3. INTERIOR: MIDDLE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL:
BRIAN IS WALKING AIMLESSLY AROUND THE SEEMINGLY EMPTY SCHOOL. THE SOUNDS OF STUDENTS CAN BE HEARD FROM BEHIND THE CLOSED DOORS OF CLASSROOMS. DAYLIGHT IS COMING IN FROM THE SPORADIC WINDOWS. NARRATION BEGINS AS HE CONTINUES TO WALK.

Walking around the empty halls of my school, I thought about everything that had brought me to this point. Mostly, I thought about those first few weeks of writing when everything was fresh and new, and I really didn’t know how much work it would be. I thought about the fear that maybe I wouldn’t be good enough, and the fear that I would be good enough.

When I first started thinking about what it would mean that the producer would be picking up my screen play. I realized that my entire life would likely have to change. This was a show that people watched. This was a show my sister watched. If everything went according to plan, I would be writing this show for an unknown length of time into the future.

Laughter began to bubble up inside me, and I just couldn’t help it. This school was supposed to be my refuge. It was supposed to be the one place in the world where no one knew me. For a while, it was, but apparently keeping a low profile just wasn’t in the cards for me.

I went into the boys locker-room. Physical Education was on the other lunch schedule, so they were all off somewhere else in the building, likely in the gym getting sweaty playing badminton or volleyball of something.

I slipped out of my clothing, after grabbing one of the scratchy towels, and washed my hair. I wasn’t going to trap what little style I had underneath the evil dome of gel that I’d forced myself to wear. I washed my hair a couple of times, dried off, and got dressed again. As it was, I was only two minutes late to my next class.

As it was English, in which I was the teacher’s aide, I was forgiven. Mr. Anders had me grading papers for him. I’d finished everything for the week yesterday, and there’d been no homework assigned last night, well nothing I could grade.

His classes were reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and had been assigned a hundred pages to finish before the end of the week. I hid out in the back room during most of his class as I really didn’t want people to know I was doing TA work for honor’s English. I closed the door on Mr. Anders’ lesson and began to pace.

People might start to get the right idea. They might start to think that I was a lot smarter than I pretended to be. I laughed at the thought. Here I was worrying about people discovering how smart I was, and the very people I did not want discovering already knew a bigger secret than simply being intelligent.

I was famous.

It wasn’t something that I often thought of, but it was true. My name was one that people had heard of, and beyond just those at the school. People thought of me as Brian Monroe here, or at least they used to before today.

I smiled ruefully at myself and began to laugh again. It wasn’t the sad laugh that I’d let out before, it was a real laugh, one from the bottom of my soul. What was I worried about?

I’d come here to Bellingham, Washington about six months ago. This was one of the more expensive schools in the city, and I was here on my own dime, my parents had a new house, and my sister was in the college of her choice.

Life was good.

My good mood lasted right up until I noticed that Valerie was in the hall to meet me.

“You ran out on us before I could say anything…”

“I didn’t need to hear it; I think I’ve heard it all before…” Her eyes fixated on my head as I was speaking, and I just let the words fade as she continued to stare. She wasn’t really listening at that point anyway.

“What did you do to your hair?”

I put my hand to my head, and then grinned at her. “Yeah, this is my normal hairstyle. I’ve been trying to hide myself away from the world, so to speak.”

“It looks so…natural.”

“That’s because it is. No product whatsoever. Just fingers to comb it and done.”

“You’re Tyler.”

I blushed a deep red, and turned to walk away.

“So, you think of yourself as the sometimes overlooked, but trying to fit in, younger brother. I can see it.”

Her statement made me pause and turn back around. “That’s not it at all. He’s got more going on than anyone in the show has yet realized. Tyler’s the one who…um…well…”

She began to giggle, as I tried to swallow my words. “That’s the reason that you hide, isn’t it? You’re horrible at keeping a secret.”

I laughed at that, but I nodded.

“Val, I’ve got to get to class.” I said and I turned to walk away, still smiling.

“We’re not done with this, Mr. Metzner.” Valerie called out to my back.

I laughed again as I continued down the hall.

“You’re late, Mr. Monroe.”

