The telephone rang.
It was Fritz in the final stages of hysteria.
?Get over here. J. C.?s stigmata are still open. We got to finish before he bleeds to death!?
We drove to the set.
J. C. was waiting on the edge of the long pit of charcoal. When he saw me he shut his beautiful eyes, smiled, and showed me his wrists.
?That blood looks almost real!? cried Maggie.
?You could almost say that,? I said.
Groc had taken over the job of pancaking the Messiah?s face. J. C. looked thirty years younger as Groc patted a final powder puff at his shut eyelids and stood back to smile in triumph at his masterwork.
I looked at J. C.?s face, serene there by the embered fire, while a slow, dark syrup moved from his wrists into his palms. Madness! I thought. He?ll die during the scene!
But to keep the film in budget? Why not? The mob was gathering again and Doc Phillips loped forward to check the holy spillage and nod yes to Manny. There was life yet in these holy limbs, some sap remained: Roll ?em!
?Ready?? cried Fritz.
Groc stepped back in the charcoal wind, between two vestal virgin extras. Doc stood like a wolf on his hind legs, his tongue in his teeth, his eyes swarming and teeming from side to side.
Doc? I thought. Or Groc? Are they the true heads of the studio? Do they sit in Manny?s chair?
Manny stared at the bed of fire, longing to walk on it and prove himself King.
J. C. was alone in our midst, far off within himself, his face so lovely pale it tore a seam in my chest. His thin lips moved, memorizing the fine words John gave to me to give to him to preach that night.
And just before he spoke, J. C. raised his gaze across the cities of the studio world and up along the facade of Notre Dame, to the very peak of the towers. I gazed with him, then glanced swiftly over to see:
Groc transfixed, his eyes on the cathedral. Doc Phillips the same. And Manny between them, shifting his attention from one to the other, then to J. C. and at last, where some few of us looked, up, among the gargoyles?
Where nothing moved.
Or did J. C. see some secret motion, a signal given?
J. C. saw something. The others noticed. I saw only light and shadow on the false marble facade.
Was the Beast still there? Could he see the pit of burning coals? Would he hear the words of Christ and be moved to come and tell the weather of the last week and calm our hearts?
?Silence!? cried Fritz.
Silence.
?Action,? whispered Fritz.
And finally, at five-thirty in the morning, in the few minutes just before dawn, we filmed the Last Supper after the Last Supper.
44
The charcoals were fanned, the fish freshly laid, and as the first light rose over Los Angeles from the east, J. C. slowly opened his eyes with a look of such compassion as would still his lovers and betrayers and give them sustenance as he hid his wounds and walked off along a shore that would be filmed, some days later, in some other part of California; and the sun rose, and the scene was finished with no flaw, and there was not a dry eye on the outdoor set, but only silence for a long moment in which J. C. at last turned, and with tears in his eyes, cried:
?Won?t someone yell ?cut!???
?Cut,? said Fritz Wong, quietly.
?You?ve just made an enemy,? said Maggie Botwin beside me.
I glanced across the set. Manny Leiber was there glaring at me. Then he spun about, stalked away.
?Be careful,? said Maggie. ?You made three mistakes in forty-eight hours. Rehired Judas. Solved the ending of the film. Found J. C., brought him back to the set. Unforgivable.?
?My God,? I sighed.
J. C. walked off through the crowd of extras, not waiting for praise. I caught up with him.
Where going? I said, silently.
I looked at his wrists. The bleeding had stopped.
When we reached a studio crossroads, J. C. took my hands and gazed off at the backlot somewhere.
?Junior???
?Yes??
