Diary of an unemployed actor

August 29, 2010. Midday and I’m lain down, trying to put my thoughts together. Summer was coming to a close, but it was still too hot. A day before, the weather forecast said something about 40°C for the rest of the week. They got it bloody right. Like a prophet in the bible, when it’s about doom, they’re usually straight out accurate. I wasn’t feeling like going out, I didn’t want to see anyone. Everything was swirling inside my head and I couldn’t even recall the line of events. Frankly, I still can’t. What I know, is that I made it to go on vacation, even for a short time and when I got back I had to find a job, again. In older times, vacation wasn’t a must for me – I used to choose work, even when my finances weren’t that bad. Lately, though, my work conditions were getting worse and earnings were shorter. I had put my best efforts but disappointments struck one after another. I was getting tired. I needed vacation more than ever. I felt like this was the best I could do, even if I was almost broke. Nature was calling me. I packed my tent and got off to Crete. I wandered all over around island.

These days I felt calm. I spent my time with friends, enjoying tsikoudiá and the sea, having my mind emptied of all kinds of troubles and stressful thoughts. All except for one, Christine. I was thinking about her and I didn’t know why. I was in Crete, having a beautiful time there and after a short time I felt I didn’t have to care about anything, but for some unintelligible reason, there she was again inside my head… where could she be?.. Was she alright?.. I think I’d like having her there, sharing this time off together, worrying about nothing, together… I hadn’t seen her for more than a year, we only talked once on the phone and that was months ago. So, I had come to a decision. I called her.

She sounded very upset.

-Hey, how’s it going? Are you alright?

-No, I’m not.

-Why? What happened?

-Hard to explain… long story… Lena’s gonna tell you.

-Lena gonna tell me what? Well, at least give me a clue, you’re making me nervous…

-I’m in the hospital.

-Hospital? What hospital?

-Mental hospital…

-And what are you doing there?

-I’m being hospitalized. Look, they told me that I can go the day after tomorrow. Can I stay at your place?

-Yes. You can.

Her words left me really numb. I spent the next few minutes inside my tent trying to figure out what was happening. I lit a cigarette and tried to connect the facts. Turned out a vain attempt. I called Lena, she pretended she had no idea. I told her I had talked with Christine, so formalities vanished. She admitted she didn’t know any details but she was also quite upset. We arranged a meeting.

Christine was in a mental hospital. But, apart from that, she was here in Greece. What could have happened to bring her here? And why Greece? I called Thanasis, an old friend of my father’s from a small communist party, back from the Big Turmoil Era of the Greek seventies and the Regime of the Colonels. I’d call him either way, even if Lena had described to me the situation to the smallest detail. He served as a psychiatrist at the institution Christine was in for quite a long time and he was also a very good person. I had to know more:

-Good afternoon, Mr. Thanasis, I’m Themis.

-Hi Themis, how are you?

-I’m good. I hope it’s not a bad time.

-No, of course not.

-I need your help. It’s about a friend of mine who’s being hospitalized.

-I see… Look, I’m on vacation now and out of town, but I’ll see what I can do. Do you might know what is it about?

-No, I’m afraid I don’t. I just learned she’s in there and I’m really concerned.

-Ok, you don’t have to be worried. I’m gonna make some phone calls and learn about her situation, as well as which doctor is on her. I’ll contact you as soon as I have news. What’s her name, again?

I took the first ferry and I was back to Athens.

I met with her on Exárchia square, downtown Athens. She was with her father and Lena. There was also another guy, not someone I knew and also Christos. I knew Christos, but I didn’t know that he was Christine’s last boyfriend before she left for New York. That was the last time we talked, when she called to announce me her decision to leave. She had all things ready, passport, ticket, everything. She wanted me to know.

-I want to go, I want to leave this place. I’m going to America, there’s nothing for me here to hold me back, nothing to leave behind.

- You leave nothing behind, you’re taking everything with you. Well, have a nice trip.

That was Christine. A drifter for life.

We started a small talk. One of those talks when people have nothing really to talk about. Fortunately, some interesting subjects came up and when the others found a common topic I turned to Lena. I had purposely sat beside her, I needed information. I discreetly got her into the meaning and we managed to talk in a quasi-cryptic style, pretending we followed the general conversation. Nobody noticed, or at least, Christine didn’t notice.

