Just a Geek (23 page)

"Hey, they can kiss my shiny plastic ass. I have never been responsible for the things I say. I can only say what someone tells me to say. As a matter of fact, I'm not even talking now. You're putting all these words in my mouth."

"So my Tyler Durden is a five-inch action figure? That's just perfect. At least you can't force me into some sort of Project Mayhem."

"Oh, I can't?"

I can't tell through the gold paint pen, but I think he's sizing me up.

"You're such a pussy, Wheaton. We were cool when we wore this spacesuit and you know it. Fucking own that, boyo. If anyone has a problem with that, they can kiss my ass, your ass, their own ass, and then they can fuck all the way off, 12 different ways."

I'm a bit shocked to hear this come out of us.

"Uh, Wesley, you really can't talk like that."

"I just told you, it's not me. It's you, cock-knocker. Now put me in the box and find some other cool thing to auction. I think I saw a plate in the closet."

"Why didn't we ever talk like this before? I never realized that you were cool. Really. I mean, I hated you, man."

"Yeah, you and every other insecure teenage boy. Listen and listen good, because I'm not saying this again.

"You have always cared too fucking much what other people thought of us. Go read your stupid website and listen to your own advice. You'll be much happier. Now put me in the box and let's get this over with."

I look at him and a touch of sadness passes over me.

"Wesley, I have always been and I always will be—"

"Jesus H. Christ! I can't believe you were going to quote
Star Trek
. I am so embarrassed for you right now. Just close the fucking box and send me on my way."

I do it. I put him in the box, drop in some packing stuff and a few stickers.

We drive to the post office in silence.

I walk to the mailbox and open it.

I think about saying goodbye, but I know that Wesley won't be talking to me anymore.

I place the box on the edge and lift it up. The box falls into darkness.

I am Wil's freedom.

There's this great scene in
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
where we find out that as The One Ring slowly drove him mad, Smeagol created Gollum to help him survive. Once Smeagol has Frodo to look after him, he doesn't need Gollum any longer.

"Leave now, and never come back!" Smeagol tells Gollum, who hisses, spits, and fights like crazy to remain in control, until Smeagol ultimately finds the strength to drive him away.

That scene struck very close to home for me. My One Ring was Fame and Celebrity, and my Gollum was Prove To Everyone That Quitting
Star Trek
Wasn't A Mistake. When I wrote
The Wesley Dialogues
, I did prove to everyone that quitting
Star Trek
wasn't a mistake . . . but not in the way I expected. All the years I spent feeling trapped, like that action figure, in a little plastic box, unable to speak for myself or do anything
I
wanted to do, came to an end. I wasn't trying to achieve escape velocity from 15 years of frustration, angst, and regret—but that's exactly what happened.

"Leave now, and never come back!"
I told Prove To Everyone as I wrote
The Big Goodbye
.
"I don't need you any more."

"
Quoting
Lord of the Rings," he sneered.
"You're such a geek!"

"It's Just a Geek,"
I said.

I haven't heard from him since.

Chapter 12. All Good Things . . .

WHILE I WAS WORKING
on
Nemesis
, I knew in the back of my mind that there was a good chance my scene would not make the final print of the film. It didn't add to the story at all, and I was the last person to be added to the cast. Because of those two factors, I wasn't too surprised when I started hearing the rumors that I'd been cut from the film and replaced with Ashley Judd, who was playing Robin "Mrs. Wesley Crusher" Lefler. The rumor about Ashley Judd turned out to be false and I understand that the credibility of the Internet as a source of honest and true information may never be restored. However, the rumor about my scene hitting the cutting room floor turned out to be true.

14 AUGUST 2002

Spare Us The Cutter

The call came while I was out, so I didn't get the message until days later.

"Hi," the young-sounding secretary said on my machine. "I have Rick Berman calling for Wil. Please return when you get the message."

I knew.

I knew before she was even done with the message, but I tried to fool myself for a few minutes anyway.

I looked at the clock: 8 p.m. They'd most likely be out, so I'd have to call tomorrow.

I told Anne that I had a message to call Rick's office and she knew right away also.

We'd thought about it for months, ever since I'd heard the rumors online. Of course, I tend to not put a whole lot of stock in what I read online . . . if I did I'd be overwhelmed with the sheer amount of hot teen bitches who want to get naked for me right now and I'd be rolling in Nigerian money.

But it made sense and I couldn't fight what I knew in my heart to be true.

I returned the call late the next day from my car on my way home from work. I was driving along a narrow tree-lined street in Pasadena that I sometimes take when the traffic is heavy on the freeway.

Children played on bikes and jumped rope in the growing shadows of the July afternoon. The street was stained a beautiful orange by the setting sun.

"This is Wil Wheaton returning," I told her.

She tells me to hold on and then he's on the phone.

"Hi kiddo. How are you?"

"I'm doing fine. You know I turn 30 on Monday?"

There is a pause.

"I can't believe we're all getting so old," he says.

"I know. I e-mailed Tommy [his son] awhile ago and he's in college now. If that made me feel old, I can't imagine what my turning 30 is doing to the rest of you guys."

We chuckle. This is probably just small talk, so it's not as severe when he tells me, but it feels good regardless. Familiar, familial.

"Listen, Wil. I have bad news."

Although I've suspected it for months and I have really known it since I heard the message the night before, my stomach tightens, my arms grow cold.

"We've had to cut your scene from the movie."

He pauses for breath and that moment is frozen, while I assess my feelings.

I almost laugh out loud at what I discover: I feel puzzled.

I feel puzzled, because the emotions I expected, the sadness, the anger, the indignation . . . aren't there.

I realize that he's waiting for me.

"Why'd you have to cut it?"

