The Technicolor Time Machine

“I have no idea of what you are talking about, but what you appear to be suggesting is impossible. I have my prac-ice and I could not possibly consider leaving it for twelve weeks—or even twelve hours. I have a very important engagement tonight and I must be going at once. Your secretary assured me that I would be home on time.”

“Absolutely,” Barney said with calm assurance. He had been over this ground before with Charley and he knew the way. “You’ll be on time for your appointment tonight, and you’ll be at work on Monday and everything will be fine, in addition to which you are going to have a holiday—all expenses paid—and three months’ pay to boot. Doesn’t that sound great? I’ll tell you what happens—”

“No!” Ruf croaked from the bed, rousing himself enough to shake a fist weakly. “I know what you’re trying to do, but the answer is no. I’m through with this picture, and I’m through with the crazy people out there. I saw what happened on the beach and I don’t want any more part of it.”

“Now, Ruf—”

“Don’t try and talk me around, Barney, you’re not changing my mind. I got an out with this leg so I’m washed up with this picture, and even if I didn’t have the leg we’d be through. You can’t make me act.”

Barney opened his mouth—he had a very nice remark that just described Rufs acting—then with a sudden burst of unaccustomed self-control he clapped it shut again. “We’ll talk about it in the morning, you get a good night’s sleep,” he mumbled between clamped lips, then turned and left before he said any more.

As he stood outside and closed the door of the trailer he closed the door on the picture as well, he knew that. And on his career. Ruf wasn’t going to change his mind, that was certain. Few ideas ever penetrated the muscle and bone to that tiny brain, but the few that got in stuck hard. He couldn’t force the overmuscled slob to go to a prehistoric island for a rest cure, and if he couldn’t—there went the film.

Barney stumbled and looked up, then realized that he had walked through the camp and almost to the shore without being aware of it. He was alone, on a hillock overlooking the beach and the bay. The sun was just above the horizon, edging a bank of low-lying cloud with a golden light that reflected on the water, breaking and reforming in molten patterns as the waves rolled in. It had the wild beauty of the world empty of man and he hated it, and everything about it. There was a rock lying by his foot and he picked it up and hurled it, as though the sea were a glass mirror that he hoped to break and destroy. But he hurt his arm when he threw it and the rock fell short and only clattered on the pebbles of the shore.

There wasn’t going to be a motion picture. He cursed out loud.

“What’s that mean?” Ottar’s voice rumbled from behind him. He spun about.

“It means get out of here you hairy-faced slob!”

Ottar shrugged and held out one big hand in which he clutched two bottles of Jack Daniels. “By my house you looked bad. Have a drink.”

Barney opened his mouth to say something scathing, remembered who he was talking to, so instead said, “Thanks,” and took the opened one. A long, long drink felt good going down.

“I came here for my daily pay, one bottle, then Dallas say that from his own silver he buy Ottar one bottle because of fight today. This a big day.”

“This a big day, all right. Pass the bottle. It’s the last day because this film is over, gone, finished, kaput. You know what that means?”

“No,” followed by a long gurgle.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t, you untarnished barbaric child of nature, you. In a funny way I really envy you.”

“Not a child of Nature. There was a man called Thord Horsehead, he was my father.”

“I mean really envy you, because you have the world made, your world that is. A strong arm, a good thirst, a good appetite, and never a moment’s doubt. Self-doubt, we live on it, and I bet you don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

“Self-doubt? That like sjálfsmord?”[12]

“Of course you don’t know it.” The Viking was sitting now and Barney dropped down himself so he could reach the bottle easier. The sun had set and the sky was a deep red at the horizon, blending into gray overhead, then darkening behind them.

“We’re making a film, Ottar, that’s what we’re doing, a motion picture. Entertainment and big business rolled into one. Money and art, they don’t mix but we’ve been mixing them for years. I’ve been in this business since I wore velvet knee pants and right now, today, at the ripe young age of forty-five I am out of it. Because without this masterpiece Climactic is going to fold, and when they go down the dram I go with them. And do you know why?”

“Have a drink.”

“Sure. I’ll tell you why. Because in my long and checkered career I have made seventy-three pictures and each and every one of them has been instantly forgettable. If I leave Climactic I am washed up since there are a lot better directors and producers around who are going to get any jobs that I may want.”