

EDWARD FURLONG

SHERRY WOOD

COPYRIGHT 2019 SHERRY WOOD

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Edward Furlong

Fame, (fame) what you like is in the limo

Fame, (fame) what you get is no tomorrow

Fame, (fame) what you need you have to borrow

Fame, fame, fame

It's mine, it's mine, it's just his line

To bind your time, it drives you to crime (fame)

-David Bowie, Fame

For Edward Furlong and in loving memory of Christian Merrill

Part 1

Hold on Tight

Part 2

Emulsion

Part 3

My Sweet Arsonist

Part 4

Steakhouse-Worthy

"Did you call moi a dipshit?"

Part 1

Hold on Tight

"People were shocked at the level of confidentiality and secrecy that went on during that production,"

\- Stephanie Austin, co-producer of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, speaking on the film.

*****

I sat down to write the chapter about the stolen lobster, which took place in Lexington, Kentucky, a city advertised as "A great place to retire." I placed my other manuscript, which I was supposed to send to my agent, aside. My heart was like that lobster in the murky, rumbling tank in the grocery store. The lobster that was about to be stolen by Edward Furlong.

Just off Interstate 101 was an American supercenter chain called Meijer (pronounced Myer) that carried random items – doughnuts, canned foods, random desserts like a toasted hot dog bun with whip cream inside of it instead of a hot dog, expired yogurt, ground beef already turning brown, straw hats, electronics, power tools, clothes, miniature American flags, sports tape, fruits and veggies, and whatever else someone could probably find at a Walmart supercenter.

In the very back of the store, beyond the baby-blue PETS sign hanging from the ceiling, two strange sounds started to build simultaneously, as if competing with each other. They both became more and more disruptive, drowning out Beyonce's Naughty Girl playing in the store. One sound was the burbling water of a lobster tank that sounded in need of repair, and the other was an odd, high-pitched cackle that would be recognizable to fans of his, at least from the few movies where his character was allowed to laugh. If one listened long enough, the two sounds would start to sound the same. Between the cackle, he could be heard saying "cool, man," a few times.

Fans would definitely recognize his sloppy hair that hung over his soulful brown eyes, though in his twenties, his hair seemed to be growing without any fancy stylist keeping an eye on it. His Calvin Klein modeling days were behind him now. His jeans were a bit too long and shredded at the bottom from stepping on them with his dirty, durable black boots. He was also too drunk. He'd stayed a boy. The Hollywood Machine gobbled him up when he was a kid and spat him back out in boy pieces coated in druggie sweat. Years and years had passed, but he hadn't had a chance to grow up. He still wore the same type of rebellious clothes he did in Terminator 2: Judgment Day when he became known as the boy who would save the world from future doom. The role that made him famous and changed his life forever.

Edward Furlong dipped his hand into the cloudy lobster water, fearless of being pinched as his friends looked on admirably, one of them placing a cigarette between his chapped lips and flicking his lighter to light it. This was obviously a non-smoking place – it was a grocery store, but the kid lit his smoke like he was at a skate park.

The discouraged Door Greeter watched the debauchery from the front of the aisle as his own life dripped away into a time clock. Three boys, all appearing to be in their twenties, laughing and taking lobsters from the tanks. It was Door Greeter's first and last day. He already decided he was going to quit three hours ago, spending a hellish half an hour weighing the pros and cons of this type of job: This job sucked but it was better than being homeless. No, it wasn't.

Now this guy in a cobra shirt too small for him and dirty jeans and great bravado had to make his day harder by trudging down the aisle and going right for the lobsters. He had an interesting walk – not exactly cocky, but he carried himself in a way that made him seem important and made it seem like where he was going was important, even if it was just a cloudy lobster tank and eventually, jail. He walked like he didn't give a damn, but if someone took enough time to look in his eyes, they'd see grace. And on his better days, he could produce the sweetest smile. The one that at one point melted all of Hollywood and had directors hunting him down for their next film. But there was another side to Edward Furlong – that boy from the bad gang-infested neighborhood. That boy that could have just as easily been a gang member himself, if it weren't for that one lucky day in October of 1990. But it wasn't the 90s anymore. It was Y2K. The afterparty. People didn't want to go home but the sun was coming up. There was a panic in the air, paired with a weariness.

Door Greeter thought the guy attempting to take a lobster out of the tank looked familiar, but he couldn't place him. Even though Door Greeter would never return to this job, he knew this situation was unavoidable. He was still here, he still had the crappy nametag on, so he had to take care of the problem. He couldn't just have lobsters crawling all over the floor of the supercenter.

He watched as Edward Furlong managed to pull out a giant lobster from the tank. He stood there giggling as its claws whipped back and forth in confusion. Furlong's tender brown eyes expanded as he laughed. He started to stuff the lobster in his backpack as the Door Greeter came down the aisle.

"Excuse me, you can't be stealing lobsters, sir!" Door Greeter lectured. Then he pointed to his friend. "You can't smoke either."

The boy removed his cigarette and replied arrogantly, "Okay, dude, chill."

Furlong laughed as an unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth now (Furlong smoked 60 cigarettes a day.) His hair hung over his eyes. It was a look seen at least twenty times in the film Detroit Rock City.

At this point, Furlong was still somewhat slender, but he was starting to puff out some in the chest and arms, which made his shirt a bit tight so the cobra snake on the shirt stuck to his chest like a tattoo. It was hot in Kentucky, so he smelled pretty bad – sweat and booze. Cheap sunscreen. And of course, nicotine. Put all of them together and the smell of Hollywood Machine Boy was a bit like candy and whiskey.

Furlong was unfazed by Door Greeter, who was less than intimidating (scrawny with pimples.) Furlong focused on trying to maneuver the lobster into the backpack.

"Come on, mannn," Furlong groaned. It was unclear whether he was talking to the lobster or Door Greeter. He paused for a second, bent over, and things crammed in the back pocket of his filthy jeans were starting to fall out - smokes, a lighter, a terribly smashed cheap box of hair dye (for the film Jimmy and Judy he was currently shooting,) condoms, and a few other items. Door Greeter was sure he saw something that belonged to the store and wondered if, while he wasn't trying to take lobsters, Furlong had shoplifted. The item – a cheap pair of furry handcuffs.

Furlong fetched his black cigarette lighter that had fallen to the floor and tried to close the flap of his backpack to keep the lobster in, who seemed, for all it was worth, to be okay with being inside the backpack as opposed to the cloudy tank water.

His friends kept on laughing at Furlong's shenanigans as Furlong started to crawl along the floor, going wherever the lobster went. Some kids standing nearby started laughing too.

"Excuse me, sir!" the Door Greeter snapped.

"We just have one more, dude," Furlong explained, bent over and fooling around with his backpack buckle. His voice did sound familiar. Door Greeter had heard it before a few years ago, when he got stoned and watched a movie with a girl he was trying to make out with. That was not his lucky day either.

He straightened his nametag as if the act could make him more intimidating and waited for the wayward actor to take him seriously.

It didn't work.

"And they were already stolen, dude," Furlong continued. "From the ocean, we're just settin' 'em freeeee, man!" Furlong stood up, expressing himself with his hands. He was quite dramatic – it was in his blood. He was a natural born actor. His hair was in his face. His breath smelled of whiskey. Even if you were the most heterosexual man on earth, the bulge in Furlong's jeans was impossible to ignore. He put his smoke back between his teeth and started clapping his hands at the lobster on the floor.

"You can't do that," Door Greeter simply stated. "Smoke. Or take our lobsters," he specified. But shouldn't it be obvious? That one couldn't just waltz in and take lobsters from a tank? "The cops are on the way," Door Greeter, also known but not really known at all as Matt Langly, warned. There. Cops. That should scare some sense into them.

Furlong shook his fingers, mocking fear. "Oooooh, the cops! Okay, mannn." Furlong sounded like one of the many characters he portrayed. He reeked of booze – like he'd been dipped in his own tank of it. He'd also had sex with his girlfriend in the river yesterday and hadn't showered. The smell was so rank Matt had to put his hand over his nose and mouth to keep from throwing up. The Hollywood Machine took the boy many places – in and out of rivers, millionaire mouths, crazy plotlines and heiress pussy. If Door Greeter looked closely enough though, he'd see swirls, big glamorous neon swirls of a boy screaming for help as he got spewed from the Hollywood Machine, coming back down to earth, hitting the pavement hard – pavement bathed in his own vomit.

But no one was listening. This wasn't a James Cameron film. It was just sad, and no one knew what to do.

*****

The big plan was to set the lobsters free at Barren River Lake later, once Jimmy and Judy wrapped up. Furlong was a PETA/animal rights activist. Deep down under the chaos, beneath the debris of all that glittered that wasn't gold, was a kid that meant well. A kid from a neighborhood full of gang activity, a kid no one wanted until he became famous (quite suddenly) and then everyone wanted him. He went from being practically orphaned in a gang infested neighborhood to a child star in less than a year. Maybe in some poetic way at least, Hollywood Machine Boy wanted to go back to his ocean.

Furlong looked down to see the lobster crawling out of his backpack and dipped his hand in the tank and splashed the lobster to wet its gills.

Within minutes, the mostly vacant parking lot of Meijer was lit up by police car lights. There wasn't much going on that night in the town of Lexington, Kentucky, so almost every cop came to Meijer, it seemed, to arrest an actor for trying to save lobsters from being boiled. The automatic doors to the grocery store parted and cops stormed in. It was all too much like T2. Furlong just laughed. The cops approached the actor and told him to place his hands behind his back.

Furlong did as they said and started making a strange noise, a sort of spastic shrill of a laugh. He turned around in circles, playing a game with the cop who was trying to cuff his wrists behind his back. One of Edward Furlong's friends lit a cigarette and the sprinklers came on in the grocery store, throwing Furlong into a crazier fit of laughter. Everything was wet now! The lobsters seemed to enjoy it, but customers ran out of the store, some forgetting to put merchandise back. It was utter mayhem and Furlong seemed pleased.

"Stop," the cop ordered, but Furlong still spun in circles, his wet hair plastered to his face. The water heightened the smell of his dirty jeans.

