by C.M. Lanning
Chapter 3: Time to Let it Go
The driver’s mind drifted. It’d been at least 20 hours since he’d last slept, and it was starting to wear on him.
As Starla coasted between Earth and Phobos, a moon of Mars, he began to to wonder about his next clients. They claimed to be a couple of actors over his earpiece, but the driver was always cynical of people’s claims.
He’d driven far too many bad people to operate under the One Galaxy Republic’s justice system of “innocent until proven guilty.”
That was something they’d picked up from an old country on Earth before national borders were erased.
In the driver’s mind, everyone was guilty until proven innocent. Even little girls who sold cookies could possibly be guilty of swindling people out of hard-earned money. And as someone who didn’t make or have much money, he got tired of that real quick.
The driver turned up Starla’s heat a notch and looked at the yellow beams of Intergalactic Road 26 in front of him.
“Come on, man. Don’t stare at those beams or you won’t ever stop looking at them,” the driver told himself.
He knew if he stared at the yellow light under Starla, he’d fall into its hypnotic gaze and want to sleep all the more. This was his last run of the day. He couldn’t take any more.
“I swear, if I didn’t have tomorrow off, I’d kill that bastard of a boss,” the driver muttered.
As Phobos came into view, the driver remembered his clients’ claim to be actors. He realized that may have been the case as Phobos was nothing more than a giant movie set. It contained small patches of environments used for movies.
Hollywood had paid to have the ugly thing terraformed just so movies and television shows could be filmed there. There was a small forest, a two-mile wide lake, a jungle, a desert, and even a mountain. Somehow, they fit all that and a hotel for the celebrities to stay in on the small moon that had dimensions measured in just a few kilometers.
Starla entered Phobos, and the driver noticed the forest underneath him. The lake was visible not long after going over the forest.
At the end of the desert was the hotel. The 50 story gray building was a magnificent piece of work. . . and it’d have to be to contain a shopping mall, bowling alley, archery range, swimming pool, movie theater, and more.
“Son of a bitch,” the driver said, pulling under the large overhang in front of the hotel. Two massive glass doors slid open as the two men he guessed were his clients walked toward the taxi with duffle bags.
Following behind them was a heavy-set balding man, and he was yelling pretty loud. He was wearing a black suit and red tie, and his arms were flailing about as if independent from his body.
The two men walking in front toward the cab were ignoring the balding man’s yelling. When they got to the cab one tapped on Starla’s trunk.
The driver hit a small red button to the left under the steering wheel, and a hiss was sound as hydraulics came to life and the trunk opened.
One of the driver’s clients was taller than the other and a little lankier. He had long wavy brown hair that covered his ears but didn’t go below his shoulders. The other client was a little shorter but built like a brick outhouse. His hair wasn’t buzzed, but it was shorter and spikey.
The balding man was yelling more, “You can’t leave yet! We still have five scenes left to shoot before the end of the week!”
“We’ll see you when we feel like it. Until then, screw off,” the client with short hair said, opening the back passenger door and getting into Starla.
He slammed the door angrily, and the taller client threw up his arms at the balding guy and said, “Look. Just give us a day or two to chill. Don snapped, and I can’t guarantee I won’t do the same if I don’t get off this rock. Let me talk to him, and I’ll see what I can do, but until then, you have to give us our space.”
Gritting his teeth, the balding man was silent as the client with longer hair closed Starla’s door. He was much more calm than Don.
“Okay driver, haul ass to New York City,” Don said, leaning back in his seat.
The driver turned around to look at his clients. Don was wearing a brown jacket over a white t-shirt. He was wearing a pair of expensive jeans and a pair of costly brown boots to go with the shirt.
The other client looked at the driver with a glance that said, “You’ll have to forgive my partner here.”
He was wearing a blue button-down shirt over a green t-shirt and khakis.
“Am I taking you both to New York City?”
“Yes please,” the other client said.
“Sammy, you gonna crash at my place? Maybe we can have a sleepover and braid each other’s hair. Oh! And we can talk about who Bobbie is going to take to the prom!”
“Shut up, Don. I’m only going with you to get you back here in a couple days,” Sammy said.
“I am not coming back for the next two weeks at least,” Don said, closing his eyes.
“I’m going to give you two days before I drag your ass back by force,” Sammy said.
“Bring it, idiot,” Don said.
“Moron,” Sammy muttered.
As Starla began to head back toward Earth, the driver recognized the two men sitting in his back seat, and he didn’t know why it took so long for him to.
They played brothers on a television drama called “Pieces.” The two weren’t related in real life, but they might as well had been. They bickered like brothers, and they’d had plenty of time to get that routine down. They’d played the same characters for 19 years.
