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dynamoe · 1 year

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A break in the narrative of TOMORROW'S JUST ANOTHER DAY for a flashback to Burbank. 1989. (6101 words) read on AO3 (better for your eyes) → or keep reading here below the break ↓

BURBANK 1989

He waited for the craft service manager to leave to empty the coffee urn. She’d be gone ten minutes max so he had to work fast. He pushed a cooler to the edge of the table, stood lightly on the lid and surveyed the end-of-day remnants. He grabbed the bowl of Hershey's Miniatures and up-ended them into his backpack. Same for the bowl of trail mix. The hummus wouldn’t keep and he didn’t have a container for that; he’d have to eat the carrot sticks he already swiped from the green room plain. Everything else was too picked over.

He jumped off the cooler and opened it— only a couple cans of TAB and RC Cola left. He closed it in disgust. Craft service was tapped, he could give the green room another once-over but he already had snatched up the last third of the party sub, the crudité platter and a bowl of M&Ms.

He turned back in a rush, smashing directly into someone walking the other way. He bounced backward, dropping his backpack and all his raided provisions spilling onto the floor

“Whoa whoa whoa,” a familiar voice admonished, “Watch where you’re goin’, kid.”

“Mr. White! Sorry, I—” Billy collected his wits and then dove onto the pile of peanuts and M&Ms leaking out of his backpack.

The taping ended an hour ago, why are you still here?”

“I missed my bus back to the hotel so I’m just killing time, I guess,” Billy lied, stuffing as much food back in his bag before Mr. White noticed as he could. White didn’t seem very observant, focused fully on the craft service table.

“I gotta stay to record promo bumpers for all the affiliates on Fridays,” Mr. White muttered sourly and then sniffed loudly.

Billy looked confusedly at Mr. White, out of wardrobe and wearing pale-gray jeans and a polo shirt.

“Audio only,” White explained, looking back at the table, “Someone took all the Krackel bars! Nuts!”

Billy spotted a miniature Krackel he had dropped next to Mr. White’s foot. He retrieved it and held it up in White’s field of vision.

“Thanks, kid,” White snapped it up and stuffed it in his mouth, “Oh, you’re the champ this week.”

White never learned the Quizboys’ names. They turned over too quickly. Two tapings a day five days a week with only one champion carrying over from show to show, that’s 21 Teacher’s Pets he had to feign interest in meeting on-camera and then never making eye-contact with after.

“Yeah, Billy Whalen,” Billy introduced himself again. Not just “this week” but the last three weeks but he wasn’t going to correct the host.

That was the problem. He had come out to Hollywood to tape his episodes with only two changes of clothing and no long-term plan of how to take care of himself. The production paid for his flight and his hotel room but other than that he was left to his own devices. He got paid $10 a day as an appearance fee, but his winnings were locked up until he ended his streak. He couldn’t drive and Los Angeles wasn’t terribly accommodating on the public transportation front.

There was a long weekend starting tomorrow that meant no taping on Monday, meaning one fewer day of meals and one fewer 10-spot provided. He always collected the leftovers at the end of a shoot day to tide him over into the weekend but he felt unusually desperate and was pushing his luck.

“Hardly behavior befitting a Quizboys champion to be stealing craft service, huh?” Mr. White teased him.

Billy froze and felt like he was going to cry, “I don’t want to, but we’re not shooting for the long weekend so I needed to take something to eat tomorrow.”

“I was just kidding around, loosen up, kid,” White said, smacking Billy on the back.

“We get catered meals on set, but if we’re not shooting I just stay in my hotel room and watch TV. I figure food left at the end of the day is stuff no one else wants so I can take it. It’s not really stealing, if it’s gonna get thrown away, right?”

White was sort of half-listening until the content of what Billy was saying sunk in, “Wait, No food. Alone all day in a room for… how long have you been on the show?”

“Three weeks,” Billy reminded him. That means he had been on-camera ‘introduced’ to Mr. White thirty times.

“Where are your parents, kid?”

“I came by myself,” Billy said with a tone of finality indicating he didn’t want to get into it.

“All that time by yourself. That’s awful,” Mr. White was horrified.

“That’s showbiz,” Billy threw jazz hands.

