THE ACTOR
David Wong Pine

The funeral was held in Martinique.

Armand Laker’s first wife was buried there. Despite the fact he was currently married,
(I think he’d been married three or four times) his Will specified he be buried beside her.

I attended, but felt a bastard at a family reunion, though I should be there.

Mr. Laker had given me my ‘chance’, though that’s not how it rated on my scorecard.
I didn’t want to play barbarians or aliens, I wanted to be a ’street clothes’ actor.

At Ramala Acting Academy our instructors were clear about what constitutes serious
acting and what was ‘part playing’.

Aliens and barbarians were part playing.

I suppose being tall, with an exotic appearance, well built, condemned me to these kinds
of roles. Though proud of my character on ‘Live Again‘, it seemed not to ‘count’.

Mr. Laker had dismissed it and me, as if appearing on a ‘Soap’ was no different from a
commercial for drain cleaner where I portrayed the second man on the left.

I realise now, had I been avid, I’d have gained the role of Tamerlane. Another actor
would rue it, as the film of the same name had won Best Picture and all three of the
supporting actors had been nominated, and Dimitri had won.

Had I taken the role, I doubt, with my best efforts, I’d have been nominated, critics
don’t see cartoons, they see roles.

As Passing Perfect was Mr. Laker’s last work it would get more attention than it might
have gotten otherwise, but perhaps the war, and how he died, and all the myths and
rumours, were enough to catapult it to fame.

I was recognisable now, but not part of the elite. They swarmed as ravens in their black,
photographers snapping, giving me one or two notes out of courtesy, I suppose.

Although I was his latest ‘find’ and should milk it for what it was worth, I felt an interloper.

No one talked to me beyond; “Oh, yes, I saw you in Passing Perfect,” and I would blush,
because they did see me, all of me.

They saw me.

They didn’t comment on my acting, for there wasn’t much of that. Just a lot of nudity.

I left the funeral, walked along the beach.

I was dressed in a very light suit of dark grey, took off the jacket to expose the white
vest, the sand too hot for me to remove my shoes.

With my bulky arms exposed, I thought of Doug Hooker. When he was being a Eugenic.

What he did, which I found so remarkable, was that when he was in ‘character’, he
would look at his body with admiration. He’d study himself, with a kind of lust/love/pride,
as an artist would admire a statue.

Walking along the shore, seeing my arm, I could emulate that self-love which, according
to Doug, was part of Gennie DNA.

But I wasn’t a Gennie.

I was an actor, coerced into playing a Gennie, more fascinated watching Hooker morph
from an average guy into ‘Superboy’ then in my characterisation.

When he’d come into the studio’s cottage, grizzled, a bit mangy, I didn’t know who or
what he was. He seemed unconcerned about his appearance or anyone’s opinion of him.

Within a week he was a ‘jock’, beefed up, sharp. But in less than two weeks he was
a Gennie. His behaviour, his speech, everything about him changed.

He wasn’t an actor, he claimed to be a professor of archeology, but he had turned into
the character far better than I could imagine. Far better than I, with all my ‘training’, all
my experience, could accomplish.

What I did, what I, this ’serious actor’, David Wong Pine, did, was impersonate
Doug Hooker. That was the extent of my acting in Passing Perfect; imitating Doug Hooker.

I had hoped he’d attend the funeral. I liked him, felt closer to him than I did to anyone
else who’d arrived to pay their respects to Mr. Laker. If Doug had been here, I wouldn’t
have felt a freak. For that is how I felt, how I often felt.  A freak.

I walked along, alone, the crowd at the funeral, no doubt, dissipating. No one was on
this stretch of beach, and I pondered my future.

I was in proper funerary mood but not because I was mourning Mr. Laker, I was trying
to find purchase in my life.

And I ask myself, could I really act?
Did I have talent?
Or was I fooling myself.

The sun was hot, I felt drained. I saw a bench beneath a tree behind a gate.
Seeing no one, I opened the gate, entered. I didn’t notice the small cottage hidden by trees.

I sat on the weathered stone bench and looked into myself. I didn’t know who or what I was.

