Third Class Superhero (7 page)

MA
Sorry.

ME
(suddenly tinged with melancholy)
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I yelled. Why are you sorry? Don't say sorry.

MA
Sorry.

***

Just to get things straight: Me is sixteen years old. I am twenty-two. I have been playing Me for as long as I can remember. In that time, three boys have played My Brother and eight women have played My Mother.

I admit, My Mother is undoubtedly the hardest role on Family. When casting each new My Mother, they have, I think, tried to pick a woman age-appropriate relative to Me and My Brother. The first one I barely remember, except that her skin was quite warm. The fifth My Mother was also very good. She taught Me to tie Me's shoes.

The most recent one, I miss her. She had started slower than any of them, during the Puberty Season. But she worked at it. She was always working at it. The technical aspects: Martyr Complex, Unbreakable Matriarch, Weight of the World. During her run, every show had a direction. Every gesture had a purpose.

Her last year was her best. That was the season Me finished high school a year early. My Father was written out of the show, the excuse being something about infidelity. The guy just wanted out of his contract. He'd been there for too long and didn't like where his character was going: the show's anchor, a stable presence, a jocular, asexual, Harmless Bearded Sitcom Dad.

That last season was the best in the history of the program. Me and My Mother averaged nearly fourteen Tender Interactions per week. Ratings for Family were at an all-time high. My Mother cried Pitifully almost every episode. She had Large Problems. It was beautiful to watch her Suffer. A true professional.

***

This new woman, however, is not a professional. I realize that following her predecessor would be tough for anyone. I didn't expect it to go on forever. I'm realistic. If anything, I'm realistic. But this new woman. She's out of left field. She's a complete stranger. I suspect she has never played a Mother before in her life. For one thing, there is the smell. And, as I mentioned, she does not wear the fat suit very well.

Her first show is a disaster.

Family is in the middle of a six-show arc: Me gets a Love Interest, Me loses the Love Interest, Me learns a Lesson About Loss.

The scene we're shooting that day is just about the easiest scene she could ask for. Me is expecting a call from the Love Interest and goes looking for the cordless phone. Me enters My Mother's bedroom to get the phone.

Episode 4,572,389

— HEY, MA, HAVE YOU SEEN THE CORDLESS?

FADE IN!

— INT. MY MOTHER'S BEDROOM—EARLY MORNING

ME
Hey, Ma, have you seen the cordless?

My Mother is lying there, dressed to go to the supermarket, on top of the covers.

MA
I think you left it on the kitchen counter.

ME
Thanks.

The scene should have ended there. The previous woman would have ended it there. But the new woman, she has ideas of her own.

MA
(openly needy)
Can you stay in the room?

"What are you doing?" I whisper.

MA
I don't want to go to the supermarket. I don't want to go anywhere. I just want to talk to you.

None of this, of course, is in the script. I try to explain.

"There's no Interaction," I say. I vigorously mime holding a script. I try pointing to an invisible page and shaking my head.

She takes this to mean I am offering a Tender Embrace. This is bad. She comes toward me in her ill-fitting fat suit, tears already welling up and smudging her makeup. Her face is a mess. I definitely don't want to have a Tender Embrace, when it isn't in the script, when it is early in the morning and her breath is certain to be odd-smelling, when I barely know this new woman.

It goes without saying a Tender Embrace in the middle of "Have You Seen the Cordless?" is incongruous bordering on offensive. Me has done this scene a million times, and never has there been a Tender Embrace. Not to mention the Openly Needy. Openly Needy in the middle of an ordinary show. That's what bothers me the most.

ME
(pretending not to have noticed My Mother's open neediness)
Oh, there's the phone.

MA
(like a little child)
Can you stay for just a minute?

ME
(trying to avoid an interaction)
Thanks for the phone, Ma.

MA
(like a little child)
Please?

Me turns and walks out the door. My Mother weeps softly. The director yells cut.

