Reality Boulevard: A Hollywood Insider's Satire Of Reality TV

Wallace

Prologue: 26 Episodes

July 1994

The Muse had been debauched.

At the pinnacle of Hollywood’s Highland Boulevard, the towering Muse of Music hugged her harp against her gown, almond eyes pressed tight, sweeping cheekbones barely visible under layers of bird droppings the color and consistency of cream cheese and Nutella. Shrubs and weeds crept, untamed, toward the sandaled feet of her graffiti-flecked handmaids, Drama and Dance. Three magnificent Muses, born of silvery polished granite, now ash-black, dulled and stained by the blasts of a thousand angry exhaust pipes merging on and off and on and off the 101 Freeway. Bone dry, their fountain beds gaped like slack-mouthed sleepers, reflecting a white hot, empty light, like everything else that lay too long under the Los Angeles sun.

Seeing the Muses brought so low always left Hunter feeling depressed. She knew this sculpture well – The Muses of Music, Dance, and Drama - from the Art and Architecture of the New Deal course she’d taken during her sophomore year at USC. George Stanley, virtuoso of art deco design and creator of the world famous Oscar statuette, masterminded the enormous Hollywood Bowl fountain to function both as art and engineering marvel. In 1938, WPA workers hauled in two hundred and fifty tons of granite from a Victorville quarry to build the massive retaining wall that kept an unstable hillside from collapsing into the gateway of Hollywood proper. While the wall held strong through decades of rain, mud and earthquakes, the Muses themselves had long ago lost their luster. Hunter never failed to notice these crumbling remnants of the Silver City’s glory whenever she drove down Highland from the 101, though she doubted anyone else paid them much attention. Robotic LA motorists seemed to notice very little about the landscape that surrounded them.

Nobody would have called her an optimist, but Hunter was driven and determined, choosing never to stop her forward trajectory long enough to focus on the negative, to see outside the protective tunnel of her own ambition. She exhaled as the light changed and traffic on Highland Boulevard began to crawl again. There were several more long blocks to go before her Sunset Boulevard destination; time enough for her to shake off the unsettling despondency with which the decaying face of the Muse always filled her.

Marty Maltzman stood up and, with a flourish, pulled out Hunter’s chair for her. He looked down at his watch. She was exactly seven minutes late, and he had been exactly nine and a half minutes early.

I’m sorry, she said. Traffic. It took me forever to get down Highland.

I always add extra time to my commutes, to allow for the unpredictability of LA traffic, he said, not quite scolding.

I’ll remember that.

After the waiter had taken their orders, Maltzman launched into a detailed version of his life story, custom-tailored to emphasize how uncannily he and his lunch guest were alike. He’d started in television at 20, the same age she was now, and had worked his way up from a researcher at the local PBS station to a production assistant, then a producer on the iconic network game show from Jerry Stone Productions, Who’s the Liar? He left Liar to produce episodes for shows like Real People, That’s Incredible! and Ripley’s Believe it or Not. The year that his father died and his aging mother sold the family upholstery business, he’d taken his meager inheritance – Against my mother’s wishes, I might add. She always hoped what she called my Hollywood thing was just a phase - and put it into a documentary idea he’d come up with while working on a Real People segment. Death Row Days, a shocking and unsentimental look at the lives and consciences of death row executioners, had become a surprising theatrical hit, and won him an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. A string of Emmy-winning television specials and a few short-lived non-fiction series had followed.

By the time he’d finished reciting his colorful biography, Hunter was almost done with her salad. Marty checked his watch, as if confirming that it was exactly the moment to change the subject. "I just saw Crimes of Passion at an International Documentary Association screening, he said. And I thought, "This is almost as powerful as Death Row Days. When I learned Hunter Marlow was still a student at USC, I knew I had to meet her.

