Head Over Heels

"Hercules is coming to town".  It wasn't every day Bill would have the chance to meet his childhood hero.  This was too good to pass up.

"What's he going to do?  Tear apart a few lions?" Paul was sarcastic, pretending as usual he was a world-weary cynic.  He and Bill had been thrown together by the college residential authorities who thought they might be compatible.  It hadn't worked out as planned. 

"Don't be stupid." Bill was sorry he'd even mentioned Hercules or Mike Sturges who played him in a couple of films.  The legend was hard to avoid thanks to the poster of the wide shouldered, wasp-waisted, thunder-thighed actor, posing in a leather peplum that was pinned to the wall of their shared room.   Bill was tall but scrawnier than his hero even though his dad kept him working hard on the ranch while he was growing up. He was determined to have a body like Hercules, so with the money he got by selling a calf, he bought the Hercules poster and a set of Joe Weider dumbbells.  Later he added a barbell and extra weights but with all the work he put into it, there didn't seem to be much difference. Next to the polished slabs of meat that covered his idol's bones, he was a beanpole that could be blown over in a high wind. 

"They're filming some western down at Playfair Race Course," he read aloud from the newspaper. 

"And what part's Mr. Sturges playing?" Paul asked.  "The cowboy?  The horse?  The cowboy's wife?  The way you're fixated on him you'd think it was love."  

"Don't be ridiculous," Bill said, but he felt himself blushing.  "You're just trying to get my goat." He was offended by how Paul disrespected anyone who didn't impress him.  He would go on about Fellini, Bergman, Jean-Luc something, and put Bill down any time he mentioned Hollywood.  "Your Hercules was made in Italy you know," he'd say, always the one to have the last word.  At least Mike Sturges was American.  Bill's East European father had been intent on hiding his ancestry.  "We're American now," he'd say.  "Leave that foreign shit back where it belongs."

"Anyway, it says here they're looking for extras,"  Bill said.

"Just you and a bunch of other longhorns," Paul muttered, sounding grouchy that Bill had disturbed his studying for something so ridiculous.

"I can ride," Bill said.  "Practically grew up on a horse."

"Relax stud," Paul said.  "They're probably looking for a crowd scene and you're probably too tall for that.  They'd have to cut you off at the knees to make you fit," he said, and chuckled at his own joke, a conceit that irritated Bill.  He was used to being made fun of about his height.  "How's the weather up there," was the perpetual joke of the day, but he was self-conscious about it and usually slouched to make himself fit in better.   

The morning came for the general casting call but it was on a Wednesday so Bill had to skip classes.  It wasn't something he was used to doing because his parents were paying for his education and he knew how hard they worked.  There was a line-up of about ten people at the back of the grandstand and when he asked one of them if he was in the right place, he said, "Depends on what happens."

Everyone's a cynic, Bill thought as he walked to the back of the line where he spent the next half hour inching forward through eddies of dust that blew around the parking lot.  As he squinted against the stinging grit, he regretted his initial enthusiasm for such a silly adventure.  What would the movies ever want with him?  His natural stubbornness kept him waiting, and he told himself it was stupid to give up too soon when there was a chance that he would get to meet Mike Sturges.  He would kick himself later if he walked away.  Soon enough he was standing in front of a table of four men, not one of them the Hercules actor, being asked his name, age, and experience.  

"I don't know jack all about the movies," he admitted, "but I heard this is for a western and well, I'm a good rider."

"Oh?" one of the men at the table sat up straight, as if he had decided to argue the fact.  "And how is that?" he asked.  "Most that come in here don't know a horse's hocks from his withers."

"I grew up on a ranch," Bill said.  There was no need to elaborate on his junior rodeo wins and calf roping medals.  They would be laughable to Hollywood types. 

The other judges at the table nodded at each other and for a minute Bill thought he had a chance, but then the man at the centre of the table dismissed him with words to the effect of "Don't call us, we'll call you."