“Fuck it. No,” Mr. White took a stand, “Leave this. Come with me. I’m getting you a decent hot meal.”

Billy hesitated, “This seems like a conflict of interest. A Quizboy fraternizing with the host might smack of favoritism.”

“Why? I don’t decide who wins. I didn't write the questions. I’m just the dancing monkey who reads the cue cards. Who cares?” White shrugged it off.

“What about taping the bumpers for the affiliates?”

White sniffed, “Eh, fuck ‘em. They can use ones from last week.”

Billy walked meekly behind Mr. White as he charged out of the studio, still doubting if this was ethical but also really, really hungry.

White walked him to a kitted-out Suzuki Samurai parked around the block from the studio, “I don’t even get my own parking space on the lot, if you can believe it. Fuckin’ cheap ass production.” He sniffed audibly.

Billy was awestruck, “Is this your car?”

“One of them,” White grinned as jumped into the driver’s side, “Hop in.” Billy eyed the three foot rise from ground to car warily.

He scooted over to the passenger side and extended his hand, “Sorry, I’m a bonehead. I’ll give you a hand."

Billy grabbed it with his foot on the edge of the running board, White heaved and pulled him into the truck.

White started the engine and peeled out of the parking space, jostling Billy out of his seat. He grabbed at the seat belt over his shoulder, trying not to be strangled by the awkward angle. Other cars honked, which White cheerily ignored, fiddling with the car radio to find a good station.

Billy studied his host away from the studio lights and he seemed weird. Uncanny even. He wore sunglasses while driving even though it was already early evening but, Billy rationalized, he was a celebrity and that was par for the course. Billy couldn’t quite figure out why he looked so… wrong.

“Mr. White, do you always keep your TV makeup on after the taping?” Billy asked as he and the other contestants were scrubbed clean by the make-up department as soon as the cameras turned off, the more histrionic losers having already cried off half of it before the credits finished rolling.

“I wanna get out of the studio faster so I take it off at home when I shower,” White shrugged, pulling into traffic recklessly with a wide turn.

Billy nodded. It made sense. It was really sticky, greasy thick stuff and it smelled oily. He couldn’t wait to get it off at the end of the shoot himself, but he didn’t have anywhere to be. If Mr. White was just waiting around to record audio bumpers today, he had time to take the make-up off, didn’t he?

“Learn to drive, fuckhead!” White yelled out of the window at a car that honked at him, even though he was running a red light.

The car was brand-new and lit-up impressively. The top of the line stereo pumped She Drives Me Crazy. White even sang along tunelessly. He sure seemed a lot younger than he did on set, but maybe it was the change of wardrobe or that his words weren’t written for him or that he no longer had the authority to give and take points from him.

"Your car's kinda dusty," Billy observed.

White glanced over at the powder on the dash and quickly wiped it away with a finger, "It's wind from the desert. It blows all kinds of dust and grit in the air. I must have left the window open. Forget it."

“It’s awfully nice of you to worry about me,” Billy said, “You probably have a lot of cool friends you could be hanging out with and, like, Hollywood parties to go to on the weekend.”

“Not really. Nah,” White dismissed, “Unless there’s promos to shoot or public appearances for the show at a mall or something I usually just stay home and watch TV, same as you.”

Billy assumed he was humoring him so he wouldn’t feel bad.

“But I can drive and have money and do adult stuff so it’s not exactly the same,” White qualified his answer, “I really wanted a hot dog right now so this worked out great for all parties.”

They approached a boxy building with bright pink awnings just off the intersection of LaBrea and Melrose.

“We’re not going to Spago?” Billy moaned sarcastically.

“No Wolfgang Puck on a first date,” White quipped back, pulling into the small parking lot behind the hot dog stand, “This place has been here forever. It’s a landmark! Orson Welles ate eighteen hot dogs in one sitting here! That's probably what's in those lost scenes of The Magnificent Ambersons, I bet. Just Orson scarfin' down wieners.”

“I thought it’d be in a building shaped like a big hot dog,” Billy said, trying not to sound disappointed.

