Mister President had been spotted and selected to be in an ESPN clothing commercial which was being filmed in Bayonne. He could make $100 and we'd be given a ride there and back. Since it was my day off, the decision was mine to make.

"Of course!" I said, a lot more enthusiasm for Bayonne now that money and cameras were involved.

"You will?"

It's not that Bayonne is a forgotten burnt out city riddled with crack and crime, or an uptight suburb with a wooden train station in the middle of town. Either would give it more character than what it is. Not that I had ever been there. I only suspected row houses covered in fading, thick-paneled alumnium siding, mattress-sized lawns penned in with alumnium fences, old ladies in house coats and gold pendants holding open screen doors.

But when we pulled into Bayonne, NJ at 1pm on Tuesday afternoon, that's what it was. It wasn't devoid of charm. It had it's beautiful historic churches. Some minty green rusting awnings on main street with art deco lettering of a woman's salon long gone. It was a town from the 60's, harmless, characterless. clean.

The high school was enormous. The dog was beside himself. He couldn't get into the elevator (yes, an elevator at a high school) and into the cafeteria fast enough, where luch was being served to a room full of cast and crew. Or at least it may have been. I was trying to pick out of the crowd who the dog -- straining on the leash, ears alert, brow wrinkled -- he was getting ready to lunge for. I ruled out all the women. He has never lunged at a woman. I tried to find the large men with threatening shoes, boots or big hair. Any black men with jangling belts.

I filled a styrofoam plate with tuna salad, a piece of rye bread, a pile of romaine lettuce and a sliver of roast beef while juggling a leash and steering Mister President clear of a young black actor. I ate my lunch while tossing treats to the dog. The sound in the cafeteria was boucing around us, never settling, a rush and murmur of voices. People walked up and asked to pet the dog and I don't remember talking to any one of them. The men I talked to on the phone to arrange to be there introduced themselves, and I couldn't remember any one of them.

Before the cafeteria cleared he lunged at a police officer. The police officer chuckled and said he didn't mind. My face burned with shame. When the cafeteria cleared of everyone but a table of four young actors, me and the dog, he lunged at an unsuspecting janitor. I held my head in shame and scolded him again, hoping my scolding could make people erase the idea of this viscious dog.

I expected to be there all day. When I agreed to the film shout, I thought, this could be a complete waste of time and I probably won't be home until midnight if I'm lucky. But by 2pm, I heard "we're ready for the dog" and we were ushered into the hallway of Bayonne high school.

This is getting long. I'll speed this up. There were lights and film crews and men with big belts everywhere. A high-risk hallway. I held a pupperoni stick in his mouth to keep him trotting along nicely by my side. I kept getting asked if I was the dog's owner. As opposed to his agent.

"There's a dog on the set people. I need quiet people. There's a dog on the set!"

"What's the dog's name?"

"Mister President."

"That's funny." He asked again later. He thought I was kidding the first time.

I tried to get Mister President to sit on the line they told me to have him sit on. There was a rush of noise in my ears, the same rush of noise that was in the cafeteria. Maybe this was the blood pulsing in my head. I got him in the right place.

"I'm Chip." The director had a firm handshake, a steady voice. They whispered about the actor between takes. "Stand here, behind the camera."

Action. Cut. They used those words. The camera squeezed in as the boy said his lines. Mister President stayed still. Perfectly still. Pride mingled with nervousness. I could feel how impressed everyone was with him, their frustration with the actor who was messing up his lines. They shot again and again. Hardly a pause between. Fast instructions tossed everywhere. Judgments inside people's heads pressing in.

"Don't walk in front of the dog! I need quiet people!"

The dog was doing good. He was doing perfect. He kept looking at me. He was so relaxed. He looked at the microphone swinging above his head and then held steady on me. I readjusted him a few times. Pefect, people said. I took it to heart even though it was a word they used lightly.

Later in the trailer, waiting for my ride home. I was shy. There was an actress getting her make-up done. Vanessa. She had ridden into Bayonne with us. The dog was sprawled across the floor, nose pointed at a basket of junk food, sleeping. People liked having the dog around. Two girls entered invoices into a computer. One petted the dog everytime she had a break. I asked them if they worked long hours and they nodded, flipping through invoices, pecking keyboards, playing with the knobs of their headsets. The driver stepped around the dog on his way back from the bathoom. He was very big, huffed when he walked and tried not to disturb things. The cell phone looked like a matchbox car in his hand. I could tell the people in the crew didn't like him, brushed off his comments, used sarcasm they thought he couldn’t understand.

The director sat next to me. He wore a bright shirt, hip sneakers, head shaved. Somehow, I thought, they all look like this. Or I knew they'd all look like this. "The dog's amazing," he said. "Really."

I woke up the dog to go home. We were back in the apartment at 4pm. The next day we found out that the client preferred the take without the dog. Which doesn't take anything away. Really.

Posted at 5:28 PM Comments (2)

Beck adds "Or a beach ball"

maybe his $100 could by a nice frisbee