DISCLAIMER & AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following story is a complete work of fiction. any resemblance to actual people, places or bussinesses is purely coincidental and should be viewed as such. This story is written and published for entertainment purposes only. copyrights exclusively owned by me.
This story is the culmination of 15 years of trying, refining and starting again. Certain parts of this story might seem familiar to avid readers of the site. I did resurect certain themes and characters from previous stories published on this site years ago. No stealing or copying going on...if anything seems familiar to an older story on this site, it's because i wrote that one too!
Hope you enjoy this story! Kevin Thylacine
En Algun Lugar. Chapter 1/2:
"Love is a storm, carrying with it all the pain and fears we have tried to escape... Life is a fire that draws us to it like the moth to the flame... Burning all things except the question why"
Peter stopped writing, shocked at the dark overtone of his own writing. He tore the page out of the little spiral note book, crushed it into a ball and threw it into the trash bin next to his desk. He always carried a little notebook with him to pen down ideas, thoughts, sketches of plotlines...anything that came to mind when inspiration struck him. This little verse was worthless, too negative to ever be used and totally unreflective of his character and outlook on life. Yet he understood the origins of his sober thoughts. As he was reviewing the auditions of the day, trying to make some decisions, his mind had drifted away. He was thinking about Thomas, about how different his auditions might be. The thought was unpleasant and unhelpful to him so he forced his mind to ban it back to the dark corner it had escaped from.
"Back to work he thought" as he turned his attention back to his desk and the papers on it.
The office was only lit by the small desk lamp in front of him and a small ray of light coming in from the hallway. On his desk was a variety of pictures, notes and other documents. Several actors had auditioned that day, and days before. Even though several candidates were represented on his desk the debate raging in his mind was not over who to choose. He had made that decision hours ago... No, there was another conflict that needed to be resolved. The story he had written was powerful. Both guys had praised it for it. But was it too powerful? He didn't doubt the actors could do it. He knew they would be great. But could he subject them to his own personal catharsis? Wouldn't it affect them somehow? Wasn't this just compulsive self confession instead of art? Should he even be making this movie? He was about to take something that looked good in his own mind and share it with the world. Would their reactions be what he imagined them to be? Would they misinterpret it? This sudden lack of self confidence bothered him. It always seemed to accompany the final step from idea into reality.
The bottle of Jack Daniels at the far corner of the desk offered to help. As he poured another glass he tried to replay the movie of the day. He had picked up on something earlier in the day, but wasn't sure where the nagging splinter in his brain came from. Could they come out of this journey unscaved? If so, how? Then he remembered the reason he started this project in the first place...and doubt turned into determination. As he stood up to turn on another light the vanishing shadows took all uncertainty with them. A decision had been made and it was final.
He took his mind back to Josh's and Paul's audition. Although they had never met before their interactions were immediately spontaneous and amicable. The little hints he had received about the nature of their personalities had encouraged him to make the decision. If they were to connect on screen there needed to be some connection off screen. Of that much he was sure. The reading had been but a formality. It had been instantaneously obvious they understood where he wanted to go with the text and their interpretation of it was exactly what he envisioned. Watching both guys interact with the text and each other had made him confident the last parts of the puzzle had fallen into place. It was the finality of that realization that had bothered him earlier, but now the creative promise he so strived for had overtaken his spirit again and the enthusiasm was pumping through his veins. "We are really going to do this" he spoke out loud, as if to convince himself it was real.
A feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment came over him as he sat back down in the now well lit room. He had been contemplating this story for years, nearly a decade now. His oldest paper notes had already assumed a somewhat yellowish color. He had started several attempts at writing it down over time but every time he ended up hitting a wall, a block that stopped him again and again. Fragments had appeared in other form: short stories, poems, dialogues and every other medium he used to express his creativity. The story had never left him though. It had ripened in his mind during this time. He had seen the characters grow up, take on form and personality. He had seen the conflicts play out, over and over again until it seemed he had lived them. This was the one! For good or for bad, he knew this was the project that would define him. Maybe not the one the world would judge him by, but the one by which he would judge himself.
What had Paul called it earlier "a personal project?" Peter smiled at the comment. Nobody knew how personal this really was. His hopes for this endeavor reached far beyond earning a few dollars, entertaining an audience or even critical acclaim. This was his attempt to fix things that should have been fixed long ago. This was his ultimate attempt at reconciliation. "It must be perfect, it has to be" He thought, clenching his fist as if to garner more will power.
He remembered sitting in those heavy velvet seats in the city auditorium, looking up at the stage, being mesmerized by that larger than life man. He had watched in amazement as this thespian giant conjured up the spirits of men like Hamlet or Cyrano. The theater had been his introduction to the creative arts. He had tried his hand at acting but had soon found his talent lay in the craft of storytelling. His father had hoped one of his sons would continue his legendary stage career. To discover neither one had inherited his unnatural talent for the stage was somewhat of a disappointment. But Over time, watching his son ascend in the movie industry, he had come to realize the art of captivating an audience took on many forms. Peter knew his father was proud of him and it meant the world to him, but it also left him with an uncomfortable feeling of guilt. Was it really all his own accomplishment? Hadn't life laid out the cards maybe a little better for him? There were many in his field who had never had the chance to create according to their own vision. So many had to use their talents in service, not in freedom. What else could they do but survive, by any means that presented themselves? Could you blame them? His father's stern eyes had told him many times. Yes, you could!
