The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [92]
Lights, camera, action.
Bonnie led the children into the room and Camille leaned forward and said, “Let me see my beautiful children.” Caleb said nothing, arms crossed, and so Bonnie guided the children to the foot of the bed so that Camille could brush her hand across Buster’s face. “Cut!” Caleb shouted. “I want you to touch the girl’s face before you touch the boy’s.” Camille began to slam her fists into her pillow. “What is wrong with you?” she shouted.
“I just want it to be perfect,” Caleb replied.
Buster and Annie began to sob loudly and Camille pulled the children into her arms. Bonnie could not tell if this was real or part of the performance. One of the crew members was trying to reason with Caleb and placed a conciliatory hand on the director’s shoulder, which caused Caleb to slap the man’s hand away. “You get your hands off of me,” Caleb shouted. He gestured toward the documentary crew and said, “Keep filming, this is the process of a genius and you need to capture all of it.” Right after he said this, Caleb grabbed the script from his chair and began to rip it into tiny pieces. “Okay,” he said, “no more script. We’ll totally improvise this thing.” The film crew was simply standing around the set, staring at Caleb. “Lights, camera, action,” Caleb shouted, but no one moved. He pushed the cameraman toward the camera and that’s when one of the crew rushed Caleb and put him in a headlock. Another man grabbed Caleb’s legs to keep him from kicking anyone, and they dragged him off the set. Five minutes later, Caleb stormed back onto the set and began to swing the director’s chair like a weapon. He then grabbed the camera from the documentary film crew and summarily fired all of them. He shouted, “That’s a wrap,” and the crew quickly shuffled off the set, screaming obscenities at Caleb as they passed by. Once the set was totally empty except for the Fangs and Bonnie, the children immediately ceased crying and began to smile. Camille started to laugh and then clapped her hands slowly as Caleb took a deep bow. His nose was bleeding and his shirt was ripped so badly it was hanging off his body, but he shrugged and then said to his family, “What do you think?” Camille nodded and replied, “Absolutely beautiful.” Bonnie could not move, felt as if she was suffering from shock, and it wasn’t until nearly ten minutes had passed that Caleb noticed that Bonnie was crying, stuttering sobs that turned into hiccups. “Bonnie,” he said. “You did great. You did just fine.” He motioned toward the rest of the family and they stood around Bonnie and placed their hands on her shoulders, rubbing her back. “I was so scared,” Bonnie said. “That’s good,” Camille said. “That’s exactly how you should feel.”
They collected the equipment, retrieved every reel of film so they could edit it together later. Once things were cleared up, Caleb suggested that they go out to celebrate, and the children began to cheer. “I think I should probably go back home,” Bonnie said. “The hard work is over,” Caleb told her. “Now we can relax and talk about how it went.” Bonnie could not imagine anything she would want to do less, to relive the strangeness of the past few hours. “I don’t think I can,” she said. “I don’t think I can do what you do. I’m not a real artist.”
Camille touched Bonnie’s arm and said, “It’s always hard the first time. There are all these emotions and you don’t know which ones to trust. You know it’s not real but it feels so real that you can’t help but feel uneasy. It goes away, trust me.” Bonnie shook her head. “I can’t do it,” she said. “You have real promise, Bonnie,” Caleb said. “You are going to be something special, I can tell. You’re going to make something really bizarre and the four of us will be so happy to see it.” The entire family encircled Bonnie, hugging her until she felt like she was going to scream. And then the Fangs bounded away, their bodies electric with the pleasure of having created something worthwhile, and Bonnie watched as they disappeared down the street, a family bound