(no subject)
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
You don't know yet what you are...
*
This may call for a proper introduction.
I'm...
Speeding along Wilshire, through Westwood, he drives a small, sleek Mercedes convertible. Or maybe it's a BMW. Does it matter? It screams STATUS. It screams "I've got it!" at the top of its lungs, and whispers "...And you don't" under its breath as he swerves around a Honda through a just-red light where Wilshire meets Veteran. This car is young and it's Hollywood and he's both of those things, so he drives the appropriate vehicle. As simple as that. It fits.
He's a dancer. He's an actor. And not the struggling kind. He's been cast in pilots and commercials, and he has yet to become a household name, but he's good enough and, more important, he's got the look. Better yet, he's in love...with an even more successful dancer/actor/model, who zooms through his Hollywood youth at an even more rapid speed. And the best part is that it's just beginning...he's young.
He feels good. He feels invincible. Sure, he might not ever become a household name as an actor, but even if he doesn't, he's still living the life. His apartment costs $5,000 a month, for Christ's sake. He takes spontaneous trips to New York or Miami on a private jet. He's got a beautiful boyfriend who loves him. If he took the time to think about it, he'd realize that a mile or so southeast, there are people who only dream of his kind of life. People who obsess over it every day, and spend every waking minute trying to be what he already is. But what does he care? He was born with it. Nothing's going to take that away.
He sings along to Janet Jackson on the radio, or maybe he's talking on the phone. Does it matter? His mouth is moving; he's being heard, even if it's lost to the wind. Then suddenly he awakens, somewhere else, in a sterile room with white walls and a distinct lack of personality. What the fuck? Surely that life wasn't a dream...
No, he realizes then, it wasn't a dream. That was his life...and it takes another long moment to remember the sight of that oversized SUV careening toward him, just a little too far into his lane, going just a little too fast like he was. That SUV, it screamed status. It screamed "Out of my way!!" and whispered "...or I'll smash ya, kid" as it sideswiped the Mercedes where Wilshire meets Beverly Glen. In just a few moments, the sounds of metal crunching inward would drown out Janet on the radio. Glass would shatter, the car would spin twice before flipping upside-down in the street, and people in condos would look down from their balconies at the accident, shaking their heads in pity at the ant-sized tragedy below. The SUV would stop several hundred yards ahead, displaying only a modicum of damage to its precious exterior, proving a much-needed lesson about life in Hollywood: go as fast as you like for as long as you can, but never fail to yield when there's something bigger coming your way.
In moments, everything will go black. Somehow, Dean must know that already, that his life is over now. He has only the briefest second to comprehend it, impossible as it seems already. But as the shiny black SUV comes toward him now, it's his reflection that he notices, staring back at him from the SUV's passenger-side door. He's blonde, tan, wearing the oversized sunglasses that are so trendy amongst privileged young males his age. His reflection screams STATUS but he doesn't have time to scream for real. As the SUV slides toward him, he's still smiling, and he looks as ready as ever to dance backup in a music video or star in a television pilot.
He looks good, and not at all like someone who's about to die.
*
Hello, do you know me?
My guess is, probably not. I'm someone who was made a long time ago...not quite twenty-three years ago, but not recently, either. Sometime in between. Because somewhere along the way, a decision was made or an opportunity went by unobserved and it lead me right to where I am...instead of somewhere else.
I've been trying to pinpoint that moment, but I can't. I want to identify it because I regret it more than anything that's ever happened to me. It's the moment that led me here, this humdrum place so very far from where I should be. Where I worked to be...where I deserved to be. Not here.
See, I was supposed to be someone important, someone who does something meaningful. Don't ask me how I know...at a certain point I just knew I was meant for something great, and that's all there was to it. For most of my life, I was nothing. In school I always had a few friends, but tended to lose them when the year was done. No one was ever that mad about me. And that was before the two year stint where I couldn't speak. I know, better than most, what it's like to be silent and invisible. What it's like to just watch people and make mental notes. I learned a lot that way...not interacting with people, but always watching. Even in my most social moments, I've never lost that ability. My eyes dart right and left when I'm having conversations, because I'm always soaking up more details about human behavior. It's perhaps the only thing about me that's been consistent.
And then one day, I got a taste of something else. People noticed me. People liked me. Suddenly I was someone people wanted around. I didn't have to try and make myself memorable, make sure that I was included. I just was. There were still moments of invisibility, ones that reminded me where I came from, and that someday I might be back there. But mostly, things were good, and I started to believe my destiny lied somewhere along these lines, amongst people or in front of them rather than observing from the sidelines. I worked hard to keep myself visible. I worked overtime. And I became a star.
It's a loaded term, I know, filled with all sorts of implications. But I was. I may have been damaged but I burned brightly, and everyone who knew me knew that's what I was. More importantly, I knew it. I was a focal point, something people look up at and admire. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm not making too big a deal of myself...after all, the thing about stars is, the sky's full of 'em. But it's an addictive, empowering feeling to be one. Once you're up there, you never want to come back down.
Unfortunately, stars fall. So did I. When, exactly? I'm not sure. But I'm a different person now...someone you've never met, and maybe, never thought you would. I know I never did.
So allow me to introduce myself.
I'm...
Crouching under a desk in her history classroom, she wonders if this could be the end. It was almost funny, how boring this building, this room, this life had seemed only minutes earlier...off-white walls, ugly carpet, and so few actually wanting to be here. Now they had good reason to want out.
Miss Gibson had been going on about some battle or other during the Civil War, and no one cared. Not even Miss Gibson. Not one student in her history class thought about what it was like for those soldiers to die, some of them seventeen years of age or so, the same age as the students in this classroom, and the ones outside. They didn't think about what it was like to have their lives cut short due to forces beyond their control, killed by a boy their own age who just happened to be on the other side of those enemy lines. No one thought about that at all.
They thought about the weekend, and the parties that were planned. They wondered if Sean Graves might have a crush on them or what Rachel Scott looked like naked. They considered having just a salad for lunch, because in the locker room some girls had been stifling giggles. They thought of trivial things, things that had to do with right now, and not about some war that happened too long ago to consider. Why should they? They were young, living in a totally different time than those poor unfortunate kids battling for their country, their honor, their lives...sepia-colored, stone-faced men in uniform, staring blandly forward from the well-worn pages of history books. They were soldiers, and not at all like kids today. Some were no older than seventeen years of age, but they didn't look like teenagers. They looked old.
So it was almost funny, in a cosmic way, when the sound of gunshots echoed in the hall outside. For the longest time, it was such a confusing noise, not at all connected with the picture on page 357 in their books, depicting Yankees with rifles aimed at Confederates on the other side of enemy lines. Bang! Bang! Bang! What was that? The answer was right in front of them, in their history books, but it took them so long to catch on.
Sometime later, they run...not toward their enemy like the Yankees, but away. Away from sounds that mean people are being shot at. She sees faces she knows, but she can't quite connect them to any personality. No one is popular, no one is an outcast...they are all indistinguishable, running from a collective threat. As dozens of students rush outside, she realizes it's the only time she's ever fit in with the crowd.
The grass is a cheerful green, the sky too bright a blue. It doesn't feel quite right, that everything should look the same once it's been dipped in blood. It's too horrifying to comprehend; she knows it's not a dream but wishes it was, because waking up from it would be something to look forward to. What can she hope for now? Not to die? Does it matter who makes it out alive if not everyone will? She waits for the cracking noise that will accompany the bullet that slices through the back of her skull. Will she hear it or feel it first? Will there be any pain, or just a sudden trip to a place where she can ask God what the fuck He was thinking this morning? There must be something between nightmares and reality that explains how this can occur. Massacres don't happen in high schools, to regular kids in modern-day America. Massacres happen in history books...to stoic, colorless men with mustaches, not to her friends in Gap jeans.
All around, kids are run and scream. People she knows are freaking the fuck out like it's the end of the world. Maybe it is--that would explain it. Men with guns are shooting innocent teenagers at 11:30 in the morning on a school day. If that's not a sign of doomsday, what is? As she runs, she wonders if this is it for her...the end of it all, so soon and so raw. Surely it's the end of something. This can't happen with things going back to okay afterward. This moment, this very one, changes everything she knows. For the worse. And somehow, it doesn't seem fair.
Later, she will discover that the assailants aren't men. They're boys. Boys seventeen years of age or so, boys who felt justified shooting people they considered to be enemies. For some, high school feels like a war zone, with shots being fired each and every day. These boys felt, somehow, that they were finally fighting back. She knew them, of course, even dated one back in eighth grade. It seems so long ago now, so far removed from this hellish display. Panic. News of who's been shot, who's been killed, and finally, who's behind it all. Eric and Dylan. Now they're dead too.
Seriously...how can God let this happen? How can her friends be screaming and running and bleeding and dying all around her? And how can they be the ones picking off classmates, dispatching of lives with a pop! pop! pop! that bounces off ceilings and walls? It doesn't quite sink in yet, but in the back of her mind she knows that this is the beginning of something awful. A terrifying new dawn, awash in red thanks to the blood-spattered rays of the rising sun. She and others have made their escape, past the line of police cars and SWAT vans out front, the steadily growing sea of reporters flocking to report the carnage. It's the kind of thing that attracts attention, that warrants sirens and helicopters and men pointing cameras this way and that. It's an event, a moment in time that makes things different afterward. It's a moment that will end up in books, next to full-color photos of shell-shocked students fleeing the scene.
Annie realizes, right then, that she's living the moment, and it has begun to change her already. At the same time, it's now and it's history, something that will always be remembered as the nightmare it really is. She imagines reading about it 50 years from now; she can't quite fathom what life will be like tomorrow, or how she'll move on, but in 50 years she knows it'll be in books for bored kids to skim through and decide it has nothing to do with modern lives in 2049. She knows, wherever she was headed before today, this has altered her course. Everyone's. Things will never be the same, and she might never laugh without wondering how she can do such a thing after everything that's happened. Certainly, this school on this very day has swallowed them whole...their youth, their faith, and a number of lives. Things that were going to happen now never will, jokes that people would tell tomorrow won't be told because humor is no longer appropriate. Not here in Hell. No one will smile for a good long while, and they may never stop crying.
