I would love to be able to market this to people out there in the real world, in print format, but I am afraid, as always, that I am not good enough for that. The other problem is that I simply don't feel that it is commercial enough. Regardless of either of those points, I present this story here, to you. As I get more done, I will post it up in two chapter segments, at least until the B reel of the story concludes, which it is likely to do before the end of the story proper.
1. INTERIOR: LUNCHTIME, SCHOOL CAFETERIA.
STUDENTS CAN BE SEEN IN GROUPS AT THE ROUND TABLES SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE SPACE IN A SEEMINGLY RANDOM PATTERN. WHILE IT IS OBVIOUS BY THE CLUMPS IN THE OTHERWISE EVEN DISTRIBUTION THAT CERTAIN GROUPS PREFER TO SIT TOGETHER, LIKE THE JOCKS AND THE CHEERLEADERS IN ONE AREA, THE REST OF THE PEOPLE AT THE SCHOOL SEEM CONTENT TO BE INTERMINGLED. THE SCHOOL UNIFORMS BLUR WHAT WOULD NORMALLY BE EASY DISTINCTIONS OF CLASS, ECONOMIC BACKGROUND, OR PERSONAL STYLE THAT NORMALLY DIVIDE THE CLIQUES AT A HIGH SCHOOL. BRIAN IS SITTING ALONE ATTEMPTING TO WRITE IN A NOTEBOOK. VALERIE APPROACHES FROM THE DIRECTION OF A TABLE SET A LITTLE FURTHER APART THAN THE OTHERS.
“Hey, can I take this?”
I looked up from my contemplation of the fake wood grain on the table and into the bluest eyes I have ever seen. These were not a pale blue like a winter sky. These were not the royal deep blue of a bottomless sea.
No, this blue was that particular shade that you see and all you can say is, ‘Hey, that’s blue.’ Yes, her eyes completely defined the color blue. I had to shake myself to realize that she was talking to me, and not just showing off her sapphires to me.
I looked down where she was pointing, and realized that she was gesturing, not to the sheaf of papers that refused to orient themselves into a proper story, but to the forgotten brownie on the table. When I’d put my lunch together this morning, I’d thought that the brownie would go great with the other foods that I was tossing into the sack that would reside in my bag until that moment, almost thirty minutes ago, that I would draw it forth into the light of day for a moment before consigning it to the empty black pit that I used for a stomach.
“Hello?”
I smiled and shook my head.
“Sorry, I was somewhere else completely. Sure, take it.”
Still trying to get my mind out of the place that it had run off to, I was amazed when she sat down in front of me.
“I thought…”
“As long as you’re sharing a desert with me, I might as well share my company.”
My next thought wasn’t one of appreciation, and my frown accompanied the thought to ask her to leave.
“Look, Brian, before you say anything, my friends did bet me that I couldn’t get you to give me your brownie. I took the bet because…”
“You felt sorry for me?” Disgust filled my voice. I didn’t need people to be sorry for me.
“Yes, actually, you always sit here along in the cafeteria. I mean, no one likes to be alone.”
“Thank you…” I paused, waiting for her to supply her name. It's not that I didn't know it, just that we'd never, officially, met.
“Valerie.”
“Thanks, Valerie, but I sit alone because I am fifteen pages behind and my agent is telling me I’m going to lose my contract if I don’t get these into my producer by the end of the week.” She opened her mouth to speak, but I answered the question before she could voice it, “Last week I sat alone because I had fifteen pages to write, and I had no idea where to take everything. Well, where to take anything really.”
She smirked at me, “And the week before?”
“Well, the week before, I wrote fifteen pages, assuming that it would always be that easy, finished by Tuesday, and spent the rest of the week watching what other high school kids do for fun during lunch.” I smiled at her and she laughed. I only hoped that this time it was someone laughing with me and not at me.
My smile became a bit more genuine, and after a moment or two she composed herself and got up, I assumed, to leave. I turned my attention back to the sordid on-screen lives of my characters when I felt a hand on my arm, drawing me to my feet.
“What are you doing?” I protested.
“It’s Wednesday. If you haven’t even begun by this point, then your writing is a lost cause. And even if it isn’t, two weeks ago you wrote fifteen pages in two days, which means you still have Thursday and Friday before everything falls into the crapper.”
“I really need to get back…”
“Look, what’s so important that you’re writing anyway?”
“Nothing. I’ll go with you.” I shook my head ruefully as I shoved the papers into my backpack unceremoniously. I shoved the papers unceremoniously into my backpack. I unceremoniously shoved the papers…
Now you see the real problem I was having writing the fifteen pages that were due. I simply couldn’t get the feel for the words. I felt as though my entire life were a lie. I was writing about situations I would never be in performed by people who would never give me the time of day.
People like Valerie and her friends.
Well, visiting with them for the rest of the lunch hour might actually give me some food for thought, and help me to add some realism to the oh-so-popular lives of my protagonists.
It wasn’t until I’d walked halfway across the crowded room that I realized who it was exactly that she was leading me toward.
