Deliciously Sleazy

As a way of raising the curtain on my new Website, I’d like to introduce you to Jerry Metcalf, a key character in Supercell.  Jerry isn’t necessarily a likable guy.  But he is, as one reviewer put it, “deliciously sleazy.”

Metcalf is a self-proclaimed “chief of staff” for Global-American Cinema.  “I make sure stuff gets done and things happen; I kick ass and take names,” he tells Chuck Rittenburg, whom he’s hired to find a violent tornado to film.

A big man with a broad face and full black beard, Metcalf stands out in a crowd.  Especially since he’s usually dressed in Timberland hiking boots, cargo shorts and a white Greek fisherman’s cap.

He’s impatient, goal-oriented and profane.  He detests being away from Hollywood chasing storms on the Great Plains, an area he views as a sort of purgatory.  “People don’t really choose to live here, do they?” he asks.

When he and his film crew are forced to spend some down time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he reacts badly.

Metcalf mostly bitched, proclaiming Tulsa the tedium capital of the world.

After discovering the city was originally part of Indian Territory, he suggested giving it back to them and letting them turn the town into a giant casino. “At least there’d be something to do,” he groused, “and it might even attract some decent [hookers].”   

(He actually used a more pejorative term than hookers.) 

Metcalf and Chuck lock horns almost immediately on their “great hunt.”  It’s a conflict that escalates throughout their 14-day odyssey and ends with Metcalf the object of Chuck’s deep-seated anger.

Chuck’s assessment of the the whole affair: “Thanks to that weasel, Metcalf, it turned out to be a classic example of finding defeat in victory.”

Meet Jerry Metcalf for yourself when Supercell swirls into bookstores November 1st.