***

Afterward, I go out back to have a cigarette. The guy who plays My Brother is there smoking in the alley.

"Hey, man." He pulls another one from behind his ear and lights me. "Hey," I say.

This is what I know about the guy who plays My Brother: His name is Jake; he smokes a lot. In Family, he plays My Brother, who is fourteen, but Jake is actually older than me. Exactly how much, I am not sure, but he has crow's-feet and gets a five o'clock shadow by the middle of the morning. Usually we don't say much to each other.

"She'll get better," Jake says, to no one in particular. "It'll get better."

"Well, it can't get much worse."

We smoke a lot. We don't say much to each other.

***

It gets much worse. The new woman seems determined to turn every Interaction into something it shouldn't be.

Episode 4,572,866

— NO ONE IS GOING TO CALL MY MOTHER ON HER FIFTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY

FADE IN:

The sun is going down. Me and My Mother are alone in the house. Me is looking in the fridge. My Mother is pretending to read a magazine. The two are starting to realize no one is going to call My Mother on her fifty-second birthday.

— INT. FAMILY KITCHEN—DUSK

ME
(comforting tone tinged with melancholy)
Hey, Ma. Happy birthday. How about we go to dinner?

MA
(not even trying to hide disappointment)
Thank you. You don't have to do that.

ME
(comforting tone tinged with melancholy)
So, where should we go to dinner?

MA
(barely concealed fear of growing old alone)
I don't care. You choose. Italian?

ME
(realizing comforting tone is not working, wondering what to say next)
Okay. Italian sounds good.

MA
(unbounded terror at realizing she is being comforted by her own child)
Great. Let me get my coat.

ME
(wondering what to say next)
I'll start the car.

The director yells cut.

***

I go out back to smoke. Jake is there.

"Was she awful or what?"

"I don't know, man. You know? She's not so bad."

"She's not so bad? She's not so bad? She forces her lines. She forgets her lines. She makes up her lines."

"You used to do that."

"Not like that. I didn't look like a deer in headlights.

She's turning what should be normal Melancholy into something else. Something formless and terrible. No name for it."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Get her fired, maybe."

"Man. You gotta chill. It's just a job."

Jake is very good at what he does. He's much better at Being Him than I am at Being Me, and he knows it. I suspect he thinks he's too good for Family, that he won't be here long, that it's only a matter of time. I also suspect he's just a natural, that he doesn't have to try very hard at Being Him, and sometimes, I have to admit, that makes me mad.

They don't write many Interactions for Me and My Brother. A couple of seasons ago, we had a tense Angry Brother-Brother Interaction, but not much since.

***

On my day off, I go to the park. The air is cold and imperfect, not canned like in the studio. Ambient noise drowns out my inner monologue. I don't have to hear the soundtrack to Family piped into the building, a continuous loop of faint music. I take out my pocket-size writing tablet and a pen and place them on the bench beside me. At the top of the page is written: How to Be Me.

Five-year-olds are playing soccer nearby. More specifically, they are viciously kicking one another in the shins while a soccer ball sits unharmed in the vicinity. Once in a while one of them inadvertently kicks the ball, causing a considerable amount of confusion. But mostly they leave the ball alone.

In the mass of yellow green jerseys and purple silver jerseys, one boy is moving with more decisiveness than the others. He breaks away from the pack and kicks a low, squirting goal through the orange cones. The ball rolls to a stop a few yards from my bench. The boys look at me expectantly. I kick the ball back to them, too hard. We all watch as the black and orange orb sails over their heads and lands next to a dog, who sniffs it.

I light a cigarette and take a sip of iced coffee from my thermos. The cold liquid spreads through my chest cavity. I can feel individual rivulets moving through me. I consider asking the boys if I can join them, maybe as goalie. The parents are still eyeing me warily after my overexuberant kick. I want to tell them it was an accident, that I would like to play soccer with their kids.