“You’re thinking of Tail o’ the Pup,” White said, “You know Bruce Willis proposed to Demi Moore right here... Aaaand Aaron Spelling orders a hot dog from Pink’s every day that he’s working in his office up there.” White pointed towards the CBS studios up the block.

“Pink’s Hot Dogs appears in the opening credits of The Golden Child,” Billy said idly, dropping non-academic trivia after hours.

“Whaddya doin’ watching R-rated movies? That’s not a kid’s movie.” White taunted him, “Someone oughta put a parental lock on the cable box in your hotel room.”

“It’s only PG-13,” Billy defended himself, “Fifteen uses of ‘ass,’ two ‘asshole’s, eleven ‘shit’s, three ‘bastard’s, two ‘hell’s, and one ‘goddamn,’ but no f-words at all!”

“What, did you have a bingo card you were filling out?” White mocked him with a snort.

It was late but there were still a dozen people waiting in line at the stand. White mentioned that the line is twice as long during the day and it wouldn’t be more than a few minutes before they got to order as he sniffed and wiped his nose.

"Do you have allergies, Mr. White?"

"Something like that," White shrugged, "Get anything you want, kid. It's on me."

Billy studied the menu card in front of him, with the dozens of hot dog combinations with celebrity names, “I guess I just want a plain hot dog.”

“C’mon. Live a little, Billy!”

Billy sighed and announced, “I want a John Tesh dog with onion rings. And an Orange Crush!”

White nodded and ordered, “Gimme a Marlon Brando. A John Tesh. A side of Tom Berenger and an Orange Crush.”

White paid and waited, Billy walked around to the patio to claim a table. They settled in to a hot dog feast al fresco in the cool of evening.

A woman in a bikini roller skating down LaBrea with a boa constrictor around her neck passed

“Welcome to Los Angeles,” she said, skating a ring around their table, waving her snake as she moved on.

“She seems friendly,” Billy observed, a little confused.

“So,” White asked through a mouth full of chewed bun, “Why’s your head so big?”

“That’s pretty tactless, Mr. White,” Billy mumbled.

“What can I say,” White threw up his hands, “I’m a no-bullshit kinda guy!”

“I was born with hydrocephalus. It’s colloquially known as ‘water on the brain.’” Billy shook his head demonstratively, making a faint gurgling sound, “It’s better than it was. I had brain surgery after graduation so I don’t leak anymore.”

“Huh,” White said flatly, “That’s cool.”

“I know I look kinda weird.” Billy muttered apologetically, breaking eye contact.

“What, are you nuts? You look fantastic!” White reassured him, “Despite the haircut.”

Billy suddenly felt embarrassed. What was wrong with his hair? Half the teen idols on the cover of Tiger Beat had this haircut. He roughed it up with his hands. Maybe that would fix it?

“Actors hang out here during the day waiting to be ‘discovered,’” White mused while stuffing an onion ring in his mouth, “I never wanted to be an actor. This is my first TV job. I was on radio before this, but they needed someone fast when they shit-canned the old host for getting ‘handsy’ with the Quizboys.”

“Prof. Dolan? No way!”

“Yes way!” White argued back, “They paid plenty to keep it out of the Enquirer, too. Settled out of court with all the kids. A real shit-show.”

Billy was shaken. He had watched Prof. Dolan's reign as Quizmaster on the show since he was five. He always assumed he had just retired.

“He’d take the champ and the runner-up back to his dressing room and give ‘horsey rides.’” White air-quoted, slowing the words down as if this had some well-known double meaning. Billy didn’t know and didn’t want to know what he was implying. He caught Billy’s expression, “Don’t worry, you would have been fine. You weren’t his type— he liked blondes with sad eyes.”

“Are all grown-ups this fucked up?” Billy finally muttered.

“Language,” White tsked.

“Ugh, you sound like my mom.”

“Jeez. I’m not that old. I gotta talk to Wardrobe about the hokey suits they stuck me with. Like I’m frickin’ Richard Dawson!” Mr. White said indignantly, “I only graduated from State, like, two years ago. Less than that!”

“That’s what I’m using the prize money for! To pay for college!” Billy interjected excitedly, “We blew my college savings on medical stuff.”

“Keep winning like you have been and you’ll cover tuition, housing and textbooks and still have money left over for beer bongs.”

