And reality, it turns out, is a bitch to an addict.
“Here, drink some water,” I tell Serena, handing her a bottle. “It’ll help you feel better.”
“What will help is a pick me up,” she mutters, chugging some water before looking at me. “You don’t have anything, do you?”
“You know I don’t.”
She scowls, chugging more water before stomping away. The crowd around set seems bigger now. If people didn’t know we were out here yesterday, they do today.
“The missus seems a little testy,” Jazz says, strolling over to blot the sweat from my forehead. “Honeymoon over, superstar?”
I stare at her. She thinks she’s slick, but it couldn’t be more obvious what she's doing. “If you’re referring to Serena, she’s just not feeling well.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, not convinced, as I take a sip from a bottle of water, not wanting to get into Serena’s business. “She’s not knocked up, is she? You’d make a good daddy.”
I choke. I seriously choke. The water pours down my windpipe and I start fucking heaving, losing my breath, turning colors. People rush to intervene, smacking my back and forcing my hands up, trying to get air in my lungs as I violently cough.
Inhaling sharply, my chest on fire, I wave everyone away and glare at Jazz. “Don’t even fucking say that.”
“What?” she asks, acting innocent as she presses her hands to her chest. “It was just a question.”
“She isn’t pregnant,” I say. “It’s not possible.”
Jazz brushes it off with a laugh, but now she’s got me frazzled. You’d make a good daddy. My chest is tight, burning from the inside, the knot barely loosening by the time we’re due back on set. Serena returns a lot more chipper, her pupils like fucking saucers. It’s obvious she’s high, but nobody says a word. I notice Cliff is watching her, though.
Serena’s on point now, wide-awake and feeling beautiful, while I keep fucking up, take after take after take. It’s a mess. The movie's going to be a goddamn disaster if we can’t get our shit together.
“Cunning, your timing is off,” the AD says. “What did you two do, switch places?”
“I’m getting it together,” I say, stretching. “I just need to clear my head.”
Serena steps closer, whispering, “I got more if you want it.”
Do I want it? Fucking right I do. I want it all day, every day. But I don’t need it, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have it, so I shake my head. “I can’t do that anymore, Ser. You know that. And you shouldn’t be doing it, either.”
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re not the boss of me, you know.”
“I know, but I am—”
“Quiet on set!” a voice shouts, cutting off our conversation. “Let’s try this again! Give us a good one this time!”
We do. We give them a good one. Hell, we give them a few. But after nightfall shit starts deteriorating again. Serena runs out of coke while I run out of patience for her attitude.
“Ugh, this sucks,” she growls, messing up her hair as she clutches her head. “I feel like shit.”
“You’re more cocaine than woman at this point,” I say, frustrated that we’re not through yet. “I’m surprised you can feel anything anymore.”
“You’re such a prick,” she snaps, shoving me.
“Oh, whoa, whoa!” Cliff gets between us as she clenches a fist like she’s about to swing at me. “This is not happening. You’re frustrated? Fine. Get a room and screw each other's brains out. But this? Oh, no, no, no… not going down.”
“What needs to go down is some detox,” I say. “Some counseling.”
“Shove your judgment up your ass, Johnny,” Serena says. “Just because you went full-blown junkie doesn’t mean the rest of us will, too. I’m fine. So why don’t you worry about how much of a fuck-up you are and leave me alone!”
She storms off set, crying, and the shoot is postponed—officially, because Serena Markson is under the weather.
Unofficially? Turns out, I'm an unsympathetic asshole.
I run my hands down my face. “Could this day get any worse?”
“Never say that,” Cliff says. “Because as soon as you say that, it’ll get worse.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Look, give her time to calm down,” he says. “Give her time to come down. We’ll come back tomorrow with a clear head.”
I go to wardrobe, getting out of the suit, grateful to be back in jeans and a t-shirt. I don’t wait around after I’m changed, because I'm damn sure not riding in the limo back to the hotel with Serena, so I order a car and skirt past the lingering crowd to meet it on the corner, not wanting to wait for it to pass through security. A few folks catch up to me. I sign a few autographs but turn down requests for photos, enough cameras flashing in my face.
I hate the fucking paparazzi.
I’m standing on the corner, waiting. The car's a minute away. They’re pelting me with personal questions that I do my best to ignore—although, I want to sucker punch one of them when he asks about my father.
“Fuck him,” I mutter under my breath.
“What did you say?” the paparazzo asks.
“I said fuck him.”
Ah, that’s going to be one hell of a sound bite.
Before I can say anything else, there’s screeching nearby, a group of fans rushing toward me. Shit. People are pushing, shoving, as the crowd closes in around me, fans trying to get past the assholes with cameras who keep drowning them out with their inconsiderate questions. Nobody’s watching what they’re doing, and I’m losing my cool. Fast. I can’t even meet my damn car on the street without this chaos. I sign some more stuff that’s shoved in my face, and I try to calm myself down, but these assholes do everything imaginable to antagonize me.
Footage is worth more when I lose my temper.
The same guy who asked about my father tries to get closer, to get a better angle, mowing a young girl over. She stumbles and I catch her, grabbing her by the arm. She can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. It pisses me off.
