The Lost Boys
TheNewMason
Registrant
Joey
Joey was the resident prankster. One day he comes in to the studio with a huge black dead beetle. “Look at this huge mother fuckin’ beetle!” he said to a group of us. “This is going to be rad.” He tied some fishing line around the insect and then tied the other end of fishing line to the phone receiver in the office.
“Hey Gene,” he shouted to the Production Manager. “Can you order us some pizza?”
Now Gene was a massive guy. He was over 6ft tall and probably 300 lbs. The man was a gentle giant though. He looked like he would kill you, but as soon as he opened his mouth you realized he was a huge softy. He was the guy who always stocked the kitchen with snacks, or did milkshake runs for everyone on hot days. Everyone liked Gene.
“Uh sure Joey. Youz guys want the usual?” He picked up the phone receiver and the dead beetle becomes airborne. Gene drops the receiver and jumped back 3 feet as he screamed, “holy shit-motherfucking-cockroach-fucking-shit” followed by, “Joey! Get your ass over here! You are dead!” We all ran away laughing as Gene tried to untangle the hanging bug from the phone.
After the beetle fiasco, Gene was determined to prank Joey back, and on one glorious day, it happened. Joey was filming a scene by himself. He got a few pumps of lotion from the container on the nightstand next the fake bed. He starts rubbing his dick and goes, “What the fuck!?” Gene had replaced the lotion with Elmer’s Glue so Joey’s dick was now white and sticky and the more he rubbed, the more the glue would pull at his skin. I’m pretty sure that film never made it outside the building.
Joey died of a drug overdose in bathroom of the 7-11 on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Las Palmas.
Justin
Justin was 17 when I was added to the bunch at 14. He was the “old man” of the group not because he was one of the oldest, but he was an old soul. He loved old Hollywood movies from the 50s and 60s and would make obscure references to them. Justin, Reg and I were on set one afternoon shooting a variety of scenes. Justin was sitting this round out and Reg and I were on the bed getting ready to shoot a masturbation scene. For people who have never been on a professional film shoot, the lights are hot. This was before fancy LED setups. We had these huge bulky Tungsten lights that had to be handled with thick leather gloves if any adjustments needed to be made. So Reg and I were melting waiting for the camera guy to switch out tapes.
“God I am so hot.” Reg moaned as he lay spread eagle on the bed.
“Oh no! We can’t go running around town with a hot princess!” Justin yelled from beyond the lights.
Reg and I just starred at each other blankly.
“Roman Holiday? Audrey Hepburn? Honestly. I work with heathens,” he said clutching the edge of his silk robe and flipping his imaginary hair.
I didn’t work with Justin long. He aged out soon after I got there. He died of Pneumocystis Pneumonia caused by AIDS when he was 22.
Luke
Luke was one of those super smart kids who could remember everything he read. If you needed homework help, he always knew the answer regardless of the class or grade level. He read constantly. Fiction. Non-fiction. Newspapers. Magazines. He just consumed vast amount of information. As part of our employment agreement, we needed to maintain a C average in school. So whenever we were issued a report card, we had to bring it in the studio to get signed off on. I was always a decent student so I didn’t usually worry about this. But a few of the guys struggled. Luke tutored them in between shots.
You would hear him ratting off the pythagorean theorem to Joey in the kitchen, “You use it to find the value of the 3rd side. A squared plus B squared equals C squared.”
“Why the fuck do I care about these squares,” Joey would say.
“No, it’s not squares. It’s a triangle, Joey. Sides of a Triangle.”
“I still don’t care. This is bullshit. When the fuck is a slut like me going to need this bullshit. ‘Um, excuse me sir, I need to measure your third side to get the length of your dick.’” He laughed.
“Actually, you are right Joey. Let me use your example. You have the measurement from a guys belly button to the base of his dick. And you have the measurement from his belly button to the tip of his cock. With this formula you can figure out the length of his dick.”
“Honey as long as it is over 8 inches I don’t care how we got there,” Joey laughed.
It was rumored that Luke ended up in prison serving time for 2nd degree murder. But, you know how rumor mills are. I can’t be sure, but I have a hard time picturing this smart, kind kid going off the rails that much.
Reg
I was always on the same wave length with Reg. Of all the guys, we spent the most time together outside the studio. If we were in a parallel universe, I could see us dating. But, in our universe, we were not allowed. When I first met him, I was immediately attracted to him. He was two years older than I was. It’s funny, when you are in school whenever you meet someone it is always “what grade are you in?” or “how old are you.” Now, as an adult, none of that matters. But in high school, it was an important question. He was a junior. I was a freshman. And, in our universe, as soon as you meet someone, you have sex with them on camera. I was so nervous to do our first scene together. But he was the perfect partner. As we got to know each other more, we realized we had a lot in common and soon we were hanging out for fun. He had a car which was an added bonus.