If he was truthful to himself, Marty harbored a less glowing opinion about Crimes of Passion, an indictment of the way law enforcement and the courts treated domestic violence incidents. He recognized the camerawork as the mark of a student film: sloppy and uninspired, the lighting practically non-existent. The voice-over narration, written by his lunch guest, was stilted, overwrought and ridden with clichés, and the editing suffered from the filmmaker’s amateurish delusion that every frame of her creation was brilliant and irreplaceable. What did impress him was Hunter’s obvious ability to open up her subjects to share their secrets with a startling honesty. Even the batterers and the cops who’d appeared in the film seemed disarmed, revealing their inner demons and weaknesses so unselfconsciously it was downright uncomfortable to watch. Marty understood this special talent because he knew that he himself did not possess it. His own award-winning documentaries had other things going for them – access, storytelling skill, and a mature filmmaker’s polish. Yet the magical ability to get people to expose themselves to you as if you were invisible; this was a rare gift indeed.

I’m glad you liked it, Hunter responded. I drove an airport limo seven days a week, every night of my senior year to earn the final finishing funds. Now I’m talking to distributors. It would be nice to get a little of that money back.

Well, it’s just a spectacular film, so I’ll be wishing you luck, Marty said. She’ll never make her money back, he thought to himself. Now that you’ve graduated, what are your plans?

"I’ve still got the limo job, which actually pays pretty well if you include tips. And thanks to the exposure from the IDA, I’m talking to some potential backers for my next project, which is going to be a thousand times more powerful than Crimes of Passion."

Oh? asked Marty, stifling a smile at both her hubris and her naïveté. And what’s this one about?

"My working title is Second Class Lives, and it’s a look at how unfair life really is for women throughout most of the world today – crossing borders, languages, cultures and classes. I went to the Philippines on a school grant and shot some gut-wrenching footage and interviews with the women and girls in the sweat shops over there. I just need to edit it. I’m writing another grant proposal right now, to go to India to infiltrate a part of society where they still burn widows."

Powerful stuff. Marty nodded solemnly while thinking, What a depressing, overly ambitious, and entirely unsalable idea. Was this level of idealistic self-importance typical of all film school kids? He did like her focus and work ethic, however; they reminded him of his own. She was attractive enough – classic heart-shaped face, pert Clara Bow lips, thick-lashed, farmer’s daughter brown eyes. In another era, she might’ve been called winsome, though she wasn’t quite beautiful enough for Marty’s own personal dating pool – not since he’d won the Oscar six years before, anyway. Still, if she’d lose the pouffed ’80s hair, the unflattering acid-washed jeans, and the freshman 25 pounds, she’d probably turn a few heads, even here in LA. It was her interminable gravitas, however, that put the big kibosh on any real sex appeal. She was so pent-up, so relentlessly serious.

Speaking of future ambitions, he began, "the reason I asked you to lunch was to get to know you a little, of course, but also, to tell you about an upcoming project of my own. I’ve just sold a primetime non-fiction series to Prime Network. Twenty-six one-hour episodes. It’s going to be documentary-style segments mixed with re-enactments, and it’s all about first responders – doctors, paramedics, police, firefighters – and all the lives they save. Really inspiring stuff. When I saw Crimes of Passion, especially the part where you rode along with the police on the domestic disturbance calls – I said to myself, ‘That director’s a good fit for the kind of stories we’ll be doing.’"

Hunter felt her whole body tingle with excitement. She’d been struggling to appear unimpressed, despite the fact that on her walk across the posh, packed restaurant to Marty Maltzman’s table she’d spotted two television stars – the girl who played the ditzy blonde from Friends and one of the doctors from ER. She’d only been out of school since May, and had been spending her summer driving the limo, editing her Philippines piece, meeting with producers and money people, and working on her grant proposal. She hadn’t even started looking for real work; hadn’t even put together a resume, and here was an Oscar-winning producer buying her a 13-dollar Caesar salad and offering her a job on network TV.

She brushed her hair back from her face and sneaked one more peek around the room before focusing her attention on the wiry, animated man who was sizing her up from the other side of the table.