“Back the fuck off before you get someone hurt,” I say, shoving the guy away, just to get some goddamn space, but it seems to trigger panic in the crowd. Some try to disperse, and that young girl dodges forward, out into the street, because there’s nowhere else she can go. Shit. She doesn’t even look. Headlights swallow her up. A horn blares. I can see the horror in her eyes.
The girl fucking freezes.
No.
It’s instinctual. I don’t even think. She freezes and my feet move. I dart out into the street and grab the girl again, shoving her back to the sidewalk. She knocks into the crowd, losing her footing, but I have no chance to make sure she doesn't get trampled. I turn, and the car is right there, tires squealing, brakes screeching—
BAM.
Everything feels like it’s in slow motion. My brain doesn’t register it right away. Flashes surround me as I fly backwards and then—holy fuck—pain. It’s like a shock, every nerve ending in my body screaming as I slam into the asphalt.
Blackness. I’m blinking, but I can’t make out much. People are yelling all around me. My head is pounding. Their words are vibrating inside my skull and I want them all to shut the fuck up. Police lights and sirens, paparazzi cameras flashing, panicked screams from someone. I try to sit up but something warm runs down my face, soaking my white shirt.
I look down at it. Blood.
The sight makes me woozy. Whoa. My vision goes black and then Cliff is there. I hear him before I see him, hear his warbled voice before his face greets me. “Take it easy, Johnny. Don’t move. We’ve got help coming.”
He looks worried.
I wasn’t worried.
I wasn’t… until I looked at him.
“Is she okay?” I ask, my chest aching.
“Who?” he asks.
“The girl,” I say. “She was in the street. There was a car coming. I don’t know. Is she…?”
“Everyone's fine,” he says, glancing around before turning back to me. “They’re freaked out, but nobody else is bleeding. What were you thinking?”
“That she was gonna get hit by a car.”
“So you took her place? Jesus, Johnny, you’re taking this superhero business way too personal.”
I laugh at that. It hurts.
I close my eyes and grit my teeth.
Where is that goddamn help?
You’re lucky.
That’s what the doctor said to me.
It’s your lucky day.
But as I lay in the stark white hospital bed in the dim private room, surrounded by people I don’t care to look at, with security posted at every corner as phones ring and ring and fucking ring, I don’t feel very lucky. This day has become unimaginably worse.
Severe concussion. Laceration to the temple. Broken right wrist. Bruised ribs. Besides an array of cuts and scrapes, swelling in places that aren’t happy about this shit, that’s all that seems to be wrong with me.
So maybe I am lucky, but the voices all around me right now don’t think so.
My manager, a studio exec, the movie director, and a shitload of PR cram into the room, hashing out details of how to handle this nightmare. My lawyer is here somewhere. I remember seeing him earlier. They’re worried about lawsuits and insurance quotes and how this is going to impact the production, but I’m more worried about this sensation flowing through my veins at the moment. Fuck. It’s the middle of the night, and my head is swimming, my stomach queasy. I'm uneasy. My legs keep tingling and I feel like I’m starting to float outside of my body.
Whatever drug they’re pumping into my IV is strong.
Too strong. I’m going numb.
It's been a long time since I've felt nothing.
I press the call button, over and over until the nurse bursts in, shoving her way past the crowd of suits to reach the bed. Cliff slips away from the others, approaching.
“Whatever this is,” I say, motioning to the IV bags, “I need taken off of it.”
“The morphine?” the nurse asks with confusion, setting her hand on my shoulder. “Honey, you’re going to want that. You’ll be hurting without it.”
“I can handle the pain,” I say. “Not so sure about the drugs.”
She looks even more confused now, so Cliff chimes in. “Mr. Cunning is in recovery, so anything feel-good is problematic, if you get my drift.”
“Oh, well, I’ll speak to the doctor,” she says. “We’ll see what we can do.”
I close my eyes as she rushes away. Regret hits me, gripping tight, a voice in my mind saying tell her you've made a mistake, but that's the addict in me screaming out, the pathetic son of a bitch that gets off on the numbness. That gets off on forgetting. But goddamn, the sensation feels good.
Maybe I’ll enjoy it for just a little while.
I open my eyes again when Cliff nudges me, holding his Blackberry out, and I glance at the screen, reading the headline of a news article.
When Fiction Meets Reality
Superhero-Actor Saves Girl
I don’t read any further.
“You’ll be down for awhile,” Cliff says. “They’ll rearrange the shoots, do what they can do without you there. Production hopes to pick back up with you sometime before summer.”
Summer. It's barely Spring right now. “What am I supposed to do until then?”
“Go easy on this superhero nonsense, for starters. Take a vacation. Go sit on a beach somewhere surrounded by beautiful women. The point is to rest. Relax. Recover. When’s the last time you even had any fun?”
“Fun.” I consider that. “Does jumping in front of a car count?”
There isn’t much fun to be found at Fulton Edge—unless your idea of fun is politics. But once a week, on Friday afternoons, they have club meetings, which suck slightly less than sitting in classes.
Drama club. That’s where you always go. They gather in the school auditorium, a mere two-dozen people in a room meant for hundreds.