When she was in the States, she had a panic attack. Some couple that she had met there or she was visiting –I didn’t get that one exactly- took her to a mental clinic. She stayed there for a few days and some relatives of hers came from Canada to pick her up. She spent a short time with them in Canada and then she returned to Greece. She thought it was a good idea to stop her medication, so she had a relapse. She was trying to travel again to New York, but her parents took her passport away. She shouldn’t travel, no doubt, but I can tell it’s even harder getting deprived of your passport like that. She tried to issue a new one, but her mother got aware of it, got panicked and appealed to a district attorney to issue a mandatory psychiatric examination for her. One day, Christine got a phone call telling her that her new passport was delivered and she could go and get it at a courier’s office. However, the address led her to a police station, where she was arrested and taken to a mental institution.

That was all Lena knew and all I needed for the moment. We jumped to the general conversation, which we hadn’t –supposedly- left, but without really being in mood to take part. We’d just let the others talk. After all the discussion was practically between Christos and Christine.

-Chris, what are you up now?

-I’m working on a music video. You may join if you want.

-Am I gonna get paid?

-We’ll work something out. I always take care that people get paid.

It was then when it hit me. Christos and I had worked together in a movie. We had our first contact when he called me one day before shooting to give me instructions. I was in bed, having the flu.

-Are you Themis?

-Yes.

-Tomorrow you’ve got shooting.

-A guy called me three months ago to confirm my participation and I had told him that I’d need you to contact me one week before shooting, so we could talk about.

-Talk about what?

-Well, first, I should know about it well in advance. Like, what if I had some other shooting for today? Besides, I don’t know what you’re going to need from me, what clothes for example. I haven’t spoken with anybody.

-Well, bring whatever you have handy.

-What, my whole wardrobe?

-What you usually wear riding your bike?

-I may wear a scuba-diver’s suit when I ride my bike. The question is what you do you want? And, apart from that, we haven’t discussed about my payment.

-Oh, yeah. You’re not getting paid.

-And why is that?

-It’s a friendly appearance.

-Are we friends?

-Haven’t Yannis told you?

-Yannis has nothing to do with financial issues, he’s the director.

A small rumble followed. Some production managers called me after to help me “come back to my senses”, all blabbering theories on me. Everyone seemed to take as normal that I wouldn’t get paid, everyone except for me. Normally, I would have sent them all to hell and call it off, but I couldn’t let the director down. He had asked me personally to shoot that scene together and we also hanged out back then.

I was in a mess when I got there. The set was placed in Kolonos, at a local liquor store, which I was supposed to mug. My bones hurt, I had a stuffy nose, my ears hummed, I had a fever and I was cold. And besides that, I felt really insulted by that behavior and my spirits were low. I asked the crew how much time before the set was ready. They said that it’d take about thirty minutes. I took a seat in the warehouse, where it was darker and quiet. I tried to focus. I usually take a hot tea thermos with me and that time it really helped. Time flew before I noticed. We shot the scene, a no-more-than-four-to-five-shots thing, with everything included, threats, bikes revving, and a broken storefront window. It was a proper robbery. The residents watched us from their balconies, trying to figure out what was going on. A couple of them told us later that they almost called the cops. I really enjoyed the shooting, I always do. When I was in the warehouse, I kept thinking: “how the hell am I gonna make it in that condition?”. When they called “action!”, I felt airy. And as soon as it was over, I went back home to drop dead. I stayed in bed two more days, thinking they got everything from me, on me.

-Dude, now you’re lying. I worked without getting paid.

He seemed shocked. I hadn’t spoken for quite a long and nobody saw it coming. He started explaining he was just an assistant and wasn’t charged with that kind of stuff, as well as he noted that he was a pro of fourteen regular length movies and I’d really like to tell him to stick all fourteen up his ass, however I just wished him to make ’em one hundred. But, the thing is that I didn’t get paid, whereas some people that didn’t even appear at the shooting got.

A long time had been since then, but I hadn’t forgotten. The very incident could have been a product of misunderstanding, but two weeks after that, I received a call by the same production company about another film. I visited their office and held a conversation with them. They asked if I was interested because the part was small and I told them that I was, if I was going to get paid for it. They never called again. It appeared it hadn’t been any misunderstanding at all, it was the way they did business and that was what annoyed me the most. It still does. These guys hate you. They hate you every time you tell them you wanna get paid for your work. Because they have vision. They have a vision to create big things. And you, a little prick, a lowlife swellhead can’t get it. They make you a favor when they give you a part on their vision, you ungrateful shit. Them and their dogs. They can even make you buy it in the end. Anyway, the bottom line was that it wasn’t a debate about my working rights so I stopped. We finished our coffee pretending everything was fine and we left.