“Do you ever feel like driving away from here of good? Like just leave one day and drive to New York to start over?” he asked me one day.
I wasn’t as jaded as he was and very much involved with Mark, so I couldn’t understand how he would want to leave.
“I do like pizza,” was all I could think of to say.
We lost touch for a while after he aged out. He never made it to New York. He died of a self inflicted gunshot wound instead.
Ben
Ben got involved because he needed money. Abby and Becca—his younger sisters— were always the topic of conversation with him. They were all being raised by his mom and she was doing her best to keep them together and cared for. Because Ben was underage, he couldn’t get a job elsewhere, even with work permits. He wasn’t gay, but held his own around a bunch of sassy queens. He once came into work and his backpack had stickers of sparkly fairies stuck on it—the work of one of his sisters. When Joey pointed it out, he replied, “Oh yeah, I know they are there. It’s the closest I’ll get to being a fairy like all you fuckers, all so I kept them in solidarity.” After his shift he would pack extra snacks from the kitchen in his backpack to take home to his sisters.
He was killed by a drunk driver in 2003.
Logan
Two oranges in a plastic bag—or oranges for short. That was his nickname. It took me a minute to remember his first name because we rarely called him that. He lovingly received this name because of his dick—or more precisely—his ball sack. His actual penis wasn’t huge, but his ball sack was massive. And he seemed to have all this extra skin so his balls would flop around. He would walk around the shower room naked, swiveling his hips so his balls thawaped on his legs. “TWO ORANGES IN A PLASTIC BAG” he would yell as his balls bounced between his legs. It was the most appropriate description.
I was doing a scene with him and had to suck him off. After he came in my mouth he quietly said, “Ya you swallow that orange juice” and I had to remain composed and not bust up laughing or the shot would be ruined. It’s not easy trying to swallow a mouth full of cum while trying not to laugh.
He is serving time in a federal prison on drug charges.
Chris
He was a scraggly, wiry guy with a sharp mouth. Because he was on the smaller side, he would pick fights to show his dominance. He would puff up his chest and spread his arms yelling, “Come at me, bitch” for any slight from an accidental shove to a purposeful accusation. But, he was also really gentle. He knew he was cast as the bully and played into that, after all, he wanted to secure his spot on the lineup. But, whenever we were doing a scene together, he made sure I was okay during it. He would dominate the scene with the scripted violence but before he landed any blow, he would lean in and whisper, “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” And he didn’t. He was the master at illusion. Most of the guys didn’t really like him—or didn’t like shooting scenes with light BDSM— but I didn’t mind. I was paired with him a lot. We both knew that we had roles to play, and if we did it well, we would be rewarded. We weren’t really friends, but there was a mutual respect.
Chris is one I lost track of. He aged out before I did, and we didn’t keep in touch. I don’t know what happened to him after he left.
Carlos
In a sea of white boys, he was the brown one. He knew he was cast to fill the ethnic category, and made fun of himself for it. He wasn’t 100% Mexican. His mom’s side was Irish and his dad’s was Mexican. So, he called himself a “Green Bean.”
“We don’t want to freak everyone out by having a real Mexican on screen. So, thank God I am just a Green Bean—friendly and approachable but a little bit mysterious,” he would laugh. “Gotta spice up the films for the old white men somehow, right?”
I never really thought much about representation of different minorities until Carlos pointed it out. He was right. He ended up playing characters like the handyman or pool boy, or the forbidden love between a white boy and the help.I regret never asking him how it made him feel. But, when you are young, it is hard to think of anyone besides yourself.
He was murdered in a drive-by shooting. He wasn’t the intended victim but was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He would probably say something like, “Of course the Green Bean was killed by a gang. How cliché.”
Ryder
We all watched the news the day Columbine happened. We all thought about “What if it was at our school?” We all were somber and none of us felt like filming that day. We watched news footage of kids our age being led out of school with their hands on their heads. We watched the media exploit the shooters calling them The Trench Coat Mafia. We couldn’t comprehend how it could happen. The last thing we wanted to do was shoot video of frivolous blow jobs.
Ryder left the room for a minute and came back in wearing a trench coat he grabbed from the wardrobe room.
“What the fuck Ryder,” Chris said.
Ryder pressed play on the CD player. We instantly recognized the song and started to laugh.
He opened the trench coat and was wearing bright pink booty shorts. He started lip syncing:
I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world
Life in plastic, it's fantastic
You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere
Imagination, life is your creation
Come on, Barbie, let's go party
“We gotta take back the trench coat!” he roared, jumping around to our favorite song.
We all got up to dance and joined in:
I'm a blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world
Dress me up, make me tight, I'm your dolly
You're my doll, rock and roll, feel the glamor in pink
Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky-panky
Ryder died of a drug over dose in his apartment. His body wasn’t found for 3 days.
