by Jeff Zentner
“I know I say this every time, and you’d think I’d be used to it by now, but this movie really is garbage,” Josie says, catching a piece of kettle corn before it can fall down her shirt.
“I warned you,” I say, picking up the remote and pausing our ancient VCR.
“I mean, it is upsettingly bad.”
“Isn’t it amazing that we live in a time when we have access to crappy art?”
“Like?”
“Like think how you’ve never seen a horrendous Renaissance painting. Not every artist in the Renaissance was Michelangelo, right?”
“Ah. True.”
“There must have been some Renaissance painters that were disasters. Where are their paintings?” I shift position on the couch.
“They probably got burned for firewood or something.”
“I wish there was a museum of crappy Renaissance art. I would totally go.”
“The little placards would be all ‘Please note Rigatoni’s—’ ”
I giggle and spray kettle corn shrapnel. “Rigatoni? He’s both a dismal painter and literally named after pasta?”
“No, rigatoni pasta is named after him. He had to invent rigatoni because his paintings sucked. His pasta was his true masterpiece.”
“It is good pasta. You were saying?”
“ ‘Please note Rigatoni’s rendering of the human form…or at least we’re pretty sure that’s the human form. It could also be a shaved dog walking around on its hind legs. Who honestly knows?’ ”
I start the video again, and we watch for a while. I cover a yawn, hit pause, and lean forward over the coffee table to type on my laptop. “We should do a segment where our voices and lips don’t match up, like in the movie.”
“It’ll require Arliss to do some work, but I’m into it.”
“He can offset the audio recording for that part. Should be easy. And we’ll make it up to him by cutting his Professor Von Hein—” Another yawn.
“You get any sleep last night?”
“Maybe an hour and a half uninterrupted.”
“Thinking about your dad situation?” Josie gets up to take the kettle corn bowl to the kitchen.
“Dump that in the sink,” I call after her.
“If I leave it, it’ll be there the next time I come over.” She runs water in the bowl and starts scrubbing.
She’s not wrong. “Yeah. Mostly the dad situation.”
“That sucks.”
“What makes it even worse is it’s sent my mom spiraling. She went off her meds at some point, and she’s been doing bad lately. I had to literally drag her out of bed this morning before I went to work.”
“Dude.” Josie comes back in the living room and sits cross-legged on the couch next to me.
“Yeah. Super fun trying to haul someone who won’t talk to you out of bed.”
“She needs to get back on her meds.”
“Well, yeah. But she’s seriously the worst sometimes.”
We stare at the paused TV screen for a moment before Josie picks up the remote with a long sigh. “Might as well get this janky-ass—”
I put my hand on the remote. “Hang on.” I knew I wanted to talk to Josie about this at some point tonight, but I’m taking even myself by surprise. Sleep deprivation. “I really think we need to go to ShiverCon. If we can get something going with Jack Divine, it could take us places.”
“I forgot to tell you. We’re going to Atlanta to visit my aunt that weekend.”
“JoJo. This is, like, an amazing opportunity.”
“DeeDee, visiting Cassie gives me life. You haven’t experienced joy until you’ve stayed up all night bingeing Scandal, eating espresso gelato, and talking smack with my aunt.”
“I know, but listen.”
“I’m listening. What?”
“Your aunt will always be there. We have one chance to meet Jack Divine.”
“I know I’ll have a good time with Cassie. We have no idea if Jack Divine will even give us the time of day.”
“If he doesn’t, he doesn’t, but at least we tried. And if we don’t try, the show keeps plugging along pretty much how it is. And if the show keeps going how it is, you’re—” I can’t finish the thought. I don’t want to say it out loud. I might give the universe ideas.
“I’m what?”
“I don’t know. You’re going to keep getting pressure from your parents to go to UT Knoxville.” I hesitate and then mutter, “You’re gonna go.”
“I told you yesterday. I’m going to UT Martin. I’ll keep doing the show. That’s my plan.”
She says it emphatically, but somehow it doesn’t reassure me. It feels like she’s gripping tight to a slick bar of soap that could suddenly shoot from her hand.
“And what if our show doesn’t take off?” I ask. “Sooner or later you’ll have to move on if you want a career in TV.”
“We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, a nervous habit when I’m stressed. “I want to cross the bridge now. Riding on Jack Divine’s back.” My voice has taken on an urgent pitch. I know I sound desperate, and that’s never good when you want something, but it’s hard to hide the desperation.
“DeeDee.”
“JoJo. Plus, I’ve heard there are lots of creepy dudes at cons, and I don’t want to be alone.”
I try to project calm confidence as I don’t want this to seem like as quixotic a mission as it is. I’m not sure I’m succeeding.
But still, Josie says, “Okay. I’ll talk to my parents.”
“I know you’re reluctant.”
“I’ll drive down and visit her another time. But you’re coming when I do because my dad will hate it if I go alone.”
“Deal.”
We stare at each other for a second. Josie wordlessly reaches behind her, grabs a sofa pillow, and bops me in the face with it. I silently sit there and take it. We laugh.