So many things that were going to happen, so many lives they'd intended to live...the tomorrow they'd planned on, now replaced by a curiously twisted question mark. Smiles. Laughter. Friendship. Fun. All the good things that had ever happened in that building...every innocent moment in every one of their lives...everything up until this point now belonged in the past. In a book.
Because all that, now, was history.
*
When I started my tutoring gig over the summer, it was awkward. I felt too young and irresponsible to be in charge of anyone else. How could I teach kids when I myself knew so little about the world? Sure, I was teaching mechanics...reading and writing on the SATs...hardly the fabric of existence. But I felt like a fraud. When I was in school, teachers were mature, professional adults. They weren't late and they weren't hungover and they knew their place in the world. They were teachers, not fucked up kids killing time 'til they hit it big in Tinseltown. Or at least, that's the way they seemed on my end, and I felt nothing like that. I'd never been less sure of myself, and all I really wanted to teach these kids was how to avoid ending up like me. I wanted to tell them not to let fear get in their way, and to pursue their goals without getting fixated on one thing. To try everything, and never put all your dreams in one basket. With no idea about where I was headed, how could I possibly help a bunch of kids find their way?
Now things have changed. I've changed. I sit across from my students and I see them as kids. So young.... Their lives are distinctly different from mine. They go to school, I don't. They live with parents who pay their bills; I live on my own and support myself. They're just starting to think about what to do with their young lives, and I've already decided...I've just taken those first, final steps Out There and there's no going back. I just became a grown up. These kids are not my equals anymore...I don't have the naive outlook of youth, one that sees promise and potential where adults see failure and inevitability. I still believe that they can do whatever they want with their lives, that they can make a difference and be successful and happy and do all the right things...my world view is not that bleak. But I don't believe I will. Unlike them, I don't have my whole life ahead of me to figure it out and shape the me that will be. I still have a good number of years on the way, but the ones where we make decisions and form the kind of person we are...those have passed, haven't they?
So there must have been a moment where I made a wrong decision, veered off course, but I didn't know what it was until it was already long gone. I still don't. All I know is, I was headed one way and now I'm headed someplace entirely different, somewhere I never planned on going, and I don't have the power to turn it around. I can't go back and be me anymore. I have to be this, and a lot of the time, I'm not okay with it. I feel trapped; I feel wrong. I'm dying to get out, but I know I never will. This is you...get used to it. That's what the signs are saying. Growing up is rough for everyone, they say, and I've seen plenty of evidence to show that most people my age seem to feel the way I do, to a degree. But I'm taking it harder than most. I'm in shock. I feel utter disbelief, every day, that this is the life I made for myself. That despite careful planning and an ever-watchful eye, I was still completely blind in the moments that mattered. I sacrificed a lot, guarded myself closely, had my sights set on specific goals and went after them full-throttle. And still. Still I became someone I don't recognize. In my precision, I focused on the big picture and let slip all the details that made me what I am. And I can't stop hating myself for it.
So ask me who I am, and I'll tell you.
I'm...
A 39-year old intern might seem a pathetic creature to some, but she owns it. She is never ashamed. Years of acting experience taught her not be self-conscious; how to identify what you want, and go after it. She'd been on countless auditions, and booked so few jobs in comparison, but she is an actress through and through, someone who puts herself out there when she knows she has to. No hesitation necessary. For this reason she's good at booking travel and answering phones, the mundane intern tasks she somehow makes her own. Unlike most of the college kids, meek and uncertain, who slouch in their seats and do coverage all day, she's there by choice and carries herself as such. She has no need for course credit, is not here because she feels she has to be in order to advance to some "next level." There are things she wants to learn, and so she is.
The dreaded forty year mark is just around the corner, and it got her thinking. Acting had failed to prove very lucrative--oh, it's given her a great outlet, and she doesn't regret a second of it, and she has no intention of giving up--but at this point in her life, she knew she needed something else. A greater, more grown-up cause. She'd decided on producing. After all, she has years of experience as an actress reading scripts, auditioning for roles because they were available rather than because they were parts she wanted to play. Why not step behind the scenes, take control, make sure the material was up to snuff? Producing would be a great way for her to find material, and working as an intern under a successful producer was the first step to that end. It didn't matter that the gig was unpaid; as the owner of an auto body shop, her fiance was the breadwinner of the family and she was the trophy wife. She was more than okay with that fact, since it allowed her the freedom to pursue acting and other creative outlets. She was lucky to have found him; lucky that she could do what she wanted and not have to worry about supporting her son. Lucky that they had money, family, pretty much everything people want in life. Herman loved Richie like he was his own son; like he loved his daughter Olivia. They had been engaged for longer than is traditional without taking that final step, but there was no need to. They were already family.
She thinks of them now, as she makes phone calls about Christmas gifts her boss is giving out. She's good at that. The holidays are just around the corner, and she still has plenty of shopping to do. There's a new kid today being trained as a third assistant and she has to show him how to use Excel. He's being paid; she isn't. But she's fine with that. The intern's desk is right between the first and second assistants', though now she will have to give it up to this new assistant. Her headshot is taped above it, and she wonders how long he'll keep it there. It was silly, maybe, to put it up there in the first place, but you never know when someone's going to casting something you're perfect for. She reads scripts and finds the parts she could play, should play, but of course, there's very little casting done in this office. And even after so many years, she doesn't have the experience.
Sometimes during the idle hours, the topic of disaster comes up. The first assistant was at NYU on 9/11 and witnessed the collapse of the second tower, the second assistant had been at Columbine during the school shootings in 1999. And there she is, between them and 15 years their senior, having never experienced anything so devastating. She wonders if tragedy would make her a better actress; if it would get her in touch with something she didn't quite feel. Is that the reason she has a hard time really tapping into something real, when she tries to act out dramatic scenes? Is it holding her back? She wishes secretly that she had more to show for herself, with 40 just around the corner.
Later, they gather around the table at Ago for their holiday lunch, discussing where they want to be in 5 years...the interns, the assistants, the new guy, and their boss. Most wanted to produce; a couple want more creative roles. Karen says she wants to be running her own production company, where she can find projects to cast herself in. She speaks with an assuredness that none of the others have, and it sets her apart. They're still unsure, but she isn't. She's just figuring it all out. After all, forty isn't what it used to be. In the grand scheme of things, she's still young, and she'd take her life any day over anyone else's.
"Life is good," she says, and she means it. No one else at this table can quite say the same. So to hell with tragedy.
But these are the last few days Karen will ever feel this way. In the office, taped above the intern's desk, is the headshot of a smiling Karen Johnson. On one side of her sits the girl who made it out of Columbine, on the other side is the guy who saw the Twin Towers crumble before his very eyes. And right now, the happy woman is saying "Life is good." She knows nothing of disaster.
That picture of Karen, smiling, will remain taped to wall long after a car spins out of control and crashes right through her sense of well-being.
*
Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I always have been. If I didn't push myself, I'm not the kind of person who would ever go anywhere. I had goals and I set out after them, and I realized too late that it isn't the vision that matters, but the small steps along the way that make you who you are. I thought thinking big was enough, but it isn't. Thinking stays within; actions are on the outside, and they're what cause the ripples. They steer you toward your identity. And so, even if everything I've ever done has been to a fantastic end, I did them in ways that led me astray. I did them for the right reasons but with a stubbornness that was all wrong. And now that's what I am...not the man I saw at rainbow's end, but the one who didn't believe that it was only a mirage until he was already well underway. There is no destination but the one we find when we're headed someplace else. It's the journey that makes us; we aren't anything when we start. My mistake was in believing that I already was what I was going to be; that I'd get where I intended to go. I pursued it so forcefully and mercilessly, I gave up so much to make it happen...only now do I see how much the mode of transportation matters more than the end result; how we're made bit by bit, step by step, regardless of where we think we're going. I was so oblivious, just waiting for the proper moment and location...it came, I'm sure, several times. But I didn't see it, because I was looking too far ahead. I kept waiting for the flashing neon signs, the searchlights in the sky...I never looked down or around me. And so I wandered, waiting...and here I am. Lost.
I'm not sure how to get anywhere from here. The journey I've been on is not the one I thought I was taking. Whoever planned this itinerary, it wasn't me. Not it seems it's been decided that I'll work in the film industry. It's been decided that I'll start low and work my way up. None of it seems related to any decisions I've made, but it's been decided. Just like it was decided that I'd be self-conscious and quiet, depressed and self-loathing, gay. My life seems composed of nothing but decisions that were made for me, predestined, and when I tried to change circumstances, I failed. In a way I decided to come to Los Angeles, go to USC, have a career in film, but I didn't choose what to be good at, and it never seemed there was another way. Mostly, things seem to have happened the exact opposite of how I would have chosen, and when I try to fix them they just flip around and become the opposite of that. I've always been so far from what I wished for, and ever since I can remember, I've resisted it...at one time or another, I've tried to change, forget, or erase every part of me...I fought against my sexuality, social standing, the place I was born; I downplayed my intelligence to fit in with everyone, and then when I became normal I fought against that, too. Maybe I went crazy just to fight against being ordinary. I've often considered myself a fighter because of these battles...strong and unwilling to give in. But in the end, I've always submitted. To myself. I'm all I've been fighting against. I've always ended up being my own enemy. I guess I chose to fight impossible battles, invincible enemies...I wanted so much to be more than I am, but I've come up short every time. I held out for a long while on some battles, like growing up, but the outcome was inevitable in all of them. I always lose. I've acquired the loneliness of a warrior but none of the spoils...only an aura of defeat and futility. And now that I've given up that final confrontation...Chris vs. the Real World...there's nothing else to fight for.
Now, life isn't bad. It's busy, exhausting....but tolerable. People take jobs for many reasons. Often, for money. Sometimes to pay our dues, or maybe to learn something. Occasionally, all three. I can't say things are much worse than six months ago, before I became an adult, and I can see how people live this way and are okay with it. Small comforts, tiny steps in obvious directions. But when I look in the mirror, my face is the only thing I recognize. The place I'm standing in is a mystery, the clothes I'm in must belong to someone else. I'm a ghost. Not quite the spectre of what once was, but perhaps of what would have been. I make invisible decisions and obtain intangible results. If anyone notices what I do, they don't know by whom it was done. Once again, I am the silent observer; I don't matter any more than a superfluous cog in a giant machine.