“My top choice school is MIT,” Billy announced and then added, “You sound like you might be from near there, Mr. White.”

“Me? Yeah, the general area, I guess,” White prevaricated. He thought he had done a pretty good job rounding out the corners on his regional dialect to Broadcast Standard English but the kid was perceptive.

“Have you been to MIT?” Billy asked, hopefully.

“They had a good radio station,” White searched his memories, “Back in high school me and my friend Donnie would steal his older brother’s car to drive down to see bands in Cambridge on the weekends. That’s as close as I got, though. Sorry.”

“I’m from the East Coast, too,” Billy offered, “This is the longest I’ve been away from home.”

White seemed distracted, rubbing his teeth and gums vigorously with a finger.

“Are you ok, Mr. White?” Billy asked with concern, “Do your gums hurt?”

“Huh?” White said, caught in a tick, “Oh yeah. Just giving them a ‘finger check.’ Gotta floss more. Gingivitis can creep up on you.”

“I think I just saw Dabney Coleman walk by,” Billy whispered excitedly while standing on his seat, craning his neck to see further.

“Hey kid, why are you still wearing that?” White asked, gesturing up and down to Billy’s blazer over a sweater and khaki pants with a knit tie that he was wearing during the taping.

“I don’t have any other clothes,” Billy confessed, “I didn’t think I’d still be doing this three weeks later so I didn’t pack anything else.”

“You’ve been wearing the same outfit every day for three weeks? That’s disgusting,” White turned up his nose.

“No, I have two outfits. I wear one while I wash the other one in my bathroom sink. I trade off every day,” Billy said.

“At least take the tie off when we’re not on the show so this doesn’t look like a job interview.”

Billy slid the knot down and unbuttoned his top button.

“Better,” Mr. White pointed with the butt of his hotdog, “That settles it. Tomorrow I’m taking you to buy you some decent street clothes.”

“You wanna experience Los Angeles at the cusp of a new decade at the end of the Millennium?” White pontificated, gesturing broadly as they rode down the escalator, “Then you go to the mall. The Beverly Center Mall if you can swing it.”

“There’s a scene in Less than Zero set at this exact mall,” Billy quizboyed.

“Jesus Christ, don’t tell me kids are reading Brett Easton Ellis novels now,” White peered over his sunglasses.

“And it’s in Beverly Hills Cop. Briefly,” Billy added.

“Ok, that one is definitely R-rated and—”

“Eddie Murphy says ‘fuck’ in it 60 times,” Billy said with a naughty smile.

They walked off the escalator, crowded by shoppers, as dozens of neon-lit store signs twinkled at them across the atrium.

Mr. White always looked really stylish and put-together, Billy thought. Even when they were just hanging out at the mall he had a deconstructed white linen suit over a pastel-colored t-shirt. Billy reached up to flick some specks of white from his otherwise impeccable jacket’s cuff

“Guess the powdered donut I had for breakfast got away from me,” White laughed.

“Or your dandruff shampoo isn’t working well enough,” Billy suggested snarkily, even though the placement of the white specs didn’t make sense for either of those explanations.

White was still wearing his sunglasses even inside the mall. They had only a slight warm amber fade to them so Billy assumed they were just his regular glasses he wore all the time but it made it hard to look him directly in the eye. He had a big expensive-looking watch– probably a Rolex or something, a small gold chain around his neck and a signet ring with a pink stone on his finger. The only off element was the silky bandana-type wrap he wore on his head— a kind of tight-fitting fabric cap that covered his hair completely.

“It’s a du-rag, Billy,” White had explained on the drive over, “I put a conditioning treatment on my hair this morning so I gotta keep it covered while the chemical processes. You call it vanity, but it’s all part of the job. Gotta be slick and shiny when the cameras roll next week, y’know.”

“It still looks super weird,” Billy felt comfortable enough with Mr. White to offer his opinion. He didn’t feel comfortable enough to bring up that it still looked like he was wearing his TV make up from yesterday or he had put on a brand new face of thick foundation even though they weren’t shooting that day.