Akinetone and Depakine each morning. Half an Aloperidine at noon, Depakine again and Zyprexa before sleep and a couple of Tavor pills through the day if she wasn’t calm (she never was). A pile of colorful pills of mysterious composition, obscure indications and terrifying warnings. She had me write them all down to help her not messing it up.

-Why they gave me all those pills? I’m a pill myself. Perhaps I’ll be better off without them.

I told her a story, one of those stories grown-ups tell kids to make them finish their meal. I said to her that those pills were like antibiotics: the symptoms of the illness may be long vanished, however the treatment should be followed as instructed. I recalled that once she had suffered from tonsillitis and after the first week she stopped medication and found herself eventually hospitalized, breathing through a plastic tube. She went through so much then, so when I reminded her she caved in. Maybe it was because she realized that I didn’t take her for a fruitcake and she felt some relief. The symptoms that she wasn’t well were strong with her, though.

She was so stressed she wouldn’t sit down. She was walking forth and back inside the room, talking to me constantly. She was telling me about New York, about her passport that was “seized” by the police, about the mental hospital. She told me about Makis, who had killed a rooster, which wasn’t a rooster but a hen, since it lacked a comb on its head. Makis was right, you can’t have a rooster without a comb. She was talking about hanging out and having conversations with Makis, he was her company. He and a trainee doctor were the only ones that would spend a little time with her.

The hospital’s corridor was long and colorless, like all public buildings’ corridors. On the tessellated floor, anguished souls crawled from chamber to chamber, while dusted lamps emitted nauseous light which permeated every object around. The staff’s routinely steps echoed through the walls and merged with patient’s unintelligible cries from the other end. All these were taking forms inside my head, as I was sitting in my living room, listening to Christine’s narratives.

-I’m telling you, you don’t wanna be there. You don’t want to...

She was waiting with her mother and father outside the doctors’ office. The seats were conjoint, made of plastic, typically hospital-like corridor chairs. Makis was sat across them along with the trainee doctor. They were all waiting for the discharge note. It was really hot and the doctor was anxious.

-Why so worried?

-I’ve scheduled my vacation, but if she don’t get the paper, bye-bye holidays.

-She’ll get it.

-Think so?

-Trust me they’ll give it, I know these people well.

Christine seemed like being in another realm. She was telling her mother about the difficulties actors face when they’re developing their roles and she described various techniques actors usually apply, e.g. phonetics. She was talking about exercises she learned at acting school and how important were those for her in the process. She demonstrated the “letter ‘A’ exercise”. “A” echoed throughout the corridor. The trainee doctor looked nervously around him and a nurse’s head popped up out of the doctors’ office, looking to see what was going on.

Time was passing and the trainee was probably putting a great effort to not start biting his nails. There was a golden silence in the room. Finally, the door opened and a nurse with a paper in hand showed up. She stopped and announced a name, waiting for the name’s holder to respond. Makis made a move to stand up, but refrained. Christine’s dad stood up and walked forth to receive the paper.

“Despite doctors’ unanimous decision, the patient is free to go under her parents’ responsibility.”

The trainee doctor turned straightaway to Makis and said: “you’re hired”.

After a while, she was calm. She began telling me how much she had missed takes and film shootings, how much she wanted to work. She felt guilty of turning down some job opportunities in the past. “I could have played in many movies, but I kept saying “no”. I’d like to have played in those movies.”

I, again, hadn’t turned down any job. I was never able to afford this luxury.

“I don’t want you looking at me when I take my pills”.

She took half a Tavor and went out like light. I took her to my bed, with the room light on, as she always preferred. Her eyes were swollen of weariness and her skin had an unearthly, sick color, like she was made of wax. How on earth had that beauty turned to this? I laid myself down on the sofa, in the living room and I had my ears stretched all night to be sure she wouldn’t wake up and jump off the balcony. I was thinking about her, our takes together, our takes apart, money I was owed, my unemployment, being broke, doctors, medicine, Christine’s eyes. I was a beast in a cage.