Deboerah was feeling good, she had calculated it right and the bus dropped her off just two blocks from the audition and her brand new strappy highest heels weren’t hurting yet. She could have worn flats and changed in the lobby, but she didn’t want to carry a bulky bag in with her and search for a safe place to stash it. She wanted to breeze in wearing the required white skirt, white blouse, white clutch purse (she’s lucky she kept that one she “found” in the ladies restroom at that after party for the Oscars) and stilettos any color.
She's lucky she went to the gym yesterday and walked past that never-made-it loser,"Lucie Red-Lips," whose real name is Donna, with those still holding out cheekbones, but everything else had gone south years ago. As usual the old bag was sitting on the leg press waiting for someone to talk to and when she called out, "Hey doll!" to Deboerah, she reached for her phone and gave the pertinent information without a hassle about an upcoming audition. Deboerah thought it must have been fate since didn’t even have to kiss her ass to get it so she decided to just give it a try and later phoned.
It was for a detergent commercial and they were casting this Sunday. She got in by telling them that she had done commercial work before. Not that she’s ever landed a paying gig, but that was the goal when she first got into town and was sidetracked by the usual. It’s a good thing they didn’t ask for a headshot since her photos were from when she was skinny. She still has a winning silhouette if your eyes just focus on her chest.
She had been a knockout back then and was introduced around. It was a 24-hour party and she got hooked on the lifestyle. Nothing makes you feel more special than lounging by a pool looking pretty, but in the end when her looks began to wane and her alphabet soup of addictions became a problem, she was happy just to get free drugs from ugly drug dealers in the troll category. After getting fat she learned how to ingratiate herself to the right people and shit on everyone else unless they were useful. She still regrets that she never made the transition into porn when she had the chance.
This part of downtown is totally dead on the weekends and Deboerah wished that she hadn’t misunderstood the mechanic working on her car. She was only half paying attention to that lame idiot and thought that he was asking her for a blow-job or something and didn’t realize until later that he was asking her out on a date. If this was four years ago she would have done whatever for a discount, but now since she’s sponging off Jeffrey, she’s lucky that she has a roof over her head and doesn’t want to mess that up since she’s hit the limit of her credit card again.
She probably would have had her car by now if she had just promised him a date; that would have helped reduce the bill for sure. Maybe she can still dangle that without really doing anything. And is there any harm of an innocent date to thank a guy who fixed your car? It would only be like, “a thank you,“ and not a real date at all, unless he made more than Jeffrey, which is quite possible since his agent just dropped him and this time it’s for good. He still might get that part-time job at the community college if they don't find a real working actor with a track record to teach it, but if he gets that gig he'll probably quit his barista job (he doesn't want to teach his students in the day and work alongside the at night) and that would probably mean no more dinners out.
Poor Jeffrey, it’s too bad that he got her at her chubby stage but he can still remember her when she was hot, back when she never gave him the time of day, and he can’t believe that he’s with her now.
Deboerah finally reaches the building with just enough time to spare. It’s an all glass structure and she can see inside the lobby with its soft steel semicircular information desk and polished chrome walls. She is relieved to find such a sexy looking place. But when she tries to open the door it’s locked and won’t budge. She panics, “Oh God, did I get the address wrong? Is this the right place?” She takes her phone out and checks the address. “This is the right place. Fuck!” she says with angered frustration. She begins to knock with demanding fists hoping a security guard or someone would show up, but no one comes.
She checks each of the glass doors to see if one is open, “Maybe these fucking assholes forgot to take their fucking heads out of their fucking asses to tell me to go around the fucking building or something.”
As she walks around the building she can see a flapping piece of paper taped to a side door. Scribbled in block letters with a fat tipped marker the sign reads: “U-Deserve Detergent.” The door looks locked but she turns the knob and pulls open the door. Inside, three women are sitting on plastic folding chairs, all wearing white, with super high stilettos and carrying small clutch purses. None of them looked like they had gotten the address wrong like she did. She wanted to mention it, but didn’t want to look like a complainer. One woman smiled at her and said, “You sign in and they’ll call you.”
“Oh great, thanks,” said Deboerah, smiling with all of her teeth.
Five pages on a clipboard are already filled with crossed out names and she signs on the next open slot. “Damnit. This is just so typical. Hundreds are going for this one spot,” she thought.
A young lady wearing jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers enters from the other room. She walks straight to the sign-in sheet and calls out the next name.
One of the seated women acknowledges her name, gets up and is led into the back room as another woman in white arrives and signs in.
