"They got us a location!" Hange sang as they swept in the door. They swung it closed, a lot harder than necessary, and it slammed with a resounding bang. Levi flinched and cursed.
"Jesus fuck, Hans"
He went back to making his tea.
Hange threw themself onto their mutual couch, a sad, rather moth-eaten affair in the classic 1970s color of avocado. It protested as their wiry frame bounced down.
"Somewhere down south this time."
"Oh fucking great," Levi grunted, pouring his water carefully over tea leaves, "Please don't tell me we're going to Dog Nuts Alabama for most of a year."
Hange laughed. "No, It's somewhere in the Carolinas, I think. It's supposed to be pretty. There's a lake."
"Whoop de do," Levi said sourly. "A lake, oh joy. So 'Fuck-Your-Cousin North Carolina' for almost a year. I can't wait."
The timer went off and Levi extracted the tea leaves.
"If you don't like traveling, Levi," Hange mused, "Why do you do this job, hun?"
Chapter 1 - LocationLevi and Hange packed efficiently, moving around each other easily in the small apartment as they always did. All they needed for the shoot that they could pack were personal items. The huge majority of things they'd need—Hange was the art director and Levi was the set designer—was packed and moved by the movie production company they worked for.
'Fuck Your Cousin North Carolina' turned out to be Ellway, South Carolina. They flew into Columbia, the capital city, and the sleepy, quiet airport there (compared with LaGuardia.) Hange drove a rental to the location which was not even an hour away and Levi sat, bored, in the passenger's seat trying to not be as creeped out by all the greenery and wide open spaces. There were vast stretches of nothing but trees and highway interchanges that were just carefully mowed grass. There were weird restaurants (what the hell was a Waffle House and why was there one seemingly at every single fucking exit?)
There were a lot of pick-up trucks and almost no honking of horns or waving of fists at other drivers.
It was downright bizarre.
The town of Ellway on Stillwell Reservoir, a small natural lake on the Broad River in Fairfield county was the size of a postage stamp and just as quaint. Levi wanted to throw up.
He stared morosely out the window of the rental as they passed through town. It looked like a movie set in and of itself, like every other stereotypical small town to appear on screen. No town square with a bandstand but a single main drag that ran parallel with the railroad tracks. There were several large industries farther out, hidden in the lush trees, dependent on the trains to ship goods and the local citizenry to populate them and keep them running for generations: a huge lumber mill, a wire plant, a heavy equipment manufacturer, and the ubiquitous chicken plant. The 'new' high school and middle school (both built around 1964) shiny and modern, stood proudly outside town behind their athletic fields.
Because of the industry, the town bustled and the main part hadn't flagged but stayed vibrant—though small. The hardware store, a few restaurants, a gas station, and a pharmacy with an actual soda fountain.
The movie folks had already started setting up and trucks and some RVs and various odd constructions with scaffolding had been erected.
"Crew's getting set up," Hange observed, at one of the two red lights.
There was a small town square slash park, all of a hundred feet square with a somber grey monument to the fallen of WW1 in the center. The film crew had generously even cordoned off the grass to keep the workers off of it; they probably wanted it in a shot for the film.
Hange grunted in satisfaction and drove slowly on.
The highway ran out of town, also parallel with the main street and railroad tracks and their motel was there, just off the exit, cheek-by-jowl with a couple of large gas station/convenience stores, a McDonalds, a Taco bell, a Bojangles, and, of course, a Waffle House.
The motel was tidy, clean, and very simple. Just a U-shape of rooms with the office at the end of one arm. It was called the Coach-and-Horses Motel and featured two life-sized fiberglass horses hitched to an authentic old-fashioned buggy in the grass horseshoe in the center.
Hange pulled up into a parking spot in front of the office with a jerk, jarring Levi.
"We're here! I'll go get checked in and then let's get something to eat! I'm starving!"
"You're always starving, shit-glasses."
"What's a Bojangles, I wonder? God, it smelled good driving by."
Hange kept the windows firmly rolled up and the AC blasting. With the car off, however, it got stuffy, quick.
Now, Levi didn't like the out of doors particularly, and the heat even less, but fresh air was nice. He cautiously turned the key and rolled his window down.
It was still early in the morning. They'd come in on a 6am flight. It couldn't be but 8am or so. Levi rested his elbow on the window frame. It wasn't bad.
It was quiet. Like really, really quiet. Even with the highway nearby.
Levi, used to the constant clatter and drone of a huge city punctuated by sirens, found it unnerving. Creepy, even.
He looked around the hotel lot. There were cars in almost all of the parking places but no one was stirring but one lady. She was in sleep pants and a strappy tee with no bra, and was getting ice. He could hear the muted slither of ice into their ice bucket. Why did all hotels have that same copper-colored bucket for ice? What could they be using ice for at 8 in the morning? Levi took a moment to admire her figure. Jesus, it was too long since he'd gotten laid.
The woman walked back to her room. Levi noted that she'd actually left the door ajar when she left. Idiot.
The door shut and Levi glanced at the office. What was taking Hange so long? Fuck. Levi let his head rest against the back of the seat.
He became aware of a noise, a low buzzing at once close and hazy, and also far away. It rose and fell and stopped intermittently. The fuck was that? Hange came bouncing out of the office, key, with it's iconic green diamond-shaped fob, dangled from their hand. They slid back into the driver's seat and started the car.
"We're in 13! How cool is that?
Apparently each tenant parked in front of their door and, sure enough, the space in front of 13 was empty.
As they got out Levi slung his only bag, a large duffle, over his shoulder by the strap and helped Hange with their two suitcases. A small family, mom and dad and a little girl came out of a room a couple of doors down. The child paused to stare.
"Mommy, that man is very colorey."
Levi glanced up just in time to see the mom take in his tattooed arms.
"He also has earrings in his mouth!"
Levi ignored them, very used to the reactions he got when he went on location but his tongue instinctively went to the backs of the two snakebite piercings in his lower lip, tracing them. It was easy to forget you had facial piercings at all until someone mentioned them—you couldn't see them without a mirror after all .
The mother, to her credit, scolded the child about what was appropriate to say and demanded an apology.
"Sorry!" the little girl chirped.
Levi was startled but grunted an "It's all right."
Hange and Levi unpacked while Hange talked on the phone to their production assistant about their schedule, pacing back and forth across the small room with the device pinched between their shoulder and their jaw.
"Not here? Well when will they be here?"
Levi quirked a brow.
"The crates with the set dressings were delayed," they told him.
Levi sighed and resumed shaking out each article of his clothing, re-folding it, and putting in the drawers of the low green dresser.