White spotted the green sign of the United Colors of Benetton, steered Billy away from the Electronics Boutique and in the front door. Here was a brand that was trendy, but not too intimidating to a fashion novice with, presumably, pretty conservative tastes. Plus they had kid sizes.

“I applied to work here when I was in college. Never hired though,” White remembered bitterly, muttering under his breath, “United Colors, my ass. I guess ‘No Color’ isn’t included that union, huh.”

Billy wasn’t listening, just overwhelmed by the size of the store and all the bright colors. Pop music blared from the sound system. Blown up photos of cheerful diverse groups of young attractive people of all races wearing primary colored Euro-Preppy outfits on white backgrounds smiled at him from the walls. Inclusive, sure, but all of them had a head-size proportionate to their bodies.

Mr. White walked with him to the kids’ section.

"You're really going above and beyond, taking me shopping, Mr. White," Billy said, "Spending all your free time helping some kid you hardly know with his problems."

“It’s kinda fun. Makes me feel useful, too. Reminds me of when I was back living at home with all the cousins and nephews and neighborhood kids underfoot. Lookin’ after 'em. Keepin' em outta trouble. I never thought I’d miss that but being out here is kinda… I dunno... isolating?”

"What do you mean? Don't you have lots of friends from being on TV?"

"It definitely helps when booking restaurant reservations, but otherwise... nah. I don't even hang out with any of the people who work on the show, it's too awkward. You never know who's on the way out or who's trying to get you fired or take your job."

Billy looked up a shelf that stretched up to the ceiling with tiny square cubby holes for socks in every color of the rainbow.

“You end up alone a lot of the time. Alone and doing nothing. Alone in your car waiting in traffic. Waiting for a call. Waiting to go on set. Waiting for someone to tell you to do something. Makes me feel like my brain is atrophying," White sniffed noisily and wiped his nose, "I used to be wicked smart before this gig, y'know?"

Billy watched his expression shift from melancholy to resolved.

"But not today! Today belongs to us," White went over to a table of folded sweaters in neat piles,"Pick out whatever you want. Get a week’s worth of clothes. Extra socks and underwear. I’ll cover you and you can pay me back out of your winnings.”

Billy hesitated. “Don’t make fun of me but… I’ve never bought my own clothes before. My mom always picked them out and told me what to wear.”

“Explains a lot of your ‘look,’” White sniffed. Billy pouted. “What can I say, I’ve got a good eye for ‘Sunday-Best picked-out-by-mom’ after 250ish fuckin’ episodes now. I tell ya I got sweater vests dancin’ before my eyes when I go to sleep at night.”

Billy snickered. White smirked, “Buying clothes doesn’t have to be a drag. Get something you like, not what your mom likes.”

Billy looked around at the sweaters on tables, the hanging racks, the open shelves with stacks of folded shirts. He didn’t even know where to start.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“I dunno,” Billy thought, “I like green, I guess. Green or yellow.”

“Good choice. Nice contrast with the whole carrot-top you got goin’ on.” White encouraged him while pulling a striped green pullover from a shelf and handing it to him. “Try it on in a couple sizes. These koo-koo European numbers on the tag are meaningless to me.”

Billy made a selection from the rack and walked to the dressing room, White followed him and sat outside the door while he dressed.

“From now on, bring your laundry to the studio on shoot days. Wardrobe can wash them for you,” he shouted over the door, “Unless you, like, crap your pants or something. Don’t bring that to the studio.”

“I’m not going to... soil myself,” Billy sputtered with disgust from inside the room, “Jeez Louise!”

"You say that now but you never know,” White shook his finger, “In a close game those final question challenges get pretty stressful.”

Billy groaned.

“Hey. Did you pack a bathing suit?”

“No.”

White pulled a pair of swimming trunks from a rack behind him and tossed them to Billy, “Get those, we’re going to the beach later.”

Billy hesitated, “Do I have to get exactly this pair or can I pick out one that will fit?"

___

Billy had donned one of his fresh new styles to make his debut on the Santa Monica boardwalk. A butter yellow rugby shirt with mint-green stripes over avocado green elastic-ankled slacks. He mussed up his hair to look beach-ready. For the first time in his life, he thought he looked pretty cool (allowing for the whole "built like a bobble-head and shorter than parking meter" factor).