I’m not interested in television, she answered, a little too quickly. "Not that I’m not flattered by the offer – but TV’s just not in my game plan. I need to put all my energies into raising funds for the next phase of Second Class Lives. My goal is to shoot some wife burnings in India by the end of this year. Then on to sex trafficking in Thailand. It’s pretty overwhelming. There’s this other USC alum I’ve been corresponding with, Ian Rand. He’s starting some kind of production funding company and he’s pretty sure he can get me the money."

Maltzman fell silent for a moment, disassembling pieces of his French Dip sandwich. Hunter suddenly feared she’d been gratuitously rude. After all, she added quickly, I want to follow in your footsteps and win my own documentary Oscar some day.

He smiled. Your new film sounds like an important project. But there’s no reason you have to give up your dream to work on my show. It’s just one season – just twenty-six episodes. We’ll be paying network Director’s Guild scale, plus lots of overtime and hazard pay if you have to ride in an ambulance, a police car or go up in a helicopter. That’s pretty good money for a girl right out of college. Are you in the DGA yet?

Hunter shook her head.

You’ll have union perks, health insurance, pension and welfare. You’ll even fly first class. And you’ll get residuals when any of the shows re-air. Your new film is pretty ambitious. You’re going to need all the extras you can get in order to make this one happen.

Hunter’s heart was pounding. He was quite the salesman, making it sound so lucrative and practical. But ever since she was a little girl, she’d carefully nurtured a vision of herself and of who she would grow up to be: a weighty, serious person, universally respected by her peers, who touched and changed distant lives with her work. An artist who stood apart from the throng, who never gave in to compromise or conformity. An untainted documentarian, in the formalist tradition of John Grierson, Richard Leacock, Fredrick Wiseman, the Maysleses. It wasn’t a vision that included becoming a professional ambulance chaser for a television show.

As if he could read her mind, Marty Maltzman continued. I hired a talented young guy to produce and write the pilot that got us the series order. He’s staying on to run the show for me. You ever hear the name Garret Shaw?

I don’t really know television people. I’ve heard of a Garret Shaw who wrote that crazy play everyone was talking about a few years ago.

He slapped both hands on the table. "That’s right! That Garret Shaw! Obie-award-winning Garret Shaw!"

That’s impressive, Hunter had to admit. It must be an above-average production, at least, to be able to attract an award-winning Broadway playwright as its show runner.

"And you know Brett Windsor, of course. Brett’s been a buddy since back when he was a celebrity contestant on Who’s the Liar? Brett’s going to be the host."

Hunter and all her high-school girlfriends had been in love with rugged Brett Windsor as teenagers, in his signature role as the soft-spoken, enigmatic ’80s television gumshoe, Sterling Silver. She’d since cultivated a superior and outspoken disinterest in anything having to do with celebrity, but whenever movie stars came to speak at USC, she’d always sneaked into the back of the auditorium to see them. She secretly stashed back issues of People magazine in the bathroom of her Venice studio apartment.

It’s one season, he said, laser-bright eyes twinkling. Less than a year out of your life. You’re only twenty. What a credit to have under your belt when it’s all done! Then, what’s the worst that could happen? You turn twenty-one. You’re in the Director’s Guild. You’ve made yourself a good chunk of money. And you’re that much further ahead. Onward to your dreams!

Hunter was so afraid she’d say yes, she counted to ten in her head. She took several long, deep yoga breaths.

I really am flattered, she replied at last. Honestly. It’s been an honor just to meet you, let alone have you offer me a job. But I just don’t see myself ever doing television.

Chapter 1. Lights and Sirens

September 2011

9:15 PM

The commotion in the hospital corridors – muffled shouting, rubber soles hitting linoleum, gurney wheels creaking - woke Hunter from her shallow sleep, even before her segment producer Dennis exploded into the resident sleep room.

Incoming, he puffed, round, red face splotchy. Gunshot victim dropped off outside the ER doors. Blood everywhere. He removed a pair of sweat-fogged glasses that were too big for his soft, twenty-something face. This could be a big one.

