There is a social demographic that exists on the movie set. Crew generally sticks with crew, sometimes departmental specific, sometimes cross pollinating with the regular principal cast and stand-ins. The people who come to work consistently. Background and under fives are usually sporadic, generally visitors and treated this way. But on a television series, there are core regulars who occupy the ambiance in the scenes that are repeatedly visited each episode. That wall of anonymity gets broken down slowly every time they return.
That is how I met Alex. We were brain damage buddies, both victims of brain trauma from accidents in our early twenties. And he was standing on both sides of the production fence. Working regularly with us with a sister and roommate on the production side. It was a matter of time before we had a conversation and multiple shoot days on the same set warranted it.
Last night I was initially in a really weird head space . I wanted to talk to my friend about stuff that we had started before he split for LA for good. I know he is going and I probably won't get to talk like we do again for a long time. Computers just ain't the same. Eye contact. Beats in between words. Human interaction gets a little jiggled and mashed. Not that I'm not grateful for the way technology keeps friendships in the now. Hopefully it will continue. I am a creature of my generation.
We decided that we would go into the city to hang out with the other people from the crew and a couple of cast people. I fall into a strange middle area of where do I fit in here and out of context. I work with these people and as I get to know them, I loved who they were. Howevah, crowds freaked me out a little. I like people but hate crowds. I am the reason that coffee bars were created.
And, as much as crowds freaked me out? Parking freaked me the fuck out. Post operative diagnosis from regular psychiatrist and neuropsychologist both diagnosed me with minor damage. Post traumatic stress disorder, ADD (or I guess ADHD now?) and I can't tell direction like a normal person. When I have to be somewhere, I usually mapquest it and GPS it so I have two forms of information in my head. So the combination of too much ambient noise in a crowd (I can't drink over it like the olden days) and trying to drive in downtown Providence made me nervous as a cat. I'm pretty sure we would have made it intact but there would have been tears. Alex was being a very patient human being and drove my car.
Truth is, I am not entirely sure why it was important to me to finish this interlude in our history. To conclude our previous conversations. Possibly because I tend to attach muse tags to people that I connect with and, besides being friends, I needed to take the creative energy I got from our conversations and spin it. Like now. It ain't easy living in a hyperactive creative mind. It's amazing who you'll find hanging out on a television set.
I knew if I never see him again, I'm walking away with something that I will value forever. Meeting a kindred spirit. And I need to finish delving into some writing places that, truly, he is the only person in my life who will know the difficulty of going down into the cranial abused pit. It's not like the brain damaged get a club house for weekly bicoastal meetings. Especially one who is this open with me.
We got to the big and brown wooded fancy bar. In Providence so after you got past the haute antiquity, you noticed the chalk board with the specials out in front of the space. And then you notice the demographic that was extremely mixed. Sports bar meets Fortune 500 business meeting. I doubt if the local color even noticed the television star sitting at the bar.
Nick, one of the cast leads said hi to Alex. Phil, another regular background who plays a medical examiner guy in scrubs, comes in. He has long pigtail dreadlocks and an enormous amount of infectious energy. I begin to relax.
The little dead girl from this show this afternoon comes over from the cast principal patch of the bar and Alex and I moved to a table, doing a yenta side step to let them be alone (which winds up insulting the little dead girl but oh well...it is forgotten later). Then comes Margo, Jeri's stand in. She is one of those women who is so beautiful that she can stop the movement in the room when she comes in. I had known her for a long time but, like Alex, got to know her differently on the set. Kate, the lead's stand in also arrives. She is a funny lady who also has a couple of kids and is really happy to be out. Alex's sister, a character as strong as her brother in a ridiculously pretty shell. One of the costume department guys normally quiet and isolated in his patch of wardrobe trailer. The Director's Guild's intern who is in charge of coordinating background actors. Finally Chris the 2nd 2nd assistant director and Andrew who does something I'm not quite sure of but is a nice guy. Some I see all of the time. Some I rarely get the pleasure to interact with on the set.
There are all of these people out of context from our natural environment. It could go a couple of ways. I could clam up and start falling asleep like I do a in a lot of crowds. Sort of like a narcoleptic turtle. I can't engage because I can't figure out what they are saying due to lack of focus or too many different noises. It takes too much energy to understand. Or another alternative is that I could cling on to Alex like an emotional barnacle....actually my secret fear.....being a pain in the ass self inflicted responsibility kill joy that would destroy a perfectly nice friendship with neurosis death rays. Or I can enjoy it because somewhere along the line I have become more than a body visiting a workplace.
We became people to each other. With personality traits and character dynamics. There is flirting and drinking and teasing and joking and serious moments and pictures taken and fake cigarettes dropped (don't ask) and pens used for nefarious tasks (again don't ask). And I recognize that I am a tremendously lucky person to have fallen into this world, even if it could only be for a little while. These are great people and I get to go see them on Tuesday again, spending the day creating something really cool.
Alex and his sister stand next to each other and sing together to the song playing over the loudspeaker. They look so much a like and they both exude happiness. They don't seem to give a shit what anyone else is thinking, just living in the moment. I hug him one last time. And it could really be one last time.
I've done this so many times before with old friends and mentally take note on the circumstance, appreciating it for what it is. A gift to know them all. A gift to have the friendship of this soul. Grateful that he bridged the gap for me and brokered me into this world that I was not comfortable stepping into initially for whatever reason. It may never be like that again. He won't be there to say hello to in the morning. But that's okay if he's happy moving on to the next step. It never is forever on a set. We are just lucky to get times like this.
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