Robert ended my session with him shortly after our talk concluded, but he allowed me to sleep on a bench in his office for the next few hours to sleep off the alcohol. He said he was “going to take care of things”, but I had become much too drowsy to ask him to specify.
I remembered, as I laid on the bench, thinking to myself about how I was going to tell Sophie about any of this. Trying to think of the perfect way to let her know that I was going to die soon. Her birthday was coming up soon and I wondered if that would be a good time to tell her. While the alcohol continued to impair my judgment it took me a while to realize that it wasn’t something anyone would have wanted to hear on their birthday. Perhaps on Valentine’s day I thought, and then realized that would have probably been just as bad as telling her on her birthday.
Christmas was also no good.
Maybe New Years.
Perhaps next year, I then decided before falling asleep, I should tell her next year.
Much to my horror. When I awoke, I spotted Robert behind his table speaking to my wife.
“Just to get things out of the way Mrs. Arlington,” Robert said, “your husband is going to die.”
“What?!” Sophie asked as if she couldn’t hear well.
Robert reached out for one of the many stage props around him and grabbed a brown voodoo doll with a cowboy hat on it, using it for another of his visual aids.
“Your husband,” Robert said while manipulating the doll to seem as if it was walking across his table, “-is going -to die.” He then manipulated the doll to grab onto its chest before having it roll over into a motionless state.
“My husband is going to have a heart attack?” my wife asked, not knowing what else to say when she saw that the voodoo doll’s hand was still on it’s chest.
“No, your husband has cancer,” Robert replied, “sorry if that was confusing. I’ve just never seen a man die from cancer before.”
Sophie looked at me, finally noticing that I was awake.
“Mike,” she said, “-Mike, is this true?!”
“I’m sorry honey.” I could only think about apologies as I laid on the bench with my breath reeking of alcohol. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Robert explained himself, “but knowing Mike, he’d probably have stalled until he was on his deathbed before he said anything.”
We both stared at Robert briefly.
“-No pun intended, sorry.”
Sophie proceeded to force me up from the bench and onto her shoulder. “Thank you Mr. Lewonski, but we’re leaving now,” she said as she helped me towards the door.
“Yeah -yeah -yeah, go home for now and try to get everything settled before we get started on our next step,” Robert replied as we stepped out. He was tapping at the lens of his watch when I glanced back at him. “Arlington, just remember, time is money and time is ticking.”
Sophie walked me out of the office and towards her pink truck, which she parked in front of the laundromat, pushing me in before buckling me down for a long ride. That is to say, we didn’t go home right away. Instead, we had Emma look after the children again as Sophie drove me to several different hospitals for many “second opinions”.
Cat scans, MRI scans, CT scans, and every other sort of scans were given to me so that the doctors could glance over my body which was more naked than the day I was born.
We ended up spending several days driving around, staying in hotels, and searching for hospitals that accepted walk-ins. Most of the doctors we visited after each and every scan ended up being dodgy as they kept reporting to us that there was an anomaly located on my brain.
“That’s what my regular doctor said before telling me that it was cancer,” I remember telling my wife when she wanted to know exactly what that meant as we waited in one of the many private physician rooms we visited.
And like my regular doctor, they only said “we’ll call it anomaly for now, but I recommend you come back in a few months so we can try and measure if there are any changes before we make any conclusions.”
“Been there, done that,” I whispered, recalling the day when my regular doctor gave me the bad news.
It was on a Tuesday when we accepted the idea that I was going to die and decided to return home. Driving back several hundred miles from wherever we were. We made it back at around midnight. Choosing not to turn on the driveway lights, so to not wake up any of the kids, we narrowly dodged all of the lawn ornaments before we pulled up to our garage.
Feeling exhausted from the long trip, Sophie went straight to bed as soon as we entered. I decided to check up on the children wanting to confirm my suspicion that the kids were already asleep. I headed towards the second floor, where the bedrooms were and peeked my head through the doors. My two sons were soundly asleep in their respective rooms, but I began to have a bit of trouble locating my daughter.
I searched through every corner of her room before I began searching the many guest rooms we had having no luck finding her. Running back to my room, I woke my wife as soon as I entered.
“I can’t find Janet!” I said.
“She’s probably in Emma’s room,” Sophie replied, not worried at all.
