End Vision, page 17
“Of course, Mama.” They rose and proceeded outside.
It was mid-morning, and the sun shone bright in a cloudless sky. William stopped to allow his eyes to adjust. Sharron took his hand and led him to the building’s side where a large metal drum rested, two-thirds full of an oily liquid.
“What’s this?” he asked, as she took his hand.
“Gasoline,” replied Sharron. “It will poison the chiggers.”
William released her hand, and Sharron turned to face him. “Won’t that burn?” he asked. “It seems like gasoline might burn.”
Sharron chuckled. “Of course it will burn,” she said. “It’s supposed to burn. Chiggers aren’t like mosquitos. They don’t bite you and leave. They are alive right now inside of you. Living in your skin. Feeding off your body.”
“Oh…”
“We need to suffocate them. Soaking in gasoline will kill them. They can’t live in it.”
“O.K.,” replied William reluctantly. “So I just jump into the barrel?”
“Yes. Strip down and get into the barrel.” She turned her back to him. “Don’t worry, I won’t peek.”
William looked around. They were right out in the open, within view of the road and the station’s main building. He untied and pulled off his shoes, removed his socks, and took off his shirt. He stood in the dirt in only his blue jeans. “No peeking now.”
“Just get in the barrel, William. I won’t peek.”
William unbuckled his belt and removed his pants and underwear in one quick swoop. He stepped slowly and carefully across the jagged ground. The soles of his feet were tender from days in the sand and water. High-stepping over the barrel’s side, he dipped a leg down into the gasoline then shifted his weight and swung his other leg in. The gasoline reached to his upper thighs, stopping just beneath his shrunken, scared penis. William formed a codpiece with both hands to cover his chigger-bit pecker. “Are you sure about this?”
“Get in, you big baby. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, you know.”
Slowly, William began to lower himself into the gasoline. Submerging his genitals was the most difficult part. Once past the penis, it was smooth sailing. He sat, balled up in the barrel of gasoline. “Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”
Sharron turned around.
“Hey! I thought you said no peeking!”
“I can’t see anything, you big prude. How does it feel?”
“Tingly. How long do I have to sit in this damn thing?”
“You’ll know when it’s time to get out.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is going to get…” Sharron paused, then said, “Intense.”
William felt the gasoline burn on each bite. The tingling was getting more intense.
John appeared with the sound of the screen door slamming shut. He had a towel draped over his shoulder. “Your mother said y’all’d need this towel,” he said. “What the hell yah doin’ in there, Bill? You nekkid?”
“Leave the towel, John, then get out of here.”
“I’ll take the towel, John,” Sharron said.
John kept the towel. He walked toward the barrel. “You nekkid?!”
“Don’t come over here,” William pleaded.
“Oh man, you’re nekkid in there!” John burst into laughter.
The burn of the gasoline on the bites was becoming unbearable, and the fumes were making William dizzy. “I’ve got to get out of here!” he said, panicking. “Give me that towel, John!”
John held the towel high over William’s head. “Here,” he said, laughing. “Take it.”
Sharron grinned then covered her mouth with her hand.
“Quit messin’ around, John. I’m gettin’ light-headed here. Give me the damn towel!”
“It’s right here, Bill. No need to get mad, bud. Just stand up and take it.”
Sharron snatched the towel out of John’s hands. “Go back inside.”
William fumed.
John chuckled. “I was just playin’ around, guys. Geez.”
“Go back inside, John,” ordered Sharron.
John turned and made his way back to the building.
“Thank you,” said William to Sharron.
“You need to go all the way under.”
“What?”
“You’re gonna need to go all the way under, William. Dunk your head.”
“No...I think I am okay now.”
“Just trust me, William. You don’t want them to get in your head, do you? Take a deep breath and go under. Stay under as long as you can, then you can get out.”
William did trust her. There was a connection between the two of them that he could feel. It was as if the air between them had texture. It was thick; it carried mass. He trusted her with every part of himself.
The gasoline fumes burned his lungs as he inhaled. William closed his eyes and went under. He struggled to remain submerged, dizzy, lost in his own mind. His facial pores screamed out in pain. So what if she sees me? he thought. He could take no more.
Standing quickly, William hung his head and gasped as the gasoline dripped from his hair and ran off his face. Sharron had turned her back, the towel hung from her extended arm. The gasoline dried quickly and cooled his skin. He climbed from the barrel, quickly toweled off, and wrapped his waist.
“Are you out?” asked Sharron.
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes...I’m okay. Everything is fine now.”
“I am going to turn around now.” Sharron turned.
