When Everything Feels like the Movies (13 page)

Typecast

T
he last time I’d seen him was during the summer. Only I didn’t really see him. I was in the hospital, and it was the middle of the night, but I was awake. I didn’t want to fall asleep; when I closed my eyes, the snuff films played.

I still hadn’t looked in the mirror. I could tell by the way Keefer looked at me when he came to visit that I didn’t want to. He brought me a card he made in art class with a big red heart on the front, and he hadn’t learned how to draw in the lines yet. Or maybe he had and just didn’t give a shit.

I heard footsteps coming into the room and closed my eyes. Whoever it was walked in and stopped, then took a few more steps and pulled back the curtain. At first I thought it was a doctor, and I was glad that my eyes were closed. But then I smelled stale cigarette smoke.

I could feel my dad watching me, and my heart sped up—I knew it was him. I felt his breath as he leaned over, as he touched my bandaged forehead. I told myself to open my eyes, but I couldn’t; I didn’t think that he’d understand.

“I love you, kid,” he said.

Then I heard shoes clicking on the linoleum floor down the hallway. I sensed him stand up and back away from me as the footsteps got closer until they reached the room. I heard a nurse say, “Sir, what are you doing in here?” He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make it out. “It’s way past visiting hours,” she said, and he muttered some more. I heard him walk past her, out of the room.

I kept telling myself to open my eyes and stop him before he was gone, but it was like my lids were stuck together, like that time I used too much of my mom’s eyelash glue. Then it was too late: he and the nurse had left my room, their voices waning.

When everything was silent again, I thought I might have imagined it. I kept sniffing, but there was no trace of cigarette smoke.

It really haunted me, lying there, thinking about how that was the first time my dad had ever told me that he loved me, and I might’ve made it up.

I stood on the street and watched as my dad came out of the house. Mom stood in the doorway. He was wearing a baseball cap, which shaded his eyes. Sometimes, my parents would stop being Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
and be civil to each other. It always freaked me out. He slowly walked toward me, and I held my breath.

“How’s it going, kid?” he asked, and I think I shrugged before he asked if I wanted to get some breakfast. I must’ve nodded and walked to his truck and put on my seat belt and maybe even listened to the radio as he drove us to the Day-n-Nite. That’s where we ended up. It was like I blinked my eyes and we were sitting at a front booth. I didn’t realize I was there until I looked up and saw Brooke flirtatiously pouring his coffee.

I excused myself and went to the bathroom where I leaned against the sink, looking at myself in the mirror. I had dark circles under my eyes and messy hair. My bottom lip was chapped, and it looked like the grease stain on Abel’s shirt had gotten even bigger. I don’t know how that happened—probably just from walking through the air in the Day-n-Nite. My hands were shaking so hard that I thought I might pull the sink from the wall.

I went into a stall that was darker than the rest of the bathroom because the light above it was busted. It was too dark to see, but it smelled like I was standing in a puddle of piss. I leaned over and puked.

When I came out of the bathroom, Brooke was standing at our table, refilling my dad’s coffee. She asked me if I wanted any, and I nodded.

“Gonna stunt your growth,” my dad said as Brooke walked away, her big feet squeaking in a pair of clogs. But then he looked out the window like he knew it was a lame thing to say. As he looked away, I picked up a butter knife and held it under the table. I glanced at him. He looked about the same as the last time we shot a scene together. Maybe a little more dried up.

“You hungry?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“Sure,” I shrugged. He looked out the window again, and I pressed the butter knife harder against my wrist.

“So,” he turned back to me, “where’d you sleep?”

“I had a night shoot,” I said.

He spun his coffee cup on the table top. I looked down at my arm. I’d broken the scab on a cut, and there was a bit of blood trickling down my wrist. Brooke came back, and my dad ordered toast and, even though I was starving, I ordered the same because I wanted to get breakfast over with.

“I thought you were hungry,” he said, like he was offended.

“I think I’m just tired.”

“The coffee tastes like dirt in this place,” he sighed. “I had a rough night, too, driving,” he said, sipping his dirt. “I’ve been driving for sixteen hours.” He paused like he was waiting for me to ask him from where, but I didn’t want to know. Just another place on the map. He tapped his fingers on the table. His nails were short and jagged like mine. We had the same hands. I always thought of him when I looked at my hands. Especially when they were around my dick. He always popped into my mind at the more absurd moments. My hands were the only manly thing about me. I’d put on one of my mom’s dresses and almost get away with it, except for the hands; they always gave me away. They were never elegant, no matter what colour I painted my nails.

“Why is it every time I see you, you’re even more roughed up?” he asked.

“I don’t have a portrait in my attic,” I shrugged.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I sighed, looking back out the window.

“Your scar’s not so bad,” he smiled. “Makes you look tough.”

I didn’t say anything, and he took another sip of his coffee. I waited for him to slurp like Ray, but then remembered that my dad never slurped. He swatted me across the head when I was little because I was grating my teeth against my fork. He was crazy about table etiquette. I used to resent him for it, but I figured it would come in handy when I was in Hollywood, going to dinner parties in Beverly Hills with socialites and trust-fund hipsters.

“Your mom says she kicked him out,” my dad said.

I felt the blood dripping down the side of my wrist. “Like that’ll last.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, tapping his fingers even harder. “I wanted to give you something,” he said, reaching into his pocket as Brooke brought us our toast and packets of jam. Once she was gone, he put an envelope in front of my plate.

“Open it,” he said.

It was a cheque. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was more than I had ever seen from him and enough to get me to Los Angeles in the back of a limousine. Arrivals are everything.