Shaking off her grogginess, Hunter rolled off the top bunk, nearly landing on Vern the soundman, who was sitting up on the bed below, already hoisting the mixer strap over his shoulder and plugging in the boom mike. Instinct kicked in as all three of them rushed out of the darkened room and into the yellow florescence of the hallway.

Where’s Eric? Hunter snapped at Dennis, who was still panting with exertion and excitement.

Less than a split second passed before all three chanted in unison, Nurses station!

Hunter rolled her eyes. Eric was probably the best documentary cinematographer she’d ever worked with – a possessor of that elusive third eye that allowed him to get meticulous coverage of whatever he was shooting, while simultaneously monitoring the action that was happening outside the window of the lens. But he was a wild man, a party boy, and an infamous roué. Whenever he was assigned to one of her shoots, she’d come to expect his hung-over mornings, mysterious bruises and black eyes, and his constant prowling for the fairer sex. Oddly enough, it didn’t seem to affect his work. Even if he had only rolled in from a bar an hour before, he was never late for early calls, and though often surly on those mornings, he was always ready to go above and beyond when the action began.

Hunter was different. In the eleven years she’d been directing documentary segments for Lights and Sirens, spending long weeks out on the road, she’d learned that she could not go out at night and party with the crew during the run of a shoot. Instead, she’d go back to her hotel room alone, going over dailies and making copious notes for the editors while the day was fresh in her mind. There was no relaxing; no switching of gears until wrap. Only then would she allow herself to let loose. The crews she worked with were suspicious of this habit. Some considered her a humorless snob. Others quietly admired her focus. Nobody knew that she had made this private rule not only because of her relentless perfectionism, but also because she was secretly beginning to fear the power alcohol had over her. One glass of wine, and the release was instant. Two, three, and would it stop at that? She didn’t know anymore; couldn’t predict. She was wound so tightly, so tied up in the tension of survival. She had to make rules for herself now, because she could already foresee how she’d end up if she didn’t. Like Eric, perhaps. Or worse, like her mother. The possibility was unacceptable to her.

Hunter, Dennis, Vern and Eric made up a compact four-person doc crew from Lights and Sirens, now one of television’s longest-running, non-dramatic primetime entertainment shows. Hunter’s crew had been parked at Elvis Presley Memorial Hospital for five fifteen-hour days now, waiting for broadcast-worthy stories to come bleeding through the ER doors. The show’s executive producer, Marty Maltzman, called this type of shoot a ride along. That category could include stake-outs with police, ride-alongs in paramedic trucks, spending a week on a Coast Guard cutter, or, in this case, counting out the hours in the emergency room of a busy hospital, just waiting for the right real-life accident, injury, or illness they could transform into compelling television.

Tonight, Hunter’s team was rushing to cover the latest incoming casualty at Elvis Presley Memorial: a gunshot victim dropped off anonymously at the ER entrance. Though this wouldn’t be an unusual occurrence for a hospital located smack in the middle of a gang-plagued neighborhood, it might turn out to be the best story they’d snagged so far this trip. Over the past seven days, they’d been following a small two-car freeway accident in which everyone involved had been brought to Elvis Presley. The wounds were mostly minor but the fact that there were seven separate people to follow, all with different injuries and operations to undergo, made it mildly interesting from a procedural perspective. Hunter had managed to engineer an accidental meet-up between all the participants who were able to walk out of the hospital the next day (two were still laid up on recovery floors with broken bones). She’d been pleased at the drama that the confrontation had inspired– at first, there was the usual anger and blame, then there was remorse, forgiveness, gratitude. A tight little story with a beginning, middle and end. Then there was an endearing seven-year-old boy with a bike accident head injury that turned out to be only a severe concussion – not very dramatic, but a decent cautionary tale about kids and helmets.

Neither one of these was the elusive, edge of your seat A story that a Lights and Sirens doc piece was made of. Perhaps this gunshot incident would be the one they’d been waiting for all week.

