Heartthrob (20 page)

They were heading north on the state road. She was behind the wheel of one of the production minivans, with Jericho in the passenger seat, and Susie McCoy and Jamaal Hawkes in the back.

With the set closed to any unnecessary personnel for the morning, and with all three of the actors not needed until the late afternoon, Susie McCoy had come up with a plan to visit Brandall Hall—the museum and former working plantation where the movie crew would be shooting later in the month.

Kate had been urging Jamaal to take a drive over to the historic site. He was struggling with playing Moses, and she thought it might give him some perspective to see the carefully preserved buildings—including a row of brick slave quarters that still stood along the drive in front of the big house.

Jamaal had hemmed and hawed until Susie expressed
an interest in going. And Jericho completely surprised Kate by inviting himself along.

With Kate as chaperone, Susie’s father seemed content to stay behind, thank goodness. While there was room for him in the van, there wasn’t any room for him in Kate’s brain. Too much was going on in there already even to consider taking on the additional angry baggage that Russell McCoy brought with him.

She glanced at Jericho again, waiting for his reply, wondering for the four thousandth time that morning how she should interpret the words he’d spoken earlier.

My problem, he’d said, is that you haven’t figured out I’m dead serious.

Had it been just another line, orchestrated to get a rise out of her? Or had he actually meant what he said? And how serious could dead serious possibly be? It hadn’t been that many days since Kate had been convinced Jericho hated her.

What kind of game was he playing?

“Actually, why I decided to become an actor is a long story,” Jericho said, answering Susie’s question.

“We’ve got until four o’clock,” Jamaal pointed out.

Jericho laughed. “It’s not that long a story.” He turned in his seat so that he was facing the back of the van. “I guess I knew when I was about nine years old. I used to spend entire days pretending I was someone else. My home life wasn’t very structured, and I could disappear for a day or two without anyone noticing. So I would go camping, or I’d hitch a ride into the city, and I’d pick a character and
be
that character for an afternoon or a weekend. I had some favorites that I came back to again and again, but for the most part, I created an entirely new life for myself each time. And I’d set myself a time limit, and for that entire time, I’d stay in character—I didn’t know it was called that at the time, but that’s what I’d do. Didn’t matter who I met and talked to. Whatever I did, I
had to do it as this other person—and I had to stay true to that character’s personality.

“I remember one time, I was probably around thirteen, and I was playing a kind of a prince-and-the-pauper-type game—you guys know that story? A prince trades places with a poor kid who looks just like him, and it’s fun for an afternoon. Only it turns out it’s not easy to make the switch back, and the prince is stuck out on the streets for far longer than he wants to be.”

Kate glanced in the rearview mirror. Both Susie and Jamaal were nodding, paying rapt attention. Hey, it was Jericho Beaumont talking to them, telling them about his childhood. He’d given interviews to magazines like
Premiere
and
Rolling Stone
, and he’d never answered any questions about his childhood.

Susie looked as if she had won the lottery. It was clear Jericho had meant every word of that apology he’d given her in the Grill.

“Well,” Jericho continued, “I’d decided I was going to be that prince for a weekend, and pretend that I was stuck in this crappy little Alabama town, unable to find my way back to London.” He laughed. “I took a bus into the city, and I spoke in a very proper British accent. I even had tea with my burger for lunch. I had just enough money to take the bus home—I’d saved it for weeks just for this game—because I figured Prince Harry wouldn’t know how to hitchhike. But I missed the last bus that night. And instead of breaking character and hitching home, I stayed in the bus station all night, waiting for the first morning bus.”

Kate could picture him, thirteen years old, sitting in a bus station, trapped by his own strict game rules.

“I was
so
hungry, but I knew if I spent any of my money on food, I wouldn’t have enough for the trip home. I remember sitting near this lady who was waiting on the 11:23 to Nashville, and she had a box of crackers in one of her bags. And, probably because I’d dressed myself so
neatly and even slicked back my hair, she asked me to watch her stuff while she took her kid into the bathroom. I sat there, wanting those crackers more than I’d wanted just about anything in my life, but I didn’t nick ’em, because even though it was something
I
might’ve done, Prince Harry had too much honor to steal. And for that night, I
was
Harry.”

