The One

As the credits rolled, my eyes remained locked on the screen until it went black.

I rewound the VHS and watched it again.

At 6pm sharp, my grandparents watched Fox News at the kitchen table. While they exchanged groans, I scarfed my macaroni and cheese before asking to be excused.

I watched the film for a third time.

There he was. My past, my future. The man who would save me from my wicked grandmother, from the trolls who bullied me at school, from my brown paper bag existence. My happily ever after.

After my grandparents went to bed, I snuck into their office and dialed up the yellowed PC. His whole life was at my fingertips—I scrolled through hundreds of photos, his dating history, failed marriages.

For the next few years I spent most nights online, creeping to bed as the sun came up.

I consumed every interview. Listened to his favorite songs. Learned that he never watched his own films. I memorized the names of his heroes, and his enemies.

I knew more about him than I did about myself.

School was a distraction, except for computer lab, where I could browse my favorite fan pages.

One by one, the page administrators banned me from their forums. They were nothing but fan girls anyway.

Same with the girls at school. The preps who paraded him around like a 4H pig, plastering his face on their trapper keepers, the inside of their lockers.

He preferred to be alone with me, watching movies in my grandparent’s basement.

When Looney’s Video Rentals had its going out of business sale, I bought all of his movies for a quarter each. No matter the film, I caught him stealing glimpses of me through the screen. No matter the role, he always spoke the same words.

You belong with me

I drew pictures of his face and sticky tacked them to my bedroom walls.

He visited me in my dreams.

His girlfriend also made the wall. Her face torn from magazine pages, eyes gouged out with an exacto knife. Lizard tails and lobster claws torn from National Geographic, pasted over her deformed body.

She was the static when the VHS glitched. I was the one.

One afternoon started like so many others. Grandmother out grocery shopping, plotting how to poison my dinner, grandfather out for a run, and me, tuned into entertainment news. My after school ritual, complete with baby carrots and easy cheese. As with every broadcast, I prayed his lonesome eyes would grace the feed. Or even more glorious, a live interview.

His voice, his laughter in real time.

That day—a miracle in color. An E! News alert! He had dumped his girlfriend, then vanished. The press had no pictures, no testimony. Only footage of her, kissing some no name Brazilian soccer player outside of a Rio dance club.

The paparazzi may not have been able to find him, but I knew exactly where he was. Waiting for me.

I stuffed my backpack full of clothes, drug store makeup, and Clearasil. In my purse, eighty five dollars earned from babysitting and another 200, taken from the book my grandmother kept hidden by the front door. And in my pocket, my favorite photograph of him, his address scribbled on the back.

I walked to the coffee shop where the university students hung out. For a cup of coffee, a kid wearing an Ani di Franco hoodie gave me a ride to Chicago Union Station.

“What year are you?” He asked as I got out of the beat up Volkswagen.

“Freshman,” I replied, his patchouli stink permeating my clothes.

I bought an Amtrak ticket to Los Angeles for 120 dollars and a Rolling Stone with his face on the cover.

Between candy bars and peanuts, I passed the two day trip sleeping and stroking the glossy pages of his photo spread.

Fifty two hours was nothing compared to our lifetime together.

Un showered and stiff, I had to unstick myself from my cramped, crumb riddled seat. As I disembarked the Southwest Chief, the dry afternoon air teased my greasy hair. From there, a taxi delivered me to Hollywood.

I bought a bottle of water and a turkey sandwich. Outside of the club, I posted up on the grimy pavement and waited for nightfall.

At 8pm, the club came alive.

Red neon light reflecting from my bloodshot eyes, I presented myself to the gatekeeper.

“ID?”

“I know the owner.”

“You don’t look like you know anyone.” The bouncer said, looking me up and down.

“Ask him. He knows me. I’m Jamie.”

The bouncer spoke into his shoulder mic. “Hector, there’s some homeless chick out here who says she knows the boss. Says her name is Jamie. What do you want to do?”

“I’m not homeless.”

