Stranger Than Fanfiction

by Chris Colfer

  “I agree,” the retired athlete said. “Personally, I’ve been dehydrated many times over my career. The way Mr. Carter was dancing just before losing consciousness is not how someone would be acting if they just needed water. He’s been juiced up with the wrong flavor of sauce, as we used to say on the field. I’ll be interested to see if this affects viewership for his show when it returns in the fall. I imagine he’s disappointed a lot of fans.”

  “You see, I disagree with all of you,” the comedian said, and swiveled her head. “I did a lot of drugs back in my day and I know how thirsty it can make you. I believe the statement his reps released—I just think they left off a couple details.”

  The Panel’s studio audience roared with laughter. A stagehand ran onto the set, handed the comedian a cue card, and then hurried off camera.

  “Well, it seems things are only about to get worse for the Wiz Kids star,” she said as she looked over the cue card. “According to news that broke during our last commercial break, sources close to the show say the actor didn’t show up for work today. Stunt training for season ten of Wiz Kids began this morning, but Cash Carter was nowhere to be found.”

  The studio audience booed and hissed. The trophy wife fanned invisible tears forming in her eyes.

  “I just don’t understand why he’s doing all this,” she said. “As a parent, it leads to some very uncomfortable conversations when your children see their heroes acting so poorly. The world has been watching Cash Carter since he was just twelve years old—this is not the Dr. Bumfuzzle we all know and love.”

  “But isn’t that the real problem?” the corporate tycoon asked. “I’ve never seen the show but even I recognize him as that character. And when you’re that recognizable from something, it can damage an actor’s longevity. I’m going to be frank—the kid’s probably never going to work again after Wiz Kids is over. I bet he’s starting to realize that and that’s what’s at the core of this bad behavior. It’s got to be a tough pill to swallow knowing you’ll spend the rest of your career at conventions, especially when his lesser-known costars are booking jobs like Moth-Man.”

  The audience agreed with her analysis and applauded.

  “Well, we want to hear what our viewers think,” the retired athlete said directly into the camera. “Is Cash Carter the next Bieber, Britney, or Bynes? Is this a breakdown, a meltdown, or just a letdown? How many strikes does he have left before he should be taken out of the game? Go to thepanel.com to share your thoughts and enter to win a prize vacation to Puerto Rico, courtesy of American Airlines. We’ll be right back after this.”

  The Panel went to a commercial break, ending the hypnotic trance the program had placed over Topher, Joey, Sam, and Mo. As much as it infuriated them to watch, they couldn’t take their eyes off it. They all turned to Cash with the deepest sympathy on their faces, but once again they were more affected than the actor himself. Cash just let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his eyes, as if he had been assigned homework instead of criticized on national television.

  “I’ve been avoiding reality for long enough,” he said. “You guys go to dinner without me. I have to go back to the hotel and make some calls before this thing gets any bigger.”

  Cash headed out of the gift shop but Topher was compelled to ask him something before he left.

  “Hey, Cash?” he said. “It’s not true, is it? Are you really missing work to be on this trip with us?”

  The actor paused for a moment before responding, which wasn’t reassuring.

  “Of course not,” he said. “It’s all a bunch of bullshit to keep the story going. I’ll see you guys tomorrow morning.”

  Cash exited through the gift shop and walked across Old Town, Amarillo, to the Teepee Inn at the end of the street. The others searched the area for a Tex-Mex restaurant and found one nearby called the Armadillo Kitchen. They ordered a mountain of guacamole and entrees drenched in cheese, but they barely spoke to one another during the meal. They were on their phones checking the Wiz Kids blogs and fan forums. Unfortunately, the latest gossip about Cash was all the rage in the Wizzer universe, too.

  “I’m amazed this story is still going,” Sam said. “It’s one thing to have all the Wizzers focused on Cash—but the whole world is talking about how he didn’t show up for work today! Is there really nothing else going on?”

