Babe Ruth's Piano 4
Continued from two weeks ago... yet again.
The camera crew bustling into Lansing's room to film him waking up woke him up when the cameraman bumped a corner of the camera on the doorjamb and lurched back and forth, trampling the bag Lansing had been told to pack when preparing for the reality television show. He had always had this thing about his luggage and leaving it by the door. It wasn't for fear of burglars. In fact, it'd make more sense if he left the bag on the other side of the bed if that were the case. He just did. Perhaps he liked the thought, somewhere deep in his mind, of being able to roll out of bed and keep on rolling with momentum, swinging his arm down to pick up the bag and mosey right on out the door.
The cameraman clattered to a stop at the foot of the bedside table, knocking over a lamp on to the bed, which Lansing avoided by rolling deftly out of the way and on to the floor on the other side of the bed. The camera hit the hardwood floor with a camera-life-threatening crack.
"Sh*t!" said one of the guys holding some sort of microphone-looking thing. On second glance, from behind the bed, Lansing guessed that it was, indeed, a microphone.
The guy put the microphone on the now empty bed and tried to help his cameraman up.
The other guys' faces appeared at the door frame, looking alarmed. Jim had a shovel in his hands, while Bill gripped the doorframe, eyes darting about Lansing's room like fish let out of a plastic bag for the first time in years. You could see the thought that Lansing's room was bigger than his own spreading across his face, but he held quiet, looking down at the still camera on the floor and at the silent little video recorder that stood on the dresser opposite the door. Lansing noticed that Kim slid into his field of vision much later than the others, and with considerably less urgency about him. He was really going to need to watch that guy closely.
"Oh man, sh*t. Look, can we..." a third man, carrying just a clipboard waved his clipboard around at Lansing and the audioman trying to get the cameraman back to his feet. The cameraman was hugging the camera to himself, resisting the audioman's tugs. "Look! Here!" The clipboard man flapped his arms a little bit. The resulting breeze blew a few papers off the dresser. The papers were given to Lansing by the television show's people which discussed the rules of conduct and a waiver of his own likeness for television and advertising purposes. The clipboard man turned to Lansing. "Can we do this again? We're going to set up in this corner over here," he waved the clipboard at the papers, which had scuttled into the corner from which they planned to shoot, "and you can get back in bed," again, he gestured back towards the bed, "and pretend like you're waking up. And could you guys please get out." It wasn't a question. It was a statement, punctuated by the clipboard. "Is that camera okay?" he said, to the cameraman, who, through teary eyes, nodded yes.
Jim stepped in further, still brandishing the shovel.
"Where'd you get the shovel?" Lansing asked.
"It was outside your door." Jim hefted it once or twice and then leant it down against the wall.
"Hmmph," said Lansing.
The wake-up sessions recorded, "in the bag," the camera crew said, the four men had been ferried, by van, in the early morning light, out into the country. They stood outside at the edge of a small pond in the chilly air.
Jim's hands, whose were always in motion, anyway, rubbed them back and forth together. Bill had his soft hands stuffed in a down jacket, the only one of them to wear something suitable for the cool morning. They all had heard The Man and his greasy little head say the evening prior that they would be at a pond, which was presumably outside. It just... didn't seem to register. That it might be cold, especially in the early morning.
Since Lansing had slipped silently out of Jessica's life in Indianapolis a year before, he noticed himself often forgetting sensible things like coats and gloves. Once he forgot to wear socks. Which, he believed, Einstein did as well. Or perhaps that was apocryphal. At any rate, Lansing often found himself unprepared without the love... nevermind the love, without the aide, even, of a good woman. "Can't live with 'em, probably gonna freeze your ass off without 'em to remind you to wear a coat out," his father had always said. His father and mother both disappeared one winter while ice fishing. Which might have been poingant, in a way.
Kim was trying to put on a brave face like a good New Englander, but you could tell he was freezing. There just wasn't enough meat to him to keep himself warm in that damp, crisp air.
The four puffs of smoke from their mouths (and the four puffs from the television crew, who were trying desperately to keep their puffs away from the on-camera action) were joined by The Man's own.
"Good morning, gentlemen."
The gentlemen all nodded their heads and muttered good mornings back. Bill's teeth chattered slightly. Or perhaps he was chomping at the bit.
"I hope you all had a good restful evening... because this morning, you are going to be performing... The Dive!"
The cameraman swung the camera around from each of their faces, which was distracting, and resulted, almost uniformly, in panicked looks from all of them as it veered a bit too close for comfort past them.
Another van, which had been waiting off at the end of the road to the put in point at which they were gathered backed down the road until it was within the shot. The driver and a passenger got out and opened up the back. Lansing recoginised one of the guys that approached him outside the Cheesecake Factory in Los Angeles. They lifted out a palette on wheels which was loaded down with rubber dive suits and four tanks of oxygen.
Which is when Kim started screaming. Like really belting it out.
"No! No! I can't! NO!"
The Man, wincing, asked, "Why? What? What's wrong, Kim?" He looked over at the camera crew, hoping they could edit down the sound or perhaps frame that particular outbreak a bit better or cut it altogether.
"I can't do it! I can't do the dives!"
Kim's fellow contestants were wincing now, as well. They had attempted to look unruffled for the cameras at first, but found the shocking volume and pitch coming out of Kim too much to bear.
"What are you talking about, Kim?" The Man kept his distance, as per the show's rules, and tried looking concerned for Kim, in the hopes that that might sooth him.
"The dives. I can't do the dives. I just... I'm too scared of diving..." Kim looked about ready to collapse.
"Kim, this isn't that type of show."
"What?"
"We're not trying to scare you."
"Oh." Kim stepped back, and straightened a little. But he still didn't look sure of himself, or the situation.
"Sooo," said The Man. "You are going to don these suits, each of you, and make three dives apiece..."
"Nooooooo!" shouted Kim.
To be continued...
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