewan against the dirt and wheat.
“Don’t compare me to Jude.” The anger explodes in his chest, and Hayden’s heart zips into his mouth, adrenaline zagging through his body with nuclear bursts. Ewan blinks, smiling, laughing, head rolling back and forth as his shaggy hair picks up bits of wheat.
“I’d fight someone who compared me to him, too.” Ewan’s hand slides up the back of Hayden’s shirt. “I was comparing you to me. You’re as bad as me.”
The necessity of the rage lingers, giving Hayden the kick to drop over the edge, to drop his face to Ewan’s and fuck his mouth with his tongue like he’s wanted to for years.
Just fuck it.
And all the innuendo and invitations weren’t jokes after all. Ewan was serious when he said, “Look, life’s too fucking short to get tied up by shite you can n’ help. London has an airport, no different from most cities. If you want me, I’ll spread my legs for you, probably more than that.”
Hayden lets Ewan buck him off, flip him on his back. Ewans’s just as frenzied as Hayden feels, just as rough, leaving bruises on the back of Hayden’s neck and arms, making Hayden’s mouth raw with bites and scraping teeth.
Ewan leans up, whipping the buttons on Hayden’s fly open with a swift yank. “I’m gonnae ruin you for anyone else.”
Hayden’s neck cracks as his head falls back, connecting hard with the ground. He can’t watch Ewan suck his cock, because he’s already falling apart. Ewan’s already ruined him for anyone else, but fuck it if he’s going to admit that out loud.
Ewan’s not playing around, his mouth’s just there, and it feels like the first time Hayden’s ever gotten head.
Hayden’s all bucking hips and short exclamations. He digs his fingers into the dirt, chuffing, trying not to come too fast.
But Ewan doesn’t have a gag reflex, and Hayden thinks later that that just isn’t playing fair, and he can use his tongue and suck at the same time.
Hayden’s world explodes around Ewan’s name streaming out of his mouth and the knowledge that this is just the first time--just the first time for them and it could get even better.
When he opens his eyes, Ewan is kneeling next to him, and Hayden won’t lie, he has freeze-framed shots of Ewan’s cock in movies on his computer. But it’s a completely different experience to have the erect version right in front of you as Ewan’s hand works with a rhythm that has to hurt, his head thrown back and mouth open, watching Hayden.
When Hayden leans forward, makes a move to touch him, Ewan goes rigid and comes all over him. In his hair, on his face.
Hayden laughs, because it’s fucking funny.
Ewan collapses onto his back, his laughter sunshine bright and everything Hayden’s been avoiding thinking of for months. “If you lick it off, I don’t want to see. It’d make me ache.”
Hayden wipes his face with his t-shirt. “I’ll save that one for another time, then.” He watches Ewan--comfortable in his own skin, dick hanging out, arm over his eyes, sprawling.
Hayden wonders if he’ll ever be that secure. He thinks if it hasn’t happened yet, probably not.
“Shite, now I owe Viggo a favor. Cunt always comes up with the craziest fucking shite on the planet.” Ewan laughs again. “I bet you didn’t know Bloom has a bloody awful phobia about raccoons. Getting one of those bastards into a cage took a year off my life.”
Hayden figures he’s really the one who owes Viggo, and he doesn’t think it’s so bad. Maybe he’ll end up on one of Viggo’s records eating Cheetos into a microphone or, if he’s really lucky, he’ll get in on a practical joke on Orlando. Hayden can’t believe Viggo’s friends with that guy.
*
Once upon a time, when me and this other girl created an entire movie in order to slash Brad Pitt and the Irish Man Whore, I said “Why doesn’t everyone do this!!” and then the device just sat there waiting on me to find another victim. Congratulations, Hayden, you win!
Viggo is the real yoda, and you bitches will respect the mad-man!
For you people who claim to be RPS virgins, welcome to the Viggoness of it all. He’s missed you every second before y’all met.
Beta by Vic. Just forget all that stuff I said before.
I forgot to thank embitca, who is a total whore, for posting the article where Hayden disses Orlando. This I find v v amusing.