I stare at the blank page.

How to Be Me

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

I don't remember why I picked the number ten, if it was optimism or just a nice, round number. Or maybe pessimism. Are there ten ways to Be Me? Why not nine? Why not a thousand? I think about calling my predecessor, but then I remember I don't even know where he lives.

The soccer game ends. Hugs and oranges all around. There is talk of pizza and arcade tokens. A round of yays and cheers goes up as boys pile into cars and utility vehicles and vans in twos and threes.

***

The next day we have a short scene. It has been raining since before dawn. Me and My Mother have been moving from room to room aimlessly all morning. The house is completely silent. After lunch in front of the television, My Mother asks Me to teach her how to use e-mail.

Episode 4,572,513

— I AM A VERY NICE PERSON

— INT. THE COMPUTER ROOM—EARLY AFTERNOON

My Mother is sitting in front of the computer, hands resting on the keyboard.

ME
Okay, Ma. Let's try to send an e-mail. Who do you want to send it to?

Silence as Me realizes My Mother has no friends.

MA
(pretending not to realize the same thing)
Myself.

ME
Okay.

MA
What should I write?

ME
Something, anything. It's just a test.

She sits motionless with her hands on the keyboard.

ME
Ma, it's just a test message. Write the first thing that comes to mind.

She types: I am a very nice person.

She's supposed to just type gibberish, whatever, anything at all. Not something pitiful and honest and childlike. Not something that makes no sense except for loneliness and hunger for love. And who is she trying to convince?

ME
(trying to avoid a Tender Interaction)
That's good, Ma. Now click Send. See that little tiny envelope? That's your message that you just sent. Click on that.

She opens the message and reads it aloud.

MA
I am a very nice person.

The director yells cut.

***

I've finally figured it out.

"She's a faker," I say to Jake. But Jake's half drunk and not really listening. It's ten in the morning.

"She can't do Tedium. She sucks at Anxiety. She sucks at Quiet Desperation." I pick up a dirt clod and hurl it against the alley wall. It explodes softly into smaller clods.

"Not everyone's, you know, a Serious Actor like you," Jake says. "You know?" He hiccups.

"What does that mean? What is that supposed to mean?"

He takes a long drag off his cigarette and looks away.

"Hey," I say, "what is that supposed to mean? Answer me."

"Look, man. I like you and I like you as Me. But, all I'm saying is, you know? I mean, just relax? With your, what do you call it?"

"Creative research."

"Yeah. Always trying to, I don't know, be whatever."

"Me. Be a better Me. What's wrong with that?"

I realize he does not feel the same way I do about our smoke breaks. Suddenly I feel very silly for thinking I knew this guy who plays My Brother, for thinking he took anything seriously.

We smoke and don't say anything for a while.

"She's not Poignant," I say, finally breaking the silence.

"What's Poignant? There is no Poignant."

"She's not genuine. She's not real."

"Real? What's real? Just read the lines and stand on your mark and try not to miss any cues."

***

That night I proceed to get drunk on the set. I wake up slumped over the kitchen table. I have a hangover that feels like someone let a cat loose inside my face. Half-empty beer cans are all over. Next to me is an ashtray full of Parliaments smoked down to the filters. I hear birds outside chirping like winged demons. I want to be one of them. Or, alternatively, I want to clip their wings and then shoot them all.

Down the hall, I see the new woman walking toward her dressing room. She stops in front of the door and looks at me.

"Hello," I say.

It might be the alcohol or the difficulty I am having in staying vertical that focuses my mind. But I realize I am looking at her for the first time. Really looking at her. Her face is scrubbed clean and she is wearing a T-shirt I wore two seasons ago. It goes down to her knees and hangs off her narrow shoulders like a cape. She wears sweatpants from Wardrobe. Probably My Brother's. She is so small and so mammalian—the texture of her skin, the damaged coarseness of what must have once been beautiful hair.