“Yes I am, Mrs. Caldecott”

My physics teacher turned a nice shade of puce that I knew I would use in a future scene of the show, and told me to go to the principal’s office.

I simply nodded, smiled at the rest of the class, and left. Mrs. Caldecott didn’t much like me because I tuned out in her class, usually writing script pages, and I was the only person who had an A in the entire class. It was the second time I’d taken this portion of the class. I’d had to disappear in the middle of my last physics class. They hadn’t given me credit, but they hadn’t penalized me with a failing grade either.

This led me to being seated outside the principal’s office, and for the first time in the past two weeks, I was actually writing.

Senior year for the students of Marshal High was much more difficult that I would originally have thought. It was all the same sorts of situations as Junior year, right? No, there are so many things that a Senior thinks that a Junior never does. I hadn’t finished my Senior year, and here I had to predict exactly what people were going to be doing at the end of it. We already had seventeen episodes in the can, which left me with the final five, maybe six, episodes to write. Next year would be Tyler’s Junior year, and I had no cast members his age. In fact, we basically knew nothing about anyone who wasn’t a Senior except for Tyler.

Perennial favorites of the high-school show like Prom, spring break, and so on, had already been covered. The class was set to graduate in the finale, or at least that was the current plan. I was supposed to be writing a series finale.

Mark had taken Whitney to the prom, an episode that hadn’t yet aired, and I’d almost revealed to the group earlier in the day. Something I really needed to learn to keep a lid on. Yes, it was implied at that point that Whitney had lost her virginity to Mark.

What if she hadn’t?

We never showed anything, and since then Whitney had been cold to Mark. The previous four episodes had featured Mark bragging to his friends about prom night, and a strangely silent Whitney.

I opened with Whitney watching something on her computer, and from that moment the simple end of the series got blown out of the water, especially when the scream issued from the speakers.

Unfortunately that was about as far as I got before the door opened and the principal ushered me into her office.

I was still buzzing with the ideas that had come to me, the re-imagining of what everyone was sure happened. I couldn’t help but smile when the severe looking Ms. Parsons began to glare at me.

“It seems you are disrupting Mrs. Caldecott’s class again.”

“I was about thirty seconds late. She called me on it, and I confirmed that I was late. What was I supposed to do, deny it?”

“A little humility wouldn’t hurt, Mr. Metzner.”

“Not only am I paying tuition here, Ms. Parson, but I purchased a state of the art chemistry lab, so that you wouldn’t use that name on any of my transcripts, something that I felt was excessive at the time. If we want to re-negotiate the deal, I could always call my lawyer and cancel the work.”

“Let’s not be so hasty, Mr. Metzner.”

I sighed.

“Mr. Met…Monroe. I know the money you’ve spent at this school, but I really need you to try to follow the rules.”

“Ms. Parsons, some people today figured out who I am. I have no idea what my agent is going to do about it.”

“I mentioned it was only a matter of time, Mr. Monroe.”

“I know, and I should have listened to my agent and accepted the invitation to that private school for actors. I get it. I’m sorry for taking it even a little out on you.”

“And I’m sorry for suggesting that we wanted you to bribe us so we would keep your name a secret.”

“What?”

“You were so quick to offer that I was shocked. I still have your personal check, if you want it back.” She pulled a slip of paper out of her desk and handed it to me. It was the personal check that I’d given her before the start of school.

I handed the check back to her. “No, go ahead. I’ve seen the state the lab is in, especially after that incident earlier in the year.”

She grimaced at the mention of the explosion, which I’d had nothing to do with, and pulled a sheet of paper from her desk and handed it to me.

“I’m sorry but I’m going to have to send you to detention.” I’d never seen Ms. Parsons smile, but she did sadness really well. It wasn’t a frown, but something she did with her eyes. A way she looked at me like I was condemned to die.

After the detentions I’d served in my old school, this one should be cake. There weren’t any gang members going to this school.