Susie leaned forward. “But how did you get from playing games to knowing that you wanted to go to Hollywood? Didn’t I read somewhere that you just left for California when you were sixteen?”

“Yeah, you know, if I could live my life all over again, I’d do it differently,” Jericho told her. “I’d leave home a whole hell of a lot sooner.”

Kate glanced at him, sure he’d been about to say the exact opposite.

“And when I left, I’d make sure I took my mother with me. You guys know what a dysfunctional family is?” he asked, then answered for them. “Of course you do. Dumb question.”

“We’ve both played characters that come from really messed-up families,” Susie said.

“Played it, and lived it,” Jamaal added. “My father died when I was eight. It took my mother awhile to get back on track.”

“Yeah, well, my father was a raging alcoholic,” Jericho admitted, “and I mean that pretty literally. My mother was the queen of all enablers, and she drank too much, too. My older brother Tom was my father’s pride and joy, until one day he announced, ‘Oh, by the way, Dad, I’m gay.’ Tom left home, Dad drank himself into a stupor, beat the hell out of my mother, and I escaped to the movies.

“My other brother Leroy was a real party animal, and one night he got drunk and didn’t back off when a girl said no. She claimed date rape, Leroy conveniently didn’t remember anything, and the charges were eventually dropped
due to insufficient evidence. I remember getting the sense from my father that it would be okay with him even if Leroy
did
end up going to jail, because at least it proved he wasn’t gay. Ol’ Lee eventually got sent down to the state facility for his fourth DUI offense. He left to put in his eight months, Dad drank himself into a stupor, beat the hell out of Mom, and I escaped to the movies.

“A few months after that, my sister Louise got herself pregnant. She was seventeen, and I still remember her wedding pictures. They’d be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. The bride and groom both looked doomed, the wedding party are children, and both sets of parents look like they’re auditioning for roles as Nazi death camp commanders. I didn’t even bother going to the wedding. I just went to the movies.”

“I’m starting to pick up a pattern here,” Jamaal said.

“I started sneaking into the West Park Double Cinema when I was five,” Jericho said as Kate turned into the Brandall Plantation parking lot. “By the time I was ten, I was determined to find my way up there onto that screen. And when I was fourteen, there was a national casting call in Birmingham for one of the
Bad News Bears
sequels—remember those movies?”

As Kate glanced into the rearview mirror, she saw Susie look at Jamaal and grin.

“No sequels,” they said in unison, then both laughed, breaking the somber mood that Jericho’s grim story had cast.

“Yeah, good. You practice saying that.
Kill Zone II
—what a mistake,” Jericho told them with a smile. “But if I didn’t know that at age twenty-six, I sure as hell didn’t have a clue at fourteen. All I knew was they were casting for a movie in Birmingham on Saturday. My mother had to work, and I didn’t dare ask my dad for a ride. Tom had already left home, so I ended up hitchhiking on the interstate.
I left before dawn, and made it to the casting office just before three.”

Kate parked the van, but didn’t turn off the engine. She put it into park and left the air conditioner running. She turned to watch Jericho’s face as he told his story. He was a very good storyteller, but that didn’t surprise her at all.

“Turns out the audition was a scam,” Jericho said. “Oh, sure, they had us read lines from a script. And they took videotape they said they’d send to Hollywood. But the people running this particular open casting call also ran a talent management agency that made most of their money selling head-shot packages and acting classes. And when all those mamas brought their pretty little boys and girls in for the ‘national’ audition, that agency talked an awful lot of ’em into dishing out some serious cash to get a ‘Hollywood quality’ head shot.”

He paused, and Kate could see an echo of anger in his eyes, even after all those years. “I was counting on that audition to be my salvation, and at the time, I was too young to recognize it for the con game that it was. All I saw was the hope.

“I didn’t have two hundred dollars to invest in a head shot, and that worried me. Hell, I didn’t even have two dollars to buy myself lunch. But still, I waited my turn—probably for around two hours—and I went in and read, and they said ‘thank you.’ And I didn’t understand that meant they wanted me to leave. Thank you. You guys both know that means you’re done. Go away. Don’t call us.

“So I just stood there. I mean, this was when they were supposed to tell me I’d gotten the part, right?”

Kate wanted to cry, but she laughed softly instead.