"I have handcuffs too, you know," Furlong mumbled.

The cop, overwhelmed, paused and looked up at the leaking ceiling and sighed. The cuffs dangled from Furlong's wrist, where one had been applied. Furlong just laughed.

"Come on man, I have places to do and things to be," Furlong said, his words slurred.

In the end, Furlong was successfully cuffed, his clothes soaked as he was escorted out of the grocery store. The chaos was real life, but it looked like a scene from a film. One almost had to wonder if someone who had been portraying characters caught up in a world of chaos since he was thirteen years old (be it saving the future from evil cyborgs, saving it from Nazi youths, saving it from video games with the power to control the minds of teenagers, or simply trying to see the band KISS and have some fun) could actually, himself, believe in a way that his life was a movie. And one day he'd eventually save the day.

Or at least the lobster.

It was all the same in the Hollywood Machine – lights! camera! action! even if it were cop lights, just bright lights flashing, chaos, entertainment, it was all the same thing swirling around and around. Noise, panic, sex, attention.

Cops escorted Furlong outside as shoppers watched. Some people thought it was just part of the movie Jimmy and Judy. The film was about rebellious young loves from the suburbs, who could have terrorized a Meijer chain as part of the plot. Somehow the movie Furlong was making at the time always had a way of reflecting the chaos in his own personal life.

Life imitating art or art imitating life, to the bitter, bitter end.

The cops placed Furlong in the back of a patrol car as Return of the Mack by Mack Morrison blared from a nearby car. People who'd fled the grocery store when the sprinklers came on tried to get a picture of the actor as he was driven away.

****

I stared at my Macbook, trying to focus. What was I doing? Maybe my agent was right, writing a book about Edward Furlong was insane. That was the word she chose – insane. I didn't even know Edward Furlong. He wasn't on the internet. He hated the internet, in fact. He was no longer married and had child abuse charges against him. Why'd I like him so much? That was why I was writing a book called Edward Furlong, I supposed, to scratch at the surface.

It was quiet here, and that was what I wanted. That was why I moved away from the highway, away from whatever city-life Asheville, North Carolina had to offer, and to a shady street surrounded by woods. It was nice here, but tonight the quiet felt creepy. October was settling in. Most days were cool and overcast. It got dark earlier. I referred to it as Edward Furlong weather. The pool in the backyard was bone-dry, its surface covered with red and orange leaves. If I walked up my quiet street and turned onto Donnavon Street, I'd find houses with big, perfectly carved pumpkins on their front porches and extravagant Halloween decorations in their front yards.

I looked back at my computer screen and brought up my friend's Facebook page. I could still hear his hiss of a laugh he'd give while pulling his long brown hair behind his ears. It was a nervous gesture, I think. Christian was scared. Sometimes people who were scared lived recklessly, so that every day could come across as a cry for help.

In the Facebook photo, Christian was in his backyard, in the middle of shooting a bow and arrow, bicep muscles bulging, eyes on whatever he was about to shoot. He was skinny, his clothes struggling to find enough of a body to hold onto. He'd had two open heart surgeries prior to the picture being taken.

I'd just found out last night that he passed away. I couldn't sleep. Our year spent together, in 1999 when everything felt like the edge of the world and we were all close to falling off, played out in my mind like a film, bright light keeping me awake, streaming from my mental projector. It was like I was in an auditorium watching a film about myself. Us. Confusion. Sex. Bad things. Fire. A certain atmosphere. A Joy Division song playing.

I tossed and turned, memories burning bright on the wide screen of my mind. All the things we did, the way he terrified me, the way he thrilled me, the way he fucked me, the night we just kept driving around that small, stupid town, all playing out in spectacular display. My brain just didn't want to sleep, and my heart was too heavy. I tossed and turned, thinking and hurting when I wanted to be dreaming.

I opened the word document for Edward Furlong, the wayward actor I'd been obsessed with since I was fifteen years old. There was always something so dark about him. It really didn't feel like it was that long ago when I was walking along the boulevard to the theatre in green Converse, my blonde hair pulled up in a scrunchie, just wanting to see his movie one more time.

I couldn't force myself to sit down and edit yet another draft of my current book for my agent. I had a rough second draft of Mystery and Esplanade in the drawer upstairs. The manuscript was covered in Leslie's suggestions in red ink. Some pointed out typos, others were long critique when it came to the plot. Sometimes she drew big quote bubbles with long paragraphs of ideas. It didn't feel like a book anymore so much as a long problem to solve. It didn't matter how much Leslie rooted for me, how much faith she had in me. I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. It simply wasn't what I wanted to be writing.

****

If you googled his name, you'd probably find the lobster article or one that read The Latino Bad Boy of Hollywood, or Furlong arrested again!

Furlong's lobster arrest came a few years after filming Detroit Rock City (the film a lot of people assumed was his last.) It also followed his love triangle with Paris Hilton and Natasha Lyonne, the bar fight that occurred when Natasha yelled at Paris for stealing Furlong from her, and his heroin overdose, all of which were followed by a suicide attempt as Hollywood Machine Boy went down a glittery spiral in Tinseltown. All the people involved in making the most expensive movie in the world (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) – from the casting agent who scooped him up from the Boys Home, to James Cameron to the aunts and uncles who fought over him when he was making money – seemed to have vanished.

An article called OBYTUARY: EDWARD FURLONG published in May of 2013 discusses the time Furlong was found passed out in a pool of his own vomit outside a club, much like the way River Phoenix died, but Edward survived. And he kept surviving, whether the Hollywood Machine wanted him back or not. Whether anyone wanted him back. Yes, it must have been thrilling to have been discovered at such a young age, with fans and relatives fighting over him and worrying for his future – especially when money was concerned – but it must have also made the fall from the limelight that much more painful, especially when there was no one around to help him back up.

*****

2000 seemed to be the year of displacement for Edward Furlong. Reality TV and pop culture were having a moment. Hollywood was changing. Everything was. It was a year before 9/11 would change the state of the world, putting fear in everyone's heart. The year 2000 glowed like a glossy magazine page under the midday sun, a page the breeze slowly tried to turn.

Furlong had a nice chunk of change from his successful films in the 90s. He'd ditched the much older tutor Jackie Domac after allegedly beating her up in their Sherman Oaks home. He started hanging out at strip clubs, looking noticeably skinnier and worn out at the time he dated socialite Paris Hilton. His face even took a different shape – his cheeks were concave, his Russian nose seemed to stick out a bit more. This was especially noticeable in the film 3 Blind Mice, where Furlong played a slightly perverted geek watching people on their webcams until he witnessed a murder and his life spiraled out of control. His usual soft brown eyes had a desperate look to them. It was no big secret he was on heroin. He was in the grip of the Hollywood Machine at the time. The gorgeous tanned reality stars, the drugs, the hot cars, the star power, although starting to fade, still had a certain shine to it. It was clear he was trying to "hold on tight" (like the name of his one and only album declared) to his stardom.

In 2001 he would be seen out and about with model/actress Jolene Blalock (Edward Furlong had a thing for Pisces women.) Blalock was best known for her role in Star Trek: Enterprise. In their outing together, Furlong had a mark on his face that looked like a fading black eye. He also appeared at one point with his arm in a cast, the injury was never explained. (I came across an article about how Furlong would hide in Hidden Hills, a gated community in L.A. where celebrities lived, and break into homes, and I wondered if he broke his arm sneaking in through someone's window late at night.) But no matter what state his body was in, he'd appear with his shaggy hair and a cigarette clenched between his teeth, that sly grin always in place.

In 2006, the film Jimmy and Judy came out. It was released theatrically. Described as a low-budget Natural Born Killers, it only had about 500,000 dollars to spend. It was filmed Blair Witch-style, with shaky camera work by Furlong's character Jimmy, who filmed everything his hot girlfriend Judy did. He honestly looked healthier at the time, when he was arrested for rescuing lobsters – or "stealing" them as all of the papers would print. He'd put on weight since 2000 and fallen in love with his costar who played Judy, Rachael Bella (another Pisces.) He seemed happy. The film won best feature at the 2006 San Francisco Independent Film Festival and the MySpace.com award for Best Feature at the Newport Beach Festival. It wasn't an MTV award, but Furlong seemed happy. He was acting and he was in love and it was easy to tell on camera. The Leo fire in him was still burning bright. Maybe he didn't need the Hollywood Machine after all...but Furlong wasn't a method actor. He'd never had any acting training. He was self-taught. And as time went on, Hollywood changed. Method actors with pretty faces were getting all the roles. And movies didn't call for a big outing anymore, they became background noise as people sat on their couches with their cell phones in their hands, only half-paying attention to what they were watching. So, who needed passionate, raw talented actors in films anyway?

*****

The plot of Jimmy and Judy had its romantic elements. Jimmy fell in love with Judy and his whole reason for existing was to film her, take care of her, protect her. "I won't film everything, just what's important," he told her in a tenderhearted but gritty Kentucky accent. The chemistry between Rachel and Edward was very obvious on screen.

Filming everything when young and in love and on drugs was not a good idea, it turned out, so trouble ensued for Jimmy, who took up for Judy after she was assaulted.

I couldn't help but feel like Jimmy and Judy was a representation of Furlong's life, spiraling out of control. Filming made everything better, suddenly there was a point to it all, but it was also the ultimate source of the downward spiral to come...

*****

"You cannot escape. Every law officer and every citizen now knows exactly what you look like and who you are."

The desperate announcement came from L.A. County Sheriff Sherman Block in the summer heat of 1985. Police in Pasadena, California were on a manhunt for a Latino man, 6'1, weighing 155 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes and "extreme decay" of his upper and lower teeth.

It was a hot August night in 1985. Dire Straits' Money for Nothing blared from car radios. Somewhere in Glendale, or perhaps Sun Valley, or near Diamond Bar, was a man named Richard Ramirez driving a green 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix in search of his next victim. That victim could be a kid (he was eventually convicted of kidnapping and molesting four kids in San Gabriel Valley in a long list of other crimes including rapes and murders) or a young woman, or a couple.