  “And people are actually believing this crap,” Mo said. “A tabloid in the UK called The Beast said Cash missed work because he’s in hiding from a Russian drug lord he owes money to—and now a Wizzer in Florida has started a GoFundMe page to help him pay it off!”

  Joey shrugged. “We’ve fallen for some pretty stupid things written about Cash before. Remember that rumor about him leaving Wiz Kids to join NASA’s mission to Mars? We obsessed over that and it wasn’t even from a reliable source. Who knows what we’d believe right now if we weren’t actually with the dude.”

  Topher clicked off his phone and sat back in his chair. A strong suspicion had been eating at him for a while, but until now there’d been no real reason to voice it to the group.

  “Are we sure Cash is being honest with us?” he asked.

  “Yeah, to a fault,” Mo said.

  Sam and Joey nodded in agreement, but they weren’t getting Topher’s point.

  “I know we want to defend and protect Cash because we’ve had a lot of fun with him, but do we have any proof that the media isn’t right about him?” he asked. “What if he was on drugs that night at the concert? What if those pills he’s always taking aren’t for his sinuses? What if joining our road trip is just part of this big breakdown he’s having? Maybe he’s always stretching the truth to cover up the truth?”

  From the concerned looks on his friends’ faces, Topher could tell it had crossed their minds, too, but just like him, no one wanted to doubt the actor just yet.

  “Topher, you read too many John Grisham books,” Joey said. “I think Cash was getting some bad press in Los Angeles and wanted to clear his head, so he took the first opportunity he got to get away. Unfortunately, the whole thing has totally backfired on him. Sure, he drinks like a fish, probably smokes like a chimney, and he isn’t careful about mixing them both with medication, but I think we’d know it if he was mentally unbalanced or an addict of some kind.”

  “I agree,” Mo said. “With all the other shit that comes out of his mouth, I doubt he’d be able to keep some deep dark secret from us. On the contrary, I bet he’d love bringing it up just to see the terror in our eyes—he seems to get off on that.”

  They all laughed but Topher felt guilty for bringing it up and went quiet.

  “I get what you’re saying, Topher,” Sam said. “But remember what you said at McCarthy’s? About letting Cash be human because he rarely gets a chance? Well, you were right. He let his human side show too much and now the whole world is painting him as some kind of scoundrel. So the least we can do is give him the benefit of the doubt. No one else seems to be.”

  Topher smiled sweetly at him. Only Sam could tell Topher he was wrong about something but make him feel good about it at the same time. In fact, Sam was the only person in the world who made Topher feel a lot of unique feelings—and the longer he smiled at him, the stronger Topher felt them.

  “I can’t even with Kylie Trig right now,” Mo said, and dramatically put her phone away.

  “What’d she do now?” Joey asked.

  “Apparently she’s trying to organize a Wizzer protest to march outside Cash’s house in Los Angeles,” Mo said. “She thinks it’ll persuade him to go back to work. I couldn’t bring myself to watch her newest video. Can we please change the subject? Let’s talk about anything else!”

  “I really enjoyed the museum today,” Sam said.

  “Oh yeah, it was awesome,” Joey said. “Such an incredible story.”

  “I know, right?” Mo said. “It was like something straight off the pages of my fanfiction. Could you imagine loving someone so much you’d be willing to die for them? Be still
my heart!”

  “I’m beginning to,” Topher said.

  Although Sam purposely didn’t look up at him, he could feel Topher’s telling gaze aimed in his direction. As if Topher’s eyes lit a fuse inside him, a powerful surge of guilt exploded in Sam’s core. It burned so strongly he worried it would give him an ulcer if he didn’t do something. Sam couldn’t keep the truth from Topher any longer. The next moment they were alone, he was going to tell him—and since there was no way of knowing how Topher would react, Sam dreaded the moment like an approaching plague.

  Later at the Teepee Inn, Sam couldn’t sleep a wink with the looming confession on his mind. At midnight, he decided to go for a walk and clear his head. He gathered his things and quietly snuck out of teepee number 3 without waking his friends.

