At the moment, the first two fingers of my right hand are burnt. Not like, flamethrower-style burnt, or even really-bad-sunburn burnt. It’s more the kind of burnt that you get when you look at a Texafornia style Cheeto, where they’ve got like, little grill marks on them, to show how hardcore the Cheeto chefs are. Now, the next obvious question is: how did I burn my hand in the first place? Was I cooking something? Did I once again forget the Prime Directive of muffler repair (Don’t touch the damn muffler while the motor is running!)? Was I fighting Oprah again and she decided to summon Rog’nosh, Lava Beast of the Unquenchable Hell-Pit? Nope, the truth is that I was trying to throw a flaming torch (is there any other kind?) at an Indian village right handed, because my left hand was busy carry my pitchfork, and some of the baling wire that was holding the torch together came loose, slid down the torch handle (I’ll bet there’s some incredibly archaic yet monosyllabic Norse word for a torch handle that’s nobody had used for centuries because we so rarely storm castles anymore) and rendered unto my mouse fingers a Cheeto-like branding, all of which contributes to its standing as the new Official Scar Ben Has with The Coolest Story Behind It. And here, of course, is the rest of that story:
It happens to be the case that this was my last week in the employ of Henricus before I cast off the mantle of Old-Timey Englishness and gird about my loins the figurative belt of librarianation. As the goddess of improbable scheduling would have it however, yesterday happened to be the day that a movie company would be filming a Nova special about Jamestown, and since actual Jamestown now has seven Ferris wheels and one of those teacup rides, they decided to film their thing at Henricus, where we can’t even afford a properly matched set of historical chickens. I spent much of the past two weeks peeling the bark off poles to help a group of Powhatan Indian guys gussy up our Indian village, and then yesterday came my time to be on camera, which I regarding with earnest expectation, since I had gotten a look at a shooting schedule and saw that a scene was called for involving a man-eating rat, which is one of those New World threats that most films about our nation’s founding skip over.
Now if there is one ironclad rule by which one may judge the quality of a Jamestown movie production, is it my the ratio of young, potentially starving guys in it as opposed to the number of portly, over fifty guys, and this one promised to be a class act indeed, with a goodly number of mildly grizzled, lanky, mildly manic fellows. In such good company however, I decided that I needed a way to set myself apart from the crowd, and so I hit upon one of those brilliantly dumb ideas that my brain throws out every now and then as a sort of penance for having once been allowed into a school with a gifted program. “I know what I can do!” I thought, “I’ll do the whole thing barefoot to look extra poverty stricken and desperate! I can think of no possible ways in which this could backfire or ever be even mildly uncomfortable in December on a muddy day next door to a swamp!” And so, as everyone else shivered to work setting up tents and making all us actors up to look adequately grungy (I had, in my infinite wisdom, thought that since being in a movie is the sort of occasion for which one ought to look impressive and decent, taken a shower that very morning before setting out), I cast my shoes off and set about finding all the pointier patches of gravel in the area with unerring luck.
My first scene called for me to be chopping wood, barefoot of course, while some Indians came in with food, at which point I was to look especially unbalanced, lurch towards them, and begin pawing experimentally at a dead deer they had brought, which, while missing most of its vital organs, still had it’s head, with which it kept looking at me in a sort of disappointed, yet vaguely annoyed manner.
After this, we shot a scene or two which involved John Smith coming to the village, and one of the guards shouting “Look, it’s Captain Smith!” in the squintiest manner possible. It just so happened that the fellow to whom this task fell had been gifted with an almost super-human talent for shouting news in a squinty manner, so that the ultimate effect can scarcely be compared to anything else upon the earth. It was just as if you happened to find yourself with an enormous caveman-styled unitard and the task of finding someone who could wear it to maximum effect and just as you despaired of discovering such an individual, Andre the Giant walked into the room to deliver you a pizza. Seriously, it was epically squinty. If squinty shouting were, say, balrog-slaying, this guy would have been Gandalf, or Gerald Ford (they’re secretly cousins, though they don’t look it since Gerald stopped wearing the hat).