I proceeded to walk over to the bedrooms again, knocking on Emma’s door as soon as I got there. I didn’t receive a response and decided to open the door with the key.
Emma was awake and was lying next to Janet who was sleeping next to her. With a finger over her lips, Emma signaled me to be quiet as Janet continued to snore.
“Was just checking up on everything,” I said.
“Everything’s fine,” Emma replied.
“Okay, that’s good.” I tried to sound reassured without being too loud.
Janet, however, was woken up for a brief moment and used that moment to stare at me.
“What’s wrong Janet, something the matter with your bed?” I asked, trying to sound as fatherly as ever.
“I had bad dreams,” my daughter replied before closing her eyes and resting next to Emma again.
“Well mommy and daddy are home now, you can sleep in our beds if you want.”
“Emma better,” Janet replied with her midnight daze, “daddy smells when he comes back.”
I couldn’t help but to be embarrassed a little, even in front of the woman who cleaned my bedsheets. Understandably so, Emma was still a pretty girl after all.
Nevertheless, still trying to spoil my daughter a bit, I continued to offer my room to her.
“Emma Better” Janet said once more before she began ignoring me before snoring away as she gripped on to a part of Emma’s arm. I scratched my head witnessing my own child refusing to sleep in the same room as me.
Emma probably noticed how awkward it was as well, and couldn’t help but to give me a very nervous smile; the type of smile that was a bit crooked around the eyes with uncertainty.
“Thanks for looking after the kids,” I said, being truly grateful to Emma. I exit the room and quietly shut the door as soon as I was in the hallway again.
I didn’t head back to my own bedroom and instead laid on the bed in one of our guest room.
I couldn’t sleep that night while I had a lot on my mind. I was thinking about the things I wanted to do. There was a lot I wanted to do.
Mortality notwithstanding, I was still a busy man with many obligations to my job. Before breakfast time arrived, I headed out of the house while everyone was still asleep in their beds and I entered my car. I drove out, towards the east to meet with my colleagues to make the movies which everyone enjoyed.
_____
The next scene for the movie was going to be filmed somewhere in Arizona. Supposedly, the desert scape will be made to look more like a barren wasteland.
Driving off-road to reach the filming site. I saw all of my colleagues already in the middle of a shoot without me. More surprisingly, I saw my agent sitting on a recliner in the shade with a pair of sunglasses and a cup of hard cider in his hand.
“And cut,” the director shouted out, “good take everyone. Especially the new kid -glad to have you on board.”
I looked towards the direction which the camera was pointing at and saw someone I wasn’t too familiar with. A young boy, no older than 21 or 20 with bronze skin and a cowboy hat in one of his hands. More amazingly was how good he looked. Pectorals being well defined behind his heavy clothing and a face that matched well with the cut he had.
He noticed me a bit later and came charging at me like a crazed fan in a comic book convention.
“Hold it, hold it, down boy!” I unconsciously reenacted my role in one of my other movies, ‘Ram Wrangler’.
“Mike Arlington!” he said. Yelling as he ran towards me. “It’s an honor to be working with you.”
He stopped his sprint right before he could tackle me and continued panting out much of his words.
“It’ll be such an honor to be working with you,” he repeated.
“It’ll be an honor working with you too,” I replied before asking, “-who are you?”
My agent, deciding not to give a proper greeting, answered. Shouting out from his chair and already having anticipated the question he spoke, “His name is Antoine Amigon and he’s your new sidekick”.
“My what?”
“Your new sidekick,” Robert answered before getting up from his recliner and walking towards me.
“A sidekick for what?” I asked when Robert was in talking distance.
“For your action movies,” Robert replied, slowly dwindling his volume to a whisper. “Well, you were gone for the past few days and your director kept calling me to look for you. I thought it was a perfect opportunity to introduce someone to fill the shoes for you while you guys are filming in the desert. Given your condition,” Robert aimed his eyes to the top of my head, “I thought it’d be good to have some of the workload taken off your back.”
“So, why him, why Antoine?”
“I have no idea why, but your director agreed only to take someone with a great ass,” Robert explained before shaking his head, jiggling it with uncertainty.
On cue, Antoine began walking away and towards the director. Together with Robert, both of us began tilting our heads for a better look, treating Antoine as if he was a girl with a short skirt.
We then overheard the conversation between Antoine and the director. They were not discussing acting or lighting techniques, but discussed personal issues.
