It was a sweltering August day in southern California, and he could feel damp on the palomino hide along his flanks. The stink of rancid make-up, stale coffee and donuts just added to his joy. The big air conditioning unit on the roof of Sound Stage 17 came to life with a grind and a rumble that shook more dust out of the rafters.

Clops looked up from his copy of Variety. His single eye was magnified to the size of a goose egg behind the fold-down lens which was mounted on an old fashioned surgeon’s headband. It was tough to be an actor when you were that near sighted.

Of course Clops had other disadvantages-like being seven feet tall, and having only one eye in the center of his forehead. Finn thought.

“You realize that dust may have been around when Mary Pickford was a star,” the cyclops said.

“I don’t think Pickford was ever at Warner’s,” Goathead responded.

“Hmbruza #** muffel wanda,” said Cleo. She was lying on her stomach while one of the snakes which sprouted from her head gave her a neck massage. Cleo, whose full name was Cleopatra Reza, was Turkish, didn’t speak a word of English, but never let that stop her. She commented on everything. The other jokers just agreed with her, and so far none of the men had gotten slapped.

When Finn had first been introduced all he could think was that her parents must have hated her. It would have been like naming me Seabiscuit, Finn had thought, and why Cleopatra and not Medusa? Clops thought it was because Cleopatra had died from the bite of an asp, and because Cleo was breathtakingly beautiful while Medusa was so hideous that she turned men to stone. Finn had to admit that Cleo was very beautiful-if you could ignore the tangle of snakes growing out of her head.

“You know what I mean. This is historic. This sound stage was built in 1927,” Clops said.

“Yeah, well, I wish we were on a new sound stage with real air conditioning that we didn’t have to turn off for every shot,” Goat-head groused. Goathead was your basic asshole who never missed an opportunity to trash anything and everybody. Finn just wished he wouldn’t cut at Clops, who was a gentle soul and completely star-struck. Clops had left his Kansas home at seventeen and headed west determined to be a star. Except he was seven feet tall, and had one eye.

Finn quashed the thought and glared at Goathead, hoping the other joker would correctly interpret the look as a stop pissing on Clops’s birthday cake. Apparently he did, for Goathead muttered that he was hungover, which for Goathead amounted to an apology. Cleo rattled off another of her incomprehensible comments.

The D.P. threw the lights, and there was a magnificent geyser of sparks from one transformer. Firemen rushed forward with extinguishers, but the sparks were all she wrote.

“Shit!”

“Fuck!”

“Hell.”

“Damn!”

The curses rose from all over the stage, erupting from the D.P., the First A.D., the director’s assistant, and Goathead. Finn got the assistant’s attention. “Mary, can we please take a break?” Finn pleaded.

“Sure, go ahead. Nick, when do you want the Myths back?” she shouted at the D.P.

“Give me an hour.”

Clops just climbed down the front of the plaster cliff. It wasn’t that far for him. He then reached back up and, handling her as if she were made of spun glass, he lifted Cleo to the floor. She gave him her thousand watt smile. If only it weren’t snakes, Finn thought, and sighed.

Finn and Goathead had a ramp off the back of the cliff. Their hooves rang hollowly on the wood, and Finn felt the ramp sag under his weight. His stomach was suddenly too light, and heading for the back of his throat. Finn froze, waiting or the ramp to break. After a moment where nothing happened, Bradley resumed his cautious descent.

Once Finn was safely on the floor he trotted over to the craft services table. His stomach had been too off for breakfast and now he was starving. He surveyed the array. M & M’s, stale donuts, Oreoes, peanut butter, jelly and bread. A jar of pretzels. Corman was known for being a tightwad. Finn decided to head over to sound stage 23 where his dad was shooting The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Finn Senior kept an elaborate spread, but of course he was making a twelve million dollar extravaganza staring Grace Kelly and Warren Beatty, not a cheesy B action movie.

Finn slipped out the stage door, into the hazy but intense California sunshine. The white walls of the stages loomed like breakers on either side of the street. He kicked it into a lope, and went clattering past Teamsters tossing around footballs, (he got the usual calls of Hi Ho Silver, which was annoying because he was a palomino) past stars in their golf carts and lines of Star Waggons parked against the sides of the street. Spinning red lights indicated they were shooting on the various stages. There were a lot of lights. The movie business was booming.

He waited in front of his dad’s stage until the light went out so he could enter the set. Pulling open the door, he stepped into a Victorian drawing room complete with dark wood, red velvet and innumerable knick knacks on every available surface. Grace Kelly, looking like a swaying calla lily in her white gown, was gliding off the set. Stan Whitehorn-Humphries, dapper in his bow tie and tweed jacket, was blotting her make-up as she walked.

She passed close by Finn, and he caught a scent of sweat under the perfume. It was somehow comforting to know that someone that beautiful was still human enough to perspire. Kelly stopped. Finn gaped at her. Stan, a smile lurking beneath the brush of his white mustache, gave a nod, and Finn realized his pony’s ass was blocking the door. Muttering an apology, he swung his hindquarters out of the way. Kelly glided out, and Stan gave him a wink.

“You’ve just seen an example of what they mean by ‘stunningly beautiful’,” Finn said to the elderly make-up artist.

“She is quite remarkable, isn’t she?” Stan gazed for an instant at the closed door as if conjuring a picture of the star. “So who did your make-up? You look dead.” Fifty years in Hollywood hadn’t blunted his upper-class British accent. Of course it was an affectation after all this time, but no one cared. It was part of the legend of Stan Whitehorn-Humphries.

“I’m supposed to look scary,” Finn said.

“Sorry, dead. Come over to the trailer after you get a bite and sup, and I’ll touch you up.” Whitehorn-Humprhies walked away before Finn could thank him.

Finn cut through the set, admiring the design. Next week the production was scheduled to move to England for the exteriors. Finn would love to go along, but he badly needed to replenish his bank account before the fall semester. He glanced over to where his father was discussing the setup for the next shot, and briefly wished his dad had been the typical Hollywood parent-just throw money at your kids and hope they don’t embarrass you. But G. Benton Finn had clung to his mid-western roots, and believed his kid appreciated what he had to work for and disdained what he hadn’t. He would pay for Bradley’s medical school tuition, but if his son wanted to live away from home he had to swing it himself.

Finn stepped delicately over the snaking wires and cords, and got a glimpse of the craft service table. He broke into a smile. From here he could see salmon, cream cheese, bagels, fresh fruit, and an assortment of pastries and cookies. There was a gaggle of nat starlets gathered around the table. Two blondes, a redhead and a brunette. The taffeta dresses hissed and crackled as they moved, and they were showing a lot of bosom for Victorians. Still, with bosoms like that you didn’t want to hide them. These girls were stunners.

Finn briefly wondered if his father had ever availed himself of the casting couch. A moment’s consideration, and Finn decided that Finn Senior probably had, but mom had sense enough to look the other way. There were a lot of temptations and vices in Tinsel Town. You picked the ones you could tolerate and lived with them.