Josie unpauses the movie. “The werewolf in this movie truly does sound like he’s humping people to death.”
“I think it’s kinda hot.”
“Part of me wants to explore that further, but I’m really afraid of what I’ll find.”
As we watch, I start thinking about my dad. I wonder what he’s doing while I’m watching one of the artifacts of our short life together. I think how someday, I want to be good enough—enough enough—that no one who’s held me in their arms under an October night sky ever wants to abandon me.
The end credits roll.
Josie turns to me and says, “Do you think cave people let their cave kids draw garbage drawings on the walls of the cave?”
“Arliss seems to be in a way better mood than usual,” I whisper to Delia.
On set, Arliss, dressed as Professor Von Heineken (he voluntarily did it for this segment, another rare wonder), stands braced, holding a wooden board in both hands, the camera rolling behind him. Lawson, dressed in his Tae Kwon Do outfit (he told me what it’s called but I forgot) and a skeleton mask, does a spin kick and breaks the board cleanly in half. Arliss whoops.
“All this time, the key to his heart was people breaking stuff with kicks,” Delia says.
“Okay,” Arliss says to Lawson as they set up several boards between cinder blocks. “When you break the boards, look right into the camera and yell, and I’m going to do a tight zoom, like in an old martial arts movie.”
“You gotta keep working it with Lawson,” Delia whispers. “He makes the show more interesting, and he transforms Arliss into less of a dickhead.”
“By the way, did you notice how Lawson was dressed when he arrived tonight?” I ask.
“Kind of. I thought he was trying to look cool for the show.”
“No! Because why do that if he knew he was going to wear his Tae Kwon Do
outfit?”
“Excellent point.”
“Remember how he dressed last time?”
“Vaguely. Didn’t he sort of dress like a basic dude?”
“Exactly, which is why you can’t even remember. Like he buys everything from American Eagle or whatever. So this time—”
Delia giggles. “He’s wearing these obviously brand-new black skinny jeans and black Vans and—”
“A black leather cuff.”
“You’re right. He’s totally—”
“Shhhhhhh!”
Delia lowers her voice. “He’s totally dressing to impress you.”
“Isn’t it so funny?”
“It’s adorable.”
“Like what if he was wearing a spanking new fedora from Target too?”
“The leather cuff is the fedora of the wrist.”
“You should tell him where you got your stinky vinyl pants,” I say. “He might be in the market.”
We crack up as silently as we can, hands over our mouths, clutching at each other. I bury my face in Delia’s arm. Arliss and Lawson are too busy to notice. At least I hope so. Lawson’s been throwing bashful little sidelong glances in my direction all night.
“Quiet on set!” Arliss hollers, briefly back to his old self. “Shut your asses.”
But this just makes us cackle harder, so we run outside, sit on the back steps, and laugh loud and long, the sticky humidity taking only minutes to make our vampire garb cling to our backs like leaves on wet pavement. At some point, we’re not even laughing at the original thing anymore; we’re laughing at how much we’re laughing.
“He is in luhhhhhve,” Delia says.
“We should go back in,” I say, wiping tears.
“It’s pretty cute how much he wants to French you.”
“Delia! Ew!”
“By the way, did you ask your parents about going to ShiverCon?” Delia’s tone goes abruptly from teasing to anxious.
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m going to. Chill.”
“Okay, you gotta do it soon.”
“I will.”
“Promise.”
“I just said I would.” Then after a pause, “I meant to tell you, your pants smell better. I mean, not better, but, you know, less bad. They didn’t make my car stink this time.”
Delia pulls her knee to her nose and takes a long sniff. “Yeah, I think the fumes needed to evaporate, maybe.”
“Or they’ve killed off our smell buds or whatever’s in your nose.”
“I’m going to email Jack Divine and try to start a dialogue.”
“Start a dialogue?”
“I don’t know! Start the ball rolling. How’s that?”
“ ‘Dialogue’ sounds smarter. What are you gonna say?”
“I gotta track down his email first.”
“Then what are you going to tell him?”
“Haven’t gotten that far yet. Maybe send him some clips.”
“Plan it out, so you don’t ramble.”
“I don’t ramble. Rude.” But Delia gives that lopsided smile she reserves for when she knows she’s been justifiably roasted.
“No, when you get nervous, you do.”
“I’m going to tell him we want to meet him at ShiverCon and discuss possible next steps.”
“Just be normal. Don’t be weird and businessy.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t use phrases like ‘synergy’ and ‘step up to the plate.’ ”
“I don’t even know what synergy is.”
“And don’t tell him ‘we’ until I know for sure if I’m coming.”
“Then ask.”
We hear Arliss bellowing. We spring to our feet and run inside. He’s counting down from some number, and he’s on four. I assume when he gets to zero, he’s walking away whether the show is finished or not.
* * *
•••
“Well, folks, that’s it for another episode of Midnite Matinee. We hope you dug the movie!” Delia says.
“And thanks to our special guest, uh…” I suddenly realize we forgot to give Lawson a stage name.
Delia jumps in. “Kickin’ Kenny.”