I came to LA because I believed it was the one place I had a chance to stand out, but instead, I've disappeared. Every day I vanish into a role that I was never quite meant to play, one in which I'm not that good, but not quite bad enough to be visible. I can see people looking right through me, but I don't know any acceptable way to show them there's a person here. If there even is, anymore. I think to myself, Maybe I'll have time to exist tomorrow, but I never do. I'm either too busy or too tired to materialize at the end of the day, so I come back to my haunting grounds and go unconscious for the night. And when I look at the life I lived, the people I lived it with, it reads like a finished story. I may not be through with the past, but it's finally through with me. Old friends, the people I loved...they have new friends, new lovers. In most lives, I've left no visible impression, as if I never existed at all. I may never understand what I did to slip away so completely, to backtrack and regress into what is the now and current me. Maybe it's best that I don't. Maybe I should forget, and move on. Is this what I was meant for? Were those days when I was noticed just a blip on the radar, a Scroogey glimpse at what might have been? Or did I just fuck it up somehow? People used to expect great things of me, but I think we all got tired of waiting.
I look in the mirror. Who are you?
I'm...
THE INTERN
In paradise, the waves lap against the shore. She looks at the golden sand, the blue ocean, the silhouettes of palm trees against the pink sky as the orange sun is setting. It used to be fucking beautiful, and now it's nothing. It's just an image, and there might as well be maggots crawling through the sand and blood dripping off the fronds for all she remembers of beauty. Here, and anywhere, the world couldn't possibly be an uglier place.
Whoosh. Whoosh. With each soft crash as liquid meets land, she is reminded of the fragility of human life. The saddest news of a lifetime. One minute, he was driving along Sunset Boulevard, on his way to a breakfast meeting. Then, whoosh...whoosh...he was gone.
Olivia answered the phone that morning. "Has Herman forgotten our appointment? He isn't here..." And immediately, Karen knew something wasn't right. Frantically, she grabbed her keys, dropping them twice on her way out the door. "Is something wrong?" Richie asked from the kitchen table, and Karen answered, "No, honey, I'm just a little worried is all. I'm sure everything's fine."
In retrospect, it was a stupid fucking thing to say.
She was not sure everything was fine. In fact, she had the distinct feeling that it wasn't. And she was right. As she drove, she wondered if Herman was clean that morning. She didn't know. Surely he wouldn't be stupid enough to get high on his way to a breakfast meeting? Besides, his driving was usually fine, even with a little coke in his system.
He was already dead when she arrived at the scene of the accident. She didn't need any confirmation, but she waited for it anyway. They pulled his bloody body out of the wreckage of his car, and she had a hard time recognizing it. What the fuck was this, this bloody fucking lump wearing Herman's favorite polo? She resented the body for looking so grotesque, for making a mess of her dead fiance. This wasn't Herman, it was some cruel joke that looked like him, that stole him away from her. He wasn't in there anymore and she didn't want to see this half-assed replacement.
Karen had seen scenes like this performed many times, in many movies, as wives...or fiancees...utterly lost it at the news of a dead lover. But of course, that was no preparation and she did not know how to perform this role. She sobbed and wailed, but it seemed futile...stale, even...as if, as an actress, she should have found a new approach. As if this was just to test whether or not she really had what it takes. Would being calm and collected be a more interesting choice, or would she just come across as a bitch? No matter. She didn't give a fuck how it looked to anyone else, she didn't see this as a performance. She didn't think about acting at all; at least, not consciously. But in the back of her mind there was doubt about whether or not she was behaving the right way...and a glimmer of hope that, maybe, if she performed well enough, she'd pass the test and Herman would not be dead anymore.
But he was.
Later, she returned home to a dark house, the living room lit only by the ornately decorated Christmas tree. They'd put it up together, the four of them, even though the children were getting a little old for those traditions. She thought immediately about tearing the tree down right now, screaming and ripping it apart, needles flying wildly around the room, crushing ornaments under her feet, snapping its wooden spine. Stupid fucking Christmas tree. How could it possibly stay standing, sending out waves of false cheer, when Herman had just been killed in a car accident? The thought of throttling this Christmas tree was incredibly appealing, but the children were home and they could not see her act that way. Christmas was already fucking ruined...would they ever hear a carol without thinking of their dead father? According to the clock, it was after midnight, which meant it was Christmas Eve.
The presents were wrapped and tied with ribbon under the tree, and the thought of opening them nauseated her. Herman's gifts were there, just waiting for him, and they would never be opened. Like hell she would ever touch his presents, let alone unwrap and return them. No, they'd sit under that tree forever. The tree would stay up forever, she decided right there and then. Taking it down would be like tearing down a monument, unwrapping a mummy, desecrating a gravestone. It just wasn't done. It wasn't about respect for the dead, exactly, although that was the term often used...but to touch those presents, to take down the tree, it was disgusting. She would just as soon rip the flesh from her body and run through town all blood and bones, dropping organs in her haste.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. It's the sound of death, but so is everything else. Music. Laughter. A small airplane flying overhead in the Costa Rica sky...and she, just a dot below in front of the surf shop she and Herman had dreamed up together. Almost two months have passed and Herman's death has not been any easier to accept or understand. If she were playing a role, she would have found a reason to live on by now. She would have found a way to see how, no matter how painful, everything happens for a reason. Which is bullshit.
Unlike before, she knows what role she must play now. The strong mother who is there for her son, and the daughter of her dead fiance. But she resents it. It's not the most interesting choice. She'd much rather be tearing down holiday decorations and running fleshless through the streets, screaming like a banshee for everyone to go fuck themselves. Behind dark sunglasses she smokes a cigarette and remains silent and seemingly strong. She'll still open that surf shop. But inside she is cursing and shrieking, giving the grief-addled performance of a lifetime, hating everything and everyone in the world merely because it still exists after he's gone.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
*
THE ASSISTANT
"Good morning, oh awesome Annie!"
They were goofy, but Mom's emails always managed to cheer her up...in a way. This job was so demanding, so draining...she was drowning. Her mother's love was something to hold onto, but it was also very far away. Her boss hated her, she could feel it, and he made her feel like shit every day. She was scared of him, and she loathed him, and she wanted more than anything not to do this anymore. A way out. Sometimes she sent her mother emails begging for permission to quit and come home. Her mother told her to be confident, and strong. "Remember, you've survived greater challenges than this," she wrote, but she didn't see the irony.
Tears stream down Annie's face after the holiday lunch. Fuck. She'd promised herself she would never let him see her cry, even though she did so frequently. In the bathroom, and at home at night. She cried because he was an asshole, but never to his face. Until now.
She was fired anyway, so it didn't matter. But she didn't have time to realize how much she'd regret this puffy face, wet with tears, when she could have made such a stronger exit. There were dozens of things she could have said, great lines full of truth, to make him see that he was a dick and she didn't need him. She'd thought of many over the seven months she'd worked there, but when the time came she just sat there meekly, as usual, and let him have his way with her. What an asshole.
Had he ever given her a chance? she wondered. She'd been chosen out of a few dozen other applicants, and yet, he seemed to despise her from the very beginning. He had admired her story of survival, the strength she'd gained from that one defining experience. But he was impossible to please, and her mistakes were inevitable. She tried to hide them, or cover them up, or fix them if possible, but it never seemed to help. There was always more work to do, and no matter how she tried it was never enough. He'd lay into her and she'd end up feeling less capable, make more mistakes, and the vicious cycle would continue. She couldn't believe how mean he was sometimes. He might as well be firing a shotgun into her every time he opened his mouth. Fucking asshole.
He could've waited until after Christmas. He could've at least given her a holiday bonus for the piles of shit she'd put up with, for the untold hours of work she'd done for him, for coming into this office every day for slave wages and without any form of thanks. Smug fucking asshole had asked them to go around the table telling about their plans for the future, and when she answered, he must have been smirking. She felt like such a tool, talking about her plans for success in the film industry when he knew all along that he was going to fire her within the hour. Right after the holiday lunch, that motherfucking asshole.
Despite her best efforts, Mom's emails didn't make her feel strong and confident. They made her feel homesick; they made her want to get on the first plane to Colorado and never come back. What had she ever seen in Hollywood, anyway? A town filled with such selfish and abusive motherfucking assholes? The more her mother said she loved her, told her to be brave and strong, the more it broke her heart. She wanted so much to be that way for Mom, to make her proud, to live the happy life her mother wished for her. Instead, she was made to feel worthless, treated like dirt, and strangely enough she felt worse for her mother than she did for herself. She imagined how it must hurt Mom to see "awesome Annie" put through the ringer day in and day out, begging to come home and leave her dreams behind. Annie knew better than anyone in the world that all it takes is one asshole...or maybe two...to spoil a person's life.
What really got to her was that attitude. His presumption that he knew more than she did, that she was just some starry-eyed kid come down from the mountains to see what the movie life was all about. She wasn't from just any sleepy Colorado town. If only he knew, she often thought, what it was like to see the people around you gunned down. To face that kind of evil, done to and done by the people you see every day. If only he knew there was something outside his privileged life, the bullshit bubble wrapped around Hollywood. They all carried themselves with a ridiculous amount of self-importance, unaware that a shotgun could wipe that condescending smirk right off their faces and turn them into sniveling cowards. Victims. It was easy to bully someone, with the right array of weapons. In Columbine, they'd used guns; in Hollywood, they used privilege. But fuck him for making her a victim, and fuck her for cowering before him after what she'd been through. Mom didn't understand the irony...that she'd made it out of that school building, but she couldn't cut it as the 2nd assistant to a mid-level producer in Hollywood. She'd survived the former, and here, she was fired.
She called her mom crying that evening...he fired her at lunch, but she had still finished out the day. The "third assistant" she'd been training was there too, and only now did she realize he'd been hired to replace her. Fucking asshole. She'd been training him for her job not to help her, but to shove her out of it. A week before fucking Christmas. Right after the holiday fucking lunch. Fucking cocksucker motherfucking asshole.
It was only afterward that she realized that she wasn't actually that upset about it. She was finally fucking free, exactly as she wanted when she'd written Mom pleading for her blessing to come back home. It was almost Christmas now, and in a few days she'd be back in Colorado and away from this bullshit bubble town that was so out of sorts with the real world. She smiled. She'd never have to take his shit again.
"Good morning, oh awesome Annie," Mom's email said the next day, as usual. And for once, she felt rather awesome after all.