Determined to put an end to the mayhem, Sheriff Sherman Block released the statement to warn Ramirez. The warning came through emergency amplifiers attached to police vehicles driving through quaint neighborhoods, and then a few seconds later things returned to the usual afternoon sounds of kids playing in the streets and Dire Straits. We got to move these refrigerators/we gotta move these color TVs/see the little faggot with the earring and the makeup/yeah buddy that's his own hair

Eleanor Torres didn't live too far from the manhunt taking place in Glendale for Richard Ramirez. At the time, she was an overwhelmed unsalaried worker for the Pasadena Committee on Children and Youth. She was a single mom trying to raise 8-year old Edward Walter Furlong on her own. Edward was, according to Eleanor, "a handful." His father had never been in Edward's life. The only thing I could find as far as Furlong's father was concerned was that he once worked as a furniture salesman. His name was Moises Torres.

Edward Furlong was born on August 2nd, 1977, at 10:17 am. People born between ten am and noon were said to love honing their unique talents, and with a winning attitude their skills could one day make them famous. Furlong was also a Leo and his Chinese astrological sign was Year of the Snake. Snakes were known for their focused, penetrative eyes and calculative minds. They were low-key, but when they struck, it could be quite disastrous. They were also very charming characters. The primal zodiac combination for Leo and the Snake sign was a fox. Beautiful, fast, endangered.

Edward Furlong was of Russian and Mexican descent. His father Moises was Russian, and his mother Eleanor was Mexican. Furlong had dark hair and brown eyes. His Russian nose and the way his hair collapsed over his soulful eyes set him apart from the typical blue-eyed American heartthrobs I was used to seeing on the cover of magazines when I was fifteen (Ricky Schroder and Jonathan Taylor Thomas never appealed to me.)

Something about Furlong's brooding vibe made him seem older than he was. Even at a young age, there was something fantastically ominous about him. He looked the part of his dark surroundings – gangs, serial killers and fires set by arsonists all turning Glendale, California into what could have been the backdrop for a sinister film. Furlong could have played Damien in The Omen swimmingly.

He was born in Glendale, a suburb about 8 miles from Los Angeles. Brand Boulevard was still in its pre-Rick Caruso's Americana at Brand days. There were no hi-rises or condos. In the mid80s, the boulevard still offered Glendale a more wholesome, simple downtown vibe with Dime Drugstore equipped with a café in the back, a Woolworth's Five and the historic Damon's Steakhouse (open since 1931.) It was the days of the hardworking man, good American food, black and white checkered floors, and black and white televisions.

But danger always lurked, no matter place or time. Glendale was also notorious for gang activity – at one time hosting more than 30 different gangs. Gang violence peaked in the 90s. It usually centered around the low-income area of South Glendale, which was historically claimed by the Mexican gang Tooner Ville Rifa. Another gang, The Avenues, was listed on LAPD's top most targeted street gangs. Edward Furlong, who spent most of his time at Pasadena's Boys Club, could have easily been a victim of gang violence, a member of it, or one of the kids Richard Ramirez snatched in the middle of the night as he cruised Glendale in whatever automobile he'd stolen at the time. His future didn't look that promising – a nowhere dad, a mom that couldn't handle him, and an aunt and uncle trying to decide if they could. He was shy, too. Kids around the Club nicknamed Edward Furlong "Pook." Some claimed he had a mean streak, which could have been a defense mechanism seeing how his surroundings were a bit sketchy and he was young, underfed and short – not exactly intimidating compared to the older kids at the Boys Club. Or, his "mean streak" could have had to do with a "behavioral problem," which Eleanor brought up one time when she tried to explain why she eventually handed Furlong over to his aunt and uncle to raise.

*****

As the hunt for Ramirez expanded, Ramirez had ditched his green Grand Prix for an orange Toyota station wagon about an hour away from Glendale after breaking into a home, killing 29-year old William Carns and raping William's girlfriend. She later told cops from a hospital bed that she remembered seeing an orange Toyota near her home.

Glendale, California was one of Richard Ramirez's favorite hangouts. He'd been linked to other killings in the area, including Max and Lela Ellen Kneilding who were gunned down in their home. About a decade earlier, Angelo Buono Jr. better known as The Hillside Strangler was convicted of kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing girls in the late 1970s. A few of the victims' bodies were found around Glendale's Mount Washington, disposed of like fast food containers.

In June of 1990, Glendale became victim of both accidental fires and arson. The College Hills Fire destroyed 64 homes in Glendale's San Rafael Hills and caused $40 million in damage. Evening rush-hour traffic was brought to a halt at the height of the fire as flames burned on both sides of the Glendale Freeway, forcing Mountain Street to close. The 100-acre fire, one of the worse in the city's history, resulted in flames leapfrogging from house to house, destroying some while leaving others untouched.

Strangely enough, while "Pook" was able to escape Glendale and all of its fiery madness by this point thanks to a casting agent's good eye and will to take on Furlong's insults and wisecracks, he'd be thrust into another world of charred ruins, explosions and killer cyborgs – a world of mayhem known as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He'd also be caught in the throes of an even more chaotic world: Hollywood.

*****

Mali Finn was the casting director for the upcoming sequel to Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Her job was to not only find an "intense presence" to play the evil cyborg T-1000 (a role that almost went to rocker Billy Idol) but also to find a boy that could play the leader of human resistance aka John Conner, whom the T-1000 sought to destroy. The film was going to be epic, with a 94 million-dollar budget, it would go down as the most expensive movie ever made. Filming locations varied, including the ruins of a demolished steel plant in Fontana on the outskirts of San Bernardino. Twisted bikes and burned out cars used for post-apocalyptic scenes was stuff leftover from the 1989 Universal Studios Hollywood fire. Guns N Roses would handle the T2 theme song – a vicious, venomous song called You Could Be Mine.

Everything they needed for a destroyed L.A. on Independence Day was at their fingertips. And thus, our little innocent Edward Furlong's acting career began...

*****

Mali stopped at the Boy's Home in Pasadena on an October afternoon in 1990. She noticed a terribly undernourished boy standing outside Pasadena, hair flopped down over his eyes. There was something about the way he leaned against the building, as if he were posing, but it was just Edward Walter Furlong hanging out in his natural element. She couldn't really see his face that well because of that hair of his, which hung over his sweet little face in an effortlessly cool manner, with one side longer than the other. (Leonardo DiCaprio would be seen with a similar, somewhat neater version of the hairstyle later on.)

Furlong was striking, but stand-offish. When she approached him, he gave her a suspicious stare and looked off in the distance. She told him she needed to ask him something.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked her.

"No," she said and explained that it was about an audition for a film. Furlong immediately assumed it was for kiddy porn and even after she explained that it was something legit, he gave her a difficult time during auditions. She said he wouldn't let her touch him – that he didn't seem to trust her or anybody. He would often call her mean names like "Frog Lips." But he had a charm about him, and John Connor's character had to be charming, and a bit of a wise ass. Mali admitted how intimidated she was by the thirteen-year old, who expressed his love for violent movies in the car ride to James Cameron's production office in Burbank, telling her Aliens was his favorite movie as he looked up at her with gleaming brown eyes.

Because he had absolutely no acting training, his auditions were raw, and he almost didn't get the part. But Furlong ended up nailing his final audition for what would become an iconic role seen as both a blessing and a curse (Nick Stahl would take on the role as John Connor later on in the disastrous T3 and go down his own spiral of drugs and arrest) but for now, it was Furlong's time to shine, dipshit.

Furlong was thrilled when he learned the part was for the sequel to Terminator and he'd be acting alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and learn how to ride a motorcycle and shoot guns along the backdrop of a charred futuristic world. It was a thirteen-year old boy's dream.

Filming took 171 days and called for a stunt double for Furlong as well as a tutor to teach him while he took time out from school. His tutor's name was Jacqueline Louis Domac, mostly referred to as Jackie Domac or "the tutor" in salacious magazine articles to come.

Jackie Domac was twenty-six years old at the time. She looked younger, with long dark hair and a pretty, round face. She was curvy. She seemed smart and nurturing. Perhaps 13-year old Furlong saw her not only as a teacher, but a mother figure – something he needed before landing his role in T2.

At the time, Domac was working towards becoming a health teacher. She was eventually banished from the set of T2 after she was caught wrestling "inappropriately" with both Edward Furlong and fifteen-year old actor Danny Cooksey, who played John Conner's friend Tim in the movie.

The fact that Domac was fired didn't stop her from coming around and pretty soon Furlong was referring to her as his girlfriend. No one stepped in to do anything about this despite the incredible age gap between them – no one seemed fazed by it. There was a mega-blockbuster to film, after all, and a deadline that was getting harder to meet because of all the special effects.

"Pook," a kid from the streets of Pasadena with no former acting training, had no problem holding his on next to Schwarzenegger and nailing one-liners like "blow me, dickwad," with major attitude. My favorite scene was with him and The Terminator riding in the car, while John teaches him cooler phrases than "affirmative," like the wildly popular line "hasta la vista, baby!" a line that cannot be delivered without the proper amount of sass. The idea to use the line in the film occurred when James Cameron heard Tone Loc's popular song Wild Thing while working out at the gym. That was just how macho this entire film franchise was.

Furlong proved he was a natural, surprising everyone with his ability to push aside family drama (more on that later) and deliver what would become an iconic performance – one he'd never be able to live down. It was a stigma many child stars faced. No one wanted to see them grow up, get fat or become drug addicts. It was a reminder that no one was above life's downfalls. But it always seemed to be the path they followed when the Hollywood Machine spat them out, leaving them to crawl around on the ground, their flavor on someone else's tongue, whatever gnawed-on piece of meat was left of them had to find a new machine...or at least a way to get back up off the ground and try, no matter how hurt or tired they were.

*****

On Independence Day of 1991, Furlong's adorable face was seen on every movie screen across America. It gave kids like me who didn't come from a big family that had a huge cookout on the 4th of July something to do.