“How you feeling kid?” the director asked, “-heard from your agent, Mr. Lewonski, that this will be your first time in a big budget movie. So how you feeling?”
“About the same as filming for any other movie, a bit more nervous than usual though,” Antoine answered, “as to anything weird or different. I can’t help but to think that everyone keeps checking me out.”
Robert and I immediately stopped staring at Antoine, but continued to listen to the conversation that was still taking place.
“Don’t be shy kid,” the director said, “you have a great ass, just like Arlington’s.”
Robert immediately, and wisely, decided to change the subject.
“How you holding up?”
Aside from the lack of sleep, I told him “fine, I’m feeling fine -and I don’t need someone to do my job for me.”
I headed towards the director, startling him when he spotted me.
“Sorry for being late, doctor’s appointment took longer than I expected,” I apologized to the director, keeping things as vague as possible.
“Good to have you back Arlington,” the director said, “came back just in time. Your agent suggested that we give you a sidekick for our action movie, and the writers were just about ready to re-insert you back into the folds.”
Without giving away too much spoilers, the next scene involved me jumping in medias res. In the middle of the action in which my, supposedly, new sidekick finds himself being targeted by men with laser guns and anti-laser force-fields armor. All the while he tries to get away from them on a hover bike.
I would then surprise the bad-guys by cruising in with my futuristic, post apocalyptic and all-terrain space truck and go old fashion on the them, shooting the laser-gun armed bad-guys with nothing but an AK-47.
“I heard lasers don’t work on the armor you got on, but this ain’t nothing, but lead!” I was supposed to yell as I open fire.
Once again, after it’s edited by the CGI guys and is placed on the silver screen, it’ll be more badass than it sounds.
Just to be sure that it would be as badass as possible though, we took 13 takes. Filming the same scene over and over again while most of what we would get on camera would end up on some cutting room floor, keeping only a few frames that would be sent somewhere for further editing.
I couldn’t help, but to notice Antoine from behind, wondering why I had to have a sidekick all of a sudden when the movie was supposed to solely be based off of my character. I guess, I’ll have to confess to being a little narcissistic when I thought I was enough to be the sole male lead in all of my movies.
He was a good actor and all, but he didn’t leave a very good first impression with me. When our lunch appeared at around noon, just in time for us to take shelter under the shades as the sun was at its strongest, Antoine was clingier than most of my fans. As I got in line with the rest of the crew to grab some food from the different buffet tables, he kept trying to squirm his way next to me.
He kept trying to ask me about my personal life too, asking about my house, my children, my wife and everything. He sounded as if he wanted to sniff my underwear as well, just to figure out what I smell like. Trying to oblige the man I’m working with, I answered every question without revealing too much information like how I conceived my daughter behind the Hello-Kitty factory in Japan.
I lied to him a bit later, telling him that I thought I heard the director calling for him giving me some much needed space when he believed me.
Grabbing my plate, I left my table and I walked towards my agent who was eating sushi made with seaweed that resembled dark-green hundred dollar bills.
“I didn’t know you were a fan of sushi.” I began by feigning small-talk with him.
“Nope, I’m a fan of money,” Robert replied.
Cutting to the chase, I asked him again, “why am I working with Antoine again?”
Robert looked around him, most likely making sure that no one was close-by. He answered casually, in a way that no one would suspect from him, “well I got him, because he’s your craziest fan.”
“Wait, what?”
“Well,” Robert explained, “I didn’t tell anyone about your condition -yet; but you need a living legacy in this business. Someone you can mentor before your final hour on the stage. Someone who would keep talking about you when you finally kick the bucket. You need a crazy fan that won’t ever stop talking about you after you’re dead.”
“So, Antoine, he’s a crazy fan of mine?”
“Yep!”
I paused a second, signaling Robert that I wanted a better explanation as I gave him a stare.
He took the sign and explained. “Well, you still need money to roll into your family’s coffers once you’re dead, and I still need my 15% from you. Ideally even after the you know what, and the reality television show is picked up, you’d still want some of that money to be rolling in from DVD sales from your older movies, right? What better way than to have another movie star vouch for you?”
“So, you’re telling me that a crazed fan can do that?” I asked to confirm.
“A super famous crazy fan like Antoine can do that,” Robert answered. “Well, he’s not famous yet, just give him some time and let him expose himself with you in your movies.”