He thanked them but none of them were inclined to shake his offered hand on the way out, so he left feeling dejected and foolish for wasting so much time on a fantasy he should have outgrown. There had been no sign of the famous Mike Sturges so the excursion was a bust.  It was probably just as well.  His biology and chemistry courses were a heavy load and he couldn't take time away from them or he'd fall behind.

He pulled his collar up against the wind and had reached the paddock entrance when he heard a man behind him shouting, "Mr. Kovacs!  Mr. Bill Kovacs!"  as if someone was calling his father.  His father's first name was Vilmos but he told everyone it was William.  He had given the anglicized name to his son, hoping to cement the change in his heritage.  Bill turned around expecting to see a track official tell him he was going out the wrong gate, but it was one of the men from the interview table.  

"Sorry," he said, out of breath from running.  "We've got so many people this morning I didn't want to hold up proceedings."  The man held out his hand.  "I'm Mr. Sturges' personal assistant," he said. "Dean Richards."  

"Nice to meet you,"  Bill shook the older man's hand, pleased that someone in the group had proper manners.

"So you want to be in the movies?" Mr. Richards asked.

Bill hadn't said as much in his interview.  The most he had been hoping for was to get a bit part and be lucky enough to see his idol.  "I don't know about that," he answered.  "I'm still a student.  I don't have much time."

"Nonsense," Mr. Richards smiled.  "You're young.  You've got all the time in the world.  We're interested if you'd like to give it a try.  If it will help you decide, I can arrange for you to meet Mr.Sturges."

It was a carrot that Bill had a taste for. Although being rostered into a film schedule didn't fit with his educational goals, if it meant meeting the real Mike Sturges, he'd find a way to arrange it.  He nodded. There was no chance he would tell his parents about it.  He could already hear his father going on about a bunch of fairies down in Hollywood.  He had been equally cruel about the Sturges poster when Bill first put it up in his room.  "Goddam freak," his father said.  "And look at the skirt he's wearing.  Your sainted grandmother would turn in her grave at the sight of a perversion like that."   Bill didn't know what his father meant exactly when he denounced things as perverted, but it was a word he applied to card games, drinking, smoking, or anything else he thought was immoral.  

"If it's convenient for you," Dean Richards said, "you can meet up with him this evening.  That way you won't have to skip any more classes." The interview was set for eight that evening at the Davenport Hotel.  

"Ask for me by name," Mr. Richards said.

If the meeting was in a hotel, he wouldn't be asked to demonstrate his roping or riding skills.  He could ride in his sleep but his roping skills were rusty now he was at University. He hoped the interview wouldn't go on too long or he'd miss the last bus and taxis back out to the campus were expensive.

He expected to find other fans like him milling around the lobby hoping for another chance to mix with the cream of the dream factory, but word of the star's whereabouts probably hadn't leaked out.  At the lobby desk he asked for Mr. Richards.  The clerk raised an eyebrow but didn't say what might have been on his mind.  As if waving away a stray dog, he directed Bill to a group of overstuffed lobby chairs.  When Mr. Richards arrived he was dressed like he was going out, so Bill guessed they were going somewhere else for the meeting.  That might be another reason for the lack of autograph hounds. When Bill stood up, Mr. Richards said, "He'll see you now."

"Where?" Bill looked around to see if his idol had slipped in without him noticing. 

"Up in his room," Mr. Richards said.  "Mr.Sturges wants to go over a few things with you before we make a final decision."

Bill had yet to lay eyes on the famous actor and now he was supposed to go knock on his door by himself.  He couldn't imagine what they would have to say to each other as Bill knew nothing about the actor except from the films he had made. 

When Mike Sturges answered the knock on his door, Bill found himself looking up into what he thought was a hallucination.  He had seen the face so many times in closeup that he knew every angle of the perfect nose, the thin lips that rarely smiled, and the dimple on the strong chin.