“Oh, shit. You’re a drama geek?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
I simply couldn’t say anything at all. I walked numbly, as if on my way to my own execution, sure that if anyone would figure out the person I was hiding, it would be a group of thespians. No, those aren’t women who are into women and lisp. They are the people who…act, the people who bare their souls to the world for a few coins and fleeting applause.
They’re also the above the stairs nobility to my humble below the stairs writing servitude.
“No, not bad, just I’ve gotta…” I began.
“…go not write something?” She continued for me, and then laughed. No, she more giggled. I really liked it, but I didn’t want to tell her something as inane as that.
“Look who finally decided to join us,” the token Goth girl said from her corner of the round table. No, don’t ask me to explain it any more than that. It was a round table, but the…way…that she sat there suggested to me that she was sitting at the corner of the table. Her makeup, unlike many Goths I had seen, was very Egyptian. You know, the long sharp points that jab out from the top of the eye orbit halfway to her ear? And unless she was wearing makeup on her hands, her pallor wasn’t caused by anything other than her porcelain skin.
“You know, those contacts aren’t good for your eyes.”
“These are my natural eye color…sweetie” she said with a very toothy smile.
“Nah, your eyes are green. I can see the rings, and your hair is naturally red, even though you are dying it black. Your roots are showing.”
Everyone except of the Egyptian Goth laughed at this, and she just blushed.
“He has you there, Leanne, your roots are showing.” Valerie said coming to my rescue.
“So the reclusive Mr. Hemingway has finally condescended to join the rest of us,” said a boy. I could only see the back of his head, as he had not turned around as we approached.
“Shut up, Aaron,” Leanne said.
It seems I would never outlive the stupid producer’s cruel joke. My hair, before I moved to this school, was untamable without a half ton of gel. I exaggerate, but only a bit. I know this because I go through a bottle of extra hold every two weeks so that my hair didn’t resemble the boy in front of me. It was a passable attempt to create the ordered chaos that had inspired the locks that graced the head of my main character.
When people had begun to ape the character, I had done everything in my power to change my hairstyle, including trapping my hair in a shell made out of styling gel. All I’d used to have to do was get a haircut every two weeks and run my fingers through my hair a couple of times after I got out of the shower. It wasn’t much of a style, but it had been mine.
I also used to be able to go out of the house in a t-shirt and jeans without feeling like I was completely naked.
It suddenly occurred to me that Valerie was inches in front of my face and I hadn’t noticed, I’d been so busy worrying about Aaron’s hair.
I stumbled backward a couple of feet, and got a laugh out of the people around the table.
“Welcome back,” she said with that sweet smile on her face again.
“Thanks, I think.”
“Make way, guys,” she said as she took a seat at the table, dragging me after her. As I was just shy of a foot taller than her, and likely outweighed her by at least fifty pounds, I had to let her drag me to the seat, but right at that moment, I would have let her drag me anywhere.
To tell the truth, I was getting bored with…
“So, I was telling Chelsea, before you came dragging the writer with you, that there’s no way that Whitney will ever sleep with Mark,” said one of the other girls at the table.
“Why not,” I asked innocently, ”Mark is completely in love with her and would be willing…”
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
“So you watch Murray Heights?”
Watch, that works, I thought to myself as I blushed furiously. Even if I hadn’t watched an episode in almost two years, I’d written three quarters of them on my own, and the remaining quarter in collaboration. I knew the characters inside and out. I knew their motivations, if I would never know the motivations of the people around me. So, I could say that I watched…
…if only the words would come out of my mouth.
“Look, you embarrassed him.”
“I don’t watch the show.” I said looking directly at Valerie. What was I doing? After all of the work coming to a new school, hiding my real hair, sitting alone at lunch, why did I have to tell the truth now?
I realized that I never wanted to lie to the person sitting there at the table next to me, that’s why.
“Come off it, how would you…”
“I’m usually on set, at least a few hours a day, when they are filming.”
“You’re in crew? That’s so cool.” The Egyptian Goth was the one who voiced that. Isn’t a Goth in Tech a little cliché? I know I’d never write one into the series. Before I could deny it, Valerie had snatched my pack and was already opening it. I tried to reach around her to get it, but without actually touching her… and I didn’t feel comfortable doing that… I couldn’t get it away from her. She looked at the printed name on the notebook that I did all of my writing in.
I heard a small intake of breath.
“What is it, Val?”
She said nothing, just quickly shoved the notebook into the backpack and zipped it shut. The entire world fell out from under me. Usually, I had the black cover notebook with me. It had no identifying marks, and I’d be able to spend the time between here and the studio copying into the official notebook, the one with my real name on it. Today, however, I’d brought the official scene notebook with me, hoping that I’d get everything done right the first time.
No, let’s be honest, I didn’t bring the other notebook because I was sure I wasn’t going to get anything written.
“Spill, come on, what does he have in his bag. It’s not like he has Brian Metzner’s notebook…in…”
Valerie blushed and everyone turned to look at me.
