4-F Blues by Charles Rubin

Author:Charles Rubin [RUBIN, CHARLES]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780918915221
Publisher: New Century Publishers
Published: 2012-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Douglas Tanaka thought at first that it was just his imagination working overtime, especially since he was so damned nervous at the possibility of being found out as an impostor on the set of Behind Japanese Lines. But now there was no doubting it. The man’s eyes were definitely trained on him. More accurately, they were glued.

Not only that, but those small, pig-like eyes had hardly been off him for the past few hours of filming. Starting with the sequence in which he and his fellow “Japanese soldiers” staged an attack on a hospital tent bayoneting wounded U.S. Marines. And continuing with the sequence that almost made him sick when he and a few others were instructed to sink their greatly exaggerated false buck teeth into dinner: freshly caught fish that were still alive and wiggling.

Douglas was doing his best to blend in with the crowd. It seemed like he had succeeded for quite awhile, until the point when he’d noticed this crew member, a lighting technician, looking at him curiously and then menacingly.

As long as a scene was being shot, Douglas felt secure that the man, a short, but muscularly built red-necked kind of guy, wouldn’t disrupt the proceedings. As for what he might do later, Douglas wasn’t so sure.

Again trying to keep a low profile, Douglas listened intently as to what the director was instructing them to do in the upcoming scene. “Okay, listen up,” the director was shouting through a megaphone. “This is the scene in which you guys get yours. The marines are going to swoop down on you and kill you in a number of ways. Some of you will be shot, some bayoneted, some beaten to death with a rifle butt. By the time I call ‘cut’ you’ll all be dead, just lying around on the ground with grotesque expressions on your faces. Okay, got that?”

The sequence took place just as the director had said it would with Douglas falling victim to a bullet in the brain. He lay on the ground, his face twisted in a mask of death until he heard the magic word “cut” being called followed by the equally magic words “lunch break”.

Getting up from the ground and dusting off his uniform, he walked over to the refreshments table where coffee, Spam sandwiches and donuts were being served. While wolfing down his first meal that day, Douglas stood talking to a Mexican guy who was made up to look Japanese, a pathetic attempt in his opinion. After a few minutes, he had forgotten about the staring technician. Until he heard a rasping southern drawl that was, for sure, directed at him.

“Boy, that’s some great makeup job they done on you,” the man said.

Douglas didn’t have to guess who was doing the talking. He turned and faced the technician.

“Or maybe it ain’t makeup,” the technician continued, his eyes glinting as he spoke. “Maybe it’s the real thing, maybe you’re the escaped Jap kid from the bus they been talking about

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