Hunter dispatched Dennis to the nurses’ station to find her wayward cameraman, while she and Vern sprinted down the hall to the ER lobby. The sliding glass doors at the entrance were splattered with blood. Hunter bit her lip, furious that Eric might have missed that powerful image. Just outside, she spotted a circle of doctors and nurses in scrubs, working to lift an unconscious, blood-drenched boy onto a stretcher. A familiar husky voice called out from the heart of the fray.

Vern. Get your ass out here!

It was Eric, Sony HD camera poised on his shoulder and rolling, already smack in the middle of the action. Hunter wanted to slap him and hug him at the same time.

Vern hooked his sound gear up to Eric’s camera and Hunter flipped open her wireless monitor. The action unfolded in a flash of whip-pan action: scissors slicing clothing and hands tearing it away, needles piercing flesh with injections, IV tubes dangling from every angle, clamps and sponges and gauze moving in and out of the lens, going in clean and coming out blood-drenched. Eric was everywhere at once, getting everything, even before it happened. The ER docs and nurses shouted across the commotion to one another, in urgent but focused voices. Hunter was thrilled to see that this team was led by Dr. Henry Dubois, a boyish, 35-year-old ER resident with a fetching southern drawl. Dubois was still wearing a radio mike from another case they’d covered earlier that day. When he stepped outside the room to call for X-ray and an OR to be prepped, Hunter pulled him aside. Eric’s third eye caught her gesture and in an instant he was standing next to her, rolling.

What have we got? Hunter asked.

Young African American male, two –

Remember, Doctor. Tell me in a statement.

Right. Sorry. Here in the ER…is that okay?

Better to say, ‘In the ER tonight…’

Okay. In the ER tonight, we just got in a young African American male with two gunshot wounds to the abdomen, Dubois drawled. Looks like one bullet went clean through without hitting any organs. The other – well, we haven’t assessed that damage yet. We’re getting the X-rays and then he goes to the OR stat.

Is it serious?

Dubois scowled. Gunshots are always serious. We get way too many gunshot victims here in Memphis. We’re gonna do our best to save this one.

Brilliant.

Beaming at her praise, he whirled theatrically back into the orchestrated chaos of the room.

Hunter loved it when the doctors got into the drama. Dubois was perfect because he was articulate and adorable, with enough ego to care about giving a memorable sound bite in the middle of an emergency, but not so vain to let it anybody die because of it.

Outside in the lobby, Hunter heard another commotion: loud male voices raised in violent confrontation. She stepped out into the hallway. Dennis, holding tight to his clipboard of legal releases, was straining to get a look through the double doors to the lobby. As he leaned forward, those doors whipped open, hitting him in the face and knocking him to the side. The clipboard went flying. His glasses fell to the floor and one lens shattered. Before Hunter could move to his aid, she saw four glowering men striding toward the treatment room. Actually, she saw their guns first. The weapons were pointed sideways at her and everyone else in their path, the way that gang members always held their guns in the movies.

Hunter recognized the fear in Dennis’s eyes, yet she felt nothing but exhilaration and intensity of purpose. All she was thinking was, Eric has to get this!

She darted into the room just ahead of the approaching horde and waved her arms to get Eric’s attention. Instantly, he turned the camera toward the doorway at exactly the moment the five young men appeared.

Levon! called one of the members of the group, a wiry boy who was all skin and ropy muscles. He wore a tight black tank top and Hunter noticed tattoos of bones covering his arms like a Halloween skeleton costume. What the fuck you doin’ to Levon? With a shaky hand, he waved his gun around the room. His words were somewhat slurred and his pupils were dilated.

Hunter flattened herself against the wall, watching the ER team’s reactions. A few looked up, but most remained concentrated and professional, working to save the gunshot victim’s life. Lou Anne, the head ER nurse, moved toward the guns without showing an ounce of fear.

Guys, we’re trying to save his life here. We’re gonna need you to clear the room.

Where’s security? murmured another nurse under her breath.

Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up! the skeleton boy cried. He pushed himself through the group of health care workers encircling the victim and started to shake him. Levon. Levon, man. Who fucked you up? Wake up. Wake up.

Get that motherfuckin’ thing outta my face! Another of the young men waved his gun at Eric, who was leaning in to get a closer shot at the scene taking place on the gurney. The gangster scowled at Vern, the only African American on Hunter’s crew, who was reaching forward with the boom to catch the dialogue. Vern lowered the boom, but kept it pointed toward the action. Eric stood back, raising his hands up in surrender. He moved to the back of the room, taking the camera off his shoulder, holding it casually at his side.

Hunter saw that the red light was still blinking. She loved these guys.

Look, gentlemen. Dr. Dubois stepped in, his soft voice steady. Your friend here is going to die now if y’all don’t get out and let us do our thing. He’s got two bullets in him. He’s gotta go to the OR stat or he won’t make it. So get along now. Please. I know y’all concerned, but you’re not doing him any good.

Skeletor, the apparent leader, dropped his gun arm to his side and stifled a sob, covering his face with his free hand. He turned and walked out into the hallway, body language defeated. The other men followed. In a split second, the ER team was back surrounding Levon, prepping to wheel him out to the OR. Eric hoisted the camera back up on his shoulder.

Then another commotion. A police bullhorn. Memphis police. Drop your weapons. I repeat. Drop. Your. Weapons.

Hunter peered out into the corridor. A phalanx of helmeted, vested cops were pouring through the double doors and descending on the five men. They threw their hands up and let themselves be hustled out. She turned around to see Eric and Vern right behind her, shooting the entire confrontation over her shoulder. How had they managed to get from all the way across the treatment room so quickly? She felt a surge of sisterly pride for her bad boy colleague and his stalwart soundman. The adrenaline rushed through her. This story just got better and better.

Now there was a decision to make. Follow the victim and Dubois into the OR, or follow the police action that was now moving to the lobby. That was the drawback of these lower budget single-camera ride-alongs: the wrong choice could doom a story in the editing room. Hunter had an extra camera – a professional grade mini-DV – stashed back in the resident’s lounge, but there wasn’t time to get it now. Hunter looked at Eric and Vern. We can cut to the OR later, she said. This SWAT stuff is too good to miss. We never get cops and doctors together in the same episode.

Blue and red flashes from police lights bounced off the lacquered lobby walls. On the linoleum floor, the cops had the five gang members face down and cuffed. In the far corner of the same lobby, Hunter noticed a group of people gathered around an older woman, in her late 40s or early 50s. She seemed to float a half-inch above the floor, so tragic and haunting was her presence. If this woman were the gunshot victim’s mother, Hunter would need to make a connection with her immediately while the drama was still unfolding. Hunter looked around for Dennis; she’d forgotten about the hit he’d taken when the gang came through the door. For a split second, she wondered if he was all right. The moment passed.

Follow them out to the police cars, Hunter told Eric and Vern. Then see if you can talk your way into the OR. Don’t stop rolling. I’ll be right behind you. If you see Dennis, tell him to get over here. She took a breath, mentally changed gears, and walked slowly over to the woman and the small circle of people who surrounded her: an older man, two younger women and two small boys.

What was that kid’s name again? The gang leader had said it in the emergency room. Levon. That was it.

Excuse me. Are you Levon’s mom?

I’m Maisie Herring. Levon’s my boy, she answered. She had a long, hollow face the color of watery cola. Are you from the hospital?

Internally, Hunter had already steeled herself for this. Covering the action featuring the doctors, nurses and paramedics was one thing. This part was harder to frame, karmically speaking.