*
THE ROOMMATE
Six weeks in a coma caused Dean to gain 80 pounds. The first time he saw his reflection, he nearly wretched.
He was driving on Wilshire, passing through Beverly Glen, when he suddenly woke up in the hospital. In North Carolina. They called his mother right away, and she was there within the hour. A miracle had occurred!
Dean was disoriented, didn't believe what they were telling him at first. A car accident? A coma? It sounded like something out of a bad soap opera he'd auditioned for awhile back. And then he noticed that his arms were heavy, and not just because he was tired and his muscles had gone six weeks unused. They looked as fat as tree trunks. He was disgusted. In a split second, he wasn't himself anymore. He was a fatty. As a dancer, as an actor, he would never have let his body reach this point, and so he no longer knew who he was. This was career suicide.
A few days later, his boyfriend came to visit him in the hospital. Dean tried to convince himself that his fears were for nothing, that it wasn't revulsion he read on his loving boyfriend's face. But it was. His boyfriend dumped him. And it was right then and there that Dean decided that he would not let a little coma keep him down.
The doctors told Dean he'd never walk again. Dean said, "Fuck that," and got to his feet. It took months to lose the weight and get back in shape, and Drew was too ashamed to return to LA looking like a comatose whale, so he stayed with his mother in North Carolina, determined to reclaim what he'd had. It was grueling, but it had to be done.
He did it. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done. His dancing wasn't quite where it was before, but he looked good now--better, even. He wore obsession well. He planned to return to LA, and decided he didn't need that $5,000 a month apartment after all. Who was he kidding, anyway? That superficial prick of a boyfriend, the flashy car that had nearly gotten him killed...leave it to a coma to provide a wakeup call. Dean didn't have any friends left after the accident; they'd either written him off as dead or obese, and in Hollywood it was basically the same thing. So he hunted online for a roommate. A friend. He wanted to live somewhere more modest, more affordable...at least until he got back into making money with his acting and dancing again. He wanted to be a real person, not one of the superficial bitches who'd abandoned him.
When someone acceptable contacted him on Christmas Eve, he agreed right away. He didn't even care to see the place, as long as it had a place to park and the guy didn't seem like a complete psycho. They talked on the phone for an hour, and Dean told him about the accident and what he'd lost because of it. The guy seemed to understand, as if he too had once lost everything that was important to him. They spoke again the day after Christmas, for another hour, and made plans. Dean thought they could actually be friends, and it was a nice thought, living with someone rather than always coming home alone. Chilling out with a bottle of wine, watching a DVD...it was a simple life, but probably a good one.
When his ex-boyfriend called a few days before New Year's, Dean almost didn't answer. He almost answered and said, "Fuck you." And when his ex-boyfriend asked to see him, he almost said no. But he couldn't resist the temptation to show him what a mistake he'd made, how he looked even better than before and was determined to get better yet. "Out of all people, you should've known that accident wouldn't keep me down," Dean told him. "I know," was the reply. And then he apologized, crying. He'd made such a huge mistake.
And suddenly it seemed stupid to let the accident change his life. Why should Dean give up his hot boyfriend, live with some guy he'd never met before, just because he'd spent six weeks in a coma? Wasn't that defeat? Shouldn't he still try and be better than all that? This new, quiet life could only hold him back, and what was important was getting back to the life he'd had before, because it was a good one. He'd lived a life other people only wish they had...people who would desperately cling on to him just to get in on the action. He didn't need that. He needed to return.
It wasn't like he wasn't trying to be an asshole. He just thought it would be easier if he just...didn't return calls, or answer messages. After all, he barely knew the guy...they'd spoken on the phone, what, twice? It really was much easier to never speak with him again, and let them both forget all about it. The coma, the accident, and that brief window of time where he'd considered throwing away so much of what was good in his life. Like it never happened. He was still young, after all...and now was no time to gamble. He'd lost enough time already.
Content with his plan, Dean drove back to LA in his Christmas gift: a brand new SUV.
*
Stars fall, and it isn't always possible for them to get right back up again. So many things seem like the beginning of something, but just as soon, they end abruptly. Where do these missed opportunities go? Is there some island where they store better versions of ourselves? Where we live the lives we thought we would?
For more than a year, I've asked questions like these. I've mourned the loss of someone who was never going to exist in the first place. I've doubted my choice of career, and then, my persistence even in the face of adversity. How could I not? It turns out, I'm not as good as I thought. Now I'm finally right in the thick of it, reading material that is and isn't getting made, finding good reasons to question myself. This is not an industry in which most people find happiness, and I seek more than most. Most of what I've written is about me, in here and elsewhere, it all comes back to me. Suicidal teenagers, victims of rape with a vendetta, film students questioning their choice of career...none of it is much of a stretch, is it? We write what we know...but now I don't know anything. I always wanted a life worth writing about, even when it came at a painful price. But I don't have that anymore. People around me are dying, surviving, or some combination of the two...they're doing things that give them a story to tell, and for once, I'm not. After everything else was over, my final battle was the one against being ordinary. I lost.
This story isn't about me anymore. My life isn't even about me. All around me are better stories. Seems like everyone's got a tale to tell, and who am I? I'm the narrator. If there's one thing this year has taught me, it's that I wasn't wrong. I am supposed to be here, do this, because this is what I'm good at. I'm no genius or messiah, and I'm sure not the star of the show. I wanted to be, I tried to be, and ever so briefly, I was...a star, a star, a big bright shining star. But not anymore. Stars fall, but it's what they do afterward that makes a difference. This is just the beginning, the preamble to a much larger story.
My time in the heavens, my stint in hell...even after everything, I start from nothing. I begin anew, as if nothing I've done mattered. And maybe it hasn't. I have very little to show for my 23 years on this earth...memories, ideas, but nothing concrete. Only things that fade away. There's no record I was ever here, and if I left now, I'd disappear. My name would scatter, my mark upon the lives of others would fade within a matter of months or years. What I carry with me is epic, the stories inside me so intense I can only hope to capture their power someday. But they're still only inside me. I know that some of them will never be told, and others diluted. I may never tell a single story the way I intend to; the impression I leave might fill itself in within minutes of my departure. I don't know. I'm not a star anymore, and the people who tell tales about them are seldom recognized. Mostly, they are silent observers who go unnoticed, like I am now, wondering how much power they really possess. Do I decide what happens next, or merely explain what it looks like as we go along?
So here's what changed: whatever happens, I know now what I'm going to do...I'm not going to quit or find something else. This is who I am. It's all I am. I'm still getting used to it, and to be honest, I still look for ways to tell the story and star in it, too...but there's a big difference between desire and destiny. The part I was made for is just the narration. I'm good at telling stories, and I'm starting to find that it isn't only mine. I could probably tell you your own story better than you could tell it yourself. I'd find themes you didn't know were in it. I was built for it...I don't know how to explain it except that I feel them; my chest tightens when something doesn't play out quite right. I doubt many people have this ability...for many, it's learned, but for me, it's instinct. And I do still have a long road ahead me, and a lot to learn about the stories people actually want to hear. Mine isn't always going to be one of them. But I do have something that no other writer out there has: the way I see the world. My life. It's not what I wanted but it wasn't for nothing. I read a lot of writers without discipline or authenticity, with no clue what they're doing. Hollywood has many secrets, and I learn them slowly; the artists these days are mostly charlatans and hired hands. I aim to be amongst them, but not quite like them...I still have something a bit different to share. I always set out to shake things up, not knowing that most people prefer things how they already are. Someday, though, I know someone will want to hear something new...I'm still young, and I can afford to wait. However long it takes...when they care to listen, I'll be here with a tale to tell.
Here is the story of an ordinary person with an average life. Few exciting things happen. There are no great loves or huge tragedies, there isn't an excess of action, and he certainly isn't destined for anything. He simply watches as lives unfold and progress around him, then narrates them back to you; he watches the world so that you don't have to, notices things and points them out to you in ways you may not have predicted. He feels the pain of practical strangers, remembers everyone else long after they've forgotten him so as to tell the most complete and accurate story. That's his job...not really the one he wanted, but the one he got. Welcome to the dawning of a new era, the prologue to a new story.
And so it starts. I'll never forget where I was. Who I was. Who was there with me. It was a hell of a story, and I'll remember it even if it's never retold. But it feels over. Most of what I've written up until this point is about me. The characters in my screenplays resemble me...or at least, what I was...and in that way, maybe the old me will live on. But I think that's the only way. I once told a story so fantastic that I began to believe it...I created my own world with its own set of rules but weaved people and places from this one into it. It was a beautiful place where I had a lot of power, but people were happy there. I tried to bring the people I cared about with me, but at a certain point they didn't want to go anymore...maybe they didn't believe they could get there, because they couldn't see it. A part of me still thinks that, if only they had listened, we would all be in a better place. It seemed so real. I convinced myself that it was the future; that there was a bridge from now to there. But of course there isn't. I made it up, and there's only one thing I can do with it... Isn't it funny, that of all the stories in my head, my own is the one least likely to be realized?
Once, I saw a better world, but I won't get to live there. None of us will.
Still, I hope to show you what it looks like someday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sit tight, I'm gonna need you to keep time
Come on just snap, snap, snap your fingers for me.
Good, good...now we're making some progress,
Come on just tap, tap, tap your toes to the beat.
And I believe
This may call for a proper introduction
And, well, don't you see?
I'm the narrator
And this is just the prologue...
I swear to shake it up if you swear to listen...
Oh, we're still so young, desperate for attention.
I aim to be your eyes,
Trophy boys, trophy wives.
Applause, applause...no, wait! wait!
Dear studio audience, I've an announcement to make:
It seems the artists these days are not who you think,
So we'll pick back up on that on another page...
And I believe
This may call for a proper introduction
And, well, don't you see?
I'm the narrator
And this is just the prologue...
I swear to shake it up if you swear to listen...
Oh, we're still so young, desperate for attention.
I aim to be your eyes,
Trophy boys, trophy wives.
Swear to shake it up
You swear to listen
Swear to shake it up
You swear to listen
Swear to shake it up
You swear to listen
Swear to shake it up
Swear to shake it up
I swear to shake it up, if you swear to listen...
Oh, we're still so young, desperate for attention.
I aim to be your eyes.
