Vic and Bobby
The audience doesn't need to know the "Why"
It’s cold here. He’s surprised that he’d forgotten how cold it gets this early on the East coast. Of course, in the past decade, he’s forgotten a lot of what used to be important. He wishes, just for a fleeting moment, that he still had that god-awful Marlboro sheepskin coat he used to wear, and he chuckles at the thought of it.
It’s strange how the mind ebbs and flows.
Bob knocks on the front door of the lovely little saltbox house at the end of the long, shaded driveway and waits, patiently and without hesitation, which also surprises him. In the thousands of times he’s played this moment in his head, he never expected to be this composed. A young woman-dark and lithe- appears at the door. She must be close to 30 now, but he only sees the wild-eyed little hellion that made a sport of running the studio offices with wild abandon leaving a trail of destruction in her wake.
“Hi, Wendy.”
There’s hesitation in her grin. Bob knows that she isn’t sure whether to hug him or slug him square in the jaw. Either would probably be appropriate. Finally, she grabs his hand and squeezes gently.
“Bobby Berry. Jesus Christ. Glad you found the place.”
Wendy leads him into a bright, sparse living room. The air smells faintly of eucalyptus and cinnamon.
“I couldn’t believe it when Doug called,” Wendy says. “I kept asking him if he was sure it was you and not some crazy person pretending. You know how they are.” She rolls her eyes for emphasis.
Wendy’s walls are lined with photos; dozens of them; all framed in polished black oak, all featuring ghosts from the past.
The pilot’s goin’ to series, Bobby-boy! We got a goddamn series!
Smile big, kid! It’s all they wanna see anyway.
Studio wants a two-picture deal, Bobby-boy!
We’re untouchable, Bobby-boy!
They want both of us, Bobby-boy.
Can’t do it without ya, Bobby-boy.
Bobby can hear them. He sees the men in those pictures; young, hungry, probably stoned kids who are full of energy and passion for the craft. Just kids so desperate to get the words out of themselves and on the page that days fly away before they realize they’re exhausted and starving. Kids who believed in each other and who waded through endless bullshit for each other.
“Does he know I’m here?”
“He does,” Wendy says softly.
“Does he want me here?”
Wendy stops. He knows she can’t find the right words, and he doesn’t blame her. But he also doesn’t care what her father wants. Not now. Now is about the necessity and (if he was being honest with himself) the selfishness.
“I really don’t know, Bobby. I really don’t know.”
He follows Wendy through a cluttered kitchen and into a glassed-in sunroom filled with lush green plants, Corinthian leather, and bookshelves lined with knick-knacks. The afternoon sun glints off of the numerous trophies that sit among them. He’s got the same ones back in California, but his are safely tucked away and gathering dust in a box somewhere.
And beyond it all is Vic.
I don’t think you get it, Bobby-boy. The audience doesn’t need to know the WHY. They care about the HOW, Bobby. That’s all they care about.
Bobby, it doesn’t make sense. The joke doesn’t make sense. You’re not making any sense. It’s not a goddamn southern drama.
I phoned all weekend, man. The studio needed a decision, and no one could find you.
You don’t get to blame me, Bobby-boy, because I HAVE to make the decisions while you get to hole up on the Strip with 150 bucks of blow up your snout.
He’s old now. They both are, really, but Vic has succumbed to it. He’s gaunt and nearly bald, and he sits behind a desk cluttered with crumpled paper from a steno pad. Vic never used a computer if he could help it. He said that he could write faster with good old-fashioned pen and paper, even though he couldn’t read half of what he scribbled. It was his go-to anecdote for press interviews.
Get off of this goddamn set, clean yourself up, and get your shit together, Bobby-boy, before you ruin both of our careers.
Go straight to hell, you sonofabitch. You selfish goddamn sonofabitch.
Vic stares through the wall of glass to the sun setting over the half-frozen Lake Waramaug, but he’s not seeing any of it. Bob spent nearly 30 years watching Vic stare like that from across a shoebox office; he knows that Vic is millions of miles away, locked inside the stories in his head. So Bob sits, and he waits.
Finally, there is a shift in the air, and Vic turns to him, eyes soft and smile sad.
“Hey, Bobby-boy. It’s good to see you.”
Something inside Bob breaks, and peace flows through his veins like river currents.
…He was a tremendous source of strength and protection…
…I could help him be the best Bobby he could be…
…it will always be on film. And that’s something, I guess…
“So. I was wrong,” Bobby says.
“Oh yeah? What about?”
“The audience. Turns out they really don’t give a shit about the WHY.”
Vic laughs, and it fills the room. That laugh is familiar music. It’s home. It’s the very thing Bob’s been running away from for 30 years. It’s the thing that no amount of money or drugs or accolades or trophies or fame could replace. He’s tried for three decades to pretend they do. But now he’s tired, and he just wants to come home.
“You know, my therapist told me that the best way to deal with my anger about…” Vic’s voice catches, but only for a split second. “…all of this is to write letters to all the people I hate and then burn them.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. I did. But now I don’t know what to do with the letters.”
Vic grins his familiar wide, toothy grin; the one that made him as famous in front of the camera as he was behind it.
“I’m sorry, Vic.”
“I know you are.”
“If I could go back…”
“But ya can’t, Bobby-boy. Neither of us can.”
Silence falls in the infinite space between them. Outside on the chilly lake, a crane swoops towards the water.
“What are you working on?”
Vic picks up one of the many balls of crumpled comedy and squeezes it into his palm.
“Oh,” Vic says. “This one’s gonna be a blockbuster. Comedy duo. Old friends. Package deal. Have a public falling out and don’t speak again until one of them is on his deathbed.”
“Oh yeah? What’s he dying of?”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
“Ah. Cancer’s not funny, Vicky. Make it syphilis.”
“ Syphilis?”
“Yeah. Or any one of the sex ones. Not AIDS, though.”
“AIDS isn’t funny yet?”
“Nah. It’s overplayed.”
“Good note.”
“I’m so sorry, Vic.”
It’s all he can say, but it will never be enough.
A version of this story originally appeared at: https://medium.com/the-lark
Comments
There are no comments for this story
Be the first to respond and start the conversation.