I didn’t understand why I had left Caravansary why I thought Tom Bean a real role or
why I felt false playing a Eugenic.

Why I mentally rejected what might have been my destiny, and why when gaining it,
I felt undeserving, so wrong.

Tear welled and fell. I don’t know if they were theatrical or coming from my soul, and if
asked why I was crying, I couldn’t answer.

“Why are you crying?”

This wasn’t a voice from my imagination.

I turned, blinked my eyes to clear them, wiped my face. This was now, this real.

A very tan woman with startling gray eyes held a baby.

She stood not six feet from me, peering without fear, perhaps curiosity?

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I am…David Wong Pine.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I..I’m sorry. I…I was at a funeral…and…I…”

“Oh, you’re one of the actors,” she said as if solving a puzzle. “I wondered about you,
what you were supposed to be.”

“I’m not a Gennie.”

“I realised that,” she said with a hint of condescension.

“I was in a movie, playing a Gennie. No, I mean, playing a normal who tried…who did…pass as a Gennie.”

“Only one man did that, to my knowledge.”

“You know Doug Hooker?” I exclaimed.

With that, she stepped back, as if afraid, moved the baby from one arm to another, but kept
staring into my face.

“You have to leave,” she demanded.

For a moment the funk that had been departing crashed back with great force.

“Can’t you let me sit here another minute?”

“You knew Armand Laker…yes, I understand.”

I shook my head, “No, that’s not how it is. It is that I don’t know myself. Who I am,
what I am supposed to be, what tomorrow will look like.”

“You’re not alone,” she tosses, perching on the arm of the bench, looking down at me.
The baby also looked at me. It had dark eyes, and that secret wisdom one sometimes
sees in infants, as if inside of that helpless body is a long departed sage.

“Right now”, I admit, “although you are here, I am very much alone. There is no where
I have to be, no one waiting.”

“I say, you’re not the only one,” she replies, “and you are better than most.”

Again I shook my head, the long braids slapping me. I shoved them out of the way.

“They aren’t real,” I tell her, indicating the braids, “but I felt as Mr. Laker had cast me
as a Gennie, had wanted me to be a Gennie, I’d stay ‘in character’ for his funeral.”

“You do look almost like a Gennie. I thought you were, until I neared.”

“What gave me away?”

She glanced at the baby, then to me, “Your…vibe. You didn’t put off a Gennie vibe.”

I was going to ask her if she had met Gennies, but just as she had turned frosty when
I mentioned Doug, she would withdraw if I dared the question. Instead, I spoke of myself.

“Mr. Laker had seen me in Caravansary …” I muttered then, “He had offered me Tamerlane…”

“You’re a masochist, did you know that?”

The words rolled off her tongue as if they’d sat there for a year.

I couldn’t but admit;

“That was Mr. Laker’s sentiment. He hired me to play a normal passing for a Gennie
and Doug Hooker to be my mentor.” And softly, “But Doug was a better Gennie than I.”

“He had to be…” she began, then stopped, as if she’d reveal too much. She knew Doug.
Knew him well, and I looked again at the baby, who was certainly not his.

She looked away, then back. Her eyes were very sharp and she had a kind of certainty
about her that Doug did. This knowledge of exactly who she was, what she was, what
she was capable of.

“Who are you?” I ask now.

She almost smiled, then; “No one in particular, now I have to go, and you have to go.”

I didn’t rise, I kept my eyes on her. She came off the arm of the bench, went along the
path into the cottage. She opened a door, shut it behind her, leaving me in a rapidly darkening evening.

The bench, the tree, the sound of the sea, which had seemed so welcoming in mid
afternoon, was now becoming spooky and mysterious.

I rose, went out, back along the beach, walking quickly, as darkness fell.

The woman had disoriented me,  she knew Doug, and she had to know Eugenics.

I wanted to go back, talk to her, but was afraid. Afraid of the dark, of the strangeness,
of her dismissal, maybe of my own uncertainty.

Armand had been buried in a private plot behind a house he owned. I was lucky to reach
the back door before night truly descended. The door was not yet locked.