Mr. White donned a bolero hat in bleached straw with a wide brim and switched to a pair of much darker tinted sunglasses. He draped a cashmere scarf in muted mauve over his shoulders. Being out in sunlight was unavoidable in Los Angeles, so he had strategies to protect himself while still looking the peak of yuppie au courant.

“C’mere kid,” White grabbed Billy by the shoulder and squatted in front of him. “You ain’t got much of a nose but it’ll still hurt like hell if you get a sunburn on it.”

Taking a dab of sunblock (top of the line stuff, from France) from the tube, he patted it on Billy’s nose and on the top of his ears. He squirted a streak across the palm of Billy’s hand and indicated he should rub it into any other exposed skin.

A woman in a bikini with a boa constrictor draped around her neck like a scarf roller skated the opposite direction as they walked down the boardwalk.

“Welcome to Los Angeles!” she shouted behind her in a sing-song voice as she whipped past.

Billy did a double take “Wait, is that the same woman from—”

White cut him off, “Nah, there’s tons of them.”

“This is gonna sound weird, Mr. White, but I’ve never been to the beach before,” Billy said, his hand on his forehead shielding his eyes from the sun overhead as he looked out at the small waves lapping at the sand.

“Really? Never?”

Billy nodded, “I’ve even been to California before— four times! Never once made it to the beach.”

White snorted derisively, “No beach. Just came out to admire our world-famous freeway system.”

“My mother didn’t consider the beach culturally or educationally enriching. Didn’t think it was a good use of my time.”

“She sounds like a barrel of laughs,” White said snidely.

Billy counted on his fingers, “I came out twice for academic tournaments at CalTech. Once for a conference at Stanford and once to… UC Irvine, I think. It was some UC school anyway. I was only three. Some grad students let me play Asteroids on a terminal hooked to a DEC PDP-11.”

White smiled nostalgically, “Ah, the DEC minicomps. Gorgeous machines. State had one avocado green.”

“Wow, you know about computers, Mr. White?” Billy was blindsided by Mr. White’s hidden depths.

“My sophomore year, I secretly coded a program in ours that would randomly generate different ‘fuck off’s to any subsequent entered commands. Made the Freshman lab seminar think the machines had attained sentience,” White laughed.

“You can do computer programming, too,” Billy shouted, even more amazed. He already idolized Mr. White for being tall and handsome and cool, plus being on TV, but if he knew computer stuff, too, he was ascending to god status. Mr. White might even challenge Rusty Venture for his all-time personal #1 hero pedestal.

“Oh sure. I got my BS in Computer Science. I ain’t just a pretty face, y’know.” White winked, “Theoretical and practical. Hardware. Software. Circuit engineering. Hacking, Cracking and limited Phone Phreaking.”

“That’s so cool,” Billy bounced on his heels, having found a kindred spirit, “You’re a scientist.”

“Scientist-Non Practicing,” White clarified, “Other than working as an involuntary help desk every time a boss bought a computer, I haven’t actually used those skills since graduation. I’m probably really behind the technology. I only got through C, never mind the C++.”

“How did you end up being a TV star if you were a computer scientist?”

“‘Star’ is really pushing it, pal,” White dismissed. For a smart kid, Billy was investing the low-budget production with way too much pop-cultural influence. It wasn't even a network show, just pretaped and syndicated to a patchwork of markets. White would make more money managing a Gap Kids or a Banana Republic over the chicken scratch he was paid.

His condo and his car leases were covered by his… other job.

“You’re squinting pretty hard there,” White noticed.

“I don’t have any sunglasses and no hats will fit me.” Billy sighed. “I’ll be OK.”

White made a bee line for a kiosk on the side of the boardwalk, gesturing to Billy to follow him. A standard little pushcart, stocked with water wings and beach balls and extra tanning lotion. Of interest to them was the rack of cheap hats and sunglasses.

“This looks like it’ll fit,” White joked, putting a kid’s inflatable pool ring on Billy’s head like a swan-headed crown.

“It doesn’t give me any shade, does it?”

White pointed at a rack of cheap neon-colored plastic sunglasses. Billy scowled.

“They’re not going to fit.”