"Thanks for coming by on such short notice," the actor said.

Bill muttered "That's alright," though he wasn't sure if he thought it or said it, and it was the wrong thing to say anyway. The real Mike Sturges had such broad shoulders that like Paul Bunyan, an axe-handle would fit across them with no room to spare.

"Come in.  Come in."  Sturges stepped aside and closed the door after Bill. "Take off your coat," he said.  "It's warm in here and we want to be comfortable."

Bill did as he was told, and looked around for where he should sit.  Although Mr. Sturges had made himself comfortable in one of the easy chairs, and hadn't invited Bill to take the other. 

"I hear you know how to ride a horse," Sturges said, looking up at Bill with eyes that were impossibly sapphire, a vivid colour the movie screens had never captured properly.

"Yes Sir," Bill said.  "I grew up on a ranch."

"Excellent," Sturges said.  "That means you know about cowboy boots."

Bill nodded.

"Then do me a favour before you sit down," Sturges said. "I need to get these shit kickers off."

Bill owned several pairs of cowboy boots and though he wasn't wearing them that night, he knew what a wrestling match it could be to get them off.  Some swore by boot jacks but the easiest way was to have someone else pull them off.  

Sturges held out one booted foot, so Bill put his coat in the empty chair and came over to tug on the heel. The big man was right that the boots were tight.   "Turn around," Sturges said. "Sometimes that works better."

Bill knew this way of boot pulling, so he wasn't all that surprised when the other man's booted foot pushed on his backside while he tugged on the heel. 

"I'd get my wife or Dean to do the honours but you're the only one around."  Bill wiggled the boot from side to side like he was easing a boulder out of a post hole.  "So where's the family ranch?" Sturges asked.

"Um.  Over by Kalispell.  Montana."

"God's country," Sturges said, sounding distracted.  The boot finally released.  "Ah!  Much better," he said.  "Now the other one."

As Bill pulled he could feel the heat of the seated man's foot as it sought better purchase on his backside.  

"I got a place outside Bend," Sturges said.  "We breed thoroughbreds.  Every kind of stallion you can imagine."  

The foot against Bill's backside found a tender spot and pushed.  Bill tried not to think of anything unusual in this.  His father, who considered him barely capable as a boot jack, would have done the same thing without thinking.  When the second boot came off Bill set it down and backed away.  

"What's your name again son?" Sturges asked as he stood up.  In spite of Bill's height, the other man was taller so when he looked down at Bill with his shiny blue eyes, it was like having his soul penetrated by an intimidating policeman.  He was paralyzed and uncomfortable being stared at.  The room was hot and beads of sweat broke out on his upper lip.  

"Kovacs," he said.  "Bill Kovacs.  William."

"Hm." The actor nodded knowingly.  "Hungarian," he said.

Bill was as startled as if a fortune teller had guessed the date of his birthday. 

"I know these things," Sturges said.  "Bet you didn't know my real last name is Nagy."

"No Sir."

"Nagy's a Hungarian name.  Did you know that?" 

"No Sir."

"Don't know much do you son?  I thought you were a student."

"Yes Sir."

"How old?"

"Eighteen Sir."

"Good," Sturges said.  "That's good.  Old enough to know better."

"Sorry Sir?"

"The name's Mike.  Call me Mike," Mike Sturges said.  "So you want to be in films?" he asked as he sat down to take off his socks.  

"Not really Sir.  I thought I could earn a bit of extra money, but I plan to be a pharmacist."

"Admirable," Mike Sturges said.  "We show business types need our little helpers."

"Sorry Sir?"  Bill wasn't sure if his hearing was fading or if his idol was talking a language he didn't understand.   

Sturges had meanwhile stood up to take his shirt off, and Bill had to tell himself to close his gaping mouth when he saw the naked torso. The actor was almost forty, but his body was every bit as sculpted as it appeared on the screen.  He was probably used to people staring because he didn't  say anything about Bill's reaction beyond a slight smile.  He did a few bodybuilding poses in front of the mirror, as relaxed as only someone with a spectacular build could be.