I paused again.
Robert took the sign, “just -just think of it as a symbiotic relationship.”
“With a crazy fan?”
“With a really crazy fan.”
Not being able to tell Robert that I couldn’t understand what he was planning. I nodded, swallowing my uneasiness about working with Antoine. Agreeing to help the new boy find his way to rise to the ranks of stardom.
“So,” I said, “moving on to the next important subject. When do we begin doing the reality show?”
“When we’re ready,” Robert answered, then putting a finger over his lips signalling me to keep a secret. He then whispered, “we still have some preparations that need to be done before we begin that.”
_____
‘Preparing to die’ wasn’t something I wanted to do, but Robert was right. There’s no point pretending as if nothing was going to happen. No point in waiting for the grim reaper to show up in front of me and assume that everything would take care of itself afterwards.
Despite Robert telling me that Antoine was my “craziest fan”, I knew what he really was to Robert.
Antoine was my replacement. Another preparation Robert made for me, for when I die. With borrowed words, from whatever college class I happened to be drunk in at the time, he was the man who Robert was going to bring up to the stage when I strut and fret my final hour.
To be honest, it wasn’t a bad idea. So I couldn’t get mad at Robert for planning so far ahead. Though I didn’t like it, just from his first impression, Antoine was, indeed, the right person to help get my name out after I was dead. The right man to succeed my career.
Furthermore, it got me thinking, who was going to take care of my family when I’m gone?
Was there going to be another man willing take care of Sophie and my three children?
Like many parents, I always dreamed that I would give my children the types of things I never had. As I might have mentioned before, my mother had married multiple times after divorcing my real father and winning custody over me. What I didn’t mention was that most of her marriages lasted less than six months. Each new marriage usually entailed a 4 month honeymoon and two months to file the paperwork for each divorce. So if my math is correct, my mother was absent for half of my childhood.
In short, I wanted to give my children the attention I never had.
Sophie loved our children, but I have to admit she is pretty much still a wild one. Untamable when it comes to civilization, and unpredictable when it comes to expectations.
So, no matter how much she loved our children, it would be hard for anyone to imagine that she would stay in one place. It was hard to imagine that she would be there for them.
My thoughts were put aside when Antoine approached me again.
“Mr. Arlington, Mr. Arlington.” Antoine began running up to me again. “The director said we’re going to resume filming soon. Did you finish your lunch?”
I had found myself sitting next to my agent while still holding onto my lunch plate. On it was a roast beef sandwich with only one bite taken from it.
I stared at Antoine, knowing quite well that the filming wouldn’t happen for another two hours as the film props still had to be set up before we could even begin.
“We need to get ready for the shoot, and I was hoping we could help each other practice our lines,” Antoine said.
“Not right now,” I told Antoine, trying to brush him off immediately. Lying to him, I said, “I’m busy.”
“Busy with what?” Antoine asked, “Maybe I can help.”
I looked at my unfinished sandwich and then I looked at him. Remaining silent, I was hoping he could figure it out for himself.
“You know Mr. Arlington,” Antoine spoke again, this time, forcefully expressing certain thoughts that he should have kept to himself. “I’m willing to help you with anything!”
I looked at my sandwich and then looked at Antoine again.
“I don’t need help eating a sandwich!” I snapped at him.
Antoine, sensing a bit of hostility, shyly spoke. “You know, I could cut it into bite size pieces for you or into triangles.”
“No, I prefer eating my sandwiches this way!” Squinting my eyes at him as if he was a tiny mosquito.
Getting the hint, Antoine dismissed himself and decided to practice alone under a corner of the tent.
Robert, who was still seated next to me in his recliner, spoke to me again.
“Like I said Arlington, you’re going to have to make friends with him if you want more DVD sales.”
I exhaled again, sighing before throwing away the rest of my sandwich and headed back to work.
After the props were set up, the cameras were set in place, we resumed filming once again. And once again, Antoine and I were directed to work on a scene together.
Swallowing my pride and choking down my stubbornness, I agreed.
In all honesty, it was a real pleasure to work with Antoine. His acting skills were better than a lot of people I’ve worked with in the past as he always stayed in character and never failed to deliver any lines.