Because of the success of the film, John Connor would be a character Furlong would never be able to live down. His performance was so convincing that in some future interviews he would even be referred to as John instead of Edward. He won an MTV Award for best breakthrough performance for the role. 'Oh yeah, the kid from Terminator,' everyone would describe him as whenever someone mentioned Edward Furlong down the road, despite the 48 films he made proceeding the cyborg mega-hit, as well as music videos (Aerosmith and Metallica.) Success and fame came quick and easy for Furlong, soon to be known as "Eddie." Perhaps that was why it was easy to take for granted. Some thought Furlong was a great actor, others thought he was terrible. But everyone seemed to forget, or had no clue, that he never had acting lessons and was picked to star in a role he never asked for. It was a huge task to take on at such a young age, but he did it and he was acknowledged greatly for it.

In the year 2011, Edward Furlong made an appearance at a Comic Convention in Belgium, wearing ripped jeans and rugged black books, basically what John Connor wore when he rode around on his dirt bike trying to escape the evil T-1000 back in1991. He looked like a boy who'd outgrown his boy clothes. The Hollywood Machine had spat him out and in the same outfit it had sucked him up in. What year was it? Was he in the future? The past? It was as if he was a victim of his own T2 time displacement. At the convention, he had a beer gut, wore a t-shirt his girlfriend gave him that featured two naked women on it, kept his hair pulled up in a hairclip from a drugstore, and wore the same type of black rugged boots he always sported. His jeans were ripped at the knee, with the flaps hanging loosely like denim tongues as he took what few questions from the audience he could get, his eyes scoping around the room desperately, until a girl stood up and asked him what it was like working with Edward Norton in the film American History X. In the background, scenes from T2 played out – like the scene where little Eddie Furlong was being chased on his bike by a giant black Mack truck, which I couldn't help but compare to Hollywood itself. Chasing him down, running him over. Leaving him for dead.

Edward Furlong also wore the same Public Enemy shirt he sported in T2 in a film called Matt's Chance, released in 2013. Either Edward Furlong didn't want to completely separate himself from the T2 franchise or didn't know how. Or maybe he was trying to get some message across in the movie, which was a dark comedic tale of love, revenge, and the fickle nature of human morality.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day was the film that made Furlong famous, after all. It was not just his biggest film, but THE biggest, most expensive film ever made. It saved him from the streets of Pasadena. It helped him make a name for himself. If he hadn't been standing in front of that Boys Home the day Mali Finn drove up, we may have never heard of him.

He no longer needed his family who only wanted to disown him anyway. Maybe the Terminator franchise could save him again one day...revive his career, help people forget all of the bad things in the tabloids – the drugs, overdoses and domestic violent charges.

James Cameron saw something in Furlong the minute Mali Finn brought him in to audition. There was something there, Cameron swore, that he'd see when he zoomed in on him. "The way his hair kind of hung down over his face," Cameron recalled, explaining that he saw "this guy hiding under a rock, but there was an intelligence there and a heart behind everything he did."

Terminator 2: Judgment Day was the first film to use natural human motion for a computer-generated character as well as the first partially-generated main character. A movie about the future seemed like it was from the future. This was 1991, after all, before the internet, before cell phones. I still had a black and white television at home, and an antenna on the roof to pick up a signal. I talked on a yellow telephone on my kitchen wall. The mystery of answering a phone without having any idea who was calling was completely normal. One could not rewrite a text, perfecting it. One had to pick up the phone, find out who was calling and just go with it organically.

The task of making the T2 liquid metal T-1000 come alive on screen fell to George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. The film won an Oscar for the special effects, but it almost didn't happen. The render capacity needs for the film were extreme and no one thought they could pull it off. Needless to say, they did.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day was a sleek, loud, booming high-octane masterpiece. But such a shiny cinematic toy was a struggle to make in time and the deadline for release date almost wasn't met. There were 24-hour, 7-day shifts in post-production. There was unbelievable pressure to have it ready for the release date. Meanwhile, Furlong hit a growth spurt over the process of filming. He was taller than his double by the time the film wrapped up. His voice changed too, as he hit puberty right in the middle of everything, so he had to loop all of his lines in quite a few scenes.

But everything wrapped up just in time, and perfectly, complete with a brilliant opening sequence. Then there were the opening credits, with the words "and introducing Edward Furlong" against the backdrop of a playground on fire.

Terminator 2 ended up making a domestic total gross of $204,843,345 dollars. It was definitely the film of the summer, crushing its competition (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves anyone?)

T2 was the movie you could hear through the wall from the other auditorium, booming and vibrating, like those loud, inconsiderate neighbors when they had sex. It was the movie interfering with your Robin Hood or your Problem Child 2 or your City Slicker. Interfering with your life, hopefully, if you were like me and needed to forget the real-life problems that had taken it over.

I could not wait to see Edward Furlong on his dirt bike fighting robots to save the world from ending. I had a crazy crush on him. A crush that would last a lifetime, no matter what bad things people said he did. In a way, that only made my crush on him bigger. It was like watching night fall. He became more intriguing to me, a puzzle I may never solve. That voice, those eyes. Deep, dark fantasies would take over my mind. A forest of questions I didn't even want answers to. I wanted to stay lost in the darkness. In my fantasy, I'd pull him close, him overweight and smelling like dreams come true and nightmares too, nicotine, alcohol and blood, success and failure, scruff on his face and liquor bathing his tongue, and tell him to "be a man on me."

*****

Terminator 2: Judgment Day was the whole reason I took a job at Les Cinemas back in 1991 in the small bible belt town of Salisbury, North Carolina. It was my first job. I was fifteen and it gave me a sense of independence, but I didn't care about that. I could see movies for free, that was what mattered. I was broke (I was lucky if I ate once a day.) My mom and I lived in two-bedroom apartment complex and didn't have a car. Les Cinemas was conveniently right up the boulevard from where we lived.

I couldn't wait to hear the loud rock music in T2, the imagery of destruction vs. heroism. The explosions, the car chases and of course, Eddie Furlong. I couldn't wait for it to wash everything away, for two blessed hours I was in a dark room away from those who hurt me.

*****

I paused for a second, taking a break from my Edward Furlong book to go back on Facebook. Last night, I started writing Christian a message to tell him about things going on in my life, assuming he cared. Or maybe I was going to finally apologize or maybe he would. I'd ask him how he'd been, was he still living in North Carolina? Why did he had a machine that made machine guns in his garage?

This of course was before I stumbled upon his obituary page, the only thing that came up about him when I googled his name. It was a pretty plain obituary too, with just his name stitched across the top – Christian Merrill – and that he was being cremated. No accomplishments, not even a list of loved ones or a "survived by" thing. Well what did you expect it to read? Christian Merrill, handsome arsonist, died yesterday surrounded by people who were unsure if they were ever truly loved by him.

My mom was cremated too. How could the people I'd been so close to turn to ash? For a second, I just sat there. I'd get up eventually and open the bottle of red wine in the fridge. Maybe water that poor plant. But for now, staring at his arms as he positioned his bow and arrow was all I wanted to look at.

The sound of my cell phone ringing made me jump – it had been the only sound in the house (besides my typing) for hours.

I had a bad feeling when I was writing Christian. He knew his days were numbered since the day he was born because of his heart condition. He was born with a hole in his heart. He'd told me about it as soon as we met that day in 1999, his cool chin-length hair in his face, asking if I needed a ride. Cigarette smoke slipping from between his lips. It was hot out. The Blair Witch Project was about to be released.

The first message I wrote him was bold: We shouldn't have done what we did at the drive-in.

But then I deleted it, because deep down I never regretted that night. In fact, it was one of the few I didn't regret. Did he regret it? How often did he think about it? That night at Thunderbird Drive-In just changed everything.

Last night, as I tried to accept the fact that he was gone forever, that night burned in my mind, the image so clear, as if the old rusty drive-in itself magically came back to life as we chased each other through the snaky field where cars used to park, where lovers used to hold each other, where that old torn screen used to be lit up with a motion picture. And everything was alive once again. People were out. The smell of popcorn drifting from the little concession stand that looked like a clubhouse mixed in with the sweet pine trees off in the distant. Some stoned teenager was headed off towards the woods to pee.

Then I realized it didn't matter if I sent the message or deleted it because Christian was gone. I'd never have a chance to talk it out with him, to find out if he blamed me for his life falling apart. According to the pictures he posted on Facebook, his mindset right before the time he died wasn't that great. There were pictures of lots of guns in his garage, and a giant pig he must have killed himself, hanging from a hook with the caption "feast later, thanks Texas.")

Maybe some of us never grow up. Sometimes something stops us in our tracks at a young age, paralyzes us, or guts us of everything but fear. The fear to live and the fear to die all molded into one. So, what were we supposed to do? Time became a standstill. Something happened to me when I was fifteen that haunted me forever. It would stain everything. No one else could see it, but I could every day, and every day the stain grew bigger. At every job, in every bar, that night at the drive-in, right now in this moment, tomorrow. Forever. I was haunted. Christian tried to make it okay, but no one could. Especially now that Christian was dead.

*****

When I was fifteen, my Aunt Julie was diagnosed with colon cancer.

"Just go talk to her," Mom encouraged me as I stood on the second floor of the hospital. My nightly shift at Les Cinemas was a few hours away.

I didn't know what to say. What did you say to someone who was dying? But this was my Aunt Julie, a diehard Christian who believed if God wanted her to get sick and die, then it was just her time. It was that simple. She refused any kind of cancer treatment, not that she could afford it. Her cashier job at Food Lion wouldn't exactly cover it.

I went into her hospital room and walked over to the side of the bed to hold her hand. She was cold and pale. Her face looked bony. Her skin felt thin and fragile, like it would tear if I even touched it. If I scratched her, her skin would unravel from her bones completely and she'd just sat there all blood and bone like something in those books I loved, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

She looked up at me and actually smiled and I hated myself for letting my imagination run away with me.

"Hey Sherry, how are you doing? You not working tonight?" she managed to say all of that, even though I could tell it exhausted her. Julie had a subtle southern accent. Everything she said sounded so graceful, almost like a sweet song playing softly on the radio.