The girl who’d asked me about Murray Heights let out a little giggle, “Hi, I’m Angela. That is Chelsea over there,” she pointed at another of the girls at the table, “and Murray Heights is our favorite show.” A number of the other people at the table voiced agreement with this statement and told me their names as well. Aaron was an obvious member of this group, suddenly more interested in getting on my good side than he had been only moments before.
I seriously considered banging my head into the table at that point. As it was I took my bag and calmly left the cafeteria. It was still a good ten minutes before the bell rang, but I figured walking anywhere would be better than staying in that room and might even do me a world of good.
”ƒ
2. INTERIOR: METZNER HOME, BRIAN’S ROOM.
THERE IS A NOTEBOOK COMPUTER OCCUPYING THE LION’S SHARE OF A SMALL DESK. A DESK LAMP IS CLAMPED TO THE LEFT SIDE OF THE DESK. A YOUNGER BRIAN SITS ON THE BED, WRITING IN HIS SPIRAL BOUND NOTEBOOK. THIS ONE LACKS THE BLACK LEATHERETTE COVER OF THE ONE HE WILL BE WRITING IN AT SCHOOL. A MONTAGE OF SCENES FOLLOW THIS INCLUDING A GRADE SCHOOL PLAY, GOING TO THE MOVIES, AND BRIAN TYPING AT HIS COMPUTER. VOICE OVER THROUGHOUT.
I didn’t want to be a writer when I was younger. I wanted to be an actor. If I thought beyond just the moment, the short term, then I thought about being a director, and bringing the best out of my fellow actors. If I ever thought about being a writer, then it was something at the bottom of my list, and then only to write my memoirs at the end of my life. I wanted the spotlight, not the shadows.
I caught the bug, I think, when I was in grade school. My school put on a production of Romeo and Juliette. I’m sure it sucked, but that wasn’t the point. I loved it.
There is something about the world of actors that speaks to me. I love pretending to be something I’m not, to take up someone else’s shoes for a mile or two, and then releasing them and going back to being myself. There is self-discovery for anyone who takes the time to be someone else for a while.
The atmosphere of the stage is addicting. It is non-stop running from place to place so that you can calmly walk onto the stage just at the moment that your cue comes up, and make everything look effortless.
Unfortunately, I never made anything look effortless.
I was the person that they would cast because they needed another guy in a scene to balance out the ratio. The person they begged not to move, or speak. To look interested in the real stars, and not what I really was, bored out of my skull.
When I was fourteen, I got a part with lines. Ok, not lines, line. Actually, it wasn’t even a line. It was a word, one single word that separated me forever from who I was and what I wanted to become.
That word was look, and in five performances in a week and a half I forgot that word, or missed my cue, or came in too early. I…suck as an actor. So, a year and a half later, just after my sixteenth birthday, I hung up my cloak, wiped off the last bit of makeup, and tried to move on with my life.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, become critics.
That is exactly what I did. In this age of easy access to free web service, I simply hung my shingle out amongst all of the others, and began to rip into the attempts of people so much better than myself to present a different face to the audience.
I began small. First I destroyed a school play, and then a symphony orchestra. Before I knew it, I was tearing apart movies, television shows, books, or anything else I could get my hands on, and I was getting downright mean. It was after I watched a television show, which I’ve promised never to mention again, that things began to change. It’s not that the show in any way changed me, as that would be giving too much credit to one of the worst pieces of f…iction it has ever been my misfortune to inflict upon myself, but that I changed because of what I thought about the show.
I know, it’s a paper-thin distinction, but one that I feel is oh so important to my story.
If I am really being truthful, I wasn’t the one who started the change.
My sister loved to read my blog, as usually I destroyed other peoples’ work with wit and humor. I even occasionally praised the truly inspired things that people wrote. It wasn’t something that I did often however.
This time, the offending piece of refuse prompted me to write, ‘This show was so poorly written, that a three year old with a crayon and a lack of imagination, or understanding of the world, could have done a better job. At least there would have been fewer plot holes.’
She stormed into my room as I was listening to my headphones and ripped into me, “Why don’t you do it then, Brian?”
“Come again?” I asked, rather stupidly I might say. I’d written the piece a couple of hours before, and I’d mostly put it out of my head.
“Write the show better. You said a three year old could do it. Why don’t you?”
“Because…”
“You spend so much time ripping on writers, and you never even tried that. Sure, you failed as an actor, but…”
“I’m not a writer, Kat.”
“Really? And what is it you do on your blog?”
“I…critique.”
“Using the written word?”
“Fine, I’ll try it, but not with that show. Anything but that show.”
“Write for Murray Heights, then. Fix the problems with Murray Heights.”
I’d watched the first few episodes with Kat, because she insisted, and it had an actress that I once had a crush on, but the show had quickly shown itself to be poor writing fronted by one or two good actors and a cast of mediocrity.
And in this case, Kat was feeding my words back at me. I’d said things like, “if I were writing this, I would have…” or “they should have done this instead.”
