by TJ Klune
“Wow,” Josiah said, suitably impressed. “Connections.”
Starla waved at him dismissively. “My friend is a scumbag who probably should have been arrested years ago. I’ve got the photographs to prove it. Which means you’ve got an audition.”
Josiah nodded. “What’s my motivation? My character arc? Do I have a backstory?”
She handed over a sheet of paper. “Congrats, kid. You’ve got genital herpes. Sell it.”
AND THAT was how Josiah Erickson earned his first nationally televised role, that of Basketball Guy in a commercial about medication for a sexually transmitted disease. It played in over forty different markets during the day, often sandwiched between babies crawling in diapers and a random celebrity looking pensive and broody in a luxury car.
In it he wore tiny shorts that clung to the muscles in his thighs, and a tank top. The director—a greasy-looking man named Dan who told him they were going to bring the sex back to sexually transmitted diseases—all but demanded it. It took thirty-seven takes, mostly because Josiah needed to be reminded that there was no ad-libbing. It didn’t help that Josiah had already given Basketball Guy a backstory in which he’d gotten his STD from a sex worker he’d fallen in love with named Salient Sal, a high-priced escort in the City of Angels. Their love was doomed, given that Salient Sal’s pimp had an iron grasp around him, and the only thing that Basketball Guy had gotten to prove their love was real was sores on his junk.
Dan didn’t want to hear about any of that, so Josiah made the decision to focus on the script.
There were shots of him dribbling a basketball with a group of guys, wide smiles on their faces because life was good. He’d take a couple of shots, and they’d high-five each other, all while Josiah was thinking about Salient Sal and how he needed to forget about him. So while the others were just boys being boys, Josiah’s joie de vivre was tinged with the sadness of a love lost to the ravages of the sexual desires of men with money. Josiah’s new teammates faded to the background as he turned to face the camera. And as he opened his mouth to speak only the lines that had been written for him, he made sure he remembered kissing Salient Sal at night in the rain under a streetlamp.
“I don’t let a flare-up of genital herpes affect my game,” he said, holding the basketball under his arm. “With Herpetrex, I can get back to doing what I love most. Genital herpes?” He shook his head. “Not today. They’re gone in a swish.”
He turned and shot the ball toward the basket.
The first time, he whiffed it and the ball hit one of the extras in the back of the head.
It took another sixteen takes, but the ball eventually went where it was supposed to go.
Sports were dumb.
THE COMMERCIAL was released.
It was huge.
He gained thirty-two Instagram followers because of it. The world was his oyster.
He became extraordinarily successful and went on to become the world’s biggest movie star. He also found love in the arms of an Armenian businessman and started a charity that built shelters for homeless dogs, who were given all the squeaky balls and rawhide bones they could ever want.
And it all happened because of genital herpes, which was the point of this story all along.
Therefore, this is the end.
JUST KIDDING.
That’s not what happened at all.
HERE WAS Josiah Erickson now, three years after having met Starla Worthington while wearing nothing but his underwear and flip-flops, in what could be his greatest role.
The target was sitting at the table in the crowded restaurant. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He only had one chance to make this right. The president was dead. The vice president had been kidnapped. No one was running the government, and the world was descending into chaos. He was undercover, having been thrust into this role after inadvertently witnessing the assassination of the leader of the free world. The girl he loved was in danger (she had been the president’s secretary), and he was going to do what he had to in order to save the day.
Which meant serving the food to the mark.
The mark who could lead him to the shadow organization that had taken everything.
The tray was ready.
He straightened his apron and brushed back his hair.
The presentation was immaculate. He was immaculate. He lifted the tray and plastered a smile on his face.
“Action,” he whispered.
“Cut,” an annoyed voice called.
The lights went up. An alarm blared.
Josiah blinked. “What? What happened? What’s going on?”
A man standing near a row of windows scowled at him. “You said action. Again. For the fourth time. You’re not supposed to say action. I’m supposed to say action. I’m the director.”