PROLOGUE
You don't know yet what you are...
*
This may call for a proper introduction.
I'm...
Speeding along Wilshire, through Westwood, he drives a small, sleek Mercedes convertible. Or maybe it's a BMW. Does it matter? It screams STATUS. It screams "I've got it!" at the top of its lungs, and whispers "...And you don't" under its breath as he swerves around a Honda through a just-red light where Wilshire meets Veteran. This car is young and it's Hollywood and he's both of those things, so he drives the appropriate vehicle. As simple as that. It fits.
He's a dancer. He's an actor. And not the struggling kind. He's been cast in pilots and commercials, and he has yet to become a household name, but he's good enough and, more important, he's got the look. Better yet, he's in love...with an even more successful dancer/actor/model, who zooms through his Hollywood youth at an even more rapid speed. And the best part is that it's just beginning...he's young.
He feels good. He feels invincible. Sure, he might not ever become a household name as an actor, but even if he doesn't, he's still living the life. His apartment costs $5,000 a month, for Christ's sake. He takes spontaneous trips to New York or Miami on a private jet. He's got a beautiful boyfriend who loves him. If he took the time to think about it, he'd realize that a mile or so southeast, there are people who only dream of his kind of life. People who obsess over it every day, and spend every waking minute trying to be what he already is. But what does he care? He was born with it. Nothing's going to take that away.
He sings along to Janet Jackson on the radio, or maybe he's talking on the phone. Does it matter? His mouth is moving; he's being heard, even if it's lost to the wind. Then suddenly he awakens, somewhere else, in a sterile room with white walls and a distinct lack of personality. What the fuck? Surely that life wasn't a dream...
No, he realizes then, it wasn't a dream. That was his life...and it takes another long moment to remember the sight of that oversized SUV careening toward him, just a little too far into his lane, going just a little too fast like he was. That SUV, it screamed status. It screamed "Out of my way!!" and whispered "...or I'll smash ya, kid" as it sideswiped the Mercedes where Wilshire meets Beverly Glen. In just a few moments, the sounds of metal crunching inward would drown out Janet on the radio. Glass would shatter, the car would spin twice before flipping upside-down in the street, and people in condos would look down from their balconies at the accident, shaking their heads in pity at the ant-sized tragedy below. The SUV would stop several hundred yards ahead, displaying only a modicum of damage to its precious exterior, proving a much-needed lesson about life in Hollywood: go as fast as you like for as long as you can, but never fail to yield when there's something bigger coming your way.
In moments, everything will go black. Somehow, Dean must know that already, that his life is over now. He has only the briefest second to comprehend it, impossible as it seems already. But as the shiny black SUV comes toward him now, it's his reflection that he notices, staring back at him from the SUV's passenger-side door. He's blonde, tan, wearing the oversized sunglasses that are so trendy amongst privileged young males his age. His reflection screams STATUS but he doesn't have time to scream for real. As the SUV slides toward him, he's still smiling, and he looks as ready as ever to dance backup in a music video or star in a television pilot.
He looks good, and not at all like someone who's about to die.
*
Hello, do you know me?
My guess is, probably not. I'm someone who was made a long time ago...not quite twenty-three years ago, but not recently, either. Sometime in between. Because somewhere along the way, a decision was made or an opportunity went by unobserved and it lead me right to where I am...instead of somewhere else.
I've been trying to pinpoint that moment, but I can't. I want to identify it because I regret it more than anything that's ever happened to me. It's the moment that led me here, this humdrum place so very far from where I should be. Where I worked to be...where I deserved to be. Not here.
See, I was supposed to be someone important, someone who does something meaningful. Don't ask me how I know...at a certain point I just knew I was meant for something great, and that's all there was to it. For most of my life, I was nothing. In school I always had a few friends, but tended to lose them when the year was done. No one was ever that mad about me. And that was before the two year stint where I couldn't speak. I know, better than most, what it's like to be silent and invisible. What it's like to just watch people and make mental notes. I learned a lot that way...not interacting with people, but always watching. Even in my most social moments, I've never lost that ability. My eyes dart right and left when I'm having conversations, because I'm always soaking up more details about human behavior. It's perhaps the only thing about me that's been consistent.
And then one day, I got a taste of something else. People noticed me. People liked me. Suddenly I was someone people wanted around. I didn't have to try and make myself memorable, make sure that I was included. I just was. There were still moments of invisibility, ones that reminded me where I came from, and that someday I might be back there. But mostly, things were good, and I started to believe my destiny lied somewhere along these lines, amongst people or in front of them rather than observing from the sidelines. I worked hard to keep myself visible. I worked overtime. And I became a star.
It's a loaded term, I know, filled with all sorts of implications. But I was. I may have been damaged but I burned brightly, and everyone who knew me knew that's what I was. More importantly, I knew it. I was a focal point, something people look up at and admire. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm not making too big a deal of myself...after all, the thing about stars is, the sky's full of 'em. But it's an addictive, empowering feeling to be one. Once you're up there, you never want to come back down.
Unfortunately, stars fall. So did I. When, exactly? I'm not sure. But I'm a different person now...someone you've never met, and maybe, never thought you would. I know I never did.
So allow me to introduce myself.
I'm...
Crouching under a desk in her history classroom, she wonders if this could be the end. It was almost funny, how boring this building, this room, this life had seemed only minutes earlier...off-white walls, ugly carpet, and so few actually wanting to be here. Now they had good reason to want out.
Miss Gibson had been going on about some battle or other during the Civil War, and no one cared. Not even Miss Gibson. Not one student in her history class thought about what it was like for those soldiers to die, some of them seventeen years of age or so, the same age as the students in this classroom, and the ones outside. They didn't think about what it was like to have their lives cut short due to forces beyond their control, killed by a boy their own age who just happened to be on the other side of those enemy lines. No one thought about that at all.
They thought about the weekend, and the parties that were planned. They wondered if Sean Graves might have a crush on them or what Rachel Scott looked like naked. They considered having just a salad for lunch, because in the locker room some girls had been stifling giggles. They thought of trivial things, things that had to do with right now, and not about some war that happened too long ago to consider. Why should they? They were young, living in a totally different time than those poor unfortunate kids battling for their country, their honor, their lives...sepia-colored, stone-faced men in uniform, staring blandly forward from the well-worn pages of history books. They were soldiers, and not at all like kids today. Some were no older than seventeen years of age, but they didn't look like teenagers. They looked old.
So it was almost funny, in a cosmic way, when the sound of gunshots echoed in the hall outside. For the longest time, it was such a confusing noise, not at all connected with the picture on page 357 in their books, depicting Yankees with rifles aimed at Confederates on the other side of enemy lines. Bang! Bang! Bang! What was that? The answer was right in front of them, in their history books, but it took them so long to catch on.
Sometime later, they run...not toward their enemy like the Yankees, but away. Away from sounds that mean people are being shot at. She sees faces she knows, but she can't quite connect them to any personality. No one is popular, no one is an outcast...they are all indistinguishable, running from a collective threat. As dozens of students rush outside, she realizes it's the only time she's ever fit in with the crowd.
The grass is a cheerful green, the sky too bright a blue. It doesn't feel quite right, that everything should look the same once it's been dipped in blood. It's too horrifying to comprehend; she knows it's not a dream but wishes it was, because waking up from it would be something to look forward to. What can she hope for now? Not to die? Does it matter who makes it out alive if not everyone will? She waits for the cracking noise that will accompany the bullet that slices through the back of her skull. Will she hear it or feel it first? Will there be any pain, or just a sudden trip to a place where she can ask God what the fuck He was thinking this morning? There must be something between nightmares and reality that explains how this can occur. Massacres don't happen in high schools, to regular kids in modern-day America. Massacres happen in history books...to stoic, colorless men with mustaches, not to her friends in Gap jeans.
All around, kids are run and scream. People she knows are freaking the fuck out like it's the end of the world. Maybe it is--that would explain it. Men with guns are shooting innocent teenagers at 11:30 in the morning on a school day. If that's not a sign of doomsday, what is? As she runs, she wonders if this is it for her...the end of it all, so soon and so raw. Surely it's the end of something. This can't happen with things going back to okay afterward. This moment, this very one, changes everything she knows. For the worse. And somehow, it doesn't seem fair.
Later, she will discover that the assailants aren't men. They're boys. Boys seventeen years of age or so, boys who felt justified shooting people they considered to be enemies. For some, high school feels like a war zone, with shots being fired each and every day. These boys felt, somehow, that they were finally fighting back. She knew them, of course, even dated one back in eighth grade. It seems so long ago now, so far removed from this hellish display. Panic. News of who's been shot, who's been killed, and finally, who's behind it all. Eric and Dylan. Now they're dead too.
Seriously...how can God let this happen? How can her friends be screaming and running and bleeding and dying all around her? And how can they be the ones picking off classmates, dispatching of lives with a pop! pop! pop! that bounces off ceilings and walls? It doesn't quite sink in yet, but in the back of her mind she knows that this is the beginning of something awful. A terrifying new dawn, awash in red thanks to the blood-spattered rays of the rising sun. She and others have made their escape, past the line of police cars and SWAT vans out front, the steadily growing sea of reporters flocking to report the carnage. It's the kind of thing that attracts attention, that warrants sirens and helicopters and men pointing cameras this way and that. It's an event, a moment in time that makes things different afterward. It's a moment that will end up in books, next to full-color photos of shell-shocked students fleeing the scene.
Annie realizes, right then, that she's living the moment, and it has begun to change her already. At the same time, it's now and it's history, something that will always be remembered as the nightmare it really is. She imagines reading about it 50 years from now; she can't quite fathom what life will be like tomorrow, or how she'll move on, but in 50 years she knows it'll be in books for bored kids to skim through and decide it has nothing to do with modern lives in 2049. She knows, wherever she was headed before today, this has altered her course. Everyone's. Things will never be the same, and she might never laugh without wondering how she can do such a thing after everything that's happened. Certainly, this school on this very day has swallowed them whole...their youth, their faith, and a number of lives. Things that were going to happen now never will, jokes that people would tell tomorrow won't be told because humor is no longer appropriate. Not here in Hell. No one will smile for a good long while, and they may never stop crying.