“What is this for?” I asked.

“I missed a few birthdays,” he said, silently biting into his toast. Not a single crumb fell onto the plate in front of him.

“You missed all of them. How did you get it?”

“It doesn’t matter how I got it. I got it for you.”

“Stolen car parts?”

“Don’t be a little shit,” he said, lowering his eyes and looking offended.

“You don’t have to buy me,” I told him.

“Good. Don’t be like your mother, only feeling beautiful when she’s being bought.”

“Well, I hope you don’t expect me to put this into a college fund or something.”

“No, you’re probably going to beauty school, right?” He looked right at me and didn’t say it exactly mockingly, but I still felt like I should be ashamed.

“A cosmetologist? As if,” I said. “I’m most stereotypes, but not that one. Do I look like the help?”

“No,” he sighed. “Just like you need it.” He looked down at his plate, and I couldn’t tell if he was being serious, but it didn’t matter; he was already starting to space out. “Use the money for whatever you want,” he said. “Just don’t blow it. Or blow it if you want. It’s yours.”

I looked at him, and he took a bite of his toast, and I didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you,” I finally said, folding the cheque and slipping it in my pocket. The action line in the screenplay told me to smile, but I ignored it.

We finished our toast and then got back in his truck. His visits were always ephemeral; he didn’t get much screen time because he was terrible at remembering his lines and always missed his cue. He would hold up production, or stop it all together.

The radio played as we drove, but we didn’t say much. He lit a cigarette and unrolled the window as I relaxed in my seat with blood dripping down my arm. I just kept thinking about how the truck drivers in the Day-n-Nite hadn’t checked me out once. I felt so ugly when I wasn’t being desired.

My dad pulled up to the driveway of the house, and before I got out I said, “See you soon,” which felt like such a stupid thing to say. Fire the screenwriter! He took a drag of his cigarette and rested his elbow on the window.

“See ya later,” he nodded.

I didn’t watch him drive away.

My mom and Keefer were sitting at the kitchen table when I walked in the house. Keefer was eating a PB&J, and my mom was circling listings in the newspaper with nail polish in “I’m Not Really A Waitress” red.

“Job hunting,” my mom said as I sat down at the table. “I don’t want to be like Ginger Rogers, dancing beyond my prime.”

“All you want is to be Ginger Rogers, Mom. But it’s okay. Who doesn’t?”

“Who’s Ginger Rogers?” Keefer asked.

“I didn’t expect you to be home so soon,” my mom said. “Is he gone?”

“I guess.”

“He didn’t say?”

“Who’s Ginger Rogers?” Keefer screamed.

“A dancer,” I said.

“A dancer?” He stuck out his tongue, which was covered with peanut butter. “I don’t want to be a stupid dancer.”

“No one said you had to be.”

“You didn’t ask him?” my mom asked, touching up her nails now.

“Did too! You said everyone wants to be Ginger Rogers.”

“He’s gone, Mom,” I said. “What else is there?”

The next morning, I went to the bank. The cheque didn’t bounce. I stared at the balance until the numbers blurred. My fingers were so damp that they made the deposit slip transparent. I thought about putting my mom’s tips back on her dresser, but I figured I needed them. My dad’s money would barely cover my first Hollywood overdose. I didn’t feel guilty about taking my mom’s tips; I guess I thought she’d probably want me to have them, once I was really there and she knew I wasn’t coming back.

I wanted to tell her I was going, but couldn’t. She’d never let me go, and I had no choice. I felt like I was being summoned. Like my whole life had been leading up to this point. Like I had to deal with so much hate just to make my skin thick enough so that the spotlight wouldn’t burn.

I walked from the bank to the bus station and bought the ticket. The night bus out of town on Friday, February 12. I’d leave right after the Valentine’s dance. My A-list farewell party.

When I got home, I put the ticket in the shoe box filled with singles under my bed, checking every couple minutes to make sure it was still there. I sat on the edge of my bed listening to Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” on repeat. Even leaving town was a cliché, but I didn’t care. I had been typecast in utero, and I was going to get an Oscar if it cost me my life.

I was too excited to sleep, so I went for a walk at night and ended up on the side of the highway. I hadn’t realized how far I had gone until I looked up and saw the Welcome sign. It was chipped, and the wood was rotting. One look at it and you’d slam on your brakes and turn right around.

It said “Welcome to hell.” Someone had crossed out the name of our town and spray-painted “hell” in red letters over it. I laughed, imagining my grandma’s expression when she saw it.

It was snowing, and I could hardly see. It was like the air was white. But I could see the letters on the sign, dripping like blood. The snow was so deep it was pulling me under, seeping into my boots. I looked down the highway. It was a long black stroke of ink that told a never-ending story. I stood and I waited, and every time I saw a pair of headlights through the storm, I was sure it was him.

17

Hidden Feature

“
L
isa’s gone vegan,” Mr Dawson said. “Care for a pita and hummus?”

“Sure,” I shrugged, taking his brown paper lunch bag. “What are you going to eat?”

“I’ll run down to the cafeteria once the line dies down.”

“Why does she want you to be vegan?”

“Because she think it’ll make me—” He stopped and smiled. “Because she thinks it’ll help us conceive.”

“Really?”

“She read that vegan men have stronger sperm.”

“A baby?”

“Yes,” he laughed, “a baby.”

“But think about how horrible it’ll be to wake up every morning and think about someone else before you think about yourself.”

“You don’t think that would be liberating?”

“Because then who’s thinking of you?”

“I think it’ll be a nice reprieve.”

“But if no one is thinking about you, then do you exist?”