In the Night of the Heat

ONETHURSDAY, OCTOBER 2My agent had just said the impossible -- words any actor would kill to hear. But before I could be sure my ears weren't fooling me, I saw the gun.It was noon, and Sunset's West Hollywood sidewalks swarmed with cell phone-symbiote lunch zombies. When Len Shemin called, I was scouting a handsome oak desk at a secondhand furniture store's curbside, killing time before I had to get back on set. The dark-stained wood was bolstered by iron struts at the legs and base. It squatted on the sidewalk like a massive pirate chest, something that might have graced Andrew Carnegie's office back in 1900. I was wondering how it would look in my den when my phone buzzed."Ten?" Len said. "Just heard from Lynda Jewell's office. She and Ron want to meet you tomorrow. Right across the street from where CAA used to be, at the Peninsula."Impossible,I thought, as someone brushed against me. Two wiry, tattooed arms in front of me looked like green snakes, and one of them lunged for a low-hanging waistband. The jerky movement made me freeze and forget I'd just heard my fortune told."Ten?" my agent said in my ear. My killer was right in front of me, not a step away. I knew at least four ways to stop him before he drew the weapon, but reflexes don't work when your brain is locked in emotional carbonite. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. It was the best day of my life, and I was about to die.A freckled hand emerged from the back of his pants, pointed in a mock pistol's L shape. The gunslinger was a pimple-splotched kid, about fifteen, grinning at me like a fool. "I know you!" the gunslinger said.But even after I realized the weapon was only in my head, my gut and the knot of muscles at the small of my back tensed when he squeezed the invisible trigger. A year after some very serious professionals had tried to plant me in the desert, I still expected someone to put a hole in my head one day. History never dies.I couldn't smile for the kid. I gave him a wave I hoped was polite."Did you hear me?" Len mosquito-whined in my ear.I stepped beneath the awning's shade to lean against the shop's white-brick wall. My father used to stop and lean against a wrought iron gate when we walked from the church parking lot to the sanctuary, when his heart didn't feel right. Sometimes you need to stop whatever you're doing to help your heart remember its job. The tattooed kid yammered to a Prius-load of college kids, pointing me out as evidence."Lynda Jewell?" I said. "Ron Jewell, too? Tomorrow?" Repeating the basic elements was like pinching myself to be sure I was awake. Anyone else? Stevie Spielberg would make it a Trifecta."A meet-and-greet at the bar. Five. What's your schedule?"Meetings like that didn't happen to people like me. That kind of meeting was an anecdote an actor might recall on Letterman, or onOprah.My schedule was wide fucking open."That's what I thought." Len's voice wavered. Len Shemin is glad when good things happen for me, which is more than most people can say about their blood relatives. "Her assistant's called twice already. We sent in your packet forLenox Avenue,and that's her passion project. Ron's writing the screenplay, of course. Everyone's after it: Denzel. Will. Terence. Don." The Afrostocracy's single name club. He didn't have to say Washington, Smith, Howard, or Cheadle.I didn't know I had a "packet," but Len's agency was trying to brand me since I got cast onHomeland.All those years, I'd had it backward: I had to get the work first, and then I'd get my agent's attention. I got a guest spot onHomelandafter the exec producer saw me kickboxing at Gold's. He didn't know I was an actor; he just thought I looked like an FBI agent.A guest spot ballooned to a regular gig with occasional dialogue. I was just a desk jockey or scenery in the training hall, but with three or four lines or aUnderwood, Blair is the author of 'In the Night of the Heat', published 2008 under ISBN 9781416569978 and ISBN 1416569979.