So many things that were going to happen, so many lives they'd intended to live...the tomorrow they'd planned on, now replaced by a curiously twisted question mark. Smiles. Laughter. Friendship. Fun. All the good things that had ever happened in that building...every innocent moment in every one of their lives...everything up until this point now belonged in the past. In a book.
Because all that, now, was history.
*
When I started my tutoring gig over the summer, it was awkward. I felt too young and irresponsible to be in charge of anyone else. How could I teach kids when I myself knew so little about the world? Sure, I was teaching mechanics...reading and writing on the SATs...hardly the fabric of existence. But I felt like a fraud. When I was in school, teachers were mature, professional adults. They weren't late and they weren't hungover and they knew their place in the world. They were teachers, not fucked up kids killing time 'til they hit it big in Tinseltown. Or at least, that's the way they seemed on my end, and I felt nothing like that. I'd never been less sure of myself, and all I really wanted to teach these kids was how to avoid ending up like me. I wanted to tell them not to let fear get in their way, and to pursue their goals without getting fixated on one thing. To try everything, and never put all your dreams in one basket. With no idea about where I was headed, how could I possibly help a bunch of kids find their way?
Now things have changed. I've changed. I sit across from my students and I see them as kids. So young.... Their lives are distinctly different from mine. They go to school, I don't. They live with parents who pay their bills; I live on my own and support myself. They're just starting to think about what to do with their young lives, and I've already decided...I've just taken those first, final steps Out There and there's no going back. I just became a grown up. These kids are not my equals anymore...I don't have the naive outlook of youth, one that sees promise and potential where adults see failure and inevitability. I still believe that they can do whatever they want with their lives, that they can make a difference and be successful and happy and do all the right things...my world view is not that bleak. But I don't believe I will. Unlike them, I don't have my whole life ahead of me to figure it out and shape the me that will be. I still have a good number of years on the way, but the ones where we make decisions and form the kind of person we are...those have passed, haven't they?
So there must have been a moment where I made a wrong decision, veered off course, but I didn't know what it was until it was already long gone. I still don't. All I know is, I was headed one way and now I'm headed someplace entirely different, somewhere I never planned on going, and I don't have the power to turn it around. I can't go back and be me anymore. I have to be this, and a lot of the time, I'm not okay with it. I feel trapped; I feel wrong. I'm dying to get out, but I know I never will. This is you...get used to it. That's what the signs are saying. Growing up is rough for everyone, they say, and I've seen plenty of evidence to show that most people my age seem to feel the way I do, to a degree. But I'm taking it harder than most. I'm in shock. I feel utter disbelief, every day, that this is the life I made for myself. That despite careful planning and an ever-watchful eye, I was still completely blind in the moments that mattered. I sacrificed a lot, guarded myself closely, had my sights set on specific goals and went after them full-throttle. And still. Still I became someone I don't recognize. In my precision, I focused on the big picture and let slip all the details that made me what I am. And I can't stop hating myself for it.
So ask me who I am, and I'll tell you.
I'm...
A 39-year old intern might seem a pathetic creature to some, but she owns it. She is never ashamed. Years of acting experience taught her not be self-conscious; how to identify what you want, and go after it. She'd been on countless auditions, and booked so few jobs in comparison, but she is an actress through and through, someone who puts herself out there when she knows she has to. No hesitation necessary. For this reason she's good at booking travel and answering phones, the mundane intern tasks she somehow makes her own. Unlike most of the college kids, meek and uncertain, who slouch in their seats and do coverage all day, she's there by choice and carries herself as such. She has no need for course credit, is not here because she feels she has to be in order to advance to some "next level." There are things she wants to learn, and so she is.
The dreaded forty year mark is just around the corner, and it got her thinking. Acting had failed to prove very lucrative--oh, it's given her a great outlet, and she doesn't regret a second of it, and she has no intention of giving up--but at this point in her life, she knew she needed something else. A greater, more grown-up cause. She'd decided on producing. After all, she has years of experience as an actress reading scripts, auditioning for roles because they were available rather than because they were parts she wanted to play. Why not step behind the scenes, take control, make sure the material was up to snuff? Producing would be a great way for her to find material, and working as an intern under a successful producer was the first step to that end. It didn't matter that the gig was unpaid; as the owner of an auto body shop, her fiance was the breadwinner of the family and she was the trophy wife. She was more than okay with that fact, since it allowed her the freedom to pursue acting and other creative outlets. She was lucky to have found him; lucky that she could do what she wanted and not have to worry about supporting her son. Lucky that they had money, family, pretty much everything people want in life. Herman loved Richie like he was his own son; like he loved his daughter Olivia. They had been engaged for longer than is traditional without taking that final step, but there was no need to. They were already family.
She thinks of them now, as she makes phone calls about Christmas gifts her boss is giving out. She's good at that. The holidays are just around the corner, and she still has plenty of shopping to do. There's a new kid today being trained as a third assistant and she has to show him how to use Excel. He's being paid; she isn't. But she's fine with that. The intern's desk is right between the first and second assistants', though now she will have to give it up to this new assistant. Her headshot is taped above it, and she wonders how long he'll keep it there. It was silly, maybe, to put it up there in the first place, but you never know when someone's going to casting something you're perfect for. She reads scripts and finds the parts she could play, should play, but of course, there's very little casting done in this office. And even after so many years, she doesn't have the experience.
Sometimes during the idle hours, the topic of disaster comes up. The first assistant was at NYU on 9/11 and witnessed the collapse of the second tower, the second assistant had been at Columbine during the school shootings in 1999. And there she is, between them and 15 years their senior, having never experienced anything so devastating. She wonders if tragedy would make her a better actress; if it would get her in touch with something she didn't quite feel. Is that the reason she has a hard time really tapping into something real, when she tries to act out dramatic scenes? Is it holding her back? She wishes secretly that she had more to show for herself, with 40 just around the corner.
Later, they gather around the table at Ago for their holiday lunch, discussing where they want to be in 5 years...the interns, the assistants, the new guy, and their boss. Most wanted to produce; a couple want more creative roles. Karen says she wants to be running her own production company, where she can find projects to cast herself in. She speaks with an assuredness that none of the others have, and it sets her apart. They're still unsure, but she isn't. She's just figuring it all out. After all, forty isn't what it used to be. In the grand scheme of things, she's still young, and she'd take her life any day over anyone else's.
"Life is good," she says, and she means it. No one else at this table can quite say the same. So to hell with tragedy.
But these are the last few days Karen will ever feel this way. In the office, taped above the intern's desk, is the headshot of a smiling Karen Johnson. On one side of her sits the girl who made it out of Columbine, on the other side is the guy who saw the Twin Towers crumble before his very eyes. And right now, the happy woman is saying "Life is good." She knows nothing of disaster.
That picture of Karen, smiling, will remain taped to wall long after a car spins out of control and crashes right through her sense of well-being.
*
Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I always have been. If I didn't push myself, I'm not the kind of person who would ever go anywhere. I had goals and I set out after them, and I realized too late that it isn't the vision that matters, but the small steps along the way that make you who you are. I thought thinking big was enough, but it isn't. Thinking stays within; actions are on the outside, and they're what cause the ripples. They steer you toward your identity. And so, even if everything I've ever done has been to a fantastic end, I did them in ways that led me astray. I did them for the right reasons but with a stubbornness that was all wrong. And now that's what I am...not the man I saw at rainbow's end, but the one who didn't believe that it was only a mirage until he was already well underway. There is no destination but the one we find when we're headed someplace else. It's the journey that makes us; we aren't anything when we start. My mistake was in believing that I already was what I was going to be; that I'd get where I intended to go. I pursued it so forcefully and mercilessly, I gave up so much to make it happen...only now do I see how much the mode of transportation matters more than the end result; how we're made bit by bit, step by step, regardless of where we think we're going. I was so oblivious, just waiting for the proper moment and location...it came, I'm sure, several times. But I didn't see it, because I was looking too far ahead. I kept waiting for the flashing neon signs, the searchlights in the sky...I never looked down or around me. And so I wandered, waiting...and here I am. Lost.
I'm not sure how to get anywhere from here. The journey I've been on is not the one I thought I was taking. Whoever planned this itinerary, it wasn't me. Not it seems it's been decided that I'll work in the film industry. It's been decided that I'll start low and work my way up. None of it seems related to any decisions I've made, but it's been decided. Just like it was decided that I'd be self-conscious and quiet, depressed and self-loathing, gay. My life seems composed of nothing but decisions that were made for me, predestined, and when I tried to change circumstances, I failed. In a way I decided to come to Los Angeles, go to USC, have a career in film, but I didn't choose what to be good at, and it never seemed there was another way. Mostly, things seem to have happened the exact opposite of how I would have chosen, and when I try to fix them they just flip around and become the opposite of that. I've always been so far from what I wished for, and ever since I can remember, I've resisted it...at one time or another, I've tried to change, forget, or erase every part of me...I fought against my sexuality, social standing, the place I was born; I downplayed my intelligence to fit in with everyone, and then when I became normal I fought against that, too. Maybe I went crazy just to fight against being ordinary. I've often considered myself a fighter because of these battles...strong and unwilling to give in. But in the end, I've always submitted. To myself. I'm all I've been fighting against. I've always ended up being my own enemy. I guess I chose to fight impossible battles, invincible enemies...I wanted so much to be more than I am, but I've come up short every time. I held out for a long while on some battles, like growing up, but the outcome was inevitable in all of them. I always lose. I've acquired the loneliness of a warrior but none of the spoils...only an aura of defeat and futility. And now that I've given up that final confrontation...Chris vs. the Real World...there's nothing else to fight for.
Now, life isn't bad. It's busy, exhausting....but tolerable. People take jobs for many reasons. Often, for money. Sometimes to pay our dues, or maybe to learn something. Occasionally, all three. I can't say things are much worse than six months ago, before I became an adult, and I can see how people live this way and are okay with it. Small comforts, tiny steps in obvious directions. But when I look in the mirror, my face is the only thing I recognize. The place I'm standing in is a mystery, the clothes I'm in must belong to someone else. I'm a ghost. Not quite the spectre of what once was, but perhaps of what would have been. I make invisible decisions and obtain intangible results. If anyone notices what I do, they don't know by whom it was done. Once again, I am the silent observer; I don't matter any more than a superfluous cog in a giant machine.