I sat down, and watched all of the episodes I’d missed over the course of a week, and then I started taking apart the storyline. I figured out the plots, sub-plots, side-plots, and alternate plots. That took a week alone. I was a man obsessed.
That is when the germ of an idea came to me. There were three characters in the show that were central to the main plot, and the main plot was the problem. For the main plotline to change, the three characters would have to change. I stopped and considered my options for a moment before inspiration struck.
I began to write.
I’d be lying if I said that it was easy, and nothing about it was really good. My first pass just rehashed more of the same stories, in the same order, with the same bad result.
“Gah!” I yelled out, inches away from throwing my notebook across the room. The sound of the pen scratching across the paper was something that I could never do without. There was simply something about the impersonal nature of the clicking of the keys that didn’t quite feel like real writing to me. So, when I wrote, it was in pen on college ruled paper.
This wouldn’t be the first time that I would have thrown the notebook, listening to the swish of pages flapping in the manmade wind, but this time I stopped and just sat there. I’d be so sure of my ability to write, but when I sat down to do it, it was nothing more than pale imitation of the work that other’s had done before me.
“Not working out as you’d hoped?” Kat said with a smile.
“Every time I try to take Tonya and make her into a real three dimensional character, she defies me and slips back into her old habits, or just sleeps with James, or tries to seduce Mark. I end up with the same arguments and lack of growth that I think the writers should have fixed a season and a half ago. Entropy, thy land is Murray Heights.”
“Nice monologue, Shakespeare.”
I snorted at that.
“Look, Brian, if she’s that bad, kill her off and replace her.”
I’d never considered it, but Tonya…
“Oh, no, get that gleam out of your eyes.”
“Why not? I could just…”
“Just nothing, people like Tonya.”
“Why? She’s a conniving, backstabbing, self-centered…”
“She’s popular and holds onto that popularity with an iron fist. She commands respect.”
“She’s a slut.”
“Brian, you don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. She’s a train wreck.”
We went on in that vein for over an hour of Katherine telling me how necessary Tonya was for the story, and me becoming certain that Tonya never belonged in the first place. Unfortunately for everything I was trying to accomplish, my sister finally convinced me that she might just be right.
I’d like to say I had the best of intentions, and that I simply thought that Melissa Nollin was a great actress who would fill a role perfectly, but that’s not why I was taking a break to look up images of hot girls.
No, I wasn’t looking at any naked images. I was just looking for new wallpapers. I mean come on, I was sixteen.
And there was Melissa, all blonde hair and blue eyes. I have a thing for blue eyes, ok?
Looking at Melissa, I began to think of a new way to fix the problem. It was becoming clear to me that going from where the show currently was, and trying incremental changes, was what was wrong with my screenplay. The show was about halfway through the second season at the time, and people were unsure if it was even going to finish out that season, let alone get renewed for a third one, so I used that uncertainty to build up my story.
I began to write about a new girl coming to the affluent school. She was there on a scholarship, so she was smart. She’d have to be pretty…I picked the best headshot of Melissa I could find and set her as the wallpaper on my screen and retrieved my notebook. What emerged wasn’t, quite, the season three opener that everyone is familiar with, but it had most of the same elements.
Things had changed in Denver, Colorado and Tonya was in a rehab facility, something I didn’t keep. James was in jail for stabbing Mike, which I did keep, and there was a fresh, but not innocent, Whitney. Her first day as a Junior in the midst of all of the other characters that everyone already knew.
I scanned the pages into my computer because I really didn’t want to type it all in, and then try and get the formatting correct. After I was done with that it took me a little over two hours to find an email address for the producer of the show, and before I could think better of it, I emailed it to him, along with the message, ‘This is where you should take the show for season three.’ I only hoped that Paul Reichen looked at it before deleting it.
I was dozing on my bed, listening to my music, when I realized how stupid I’d just acted not five minutes before and tried to recall the email. Just as I figured out how to do it, I received a reply.
‘Thank you for your interest in the show. I’m looking over your proposal now and will get back to you once I’ve had an opportunity to read it.’
“My what?”
Katherine came running at my shout.
“No, no, no. This can’t be happening.”
“What can’t be happening,” she asked, concerned at my behavior.
I gestured at the screen and she laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s hilarious. What did you send him?”
I showed her the pages I’d torn from my notebook, and she sat down to read. I’d written about forty pages, in script format. As it was single spaced, and in my cramped style, it would cover most of the forty minute ‘hour’ of a single episode of the show.
It took her about two hours to read through it.
“You killed off Tonya.”
“She’s just in…”
“You might as well have. Whitney is so much more…likeable.”
“She’s not all sugar and spice you know.”
“Oh, I can see that. There is no way she’s as much the good girl that everyone takes her for, not with how quickly, and efficiently, she seized power in a new school.”
“You mean ruthlessly?” I asked.
“No, she obviously has a sense of fair play, something Tonya never had.” Kat replied, not allowing me to pigeonhole Whitney before she’d even been cast.