“Right,” Josiah said hastily. “My bad. I’m just really excited about working with you. I’ve seen everything you’ve ever done.”
“I’ve directed four commercials,” the man said. “And a music video for a punk band called Writhing Death Maggots of Festering Doom who sang songs about shooting up heroin and having their hearts broken.”
Josiah had no idea who the Writhing Death Maggots of Festering Doom were, nor did he know this director before meeting him literally two hours ago. “Exactly. All that… heroin. They’re so authentic.”
The man (Dave? Keith? Esteban?) snorted. “They’re four white rich kids from Brentwood. I worked for one of their fathers at the time and was forced to do it.”
“I, too, suffer for my art,” Josiah said seriously. “Also, I’ve been thinking about my role. So since the president was assassinated and I’m delivering this blooming onion to the mark who—”
Dave/Keith/Esteban threw up his hands. “This is a commercial. For Applebee’s. The only reason we hired you was because you’re hot and have experience. And also, it was cheaper because this is where you actually work.”
“Thank you,” Josiah said, because he was humble.
“Can you do this?”
He could. “Yes.”
“Without saying action?”
He could. “Yes.”
“Okay. Get back to your mark. We’re going to go again. Places, everyone.”
The director’s minions scurried around him. One came to Josiah and took the tray from him. Another dragged him back to stand on a small piece of blue tape on the carpet.
“How’s my makeup?” Josiah asked her.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Seriously. Don’t piss this guy off any more. He will ruin you for Applebee’s commercials forever. And then where will you be?”
“Working at Applebee’s.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
And since Josiah was nothing but a consummate professional, he stood where he was supposed to and waited for the gaffer to fix the lighting. He told himself to forget the backstory, forget Katrina, the woman he loved who was being held prisoner, forget the goddamn vice president, because he had a job to do. A job that was paying scale, which was barely more than the tips he made but would still allow him to survive in this cutthroat world.
He could do this.
“Annnnd… action.”
He smiled.
He lifted the tray.
He carried it to a smiling interracial lesbian couple with their adopted Russian children (backstory) and said, “Gosh, I hope y’all are ready for a treat. I’ve got your bloomin’ onion right here and ready—”
“Cut.”
The adopted Russian children glared up at him.
“Y’all,” Dave/Keith/Esteban said. “Y’all. Why. Why would you do that?”
“I can do accents,” Josiah said, handing the tray back to the harried assistant. “I am very versatile.”
“This asshole,” one of the adopted Russian children said, sounding very much like she was from the Valley. “Would someone get my agent on the phone? I don’t have time for this. Do any of you know who I am? I was on the Disney Channel. And where the h
ell is my mother? I swear to god, if she’s not here with my grande quad nonfat one pump no-whip mocha in the next four minutes, the ride home is going to be a nightmare for her.” She pushed her way up from the table and shoved Josiah as she stalked away.
“That amount of coffee is bad for your tiny body!” Josiah called after her.
She flipped him off without looking back at him. It was rather intimidating coming from an eight-year-old.
“One more take,” Dave/Keith/Esteban warned. “I will give you one more take. If you don’t do it like you’re supposed to, you’re fired, and I will make sure you never work in this town again. In commercials. For Applebee’s. Do you understand me?”
Loud and clear.
An hour later he had delivered what he thought would go down in history as the most riveting performance of an Applebee’s waiter bringing a meal to an interracial lesbian couple and their adopted Russian children.
When they’d finished, he thought about asking if there was going to be a wrap party, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He still had a ten-hour shift ahead of him.
So the bright lights and the cameras were all gone, leaving behind only Josiah Erickson, standing in his brightly colored uniform, his apron adorned with pins with cheerful legends such as HAPPY HOUR 2-4-1 M-F! and ASK ME ABOUT THE APPETIZERS!
He was very blessed.