William stood, self-conscious, red and half-naked while she eyed him over. A car rattled by on the road.
“Now that wasn’t so bad...was it?” said Sharron. They laughed together. William’s chuckle erupted from his chest in a booming roar. He took her slender hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes. “No,” he said. “It’s not so bad.”
The Munden-Epperson wedding occurred in a white Presbyterian church on the nineteenth of May, nineteen hundred and forty-nine. It was a small affair in a small church. William came alone without family or friends, and Sharron’s eldest cousin stood in as best man. Sharron had chosen for her maid of honor a high school friend. With Mr. and Mrs. Epperson, the wedding party was complete. A no-fuss wedding. They would tie the knot and head north to their new home.
Mrs. Epperson had wanted a larger wedding but Sharron had refused to spend her daddy’s hard-earned money on such an extravagance. If he felt as if he must part with his money, she had told him, he could give it to her to buy a telephone so that she could call him when she became homesick and wanted to hear his voice. Which he did. And Sharron would call many times that first year as she struggled to settle into her new life out on the open plains.
During the wedding, everything swam before William’s eyes as the vague hopes of happiness he had imagined and mapped out in a year of letters, began to take shape. The church organ played the Bridal Chorus, and William stood tall and proud in a black suit worn by his father on his wedding day. William’s mother had been emotional as she hemmed the suit for the occasion, knowing she would not see her youngest and last child wed.
William looked out over the glorious scene, across the tight space of the church with its empty wooden pews and down the aisle at Sharron as she walked toward him, arm-in-arm with her father. She wore her grandmother’s white lace wedding gown. A white veil covered her face, and she carried a small bouquet of light-blue flowers plucked from Mrs. Epperson’s own garden. When Mr. Epperson gave Sharron away, William trembled in every limb of his body. His bride smelled of lavender perfume. Her hands were soft and smooth against his rough ones. The organ music faded, moving off over an unseen horizon, and the preacher began the ceremony.
Before God and her parents, William promised to love Sharron through any sort of calamity. He promised to be provider and protector of a life and a family that did not yet exist. And when he swore these oaths, he meant them. Best of all, when he swore to love her and no other for as long as he lived while looking deep into Sharron’s eyes, he knew that she knew that he meant it. And when she, in her turn, promised the same to him, William knew that she meant it as well. The preacher announced their union, and it was so.
William and Sharron Munden walked hand-in-hand out of the church and into the sunlight. William’s in-laws congratulated the newlyweds and wished them a life of happiness filled with healthy children. As a family, they posed for a photograph together on the church steps before the large white wooden double doors: William and Sharron in the frame’s center, her parents at their side. Framed by two radius-topped windows, the entrance to the church with white painted boards running horizontally across the church’s front. A cross rose high from the center of a steep sloping roof above them. No clouds could be seen in the bright, pale blue sky.
9 Dec. 2017
Tight Lipped Smiles
INT. VerMas CONFERENCE CENTER - Santa Monica, CA - 12/9 (DAY)
A large auditorium and stage. Video cameras and production lighting.
Casting Panel: CARA CARSON, Casting Director, sitting front row in the room’s stadium seating. MARION, Casting Associate, to her right. SHELLY QUINN, Media Director, to his right. JENNI JARMUSCH, Assistant to the Producer, to CARA’S left. CAMERA and BOOM MEN, situated around the stage and casting panel. CHRIS APPLETON, actor. EMILY KRAPOVSKI, actress.
CARA
O.K. Team. Moving along. Who do we have next?
JENNI
How many more of these things do we have to do today? Ugggghhhh
SHELLY
We have CHRIS APPLETON.
JENNI
I love him!
CARA
Remember, team: Personality, Looks, Chemistry. Everyone we see here today was once famous. They are recognizable. The viewer, watching, will have a preconceived notion of who this person is. But who are they, really? Who are they in real life? Or what can we make them seem? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves as we cast. We are building a team; we might as well be drafting for a football team. Who are our ‘Devils?’ Our ‘Drama Queens and Kings?’ Our ‘Pushovers’ just prime for a primetime meltdown? The ‘Oddball?’We need characters our viewers can root for, or that they can hate.
(BEAT)
CARA (CONT’D)
Are we ready?
THE CASTING PANEL give themselves a quick once-over, checking each other’s teeth, wiping creases from clothing.
CARA gives the go-ahead.
LIGHTS activate.
CAMERAS roll.
(ENTER) CHRIS APPLETON stage right, dressed as a cowboy. His left arm is in a SLING.
CHRIS
Howdy partners!