It was during our third scene together when I fully realized how good was his acting. It was when Antoine’s character was written to scream in anger as we were surrounded by the bad-guys. A few seconds after that he was to break down in tears representing the hopelessness of our characters’ situation. Needless to say, Antoine transitioned between both emotions perfectly.
If I have to admit, there are a few things I prefer when it came to filming a movie. I prefer a director who’s a perfectionist: a director who’s always trying to capture us, actors, on film when we’re at our best. I would also prefer to have as little takes as possible as re-shooting the same scene over and over again for that ‘perfect shot’ requires a mind-numbing amount of time.
Being able to avoid all of that today, I found an honest excuse to compliment Antoine as I tried to make friends with him again, despite how uncomfortable he made me.
“Great shoot”, I said to him, after we filmed a scene where we defeated 20 armed villains with only our bare hands, “-you did a great job today.”
Breaking out of his character immediately and speaking really fast, Antoine somehow managed to turn me off again.
“Oh my god, Mr. Arlington, are you complimenting me?!” Antoine said, in a manner that somehow reminded me of the many cosplayers I’ve met. Cosplayers who often tried run me down, while carrying realistic looking swords, at a comic-book convention.
“You know what,” I told Antoine, “-nevermind.”
“What do you me nevermind? I just got complimented by the great Mr. Arlington!”
“Forget I said anything,” I spoke, regretting my actions already.
“I can’t do that!” Antoine confessed, “I would do anything to get praises from you. -Anything!”
“Nevermind!” I said once more, walking away from him to move on to our next scene.
Once again, when we resumed filming the next scenes together, Antoine was perfectly fine. Acting as good as any A-list actor.
When filming was over for the day however, Antoine resumed being that crazed fanboy that made me wish I had a baseball bat and probable cause.
“Mr. Arlington -Mr. Arlington,” he called out to me when we were finished for the day and I was already Heading towards my car, “where are you going?”
“Away”, I said.
“Where?”
“Somewhere private”, I replied again.
“Where would that be?”
Hoping he had some form of common sense as to not follow me, I answered him, “I’m going home to have sex with my wife!” I shouted, before driving off.
From my rear view mirror, I swore that he tried to chase me a little. Thankfully, Robert was still nearby and had stopped whatever Antoine was doing.
I got back on the road and drove myself home only to park myself in the middle of my driveway. As work was over, I began wondering again. Wondering about who would be willing to help raise my children. Wondering if anyone would be willing enough to shoulder that precious burden of mine.
Getting out of my car and walking up to my house, I hesitated about stepping inside.
Realizing that there was nowhere to go, I reached for my keys, silently unlocked my front door, and quietly stepped inside.
I peeked my head around, and saw Emma sitting with Janet on the couch in the living room. Apparently she had just finished watching Bambi with my daughter. Janet was crying just as anyone might expect. All the while Emma was holding my daughter in her bosoms.
“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Emma tenderly whispering into one of Janet’s ear, “hush, hush, hush, hush, hush.”
A thought then occurred to me. The person who could give my children all the attention they’ll ever need had been with me the entire time.
I walked up behind Emma, and pretended to clear my throat for attention.
“Ahem,” I noised out.
Emma looked up to me while Janet was still huddled in her bosoms.
“Mr. Arlington!” she said in surprise. Then looking back at Janet and then back to me. “We were watching a cartoon together, but I didn’t know it was going to become sad.”
Janet continued crying as Emma kept apologizing.
“That’s alright,” I said. Then looking at the television with the movie still turned on to that particularly sad scene. I held back my tears and spoke in a very manly manner. “Emma, you think you can keep looking after my kids for me for the foreseeable future?”
“Of course I will!” Emma answered wholeheartedly, though sounding a bit confused at the same time.
“Good,” I responded before walking towards the staircase.
“Where are you going Mr. Arlington?” Emma asked, sounding a bit scared for whatever reason.
“Sophie is upstairs right?”
“Yes, she’s been up there for the entire day. Why do you ask?”
“I’m going to see her cause I promised someone that I was going to have sex with her,” I answered, still trying to sound manly before walking away.
Janet immediately popped her head out of Emma’s bosoms and quickly asked, “What’s sex?”
Realizing what I accidentally said, I couldn’t have sex with anything when I was at home. Instead, I spent the rest of the day with my maid trying to convince Janet not to ask about too much details.
During that time, I continued to realize how lucky I was to have found someone like Emma.
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