Fun and Games

25

Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that,

you’ve got it made.

—George Burns

THE DRIVE into L.A. from Barstow was pretty boring.

Dusk started creeping across the land, the sun receding and fading away into a smoky gray. They didn’t say much—“Jane” staying in character, of course, and “Philip” wanting to save his energy.

He drove because Philip Kindred always drove and they wanted to make sure it was clear that it was Philip Kindred behind the wheel all the way from Barstow to L.A. But the actor behind the Philip Kindred identity was tired of driving, wanted a little rest. This was a demanding role, both mentally and physically. And the forced torture session at the gas station this morning had taken a lot out of him.

Plus, he had to admit—he was more than a little jealous of the actress playing the role of his sister/lover Jane, who basically was able to sit around just watching everything happen. What a gig.

Not that she didn’t cram as hard as he did. The job came up midday Wednesday; by that evening he was shaking hands with “Jane” and holing up in an anonymous hotel room in Flagstaff, AZ, reading through the piles of reference material and photographs and recordings about the infamous Kindreds. Plenty creepy stuff, but kind of a thrill, too—even the man playing Philip had to admit that.

Part of the cram session was getting to know the actress playing Jane and becoming comfortable with each other—familiar. The real Philip Kindred had a habit of touching Jane whenever possible, as if to claim her by physical touch or to reassure her. They kissed until it felt natural, familiar. They listened to the Kindreds’ favorite music (1960s orchestra pop and psych rock LPs that their dead parents kept around—“Crimson and Clover” especially—over and over and over), watched clips of their favorite movies (1980s slashers, 1990s teen sex comedies, 2000s torture porn), stared at the crime scene photos, and touched each other some more. Not that anyone would be quizzing either of them. But the more immersion the better.

The truly surreal thing was watching the Truth Hunters Special: The Kindreds as it was broadcast live Thursday night. As usual, ultimate family man Jonathan Hunter introduced the show, but he seemed even more somber than usual—almost like he knew what was coming Saturday night.

“Kind of creepy,” the man playing Philip muttered.

The woman playing Jane, staying in character, said nothing.

(See! She didn’t even have to learn any lines!)

Most of the show featured reenactments from previous installments, focusing on two sad sacks who didn’t look much like the real Philip and Jane Kindred at all. Which was really fucking insane, considering that Philip and Jane Kindred were notorious for abducting innocent victims, then forcing them to play out—reenact, if you will—scenes from their favorite horror movies. At gunpoint. So, as the man who was playing Philip watched the screen, he recognized the occult link between them all: he was watching a reenactment of another reenactment, and he himself was preparing to perpetrate still another reenactment—only one that everyone would think was real. All of it made his head hurt. He wished he could twist the cap off a cold beer.

But no booze of any kind: the Kindreds were teetotalers.

(Which just went to show you how seriously nuts these people were, he thought.)

And the man playing Philip would have loved to point out this strangeness to the woman playing Jane, but what could she do—nod? Shrug?

The show ended with Jonathan Hunter’s usual plea for the truth, that if you have any information that will shed some light on this case, please don’t hesitate to contact a Truth Hunter either by phone or e-mail or Facebook, and be sure to follow all Truth Hunters updates on Twitter…

Blah blah blah.

Jonathan Hunter supposedly disliked episodes on serial killers and their ilk; he preferred smarter, less gruesome quarry, like corporate criminals and con men. But the cable network—for all its generosity in pouring hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars into research—practically insisted on serials because the numbers spiked whenever the show featured a lunatic with a knife. Especially a lunatic who made out with his own deaf-mute sister and liked to reenact slasher flicks.

The man playing Philip had to admit, this one was probably the most exciting job he’d ever done working for Mann.

In fact, he still had a hard time believing he was actually in this line of work.

He’d come out to L.A. in his early twenties with a set of head shots, just like everybody else. Scored a part in an indie film, just like everybody else. Had visions of being discovered, landing the big role, just like everybody else. Waited for his cell to ring, just like everybody else. Worked another, totally unrelated job in the meantime, just like everybody else. Saw his early twenties slip into his midtwenties, just like everybody else.

But unlike everybody else, his cell rang one day. He was called in, given a number 2 pencil and a battery of psychological exams, then a series of interviews, then a bizarre play-acting screen test. More time went by, and then all of a sudden he was signing an inch-thick nondisclosure agreement and told to memorize a script, and then instructed to burn it and then drive to a certain street corner downtown near the Bradbury Building, where he watched someone get murdered. He followed the script when he talked to the police, and then he went home and wondered if it was all a practical joke. That is, until he went online and looked at his checking account balance.

The actor soon learned that other hopefuls had fallen into this line of work; there was a loose network of them spread throughout the world. You didn’t audition; you were simply chosen. In a way, it made him feel like a secret superstar.

And this was his biggest role yet.

Still—all of that preparation Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night (because the real Philip and Jane liked to sleep most of the day away, curled up with each other while movies and music played nonstop in the background), left him exhausted. He was eager just to get this job done—impress them, then move on. The gas station part was fun, but it was a long slog to L.A. Lots of highway and hills and sun and then chain stores and houses and more hills.

As he drove, the man playing Philip wondered what the real Philip Kindred was doing right now. The official story was that the Kindreds were still on the loose; the FBI had kept them on their Ten Most Wanted list for the past year. Unofficially, they were told not to worry about the real Kindreds, because they had been apprehended a year ago and were being confined in secret and wouldn’t be talking to anybody.

Probably safe to say that nobody told Jonathan Hunter this little bit of news.