"The reason you're here," Sturges said, still with his back turned and looking into the mirror. "Is to go over a few lines to see how well we work together."

"I…um…ah…I thought this was for work as an extra," Bill said.  "I'm a student. I can't take time off school."

"Nonsense.  We'll figure something out.  If you're any good at it, the money's very good.  Student's can always use more money."

"Yes Sir," Bill said.  "Sorry, I mean Mike."  It was true he didn't want to saddle himself with school loans or rely on his father for the rest of his education.  Maybe there was something to this acting thing after all.

"You see that paper on top of the pile there?"  Bill hadn't paid much attention to what was on the table.  It wasn't his business to snoop.  He nodded as he leaned over the typed page.  

"Well I'm going to have a quick shower, and while I do, I want you to read that over.  Pay attention to the lines for the ranch hand."

As Bill peered at the paper he could see out of the corner of his eye that Sturges slipped off his jeans and underwear, and disappeared naked into the bathroom.  He envied the actor for being so casual about his naked body, but then with a body like his, nobody was going to make fun of him. 

He read over the pages of the script several times and even tried sotto-voiced versions of the things he was supposed to say but it was hard to concentrate.  What was he doing in a stranger's hotel room while he was having a shower?  He was still muttering the lines of script to himself when Sturges came out of the steamy bathroom wearing a white terry-cloth housecoat.  Bill glanced up but then kept his eyes down, seeing only the tanned shins and bulging calves walk toward him.  The actor stopped behind him and looked over his shoulder at the papers on the table.

"How's it going son?" he asked.  "You think you can do it?"

"I don't know Sir.  Maybe  I could try."

            "Mike," the big man said.  "Let's give it a run-through. I'm sure you'll do fine." 

When Sturges leaned forward to pick up the paper Bill felt something like a hard knot against his shoulder.  As he turned to find out why Sturges was pressing against him, the belt of white housecoat fell aside and Bill found himself with an erect penis in his face.

"Go on," Sturges said.  "Lick it.  It's clean."

Bill had nothing to say as he looked up at Sturges' face, and as he did so, the man's penis touched his lips.  He could have run.  He should have run.  But he didn't and he didn't know why.  This wasn't important, he told himself.  Nothing to get in a panic about.  Sturges wasn't some stallion gone wild, he was a man asking for a favour, like asking another man to scratch his back.  So far, Sturges hadn't been arrogant or forceful.  Something in Bill made him question whether this was what he wanted all along, to be intimate with his idol, but the most he had imagined was being friends with him, not this private forbidden contact.  

"That's right," Sturges said, as Bill's lips parted slightly and from there, things were a blur.  

Once he was back out in the corridor walking away from Sturges' room, wiping his lips dry and straightening his hair, he told himself it hadn't been that bad.  Sturges could have tried to penetrate him but he didn't.  Bill had heard homosexual men did that and it was painful, but this had been almost innocent and natural, like two boy's playing and exploring.  It meant nothing. 

When he got home, Paul was still awake studying. "Jeez," he said.  "You look paler than a circus clown."

"Hmph," was all Bill had to say as he took off his coat.  He was a clown for sure, to be taken in so easily.  He was sure his pale face changed to scarlet as he thought of the humiliation of being pushed to his knees in front of his idol and told to get to work.  That shouldn't happen to any man.  He banged the flat of his hand down on the desk beside his bed and Paul almost jumped out of his chair.

"Cool it man," Paul said.  "You want to give me a heart attack."

"What the hell do I care," Bill said.  He was angry, not so much at Sturges, but at himself.  When Paul turned back to his studies, Bill stood up on his bed and took down the poster of his idol, rolled it up, twisted it into a knot, and shoved it into the wastebasket.  Paul had turned around again when he heard the crunching paper.  He looked up at the blank space on the wall.