Who’d have thought I’d have Detective Garth Lewis and his partner Cas in the back of my taxi, the driver thought, smiling.
He was a few seasons behind, but he did enjoy watching “Pieces” in his spare time.
As Starla took the three men back toward the Earth, the actors began to discuss how long they’d be gone. Don kept trying to negotiate, but Sammy wasn’t budging from two days.
When a frustrated silence fell over the two, Don leaned forward and asked, “So. . . do you know who we are?”
“I do. . . Detective Garth,” the driver said, smirking.
“I knew it. . . I can always sense a fan,” Don said.
Sammy asked, “You watch the show?”
“Yeah. . . I mean I am a little behind. It has been a few months since I watched an episode, but I think I left off where Cas’ second wife was killed,” the driver said.
“Poor Meg,” Don said, chuckling.
The three discussed the show as they drove back toward Earth, and then Sammy asked a question the driver didn’t feel comfortable answering.
“So. . . do you still like the show?”
Don turned to look at Sammy, and the driver could sense tension building. This clearly wasn’t a question Don wanted asked.
That said, the driver was beyond tired, and he didn’t shy away from telling the truth even when he was fully rested.
“I still consider it entertaining,” the driver said.
Don smiled, leaning back in his seat again. Sammy wasn’t quite done with his questions, though. He said, “But. . .?”
Don scowled and looked at his coworker.
“But. . . I do find myself wondering when you two will end it,” the driver confessed.
“Oh Lord. . . why did you have to say that? Geez, Sammy,” Don said.
He put his hand over his eyes and sighed. He looked like he had been punched in the gut 20 times. This was clearly a subject Sammy wanted to be on, but Don could not have wanted to be any farther away.
“I’d like to end it with this season. We have a good wrap up, and I think it might be time to move on,” Sammy said.
“Sammy! We have been over this! We are not leaving the show. We have a great thing going here. Why do you want to wreck that?”
“Don. . . I wanna go out while we’ve got a good thing going. I told you this on Wednesday. Why haven’t you processed it yet?”
“Because you’re talking nonsense. I’ve got nothing to process. You and I are renewing our contracts when we get back, and they’ll carry us into season 21,” Don said, still scowling.
“And then what, Don?”
“What do you mean and then what? Then we negotiate for more episodes like we have for the past 19 seasons,” Don said.
The two continued to bicker about what they wanted to do, and the driver sensed a silence coming up. He figured Sammy would drag him back into their argument, and he didn’t want to get involved. He didn’t have the energy.
He reached down to his left between the seat and door and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He’d gone through the first half of the pack on the way to Mars, and he’d probably finish before he got home.
“Oh, hey. Could you not smoke please? I’ve got asthma,” Don said.
Or maybe I won’t finish these before I get home, the driver thought, grumpily putting the pack back.
“You don’t want the show to end though, right?”
Don wasn’t the driver’s favorite person right now, so the driver answered his question candidly.
“I think the show should have ended when the first director envisioned it to. . . at the close of season five,” the driver said.
Don scoffed.
“Oh. . . you’re one of those fans,” he said.
Sammy punched him in the shoulder and said, “You asked him, remember?”
“Shut up. . . I don’t want to talk to you. You want to ruin what we have going.”
“Don. . . come on. I’m tired of arguing with you. We’ve been the same characters since we were 17 years old. Don’t you think it’s time to give something else a try?”
He looked down and refused to make eye contact with Sammy.
These guys are in their 30s. . . they’ve spent the majority of their lives as these characters. I don’t blame Don for not wanting to leave his comfort zone, the driver thought.
“Come on. . . even you were saying you’d like to try movies. You can’t do that if you’re Detective Garth every year,” Sammy said.
The space between the actors was practically nonexistent as Earth came into view.
“I know you didn’t ask, but my two cents are. . . you finish this last season. You go out with a bang, and then you two can move on to other projects,” the driver said, chiming in.
Don looked over at Sammy and said, “You think the fans feel the same way?”
“I think we’ve worried about the fans for 19 years. It’s time to think a little bit about what we want,” Sammy said.
Starla’s engine was the only thing heard for a few minutes until Don said, “Take us back.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take us back. I think we have a painful conversation to have with our director,” Don said.
“You got it,” the driver said, changing directions in Earth’s atmosphere and heading back to Phobos.
Sammy put his hand on Don’s shoulder and said, “Thanks.”
“Shut up, idiot.”
“You shut up. . . moron.”
The driver sighed. He realized now that by convincing these two actors to move on with their lives, he’d added more time to his shift and delayed his own moving on. . . to bed.
“You’re both assholes,” the driver muttered.