"Mrs. Herring, I’m so sorry about your son. My name is Hunter Marlow and I’m from the television show, Lights and Sirens. Now for the piece that earned her those Director’s Guild premiums. I know this is an unbelievably painful time for you and I wouldn’t blame you if you just told me to go away and leave you alone. If you do, believe me, I’ll understand, and I’ll be out of here. But we’re shooting an inspirational profile of the men and women here at Elvis Presley Memorial – the folks who are working so hard to save Levon. We’d like to include his story – and yours – in the episode we’re shooting now. If you know the show - "

Oh, we love that show, piped one of the small boys. He was hushed by one of the younger women with Maisie. We watch it all the time, added the older man. The second woman, a younger version of Maisie dressed impeccably in a business suit and heels, remained silent, sizing up Hunter with an analytical coolness.

Oh, you’re viewers, Hunter said breathlessly. Then you know what good the show has done in its sixteen seasons on the air. All the lives we’ve saved, and the heroes we’ve honored. That’s what we hope to do here. With Levon’s story.

You mean, he’s okay? asked the man, syllables dripping with the Tennessee twang. The doctors saved him?

This was a problem Hunter ran into constantly. Regular viewers of the show assumed that whenever Lights and Sirens arrived on the scene, a happy ending was sure to follow. With stories edited down to fit inside a 42-minute hour, every life is saved, every wound healed, every bad guy captured, every cat rescued from every tree. In the early days of its run, L&S had aired one documentary style story – from a ride-along just like this one - where a young motorcycle accident victim couldn’t be saved. After his parents bravely donated his organs to save another young man in the same hospital, the show had followed the process and the emotional journey of both families. It had been an incredibly moving piece – in fact, it won a News and Documentary Emmy the following year. But the sponsors were outraged, as were several hundred thousand of the program’s viewers, who made their anger known to the network in a massive letter-writing campaign. Afterward, Prime Network laid down the law: nobody ever dies on Lights and Sirens.

I haven’t talked to the doctors, Hunter fudged. But I know they’re giving it their all. I think Dr. Dubois will be out to update you shortly.

Maisie regarded Hunter with weary eyes. I don’t know, she said softly. I don’t think any good’ll come out of y’all filming me.

Hunter flushed with disappointment but knew better than to push the matter, at least right away. All was not lost quite yet. There was still a chance the mother could change her mind, especially if Levon’s prognosis improved. Hunter had seen that happen before, when families so overwhelmed with relief embraced everyone in the vicinity into their circle of gratitude, including the film crew that they may have pushed away before the news turned for the better.

I understand, Hunter said. I understand if you need to be alone right now. And again, I’m so sorry about your son. I’m just grateful he’s in such good hands here.

As she started to go, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see the well-dressed woman who had come in with Maisie. I’m Maisie Herring’s daughter, Odessa Williams. I’m Levon’s big sister. And I also happen to be an attorney. What exactly are you asking here?

Attorneys. Why do they always turn up in the middle of the best stories? Despite the fact that working ride-alongs for Lights and Sirens tended to send one’s moral compass spinning, Hunter believed the best policy was always the truth. Or at least, a carefully shaded version thereof.

I’m glad you’re here, Odessa, so you can explain everything clearly to your mother. We’ve been following Levon and his doctors since he came in. We’d like to continue to film his progress, and - if you feel okay about it - film you all here, as you interact with the doctors, visit him in the hospital, and hopefully, when you take him home after all this. We have a release form – she looked around for Dennis. Where the hell was he? —which, like I said, if you feel okay about it, you can look at –

We do admire your show, don’t we, Mama? Odessa said, looking pointedly at Maisie. We’d like to help out. I know Levon would want to help out, too. Her sister and the two boys nodded in happy agreement.

Maisie looked down at her feet. This is a family matter, Odessa.

Odessa rolled her eyes. She leaned in closer to Hunter, whispering, Give me a minute. Taking Maisie aside, she walked her mother to the far corner of the lobby. Hunter watched Odessa gesturing dynamically, Maisie raising her gaze from the floor, listening intently and nodding. Finally, the two returned to where Hunter and the crew were waiting.

My mother’s agreed to participate, Odessa said, barely containing the excitement in her voice. On the condition that you give us some publicity for our 501C3 Foundation, Save Our Sons, which keeps Memphis kids out of gangs. Just let me see the release and we’ll sign it.