Then it was time for lunch, at which point we all retreated to the warmth of the main admin building for and impromptu reenactment of the of the First Thanksgiving, when the Indians brought the starving settlers a might feast of Shepherds Pie (regular and vegetarian, for all those vegan settler) and off-brand root beer, along with a basket of fun-size Snickers bars, an urn of hot water, and a copious supply of Swiss Miss, at which point they all gave thanks to their Creator and commented on the extreme degree of squintiness of which these Englishmen seemed capable.
At this point we had fallen a bit behind schedule, so we found ourselves filming a couple of different scenes concurrently, including the Eating Dead People Scene, and the much anticipated Man-Eating Rat Scene (which alas, turned out to simply be a fellow having a squirrel for lunch, rather than the Rodent of Unusual Size that I had imagined). I myself, along with another fellow hardy enough to stand barefoot in frozen muck, got to dig a well in a lazy and lackluster fashion, at which point John Smith would come over say unkind things to us regarding the sub-par nature of our well-digging. The well in question, of course, was about a foot deep, and while the other fellow got a mattock to swing, I as so often is the case (remind me to do another blog sometime on my history of romance) got stuck with a cheap hoe, which meant that after Smith came over and yelled at me, I could usually get away with about ten good strokes in before the head fell off my hoe, and I had to stand there barefoot in the mud, pushing a stick around, getting yelled at, and trying not to get mattocked in any of my more sensitive parts. It was, in short, a great deal of fun. About this time, I also secured the help of a fellow on the production crew whose job was apparently to carry around a propane heater, thaw out the feet of those in need of such a service, and give me a sort of a “You poor, brave, stupid, bastard.” kind of a look, which was really very decent of him.
At this point, a great change took place in that for the next scene and all those following, shoes were not only allowed but encouraged, so I got to join a party of men who were grimacing sadly as John Smith was carried back to England after suffering a near fatal-groin injury after a tragic, yet hilarious accident involving a pocket full of gun powder, a raccoon, a rabbi, and a farmer whose eighteen daughters were all practicing to be trombone players. But I digress. Most of the scene involved me and all the rest of the cast standing there looking somber from various and sundry angles as Captain Smith’s ship sailed out of t he parking lot and back to
At last darkness had fallen, and the time had come for me to do my big scene with the raiding party. I was one of five men off to torch the Indian village. Each of them had a musket, I was the only one with a pitchfork, as if I was the one good-natured yet stupid colonist who might not be cool with torching a village so they had to lie to me to get me to come along. “Quick Ben, the Indians are building Frankenstein’s Monster and we have to stop them!” “Gawrsh, that sounds like an awfully Jewish name for an Indian Monster, but okay!” Or possibly, “Ben, the Indians have a whole bunch of hay they need moved somewhere else; also, it’s the middle of the night and they’re in danger of suffering severe eye-strain from studying in the dark for their midterms tomorrow!” “Golly, I’d best get me pitchfork and torch and go help them out!” In any case, we were about at the third take when one of the wires holding my torch together felt a sudden kinship with the force of gravity and bit me on the hand, prompting me to take the very reasonable step of shouting “Graaaaaagh!” and dropping the torch. Right in the middle of the forest, which as forests often are, was made out of dry flammable things with a great affinity for catching on fire. This in turn prompted me to survey the situation and sum it up with a succinct phrase that is unprintable in the space, before picking up the torch again, running into the Indian village, and dropping it off in at the firepit there. At this point, I had had time to catch up with events well enough to find myself standing in a village full of Indians, and ask if any of them had a band-aid, or as they Indians called them, Maize. Which of course, they did not, it being the case that my question was completely dumb.
About this time, the head of make-up came over and took me back to the building, where they swabbed me down in various and assorted antibacterial oinkments, bandaged my hand, and generally took excellent care of me, after which point I grabbed an extra ice pack, and called it a day. The result being that today, my feet are more than a little bit sore, and my index finger now sports a very dashing little dueling scar, as if it sustained a rapier strike while dueling with one of my other fingers over some matter of honor, “I’m the index finger, I make it so Ben can push buttons on the drink machine!” “I’m the pinky finger, I let Ben look French and girly when he’s holding a phone to humorous effect.” “Thou varlet, have at thee!” In short, even without the man-eating rat, it was a most excellent day.