"Give me strength or give me mercy- Don't let me lose heart- Twenty percent amnesia-
From rage to anesthesia."
"Mark stop singing! I have a headache."
"So do I!" I sang.
"Then stop singing, dumbass!"
"But-I'm trying to annoy you."
"Okaaay…It's working. What the fuck do you want? What the hell is going on in there?"
"Um, well! I…am…going crazy! Help."
"No you're not."
"Yes, I am. Roger, look at this."
"What?"
"You can't see it from in there. Come in here and look at it. Ha ha ha…"
"What?"
"Why the fuck is it doing this?"
"There's something wrong with you. Why would you ask me? Does it look like I know."
"I don't know. I- ha ha…oh Jesus. This is just fucking great. How the fuck are we gonna fix this before tomorrow?"
"We? How am I involved?"
"Ohh! Roger help me!"
"Call a photography shop!"
"I DID! SEVEN of them. It is SUNDAY. They are closed."
"Ha ha ha. Well, you are in some deep shit."
"Don't laugh…hahaha…"
"You're laughing."
"I know I am! Because it's fucking funny- you're right! Ohhh…no it's not. No it is not… Oh God. Roger do something…"
" Ugh! Stop whining…Are you drunk? What do you want me to do, sing to the projector?"
"Nooo…perform a miracle! Fix it. Gouge my eyes out. Shoot me in the head."
"Hahaha…"
"Stop laughing at me! Hahahaha..."
"Stop laughing at yourself!"
"I can't!"
I collapsed onto the couch, covering my face. I curled into a ball and laughed and laughed and laughed.
"I fucking hate you Roger. Hahahaha…"
"I didn't break it!"
"Ohhh, Ro-ger…WHY did you make me go last night?"
"Oh you little bitch, I didn't make you. 'Come on Roger, come on! Drive me! Let's go to the party! Doh-dee-doh-dee-doh! Oh, one more hour Roger. It's been an hour already? Aw, fifteen more minutes…five more minutes, pleeease? Ten more minutes!' WHOOPS! It's four in the fucking morning! How ever did that happen? Do you want to go home now, Mark?"
"Shut up, I hate you!"
"You don't hate me, you hate yourself."
"Oohhh…yes. Yes I DO! Aw SHIT. Shit shit shit. DAMNIT! I know how you can help-" I peeked my head out from the corner of the couch and pointed.
"Throw the fucking projector at the wall. Just- just, go ahead and throw it. That wall there. Just chuck it."
He wandered over to the camera and picked it up.
"Oh my God Roger put it down! Don't touch it!"
"Hee hee hee…but you said-"
"Don't be an asshole."
"Too late."
…In summary, the postmark deadline for the film audition submissions to Brown was tomorrow, and at the moment I was putting the finishing touches on my project. I was happy, Roger was spending the night as usual (We'd figuratively adopted him ever since that night he showed up at our door. He practically lived here now.
No one minded.
Maybe his dad did. My mom wanted to call Child Services, but Roger still refused to talk about him. But he showed me scars.
I had a qualm he didn't even go home once he left our house. It was almost obvious. He was like a packrat with food, eating generous portions of my mom's cooking, then asking me for bags of cereal or fruit to pack away when my parents were gone. He was grungy. He wore the same clothes a lot. I let him have some of mine. We let him use our shower.
But I honestly don't think he went back home much. A few nights I sat up wondering if he ever went home at all. I wondered if his dad had died of rage or alcohol poisoning, alone, in that house, and was rotting away in his recliner. Nonetheless, Roger's eighteenth birthday was approaching and he'd be legal. He had a job somewhere on the east side, tuning instruments for miscellaneous events. Apparently it paid enough for him to maintain his car and buy weed and guitar picks. The important and exciting thing was, he could move out. This was an open book for both of us. We spent hours in my room planning out his life. But for now, he was here.)
Anyway, at the moment I'd didn't give a fuck about Roger.
He was reading on the couch, I was busy in the living room, the projector winding along nicely, it was operating and oiled and cranking along just fine and then, all the sudden, for no good reason, for karma, for God's idea of an malevolent practical joke-SNAP! The film caught.
Out of nowhere. Just snapped.
Crinkled the negatives. Jammed up the teeth. The handle stopped turning. The camera jerked forward. The aperture smashed against the leg of the tripod. Over five and a half months of work in a crumpled heap on the coffee table.
And Roger had a hangover, rendering him nearly incapable of help.
And the deadline was tomorrow.
"Tomorrow." I moaned.
"ToooMORRow, ToMORRow! Bet yer bottom dollar that tomorrow-"
"Roger I HATE YOU!"
"Mark is duuumb…"
"Oh dear. What am I going to do?"
"Ummm…Not go to parties the night before you have to finish something important?"
"The entire rest of my life is at sake here Roger!"
"Gee…I guess you should've had a plan B."
"Ooh, that stings. I am going to strangle you."
"Just because shit happens gives you no right to kill me. Why don't you just have your parents buy your way into college? They can afford it!"
"No! No. Don't even start. This is mine. I expect nothing from them. I may have an incredible missed opportunity here, but at the very least I just lost one of my masterpieces."
"…Well there you go. You just said it yourself. One of them. Submit something else! Your screenplays are fucking amazing. Send them a play! You have fifty million other movies made, collecting dust in your file cabinets. Your grades are qualifying. Your essay was on target. You'll be accepted! Calm down, damn. Send something else, fix whatever the fuck you broke in the meantime, and once you're accepted show 'em this at the interview and seal the deal. It's fucking simple. Do you have any aspirin?"
I stared at him. "I don't think you get it."
"What? Okay then, Tylenol?"
"No! This was the…this was…it. This film was right. It was the only film that felt complete. That doesn't happen that often. I'm sure you understand- like, when you're writing songs. Do you ever get little snippets that just urge to be put on paper, but then you can't go anywhere from there? You can't find a way to connect them or make them into something meaningful? Don't even answer- I know you do. It's just like that with films. This has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it doesn't just have structure, it has substance."
"So bring them that pile of shit on the table, dump it in their laps, and say, 'Listen. This is where all my hard work and determination got me. I really tried. But then life happened.' If they really want you they'll pick through the scraps."
"No they won't."
"Do you have any aspirin yet?"
I tried to frown and then burst into laughter again. Genuine laughter this time though, not ridicule of my own plight. What was it about Roger that made life so bearable?
"…Wait a minute Mark, you're being thickheaded. How long was that movie?"
"Like, thirteen hours worth."
"And how long does the audition clip have to be?"
"Ten minutes."
"Dumbass. I think you are drunk."
"Roger-"
"Mark, tomorrow is twelve hours from now, plus the nighttime, that is if you don't absolutely need your beauty sleep. Go get some scissors and cut off the fucked up part. Dear Lord I hope it was the footage of me."
"But I already said, it's not that might miss the deadline, it's that I lost my work…"
Roger pulled himself from the couch and went into the bathroom to dig in the medicine cabinet. He called out into the living room, "From what I have learned over these past few months, you are the king of pragmatism. What is more important? Making the deadline that will change your life," He came back in and stared at me. "Or throwing everything away for something you have your whole life ahead of you to repair?"
He popped two aspirin in his mouth and went to go and get a drink of water.
If only he lived by his own beliefs.