  Old Town, Amarillo, was completely deserted this late at night. Sam kept a watchful eye for anyone or anything lurking in the shadows, but he was completely alone with his thoughts. He wandered up and down the street for a couple of hours, but the Old Western part of town didn’t offer any new solutions.

  Sam had a seat on a bench just outside the Bundy and Claire Jailhouse Museum and hoped the ghost of Claire Carmichael might show up and give him advice on how to escape his own troublesome situation.

  “Hey, Captain Janeway!”

  Sam jumped at the unexpected voice. It echoed through the vacant street but he couldn’t find a source anywhere.

  “Up here!”

  He looked up and saw Cash sitting on the roof of the jailhouse museum. The actor held an open bottle of Johnnie Walker Black in one hand and sipped from a Dixie cup he held in the other. He had a crooked smile and glossy eyes, obviously intoxicated. Sam could smell the whiskey on Cash’s breath from where he sat.

  “What the hell are you doing up there?” he asked.

  “Gettin’ krunk.” Cash laughed. “You couldn’t sleep, either?”

  “I’ve got a lot of college stuff on my mind,” Sam lied. “Nothing like what you’re dealing with, though. It’s no mystery why you’re still up.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a fist-fuck of a day,” Cash said. “That and my teepee smelled like cat piss and mistakes. Want to come up and join me? No point in being insomniacs by ourselves.”

  Sam shrugged—he didn’t have anything better to do.

  “How do I get up there?”

  “There’s a ladder in the back next to the trash cans,” Cash said.

  Sam found the ladder and climbed onto the roof. The view wasn’t much different from the bench below but they could see some of the lights from downtown Amarillo and the neighborhoods in the distance.

  “Care for a drink?” Cash asked.

  Sam’s initial instinct was to deny the offer, but given his current state of mind, he thought he could use one.

  “I’ve never had a drink before,” Sam said. “Will it help me sleep?”

  “Like mother’s milk,” Cash said.

  The actor poured whiskey into another Dixie cup for Sam and topped off his own. Cash threw his head back and drank his in one gulp and Sam copied him. Once it was swallowed, Sam coughed and gagged as if the actor had poisoned him.

  “That tastes like battery acid!” Sam gasped. “How do you drink this stuff?”

  “It burns at first but then numbs everything else,” Cash said. “And I could use a little numbing after today.”

  The actor refilled their cups and they each took another shot. The second one was easier than the first, but still very unpleasant. Sam felt his cheeks getting warm and his mind started to slow down like he had taken too much cold medicine—it was a nice change. Also, words began spilling out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about them.

  “I’m sorry the world won’t leave you alone,” Sam said. “It’s just cruel for everyone to analyze you like they are. It’s like everyone forgets you’re a human being because you’re on a television show.”

  “I’m used to it,” Cash said. “You lose the right to humanity when you become famous. It’s just the way it is, but I’m not going to whine about it. It’s similar to how people treated monarchy back in the olden days; it’s all fun and games until a revolution comes, then they want your head. This week it’s my turn to be Marie-Antoinette, next week it’ll be someone else’s.”

  “But that doesn’t make it right,” Sam insisted. “And for the record, I don’t care what the women of The Panel say. You’re absolutely going to work again. Any director or studio would be lucky to have someone as talented and popular as you in a project. It’s ridiculous for anyone to think otherwise.”

  “Oh no, they’re right about that.” Cash laughed. “But it wasn’t a recent revelation—I’ve known that since season two. I’ll never forget the time a director wouldn’t let me audition for his reboot of Beverly Hills Chihuahua. If that’s not humbling, I don’t know what is. It doesn’t bother me, though. I mean, c’est la vie, right?”

  The actor took a chug straight from the whiskey bottle and stared out at the city lights ahead. Sam didn’t understand how he could be so carefree about it.

  “What does bother you, then?” he asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but if the world was saying or thinking half the same things about me, I’d be a wreck.”

  Cash had to think about it and nodded when the answer came to him.