“Kickin’ Kenny! I doubt we’d have come up with anything better even if we’d thought about it. And don’t forget to tune in next week for more chills…”
“And thrills!”
We smile, wave, and then wait until Arliss yells, “Cut.” Lawson stands behind Arliss, beaming. He has apparently pleased Arliss enough not to be kicked out the minute he’s done with his scene.
We start taking down the set.
“How’d it look tonight?” I ask Arliss as he approaches, winding up a microphone cable.
He draws in a breath and belches, “Real,” then draws in another breath and belches, “Bad.”
“Well, thanks for that,” I say.
Lawson, still wearing his Tae Kwon Do getup but with his new Vans, starts helping Delia unpin the spiderweb.
“Good job,” Delia says to Lawson. “We might need to make you a regular.”
“We’ll reimburse your board costs,” I say.
“Oh, it’s no big deal. They’re cheap.”
“Good, because I was kidding.”
Delia tosses the candelabra and plastic skull in a bin and clamps down the lid. “Lemme see your keys, JoJo.”
I hand her my keys and she walks outside, lugging the bin.
Arliss finishes fiddling with the camera. “I gotta take a dump. Don’t break anything or have sex while I’m gone.” He stalks away.
I wrinkle my nose. “Gross, Arliss. Gross,” I say to his back.
Lawson half smiles. “Jeez, I’m standing right here.”
“You know which part of what he said I was referring to,” I say with an eye roll.
“I watched the show last week, by the way.” He picks up our end table.
“Oh yeah? You can stick that in the corner. As long as it’s out of the way.”
“Yeah. Well, I watched y’all’s parts. I had a hard time with the movie itself.”
“Lightweight.”
“Technically I’m a welterweight.”
“Uh-oh! That some fighter guy humor? Huh? You busting out some fight material on me?”
He grins. “Maybe.” He stands beside me while I arrange the chairs and table in the corner. He smells like laundry detergent and clean, bleached cotton. It’s a nice smell. “So you had some nutty letters tonight. Are all your letter writers such weirdos?” he asks.
“No, lots of really normal, well-adjusted people love to watch public access shows starring two high school girls from Jackson, Tennessee.”
“I didn’t know you were allowed to say ‘Opinions are like buttholes; everyone has one, but it’s best to keep it to yourself’ on public TV.”
“Public access TV. There’s a massive difference. Also, most of the people who worry about that sort of thing aren’t paying attention to us. But good memory.”
He walks over and picks up a stray splinter from one of his broken boards. “It was a memorable phrase.”
I wonder where Delia is. I thought it would be suddenly tense and awkward when Arliss left Lawson and me alone, but it isn’t. Lawson isn’t being weird at all, the way some guys act when you say you just want to be friends. It’s pretty refreshing.
“Doesn’t it hurt when you break boards?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“Seriously? Are you pretending to be tough?”
“There’s a secret to it.”
“Are you allowed to reveal it to someone who isn’t a member of the Sacred Brotherhood of the Broken Board?”
He raises a finger, walks over to his duffel bag, and grabs a spar
e board. He hands it to me. “Hold.”
“Dude, I’m not going to hold this while you break it. Too scary.”
“Nope. Not gonna break it. Here, hold it like this.” He positions my hands on the board. His fingers are surprisingly gentle for how strong they are. He maneuvers the board so I’m holding it square toward him, in front of my chest.
He taps on the board. “If you aim for the board itself, you’ll hurt yourself. You have to focus your energy on a point beyond the board.” He reaches over and taps at the space between the board and my chest. “And then—” He coils back and strikes. I barely have time to flinch. Just before he hits the board, he stops and flicks it with his finger.
I squeal and drop the board, giggling. “You freaked me out, jackass.”
He reaches out as quickly as he struck, catching the board before it hits the floor. “We promised Arliss we wouldn’t break anything.”
“Also that we wouldn’t have sex.”
“We’re good on that too.” Lawson smiles and reddens. “We’ve done nothing to spoil Arliss’s dump.”
An awkward silence follows. I break it by pointing at the general area of his groin (such a gross word). “So you’re a black belt.”
“Since I was ten.”
“For real? Dedication.”
“Never been afraid of commitment.”
“Clearly.” Slick little plug for yourself, by the way, Mr. Vargas. “How did you get into martial arts?”
“My whole family used to watch reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger. And I loved it when Walker would kick butt.”
“As opposed to what? When Walker would hold forth on quantum physics? When he would write haikus? When he would interpret Bach on the harpsichord? That show is an infomercial for Chuck Norris kicking people through plate-glass windows in slow motion.”
“So you’ve seen it.”
“Have you not learned yet that my having seen something does not speak well for the quality of it? Yes, I’ve seen it. It’s bad even by my standards.”
“I mean, it’s not gonna win any Oscars, for sure.”
“For multiple reasons. First off, it’s not on the air anymore. Second, TV shows aren’t eligible for Oscars; they’re eligible for Emmys. And third, there’s no Emmy category for Best TV Show That Exists Solely to Show the Protagonist Kicking People Comically High into the Air.”