“Humor me.”

Billy sighed and demonstrated, slipping the glasses arms over his temples, warping the hinges long before the bridge met his nose. He forced the glasses on with a shove, the arms digging into the side of his head before snapping off from the pressure and they fell from his face.

“You break it, you bought it, chief,” barked the vendor.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” White mumbled, handing him a couple of crumpled dollars while still combing the racks. He found a plastic sun visor on an elastic strap. He snapped the elastic and showed it to Billy.

“How about that? Pretty clever.”

“No way. I’ll break that, too.” Billy predicted.

White thought and then grabbed a second one, paying the vendor for both. He pointed at a fluorescent green boogie board in Billy was examining. “And I’ll take that, too.”

White gave Billy money to get them both frozen yogurt and sat down with the two sun visors. With the Swiss army knife in his pocket he cut the elastic off the first visor and used it as a donor to extend the length of the second. He didn’t have the means to sew or staple it on so he tied it on in a flat-lying knot. He bent a paperclip into a little slider to keep the free end slightly adjustable. It wouldn’t last more than the day but it was good enough to let the kid wear a stupid sunhat the same as any other normal kid could.

He finished up his jerry-rigged creation just as Billy returned, handing a paper cup to White without ever detaching his tongue from his own chocolate-vanilla swirl cone.

“Taa-daa,” White announced, holding up his creation, “I MacGyvered it.”

He slipped it over Billy’s head— the transparent plastic visor looking woefully tiny on his forehead, but actually casting a little shade over his eyes— and tugged on the loose elastic to cinch it on. It fit.

“You actually did it,” Billy said, “I’m totally, totally impressed.”

“Now let’s get to that beach you’re here to see.”

Finding a stretch of empty sand, they left the boardwalk for the beach proper. White hung back towards a bench with a city-provided parasol covering, well in the shade. Billy kicked off his shoes, pulled off and tossed aside his flashy Benetton duds revealing the swim trunks and t-shirt underneath.

“Before you go in, lemme refresh your sunblock or you’ll look like a boiled lobster on camera.”

“How about you Mr. White?”

“I’m already all blocked up. I took care of myself before I left the house,” White waved him off. Billy noticed Mr. White seemed to have put more clothes on since the morning, he was wearing his driving gloves on and had a long-sleeved shirt buttoned right up to the edge of his throat, plus that scarf draped over top.

“You’re not going to go in the ocean?”

“There’s a provision in my show contract that I can’t get a tan. It fucks up the lighting in the studio if I’m a different color. So I have to stay in the shade.” White gestured at the beach umbrella overhead

Billy looked a little disappointed, “That’s not gonna be fun. We came all the way here.”

“I live here. I can go to the beach whenever I want. You run around and go in the water.”

Although disappointed, Billy accepted it. He grabbed his neon boogie board and ran toward the ocean whooping cheerfully, his oversized Fido-Dido t-shirt all but entirely covering him.

“Hey! Hey! Hold up!” White called out.

Billy trotted back obediently.

“Whaddya doin’ keeping your shirt on when you're in the water? It looks dorky. You scared someone’s gonna make fun of your fat boy tits or something?”

Billy screwed up his face, disgusted, “No! Of course not.”

He peeled off his Fido Dido shirt defiantly and threw it on the ground. He threw a stink-face and a crotch-thrust at White before dashing back towards the ocean giggling.

“Oh shit,” thought White. Not what he was expecting on the secondary sexual characteristic front. He was more than a few Tanner Stages off in his estimation of how old this kid was. Speedos didn’t leave much to the imagination and he definitely wasn’t wearing the right size. Billy seemed oblivious, hopping over the incoming waves on his stumpy surfboard and screaming in delight.

White sat on the bench, thinking. The whole day in retrospect suddenly felt kinda shady. How did he feel more like pedophile because the kid was older, that made no sense! He didn't have any kind of attraction to any fuckin' kids; he just felt bad and wanted to do something nice. He shook the thoughts from his head. Fuck what people read into it.

Billy took a break from swimming and padded up to him, his sea-salt-scented bangs clinging in fettuccine strips over his forehead. White handed him a rolled towel.

“How old are you really?”