CARA
Good morning, CHRIS. We would all like to thank you for coming to the audition today. First, we will take a look at the fifteen-second audition video you have submitted. Then we will ask you a few questions.
CHRIS
Video ma’am? It is the 19th Century. I am not sure I understand what you mean.
SHELLY turns to MARION, rolls her eyes.
A PROJECTION SCREEN drops from the ceiling.
CHRIS acts dumbfounded, places his good hand to his holster, ready to draw his revolver.
CHRIS (CONT’D)
What is this? Does President Hayes know of this magic?
CARA
O.K CHRIS. We got it. Here we go.
A VIDEO appears on the screen:
The shot begins tight on a rusted metal gate. The viewer hears snorting. The camera pans out. Chris Appleton is in the chute, atop a bull in a rodeo arena. A man dressed like Bozo the Clown holds a rope which is attached to the gate. The bull is huge and does not look happy. Cut to a close-up of the bull’s eye. Black and bottomless and crazed-looking. Cut to Chris. “Howdy, partners. I am Chris Appleton, and I’m going to ride Bone Crusher!” Chris nods. The clown pulls on the rope. The gate doesn’t open. “Pull it, Randy!” “I’m trying, Chris!” The gate swings open and Bone Crusher explodes out in tornadic twists. Chris is thrown across the frame in a parabolic arc. He crashes to the dirt, landing hard on his left shoulder. The camera drops to the dirt. The viewer sees legs run toward Chris who lies motionless on the arena floor. Shouting is heard. Bone Crusher bucks into frame. Randy the Clown and the cameraman are shaking Chris. Hooves fall onto the camera and the screen goes black to the screams of Randy yelling for someone to call an ambulance.
THE CASTING PANEL, mouths agape.
SHELLY
Holy Shit...
MARION
I’ll go first. You really went all out there, son. Is that stunt what put your arm in that sling?
CHRIS
That’s just a typical day on the ranch, partner.
MARION
Cut the shit, CHRIS. This isn’t a goddamn nineteenth century program we got going on here. So, stop. Now, did you fuck your arm up on that bull? Bone Crusher...was that his name?
CHRIS
Yessir, it is.
MARION (shaking his head)
God damn, son! You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.
CARA
Not smart. Thank God R.D. is not here.
CHRIS, visibly losing confidence.
CARA (CONT’D)
But, yes, that took a lot of...I don’t know if courage is the right word here, CHRIS, but let us move on...Viewers will know you mostly from the 2008 sitcom Omaha Nights. What have you been doing since the show, and how are you different from the character, MASON?
CHRIS
Well, as you all know, MASON was a bad boy/boy-next-door-type who struggled to live up to his father’s image of him being a star football player while pursuing his love for street graffiti. He was stuck trying to please his detective father and his Brazilian girlfriend, Francisca, who was really supportive of his street art, and who he eventually leaves with for New York City. But then she falls for an art dealer, JEAN-GEORGE, and MASON is forced to return home to Omaha where his father is now in charge of ridding the streets of graffiti art…
JENNI chews gum, entranced.
CARA
We know the show, CHRIS. A full summary is not necessary.
CHRIS
Oh, okay.
CARA
Could you please just tell us how you are different from MASON, and what you have been doing since Omaha Nights?
CHRIS (becoming emotional)
Yes...Yes...since Omaha Nights...Umm... I’m sorry...It’s been difficult to get roles since the show was cancelled. It really has. Everyone wants me to be MASON, and that’s all I’ve been offered. Different roles where I am another version of MASON,you know? And I’m so much more than that.
MARION (over to SHELLY)
Oh my God. Is he crying?
JENNI
Don’t cry, CHRIS. I love Omaha Nights!
CHRIS
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
CARA
It is perfectly okay to feel the way you feel, CHRIS. Can you expand on those emotions for me, but look into camera two while you do it, please?
CHRIS (pulling himself together)
Yes...Yes...okay. I guess, I guess it just feels like I am owed a second chance. I’m actually making a documentary about that now...about my life after Omaha Nights. About the struggles I had with addiction and women and trying to find my place in a post-Omaha Nights world.
JENNI
That sounds great! What is it called?
CHRIS (excited)
Omaha Plights: The Chris Appleton Story
SHELLY chuckles.
MARION elbows SHELLY’S side.
CHRIS
That's just a working title, of course. I mean, it hasn’t been tested yet, so, you know, we will just have to see how the viewer responds.
CARA
It sounds very promising, CHRIS. Thank you so much for coming to see us today.
CHRIS
Oh...Okay...You don’t need anything else from me? Was I okay?
CARA
