51. Will
WILL
“It’s kinda weird, huh?” Ryan came and stood beside me as the crew set up for the big death scene, the climax of the movie. “Doing this in front of James now that we know who he really is.”
I put my phone away. “That’s definitely one way to put it.”
“He hates my performance, doesn’t he? It’s too feminine, right?”
“It’s definitely not too feminine.” I rubbed my jaw, which still smarted from Ryan’s sucker punch.
“Sorry again for actually punching you. I just get so caught up, and—”
“It’s fine.”
Michelle walked us through the scene, which was a tonal minefield. It was meant to be sad, funny, and somewhat callous. The idea was to subvert the usual deathbed epiphanies while still landing emotionally. So, no pressure.
“Places,” Michelle said.
I sat in the chair next to my father, who took a long, pained breath from his hospital bed. “Why don’t you take something? Just think how many drugs Bruce must have been on.” I tried to appeal to his sense of craft. “It doesn’t get any more method than that.”
“I’m fine.” His breathy whisper sounded anything but.
“Action,” Michelle said.
Acting was like breathing or blinking, mostly involuntary, but you could seize control if you wanted. The trick, according to Dad, was knowing when to go with the flow and when to control it.
Opting for the former, I surrendered my body to Travis. “Jimmy will be here in a minute,” I said.
Dad coughed, and even without sound effects, I could hear the rattle of phlegm.
“Owen’s sitter was late again,” I replied, as if we were having an actual conversation. When he’d written the book, Travis had kept all the names the same—all except for Theo’s.
My father’s eyes stared back, glassy and confused.
“Your grandson.” I showed Dad the background on my phone’s home screen: a photo of Owen on his trike.
“Jimmy?” A lucid twinkle appeared in Dad’s eye.
“No, Dad, that’s Owen, your grandson.”
He coughed again, closed his eyes, and drifted off, “Jimmy” a whisper on his lips.
I stood and walked to the window.
The door opened a moment later, and Ryan rushed in wearing an orange beanie. “Is he . . . ?”
“No.” I turned from the window. “Not yet. Not that it matters. He’s not in there anymore.
Although maybe we should check. Why don’t you remind him how much you like suckin’ dick and see what he does?
” I swiped the Jell-O from Dad’s tray. “I just wish something would happen. This is boring.” I gestured with the cup of Jell-O.
“I thought death was supposed to be exciting. I mean, I didn’t expect to weep at his bedside or anything, but I thought maybe I’d feel guilty.
Or relieved. Or guilty that I feel relieved.
Instead, I’m just bored. You bring any weed? ”
“Owen shit his pants at school today,” Ryan said. “You forgot to pack a change of clothes, so they sent him home in Hello Kitty sweatpants. I think he likes ’em, though.”
I took two bites of Jell-O and set the cup back on the tray.
“I envy you. At least you hate him. I don’t feel anything.
It’s weird, right? I mean”—I looked down at the frame wasting away under the white sheet—“that’s gonna be me in a few years.
And in forty or fifty years, it might be Owen, too.
Shouldn’t that cause an existential crisis or something? ”
“I don’t hate him.” Ryan took the chair by the bedside.
“Could’ve fooled me, paradin’ around him like a fudge packer all the time. I get it, though.” I picked up the Jell-O again and started pacing. “He was a dick. I’d never do that to Owen, even if he liked fuckin’ sheep.”
Ryan pulled off his beanie and ran a hand over his stubbled scalp. “If you’re hungry, we could always order pizza.”
Just then, my father’s eyes opened, and he started to choke. Ryan and I stared at each other, letting a silent agreement pass between us: Let it play out. Let it end.
Then Ryan broke the unspoken contract and yelled for help.
“Cut.” We didn’t have anyone to play the nurses and doctors, so we couldn’t film the rest of the scene.
“Good,” Michelle said. “That was really good.”
Her tone didn’t quite match her words, though, and I sensed she was unsatisfied with the take.
“Fuck, Will.” Ryan clapped me on the back. “That was amazing.”
“Thanks, you too.” I looked out into the small audience and accidentally met James’s eyes.
“Let’s reset and go again,” Michelle said. “Will, I loved what you did with the Jell-O spoon. Keep that. It was perfect.”
She started giving Ryan feedback, but I barely listened. I was too busy staring at my father. He hadn’t shown any pain on camera, but now his face was white with it.
“Can someone please get my dad something, morphine or whatever?”
“I don’t need it.” He waved away the hospice nurse. “James, can you come here, please?”
Jesus Christ. I started to walk off, but Dad shook his head. “No, stay. I don’t know how many more takes I have left, and we need to figure this out before it’s too late.”
“It was fine, Dad.”
“You’re right. It was fine, but we need better than fine.”
My chest heated as James approached.
“That was incredible.” He wore an old Counting Crows tee that said, in scribbled cursive, “August and Everything After.”
“But we’re missing something,” Dad said, “aren’t we?”
“No, that was great.” James pulled his eyes from me and looked at Dad.
“What really happened?” My father reached for James’s hand, and to my astonishment, James gave it to him. “I don’t care if it’s mundane and boring. It doesn’t need to be cinematic. It just needs to be real.”
I was used to Dad acting like an intuitive genius who understood his characters better than they understood themselves. I expected James to shrug and say, “Nope, that was pretty much how it went down,” but he didn’t answer. He just looked down at Dad’s hand in his and closed his eyes.