(Mostly. His feet hurt. As did his back. And after his shift, he had to go twirl a sign on a street corner while wearing a crown and cape, trying to get people to pull over into the check-cashing place behind him. But still. Blessed.)
Chapter 2
“HOW’D IT go yesterday?” Serge asked as Josiah slumped into his usual chair for Tuesday brunch. Even though it was mid-September, they still lived in Los Angeles, which meant it was hot as balls. He was already sweating through his tank top. The air-conditioning in his car had gone out six months ago, and he hadn’t had the funds to get it fixed. There were more important things than air-conditioning. Like headshots. And facials to keep his pores clear.
“Good,” Josiah said, because he was eternally optimistic. “I didn’t get fired, and they only had to yell at me six or seven times.”
“You’re holding yourself stiffly. Have you not been centering your chakras as I’ve shown you?”
Josiah didn’t… well. He didn’t quite understand the concept of chakras. Oh sure, he knew they were inside him, and if he was thinking of the right place, they were somewhere near his pancreas (whatever that was), but they were important to Serge, so he tried his best to feign as much interest as possible. “Every morning,” he said. “I do the chants and everything.”
Serge frowned as he reached up to rub his designer stubble. His massive eyebrows did a complicated dance as his eyes narrowed, and Josiah wondered if Serge was seeing his chakras right now and would find out he wasn’t doing his morning chants as often as he should. The eight months Serge had spent in India had changed him (as had the three weeks in the hospital where most of his insides had tried to leave to his outsides), and Josiah was convinced that Serge had some sort of mystical powers now. Serge, for his part, never denied it.
“Maybe you should come down to my studio. I have learned a new pose I believe you must try. It is the kala bhairavasana. The Destroyer of the Universe.”
“That sounds….” Terrible. It sounded terrible. “Amazing. And complicated. And potentially life-threatening. I doubt I’d be able to do it, so it’s probably best that we don’t try. Remember what happened the last time you tried to bend me? I accidentally kicked that woman in the face.”
Serge shrugged. “Mrs. Wellington didn’t mind.”
“I gave her a black eye!”
“She’s developed her prana. Pain is but an illusion of the mind. I also gave her three free classes, so she promised not to sue you.”
“Which is awesome, because if she’d taken the twenty-six dollars I have, it would make me sad. I worked hard for it.”
“I can give you a loan if—”
Josiah shook his head. “I don’t want your money. I told Xander the same thing. And Casey, especially when he offered to let me use his house here, even though it’s in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.”
Serge sighed and, for a moment, dropped the Yogi act. “Josy, you know you can—”
“I know. But I don’t want to. It’s not bad. At least not yet. I’m not late on the rent or anything. And I still have my phone, so I can update my followers on every single thing I do. Speaking of which.” He pulled out his phone, grabbed Serge by the back of the neck, and squished their faces together. They smiled perfectly as he snapped the picture. “What filter should I use? I’m thinking something black and white. It’ll show I’m artistic and think deep thoughts about the welfare of the ocean or the lives of sheep farmers in Middle America.”
Serge rolled his eyes. “Instagram is so twelve seconds ago. It’s all about Moi Mir now. It’s Russian, and anyone who is anyone is using it.”
“What? But I don’t speak Russian!”
Serge waved him away. “No one does. It’s, like, a made-up language. Just download the app and try to create an account. It took me seven hours to figure it out, but I already have sixteen thousand followers. They like it when I pose in my yoga pants with my legs over my head.”
“Dammit,” Josiah muttered. “Just when I think I know what I’m doing, the Russians come in and change everything. The world is unnecessarily complicated. I guess I’ll just post this on Instagram for now. Do we still use hashtags, or is that not a thing we do anymore either?”
“If you must. It’s so… retro.”
Right. Retro. “But that will make it cool again. Like when we wore snap bracelets ironically for three days last summer.”
“We are front and center of the cultural revolution,” Serge agreed.