Kat and I discussed the script that I wrote for a couple of hours before I went to bed. She seemed to like it, but I really had no hope that it would end up as anything more than a whim that I’d once followed.
Kat and I were talking in my room a week later, neither of us even thinking about the aborted attempt at changing the show for the better. I don’t even remember now what we were talking about, but my phone began to ring, and I picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, my name is William Price. I’m looking for Brian Metzner?”
The shock of hearing one of the two producers from the show caused my voice to crack at a most inopportune moment. “I’m Brian,” I replied, even as I colored in embarrassment. I’m sure I sounded a lot younger than I was.
“Look, could I speak to your father then?”
“I’m the only Brian Metzner here, but I can get my dad for you if you like.”
“How old are you, Brian?” I could hear the disappointment in his voice, as if all of his hopes and dreams had suddenly been dashed in a single moment.
“I’m sixteen. What is this about?”
“Paul showed me your script proposal.”
“I’m so sorry you had to see that. I thought better of sending it the moment I clicked the button. Just destroy that copy and I’ll act like I never did it.”
“Look, it lacks polish, sure, but apparently it took a sixteen year old to resolve a problem in the story that the rest of us have been beating our heads against the wall trying to resolve for the first half of the current season.”
I was completely shocked. I couldn’t come up with a coherent response, and so my sister took over.
“Hi, I’m Kat… No, I’m his sister, but I am a little more mature than he is…. yes, nineteen… sure, I’ll let my parents know, and thank you again for calling, Mr. Price.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he wants you and our parents to fly out to LA this weekend and talk to his writing staff about your ideas.”
That was probably the last thing I ever expected to happen. My knees buckled and I sat down, hard, on my bed.
“Are you ok?”
“Great… now I have to watch the shows again so I can be absolutely ready for any questions they might have.”
My sister just laughed as she left my room to go find my parents and tell them the good news.
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.
5. INTERIOR: HALF-PANELED CLASSROOM WITH BAY WINDOWS. AFTERNOON LIGHT IS STREAMING IN.
A SHORT STAGE AT THE FRONT OF THE ROOM, AND A TEACHER’S DESK IN FRONT OF IT ON THE RIGHT. MR. HUMPHRIES’ IS SITTING AT HIS DESK. BRIAN IS THE ONLY OTHER PERSON IN THE ROOM. BRIAN IS FOCUSED ON WRITING IN HIS NOTEBOOK.
I put the finishing touches on the episode and looked up, satisfied with myself for a job well done. I’d spent the greater part of two class periods and all of detention writing down what I felt was my best episode yet. I just hoped that Paul agreed.
It was about this point that I realized that I was the only student left in the room.
“Done, then, Mr. Metzner?”
“Um…”
“Valerie told me she knew, wanted to know if I did. I actually met you at a gala for the show, so I had to say I did know you, but you probably don’t remember that.”
“I…uh…”
“It’s a good thing you’re better with the written word, Mr. Metzner.”
I chuckled at this. “You will try to keep it a secret, at least from…whomever doesn’t know…”
He laughed. “Just go home, Mr. Monroe. Detention has been over for more than an hour.”
I looked up at the clock, and my stomach fell out. It was after five and I tried to be at the set no later than four. I threw things into my bag, zipped it up, and got up to leave.
“Don’t tell me you’re in a hurry now.”
“I’m late for work.”
“Work? Oh, you mean…”
“Yes, I’m supposed to be on set an hour ago.”
“I have something that I’d like to discuss with you. Could you talk to me before school tomorrow?”
“Sure,” I said as I ran out the door.
The car was waiting for me as I left the school. I thought that a regular sedan was a little less pretentious than the limo I could have afforded. I still had a driver on call, which driver I should have called when I knew I was going to be in detention.
“I’m so sorry, Dean, I should have called you.”
“I called the office when you didn’t show up in your normal five minute window. They told me you had detention, so I took off for an hour. No one told me they’d keep you for two.”
“That’s my fault. I was finishing up the next script.”
He pulled out into traffic before responding, “So, you finally finished it? Congratulations.”
I’m still unsure whether Dean actually likes me, or likes a job where he only has to work part time, but he is good company for the hour it takes to get from my school to the lot.
I pulled out my cell phone and called Francine, Paul’s assistant.
“You’ve reached Francine.”
“If I hadn’t ever reached your voicemail, I’d assume that this was it.”
“Hello, Brian. Glad you could finally call.”
“I got detention from Mrs. Caldecott. I swear that woman has it out for me. The main reason I’m late, however, is that I finished the script for episode eighteen.”
“Paul,” she yelled before removing the phone fully from her mouth. It was a bit deafening, but I was fine with that. The smile that lit my face was blinding and Dean had to drive.
“I hear you have good news for me, finally.”
“Well, I have news, but I’m not sure if it’s good.”
“A script in hand when the episode airs in two months is good news to me.”
“Then it’s great news.”
“I know that tone, Brian. What am I not going to like?”