Billy stared innocently, “Fifteen. Why?”

“All this frickin’ time I thought you were like seven or something.”

Billy frowned, “Because I’m short, right?”

“And the haircut, honestly.”

Billy scowled and shook his wet hair like a dog drying off.

“The show thinks you’re a little kid, too, y'know. You were competing against 2nd Graders! I'm gonna have to tell 'em.”

“I never claimed to be anything. Your casting people made an assumption at the audition that I chose not to correct," Billy said snottily, “I could have shown my ID if they asked.”

“Yeah, well, Casting is coked to the eyeballs. They’d book a ham sandwich to be a contestant.”

“'Coked to the eyeballs?'” Billy repeated, confused by the phrase.

“Never mind,” White shrugged, “I’ve gotta pick up a package in Sylmar, all the way down in the Valley so I should get on the road soon. Are you ready to go?”

Billy nodded, wrapping himself in a towel. They walked back to his car.

“Now that I know you’re actually a teenager I guess I should be taking you to more mature attractions, huh?”

“Can we go see boobie movies?” Billy asked, wide-eyed and vibrating with excitement.

“Not that mature,” White rolled his eyes, “Not if you’re calling a skin flick a ‘boobie movie.’”

—

His car idled in front of the hotel as Billy got out.

“Did you have fun today?”

Billy smiled and nodded.

“Whenever you feel sad sitting alone in that hotel room, call me up and I’ll take you out for ice cream or something. No one should be alone because they’re different.”

Billy was alone more for logistics than his personal uniqueness, but it was still a heartfelt gesture.

“Even if you just wanna talk about anything that’s bothering you,” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and handed Billy a business card, “Any stupid thing. I’ll listen. I get it. I’ve been there.”

Billy turned the business card over in his hand, confused. Tasteful thickness, eggshell texture. “But it’s blank?”

White grimaced, “It’s printed white on white. Tilt it in light.”

Billy held the card up at an angle and the name Mr. White followed by his phone and a pager number flickered in subtle glossy relief to the pale nimbus background. There also was a thin edge of powder grains stuck to the long edge for some reason. He flicked them off.

Billy squinted at small writing next to his name “Why does it say '250 per gram, delivery no pickup' at the bottom?” White ignored him, and clasped his hand.

“If you’re feelin’ alone in the world just... know I’m here for you, kid.”

“Same for you,” Billy said back, but then second guessed himself. “I mean, if that’s not too presumptuous, Mr. White. I don’t know anything about your life. I’m just a kid but… it schucks to be alone all the time.”

“Yeah,” White agreed and sniffed.

“Goodnight, Mr. White.” Billy looked up at him with his puppy-dog eyes, “Thank you. Really.”

to be continued...

I gave up on posting fiction here because lack of interest and tumblr's annoying text layout but this story has TWO Illustrations and is mostly self-contained so maybe some fan might stumble onto it and get some enjoyment out of it, y'know.

→ Chapter title is a 1991 Boys II Men hit. Did I think it came out in 1989 when I titled this chapter? A little bit.

→ On a TV or Movie set, “craft service” is an assortment of snacks that is set out for the cast and crew to nosh on during breaks in shooting. Because hot meals (provided by a different department “Catering”) come at weird times on shoot, craft service keeps people on set (not ducking out to buy food). There’s a hierarchy of who gets to eat when (eg, SAG actors before non-SAG). A green room is the waiting room for guests (different than a dressing room— one room shared by all the guests) appearing on a talk show or game show and there’s usually a catering tray there, too.

→ Most facts about swearing in Eddie Murphy movies, Pink’s Hot Dogs and the Beverly Center Mall are accurate. I made up some of the hot dog names; I don't know what was on their menu in 1989. The Beverly Center Mall was the setting of 1991’s Scenes from a Mall, which was shot a year after this chapter is set.

→ A lot of that business card crap is a lift from American Psycho. Another novel by Brett Easton Ellis, came out 1991/set in 1987, movie made in 2000.

→ If anything else that needs explaining, ask me

→ the rest of the story is on AO3, but this flashback is a one-off scene. (It mostly takes place in 1995-1996 when Billy is 22, living in the trailer in the desert.)