Hunter raised her eyebrows. In her years as a Lights and Sirens director, filming real people in their most vulnerable and intimate moments, Hunter remained in awe of the power of a camera to open up the floodgates of strangers’ lives. Maisie had been only among a handful of people who had ever told her No, I don’t want to be filmed, and like most of those people, Maisie had eventually come around.

Now that the five gun-toting youths had been carted away by the cops, the lobby was remarkably quiet, except for the hiss from the walkie-talkie of the armed patrolmen guarding the doors. Hunter turned around to see a dishelmed Dennis, his eye and cheek discolored, his broken glasses balanced pathetically on the bridge of his nose. She gestured to him, and he gaped in disbelief. Dennis had only worked on three other ride alongs before this, and Hunter was pretty sure that none of them had put him in the line of gunfire. But she had no time to coddle him. She needed those releases signed, before the doctors came out to update the family.

3:30 AM

Hunter and the crew were outside the family conference room, where Maisie Herring, her two daughters, grandsons and the older man, a family friend, awaited the arrival of the surgeons. Eric and Vern had covered a good half-hour of Levon’s surgery, before taking a quick dinner break in the all-night cafeteria. Meanwhile, Dennis was collecting releases from Levon’s family and tracking down the cop in charge of the shooting investigation for Hunter to interview. They’d been working twenty straight hours now, not counting the half hour nap in the doctor’s break room right before the ruckus started. Everyone was giddy with sleep deprivation. Hunter spotted Dr. Dubois and the surgeon walking down the corridor toward the family waiting room.

This is it, Hunter whispered to Eric. Get in there.

Eric ducked inside after the doctors and the door clicked shut. Hunter, Dennis, and Vern just outside the door. Adjusting the knobs on his sound mixer, Vern started to nod his head.

What? Hunter asked.

Silently, Vern passed the headset over to her. The surgeon was speaking to Maisie, whose mic picked the dialogue up clearly. He’s a very, very strong boy, your son. We were able to remove both bullets and close the hole in the abdominal wall. He’s still in the danger zone, but he’s stable at the moment. He’d resting in intensive care now; you can go in two at a time, but he’s probably going to be out of it for a while.

A wail rose up from the far corner of the room. Hunter figured it was Donna, the younger sister with the two sons. From her recently completed interviews with the family, Donna had emerged as the dramatic one. Odessa, who’d turned out to be a Memphis assistant DA, had remained calm and preternaturally chipper. Maisie, however, answered all of Hunter’s questions with dry and steady eyes. In a tailor-made case of dramatic irony, Hunter learned that Maisie was something of a local heroine in her inner city neighborhood. She was the founder of a flourishing grassroots organization of mothers and other dedicated citizens working to keep kids out of gangs. Her only son, 19-year-old Levon, was the inspiration for the project. He’d been an A student throughout all of his school years, a polite kid with a paper route and a promising talent for languages. Unfortunately, a mastery of French irregular verbs wasn’t a skill that earned you juice on the Memphis streets. By the time he was 16, he had started cracking under the pressure. Maisie learned too late that he was doing courier jobs for the Redhats, the local Bloods offshoot, and one day, she found crack rocks and a gun in his book bag. Halfway through his senior year in high school, Levon dropped out – despite his guidance counselor’s promise that college scholarships were most certainly in the offing.

Levon left home and fell deeper into the gang’s world, his mother said. Maisie sank into depression. Weeks went by without her leaving her home or sometimes her bed. Then one day, she received a visit from an old friend, Reverend Mike, the older man standing beside her at the hospital today. Reverend Mike wasn’t a real, ordained minister, she said – unless you counted the 40-year-old mail-order certificate he carried crumpled up inside his wallet. But he had two wise words for Maisie that startled her out of her painful fog. Do something.

Maisie had risen from her bed and reached out to other mothers of boys lost to gangs. They began as a support group, but developed into an army. This Mom Brigade went out into the streets and started talking to the kids directly.