Hero

Scene: An old burnished red leather, crescent shaped booth in a small family run restaurant. Large enough to entertain six but currently occupying only two. A studio mogul looks tired and slightly disinterested as a bloated agent desperately attempts to solicit a role for his client. Although it is mid-day, the lighting in the room is dim and accented only minimally by the orange candles ensconced in short, brass-accented vases. The walls are long and papered with vertical gold and scarlet stripes that bare the fruit of decades of photographs of long forgotten celebrities. The blue circular plates on the table are now empty and have been cast aside, and in their place before the two men coffee and aperitifs have been served.

            And this is where the real conversation begins, thought the agent.

            In these moments he was always prepared for the negotiations but today he was worried, confidence lacking. Like his client, the curtains had been steadily closing on his career and he wondered if today would be the day in which he would take his final bow. He had deliberately reduced his clientele over the years, telling himself that he only had the bandwidth to represent those that deserved his utmost attention and dedication. The truth, however, was that he had grown tired of the game, the pretense, the debates, and ultimately the failure to find them work when their desirability had diminished. He didn’t have the energy or the desire to continuously explain why the studios had given up on them. And so, he ushered them on towards new agents or tactfully suggested new careers. The latter conversations never ended well.

            Today he was negotiating for his one remaining client, an actor who had graced the screen in blockbuster action movies in the 80’s and early 90’s but whose career had crawled to a standstill in the last decade. His face, whilst having aged at an increasingly rapid pace in those ten years, was still recognizable around the world, but his physique was a bleak shadow of what it has once been. Movie roles had withered away like the musculature on his once thick frame but he had received small cameo roles on television and he had briefly continued to be invited to the late night show circuit where they would reminisce about his once thrilling and action-filled performances. But now the conversations had grown almost painful to watch like a septuagenarian athlete looking back on exploits from half a century ago. And soon those invitations had also dried up into the same barren desert that had become his career.

            What had changed now, and what had roused his enthusiasm to find his client a role was the news that there was going to be a sequel, or in Hollywood parlance, a reboot of one of the clients most famous roles from the 80’s - Hero. Even if he could not get a lead role, the actor’s participation in the movie would, he had argued, draw in the fans of the original movie in addition to introducing him to a new and younger audience. He could pass the baton to the next generation of action hero while gracefully bowing out on a high.

            “I just can’t see it, Tom,” said the mogul. “There’s no way to bring him into the story.”

            “Come on, Jerry,” the agent implored. "Even if you didn’t want him to look the way he does today, you could use CGI. They do miracles with that stuff and with the budget you’re working with the cost would be a drop in the bucket. If it’s the rates you’re concerned with, he understands that he doesn’t command the salary he once did, and that’s completely negotiable. Everything’s on the table because he just wants to be part of the project. We both know that it’s going to be fantastic and tying his name and the original together with this would be amazing.”

            “Listen, Tom,” he said calmly as he took a small sip of cognac. “We did give it consideration but ultimately, the new Hero doesn’t want it and we’re contractually obliged to follow his selection of co-stars. That is non-negotiable. It’s not the studio’s call. Listen, buddy, you know I like you, and I love your client, but my hands are tied on this one.”

            The agent knew that the discussion was over and saw with precise clarity that this was not a ploy to simply drive down wage demands or artistic concessions. Today’s superstars held an immense amount of power and the studios would placate them so as not to jeopardize losing their cash cows. With the knowledge that this actor controlled who did and did not get hired for the new Hero movie left him with no recourse.

            “Okay,” he said, accepting defeat, “Okay, I get it. It just sucks that the fresh meat doesn’t see the upside to this. He wouldn’t be where he is today if it hadn’t been for the ones who paved the way. It’s ungrateful and sad. Just sad, really.”

            “I know,” the mogul agreed. “But what can you do? The big shots today, they don’t give a shit. He just wants to cash in, buy his next Bugatti or put a down-payment on a Caribbean island so that he can party with his buddies. And we have to hope that the numbers on opening weekend don’t disappoint.

            “But, hey, listen Tom, if I hear of anything that would be suitable for him, I’ll be in touch.”

            “And what are the odds that you’ll hear of something that he’d be a fit for?”