"Yeah," I just said. "In a few hours."

"You still like your job?" she asked, sounding weaker with each breath.

"Yeah."

Julie never talked about herself. She never complained. She never wore makeup. She pulled her hair up every morning with a pale blue hairband from Woolworth, put on the most basic pair of sneakers (imitation white Keds from Roses department store) and went to work. She listened to Amy Grant in her car on her way there. If she did let her hair down, she kept the hairband on the stick-shift. She even said a prayer once after doing so: "God forgive me for being too lazy to put this in my purse."

She remembered things people told her. One day I'd randomly mentioned I wanted a Rolling Stone magazine with someone on the cover I liked at the time, it may have been the Skid Row one, and she asked me a week later if I ever got it. She wouldn't accept help from anyone no matter how hard things got, she never badmouthed anyone, not even her own husband who left her to raise their teenage son on her own. Whenever someone in our family would speak badly of him, Aunt Julie would simply say, "It's okay, he had a journey of his own to take."

She would always step in and help us when we were low on money and needed food, which was often.

"Well what's playing there now?" she asked, weak. It was as if saying one word took the same energy as running five blocks. Her eyes were closed, and I wondered if she'd fallen asleep, but I kept talking like I promised Mom I would.

"Uh, Terminator 2," I said in my shy, southern accent, smiling a little, swallowing over the lump in my throat. "And City Slickers..." I'd seen a little bit of City Slickers but only because I had to in order to sneak into Terminator 2. I sat there for about ten torturous moments before I pretended to g o the bathroom and snuck into the big auditorium where Terminator 2 was playing just in time to see the scene when Eddie took off on his motorbike, delivering the line "She's not my mother Todd!" then went to rob an ATM so he could go to the arcade.

Once I got a job at the movie theatre, no one bothered to stop me from seeing any R rated movie. It was a total free for all.

"Oh my..." she spoke slowly and managed to smile. "Those sound like some excitin'...movies." She was wheezing. I looked around for my mom, but she was still standing out in the hall, listening to me, hoping I'd say the right thing. I wanted her in the room with me. This was hard. I think Julie understood that because she patted my hand.

"You go now, don't be late for work."

*****

My Aunt Julie passed away a week later. A strange silence seemed to settle in my house. All I could think about was that day I rode with Julie to her house for dinner, and the blue hairband on the stick-shift with a strand of her blonde hair on it that this ray of sunlight shined down on. What happened to things in people's cars after they died? This was what I wondered when I took the late evening walk up the boulevard to my job at Les Cinemas.

I remembered what a relief it was to get out of the house. My mom was grieving and just seemed to shut down. All I knew was Julie was the sweetest person – the type to open her home to anyone, give anyone anything she could. And now she was gone. It didn't seem fair.

The cold, dark auditorium was an escape from everything. No windows, no intruding light from the outside world. No nothing but the brown-eyed boy on his bike with that evil snicker. I. Was. In. Love. Having a crush on someone helped me deal with everything else. Even if it was a crush on someone that I would never, ever have a chance with or even meet. I knew I had a type though. Good hair, bad attitude.

The only light in the dark auditorium was when that big screen lit up. I loved how it seemed like it was nighttime when I was in the auditorium. It made walking outside that much more painful – the way the bright sun felt like it could slice my brain in half, and when it did little bits and pieces of reality would spill back in there. It was a lot like waking up from a good dream.

*****

Before his sad trail of films where his mom always died (Pet Sematary 2, Brainscan, Little Odessa, and even Detroit Rock City (the scene where Furlong's character Hawk talks about his deceased mother didn't make the final cut) I'd seen Terminator 2: Judgment Day twenty times before it was eventually replaced by another movie. I had no idea that the whole time Terminator 2 was being shot a war also raged off set. Not one between humans and evil robots, but one between Edward Furlong's mother Eleanor, her sister Nancy and Eleanor's half-brother, Sean. It would go on for three more years.

Now that Furlong was going to be a star, everyone wanted a say in what he should do and how his money should be spent. Shortly after signing Edward Furlong to star opposite Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2, director James Cameron called Uncle Sean Furlong (Eddie's uncle and his legal guardian at that point) and asked, "Do you guys know what you're getting into?"

The same question should have been presented to Cameron, but no one seemed concerned about the dire situation Furlong was going through, or the toll it could take on his mental health – at the same moment he was being catapulted to fame.

Edward Furlong came with drama. It wasn't his fault. At first, no one wanted him then all of the sudden everyone did. His mom, his aunt, his uncle, other film directors, teenage girls, and a tutor pushing thirty, for starters. When he was discovered by Mali Finn, he had no one watching out for him. Now everyone was watching him. Within five months, he went from being unwanted to being known worldwide, all at the same time he'd hit puberty. In the next three years, he would be shipped off to various states to shoot five more movies without a parental guardian – though sometimes "the tutor" would be at his side, and according to one witness, his bed.

The custody battle for Furlong raged on for the duration of the filming of T2, with each side accusing the other of being more interested in money than in Eddie.

One of Terminator 2's producers, B.J. Rack, recalled, "It was extremely upsetting to Edward. Here was this kid who had never been on a movie set, subjected to five months of the most high-profile experience one could imagine, then not knowing who his legal guardians were. But he was okay. I was amazed at his ability to put it behind him and perform."

In September of 1991, Sean and Tafoya retained custody of Edward Furlong, but the court gave Bruce Ross control of his estate, an arrangement that would generate constant friction. A little more than a month into the joint guardianship, Sean and Nancy quit their full-time jobs as counselors for social-service agencies to devote themselves to Furlong's career, which was a bad move on their part. They could have hired someone to manage him and continued to be hardworking parental guardians – people for him to look up to. He still needed parents, after all, not just managers. He was someone's son, not just a star.

Sean and Nancy also had attorney Marc Berry outline their complaints in a letter to Ross. "As you know," Berry wrote, "Sean and Nancy are not wealthy, and cannot provide Eddie with a home equivalent to his status in the entertainment community, causing much embarrassment and humiliation which must be avoided hereafter."

The "embarrassment" Uncle Sean was referring to included bounced checks, no medical insurance — the product, Sean Furlong and Tafoya claimed – of a tug-of-war with Ross over escalating expenses that the pair said couldn't be covered by production-company per diems and the daily payout of $75 to $240 that Eddie's estate gave them to accompany their ward to film sets. The estate also covered more than half the rent on a new house, an expense that Sean Furlong and Tafoya said was needed to get Eddie out of the gang-infested neighborhood where they lived.

Uncle Sean Furlong even brought up furniture, because they didn't feel like theirs was nice enough now that a child star lived in their home. It seemed Sean was going to milk Furlong's fame for his own good.

"It gets incredibly expensive to keep things looking like Eddie was becoming a star, like having nicer furniture, taking people out to dinner." Sean Furlong insisted, as he sat there with a faded tattoo of Furlong's nickname Pook on his ankle. It seemed they'd forgotten, just as the tattoo had faded, that Furlong was their nephew. A kid that still needed parents. Pook was fading, and Furlong was coming in sharp, across every screen in America. Everyone was obsessing over his gleaming future. They were scrambling to look wealthy in the beaming headlight of stardom. No one was concerned about the fact that he was dating his tutor Jackie Domac, or the next three films he was already signed up for, which would take place in different parts of the county. There were no more talks either about whatever behavioral issue Edward Furlong distributed that Eleanor couldn't handle.

Sean also claimed that his family was $36,000 in debt from legal, medical, and living expenses related to Edward Furlong's career. Suddenly they were blaming Edward for everything, constantly bickering. First, Furlong was just trouble and should be dropped off somewhere in a dangerous neighborhood. Now he was known as the Leader of Human Resistance with cool hair, on the cover of magazines, and that was a problem because they couldn't maintain his lifestyle on any glamorous level i.e. a child star would never sit on a couch like this.

Sean continued to complain. "We did an unbelievable amount of business in the house. Our phone bills were huge because I had to speak to Japan (where Edward Furlong became a pop star after T2, recording an album called Hold on Tight.) "Eddie really wanted us to travel with him," Sean expressed. "In 1992 we traveled 34 weeks out of the year."

1992 was when Furlong really started to blow up. He flew to Japan to record his album. He was on the cover of magazines. He was featured on Entertainment Tonight at an arcade, saying he was still just trying to be a kid. He'd already signed up for three more films – American Heart with Jeff Bridges, Pet Sematary 2 and the underrated horror film Brainscan. So, three films, traveling to other countries, recording albums, and a custody battle were all riding on a fourteen- year old's shoulders.

Another concern of Sean and Tafoya's was whether or not they should fly first class to Japan. Should they settle for coach instead? That way they could fly other friends out while Furlong was there if they got lonely or bored.

One year later, in 1993, Furlong would film A Home of Our Own, a film about a widow (played by Kathy Bates) looking to finish building a farmhouse to raise her six kids in. Since the film had so many young actors in it, the film sent in a tutor to teach the kids while they filmed the movie. That tutor was Jackie Domac.

*****

Edward Furlong was tired of petty arguments going on in his family. I feel like a lot of his animosity over the matter came through crystal clear on screen – particularly in Brainscan. Furlong no longer wanted his aunt and uncle managing him. Imagine having various family members traveling with you while you were filming movies, arguing over your money.

Bruce Ross stated, "It was our view from the beginning that neither was competent to be Edward's manager, and I told them that."

Despite the ongoing bickering between family members over the financial status of Furlong, Eddie would turn in stellar performances in Pet Sematary 2 and American Heart without incident.

Most of Edward Furlong's films were dark, sad, ominous. T2 was fun, and so was Detroit Rock City, which wasn't released until years later when Furlong was be accused of beating up Jackie Domac – a relationship that never should have been allowed. He would never be able to shake off being accused of beating her up, while her dating a teenager continued to be overlooked.

I'd been working at Les Cinemas for a year by the time we got Pet Sematary 2 which came out at the end of the summer of 1992. I remember thinking, "This is the same sweet-faced kid that was in T2?" as I sat in Auditorium 3 (the reject theatre at the end of the hall away from the lobby that showed the films no one had any hope for.)