Surprisingly, before too long, the woman who had just gone into the other room for her audition comes back out. A male assistant, with what looked like his first try at a full Paul Bunyan beard, shakes the woman’s hand and they both laugh and seem genuinely pleased. The woman leaves and the man goes back into the "audition" room.
Deboerah thought, “They must be really nice here. I hope I get a shot at this.”
They wait for the next name to be called and this time a woman in black Yoji Yamamoto harem pants and a hoodie walks in and calls out the next name while two other hopefuls, one super tall and the other much shorter, sign in and sit down.
Again, the audition seemed quick and the woman shakes someone’s hand in the doorway and both laughed as she hears someone say, “Thank you so much for coming in, it was great meeting you!”
The door closes and then opens again. This time a really handsome guy walks into the room and all eyes are on him and everyone wants his attention. Some use exaggerate head turns with "surprised" smiles, others think quicker and use subtle seated shimmys with "open purse and now look up" smiles. Deboerah does the most winning gesture by keeping her knees and feet together then moving them to one side to "make room for him to pass" she ends up in a delicate pin-up poise with her back straight, and hands, one on top of the other, opposite her knees and gives here audience a sweet smile. She still knows how to get the most attention in the room. He looks at the list, smiles at all of the women and calls out, “Debra Henzie.”
Deboerah was surprised that her name was called since there was still someone else ahead of her, but she didn’t mention it and said as innocently as possible, “Oh that’s me, De-bor-ah Henzie,” as if saying, “It’s just little old me.” She follows behind him knowing that everyone is looking at her with dagger eyes because she will be the one to chitchat with this hot guy along the way to the other room. Lucky Bitch.
Leading the way he turns to her with a smile and says, “Hi! I'm Roland. We’re so glad you were able to make it today.” Because she lives for the approval of good-looking men it made her feel like she had just won the lottery and praised herself for still looking fuckable. And there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for this guy at this very moment.
As he opens the door he whispers close to her ear, “Good luck.” She walks into the room and stands before three people sitting behind a table. Roland walks over to a video camera on a tripod and adjusts it to her height.
The woman in the harem pants, who she had seen earlier, is in the middle with the young lady and the Paul Bunyan-bearded guy on either side.
“Hi! I’m Cassie, this is Audrey and Curt and you met Roland already. Thank you for coming. We didn’t ask for a headshot today, but we will take a few photos first and then see where we are with that,” said Cassie.
Audrey gets up and points a camera at Deboerah’s face and says, “Smile.”
Deboerah does a winsome smile for the camera and three quick photos are taken. “That’s great, thank you,” says the young lady. Before she gets back to her seat, Cassie says, “We are going to look at some of these photos now. Thank you.” Deoberah waits to make sure the door is closed behind them and begins teetering on her aching feet, trying desperately when she has this short amount of time, to find a comfortable standing position. She wonders if she should go back to the waiting room or just stand there when Roland, the hottie, comes in with two glasses of water.
“I got thirsty and I thought that you might like something to drink, too,” said Roland. “Wow, thank you!” says Deboerah. He looks into her eyes and they clink their glasses. She drinks the water and notices that it tastes a little funny, like greasy metal, but maybe it’s because the glasses might have been dusty before he put the water in. She doesn’t want to mention it and smiles a million dollar smile. He takes her glass and says, “let me take your purse for you, you won’t be needing it in the next scene.” With an empty glass in each of his hands Deboerah places her purse under his arm and watches his ass adoringly as he leaves. She wonders, “Maybe he’s going to ask me out after this is over. He's so nice.”
As soon as the door closes behind him, it opens again and everyone comes back into the room and they resume their places.
Cassie says, “Well, great. Ummm, can you please tell us your name?”
“Hi, my name is Deboerah Henzie.” She tries to accent her stage presence with her most casual, less toothy smile and come through with self-effacing charm to win over the females who are watching her closely. She knows they can figure her out quickly so she can’t blow them off and the older one, Cassie, looks like she holds all the power so Deboerah has to kiss up to all of them, not just the two guys.
Curt says, “Please stand in front of the back wall.” She walks towards the wall aiming for the X made with tape on the floor and turns around smiling.
“Can you please take a small step back? We don’t want you to be too close to the wall, but close enough,” requests Cassie. Everyone smiles and laughs at the contradiction of the directions.
She continues, “Can you please say, ‘Are you stupid?”
Deboerah says it sarcastically and the older woman asks her to say it again with anger and she does. Someone asks her to yell it out and she yells it once sarcastically and once with anger.