"I guess that means you didn't get the part," he said.

"Ha!" Bill said.  "They gave me a part all right but I've changed my mind."

"What happened?" Paul asked, turning round in his chair and looking like he cared.

"I don't want to talk about it," Bill said.  "It was a mistake going there and that's the end of it."

But it wasn't the end.  He hardly slept that night as he went over what had happened and asked himself why he hadn't hightailed it out of there at the first sign of things being unusual. Although he resented the liberties that had been taken with him, it hurt more that he had been taken in all the years of his youth, thinking that Mike Sturges was some ideal man, someone to be like.  Because of what happened, everything he held as manly and right had been pulled out from under him.  He couldn't tell anyone about it because they would all say he was stupid to go meet the man in the first place.  They didn't understand how much he had worshiped Mike Sturges and now that his youthful adoration had been trampled underfoot, he couldn't tell them why. 

The next morning Paul asked. "Are you sure you didn't catch something? You look just as sick as last night."

"I didn't sleep," Bill said, but he was already distracted by a plan taking shape in his head.  "I skipped class yesterday and I sure as hell can't concentrate today, so the best thing is to go back to my folks for the weekend.  I'll think about what to do, maybe talk to my mom about it.  If I decide to take the job I need to pick up a few things."

"Your spurs?" Paul asked.  He couldn't keep his sarcasm to himself. "Anyway, a break would do you good," he added, sounding more like the friend he should be. "But midterms are coming up next week so you'd better spend part of your weekend studying."

"You don't know my dad," Bill said. "He'll have me out there every minute God sends us, doing some make-work project.  He thinks this studying stuff is for the birds.  He'd be happy if I dropped out."

It was a five hour Greyhound ride from Spokane to Kalispell and after that he had to call his father from the depot to come into town and fetch him. 

"What the hell is this about?" his father asked. "You finally come to your senses and decided to stay and help your old man run the place?"

"Not a chance," Bill said, and that was the end of conversation between them for the rest of the half hour ride.  

By Sunday morning, he still hadn't talked to his mother about what to do so decided to keep it a secret.  When it was time to leave, he waited until his father had gone out to the barn to open the locked gun case in the hallway, and from there took out the Smith & Wesson 357 that his father had given him for his 16th birthday.  "It's an American gun, not like them foreign models," he had said.  

Bill wasn't really sure why he took the gun.  He was still agitated about the wound to his masculinity.  He had heard many times about women being forced to have sex against their will, and though some of them found the strength to denounce their rapists, many women preferred to keep quiet about it because telling others would make them look like the guilty one for getting into that situation in the first place.  But Bill wasn't a woman.  He would be quiet, but he would also take action.  He ground his teeth and thought about shooting Mike Sturges in the balls.  It might save some other gullible kid like him.

He packed the revolver in its leather holster into the suitcase of clothes he had brought home for his mother to wash.   He considered leaving a note for his father to say that he had taken the gun, but by the time his father discovered it was missing, it might not matter anyway.  Guns weren't allowed on the Greyhound, but in the many  times he had taken the bus, nobody had ever asked to look in his luggage.  He couldn't carry the gun on his hip like a real cowboy, but the knowledge of having it tucked into his suitcase, put some swagger back in his walk.  He wasn't certain what he would do with the revolver, but having it with him made him feel protected.  He had assumed he was wise to the ways of the world, but the incident with Sturges proved to him that he was more vulnerable than he thought.  He seemed to have gone backward instead of forward and had found out there were things he didn't know that he should have.  There were some strange and bad people in the city.  

Back in his shared room at the university, Bill unpacked his suitcase of carefully folded clothes.  Paul lay on his bed reading but must have looked up at the wrong moment, because he said, "What's that?" when Bill laid the leather holster on his bed.

"A 357," he said.  There was no point in pretending.  Although Paul was interested in different things to Bill, he wasn't ignorant.