Jericho laughed, too. “So one of the assistants hustles me out of there. Then I’m just standing in the waiting room, thinking maybe I should put a new name down on the sign-in list, wait another two hours and take another crack at it. And then one of the agents comes out of the
back room in a big hurry, and he comes up to me and says, thank God, you haven’t left yet. And I’m thinking, this is it. I got the part. And he says, I need to talk to your mama.

“And like a good little liar, I tell him my mama’s waiting out in the car with the baby—I figure I’d throw a baby in there, make it sound more real. And he goes, come on, I’ll walk you out, cause I really want to talk to her. And I figure there’s probably going to be hell to pay, but I haven’t got a choice now, and I have to tell him the truth—that I came to the audition by myself.

“And he kind of sizes me up, and asks me what were the chances of my parents coughing up the two hundred bucks to pay for head shots? And I basically tell him devil’s chance in heaven, and what do those pictures have to do with me getting this part? And he just stands there, kind of staring at me for a really long time.

“I’m starting to get a little nervous, you know. I just told this weirdo that I was on my own, seventy-five miles from home. And he tells me no, sorry, I didn’t get the part. I wasn’t gonna get the part. But he’s got this other job—a modeling job—and he knows I’ll be perfect for it.”

Kate held her breath, afraid of what was coming next. Pornography? Something illegal?

“But I’m like, screw modeling. I want to be in a movie. But he tells me lots of movie stars got their start modeling. And then he says this job pays thirty-five bucks an hour.

“And after I scrape myself up off the floor, he tells me he’ll make a deal with me. He’ll front me the money for the head shots. He’s a photographer himself—it’ll only cost about fifty bucks without him taking any profit—and after only two hours of work, I’ll be able to pay him back. In fact, there’s a job he knows about next Wednesday, posing for a newsprint ad for a Birmingham sporting goods store. It’ll only be about an hour of work, but it’s a start.

“We make a plan for me to meet him at his office next Wednesday. He gives me his business card—his name’s Danny Pierce, and I give him my name and phone number, and we shake hands.”

“He was legitimate?” Kate had to ask. “He wasn’t just some creep who wanted to take pictures of you without your clothes on?”

Jericho glanced at her. “No, it was a real job.”

“Oh, my God,” Susie said. “Do you still have the ads?”

“No, I didn’t get the job. I made the mistake of going home and telling my father. I thought he would think thirty-five bucks an hour was cool. I thought he’d be proud of me, but he went ballistic. He called modeling sissy work. He told me modeling and acting was for fags. He asked me if this was Tom’s influence.

“I stood tall, told him this had nothing to do with Tom. This was something I wanted. I told him about the sporting goods job on Wednesday. And I told him I didn’t give a damn what he thought. I was going to do it.

“So he kicked the crap out of me,” Jericho said matter-of-factly. “He broke my nose and nearly broke my jaw as well—he hit me so hard, his wedding ring cut me open.” He fingered the scar above his eyebrow. “It took the doctor twelve stitches to sew me up.”

Susie and Jamaal were dead silent. As Kate watched, Jericho smiled, but it was a grim smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

“The son of a bitch did it on purpose. He purposely messed up my face. When I went back to Birmingham on Wednesday, my nose was taped and I had two black eyes, a swollen lip, and that big Frankenstein cut on my forehead. And when Danny Pierce saw me, he nearly cried.

“I was green enough to think I could still do the job, but he set me straight. He told me to come back in six months or a year—maybe by then the scar I was going to have on my forehead would’ve started to fade. He told me in the
meantime to take as many acting classes as I could—or to get involved in whatever drama programs were available at my school.

“I did,” Jericho said. “And about a year later, I went back to see him, but his entire office was gone. There was a copy shop there instead, and no one inside had ever heard of Danny Pierce, let alone knew where he’d gone.

“But that day, that Wednesday I didn’t get a chance to earn thirty-five dollars an hour … I went home, and I stood in the bathroom, and I looked at myself in the mirror, and I made a vow. I was going to succeed. That was the day I started planning my escape. From that moment on, my entire focus was on getting to Hollywood and being successful once I got there. From that moment on, I was determined that someday I’d win an Oscar, and as I stood there on that stage, I would spit in my father’s eye. So there you go. End of story.”