It was hard being so influential all the time. “Hashtag Josy’s modern life. Hashtag Tuesday brunch is the best brunch. Hashtag bearded queers. Hashtag I love Serge. Hashtag Instagays. Annnnd… posted. Now where is Xander, and why don’t I have a mimosa in my hand? I have been sitting here for almost four minutes.”
“There’s a line at the bar,” Serge said. “We may have to relocate again before the masses descend even more. It’s why a large group of people is known as a No Thank You.”
Josy hoped it wouldn’t be too far. They’d already switched their Tuesday brunch places three times in seven months, and each time, it got farther from his apartment. Gas was expensive, and he hated taking the bus. “Maybe we should just stick it out for as long as we can.”
Serge looked horrified. “We’re hipsters. We’re fickle creatures. Nothing we do is supposed to be predictable. Or make sense. It’s our job to keep everyone guessing.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Josy mumbled, sinking lower in his seat. He slid his mirror shades off the top of his head down to his eyes. He sighed in relief as he stretched his legs. It felt good to be off his feet for once.
Xander appeared a few minutes later, carrying three champagne glasses. He looked like he’d gained at least three pounds of muscle since Josy had seen him on Saturday. The colorful tattoos up and down his arms were bright in the sunlight. “Saw your selfie on Instagram. About time you got here. And no one posts on Instagram anymore. It’s all about—”
“Russia,” Josy muttered. “I know. Serge told me. I don’t know why you guys couldn’t send a Snap to let me know. I probably look ridiculous now.”
“You’re wearing socks with pumpkins on them. In public.”
Josy didn’t know what that had to do with anything. “I love them.”
“Don’t stifle his creativity,” Serge said. “You know he likes to express himself through socks.”
“It’s for Halloween,” Josy said, turning his head as Xander bent down and kissed him on the cheek.
“It’s September,” Xander reminded him as he sat down in the empty chair.
“Close enough. Also, I won tickets on the radio on my way over. Whose turn is
it to go with me?”
“Again?” Xander asked, sounding aghast. “How the hell do you do that?”
Josy shrugged. “I dunno, man. Just something I’m good at, I guess. You know how I get when I smoke a bowl. Like, philosophical and shit.”
“That’s not—” Xander sighed. “What was the question?”
“Thirty percent of adults have this stolen from them at work.”
“Tape,” Serge said.
“Nope.”
“Yogurt,” Xander said.
“Nope. God, you guys suck at this. The answer is ideas. Thirty percent of adults have their ideas stolen at work.”
Xander and Serge stared at him.
Josy shrugged. “I’ve never had that happen to me. Most times whenever I have ideas, I’m told to stop it and stick to the script.” He cocked his head. “They tell me that at Applebee’s too. I don’t know why.”
“How… sad.” Xander took a drink of his mimosa. “What are the tickets for?”
This wasn’t going to go over well. But if Josy could stand on the sidewalk and twirl a sign to convince people to cash their checks and possibly take out a loan while they were at it, he could do anything. “A poetry slam.”
“Oh no,” Serge said. “Of all the luck. I already have plans.”
“I didn’t even tell you when it is yet!”
“I know. But I guarantee I’m already going to have plans.”
He looked at Xander.
“No.”
“Oh, come on! You know I have to go!”
“You don’t.”
“I do. If I don’t, then my luck will run out and I won’t win anything ever again! Everyone knows when you win a prize on the radio, you have to go to whatever it is that you’ve won, even if you’d rather scratch your eyes out instead. It’s the law of averages.”
“That’s not what any of that means,” Xander told him.
“Regardless, I have to go. What if I don’t, and then the next time, it’s not radio trivia but a movie role that will allow me to pose on a movie poster with a big gun while something explodes behind me? Josiah Erickson is… Johnny Destruction. You know it’s my dream to be photoshopped onto a movie poster with an explosion behind me. Why would you want to take that away from me?”