The bouncer cocked his head and listened through his earpiece. “Uh huh,” he looked me over again, “that’s right.” A long pause. “Say that again? Your audio is clipping.” He shook his head, “piece of junk.” He opened the door and shouted, “Hector, what did you say?” As he leaned inside I shifted to his right and sprinted past him into the club. He chased after me, grabbing hold of my backpack. I slipped my arms out and ran toward the stage. Hector tackled me to the ground.

“What in the fuck?” He panted as I struggled underneath him.

With my face pressed against the floor, my beloved’s voice thundered above me.

“Who are you? Hector, get this kid off the ground.”

Behind his cold eyes, I saw it—a flicker of knowing. Hector picked me up and brushed me off. The bouncer hurled my backpack at my chest. “Get lost, freak.”

The club went silent. The bartenders, the bouncer and Hector watched for him to make the next move.

“You’ve lifted my world!” I ran toward him.

“This fucking bitch,” Hector and the bouncer charged again.

“Stop!” He commanded. Everyone froze. “Show’s over assholes. Back to work! You—let’s settle this in my office.”

I trotted after him—a schoolgirl chasing the bus. Down a vinyl hallway and up a florescent lit staircase. Inside his office, he planted me by the shoulders into a velvet chair. Across from me, he slumped into a leather throne. He retrieved a bottle of scotch and poured two glasses. I scanned the room, collecting every detail. Blood red walls framed a frenzy of memories. Black and white stills with the likes of Warhol, Scorsese, Ginsburg. A poster of his super group next to a ratty flyer from his high school band. Donald Duck, garishly painted with a top hat and toothy grin. And on his desk, a photograph of his mother.

Eyes wide and mouth agape, I forced my jaw shut with my hand, realizing my breath must be vile.

“So—what is this? A sting? Give me your bag.” He rewarded me with the scotch. I downed it, gagging violently.

“I’m her. I’m Jamie.” I said, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.

“What?” He asked, rummaging through my belongings. He plucked out the worn Rolling Stone and confronted his face on the cover. His eyes filled with disgust, as if he had touched a used needle. He flung it against the wall.

After composing himself, he spoke deliberately, “I don’t know you.”

“I love you.”

“You love me?”

“I don’t want an autograph.”

“I didn’t offer you one!”

He sat back in his chair and sipped from his glass. “You look like a nice girl, after a shower, but clearly, you are disturbed.”

“You look a little different too, but I assumed, without your makeup—“

“Excuse me?”

Suddenly, I leapt from my chair, shrieking with euphoria.

“What!” He shouted back at me.

“I’m talking to him! He’s been in a million movies and I’m talking to him!”

“Nobody even knows I still own this place! Who do you work for?” He smashed his glass on the table. The fragments reflected a thousand different expressions, some I didn’t recognize.

I sat back down and spoke softly. “You asked me to come.”

He shook his head. I squinted my eyes. His face came into focus—the one I didn’t know. Pity.

I looked down at my hands and whispered, tears welling in my eyes. “I hear your thoughts. I transcend your dreams. Your prayers. The endless torment. Three years, aching for me, waiting for your real life to begin. I’m here now, my darling, my baby. Everything is going to be alright. We’re together now.”

My words echoed into a vacuum, like screams that stir you from a nightmare.

“How old are you anyway, seventeen?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen!” He shoved my backpack at me. “Get the fuck out of here!”

I stared at him for a moment, immobilized by shock. He swiveled around in his chair. I stumbled from my chair and picked up the magazine, his back turned to me. “Leave.”

“I love you.” I repeated meekly.

“You are nothing. Nothing but a stalker, descended from a never ending line of desperate, vacant, teenage tramps.”

The magazine slipped from my fingers.

I fled the office, leaving the door open behind me. Barreled down the staircase, through the vinyl hallway, and through the crowd that had formed around the stage. I staggered outside, past the endless line of beautiful women that had formed on the other side of the red rope.

At the end of the line, I collapsed on the curb.

Two girls approached me. “Are you in line?” One of them asked.

I looked up at them, mascara running. Pit stains. Liquor breath.

“Not anymore.”

“Thank god!” She replied.

“Gross bitch,” her friend laughed as they stepped over me, “take a shower!”

I watched with pity as they took their place at the back of the line. Desperate, vacant, teenage tramps. With the sounds of the club swirling around me, I began to laugh.