"What do you need that for?"

"Nothing," Bill said.  "I just feel better having it around."

"You think someone is going to come in here and rob us?"

"No. But if they did, I'd be ready."

"I doubt it.  You'd probably shoot yourself in the foot and me in the process.  I'd just give them the money.  It's not like they'd get farther than the closest bus stop on the money I've got.."  

"Well you might not think it's important to be prepared, I do," Bill said.

"Always the good boy scout," Paul said.  "Little fascists," he added, unable to resist harping on his political views, something the two of them disagreed on and had decided not to discuss.  When Bill didn't rise to the bait, Paul said, "I guess that means you're taking the job in the film if you brought your own wild west gear."

"The money's good," Bill said.  He had been repeating that to himself all weekend, trying to block out the loud voice in his head that told him that not only might it be the end of his school year if he showed up for the film job, but that Sturges would be there and might try something again.  He had forgotten to ask Dean Richards how long the film shoot might go on, so he wasn't sure how well he could keep Mike Sturges at arms length now that thing had gone so far.  At worst it might be a couple of weeks.  He could string Sturges along, being careful not to be alone with him, collect his substantial pay, and move on with his studies.  He had enough faith in his academic skills that he figured he could catch up after what was bound to be the disaster of the looming mid-term exams.  

"Guns aren't allowed on campus,"' Paul said.  "I suggest you take that thing back home as soon as this film gig is all over.  I don't feel safe with it in the room."

The filming location was at Playfair again, which was fine with Bill because there would be no hotel rooms involved and the set would be public.  The favour Bill had done for his teenage crush had earned him a job as an extra, but that would be the end of his contact with Sturges. He sat on his bed to pull on the cowboy boots he had brought from home, and when Paul wasn't looking, he stowed the pistol and holster at the bottom of his aluminum lunch-box along with a thermos of instant coffee and a couple of sandwiches he'd taken from the cafeteria the night before.

"I'm pretty sure they have catering on the set," Paul had said.

"I don't know that for sure."

"It's the damn boy scout in you." Paul turned back to his books.

When Bill arrived at the gate of the paddock, he was escorted into a conference room and given a long coat and a cowboy hat.  His hope of keeping a low profile went out the window when he was escorted into an attached horse-barn, toward a knot of people standing around a huge complicated movie camera on a platform.  Sturges was chatting with his assistant Dean, and then with another man who Bill guessed was the director.  When Sturges saw Bill he peeled away from the group and walked toward him.  Bill's knees trembled.  It was a mistake to have come back.  This wasn't supposed to happen.  He disliked, even hated the actor for the liberties he had taken, but Sturges winked and put on his best white smile as he draped a long, heavily-muscled arm over Bill's shoulder like they were best friends.  Bill stood stiffly and tried to smile but he was weak and sweaty.  Sturges pressed against his side as if they were best buddies, but when he felt something hard against the outside of his thigh he looked down.  While Bill had been settling into the coat and hat he had been given by the wardrobe lady, he had slipped on his own gun and holster.  He told himself it was for authenticity, but if he stopped to remember any of the shootouts in Sturges' western films, the fingers on one hand started to twitch.  Sturges leaned over to lift the front of Bill's coat.  "I see they've got you fitted up already,"  he said, and patted Bill on the back like they were buddies.  Sturges' voice so close to his ear and the hot breath on his neck made a knot in his stomach and he thought he might vomit.  

"Yep," was all he managed, hoping that was the end of their contact.  

"Don't be nervous boy," Sturges said.  "I'll show you the ropes."

It was a relief when the director called the actor away.  Bill still had no idea what he was supposed to do there, if he had been officially hired as an extra on the film, or if he had only been invited as entertainment for the big man.  Dean Richards had disappeared.  Nobody had given Bill a copy of the page he had studied at the hotel room, or given him any directions.  He stood there, trying to stay out of the way of the people with headphones and skittish horses, feeling like a sheep at a bull sale.  

