Those Who Wander

"Blaze, can you please put that thing down for a second? You're starting to freak me out."

"Sorry, Polo, but I need to have this in my head by tomorrow morning. It's important."

"Why? You don't even go in tomorrow. Just start late or something. I haven't seen you once without that script for the past four days, and I forgot what you look like."

"Stop exaggerating. I'll have plenty of time to take a break when I'm Fiddler Green tomorrow. Fiddler Green isn't an actor, so he won't be reading any scripts."

"How's anyone even going to know if you skip out on it?"

"Believe me. They'll know."

I take another bite of my spaghetti, and turn the page with my other hoof. It's Saturday night, and my kid brother is getting whiny again. I usually elect to stay somewhere else when I'm in-character, and he doesn't like that because I can't stick around, and even if I saw him somewhere, I'm not allowed to recognize him. It's an understandable complaint, but I've gotten tired of having the same argument with him all the time.

"So, how many more times do you do this, anyway?"

"I don't know. It depends on how long I live, I suppose."

"Yeah, but I mean, come on. Like... what about when you get super-famous? You're going to walk around town acting like a psychopath while all these adoring fans keep asking for your autograph and taking your picture and stuff? How's that going to work?"

"I don't know, Polo. I'll worry about that if and when it happens."

"But like... how come? Like, once you get to that point, can't you just stop doing this stuff and show up on some cereal commercials and be okay?"

"I make enough money to get by already. It's not about the money."

"Yeah, yeah, but I mean when you're famous too. Like... I mean, people know about you right now and all, but once you're a household name, I mean, what else is there, right?"

"It's not about that either. Look, are you going to let me finish this or not? I still don't have the last eight pages down, and my spaghetti's getting cold. I don't have time to talk right now."

"Yeah... alright, fine. Whatever. Go play soldiers. I'll just... watch T.V. or something."

He gets up and goes into the living room. He's bitter at me, but I can't really do anything about it, because I really am busy with this stuff. I don't technically even live at home, but I have to change residence so often because of my job that I've never bought my own apartment either. In this particular instance, I've got to go live out in the desert because that's where we're filming, and I was going to take off tomorrow evening, as Fiddler Green. They were going to give me a trailer, but I insisted on surviving under living conditions that were at least somewhat close to what my character had to go through. I was still going to have a healthy supply of food and water, of course, but I think that's the only important difference. Oh, and there's nobody trying to kill me.

The other day, I finally managed to get a decent amount of research in, so I think I basically know how this character would react, based on the historical stuff and on the script I was given. I can probably do the dialect without any trouble because he doesn't seem to use any slang. There are a few military terms, but I won't need those unless I'm talking to someone else in the military, and everyone in that desert is probably going to be there for the shoot. I'm done with my spaghetti now, so I put my plate in the sink and head to bed. After I'm sure I've gotten everything down pat, I try to drift off.

It really is a good script. I don't know yet exactly how this is all going to look by the end of it, but some of the battle scenes are looking like they'd call for a huge budget. I'm pretty excited to be a part of this whole thing, still. Mr. Cut knows what he's doing, of course. He's done six movies already. I've only seen three of them, but they were great. Still, it's quite a feat for any independent director to amass that kind of cash. I have a lot of respect for him as a director. People call him an eccentric, and I like that because it makes it feel like he knows something they don't. People have called me an eccentric before, but I don't have the reputation for it like he does. I guess I'll probably freak out when I wake up tomorrow. That's what I usually do. You've got to start the day off being someone else waking up in a strange bed, because method acting means never going half-way. I realize that I left the lantern on, so I reach over and grab it to blow the fireflies out. I watch them fly off into the night as I slowly fall asleep. Tomorrow, I'm not allowed to exist.