He felt he had been inside long enough. He needed some fresh air. The creative decisions had been made. He would start with the logistics tomorrow, not tonight. As he stood up from behind his desk he emptied the glass in front of him and turned off the lights. He walked through the building, turning of lights and appliances as he proceeded. Like so many nights he was the last one to leave the office. The small industrial building on the outskirts of the city was his. He had built it with the help of some kindred spirits. They had started their business in a garage, but their determination, persistence and above all talent had allowed them to grow it to the point where they were the proud owners of a respectable commercial enterprise, equipped with all the necessary technical tools, housed in a more than decent building. As he turned the key on the front door he took a long look at the building. Peter felt proud of what he had achieved. With the door securely locked he turned around, put up his collar as he walked through the cold night air towards his car.
Anyone who would have been able to look through the window of Josh's hotel room that morning would have been treated to quite the spectacle. Even though the sun had only just come up the young actor was already up and about. Dressed in some basketball shorts and matching sleeveless shirt he was walking through the room. Bruce Springsteen's greatest hits were blaring through the speakers of his docking station. The cup of coffee he was holding in one hand didn't stop him from wildly moving along to the rhythm as he walked across the room. From time to time he would make his way to the table to take a bite of the toast room service had brought up. As soon as he had swallowed it he'd resume singing along, a huge smile on his face. His unkempt hair waved along as he shook his head.
He had woken up in a particular good mood this morning. Normally he would be somewhat of a long sleeper but today he hadn't felt like wasting any time. As soon as the first rays of sunlight had awoken him he was running around. The audition yesterday had filled him with enthusiasm. Although there was no way of knowing what the outcome would be he was feeling pretty confident about it. This part was written for him. This was the role he was meant to play. He badly wanted to be a part of this project. His creativity was screaming for the opportunity to interact with the story he had read so carefully in the script. If anyone would get the cliff notes of the plot it would seem like your run of the mill love story, but he had picked up on the subtext brewing silently underneath those seemingly simple lines. It would be up to him to unearth it, at least that was what he hoped for. Josh understood people would call it a gay' movie. Others would probably label it a coming of age' story. Both interpretations were way too simplistic he thought. The conflict between the characters didn't originate from them being gay, it came from their inability to take control of their lives. That's what appealed to him in the story. He would be terribly disappointed if he would miss out on this movie. "But, hey..." he snapped himself out of it, "today is a day for positive thinking. We're going to get that part!" For the following couple of days he decided to at least pretend the role was his.
He stepped over a pair of shoes randomly lying on the floor as he continued to walk around the room lost in thought. The hotel room he was in was a somewhat organized chaos. He had been there for three weeks now and had definitely made himself at home. Several chairs were covered with clothes. Dozens of papers were laying on all sorts of surfaces throughout the space, on table tops, shelves even on the bed. One could only wonder how the cleaning service had managed to do anything in the time He had spent there. He had arrived in the city a few weeks ago to do some redubbing on a short film he had filmed earlier in the year. When he was asked by Peter to audition for his movie he had extended his stay in the hotel. If he were to actually get the part he would probably stay there a lot longer. If so, he really needed to do some cleaning up before he overstayed his welcome.
The chaos in the room was rather reflective of the chaos that characterized his professional life. He had left home some years ago but had never actually owned a house in that time. Since his booking had seriously gone up his life had been a long string of one hotel room after the other for as long as he could remember. When a project would allow him to stay in the same place for a longer amount of time he would rent an apartment for a couple of months. He really didn't like this arrangement but constant mobility was an absolute requirement in the business he was in. He might have acquired some name recognition but certainly not the clout to pressure anyone to change their planning for his convenience. Even if he had, he was not the kind of guy to actually do something like that.
Like so many hopefuls before him he had made the move south, to the land of fun and sun, after he had finished his schooling. Despite scoring a few roles in small theaters, aimed predominantly at catering to tourists, he had quickly realized chances were he would probably end up waiting tables in that town. He found more realistic opportunities were available up North. His early career had taken him from the Mason-Dixon Line to deep into Canada and back again. He had learned the ropes through dozens of stage productions, student films and independent movies in cities nobody would associate with the performing arts. It wasn't the stardom many of his generation had fruitlessly sought after but as his reputation grew it had provided a continuous source of income and employment. Now he had come to a point where he was able to provide a pretty decent living for himself. He had earned the respect of the inner circle, who recognized him as a very gifted professional. The words `up and comer' where thrown around a lot. He felt satisfied with what he had accomplished. As a young boy he had dreamed of a Hollywood career and stardom but like so many youthful fantasies he had outgrown it over time. "People don't ask me for autographs..." he often joked, "unless they're holding a contract." It was his rather juvenile way of reminding himself that success had many faces. As is always the case success had come at a price. He had paid for it with his blood, sweat and a few times even tears. He had gotten there the hard way. He had fought his fair share of battles and had learned some wars couldn't be won. You couldn't please all the people all the time. Nothing had come easy. Nothing had come free. What he had was his because he earned it and that's the way he was raised.