  “I suppose being compared to something that isn’t real is what bothers me the most,” the actor said. “It’s a real mind fuck when you’re held to fictional standards. People have thought of me as a quantum physics expert since I was twelve, and every time I prove I’m not, they act like I’m doing something wrong—like I’m offending them by stepping outside the parameters of the character I play on TV. Does that make sense?”

  Sam nodded, too. It resonated with him a lot more than Cash would ever have thought it could.

  “I think so,” Sam said. “Because they’ve seen you doing it for so long, they don’t realize how much of a performance it is. So anytime they’re reminded it isn’t real—it’s a betrayal or an attack on something they love.”

  “Right,” Cash said. “People get addicted to the fantasy you provide them, and then they turn on you the second you can’t give it to them anymore. You know, if I were a rock star, no one would be talking about me right now. The only reason it’s making such a splash is because my behavior is so unlike Dr. Bumfuzzle’s. You get what I’m saying?”

  “Completely,” Sam said softly. “People give you the wrong expectations and then blame you when you can’t meet them. It’s your fault for not being the person they want you to be. You’re the freak. You’re the monster. When in reality, you’re just trying to be… yourself.”

  He couldn’t tell if it was the whiskey or the conversation, but Sam was becoming emotional. He looked toward the city lights to hide his glistening eyes.

  Cash was shocked by how much Sam understood. “Exactly,” he said. “Truthfully, that’s been the hardest part about being on Wiz Kids. Nothing is worse than having the whole world think you’re something that you’re not. It’s lonely, it’s frustrating, and more painful than anyone could ever—”

  Sam suddenly burst into tears like a broken sprinkler system. They poured down his face so forcefully he couldn’t keep up with wiping them away. He sobbed so hard he could barely catch his breath and made little yelping noises like a small dog. The emotional release took Cash completely by surprise and he stared at Sam like he was a vase he had accidentally knocked over in his drunken state.

  “Um… what’s the matter, Sam?” Cash asked.

  “Nothing!” Sam sniffled. “I’ll be f-f-f-f-fine!”

  “Was it something I said?”

  “N-n-n-no,” Sam cried. “I just understand m-m-m-more than you know.”

  Sam used his whole shirt to wipe away his tears, but they kept coming.

  “Do you wanna talk about it?” Cash asked.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’m not ready to talk to someone about it yet.”

  “Lucky for
you I’m not a person—I’m a celebrity, remember?” Cash joked but it didn’t help. “No offense, but you should probably get it off your chest before you flood the city. It’ll feel better if you just let it out.”

  As if he’d been struck by emotional food poisoning, Sam couldn’t hold the secret inside any longer.

  “I’m transgender!” Sam declared. “I know what it’s like to have everyone treat you like something you’re not because people have been doing it to me my whole life. I’ve never met someone who could relate—but it’s like everything you just said! We’re both trapped! We’re both prisoners of unfair expectations!”

  The confession took Cash a moment to process. He had thought it would be about affording college, trouble with his friends, or something to do with his mother—but he never expected Sam’s dilemma would be so personal. The actor looked around the roof to see if there was someone more qualified to handle the situation, but he was all Sam had.

  “Wow,” Cash said. “I just thought you were rocking an Anne Hathaway look. Are you positive you’re transgender?”

  “Of course I’m positive,” Sam said. “It’s not something someone says just for the hell of it—I’ve never once identified with being female. Every time I see myself in the mirror or in a photograph, I feel like I’m looking at someone else. I know I’m trans like I know we’re breaking several state laws by drinking on this roof.”

  “Have you talked to anyone else about this?” Cash asked

  “I went to a psychologist in Downers Grove,” Sam said. “He basically told me I was mentally ill. Other than him, you’re the only person I’ve ever told.”

  “Well, it’s hard for some people to understand—”

  “But it shouldn’t be!” Sam said. “I have the heart and mind of a man, and I want the rest to match—it’s that simple.”

  “So you haven’t told your friends or family?” Cash asked.