The gun was heavy on his hip.  It had been a stupid idea to bring it.  If Sturges backed him into a corner he might feel enough rage to threaten him with it, but the place was too public.  If he fired the gun, he would be jumped on by others immediately.  There might be an opportunity later but that would depend on Sturges getting him alone, something he didn't want to happen. The gun was for self-defense. He didn't have to use it, but if he did, it would just as likely be on himself as anyone.  He didn't want to be homosexual.  If he was like Sturges, sneaking around pretending he was something he wasn't, he'd rather die.

Bill wandered over to a young man wearing leather chaps to ask if he had any idea what was going on. 

"It's an indoor shot," the young man said.  "Mr. Sturges will gallop in one door of the stable and out the other.  We're the surprised cowpokes in the background.  They'll wave us over when it's time for us to take our places."

"What places?"  Bill asked.  "Nobody's told me anything."

"They'll let you know when you're wanted.  First time?"

"Yeah.  I've never done this before.  Mr. Sturges invited me."

The young man held Bill's eyes for a few seconds before looking away.  "Good luck with that," he said.  "I saw that Mr. Sturges already has you in his clutches."

"What do you  mean by that?" Bill challenged, but knew as soon as he thought of Sturges' strong arm pulling him closer.  He should get out of there now and forget any idiotic ideas of revenge.  He'd already met his idol and it hadn't gone well. He should have walked out of the actor's hotel room before it was too late.  It was all his fault.  

The lighting and cameras coalesced around the centre aisle of the barn, and the extras like Bill were moved closer to where the action would be.  A man with a bullhorn patrolled the aisle telling the extras where to go and not to go.   A few men on horses rode slowly into the barn, walked most of the length of the aisle, turned, and exited while lights and cameras were adjusted.  It took forever until Sturges appeared on a horse at the end of the barn and walked his mare down the aisle.  He turned back, and trotted out of the barn the way he had come in. More camera and light adjustments were made, and there was so much chatter from the extras that they had to be scolded to be quiet.  Every time the actor passed the place where Bill was stationed, he winked.  Bill couldn't summon even a smile.  Eventually, there was the call for action, and Sturges on his chestnut mare came galloping through the door, down the length of the barn, and out the other end.  When the director shouted "Cut" there was scattered applause.The actor cantered back through the barn to take another run at it.  This time he smiled and waved to Bill as he passed by.  Everyone looked to see who the attention was meant for.  It may as well have been a kiss that Sturges had given him in public.  Shame made his face turn red and he felt a collective scowl of envy around him. 

The hero of the film disappeared out the barn door again while the director gave final instructions to the cameraman.  When the call for action came, the sound of galloping hooves grew louder and everyone held their breath.  The horse and rider charged through the open barn doors and the sound dominated all.  Bill knew that a horse's hooves at full speed could shake the earth, like a train thundering across the prairie, inevitable, and unstoppable.  Sturges' gaze was straight ahead, focussed on the exit.  Just before the muscled sweaty horse got to where Bill was stationed, there was a loud bang from above and the startled horse jerked its head up. At the same time, the extra that Bill had been talking to, ran across the track toward the other side.  The horse's eyes bulged in terror at this new affront and she veered to one side of the aisle.  Sturges tried to steer her away, but pulled too hard on the reins, so the horse lost her front footing and bounced off the row of stalls. 

"Cut!" the director shouted.  The actor, who claimed to be an experienced horseman, should have bailed out and grabbed the top of a stall door as soon as his horse faltered. Rodeo riders did it all the time.  With a terrified squeal, the unbalanced horse, unable to control its momentum, crashed so hard into a set of stall rails that they broke, pitched sideways and landed on a heap of splintered timber with Mike Sturges under her.  There were two seconds of silence while the horse snorted and heaved before the barn erupted in shouts as people ran toward the crash scene.  