I spent most of the rest of the hour describing what I had come up with. I told him what was in the episode, and not what was on the elusive video that Whitney watched. This episode was a descent into madness, of a sort. Whitney has no idea who took the video, who knows about it, or even how it was taken. There should have been no way for anyone to put one…there.
And her prime suspect for all of it is Mike who suddenly is nowhere to be found. He spends the entire episode gone. Well, except for the last page and a half. Him alone, answering questions you can’t hear in a sort of monologue.
I read the end to him as I’d written it.
“Well, I’ve got to go tell Jerry that he’s got the day off.”
“Let’s film that first, then you can call him back when we’re ready to film the next episode.”
“While that idea does have its merits, I think holding that bit of information will get a better performance out of Melissa. More believable.”
“You’re the boss,” I said with a smile.
“I am that. So, I take it you’re on your way in?”
“Pulling in now, actually.”
“I see you.”
Paul and Francine were standing outside waiting for me. I handed off the script to Francine who went off to get it typed out, or at least the pages that they would be working on today. They’d been re-running scenes that either William or Paul weren’t happy about, just trying to get that one perfect shot.
Since I joined the show, there were times that the show had been edited and in the can just a week before the show was supposed to air. It was thanks only to the distribution network of EoL that they were even able to get things in at that late date.
Giving all of the credit to EoL wasn’t accurate either. They had a sweetheart deal, or so it seemed, with the Television Network, that went a long way to keeping us in business as well.
I went inside and grabbed my official fake lot Id. My officially fake ID for the lot. The badge I wore so that people assumed that I was just Brian Monroe, gopher. No, the badge had an official job on it, but I’d never bothered to learn what my assumed duties were supposed to be.
“Hey, Brian.”
“Brian, could I talk to you about this line…”
“Brian, my man!”
I waved, talked, answered, and generally extricated myself from the only fans I really wanted. It could be intoxicating, which is why I stopped by Michelle last.
“I hear you finally got off your ass and wrote me something.”
“Hello to you too.”
She laughed, “Thank you, oh great writer for your condescension to we mere mortals.”
I just smiled.
“Hey, what’s up Brian?”
“Nothing.”
“Spill.”
“I already have a sister, Michelle.”
“And the last time that she was here, she said I should take care of you, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“Then why not go on a date with me or something?”
“Because I just turned twenty-nine. Come on, Brian. Sure, you may think it would be cool dating an older woman, but consider me in this for a moment. I’m ten years older than you. You were still in grade school when I graduated high school.”
“The first time.”
“And who do I have to thank for being back in this hell? You, thank you very much.”
“It’s not like you’re actually in high school.”
She just shook her head at me and smiled, “I’m still not going out with you, Brian.”
“I know that, and besides, yuck.”
She frowned at me and looked at herself in the mirror. I really liked Melissa, but she was a bit vain. Ok, so she was a lot vain. She looked younger than most of the girls in my class. Whatever products she was using, they were working.
If I’m being honest, it wasn’t all out of a bottle. She was naturally beautiful. And I’d heard the makeup techs talking about her flawless skin. It’s just that she was a lot older than me. She shouldn’t look like she could be going to my school.
One of the runners tapped me on the shoulder.
“There’s a girl at the gate? Says she knows you?”
“Oh, a girl…” Melissa began with one of her evil grins.
“Did she give her name?”
“Valerie Cartwright.”
“The girl.” Melissa said with the most evil grin I’d ever seen.
“Don’t you dare, Melissa.”
“I want to see the person who’s captured your heart, or has at least invaded your dreams.”
If she saw my scowl, I don’t think that it fazed her in the least.
“Come on, you talk about her all the time, and she’s probably the only person at your school that I could reliably name.”
I continued to glare at her, but she just laughed.
“Come on, Brian; let’s take a look at this girl…”
“Melissa, if you move one step further, I’ll kill Whitney.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said in mock horror. “Why, people love me.” She loved to bring out her southern belle at times like this. No one had the heart to tell her it was completely over the top.
“Then it will have to be an epic death scene, one to be spoken of in whispers until the end of time.”
Her eyes glazed over a bit. Many actors I’d met for the show had a soft spot in their hearts for death scenes. Melissa was almost gothic in her fascination with them. I threatened her with the one thing she wanted whenever I was trying to keep her out of something in my real life. She became so distracted that she’d completely forget what it was she was worried about before.
While she was occupied, I slipped out to the front gate.
“What are you doing here, Val?”
“Val? Did I give you leave to call me Val?”
That threw me aback. I hadn’t given much thought to it. I’d spent so much time crafting conversations with her, in which I’d just automatically dropped into calling her Val, that when I actually started talking to her I’d fallen right into it.
“Lighten up, Brai, I don’t mind.”
“Brai? I’d almost prefer you calling me by my middle name.”
“You have a middle name?” The gleam in her eye was frightening.
“Not that I plan on telling you,” I replied.