I thanked her for her time, took the pink slip of paper, and went back to class. I tried my best to hide the fact that I wasn’t taking notes. Instead I was writing more of the eighteenth episode of season four.
”ƒ

4. FX DIGITAL DISPLAY OF FLOORS IN SYNC WITH DINGING NOISE.
INTERIOR WOOD PANELED ELEVATOR
BRIAN, KAT, MOM, AND DAD WAIT FOR THE DOORS TO OPEN. NO ONE SPEAKS, BUT THERE IS OBVIOUS HAPPINESS IN BRIAN’S MOVEMENTS. MOM SMILES AT BRIAN.
INTERIOR OFFICES OF END OF LINE PRODUCTIONS
FAMILY GREETED BY PAUL AND WILLIAM AS THEY STEP OF THE ELEVATOR. THE ENTRY AREA HAS THE EOL LOGO ON THE WALL BEHIND A HALF-WALL. THE SECRETARY’S DESK IS ALSO BEHIND THE HALF-WALL.

“Brian, welcome to End of Line.” William said as soon as the doors were open enough for my family to step out of the elevator. I was looking around me, amazed at the size of everything. For some reason I’d been imagining that the offices would be something small tucked away into a corner of the building, and said as much.

Paul laughed, “End of Line was originally a game company. We produced a couple of games in the nineties, and then, when everyone was making the video game movies, we hopped on that bandwagon.”

“I thought all of those movies failed.” I said a bit confused.

William smiled ruefully, “Apparently our game wasn’t as popular as fifty million copies selling worldwide would lead someone to believe, plus, the nature of the film made it so that we could forgo the expensive special effects, but we’re not here to talk about Absalom, we’re here to talk about what you can bring to Murray Heights.”

“I thought…”

“Not here, William,” Paul said. “Let’s go to the conference room.”

We followed them to to conference room. When the troupe of us entered, William turned to my Mom, “Mrs. Metzner, would you mind taking your daughter on a tour of the facilities? It’s not that we want to get rid of you…”

Paul came to his rescue, “We want to verify that it was actually Brian here who wrote the script we received, and since he’s a minor we only need one parent. I know you’re here to support him, but for a least a little while we want to get a feel for what he can show us.”

Mom didn’t look too happy about it, but she motioned for Katherine to follow her and they followed the man, who seemed to materialize out of thin air, into the bowels of the beast. Ok, so it was an open, well lit, one might even say airy, office space. I don’t think I would have minded a tour myself.

“Before you begin, yes, Whitney was my idea, and in fact, the character was inspired by Melissa Nollin.”

The other men’s jaws dropped open at that.

“What did I say?”

“You never told anyone, did you William?”

“Not a soul, Paul.”

“Take a look at this before we continue, Brian.”

They tossed me a loosely bound script titled ‘Junior Year, episode 1.’ It read like a rough draft of the script I’d sent to them. It didn’t have the tie in to the earlier characters, and seemed to drop everyone that was in the show previously without any comment. It would have been the death of the show, and looking up once or twice at the other two men, I realized that they knew it.

In the show, one of the characters was named . It hadn’t even progressed far enough that they had names for all of them. There were striking similarities between Whitney, and the unnamed character in the printed script I was holding had some distinct similarities.

“I didn’t…”

“Oh, I’m figuring that out, and if we’d really thought you’d stolen the idea, you’d be talking to our lawyers,” William said.

“What did you want to discuss with my son, then?”

“Mr. Metzner, we need a sample of your son’s writing before we continue.”

“Then I expect him to be paid. This would be considered a commissioned work after all.”

“Dad, come on. We don’t need to…”

“Yes, Brian, we do. You may be willing to work for free, but your mother and I discussed this possibility before we came. I talked to an agent on your behalf to better understand the industry.”

Dad turned in his seat so that he was squarely facing to two men, “You would be commissioning this work from my son, so how about a thousand dollars for a complete script, plus royalties should you choose to air it. If you require less than a full episode, then you will pay him commensurate to the finished air time percentage.”

I have never known that a single word could carry that much desperation in it, but all William said was, “Done,” and Paul left the room.

He returned with a yellow legal pad and a pencil.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a pen, would you?” I asked.

He handed one to me, but before I could write, he spoke one last thing, “We’d like you to begin with the last aired episode, and give us a synopsis of where you see each episode going until the end of the season.”