Of course, Furlong's demeanor had changed – he was sixteen now after all. But there just seemed to be something else wrong. As a reporter once put it, 'his soul seemed shredded.' I believe long before Mali Finn picked him up to audition for T2, something happened to him. Maybe at the Boys Home. But there was already a rage in him boiling, but who was paying attention to that? Everyone was too busy watching him portray other characters. Maybe acting was a way for him to hide away the truth of whatever occurred beforehand.

He was taller, too, I noted as I sat there on my half hour break at Les Cinemas, eating my free popcorn, twirling my uniform-required neon bowtie around in my hand, glad to have it off my neck.

In Pet Sematary 2, Furlong played a kid named Jeff who had to move to a small town with his dad and start anew after his mother passed away. It was a sad film, beginning with his mom, an actress, being electrocuted on the set of a movie as Jeff watched and produced what was still one of the most chilling, gut-wrenching shrills of pain I'd ever heard – true pain flooding through the auditorium speakers. I understood that scream. I wanted to scream that way every time I had to go to the hospital, every time I had to sit in that cold room waiting on that creepy chiropractor to come in and twist my head around to adjust my neck. Sometimes I thought he'd kill me – then do whatever he wanted to do to my body.

I pressed my feet against the back of the auditorium seat in front of me and stared at my dark green Converse sneakers. If I could just stay here in this dark auditorium, none of that would happen. I wouldn't be touched where I shouldn't be touched. Why couldn't I just stay? As the lights went up and back down again. As the movie started all over again, with its sleepy atmosphere and obscure rock songs. There was something subtly cool about Pet Sematary 2. It was a tragically underappreciated film.

I understood the ominous mood Furlong presented. There was a sadness there that seeped through the screen. I could feel it all over me. Jeff's life really didn't get any better after his mom died. Furlong delivered the line pertaining to grief, "you never get over it," perfectly. I felt that way at my aunt's funeral. Death offered no answers and no second chances. When you lost someone, that was it. Unless...you could bring them back by burying them in Pet Sematary.

Jeff's best friend's dad, Gus, was a maniac who killed the family dog. Of course, an evil version of the dog returned from the grave, as well as Jeff's fried Mom, eventually. Jeff's best friend died in a car accident after hitting a truck hauling a bunch of potatoes. It was a completely tragic film, almost to the point of being a dark comedy. It should have been a cult classic.

In 1993, A Home of Our Own would be released. The film didn't even make it to our theatre. Shooting began in 1992, a few months after Pet Sematary 2 was released. Jackie Domac arrived in Utah, the film location, to tutor all six of the underage actors. The film's director Tony Bill suspected that she had romantic intentions toward Furlong, who was 15 at the time. Jackie insisted she was merely there to tutor him, trying to downplay her relationship with the underage actor. After she was discovered wrestling playfully with Furlong and another child on the floor of her classroom (similar to the way she behaved on the set of T2) her dark hair swinging madly as she tickled the boys, the film's producers got a bad feeling and fired her. However, Tafoya and Sean Furlong saw nothing wrong with this behavior and insisted on keeping her as Edward's tutor.

A Home of Our Own was not a big success even on an indie film level. Kathy Bates played a widow trying to raise six children, whom she referred to as "the tribe." Roger Ebert wrote a review of the film: "The tribe has generally good spirits, but their poverty leads to humiliation at school, and unhappiness at home, especially during a Christmas scene that even Dickens might have found depressing." The scene Ebert was referring to consisted of their mother handing out presents on Christmas morning, which turned out to be a box of nails, a nail gun, a hammer and other tools to help finish building the farmhouse.

The film was hardly even noticed when it was released in November. The holidays were on the way and bigger films were released. Look Who's Talking Now and The Three Musketeers were big winners.

In 1994, a couple of weeks after Kurt Cobain was found dead from a self-conflicted gunshot wound to the head, Brainscan was released. Brainscan was filmed in Canada. Jackie Domac, now almost thirty years old, traveled with Edward Furlong, now sixteen, to Canada. In Canada, sixteen was the age of legal consent.

John Flynn, the Brainscan's director, complained that Furlong would often fall asleep on set and Flynn would have to "slap him" back awake. It was almost like he'd been drugged. I'd noticed Furlong's sluggishness in the film, along with his increasingly moody demeanor. He seemed downright lethargic. With each film, he just came across more sedated.

In Brainscan, Edward Furlong portrayed, Michael, a depressed teen caught up in a twisted video game (aka an interactive trip to Hell) that seemed to have the power to control his mind, sending him on a killing spree at night when he should have been sleeping. Once again, Furlong's portrayed a character whose mom died at the beginning of the film. This time, she was killed in a car accident when Michael was a little boy. The film opened with a flashback to that tragic night with Michael crawling along a street covered with broken glass and blood to get to his dying mother.

Brainscan had its own drama off-screen. It took three years, but Uncle Sean and Tafoya finally realized there was something weird about Jackie Domac and tried to have her fired from being Furlong's tutor. They wanted to charge her with statutory rape too, but Furlong's mom and his attorney for his estate had his aunt and uncle's guardianship removed, and they were banned from the set. Meanwhile, his mother was trying to get custody of him again because he was famous now, but Furlong wanted nothing to do with her either. That rage in him was about to boil over. There would be minor explosions on the Brainscan set (Furlong punching a hole in the wall of his trailer was one) but the big explosions would occur later on, when his career would be a crumb of what it once was – like a charred piece of metal from the Terminator 2 set. When he'd go online and read mean things people wrote about him and all the weight he'd gained. What happened to him? He used to be so cute!!!

John Flynn wasn't helping much with the drama unfolding on screen and behind it. He became verbally and physically abusive to Furlong on set. He described Furlong as "a kid who couldn't act," on top of slapping Furlong in the face to get him to be more focused.

Maybe Pook was just worn out – he'd been filming movies since 1990. By now, he'd shot five films, all while dealing with a custody battle and Jackie Domac following him around from one movie set to the next. Did anyone look into why it was so hard to wake Furlong up on set? Was he being drugged? He was being dragged across country, wherever it was suitable to have sex with him without breaking laws, after all.

When his aunt showed up on set to confront Furlong about his relationship with the much older Jackie, the two had crazy screaming matches. There was a scene in Brainscan where Michael destroyed his room, which could just as easily have happened when they weren't filming.

By now, Furlong was quite volatile – whether it was drugs, having no real parenting since the day he'd been swept up into Finn's car to be in T2, or something else – perhaps the behavioral problem his mother overlooked because she didn't know how to handle him. Or, a combination of all three – a perfect storm, if you will. Not to mention, he was a teenager at the time, so there were hormones to throw in the mix. But it was all brewing and it was about to get a lot worse with one phone call from Brainscan producer Michael Roy to Bruce Ross. Roy was worried about his film not wrapping up in time because of Furlong's family drama and told Ross he would have to pay for it if anything else went wrong on set. So, to make things easier for the sake of the film, a court hearing was held immediately and 48 hours later Edward Furlong's aunt and uncle were banished from the set. Domac, however, stayed. Furlong's mother – who wanted legal custody on Furlong ever since he became a child star – once again became his legal guardian. Furlong would also be provided with a 2,500-dollar monthly allowance. He would begin supporting Jackie Domac, and they would eventually marry and get a house in Sherman Oaks, the same house he would eventually beat her in.

But who cared about all of this? The important thing was another film had wrapped up.

*****

When I was fifteen, I split my time between working at the theatre and going to my best friend's house. I could hear the music playing in Donna's backyard as I crossed the street. It was easy to get to her house, she only lived two blocks from mine. Yet, it felt like such an escape – like a different world compared to my depressing home life. Donna had been my best friend since we stepped off the school bus together at the end of the last school year and started talking about music.

Forever Your Girl by Paula Abdul was playing from a boombox setting near the kiddie pool. Donna's little sister Randi was about to get in it. A hose that snaked along the yard was slumped over the pool's wall. Billy watched her protectively, looking up from the hood of the Camaro he was working on. Billy was a part-time mechanic. He was always working. If he wasn't mowing the lawn, he was cooking out. If he wasn't cooking out, he was fixing cars. If he wasn't doing any of that, he was driving his daughters Donna, Kristi and Randi somewhere fun. Sometimes I was lucky enough to go along.

"Hey you," Billy greeted me in his thick southern accent when he saw me trudging down his driveway. He was wearing his typical cutoff shorts and red McDonalds baseball cap. His flannel shirt was unbuttoned. Billy was barely thirty, but he looked much younger. If I had to compare him to anyone, it would be John Schneider (who played Bo Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard.) The McDonalds hat used to be Donna's, and he was still proud of her for working at the fast food chain for a year to help out after her mom left them.

Billy gave me a big hug and treated me like I was one of his daughters.

"How you doin', kid?" he messed with my hair as we walked to the backyard.

"I'm okay." I was very shy. I pulled on a few strands of hair that came loose from my ponytail and placed them behind my ears. Billy knew I was shy and didn't tease me about it. Instead, he brought up what I wanted to do so I didn't even have to speak.

"Let me guess what you wanna do?" he said, lighting a cigarette. Paula Abdul all of the sudden changed to Guns N' Roses. "The tire swing?" Billy winked at me and I nodded. He chuckled and lifted me up so I could fit around the swing. The tire hung from the biggest oak tree I'd come across. Its branches spread far and wide to give the yard all the shade it needed. The rope the tire hung on was thick and sturdy.

Once he had me up in the swing, he'd give me a few good pushes before going back to the Camaro.

*****

There would be nights in my somewhat near future filled with secret crushes and hair-pulling and grass-stained shorts. Licorice and fighting and speeding in little cars. Lectures about music – Nine Inch Nails stole everything from Sisters of Mercy – I'd finally go to big cookouts and feel included in wonderful things. Life would be more exciting than I could have imagined, full of danger and deception. Secrets. Long hot sighs draped over shoulders. The smell of gasoline on his knuckles as his fingers got lost in my hair.