She pouted. I mean really pouted. Some girls try to pout. They stick out their lower lip, and look up at you through their eyelashes. It’s obviously fake. When Val pouted, it took her entire face, and it really looked like she was disappointed in me that I wouldn’t give her this one simple request.
“Don’t do that!”
“What? This?” And again, she pouted at me.
“You know, if you keep doing that I’m going to have to kiss you to…um…never mind.” I blushed bright red and she just stared at me, blinking.
“Sorry, that was completely…I’m a writer and…ok, I feel like I know you even if I don’t. I spend so much time imagining what I’d say to you…”
“Have you been writing lines for us?”
“No, I haven’t…wait us?”
She smiled at me, “Look, Brian,” she put special emphasis on my name, letting me know she used the full thing, “if we’re going to hang out, then there’s going to be an ‘us.’ We will end up doing things.”
“Sorry,” I began.
“And stop apologizing. The only reason I came over to your table today, is I was tired of waiting for you to come talk to me. I see the way you look at me.”
A shout came from behind me, “Mr. Metzner, they’re looking for you on set.”
“I’ll be just a moment, George.”
“You know, when I found that notebook in your bag, I was half convinced that this was all a put-on. I mean, not only is Brian Metzner my age, but he goes to my school. I asked for Brian Monroe at the gate and you came out, wearing a badge with that name on it, but he just responded to you when he asked for ‘Mr. Metzner.”
“You didn’t believe I was Brian Metzner?” I laughed at this.
“Hey, it’s not funny. Everyone at school thinks you’re Brian Monroe, straight A student and likely Valedictorian. There are some bright kids in the school, and for you to be the top student.”
“Second, actually. Sydney beat my score by one on the AP Biology test…um…”
“There’s a story there, isn’t there.”
“Maybe…” I said, suddenly defensive. I’d paid attention in class to the areas where Sydney had problems. I made sure to miss the problems that she would have problems with, four in this case, and then added a couple I knew that she would get. Apparently, she missed one of the ‘sure thing’ questions.
“Ok, tell me later.”
She waved and then turned to walk off the lot. It was only after she fully left my view that I realized I’d just confirmed my identity to her.
”ƒ
6 INTERIOR: EOL CONFERENCE ROOM
THE LIGHT IS DIM OUTSIDE THE GLASS WALL. ONLY A FEW OF THE LIGHTS ARE ON, AND THE LIGHTS OF THE CITY CAN BE SEEN THROUGH THE WINDOWS ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROOM. A NUMBER OF MEN CAN BE SEEN WITH BRIAN. CRUMPLED BALLS OF PAPER CAN BE SEEN SCATERED ACROSS THE TABLE TOP. BRIAN IS THE ONLY ONE WITH A LAPTOP.
"This is getting us nowhere. Look, I know that you were hired to help, but this series is irredeemable. You can put it on your resume in ten years when you are up for a real writing job."
I glared at him for a moment before I even thought to open my mouth to speak. He wasn't worth it.
"For a show that is 'irredeemable' as you put it, there is still a loyal fan base. It has potential that you and the rest of your team never explored."
"Like this abortion of an idea you have for the final episode of the season?"
My mouth dropped open. It wasn't the worst language that I'd ever heard, but it certainly wasn't something I expected from people who were supposed to be professionals. "Trite, I would accept. Dated even would probably work. Derivative, plagiarized, lacking in real dramatic content, or even simply poorly written, but an insult? And not even an original one at that. How about just calling it a sixteen year olds idea of dramatic conflict? Better yet, how about simply calling it a mary sue, wish fulfillment, or get really creative."
"Really, so, you're the writer, write. You be creative."
"This episode attempts to breathe life into a flagging series, but only achieves a temporary stay of execution through such dated and over used clichés like attempted murder of one of the main characters of the show and a court battle. They would have done better to kill the show than let this example of everything wrong with the genre ever see the light of day. The court scene is derivative and lacking in character depth, as the rest of the show has shown us for the past few years. In addition..."
"He got you there, Jason," one of the other men said while laughing.
Jason just glared at me.
"Now, look, I know that a couple of you are old enough to be my dad, but I am your boss. You may not think me qualified, and may resent that someone as young as me is in charge of this mess, but guys, we're on the same side."
"And what side is that, wunderkind?"
"We're here to fix this show and save our jobs. Now, who has actually read the synopses I sent to you all."
"Um..."
For the first time I really looked around and realized that no one else had their computers. Sure, I was writing on a pad, but I was using my computer for research, and other things. "Don't you guys read your email?"
"Yeah, at home." Jason quipped, smiling, but no one else joined in on the joke. They saw my scowl.
I looked at him in shock. How could he actually continue looking at this like I was just the kid in the room? Sure, I was a kid, but that didn't matter as far as his job was concerned. In fact, I thought he needed a wakeup call at this moment. If I'd been more aware of what it meant to be in charge I wouldn't have said anything, and let him just stew on it, but I being who I was, I couldn't let it continue.
"Jason, how about you just take the night off. We'll finish up without you."
"You can't do that!" He was pissed off, and was moving toward me.