This doesn't make sense. I should be furious. I should be depressed. I should be hurt.

But I don't feel bad, at all.

"Well, it doesn't have anything to do with you," he begins.

I laugh silently. It never does. When I don't get a part, or a callback, or get cut from a movie, it never has anything to do with me. Like a sophomore romance. "It's not you. It's me. I've met Jimmy Kimmel's cousin and things just happened."

There is an unexpected sincerity to what he tells me: the movie is long. The first cut was almost three hours. The scene didn't contribute to the main story in any way, so it was the first one to go.

He tells me that they've cut 48 minutes from the movie.

I tell him that they've cut an entire episode out. We laugh.

There is another silence. He's waiting for me to respond.

I drive past some kids playing in an inflatable pool in their front yard. On the other side of the street, neighbors talk across a chain link fence. An older man sits on his porch reading a paper.

"Well Rick," I begin, "I completely understand. I've thought about this on and off for months and I knew that if the movie was long, this scene and maybe even this entire sequence, would have to go. It's just not germane to the spine of the story."

He tells me that they had to consider cutting the entire beginning of the movie. He tells me that he has to call one of the other actors who has suffered rather large cuts as well.

I stop at a four-way stop sign and let a woman and her little daughter cross the street on their way into a park filled with families, playing baseball and soccer in the waning light.

I look at them. The mother's hand carefully holding her daughter's.

I realize why I'm not upset and I tell him.

"Well, Rick, it's like this: I love
Star Trek
and, ultimately, I want what's best for
Star Trek
and the Trekkies. If the movie is too long, you've got to cut it and this scene is the first place I'd start if I were you.

"The great thing is, I got to spend two wonderful days being on
Star Trek
again, working with the people I love, wearing the uniform that I missed and I got to reconnect with you, the cast, and the fans. Nobody can take that away from me.

"And, it really means a lot to me that you called me yourself. I can't tell you how great that makes me feel."

It's true. He didn't need to call me himself. Most producers wouldn't.

"I'm so glad that you took the time to call me and that I didn't have to learn about this at the screening, or by reading it on the Internet."

He tells me again how sorry he is. He asks about my family and if I'm working on anything. I tell him they're great, that Ryan's turning 13 and that I've been enjoying steady work as a writer since January.

We're back to small talk again, bookending the news.

I ask him how the movie looks.

He tells me that they're very happy with it. He thinks it's going to be very successful.

I'm feel happy and proud.

I've heard stories from people that everyone had lots of trouble with the director. I ask him if that's true.

He tells me that it was tough, because the director had his own vision. There were struggles, but ultimately they collaborated to make a great film.

I come to a stoplight, a bit out of place in this quiet residential neighborhood. A young married couple walks their golden retriever across the crosswalk.

We say our good-byes and he admonishes me to call him if I'm ever on the lot. He tells me that he'll never forgive me if I don't stop into his office when I'm there.

I tell him that I will and that I'll see him at the screening.

He wishes me well and we hang up the phone.

The light turns green and I sit there for a moment, reflecting on the conversation.

I think back to something I wrote in April while in a pit of despair: "I wonder if The Lesson is that, in order to succeed, I need to rely upon myself, trust myself, love myself and not put my happiness and sadness into the hands of others."

I meant everything that I said to him. It really doesn't matter to me if I'm actually in the movie or not and not in a bitter way at all.

I could focus on the disappointment, I suppose. I could feel sad.

Getting cut out of the movie certainly fits a pattern that's emerged in the past two years or so.

But I choose not to. I choose instead to focus on the positives, the things I can control. I did have two wonderful days with people I love and it was like I'd never left. I did get to reconnect with the fans and the franchise. Rick Berman, a person with whom I've not always had the best relationship, called me himself to tell me the news and I felt like it weighed heavily on him to deliver it.

Nobody can take that away from me and I'm not going to feel badly, at all.

Because I have a secret.

I have realized what's important in my life since April and they are at the end of my drive.

The dog-walking couple smile and wave to me.

The light changes.

Somewhere in Brooklyn, Wesley Crusher falls silent forever.

Okay, maybe I laid it on a little thick in the last line there, but I thought it was a nice dramatic finish, you know? I had shipped the Cadet Crusher action figure to Brooklyn, and Wesley
was
silent.
Nemesis
is the final
TNG
movie, my scene didn't even make one of the several collector's editions they released on DVD, and the only way to see me is if you freeze-frame the wide screen version. I'm cut out of the full-screen edition. Wesley Crusher will only live on in reruns. I will never get to bring him to life again, and that makes me a little sad. I'd like to try on his spacesuit and his oversized brain one last time and see how they fit now.

After I posted that entry, the comments and e-mails poured in. There were so many, it took me several days to catch up. Slashdot carried the story on the front page, and there were several hundred comments within hours, mostly from people who failed to get the point and attacked me for talking on my phone while driving. Fark linked to the story, along with several sci-fi news sites. I even did an interview with the BBC's
Radio Five
.
^[
13
^]

I was very moved by the support I received from the Trekkies and others, but the fact was, whether I actually made it into the final cut of the movie couldn't change the wonderful two days I'd spent with old friends. It wasn't going to affect my career in any real way, since it was just two lines, and I didn't take it personally. I didn't feel snubbed in any way, and I had a great conversation with Rick Berman. This would only be a bad thing if I allowed it to be a bad thing.

It was a major test for me: would I allow myself to wallow in indignant self pity? Would I take this as yet another rejection by The Powers That Be? No. I would not. There were too many things in my life to be happy about, and being at peace with
Star Trek
was one of them.

With all my conflicted feelings about
Star Trek
and Wesley Crusher resolved, I spent the next few weeks in a state of grace, and I was able to share a very difficult decision I'd recently made with my website readers.