I came to LA because I believed it was the one place I had a chance to stand out, but instead, I've disappeared. Every day I vanish into a role that I was never quite meant to play, one in which I'm not that good, but not quite bad enough to be visible. I can see people looking right through me, but I don't know any acceptable way to show them there's a person here. If there even is, anymore. I think to myself, Maybe I'll have time to exist tomorrow, but I never do. I'm either too busy or too tired to materialize at the end of the day, so I come back to my haunting grounds and go unconscious for the night. And when I look at the life I lived, the people I lived it with, it reads like a finished story. I may not be through with the past, but it's finally through with me. Old friends, the people I loved...they have new friends, new lovers. In most lives, I've left no visible impression, as if I never existed at all. I may never understand what I did to slip away so completely, to backtrack and regress into what is the now and current me. Maybe it's best that I don't. Maybe I should forget, and move on. Is this what I was meant for? Were those days when I was noticed just a blip on the radar, a Scroogey glimpse at what might have been? Or did I just fuck it up somehow? People used to expect great things of me, but I think we all got tired of waiting.
I look in the mirror. Who are you?
I'm...
THE INTERN
In paradise, the waves lap against the shore. She looks at the golden sand, the blue ocean, the silhouettes of palm trees against the pink sky as the orange sun is setting. It used to be fucking beautiful, and now it's nothing. It's just an image, and there might as well be maggots crawling through the sand and blood dripping off the fronds for all she remembers of beauty. Here, and anywhere, the world couldn't possibly be an uglier place.
Whoosh. Whoosh. With each soft crash as liquid meets land, she is reminded of the fragility of human life. The saddest news of a lifetime. One minute, he was driving along Sunset Boulevard, on his way to a breakfast meeting. Then, whoosh...whoosh...he was gone.
Olivia answered the phone that morning. "Has Herman forgotten our appointment? He isn't here..." And immediately, Karen knew something wasn't right. Frantically, she grabbed her keys, dropping them twice on her way out the door. "Is something wrong?" Richie asked from the kitchen table, and Karen answered, "No, honey, I'm just a little worried is all. I'm sure everything's fine."
In retrospect, it was a stupid fucking thing to say.
She was not sure everything was fine. In fact, she had the distinct feeling that it wasn't. And she was right. As she drove, she wondered if Herman was clean that morning. She didn't know. Surely he wouldn't be stupid enough to get high on his way to a breakfast meeting? Besides, his driving was usually fine, even with a little coke in his system.
He was already dead when she arrived at the scene of the accident. She didn't need any confirmation, but she waited for it anyway. They pulled his bloody body out of the wreckage of his car, and she had a hard time recognizing it. What the fuck was this, this bloody fucking lump wearing Herman's favorite polo? She resented the body for looking so grotesque, for making a mess of her dead fiance. This wasn't Herman, it was some cruel joke that looked like him, that stole him away from her. He wasn't in there anymore and she didn't want to see this half-assed replacement.
Karen had seen scenes like this performed many times, in many movies, as wives...or fiancees...utterly lost it at the news of a dead lover. But of course, that was no preparation and she did not know how to perform this role. She sobbed and wailed, but it seemed futile...stale, even...as if, as an actress, she should have found a new approach. As if this was just to test whether or not she really had what it takes. Would being calm and collected be a more interesting choice, or would she just come across as a bitch? No matter. She didn't give a fuck how it looked to anyone else, she didn't see this as a performance. She didn't think about acting at all; at least, not consciously. But in the back of her mind there was doubt about whether or not she was behaving the right way...and a glimmer of hope that, maybe, if she performed well enough, she'd pass the test and Herman would not be dead anymore.
But he was.
Later, she returned home to a dark house, the living room lit only by the ornately decorated Christmas tree. They'd put it up together, the four of them, even though the children were getting a little old for those traditions. She thought immediately about tearing the tree down right now, screaming and ripping it apart, needles flying wildly around the room, crushing ornaments under her feet, snapping its wooden spine. Stupid fucking Christmas tree. How could it possibly stay standing, sending out waves of false cheer, when Herman had just been killed in a car accident? The thought of throttling this Christmas tree was incredibly appealing, but the children were home and they could not see her act that way. Christmas was already fucking ruined...would they ever hear a carol without thinking of their dead father? According to the clock, it was after midnight, which meant it was Christmas Eve.
The presents were wrapped and tied with ribbon under the tree, and the thought of opening them nauseated her. Herman's gifts were there, just waiting for him, and they would never be opened. Like hell she would ever touch his presents, let alone unwrap and return them. No, they'd sit under that tree forever. The tree would stay up forever, she decided right there and then. Taking it down would be like tearing down a monument, unwrapping a mummy, desecrating a gravestone. It just wasn't done. It wasn't about respect for the dead, exactly, although that was the term often used...but to touch those presents, to take down the tree, it was disgusting. She would just as soon rip the flesh from her body and run through town all blood and bones, dropping organs in her haste.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. It's the sound of death, but so is everything else. Music. Laughter. A small airplane flying overhead in the Costa Rica sky...and she, just a dot below in front of the surf shop she and Herman had dreamed up together. Almost two months have passed and Herman's death has not been any easier to accept or understand. If she were playing a role, she would have found a reason to live on by now. She would have found a way to see how, no matter how painful, everything happens for a reason. Which is bullshit.
Unlike before, she knows what role she must play now. The strong mother who is there for her son, and the daughter of her dead fiance. But she resents it. It's not the most interesting choice. She'd much rather be tearing down holiday decorations and running fleshless through the streets, screaming like a banshee for everyone to go fuck themselves. Behind dark sunglasses she smokes a cigarette and remains silent and seemingly strong. She'll still open that surf shop. But inside she is cursing and shrieking, giving the grief-addled performance of a lifetime, hating everything and everyone in the world merely because it still exists after he's gone.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
*
THE ASSISTANT
"Good morning, oh awesome Annie!"
They were goofy, but Mom's emails always managed to cheer her up...in a way. This job was so demanding, so draining...she was drowning. Her mother's love was something to hold onto, but it was also very far away. Her boss hated her, she could feel it, and he made her feel like shit every day. She was scared of him, and she loathed him, and she wanted more than anything not to do this anymore. A way out. Sometimes she sent her mother emails begging for permission to quit and come home. Her mother told her to be confident, and strong. "Remember, you've survived greater challenges than this," she wrote, but she didn't see the irony.
Tears stream down Annie's face after the holiday lunch. Fuck. She'd promised herself she would never let him see her cry, even though she did so frequently. In the bathroom, and at home at night. She cried because he was an asshole, but never to his face. Until now.
She was fired anyway, so it didn't matter. But she didn't have time to realize how much she'd regret this puffy face, wet with tears, when she could have made such a stronger exit. There were dozens of things she could have said, great lines full of truth, to make him see that he was a dick and she didn't need him. She'd thought of many over the seven months she'd worked there, but when the time came she just sat there meekly, as usual, and let him have his way with her. What an asshole.
Had he ever given her a chance? she wondered. She'd been chosen out of a few dozen other applicants, and yet, he seemed to despise her from the very beginning. He had admired her story of survival, the strength she'd gained from that one defining experience. But he was impossible to please, and her mistakes were inevitable. She tried to hide them, or cover them up, or fix them if possible, but it never seemed to help. There was always more work to do, and no matter how she tried it was never enough. He'd lay into her and she'd end up feeling less capable, make more mistakes, and the vicious cycle would continue. She couldn't believe how mean he was sometimes. He might as well be firing a shotgun into her every time he opened his mouth. Fucking asshole.
He could've waited until after Christmas. He could've at least given her a holiday bonus for the piles of shit she'd put up with, for the untold hours of work she'd done for him, for coming into this office every day for slave wages and without any form of thanks. Smug fucking asshole had asked them to go around the table telling about their plans for the future, and when she answered, he must have been smirking. She felt like such a tool, talking about her plans for success in the film industry when he knew all along that he was going to fire her within the hour. Right after the holiday lunch, that motherfucking asshole.
Despite her best efforts, Mom's emails didn't make her feel strong and confident. They made her feel homesick; they made her want to get on the first plane to Colorado and never come back. What had she ever seen in Hollywood, anyway? A town filled with such selfish and abusive motherfucking assholes? The more her mother said she loved her, told her to be brave and strong, the more it broke her heart. She wanted so much to be that way for Mom, to make her proud, to live the happy life her mother wished for her. Instead, she was made to feel worthless, treated like dirt, and strangely enough she felt worse for her mother than she did for herself. She imagined how it must hurt Mom to see "awesome Annie" put through the ringer day in and day out, begging to come home and leave her dreams behind. Annie knew better than anyone in the world that all it takes is one asshole...or maybe two...to spoil a person's life.
What really got to her was that attitude. His presumption that he knew more than she did, that she was just some starry-eyed kid come down from the mountains to see what the movie life was all about. She wasn't from just any sleepy Colorado town. If only he knew, she often thought, what it was like to see the people around you gunned down. To face that kind of evil, done to and done by the people you see every day. If only he knew there was something outside his privileged life, the bullshit bubble wrapped around Hollywood. They all carried themselves with a ridiculous amount of self-importance, unaware that a shotgun could wipe that condescending smirk right off their faces and turn them into sniveling cowards. Victims. It was easy to bully someone, with the right array of weapons. In Columbine, they'd used guns; in Hollywood, they used privilege. But fuck him for making her a victim, and fuck her for cowering before him after what she'd been through. Mom didn't understand the irony...that she'd made it out of that school building, but she couldn't cut it as the 2nd assistant to a mid-level producer in Hollywood. She'd survived the former, and here, she was fired.
She called her mom crying that evening...he fired her at lunch, but she had still finished out the day. The "third assistant" she'd been training was there too, and only now did she realize he'd been hired to replace her. Fucking asshole. She'd been training him for her job not to help her, but to shove her out of it. A week before fucking Christmas. Right after the holiday fucking lunch. Fucking cocksucker motherfucking asshole.
It was only afterward that she realized that she wasn't actually that upset about it. She was finally fucking free, exactly as she wanted when she'd written Mom pleading for her blessing to come back home. It was almost Christmas now, and in a few days she'd be back in Colorado and away from this bullshit bubble town that was so out of sorts with the real world. She smiled. She'd never have to take his shit again.
"Good morning, oh awesome Annie," Mom's email said the next day, as usual. And for once, she felt rather awesome after all.