Audrey says, “This is so great. You are really nailing this without any instruction. You are a natural for this.”
After a few more times they are satisfied and Cassie says, “Okay, that was great, can you now say, ‘You are so stupid.” Deboerah says it in the same sarcastic way a few times and again someone asks her to yell it out louder and she does.
Cassie says, “This is great! You are doing a great job, but we have to make sure.” Roland walks over to Deboerah. He is holding a small plastic sandwich bag filled with what look like red jellybeans and says to her, “I’m going to put this on the back of your head, we don’t want you to hurt yourself.” He slaps the bag against her head and it sticks with an adhesive onto her hair. It feels like a beanbag stuck with duct tape.
"Don't forget this one," says Curt as he hands him another plastic bag filled with red jellybeans.
"Oh yeah, don't want to forget that one," answers Roland. "Put this on your shoulder inside your shirt," he says to Deboerah in an unfriendly way, more like an order and nothing like he was before.
“We have an air rifle, yes, it only shoots air, it’s not going to hurt. You’ll just hear clicks when the trigger is pulled and that’s it, so you won’t need to be afraid," explains Curt.
“After you hear the first click we’ll need you to scream as loud as you can, and hit the wall with the back of your head, slide down and keep your eyes open like in a trace,” said one of the two women. Deboerah wasn't sure who said it, she was trying to understand what was going on and something just didn’t seem right.
Deboerah watches Roland as he puts on a pair of clear safety goggles and then rests his arm on an assault rifle with a mounted scope that is now aimed her way.
“Okay, don’t forget to scream as loud as you can, fall back, hit your head and slide down, against the wall. Keep your eyes open until we say to stop,” says Audrey.
Quickly someone yells “Action!” Deboerah hears, “Click, Click, Click,” she’s been hit with small pellets on her forehead, cheek and shoulder and she begins to scream. What feels like real blood begins to stream down her white shirt and she can see the older woman nodding her head and motioning with with her open palms pushing forward for Deboerah to fall back. She stumbles back and the plastic bag clinging to her hair bursts open. Her head paints a liquid trail of red on the wall and follower her down as her body crumples to the floor. She keeps her eyes open to the camera and looks like a lifeless doll.
Deboerah is in a daze. The shots really hurt and she must really be bleeding. She can’t get up and she can't understand why no one is helping her. Her once all white clothes are splattered in blood.
The audition is over and dismissively Cassie says, “Thank you, that was great. We’ll call you.”
Still on the floor Deboerah tries to hold a shoe that slipped off after the first shot and with trembling hands tries to put it back on her foot. As she gets up like a good sport Roland comes over to her and says, “Sorry, we ran out of paper towels and I could only find this napkin for you from the lunch room. It should be enough, the blood wipes off easily so you shouldn’t have any problem.” He puts a small square cocktail napkin into her hand and places her purse under her arm. He pushes her elbow and quickly leads her out of the room. As he opens the door to the waiting area he says, “Thanks for coming, you were a natural!” Although only halfway out the door he shoves it closed pushing her out.
She stands in the waiting room covered in blood, but no one offers to her help her. Those that bother to look up don’t care and aren’t shocked at what they see.
Realizing that no one will help her, Deboerah walks out quickly hoping her humiliation will be invisible. She can only imagine what she looks like and convinces herself that it must not be too bad since none of the other aspiring hopefuls gave her a second glance. She takes the cocktail napkin and wipes her face. No skin is broken, but removing the now spent plastic bag from her shoulder rips the first layer of skin revealing tiny speckles of blood and she can't pull the bag taped to her hair without ripping out her roots. "Fuck them, they probably won't even hire me and now I have to chop off my hair for this."
Her feet hurt and she wants to take off her shoes, but walking without shoes wouldn’t be any better in the neighborhood she has to walk through. What is worse? Stepping on broken glass or blisters? She’ll suffer with blisters. Halfway down the block she feels the need to go to the bathroom urgently. There are no options for her since she surrounded by closed office buildings and can’t squat anywhere since there are security cameras everywhere. She is desperate and doesn’t know what to do. Should she run for the bus and wait? She has to go the bathroom now.
She decides to call a taxi and hopes the driver will do it with the promise that Jeffrey will pay at the other end. She opens her purse and finds two sticks of gum, a pad of yellow Post-It notes and a pencil. She realizes that this isn’t her purse. She must have taken the wrong purse when she got up for the audition. She doesn’t have her phone or any money. She can’t call anyone because all of her numbers are on her phone and she doesn’t know them by heart. She has to hold it in. She has to walk all the way back to the place where they are holding the audition and use the restroom there. She walks without running so that she doesn’t get anxious and let go.