            “Not good,” he said. “Not good at all.”

            The two men raised their glasses, charged them, and then took a long and wistful drink.

Scene: A red-bricked patio on a cloudless and intensely bright Southern California day. The aging actor sits back in a tall and comfortable wicker chair holding a frosted glass of lemonade. The agent stands at the top of the patio staircase and looks down to an Olympic sized swimming pool which is consumed on all sides by strips of emerald artificial turf and tall palm trees which obscure any evidence of neighboring homes.

“So that’s it?” said the actor after a long silence.

“Yes,” the agent responds. He so wanted this to be done. He had rehearsed the speech he had just delivered more times than he could remember and although it had gone as well as he could have expected, it had still been shitty. He’d stuttered nervously, repeated himself and then talked in circles as the man he had known for over thirty years had sat and stared at him from beneath his bushy grey streaked eyebrows. And although the man’s eyes had been squinting due to the bright sunlight, the intensity of his fixed gaze was as penetrating as it appeared on the big screen when at the height of his powers.

“Then there is a new hero in town,” he said. “Long live the hero.”

The agent had not truly known what to expect from his client upon hearing the news, but this apathetic indifference was not something he had considered. He had anticipated anger, disbelief, confusion, or even complete unacceptance and a desire to reengage in discussions no matter how futile an endeavor that would be. However, as he watched him put the glass down onto the marble surface of the wrought iron side table and pick up a magazine and pencil, he was truly amazed.

There was no hint of distress, no rise of red heat to his cheeks or the faintest trace of a pulsing, throbbing vein in his temple. Instead, he smiled ruefully as he focused his attention on the crossword puzzle and quickly provided the solution to the clue for 7 down in five quick strokes.

“8 down,” he said. “Fructose.”

Again, the pencil glided across the paper and the satisfied grin played across his face, drawing thick, wrinkled ravines around his eyes and forehead. The agent marveled at how small the number 2 pencil looked in his gargantuan hand and for some obscure and ridiculous reason it made him think of how a toothpick would look in the hands of a silverback gorilla. That was until he recalled one of the more gory scenes from a very early picture in which the actor had used a pencil to skewer an Asian assassin’s eyeball before he dropped the utterly deadpan line, “Can you see me now?”

“I have a three o’clock meeting I need to get to,” he lied. “So, I should get going.”

The actor looked up from the paper briefly and nodded his head in affirmation. “Sure, be seeing you, Tommy.”

The agent hated himself. He loved this man and hated to see what he had become. The acceptance was one thing but the resignation of defeat without a whimper was heart wrenching. One of the most masculine, outspoken, and virile actors in Hollywood’s history had the eyes of a dog who had just been injected with a sedative from which it would never awaken. It was a shattering image and one that would perpetually disturb his waking thoughts over the next several months.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered under his breath as he turned to leave.

If the actor heard the words he chose not to respond.

Scene: A high school football stadium on a late cloudless and humid afternoon. As the sun set in the west, the floodlights came on and in the darkening navy sky, traces of stars began to appear along with the white and yellow speckles of lights from airplanes that had begun their approach to the local regional airport. The two high school football teams had changed sides to begin the second quarter and the cheerleaders and bands exchanged chants, dances, and boisterous brass and bass challenges. The actor sat alone approximately half-way up and towards the center of the home team bleachers.

He enjoyed the wholesome feel of the Friday night games. He had attended whenever he could for several years now even though he had no children of his own and had no familial ties to the school or the Coyotes as the team was known.

It was the sense of community that drew him, and the fact that he could enjoy being out in public without having to be concerned about being harassed and inundated with requests for selfies or autographs. There had been many of those requests when he had initially attended games, and occasionally someone from one of the visiting schools would approach him but the folks who attended the games regularly knew him and understood that he was there to enjoy the football and subsequently left him alone. There would be an occasional high five on scoring plays or shared looks of disappointment when the other school ran up the scoreboard, which happened more frequently than he would have liked, but for the most part he contained his comments until half-time or the end of the game.