But right now, the only smell in my universe was the fumes bouncing off the boulevard as I walked to my night job at Les Cinemas. I was just an awkward teenager in a nowhere town, with a job that made me wear neon things. I was a virgin. The only thing I knew of sex was whatever I saw on USA Up All Night (USA Cable Network's weekend movie program that went on into the early morning hours, showing very strange and sometimes gruesome horror movies) or the rape scene in Pet Sematary 2. Or love making on the nighttime soap, Dallas.

Every teenager's life came with awkwardness. At the beginning of the school year, I was pulled aside by my gym teacher and told I had scoliosis. It was a nightmare. While the other girls, all healthy and looking perfect even as they bounced a basketball around on a shiny gymnasium floor, I had this horrible thing wrong with me. I didn't even know what it was (my gym teacher didn't elaborate) but it sounded like a horrible disease. Scoliosis. By the time I got home from school, I'd convinced myself I was dying. I was sobbing when I walked through the door to find my mom in the kitchen.

"I'm dying!" I sobbed. "I'm fifteen and I'm dying." I could be a bit dramatic – I did watch a lot of movies, after all. sometimes over and over again. It was my only pleasure in life at the time.

"What?" Mom rushed over to me. She observed me closely and put her hand on my forehead.

"I have scoliosis," I sobbed even harder.

"It's just a curve in your spine," Mom explained.

What? My spine was not straight?

"What?" I cried harder, just wanting someone to hold me. To sit with me. To explain things and keep me safe.

Mom removed her hand from my face and all of her attention evaporated. She turned and stared out of the same kitchen window she'd been gazing out of since Julie passed away, as if one day Julie might appear in our backyard with her hair up in a bun, her grocery store uniform on, there to please everyone else. Maybe she wanted to die, I mean what kind of existence was that? Living for everyone but herself?

"Mrs. Tabolstien said I have to go to a doctor..." I mumbled.

"You do...a chiropractor," my mom said, still looking out the window. Then she sighed. "I don't know how we'll pay for it. Ask work for more hours."

I didn't say another word. I got my crying under control enough to be able to see, grabbed my green Converse shoes and headed out to Les Cinemas.

The walk to Les Cinemas was brief, but I had to endure walking along Jake Alexander Blvd, against oncoming traffic. It was quite cool suddenly and I was underdressed. I had on my required white blouse, which still had butter splattered on it from my last shift, and an oversized black and white-checkered flannel shirt I found at Goodwill with a two-dollar price tag stapled to the sleeve. One day, out of boredom, I spent nearly half an hour working the staple out of the material.

I looked up at the Cinemas marquee. The names of three movies were on it in big, bold black lettering: The Crying Game, Sneakers and Pet Sematary 2.

There was no sidewalk, so I walked through snaky grass, eventually cutting through an abandoned miniature golf course and arcade on my way to Les Cinemas. The little red windmill in the middle of the miniature putt-putt course had black spray paint on it from someone who constantly vandalized the place. They'd also busted out the windows in the arcade and spray-painted the message WE R WATCHING U on the doors of the outdoor restroom facilities. The doors were always cracked open and it was pitch-black inside. Every so often I'd see a rat run out on my bravest nights when I went against my mom's warning and cut through the place on my way home. The shortcut was dangerous, but it was better than walking down the hallway as huge trucks whipped by and gas fumes made my eyes water.

I referred to the Salisbury Mall Cinemas as Les Cinemas sarcastically. There was nothing French or glamorous about it. It was, however, the only movie theatre in all of Salisbury, North Carolina. The name CINEMAS was spelled across the front of the unassuming brick building in bright cheery red letters.

I didn't mind the work. I certainly didn't mind the job. It got me out of the house, and it was a million times better than school. Les Cinemas was all about entertainment. People came to the movies for pleasure. An escape from reality.

Three movie posters of whichever films were showing at the time were in light boxes on the front of the building. At six p.m., one hour prior to the time the theatre opened its doors for the nightly features, an off-white family van was already parked outside. I had no idea how someone found an off-white anything. But if I looked hard enough at the right time of day, I could barely see the greyish tint.

The mall was down the hill on one end and a McDonalds restaurant was up some more random outdoor stairs next to us. The marquee was at the end of the parking lot facing the boulevard. The Crying Game and Sneakers were showing in the big auditoriums – 1 and 2. Pet Sematary 2 was thrown in Auditorium 3. Auditorium 3 got all the films no one had any hope for. Auditorium 1 and 2 were the "main theatres" and got the blockbusters. In the future those would be Aladdin, A Few Good Men and Home Alone 2. If any of those came with soundtracks, I would endure hearing it on repeat throughout my shift.

I rarely went to the mall. The mall was no fun for someone poor like me. It was also segregated with the nice stores like Belk, GAP, Structure on one end, and the accessory store Claire's, the trashy clothing store Rave and the low-end department store Roses on the other end. Also, the bookstore, because I guess poor people read more than rich people. In the middle of the mall was the food court and Record Bar, where I'd buy magazines and posters and concert tickets on a good day.

I looked at the Pet Sematary 2 poster in the light box, the warm golden bulbs flashing on and off. I wanted that poster, and I was told that if I was a sparkling good employee, that I could have it once we stopped showing the film. That was another reason I cut through the abandoned putt-putt course – if I was late it could be the difference between me getting the poster or not.

Even though I wanted the poster, I also dreaded the day the film left. I'd already seen it fifteen times, not including the nights I went into the auditorium on my break to watch it for a blessed thirty minutes.

I walked into Les Cinemas at 6:15 p.m. making me fifteen minutes early. The off-white van was parked in its usual spot, right in front of the theatre and to the left of the box office. The Seacrest Family was already behind the concession stand. Pete Seacrest was the overweight manager with a little bit of grey hair left on his head. It kind of looked like a hairball or a pile of dust swept up from the floor. His wife was a very frail, small-boned redhead who talked to herself. Her name was Margaret. Their daughters Danielle and Nicole both worked at the theatre on the weekends. Danielle was in college and Nicole was a teacher for the deaf and would often use sign language to communicate with her sister at work. Sometimes, Libby and I wondered if the was talking about us right in of our faces. Libby was the only person besides me and the usher that wasn't related to The Seacrests. Libby was cool. She'd just quit the cheerleading team and was going through an obvious stage of rebellion. She had Nine Inch Nails bumper stickers on her car and just got her tongue pierced last week.

I looked around for her, but she wasn't here yet. She had a car and lived on the other side of town. She had the time it took to get from Mulberry Lane to Les Cinemas down to a science. She always pulled up right at 6:28 p.m. and Pete would be standing in his usual spot – between the Whizz Bang popcorn machine and the red counter – chewing a tiny piece of gum I bet he'd been chewing on all day. He'd stare at her car and then turn and look at the big clock on the wall. I could always tell it drove him nuts that she was always almost late, but he couldn't give her a lecture. She was somehow right on time, coming in the door at 6:29 p.m. and pulling on the neon apron and bowtie we were required to wear. Even I was impressed at the fact that she was dressed and behind the counter at exactly 6:30 p.m. every day.

For now, Pete ran the projector, but I'd been after the position for months. I couldn't be a projectionist because some movies were rated R, he said, and also the job was too "strenuous" for girls. Maybe he was right, I did have scoliosis.

Mrs. Seacrest was the floor manager. Her job was to make sure no one leaned around if there was even a single piece of popcorn on the floor. Nicole worked the box office and Danielle worked the concession stand with Libby and I. Danielle never served a single thing of popcorn or soda without a big smile on her face. It was like she lived to prove she was a better Cinemas employee than us.

The Les Cinemas lobby was simple. There were two restrooms, one for Men and one for Women, with a red leather bench between the doors, along with a water fountain. There was a gumball machine down the hallway halfway between the big auditorium and Auditorium 3. The lobby on the other side was the same, except it only had one auditorium and two arcade games. Whatever was expected to be the biggest film would play over there since there was enough room to pack everyone in for the feature.

I spent a good chunk of the night with the Electric Shark (it was basically a lightweight vacuum) and I was kind of obsessed with it and would push it around on the ugly purple and orange carpet to suck up the lone pieces of popcorn people lost on their way to auditoriums. I had no idea why, but I loved how easy the popcorn kernels got sucked up into the Electric Shark. Wouldn't it be amazing if my troubles could be sucked away just as easily? The carpet was a purple sky with orange stars. Orange stars? It made no sense, but I kind of liked that too. This was a movie theatre after all. Did movies about alien abductions and talking babies make sense? So the carpet didn't have to.

Another Les Cinemas chore was picking up ALL the damp paper towels surrounding the bathroom trashcans. It just seemed people couldn't be bothered with inserting it into the trashcan and just let it fall somewhere within the vicinity. They'd be balled up and wet and dotting the white tile floor, and I'd slip on my plastic gloves and collect them all. This was not a cool job, especially considering the uniform. The only cool job here was the projectionist. But I was deformed. I had scoliosis. Plus, I was a girl. The cards were stacked against me.

I left the bathroom once all the paper towels were properly placed in the trashcan and grabbed the Electric Shark like it was my best friend and pushed it along the orange stars. I strayed down the hall towards the "bad area" of Les Cinemas aka Auditorium 3, whipped my bowtie off and hung out in the darkest corner for a little R&R. I'd pop the door open and stare out at my brown-eyed movie star, Edward Furlong. His moodiness always reflected how I was feeling. For one minute on the orange stars, I felt understood. I had to be careful though, because Auditorium 3 was close to the door that led to the stairs that went up to the dark room known as the projector booth. Pete was good at hiding and suddenly popping up. I would risk it though, to see a few minutes of Furlong's perfect face.

At 6:30 we started the popcorn. We had a big Whizz Bang glass popcorn cart. It was red and gold and had wheels. One of my closing duties was to push it out towards the back exit where the dumpsters were. There was a fenced-in lot behind the movies too. Libby and I would hang out there on break sometimes instead of watching a movie for half an hour.

I was shocked whenever Les Cinemas got a cool movie like Pet Sematary 2. I felt a crazy comfort in Edward Furlong's sleepy darkness. I wanted to wrap myself up in it like a warm blanket – especially in the fall of 1992, when things were about to get progressively worse.