As a kid he often played pretending games. He used to be quite good at imitating the people around him, to the point where it drove them up the wall. His vivid imagination had been his best friend in those early years. The enjoyment he found in assuming different personas was in hindsight an early indicator of the direction his life would take. Where other kids outgrew their fantasy games he had found he was actually good at them. His aunt would often joke she was living with a hundred different people and none of them was him. As he grew older this typical mechanism children use to take control of the world around them by pretending, took on another dimension when he discovered drama and other performing arts. He found out early on playing people didn't have to be just a game, but could be a means to self expression. It also made him realize the confines of his surroundings and the expectations of his social circle were completely artificial. He could be anyone or anything he chose to be. The difficult question was who or what that was.
He submersed himself in the world of the theater. What twelve year old would be happy unwrapping the collected works of Shakespeare at Christmas morning? He was. He also got a leather football that year, and it too would play a major role in his formative years. Throughout high school he was in the theater club and on the football team. When he wasn't rehearsing lines he was at football practice. When he wasn't on the field he was on the stage. He didn't run with the popular kids but he got along with most other teens. It was a strange realization that both interests would garner the attention of other people. The audience was a factor he only started to consider much later. At that stage in his life he saw both activities as his personal road of self discovery and really couldn't understand why other people would be interested in that. The dynamics of an audience were something he would come to understand much later in life.
Throughout high school he was a decent enough student. He didn't hate school like most kids his age, but wasn't overly passionate about it either. He loved subjects like history and foreign languages, especially Spanish. He disliked courses like math and the sciences. The annual ritual of dissecting frogs in biology class was an absolute nightmare for him. Taking a miraculous beautiful thing like a living breathing organism and cutting it to pieces collided with his outlook on life in the most violent way. It convinced him early on of the destructive force of analysis. "What could possibly be learned about the whole by ripping the individual parts out of their natural context and function?" he wondered. The tiny dead heart lying on the metal plate told him nothing about the frog. How it operated. How it used to swim. It told him one thing: it was dead.
Another destructive force he had come to know during that time was that of rejection. He had a lot of acquaintances but very few friends. Real connections were rare. He was always aware of a certain distance between himself and other kids, nothing mean spirited or ill willed but an inability to connect beyond the superficial. There were very few people he felt were actually involved in his life, who actually knew about him. Sometimes he would feel wronged by that. The erratic family arrangements of his early childhood only enforced the feeling of being an outsider. There were good reasons off course. The distance between them was in no way imposed on him by choice. But he felt early on the geographical separation was emblematic of a deeper rift. One that couldn't easily by bridged by taking a plane or bus.
"...we gotta get out while we're young..."
The music had continued to play as he had finished his breakfast. He quickly collected the cups, plates and empty packaging on the service plate and put everything away next to the door in the hallway. True to his promise to pretend the movie role was already his he spent a good part of the morning going through the script again. It was an intensive and time consuming labor every time. Memorizing lines was the easy part, the difficulty lay in figuring out how to be a conduit for the ideas, thoughts and emotions captured by those lines. By the time he would finish going through a script the papers itself would look like a coloring book. He would use different color pens, markers, highlights and a personal system of emoticons to insert his thoughts and interpretations into the typed out text. There was a carefully planned out method to his madness. He was by no means a method actor. He saw the merit of identifying with the character and bringing in personal experience to emote certain things but he thought that school of acting had lost direction after Stanislavski's revolutionary work. He saw acting as something fluid and organic, resenting the overly mechanic approach some of his peers took to it. "As if you can learn to act like you can learn to fix a car or cook a meal." He thought. To him art was not an imitation of life. It was his life.
Visualization was a key aspect of his preparations. In his mind's eye he would try to see the picture the words were painting. Strangely enough he already included Paul in the scenes he was conjuring up. As much as he couldn't imagine not getting the part, he definitely couldn't imagine Paul not getting his part. The respect he had for his fellow actor was genuine. "The guy's a force." He thought. Unlike the casual movie fan he had an understanding of the methodology involved in acting. Paul's acting, in the movies he had seen, had amazed him. The intelligence and poetic beauty that shone through, it had captivated him and he was curious about the person who could create these performances. "by what power does he do these things?" he questioned as he continued reading the script. He wondered if he would get the chance to find out.
A few readers indicated they thought the last part was too short, Hope I satisfied you all with this part. As always: love to hear what you think...good, bad or otherwise I really do appreciate hearing from you so don't hesitate to give me your feedback.
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