Read Online Jack and Susan in 1913 by Michael McDowell - Free Book Online Page B

Westermeade, the dissolute lady’s dissolute lover, took out a harmonica and softly played an old Stephen Foster melody. The other actors wandered off toward a table laden with plates of food and an urn of coffee.
    The other two scenes, on either side, went on uninterrupted.
    â€œWho are you?” the stage director suddenly demanded of Susan and Mr. Beaumont, whom he’d nearly wandered into.
    â€œWe are friends of Mr. Collamore,” said Mr. Beaumont, “and he asked us to visit him today.”
    â€œWell, there he is, having just ruined that entire act, so that the whole thing will have to be done over. Props!” the stage director called out suddenly, “get us a new door and reload those pistols.”
    Susan and Mr. Beaumont went over to Hosmer, who had pulled open the side of the camera, exposing the film inside.
    â€œI lost it,” he said with a grimace.
    â€œLet me see,” said Mr. Beaumont, peering into the workings of the camera. “Do you know what happened?”
    â€œThe film slipped from the sprockets and jammed,” said Hosmer dismally. “This is the second time this week. The first time it was during the filming of a burning building down on Houston Street. No props man to set that one up again.”
    Mr. Beaumont turned the camera on its side so that light from above spilled into the interior. “Hosmer,” he asked, “do you happen to have an old camera like this one around? One with the same parts?”
    Hosmer glanced at Susan and said, “You see, Suss, I told you he was a tinkerer.” With that Hosmer hurried away toward the other side of the enormous room.
    â€œSuss?” Mr. Beaumont inquired with raised brows.
    â€œNo,” she replied, “Susan, Susan, Susan. Never Suss.”
    â€œI promise I will never call you Suss if you will call me Jack,” said Mr. Beaumont. He turned away, toward the rowboat scene, but not before Susan caught yet another blush mounting his cheeks. The reddening skin actually seemed to turn his beard darker.
    After a few minutes, Hosmer returned, carrying two battered cameras, one over each shoulder. “Trust men,” he explained mysteriously, putting the cameras down.
    â€œTrust men?” echoed Jack, tugging at the side plate of one of the beat-up cameras.
    â€œThe Trust men are hooligans hired by the Patents Trust—the nine companies who control all the motion picture patents. They try to break up independent operations like ours, because they feel we’re infringing on ’em. Come in at night, expose our film, smash our cameras, tear our canvas.” Hosmer shook his head ruefully. “I got hit on the head once, and they’re promising to do more soon. This is their work, these cameras.”
    â€œWhy don’t you just go to work for a company with patents instead, then?” asked Jack simply. He’d borrowed a screwdriver from a passing workman and was prying loose a geared wheel on the inside of the camera.
    â€œBecause they’re boring stick-in-the-muds,” said Hosmer. “They’re still going to be doing one-reelers in 1933. Lord, Tom Edison is still filming on a rooftop over in New Jersey, and when it rains everybody has to run inside. The Patents are like a velocipede with dented wheels, and the independents are like a big red sixty-horsepower automobile.”
    This last sounded to Susan very much like something that Hosmer had heard or read somewhere rather than something he came up with on the spur of the moment.
    â€œAlso,” Hosmer admitted after a moment, “the independents pay better. They pay the players better, and they pay their cameramen better, and pretty soon—”
    â€œPretty soon what?” asked Jack, handing back the first camera. “This one’s no good,” he added parenthetically, and took the second one and began work on that.
    â€œPretty soon,” said Hosmer, “the independents are