The game tonight had been typical of the Coyote’s season so far. They had started slowly, giving up two quick touchdowns, and then following up with a fumble that would quite probably end in another score before the end of the half. The opposition were at their own thirty-yard line, but another open field run resulted in a twenty-yard gain. It wasn’t bad enough yet for him to want to leave early but it was clearly evident that this was going to end with another big L, guaranteeing a losing season for the program.

He felt sorry for the coaches who constantly and energetically scooted up and down the sideline, bellowing orders and waving their rolled up playbooks at the kids who would continue to persevere but lacked the inherent ability to turn the instructions into action. If the utter will and desire of the coaches had been equivalent to talent and athleticism then this team would have been contenders for the state championship. Unfortunately, however, this suburban school had only the courage and integrity of champions. They would never compete for or come close to lifting a trophy.

The unannounced commencement of trumpets and thunderous beat of the band’s duet of drum majors muffled the sound of the first shot, but he had heard enough gunshots at the firing range where he had mastered the art of handling large caliber weapons in preparation for his movie roles that he was highly attuned to their unique tone. When he turned his attention from the band to the field, the home team’s quarterback was face down on the ground and the white jersey around the black number 11 had begun to flower a crimson red. The majority of the other players and referees stood in frozen shock looking at the fallen figure whilst the others who were more attuned to what had just happened and recognized the blast for what it had been were now running for the hills or whatever cover they could find.

A couple of screams rang out simultaneously, the band came to an abrupt stop and everyone who had not been paying attention was now focused on the floodlit field. Eyes were scanning the bleachers and the field in an attempt to understand where the shot had originated from.

It didn’t take long for people to see the dark figure of a tall long-haired teenager moving infield from the visitor’s end zone. The skinny boy wore a long black coat and his greasy and dirty blonde hair hung backwards down the collar in long strings. His face showed no emotion but the actor was good at reading body language and he knew that his walk was one of determined purpose. The quarterback was only the first target.

When he raised the rifle and took aim, the barrel was aimed at another Coyote player, this time an offensive lineman that looked as though he was on the verge of making the transition to the NFL and not college. The killer had perfect aim and hit him with a precise shot to the face. Number 47 collapsed like a tower block building that had been laced with plastic explosives at its base. At that point, those that were unsure about what had happened initially suddenly had an epiphany and they scattered in all directions.

As parents, teachers and school children yelled, clambered and negotiated the quickest exit from the bleachers, the actor watched the teenager closely to see what he would do next. He clearly had not resolved whatever issues he had come to the stadium to address because he had now turned ninety degrees and was proceeding towards the Coyote’s sideline. The actor looked down at the dirt track and watched as cheerleaders and representatives from the school’s newspaper sprinted chaotically in both directions navigating around the main structure of the bleachers. One hapless young girl slipped and fell to the track and her white and red-trimmed skirt blew up to reveal her tight red spandex shorts. She quickly scrambled to her feet and ran on in pain despite the deep lacerations the black gravel had ripped into her now bleeding knees.

On the sidelines, there were now two individuals that the actor took to be the most likely targets for the teenager’s focus and aim. One was a scrawny youngster on crutches who was moving ever so slowly towards the track and the other was the oversized and completely out of shape high school head coach. The handicapped boy with the sticks also had the added disability of carrying a camera with a large telephoto lens and looked as though he would trip and fall at any second. Whilst the coach with the ham hock legs and belly the size of a bursting at the seams bag of garbage might die of a heart attack due to the strain he was putting his lumbering form through. The actor thought that their combined odds of surviving were slim to none. If the shooter had the inclination to, he could take them both down without much effort.

The teenager, however, was taking his time and was strolling across the field as though he didn’t have a care in the world. The actor looked for the local police officer that was normally tasked with providing the limited Friday night security, but he could not see him anywhere. The news would later report that the miscreant had taken him out first away from the main action to further reduce the risk of being apprehended or having his mission interrupted. And although he had to believe that at least one or two of the parents would have been packing their own weapons of self-defense, apparently nobody was brave enough to challenge the teenager on the field.