The meeting has already started today when you stroll in. Not that it matters, since they’re doing nothing but arguing. You stall in the aisle, staring at them scattered along the stage. The debate is what production to put on this year—Macbeth or Julius Caesar.
You turn away from them, about to leave, when you catch sight of someone lurking in the back of the auditorium. It’s her. The new girl. She’s not paying attention to the meeting. Instead, she’s reading.
You’re a few weeks into the school year, but this is the first time she’s appeared in the auditorium. Curious, you stroll over, sliding into a nearby seat, leaving the one between you empty. She’s reading a comic book. That takes you by surprise. Around Fulton Edge, you sort of expect to see copies of Atlas Shrugged.
“Haven’t seen you in here before,” you say. “Hastings recruit you so he has enough people for his annual Shakespearean wank?”
She laughs, looking at you. You can probably count on your fingers the number of times you’ve seen the girl smile. Laughter has been even more rare. She shows up every day, keeps her head down, and she does whatever is necessary, always the first one here and the last one gone. But you can tell she’s not happy, maybe even unhappier than you are, when you hate being here so much that if there’s a chance for you not to be here, you take it and run.
You’ve already missed six days of school in a little over a month. They fine your father for your truancy, but otherwise, they let you slide.
“I’ve tried all the others,” she says. “I suck at chess. Debate team was a disaster, book club was reading something written by a fascist, and it turns out ‘writing club’ is writing letters to Congress, so…”
“So here you are.”
“Here I am,” she says, holding up her comic. “Making my own club.”
“Ah, the good old ‘fuck your clubs’ club,” you say. “I’m tempted to start that one every year when these idiots start bickering.”
“You’re welcome to join me,” she says. “Might not be much fun, but it can’t really be any worse, can it?”
“No, it can’t,” you say, motioning to the stage. “If this whole acting thing doesn’t work out, I might take you up on that. Always need a fallback plan.”
The Drama Club settles on Julius Caesar… for the fourth year in a row… and the argument shifts to who gets which role. Hastings, the self-appointed leader of the club, insists on being Caesar. He’s a typical rich kid, the dark-haired, blue-eyed grandson of a Watergate attorney. He wants to be the hero. He scowls as some of the others disagree, instead suggesting you do it.
“You’re awfully popular with the drama crowd,” she says, pausing when Hastings calls you, ‘at best, an amateur’. “Well, with most of them.”
“I played Caesar three years in a row,” you say. “Besides, I’m the only one here with an IMDb page.”
Her eyes are glued to your face. “You’re a real actor?”
“At best, an amateur,” you joke. “I’ve had a few minor roles. Played a dead kid once on Law & Order.”
“Wow,” she says. “Remind me to get your autograph later.”
You laugh at her deadpan. “Mostly, I’ve done local theater. Started taking acting classes as soon as I was old enough. Haven’t done anything lately, though, unless this counts.”
The words seem to be just falling from your lips, like talking to her comes natural.
“It counts,” she says.
“Does it?” you ask, and you’re serious about that. “Am I still an actor if I don’t have an audience?”
“Is a writer still a writer if nobody reads what they wrote?”
You consider that. The arguing on stage is growing louder, almost to the point of coming to blows. It amuses you, on one hand, but mostly it fills you with a sense of sadness that this is what you look forward to. Your art is belittled down to a fight over who gets to be the hero in a high school production. Your dreams were always much bi
gger than that.
“I should intervene,” you say, standing up, “before somebody does something stupid and gets us shut down.”
“Well, if that happens, the ‘eff your clubs’ club is here.”
“Make sure you hold my spot,” you tell her before heading up on stage to say, “You know, I’d much rather be Brutus this year.”
“Is that right?” Hastings asks.
“Absolutely.” You poke him dead center of the chest with your pointer finger, hard enough that he takes a step back. “It would be my pleasure to be the one who takes you down.”
The others divide up the rest of the parts. They took so long making decisions that there’s no time to get the scripts today. You have the entire thing memorized, though. So does Hastings. The two of you spit lines back and forth for a bit, things growing heated.
The girl remains seated in the back of the auditorium, no longer reading her comic book. She watches your every move, absorbing every syllable. You have an audience today, as you act your heart out, and she’s captivated.
When the day ends, people leave, but you’re in no hurry. You stroll down the aisle to where the girl still sits. She watches you approach and says, “If what I just witnessed is any indication, you might've been the best dead kid Law & Order has ever seen.”
You sit down with her, laughing. There’s no space between the two of you now. “It was a ‘parents are monsters behind closed doors’ storyline. I had a handful of lines. I was five.”
“Wow,” she says. “When I was five, I couldn’t even remember how to spell my own name, and you were already memorizing dialogue.”
“Ah, well, I have a good memory,” you say. “Besides, it’s easier when things are relatable.”
You don’t elaborate.
She doesn’t ask you what you mean by that.
She’s fidgeting with her comic book, thumbing through pages. Silence surrounds you but it isn’t awkward. She’s nervous, though—nervous sitting so close to you.
“So, you like comic books?” You pluck the one from her hand. “Breezeo.”