"Jason, dude, he just did."
"You can't send me out of here like a bad child."
"Jason, if I wanted to, I could fire you. I am your boss."
"You're just some snot nosed kid. When you're gone in a week we’ll be back to finishing off the last season of this white elephant. Paul will come to his senses soon enough when you can't deliver, right guys?"
I looked at him in shock. Sure, the process had been painful so far but I'd never thought that these men would be as resentful of my presence as to intentionally sabotage my efforts to actually fix the show. I should have known better. I was taking their jobs after all.
I looked down at the table, and couldn’t look up at the men who were now staring at me. I heard the door open and close.
“I’m sorry…” I began, but looking at the smug faces I stopped. They were looking for weakness in me, and I was about to give it to them.
“I’m sorry you all feel this way. Paul has informed me that anyone not on board with this project can look for work elsewhere.”
You could have heard a pin dropping in the suddenly silent room, and then everyone was clamoring for my attention. No longer were they telling me how this idea wouldn’t work. Suddenly they were offering ideas to make it work better. The areas I could improve were pointed out to me through their suggestions and in a very short time we moved from what wouldn’t work, to what worked perfectly.
“Let’s call it a night, guys, and we can pick this up tomorrow.”
“We haven’t gotten to the best part of my idea yet,” one of the men said. I don’t remember what his name was.
“You want to have Whitney make an appearance in this season in the hospital for some reason.”
“How did you…”
“It’s similar to other things you’ve all written in the past. Whitney stays in the wings until the first episode of the next season. Period.”
There was some grumbling at this, but they all finally agreed with me. We called it a night and I went back to the hotel for a much needed rest.
I never imagined that the first day of my vacation was going to be spent writing for Murray Heights, but here my family was, in Canada, and I was going to be spending every one of the days of my ‘vacation’ in this building. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the fact that I had a real paying job doing something that came naturally to me. I was writing and being paid very well to do it. I was also a sixteen-year-old kid.
On the way back to the motel, I heard a song come on the radio that helped to change my perspective a little. I’d first heard it on Saturday Night Live. The musical guest had been a sixteen year old, and she wrote this song to perform it live for the first time on national TV.
Sure, I was young to be working, but so were a lot of other people. If you were lucky enough to fall into a career that you loved, complaining about it was the quickest way to either lose out on the opportunity, or become so fed up with it that you left it for something you would enjoy less.
I was whistling the tune as I walked through the door.
“You don’t look like any sort of princess to me, let alone daddy’s.”
I blushed at that and my sister laughed.
“Dad, tell me again why I can’t have my own room,” I yelled into the adjoining room as I glared at my sister.
“Because you haven’t been paid yet.”
“What about the commission for the first episode of next season, as well as the finale for this one?”
“In your college fund, dear,” my Mom replied.
Before I could answer my Dad continued, “This time, you were lucky. Next time they will want schooling. You’re going to college.”
This was getting to be an old argument, so I let it drop. I’d figured it out, and if I was careful I figured I could survive for the next twenty-five to thirty years on the money I was making now. Mom and Dad seemed to think that going to college was too important to pass up.
If I was being honest with myself, I agreed with them. But I also wanted to spend some of my money on things like paying off my parent’s mortgage…and a Ferrari.
I wanted a Ferrari or a GTO or a Mustang or something cool. At the time I had no idea what made a car good, I just based it upon what people in the movies thought was good. I would spend it on fashionable clothes, hire a consultant, you know, just the normal everyday rich kid things.
I realize that this wouldn’t have been playing it safe by any stretch. That is what I told my parents to try to get my hands on the money, all the while planning the things I would spend it on. It’s a good possibility that if I’d been sincere about wanting to be careful with my money that my parents might have let me play with some of it.
They knew me too well even then.
I went to sleep that night thinking about the core idea that they’d come up with for the show. They wanted Mark to spend the ending of the season in the hospital. They had some idea of Whitney as a candy-striper or something. While I would have loved to see the actress in that sort of a costume, it really didn’t fit with the character.
What did fit?
Then it hit me. Just because I didn’t want to introduce Whitney yet didn’t mean I couldn’t introduce her younger brother, Tyler. Before that moment I’d never thought too much about Tyler’s character beyond the fact that he was the younger brother. In that moment, I got to know him a lot better. I initially thought suicide, but not only has that been overdone in teen dramas, but I didn’t like what that said about Tyler.
So, I gave him a motorcycle and he crashed it into an embankment. He had a severe head injury, no helmet, and was in a coma. Mark would be put into his room, where eventually Tyler would wake up and they’d begin talking. It explained how Mark would first meet Whitney in the next season, as the two of them would be stuck there until the end of the school year. I’d have to explain Whitney’s absence from the room, but that wouldn’t be a big deal.
And to think, if I’d dismissed their suggestion out of hand I never would have thought to bring Tyler in.
I was ready for whatever would come my way the next day, or so I thought. Nothing prepared me for what actually happened. How could anything have prepared me?