The actor stood carefully and slowly walked down the bleacher steps towards the track. He had reached the outer circumference of the eight-lane running track as the teenager raised the rifle and looked down the sight towards his next target. The actor guessed that the coach was going to be next and he wasn’t surprised to hear the shot and then see the impact the bullet made as it struck him in the chest. He heard a thud as the man hit the ground, and then a woman scream in the distance. Meanwhile, the amateur photographer continued to limp awkwardly onto the track, taking care not to have his crutches slip on the gravel.

The teenager lowered the rifle as he continued towards the coach. He knew that the first shot had not been a mortal one and his clear intent was to get closer to the man in an effort, no doubt to gain a closer perspective of the damage he had wrought, and perhaps establish an upfront view to determine if the man would die quickly before he used another bullet on him. Step by synchronous step, the actor kept pace with the boy as they moved in the direction of the stricken coach. He watched the shooter look in the direction of the handicapped kid once, but he had no interest in him and continued on with his eyes trained on the bleeding and now erratically breathing coach.

When the boy reached the coach and began to raise the rifle, the actor was within arm’s reach and without pausing he reached out and snatched the weapon away as easily as if he had taken a pacifier from a baby. He was surprised at how efficiently he had been able to disarm the shooter and how the kid had not attempted to struggle and retain the rifle. And now that he had removed the weapon what was he supposed to do next? He wasn’t a cop, although he had played many of them on the big screen, and he didn’t have any handcuffs with which to restrain him. His only hope was that a real sheriff or local deputy would have been alerted to the event and would arrive shortly to take over, and in the meantime the fact that he now held the rifle would be enough to deter the boy from taking any steps to escape.

Looking at the ashen face of the lanky teenager, he could now see the deep dark lines that creased the sickly skin beneath his bloated eyes. He looked like a strung-out junkie that hadn’t slept in days and his parched, cracked lips hung slackly open over his protruding yellow teeth.

“Why?” he found himself asking. “Why did you do this?”

The boy looked him at him briefly but then looked quickly back at the dying coach as though ashamed to maintain eye contact.

“Because I knew that you’d be here,” he said in drawn out words.

“What?” the actor said rhetorically. He knew what he had heard but what those words possibly meant would take him time to digest.

“I wanted you to see,” he said, and then he looked up at the actor as the coach took his final wheezing breath. “I’ve watched you for years. All those movies. All of the violence, the shooting, the death. You were radical, man.”

Taking a step away from the actor but maintaining his focused and trained gaze upon him, he reached into the right-hand pocket of his duster and retrieved a Colt 45 special. And before the actor could tell him to stop, to warn him that this would be a stupid thing to do, and as he was still raising the rifle to defend himself, the boy held the gun to his own temple and smiled a weary and tired smile.

“I did it for you.”

The recoil threw the gun upwards in a silent arc as the bullet penetrated his skull and blew a hole out of the opposite side of his head. The now pilotless body collapsed to the ground in an instant while a thin trace of the pungent gun smoke trailed through the air where the boy’s head had once been.

The actor dropped the rifle and brought both hands to his head in an instinctive response of shock and despair. It was a sight that would haunt his dreams for weeks to come.

Sheriff’s vehicles arrived on the scene with their sirens blazing and lights flashing. The officer’s parked the cars outside the chain link fence that surrounded the track and as they exited, they quickly drew their guns as they moved strategically towards the playing field. Not yet understanding the dynamics of the scene, they approached the actor warily, and when they told him to get down, he immediately complied with their demands. After securing his arms behind his back and with the killer’s weapons secured, the questions began.

Within a relatively short amount of time, although it seemed an eternity for the actor, two of the officers, having recognized who he was, escorted him from the field and to a vehicle that ultimately would transport him to a secure and private location at which they could take his statement. After corroborating the chain of events, he was thanked profusely for his apparent intervention and was informed that they would be in touch in the event that there were any additional questions that would support the investigation. And as the news of the school shooting exploded into a media frenzy, arrangements were made to take him home with subsequent plans to have his vehicle retrieved and transported back to his residence the next day.

Scene: The red-bricked patio is still cool on this early California morning as the sun has not yet ascended sufficiently to settle its sights on it. The actor has a cup of coffee nestled within his long, thick hands and he continues to stare blankly at the shimmering blue surface of the swimming pool.