“Wait a minute here,” My dad said, “This would be a complete plan for getting the season to the episode that my son already sent you. Providing that…”

“Mr. Metzner, we really like your son’s work,” Paul began.

“What Paul is trying to say is that we will provide him with adequate compensation.”

My father looked skeptically at them.

Paul took a deep breath and began again. “Mr. Metzner, we do not want to cheat your son out of anything, so while he works, how about we write up some documents and you can sign on his behalf, as you are his legal guardian.” Paul gestured for my Dad to precede him out the door.

“One last thing, Brian, we do not want Tonya sent to rehab,” William said as he moved to follow the other two out the door.

“Is it ok if she goes to Juvie then?”

They looked at each other, and Paul shrugged.

“The problem with rehab is there are rumors that the actress has been really taking drugs on set. She is clean and sober, as the random drug tests we are running prove, but if we send the character to rehab…”

I smiled in understanding. People often mistook characters for actors all the time, and if the character went to rehab…

“Alright then.”

The problem with starting from the last aired episode previously, was that I kept having the problem of lack of character growth. I sat there for about five minutes, just thinking of what I needed to do with the characters. It was only at the end of the five minutes that I realized that I had a readymade answer to all of it: James stabbed Mike.

They’d had no problems with it, so I might as well begin with the events that would lead up to that. The last episode to air was the sixteenth. I’d looked up a number of shows online, and figured I had between four and eight episodes to wrap everything up into a neat bow, a present to give to Whitney at the beginning of season four.

I had Tonya purchase the knife. Sure, it was a weak connection to begin with, but I had her purchase it as a present for Mike. She was still trying to get him to notice her as more than what she was, a bit of a slut and a backstabber, and thought that giving him something he could use the next time he went hunting would help her to break down his barriers.

He turned down the gift when she balked at going hunting with him.

It was a simple matter after that to build up the plan in her mind, and to plant the seeds of distrust in James. She let that fester for a while, and then literally put the knife in his hand and pushed him toward his former friend.

The problem was that in her twisted mind, she actually thought that calling the police on James would get Mike to like her.

Keeping the pacing the show usually followed, it took me seven episodes out of the eight episode budget I’d given myself to get this far. I considered creating a summer episode, but then I realized I didn’t need one. I created the courtroom season finale. A weak, but recovering, Mike sat on the witness stand and identified the knife that Tonya had offered him. It had an engraving of a Bulldog on the blade, the school mascot, something she’d done especially for him.

The episode would close with Tonya and James being sentenced. It was a perfect cliffhanger for the end of the second season.

Then, I wrote the beginning of the script for the seventeenth episode. I wove what had happened in the sixteenth episode, where it actually seemed as though Mike was finally giving into Tonya’s charms, into the story of love and betrayal that I had concocted for the rest of the season.

It took me almost five hours to finish it all, during which time I hadn’t even noticed who was in the room with me, just that people kept arriving and leaving.

I looked up when I was done to see that Paul was the only one left in the room with me for the moment. “I’m done.”

“Already? That was fast.”

I looked at my watch and stared, “It’s been five hours.”

“The last time we set this task for one of our writers, it took him two weeks.”

“I hope it is good enough them.”

Paul chuckled at this, and then put out a hand for the pad. I handed it, and the pen, over to him, and sat down to wait while he read it. He frowned more and more as he got further, and he had a scowl on his face by the time he’d begun to read the script at the end.

“It is really that bad?” I asked, getting really nervous at this point.

“No, it just means that we’re not renewing any of the other writers’ contracts.”

“What?”

“In less time than any of them you have provided more quality work than the lot of them together.”

I was shocked.

“If you can provide quality work like this in anything close to the time you just did today, then I really think we have a chance to fix the show.”

I blinked at him a couple of times. I had no idea what I was supposed to say.

“Since you apparently have an agent, I will need to make the formal offer to him, but if it’s not too bold I’d like to welcome you to the EoL team.”

“Dad!” Yes, I wanted my daddy to confirm the words that had just been spoken to me. It seemed to me that he’d just offered to make me the sole writer for a television show.