Interviews with as many cast and crew that we can find.
Neil, too.
He ends his interview by saying, “I’ll be glad to get you fuckers off my back.”
Airport.
Checking our bags.
The head of the Puerto Rican Production Company, Chuckie (or is it Jamie) is outside talking effusively with a cop.
For some reason this shoots darts of hot panic into me.
What the hell is Chuckie doing here?
All I could think of was that he wanted to confiscate our tapes.
I asked Perry and he's completely thinking the same.
And ya know, I say, this place is so screwy; he’s probably bringing the cop here to arrest us.
I send Ari through the security check with all the tapes.
I don’t know if he was coming for our tapes, but he was, oddly, there "to see us off."
Weird.
We later find out later that the reason he was talking to the cop is because the cop towed his car.
This is completely satisfying to me.
Finally something that seem appropriate.
And it gave us enough time to get the tapes safe beyond security.
How do I explain this Puerto Rican producer::::
To watch his brutal attempt at trying to be an American Hip-hopper is pure hilarity --
Baseball hat with a ridiculously flat bill, perched atop his bulby head, sitting somewhat askew.
So hard to take him serious.
Confrontational, to a degree.
But mostly sketchy, smarmy...
Yes, a great deal of smarm.
He asked if all of us were leaving.
And said Myles wanted to make sure we were all on the plane.
Myles?
I had no mercy.
We had to tell him that Myles was fired about two months ago (which only proves the point that he had no earthly idea what was going on with the show, his show.
He tried to save himself from that faux pax;
Oh, to watch a liar cover his track -- with cellophane.
Too, too surreal.
And we were giving him no slack.
Was too tired to even be cordial.
Or to even be a smart-ass to him as he walked us to the security scanners, standing by us the whole time like an unwanted bodyguard.
I asked if there was any word on Kristin.
Who? He said.
The contestant who was hurt. Jesus Christ.
Don't know, he said.
I looked beyond the scanning machines and, thank god, there’s Ari.
He holds up the pelican case filled with our 90-some hours of footage, smiling.
Chuckie sees him and his face pinches ever so slightly into anger,or perhaps it's just concern.
But why?
I don't get it.
I cannot shake the image of that girl's face on the beach, slowly bleaching whiter than the sand.
Later.
I’m sitting next to Perry on the plane.
We don’t talk for the first hour of our flight.
Finally, he says, “We have to re-edit the entire movie.”
I say, “For Sundance. I know.”
We don’t talk until we land.
Sundance deadline is in 23 days.
This will never happen.