Just a half block more and she’ll be there and ask to use their restroom. She is dying to go to the bathroom. They'll have to let her use it, they know her, she was just there.
Finally she gets back to the same closed door. There is no sign, but hopefully they are still in there. She turns the knob, but it doesn’t budge. She knocks but no one answers and she can’t hold it in any longer. There is nothing she can do. She has to let it out and hope that it can’t be seen. For any hidden cameras catching her, she stands close to the door like she is trying to open it again and feels a torrent of warm liquid travel down her inner thighs. To her horror she looks down and sees that she is pissing what looks like blood. Now she is a total mess both front and back. Maybe she was just anxious and that made her start her period early.
“Fuck this purse,” she says as she throws someone else’s small clutch purse at the door and starts walking.
At the bus stop no drivers will allow her on, after her whines and pleads they yell at her to, "Get out of my bus!" so she has no alternative but to walk home.
Finally she makes it home from downtown. She is covered in fake blood and the blood that came out when she went to the bathroom on herself wasn't real blood after all and has faded a light pink and might have been a reaction to food coloring or something.
She never wants to see these clothes or those assholes ever again. She runs for the bathroom and takes an hour long shower and pulls the plastic off easily from her hair with hot water. She checks the mirror to make sure that none of the pellets broke her skin, but now she can see purple bruises on her right cheek and forehead. At least she can get some sympathy from Jeffrey and maybe he can go get her favorite Thai food.
After her shower she dumps her clothes into a trash bag for Jeffrey to take out later. Deciding to lounge in her bathrobe and slippers for the rest of the day she stands in front of the frig and digs into a pint of caramel cookie crunch gelato as the doorbell rings. Maybe Jeffrey forgot his key. Deboerah is surprised to see a woman wearing all white and high heels who says, “I’m so glad I found you, you took my purse by mistake and I didn’t call you because your phone is in your purse. The casting agent gave me your address.”
“Oh thanks,” says Deboerah as she takes the purse. She feels embarrassed and doesn’t want to bring up the audition.
“Why isn’t she covered in blood?” she wonders.
“That was a great gig! I’m so happy that we got paid up front,” says the woman.
“What do you mean? You got the part?” asks Deboerah.
“Didn’t you get paid today? Didn’t they send you the script last night? That’s what we all got.” The woman continues, “Can I have my purse back?”
“I'm so sorry, I forgot it in the taxi. I’ll call them and see if the driver has turned it in yet,” said Deboerah.
“It was just a prop purse. Don’t bother,” says the woman who clearly does not want to deal with a loser and turns on her heel and leaves.
Deboerah can't figure it out. “They all got paid? This is what I get for not having an agent. I don’t want to see those weird-o’s ever again.” She settles down on her couch and opens her purse to make sure that nothing has been lifted. She notices that Jeffrey’s guitar is not leaning against the wall. There’s a note on the coffee table, it’s from Jeffrey and it says, “I got a pilot that will be shooting in Canada and when it’s over I have a new place in town. Sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier, but I paid the rent for next month, I didn’t want to leave you in a lurch. Sorry again, but I’m just not the man for you and I am trying to get it right. I wish you all the best. It was great to hook up with you after all of these years.” He signed it with a simple “J”. She looks around the room and notices that things are missing. Jeffrey’s books, a painting by his mother, and his framed family photos are gone, too, but the photos of the two of them remain.
“What the fuck am I going to do now?” She grabs her phone. Before she can text, a video appears on the screen. It says, “How to Kill a Bully” and then a photo of her headshot comes on and a pair of scissors cut right across her neck and separates like a sliced piece of paper. Next she sees her standing in all white in front of the wall. Loud gunshots hit her head and she screams as blood spurts down her face and splashes the back of the wall. It is in a loop and the gunshots and blood repeat over and over and over until she hits the wall and falls to the ground with her eyes open. She looks dead.
“Oh God, what is this?” Deboerah checks the internet for “How To Kill A Bully” and sees an entire series of “How To Kill A Bully, Part 1 – 4” including a video of her saying, “Are you stupid?” and another with, “You are so stupid,” both ending with her dying in a bloodbath.
Who would do this to her?
And then she remembers that the agency kept saying, “You are a natural at this.”
There is a long list of people who would.