There weren’t many casting calls in Greyhall, Michigan. None if you didn’t count the annual tryouts for the Christmas play at Light of the Lord Missionary Baptist.
Sarah Andrews first reaction to Gaynor Clythorn’s announcement that the star of the new national Clythorn Furniture commercial would definitely be a kid from Greyhall was “this is like a bee sting on a bull’s butt.”
That was accurate, because every parent and grandparent in the town seemed to buck into wild action before the details of the audition were even announced.
Sarah’s Styles Unisex Salon was booked solid with kids getting haircuts and even perms, and Wiley Maki, who owned Cedarcrest Motor Lodge told Sarah that Crandall Stuthers offered to buy one of his rental cabins so his family could move across Huron Pike Road and live in Greyhall proper.
The day of the audition dropped in at 12 degrees Fahrenheit, and the line of frigid kids wrapped around the block and down White Pine Avenue for a mile.
Greyhall kids were used to the cold, but they were used to doing something in the cold-skating, sledding, snowmobiling– wearing hats. They were not used to standing still, hats off so as not to muss up their newly, perfectly coiffed hair.
TV cameras from Marquette and Traverse City documented the line, and the hopeful and reluctant kids, including one hilarious moment when Riley Jenison, camera shy, hid his real face with a headshot of his face.
Kari Jenison had paid Bob at Mill Street Photography an extra 20 bucks because Riley had been so uncooperative.
Bob drank vodka on the rocks in the warmth of Lou’s Lounge, playing shuffleboard with other childless denizens of Greyhall, toasting Gaynor Clythorn for making him a small fortune.
Around the time that Brandon Steffi broke his ankle doing a backflip for Marquette Channel 9 News, the grumbles really started.
Gaynor should have scheduled appointments, Gaynor should have held the audition in the basement of Light of the Lord, where they could be warm, Gaynor should have waited until April.
No one grumbled when Gaynor walked down the line of people, shaking hands and passing out hot chocolate, a downstate TV camera following him.
According to Wilson Pilov, holding his great granddaughter’s hand, that made it more TV cameras than when they unveiled the Eisenhower statue.
Three weeks later Ed Delvin leaned against a mirrored pillar at the Clythorn Furniture Flagship Showroom off 75, just north of Maynard Road.
The commercial, featuring definitely a kid from Greyhall had aired Friday night.
Ed straightened his nametag, thought about changing it from Ed to Edward, thought about putting in his two week notice.
Business had been slow, especially for before Christmas, ever since the rumor surfaced.
They might be busy in Flint, or Des Moines, or Terre Haute, but in Greyhall, on a Saturday, they were empty.
The commercial was funny, the new jingle was catchy, and the kid was cute and likable. And the rumor went from being a rumor to being a truth.
The kid was Gaynor Clythorn III, Gaynor’s eleven-year-old grandson.
Ed Delvin took his hanky from his suit pocket and wiped his own fingerprints off the mirror on the pillar. In the reflection, he saw a cinderblock flying through the window of the showroom and didn’t expect it to be the last.
***
An audible gasp from me.
I stand by the comment I made on yesterday’s story... en fuego, Jimmy.