He has seen the news coverage on multiple stations and read the reports on several websites, excluding Facebook and Twitter which he refused to subject himself to at this time and maybe forever. The boy whose actions had destroyed the lives of many the previous evening had left both paper and electronic testimony as an attempt to justify his horrific actions, and the media had taken the news and turned it into a total shitstorm. The actor, Hollywood, and the gun lobbyists were firmly at the center of it all.

The boy had apparently possessed a long-term, and devout fixation with the actor’s legendary portfolio of violent movies and had planned for some time to emulate them in a way that would afford him vast media attention and the kind of recognition and notoriety that he could never have gained in a world without the internet.

The fact that the actor attended his high school football games became a significant and verifiable sign that he was meant to do it in his presence. And while the media thankfully did not release all of the finer details as to why he had selected the individuals he had murdered that did not stop people from providing their own callous and despicable comments through the anonymity of the web. These were the computer cowboys, with no doubt some cowgirls amongst them, that would flee from any physical conflict or argument in a social setting but felt emboldened and compelled to spew their darkest and most evil thoughts within the cyber realm.

The boy had referred to the actor as his hero and inspiration, and the media ran with that banner with the often repeated discourse to ask why, yet again, had the epidemic of violence and guns been allowed to infiltrate and wreak havoc upon the delicate sensibilities of our society. Their lament focused specifically upon the fragile and impressionable youth who were subjected to the insidious and ever-increasing violence manufactured by those that were determined to bring our world to ruin. The same underlying causes and culprits were targeted, television, music, films, pornography, guns and of course video games.

The inboxes of the actor’s email, text, and cell calls had blown up and in response he had left both his smart phone and tablet on the charging station in the house so that he would not be tempted to read their content again. A series of texts from his agent had described this “lamentable event” as a “golden opportunity” to re-launch his career and even reported that the studio which had previously rejected him for inclusion in the reboot had now reached out with a renewed interest given the recent developments. The actor knew that this translated into their ultimate desire to tap into a source of enhanced media coverage and the free advertising and public interest that would come with it.

The actor had no desire to become a focus of a media circus and the blitzkrieg of publicity that would follow in its wake. While there would be some legitimate interest in his involvement with the project, ultimately the onslaught of interviews would turn to his presence at the high-school event and they would ask him insinuating questions behind their wolfish smiles as to his level of guilt or culpability.

Instead, after a very brief but essentially considered introspective dialogue, he decided upon a course of action that would necessitate a self-imposed state of isolation. No matter how the story was ultimately spun and whatever additional details came to the surface, he would be permanently linked with the murderer and the high school shootings. And in time, after a respectful but no-doubt short period to allow for crocodile tears and opportunistic mourning, there would be a TV movie produced and poorly re-enacted on Lifetime or Netflix that would serve little justice and provide no solace to the families of the victims. This would then result in yet another round of media attention and a demand for interviews in which he would be asked to respond to the accuracy of the portrayal of events and his opinion of the actor who had portrayed his character. Right now, he could not dare to think about who they would get to play him or to consider the nature of the spin that they would place upon the story, and he knew that his thoughts on either topic would not improve even with the passage of time.

While some headlines cast him as a hero, others had already begun to indirectly lay partial blame at his feet. The chickens had come home to roost. He had been a purveyor of violence, somebody who had made millions glamorizing and glorifying the brutal murders of countless thugs, goons, drug lords, and the many unfortunate and innocent bystanders caught up in the cross-fire as collateral damage, and now he had brought this carnage home to his own community. Some would say that he had reaped what he had sown, and that his roles had acted as a surrogate and role model for those who shared his propensity to promote indiscriminate violence and the taking of lives.

He acknowledged that his social life was now over and for the remainder of his days he would assume the final role of a retired and silent recluse. He would delete all of his social media accounts and change both his cell phone number and email address. Gone were the award shows, the industry dinners and social engagements. There would be no more interviews, either in person or remotely over Zoom or Skype, and any lifetime or career recognition awards he may be awarded would have to be handled in his absence. He no longer sought to be an inspiration to aspiring actors and he definitely did not consider himself to be a role model or hero. He might have played one in the movies but in real life he had been just an actor, and now he wasn’t even that.

All characters within this story are a work of fiction.