Chapter 1 #6
Ken: That was the beginning of the end, if there even is such a thing.
I realised on that holiday that there was probably no going back.
I remember lying next to Zak in the hotel bed, watching his chest rise and fall in the darkness.
I remember crying, and trying to do it silently so he wouldn’t wake up.
I didn’t know what I was going home to, but I didn’t think it was a family.
Zak: AJ came to me not long after that Miami trip and said he didn’t want to do any of it any more.
That he wanted to have a normal life. I think he was twelve.
He liked playing video games. It was pretty much the only thing we did together.
We played a lot of Pac-Man. Sometimes he called me Zak-man.
I said we had to speak to Mom and Dad, but he was pretty reluctant.
I said I’d do it with him, that no one would get mad.
So I went with him, and we told them, but it was like Mom didn’t hear it.
He mentioned something about liking the singing the most and she just took that and ran with it, saying she’d tell the agents to focus on the singing from then on.
Grace: It was AJ’s choice to narrow our focus to just the singing. We started travelling a lot, doing whatever shows we could. He had a great voice, and so much charisma. I realised he was right. He was good at the acting, but it wasn’t his thing. He came alive when he sang.
Zak: When AJ was at home, I used to ask him if he was okay, if he wanted to carry on with it all, and he said he did.
And to be honest, every time I saw him performing, he was magic.
Just… it’s hard to find the words. He was really special.
I knew he was going to make it big, because how could people not recognise that in him? How could they not see?
Ken: Grace started going all over with him. Some weeks I didn’t even know what state they were in. She hired a tutor because he was missing so much school, and we could barely afford it. I was getting ready to tell her it had to stop, that it was enough, when he got offered The Friday Show.
Grace: He was thirteen when he landed The Friday Show. It was huge. Everyone watched it. Kids singing and dancing and cute comedy sketches, and it aired on Friday afternoons when school was out and kids had that feeling of freedom. There was no way we were ever going to turn it down.
Zak: I had watched that show when I was younger.
Everyone did. I couldn’t believe it. I remember giving AJ a hug and telling him I was proud of him.
We went out for this fancy dinner, and even Dad seemed pleased.
And then, when we were waiting for our dessert, Dad asked Mom how they’d manage the travel, how often they’d have to go back and forth, and I thought, Oh yeah, of course that show is filmed in LA.
And Mom said, cool as anything, that we’d have to move there.
Dad just sat there with his mouth hanging open, and when he finally spoke, his voice was like ice and I knew from experience that that was much more dangerous than when he shouted.
He said she couldn’t just uproot the whole family like that, on a whim, without even discussing it with him.
And she said it wasn’t a whim, it was the fucking Friday Show.
Everyone turned to look at us. We weren’t used to that back then.
AJ got up and walked out, and the rest of us followed, Dad throwing down some money and shouting for our dessert order to be cancelled.
That night, I lay in bed listening to them arguing.
I wondered whether AJ was listening too.
I’m sure he was. For my part, I didn’t want to move.
I was fifteen and I had a good group of friends and I liked my high school, and there was a girl I’d had my eye on for months and I was planning to make my move any day.
But I knew that none of that mattered to Mom.
Grace: Ken just wouldn’t even entertain the idea of moving.
He was a builder, and he could have worked anywhere, but he said he couldn’t move further away from his mom, who was getting older.
It was bullshit. It was just an excuse. He’d always been cautious, afraid to try things.
One night, when we were in the kitchen making tacos, I told him me and the boys were going, whether or not he came with us, and he turned around from where he was standing at the fridge, left the door wide open and walked right over to me.
Didn’t stop until our faces were inches apart.
I don’t think I was breathing. I thought he was going to hit me for a second.
But he wasn’t that type of guy. He said, very calmly, that I couldn’t take his boys away from him.
And I said, ‘Watch me.’ I’m not proud of that, but I wasn’t going to ruin my son’s career before it had even properly got started because Ken was too chickenshit to make a change.
Zak: Mom presented it to me as a fait accompli.
We were going, he was staying. I said I would stay with Dad, but then AJ came to my room and said he didn’t want to live in a different state to me, and he looked like he was going to cry, and I asked him whether this was what he wanted, and he just told me how much they were offering to pay him, which was kind of a mind-blowing amount.
I felt like he needed me, like it would be too hard on him if it was just him and Mom, day in and day out.
But I felt like maybe Dad needed me too, though he never asked me to stay.
Ken: I wanted to ask Zak to stay, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
One person leaving a family is one thing but having it torn down the middle, separating brothers, that’s something else.
I talked to a solicitor, asked about my chances of winning custody if I took her to court, and I was told they’d more than likely give the kids to the mother.
That that’s the way it pretty much always went.
And I thought it was what AJ wanted, so I knew that I’d be fighting against him as well as Grace.
And I just… didn’t. I let it go. Let them go. Worst mistake of my life.
Zak: It all happened pretty fast. Mom found somewhere for the three of us to live and we packed up and went.
AJ started filming a few days after we got there.
Meanwhile, I didn’t have a school to go to for a month or so.
That certainly reinforced Mom’s priorities for me.
I used to go with AJ and hang out on set, and I saw this totally different life.
There were people there to do the kids’ makeup and hair and style them and there was a fridge full of free soda and fruit and candy to help yourself to.
It’s funny the things you remember, the things that impress you when you’re young. That soda fridge really stuck with me.
And it felt like AJ became famous overnight.
He used to get recognised when we were out for dinner or at the grocery store.
It’s such a crazy place, LA, and everyone’s either writing a screenplay or starring in one, or waiting tables while they wait for their break.
AJ had this money – Mom made him put most of it into savings, but he had more cash available than either of us had had before – and life was sweet.
I missed Dad. Of course I did. But I was fifteen and my head was easily turned.
In LA, it felt like the sun was always shining and everything came easy.
Grace: I don’t regret that move for one second.
AJ was going places and who was I to hold him back?
He fitted right in with the cast, and he was making good money and I was making sure he put a lot of it away for the future.
At first, Ken and I pretended the marriage wasn’t over, that this was a trial and we’d see how it went.
But I think we both knew we were heading for divorce.
He used to visit every couple of months to see the boys, and on one of those trips, about a year after the move, he brought it up.
Said he thought it was time to face facts.
Ken: Yes, I was the one who said we should get divorced.
There’s only so long you can sit on your own eating microwave dinners with your wife and two sons in another state before you make it official.
There was no one else. It was just a sad inevitability.
After that I stopped visiting so often and I’d arrange for the boys to fly to me, but Grace didn’t like it.
There was always some excuse about AJ needing to rehearse or film.
Sometimes Zak came alone, and we’d hang out and fish and it would be like the old days, and when he left, the house would feel so unbearably empty.
Zak: I know Dad missed us. I used to go to see him as often as I could, but it wasn’t long before it just felt like our life was in LA, and all those years in Georgia had just been some kind of warm-up.
I didn’t fit there any more. I made some good friends, once I finally got to go to school.
For a long time, I kept quiet about my brother being on The Friday Show, but it didn’t last. Once word was out, girls would come up and ask me about him, try to score an invitation to the house.