*
THE ROOMMATE
Six weeks in a coma caused Dean to gain 80 pounds. The first time he saw his reflection, he nearly wretched.
He was driving on Wilshire, passing through Beverly Glen, when he suddenly woke up in the hospital. In North Carolina. They called his mother right away, and she was there within the hour. A miracle had occurred!
Dean was disoriented, didn't believe what they were telling him at first. A car accident? A coma? It sounded like something out of a bad soap opera he'd auditioned for awhile back. And then he noticed that his arms were heavy, and not just because he was tired and his muscles had gone six weeks unused. They looked as fat as tree trunks. He was disgusted. In a split second, he wasn't himself anymore. He was a fatty. As a dancer, as an actor, he would never have let his body reach this point, and so he no longer knew who he was. This was career suicide.
A few days later, his boyfriend came to visit him in the hospital. Dean tried to convince himself that his fears were for nothing, that it wasn't revulsion he read on his loving boyfriend's face. But it was. His boyfriend dumped him. And it was right then and there that Dean decided that he would not let a little coma keep him down.
The doctors told Dean he'd never walk again. Dean said, "Fuck that," and got to his feet. It took months to lose the weight and get back in shape, and Drew was too ashamed to return to LA looking like a comatose whale, so he stayed with his mother in North Carolina, determined to reclaim what he'd had. It was grueling, but it had to be done.
He did it. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done. His dancing wasn't quite where it was before, but he looked good now--better, even. He wore obsession well. He planned to return to LA, and decided he didn't need that $5,000 a month apartment after all. Who was he kidding, anyway? That superficial prick of a boyfriend, the flashy car that had nearly gotten him killed...leave it to a coma to provide a wakeup call. Dean didn't have any friends left after the accident; they'd either written him off as dead or obese, and in Hollywood it was basically the same thing. So he hunted online for a roommate. A friend. He wanted to live somewhere more modest, more affordable...at least until he got back into making money with his acting and dancing again. He wanted to be a real person, not one of the superficial bitches who'd abandoned him.
When someone acceptable contacted him on Christmas Eve, he agreed right away. He didn't even care to see the place, as long as it had a place to park and the guy didn't seem like a complete psycho. They talked on the phone for an hour, and Dean told him about the accident and what he'd lost because of it. The guy seemed to understand, as if he too had once lost everything that was important to him. They spoke again the day after Christmas, for another hour, and made plans. Dean thought they could actually be friends, and it was a nice thought, living with someone rather than always coming home alone. Chilling out with a bottle of wine, watching a DVD...it was a simple life, but probably a good one.
When his ex-boyfriend called a few days before New Year's, Dean almost didn't answer. He almost answered and said, "Fuck you." And when his ex-boyfriend asked to see him, he almost said no. But he couldn't resist the temptation to show him what a mistake he'd made, how he looked even better than before and was determined to get better yet. "Out of all people, you should've known that accident wouldn't keep me down," Dean told him. "I know," was the reply. And then he apologized, crying. He'd made such a huge mistake.
And suddenly it seemed stupid to let the accident change his life. Why should Dean give up his hot boyfriend, live with some guy he'd never met before, just because he'd spent six weeks in a coma? Wasn't that defeat? Shouldn't he still try and be better than all that? This new, quiet life could only hold him back, and what was important was getting back to the life he'd had before, because it was a good one. He'd lived a life other people only wish they had...people who would desperately cling on to him just to get in on the action. He didn't need that. He needed to return.
It wasn't like he wasn't trying to be an asshole. He just thought it would be easier if he just...didn't return calls, or answer messages. After all, he barely knew the guy...they'd spoken on the phone, what, twice? It really was much easier to never speak with him again, and let them both forget all about it. The coma, the accident, and that brief window of time where he'd considered throwing away so much of what was good in his life. Like it never happened. He was still young, after all...and now was no time to gamble. He'd lost enough time already.
Content with his plan, Dean drove back to LA in his Christmas gift: a brand new SUV.
*
Stars fall, and it isn't always possible for them to get right back up again. So many things seem like the beginning of something, but just as soon, they end abruptly. Where do these missed opportunities go? Is there some island where they store better versions of ourselves? Where we live the lives we thought we would?
For more than a year, I've asked questions like these. I've mourned the loss of someone who was never going to exist in the first place. I've doubted my choice of career, and then, my persistence even in the face of adversity. How could I not? It turns out, I'm not as good as I thought. Now I'm finally right in the thick of it, reading material that is and isn't getting made, finding good reasons to question myself. This is not an industry in which most people find happiness, and I seek more than most. Most of what I've written is about me, in here and elsewhere, it all comes back to me. Suicidal teenagers, victims of rape with a vendetta, film students questioning their choice of career...none of it is much of a stretch, is it? We write what we know...but now I don't know anything. I always wanted a life worth writing about, even when it came at a painful price. But I don't have that anymore. People around me are dying, surviving, or some combination of the two...they're doing things that give them a story to tell, and for once, I'm not. After everything else was over, my final battle was the one against being ordinary. I lost.
This story isn't about me anymore. My life isn't even about me. All around me are better stories. Seems like everyone's got a tale to tell, and who am I? I'm the narrator. If there's one thing this year has taught me, it's that I wasn't wrong. I am supposed to be here, do this, because this is what I'm good at. I'm no genius or messiah, and I'm sure not the star of the show. I wanted to be, I tried to be, and ever so briefly, I was...a star, a star, a big bright shining star. But not anymore. Stars fall, but it's what they do afterward that makes a difference. This is just the beginning, the preamble to a much larger story.
My time in the heavens, my stint in hell...even after everything, I start from nothing. I begin anew, as if nothing I've done mattered. And maybe it hasn't. I have very little to show for my 23 years on this earth...memories, ideas, but nothing concrete. Only things that fade away. There's no record I was ever here, and if I left now, I'd disappear. My name would scatter, my mark upon the lives of others would fade within a matter of months or years. What I carry with me is epic, the stories inside me so intense I can only hope to capture their power someday. But they're still only inside me. I know that some of them will never be told, and others diluted. I may never tell a single story the way I intend to; the impression I leave might fill itself in within minutes of my departure. I don't know. I'm not a star anymore, and the people who tell tales about them are seldom recognized. Mostly, they are silent observers who go unnoticed, like I am now, wondering how much power they really possess. Do I decide what happens next, or merely explain what it looks like as we go along?
So here's what changed: whatever happens, I know now what I'm going to do...I'm not going to quit or find something else. This is who I am. It's all I am. I'm still getting used to it, and to be honest, I still look for ways to tell the story and star in it, too...but there's a big difference between desire and destiny. The part I was made for is just the narration. I'm good at telling stories, and I'm starting to find that it isn't only mine. I could probably tell you your own story better than you could tell it yourself. I'd find themes you didn't know were in it. I was built for it...I don't know how to explain it except that I feel them; my chest tightens when something doesn't play out quite right. I doubt many people have this ability...for many, it's learned, but for me, it's instinct. And I do still have a long road ahead me, and a lot to learn about the stories people actually want to hear. Mine isn't always going to be one of them. But I do have something that no other writer out there has: the way I see the world. My life. It's not what I wanted but it wasn't for nothing. I read a lot of writers without discipline or authenticity, with no clue what they're doing. Hollywood has many secrets, and I learn them slowly; the artists these days are mostly charlatans and hired hands. I aim to be amongst them, but not quite like them...I still have something a bit different to share. I always set out to shake things up, not knowing that most people prefer things how they already are. Someday, though, I know someone will want to hear something new...I'm still young, and I can afford to wait. However long it takes...when they care to listen, I'll be here with a tale to tell.
Here is the story of an ordinary person with an average life. Few exciting things happen. There are no great loves or huge tragedies, there isn't an excess of action, and he certainly isn't destined for anything. He simply watches as lives unfold and progress around him, then narrates them back to you; he watches the world so that you don't have to, notices things and points them out to you in ways you may not have predicted. He feels the pain of practical strangers, remembers everyone else long after they've forgotten him so as to tell the most complete and accurate story. That's his job...not really the one he wanted, but the one he got. Welcome to the dawning of a new era, the prologue to a new story.
And so it starts. I'll never forget where I was. Who I was. Who was there with me. It was a hell of a story, and I'll remember it even if it's never retold. But it feels over. Most of what I've written up until this point is about me. The characters in my screenplays resemble me...or at least, what I was...and in that way, maybe the old me will live on. But I think that's the only way. I once told a story so fantastic that I began to believe it...I created my own world with its own set of rules but weaved people and places from this one into it. It was a beautiful place where I had a lot of power, but people were happy there. I tried to bring the people I cared about with me, but at a certain point they didn't want to go anymore...maybe they didn't believe they could get there, because they couldn't see it. A part of me still thinks that, if only they had listened, we would all be in a better place. It seemed so real. I convinced myself that it was the future; that there was a bridge from now to there. But of course there isn't. I made it up, and there's only one thing I can do with it... Isn't it funny, that of all the stories in my head, my own is the one least likely to be realized?
Once, I saw a better world, but I won't get to live there. None of us will.
Still, I hope to show you what it looks like someday.
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Sit tight, I'm gonna need you to keep time
Come on just snap, snap, snap your fingers for me.
Good, good...now we're making some progress,
Come on just tap, tap, tap your toes to the beat.
And I believe
This may call for a proper introduction
And, well, don't you see?
I'm the narrator
And this is just the prologue...
I swear to shake it up if you swear to listen...
Oh, we're still so young, desperate for attention.
I aim to be your eyes,
Trophy boys, trophy wives.
Applause, applause...no, wait! wait!
Dear studio audience, I've an announcement to make:
It seems the artists these days are not who you think,
So we'll pick back up on that on another page...
And I believe
This may call for a proper introduction
And, well, don't you see?
I'm the narrator
And this is just the prologue...
I swear to shake it up if you swear to listen...
Oh, we're still so young, desperate for attention.
I aim to be your eyes,
Trophy boys, trophy wives.
Swear to shake it up
You swear to listen
Swear to shake it up
You swear to listen
Swear to shake it up
You swear to listen
Swear to shake it up
Swear to shake it up
I swear to shake it up, if you swear to listen...
Oh, we're still so young, desperate for attention.
I aim to be your eyes.
PROLOGUE