"Call an ambulance!" someone shouted, but nobody was sure where to call from or if someone had already done it.  The big bay horse, squirming and uncomfortable on her side, was intimidated by the attention focussed on her, and with a mighty groan, heaved herself to her feet.  She was a tall horse, and as she tested her footing and skittered away, it was clear that her rider was hanging upside down from her side.  The rider's head, which had lost its cowboy hat, was perilously close to the ground and the animal's feet.  A wrangler rushed to the side of the horse hoping to calm her down and untangle the rider from the stirrups.  As a last resort, he could pull Sturges out of his cowboy boot, but he was too late and the horse panicked and ran.  In an effort to shake off the object bouncing at her side, the mare kicked her heels at it and deliberately grazed a few more posts along the way.  The wrangler, the director, Dean Richards, the crew and the extras ran out of the barn to see what would happen.  They watched in shocked silence as the horse galloped away, her rider still hanging by one foot.  His hands, which were over his head, dragged in the dirt and he seemed to make no effort to free himself, a sure sign he was unconscious if not dead. The other mounted men tried approaching on horseback but the mare with her flopping burden kicked at them if they got near, probably doing further damage to her thrown rider.  It wasn't until a truck with a horse trailer pulled into the far side of the parking lot that the frantic mare slowed down to trot up beside it. Perhaps the mare recognized the vehicle as a way out of her misery. The driver of the truck stopped his vehicle, got out slowly and convinced the wild-eyed mare to stand still long enough for him to take the reins.  He tied the reins to the trailer and soothed the horse until it let him release the cinch and billet.  The saddle and limp rider fell to the ground like a sack of coal, and the horse tried to skitter away from it, like she had given birth to it and didn't know what it was or where it had come from.    

"A Tragic Accident," the papers said.  A series of unfortunate coincidences. Hollywood was sympathetic. Accusations of negligence were thrown back and forth. Curious fans and avid reporters were soon all over the fairground speculating on the details of the tragedy. Witnesses said that when a high powered light blew out, those underneath it had run to avoid the falling glass, but it had happened at just the wrong moment.  It wasn't the horse's fault or the rider's.

The evening of the accident Bill was at his desk reading the lessons he had missed in case the midterm exam relied heavily on the latest classes, when Paul came in from watching the news on the television in the commons room.

"I see your boyfriend had an accident," he said.

Bill gritted his teeth, fed up with his roommate making snide remarks. "He's not my boyfriend.  And yes, he had an accident.  I was there."

"Oh that's right.  I forgot about your movie career." 

"There's no career," Bill said.  "I'm here to get my degree, not mess around with any Hollywood types."

"So it didn't go well?" Paul asked.

"You saw how it went.  The idiot fell off his horse and that was the end of it."

"Bitter?" Paul asked.

"He had it coming," Bill said.  

"Nobody deserves a broken back," Paul said.  "Probably means the end of his movie career.  He can hardly play Hercules in a wheelchair."

"See if I care," Bill said and turned back to his books and notes.

"That was a quick fall from grace," Paul said.  "What the hell happened?"

"Nothing.  He fell off his horse and they stopped shooting."

"Something happened the other day when you went to see him.  That's when you took the poster off the wall."

"I grew out of him."

"About time," Paul said.  "They say we should never meet our heroes."

Bill wasn't sure whether he was satisfied or sad that such a perfect, though flawed specimen of a man, could be brought down by a stupid freak accident.  Perhaps the actor had been living on borrowed time and was heading for a fall anyway.  If secrets about his private life ever got out, it would break his career just as brutally as the accident.  Paul's new-age vocabulary would call it  karma; in Bill's world it was comeuppance.  He had made an error in judgement that he could chalk up to youth and backwoods naivety, but he put most of the blame on the actor who had overstepped his privilege. Though Bill was at university to get an education, he was learning that not all of his lessons would come from the classroom.