“One more time, Big J, scrape that blade down your face and look into the camera like this is the greatest shave of your life,” the enthusiastic director instructed him as though this was the first take of his shaving commercial and not the eighth.
Jarrad McBride experienced a flash of annoyance. He knew the guy was only doing his job but he hated being called Big J. It was a hockey player nickname, and he wasn’t a hockey player anymore. What he was, was a guy who peddled shaving cream and toothpaste on TV. He had no idea why anybody would buy shaving cream cause a guy who used to shoot pucks down the ice appeared on their flat screen and told them to, but he’d long ago worked out that the world was a crazy place, and LA was the epicenter of crazy.
“If you keep him lathered up much longer he’s going to get a rash,” Lester Salisbury said. Lester was his manager and the reason for all these ‘promotional opportunities.’ He was smart and knew Jarrad well enough that he’d picked up on the annoyance, even if he’d misinterpreted the cause.
“That’s okay, Les. If I got paid this much money every time I shaved, I’d be a wealthy man.”
“You’re already a wealthy man,” Les reminded him as the young woman whose job it was to display the cream to best advantage on his face danced up and smoothed the edges with careful finger swirls like she was icing a cake.
She was pretty, with flyaway blond hair and innocent blue eyes. He should hit on her, he knew that. Partly because of his reputation and from the way she’d shot a couple of half-scared, half-hopeful glances at him she obviously expected it. He didn’t want to let her down, but he didn’t really have the energy.
Still, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “Thanks, Jill,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You remembered my name?”
In fact, he had a great memory, he remembered the names of a lot of people he’d like to forget as well as his near and dear, and when people drifted in and out of his life – as an astonishing number seemed to do, he tried to pay attention at least while they were in his orbit.
Jill seemed like a nice enough girl, but he could see she’d bore him in an evening. But he suspected that if she didn’t get hit on by a guy of his reputation she’d take it the wrong way. “How could I forget someone who takes care of me so well,” he said. Then, for the ninth time, he picked up the razor, stared into the movie camera.
Todd, the director said, “And three, and two, and one,” and on cue he scraped the blade slowly down his face.
“Great,” Todd said with as much enthusiasm as though he’d just played Hamlet on Broadway to a standing ovation. “Now, we’ll get you shaved and then we’ll do your speaking part.” Jill toweled the white stuff off his face.
A professional barber was waiting for him in the film studio’s dressing room. Personally, he thought it was cheating to pretend that one brand of shaving cream could give as good a look as a pro but as Les often reminded him, nobody paid him to think.
“Looking good, buddy,” his manager said as he walked him down the hall, reminding him why they did pay him.
Once he’d been shaved, moisturized and hair styled, they tried to dab makeup on his scar, but he put up a hand to stop the makeup woman. “That scar’s my trademark, honey. You cover that up, people’ll wonder what else you’re hiding.”
Luckily, Todd sided with him so he was allowed to finish the shoot looking at least a little bit like himself.
The enthusiasm was as thick as the shaving cream when the director prepared him for his pitch. “Remember, you believe in this product. When you say your lines, think about something that really excites you.”
“Okay.” Sounded easy enough to think of something that excited him. He searched. His mind was blank. He could think about sex but that only reminded him of the tabloid pictures of his ex wife cavorting in Belize, letting the world know she’d traded up to the NBA.
He could think about his bank balance, but he knew he’d never be able to spend all his money no matter how long he lived, which for some reason made him wonder how old he’d be when he kicked it. Another uninspiring thought.
Most of his greatest moments had happened in hockey rinks, but his retirement was still too raw, too unexpected. His mind veered away.
Finally he moved back to childhood, settled on a memory of going to the pound and picking out a puppy when he was a kid. He and his sister both went, his baby brother not being thought of yet, and even though they argued about everything, they’d instantly agreed on the eager-looking young black lab who’d squirmed and danced with excitement at their visit, licking their faces and making them all laugh. He’d wanted to call the dog Lucky, Samantha argued for Lucy and somehow they ended up calling the dog Fred.
Maybe if he thought hard enough about Fred he could forget that this shaving cream dialogue was butt-awful.
While Fred galloped through his memory, racing after a Frisbee, stick, ball, puck, rock, sock, pretty much anything that moved, he looked right into that big square camera ignoring the camera operator, the beaming director, his hovering manager, the lighting guy, the sound guy and the gophers. He saw Fred leap into the air, teeth closing on a badly chewed and mangled red Frisbee, his black body wriggling in happiness and said, “A perfect shave is like a skating rink right before the action. Smooth, clean, cool. Like my shaving cream.” As instructed he now glanced at the blue canister in his hand and back at the camera. “Ice.”