*****

Some nights I went to bed without dinner. Julie was the one that would come by with food. Sometimes she'd bring something from KFC. It was always nice of her, but it was humiliating. Now I needed a chiropractor, which would take away from the money that wasn't even there. And Julie was gone, so we didn't have her to help us out. Things were dire. Where our next meal was coming from was a complete mystery. I got paid in four days.

Mom managed to find a chiropractor on the other side of town. He was the cheapest in town, charging only fifteen dollars per visit. She would drop me off and go to her part time job. I'd get home either by bus or if Libby could, she'd pick me up.

I looked up at Libby as I clipped my bowtie around my neck. I was already very uncomfortable. The back brace was restrictive, and now I had to put something on my neck that resembled a leash. It was almost 7 pm. Another night of slipping on gloves and sweeping and playing with the Electric Shark and watching half an hour of Pet Sematary 2 was about to get underway.

"I have scoliosis," I suddenly alerted. I wanted to see Libby's reaction. I wanted to know if it was as horrid as it sounded.

"Oh...that sucks." Libby wasn't the most sensitive person on the planet. She was an Aries. I never saw her get emotional. She liked action films and dyed her hair blue.

"Do you think we could drive to Atlanta to see Alice in Chains?" my mind was definitely that of a fifteen-year old's, skipping around, talking about random things.

"I don't know," Libby sighed. "Home kinda sucks right now. I'll see."

"I can pitch in for gas." I was desperate for a good rock show.

"OKAY!" Pete gave his unnerving 'okay,' meaning it was time for Jimmy to open the door and tear the tickets and for us to take our positions behind the glass candy cases.

The line trickled in. There was no major blockbuster showing right now. I couldn't remember the last time a feature sold out, the last time the box office girl looked stressed out.

I stood there almost bored enough to want a customer to walk up to the counter. Libby and I goofed around for a few minutes. Sometimes to pass the time, we would reenact skits from Saturday Night Live and Jimmy would give us weird looks.

We discussed who would be on the show that week.

"I think it's a repeat with Color Me Badd," Libby informed.

"Barf!" I replied. We both laughed.

Once 7:30 arrived, we could take our breaks.

"Gee, let me guess where you're going," Libby teased as I headed down the dark hallway to Auditorium 3, away from everything.

"Sherry's in love with Edward Furlong, Sherry's in love with Edward Furlong," Libby mocked as I walked away. Eventually, it would no longer be something people teased me about but instead just this thing they learned to deal with.

The name Pet Sematary 2 glowed in tiny gold bulbs above the door. I pulled it open to a dark theatre and my favorite actor's face on the huge screen. It was glorious. Furlong's sleepy voice came through the sound system, surrounding me.

I had my pick of any seat because the auditorium was pretty empty. I walked down the aisle, timidly lit by little bulbs on either side. Then I walked along the greyish blue concrete floor which was always sticky. It only got mopped once a night, after every show had played. Jimmy was the one in charge of mopping too, so who knew how thorough he was. The heavy door to the auditorium closed, encasing me in the dark, cool comforts of the room. There were only five other people watching. I could barely see their heads looming in the darkness. They seemed to appear slowly, like smoke rings.

I sat down and watched the scene where Edward Furlong's character Jeff and his dad go to the old kennel his father was taking over. The kennel was riddled with cobwebs and there were rusty cages everywhere. Edward Furlong was walking down the dark hallway of the kennel, sporting a B-Karo jean jacket with the sleeves cut off. He was about to rescue a kitten as he scoped the place out with his soft brown eyes. A motherless child starting over in a small town. He leaned against the wall, cuddling the kitten, saying "really?" in a coy manner to Gus, the town sheriff, who'd just bragged to Jeff that he used to date his mom. There was such a James Dean sadness about Edward Furlong.

I had two more minutes before I had to put my neon leash back on and return to the concession stand because sometimes people who saw movies that sucked (like the ones playing in auditoriums 1 and 2) got bored and came out for refreshments. Then we had to clean the auditoriums when the features let out – I liked doing that because music played while the credits rolled, and I could go up and down the carpeted aisles with my Electric Shark.

I watched the next two minutes of Pet Sematary 2 unfold, when Furlong had to go to a new school with redheaded bullies in the waiting, and Dramarama's I've Got Spies played in the background. He took his kitten, Tiger, to school with him, keeping her hidden under his jean jacket. I read somewhere that Furlong kept the kitten after the film was wrapped up. I never wanted to be a kitten so bad in my life, even if it meant I had to go to school. I even considered changing my name to Tiger. Just Tiger, no last name or middle name.

Two more minutes of looking into those amazing brown eyes. His hair was a bit different from T2. Someone had cut it, but his bangs still hung close to his dark eyes. Something about his overall presence in the film seemed sedated and I wondered if he was okay. Not Jeff. Edward.

As my shift winded down, I considered taking a five from the register so I could get my mom and myself hamburgers from McDonalds, but I also really wanted that poster. I was too embarrassed to ask Libby for money, so after pushing the giant Whiz Bang down the hall to the back exit, I took a bag of popcorn home instead and offered it to mom.

"I don't want popcorn," she fussed from her giant recliner. She spent all day and night in that thing, parked in front of the TV. She used to ask me how I got home, making sure I didn't cut through the abandoned mini golf course. She didn't that time, she just dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

"I wish Julie were alive!" she shouted.

I put the popcorn down on the coffee table and went to bed.

*****

The next day was Friday and I actually had the night off, which was rare. I tossed a few things into my duffel bag and headed to Donna's house.

How Can I Fall? by Breathe played from an Aston Martin Billy was working on. The pool had not been filled yet, but Randi was in the process of dragging the hose across the yard.

"Wait a minute, baby," Billy called out to her when he saw she was having trouble. It seemed to have been caught on something in the ground. He whipped it around and had it in the pool within seconds. Then he picked me up and put me on the tire swing and gave Donna twenty bucks so we could go on a beer run for him later.

I spent all day swinging. When the sun went down, I was still on it, with lightning bugs glowing all around me. Billy said I looked like an angel.

Donna and I cut across the neighbor's vegetable garden and then the parking lot behind Paul's, a burger joint, and into the convenient store.

Sometimes Billy and Donna would cook pasta, or we'd order pizza, but there was always food. The fridge was stocked with sandwich meat and cheese and beer and milk and orange juice. The freezer always had ice cream in it as any freezer should. Especially in the south because it was almost always warm.

In the evening, we'd sit at the long kitchen table as the sun went down and eat supper. We all had our favorite spots. Mine was in the corner by the telephone because I had to call home at some point and check in. After supper we'd go into the living room and watch MTV.

The next day was a Saturday. I didn't have to be at Les Cinemas until 6 pm. We piled in Billy's van to go to Happy Lake. Billy pretty much adopted me. He thought I was being abused at home because I had bruises on my spine. He saw them one day when I was in my bathing suit, running through the sprinkler. He was so concerned he called me over to the front porch to get a better look, asking me if I'd "gotten a beatin'." I wasn't used to people being that attentive with me. The bruises were caused by my scoliosis, I had a crooked spine that stuck out so much that if I sat back in a chair for too long, I'd bruise. They were purple bruises and they hurt and were the ugliest things ever. That was another reason I liked watching movies at Les Cinemas – the seats were flannel-cushioned and soft.

Billy didn't believe my spinal condition caused the bruising. I only wore my back brace when I absolutely had to.

I realized I was making a fist and loosened my hand a little. I had imprints in my palm from my fingernails – they were like tiny versions of crescent moons.

"Alright, listen," Billy said. Because of his tone, I thought maybe he was going to go to my house and bust stuff up until someone admitted they hurt me. "This is your home, alright?" I nodded as he looked me right in the eye. "I want you to understand this is your home, okay, sweetheart?"

I looked into his blue eyes and he finally smiled.

"This is your home, okay baby girl?"

"Okay. Thank you."

"And you'n come here anytime of the day or night, you just come over. I'll even leave the backdoor unlocked for you."

"Okay, thank you."

He laughed – I think my polite ways really humored him.

"You welcome." He straightened back up and his hand dropped in my hair affectionately, messing it up before I got in the back of the van. It was one of those perfect summer days – 84 degrees, clear skies – which was nice, but it also meant the lake would be packed and I had too many insecurities to walk around in a bathing suit.

Billy's van, which wasn't off-white at all, just a true grey, used to belong to a band. Donna said they gave the van to Billy for fixing their Nissan for such a good price and also because Billy was "such a cool guy." There was a Motley Crue pentagram sticker forever stuck to the inside of the back window. There was also a distressed bohemian era rug stapled to the floor and a beer cooler stashed in the back since we were going to Happy Lake. Billy loved his beer; he was a Coors man.

It usually took Donna and Kristi all of Saturday morning to discuss whether we should go to the movies, Dan Nicholas Park (a sprawling park with a lake, paddle boats, a petting zoo and a campsite) or Happy Lake, a public lake surrounded by white sand and trees.

I always voted for either the park (they had amazing swings) or the movies.

"Well, we can work on our tan better at the lake," Donna said in between sucking on a banana icicle. Donna had her goals in life – finding a boyfriend by the end of the summer, and getting a great tan was going to be part of the bait.

I stared at Donna in the van as she took her t-shirt off. She had on a black bikini. Donna had big tits, or as my mom would say, she was "already developed." Because of my shyness and boyish figure, I'd wait to take my shirt off until I was in the water and no one could see my body. No one could see the awful bruises on my spine.

No one besides me wanted to spend the gorgeous summer afternoon in Auditorium 3 watching a movie about bringing loved ones back from the dead. And Donna didn't find Edward Furlong cute – something that I thought would ultimately destroy our friendship.

There was a clubhouse at Happy Lake with a game room and showers and pretty girls with no bruises on their spine traipsing around, shaking their bottles of suntan spray. Some of them couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't the 80s anymore and still sported big hair. They were all tall and "developed." They seemed so much older than me. I hated being out in the bright sun in the middle of a big crowd. I felt like everyone was looking at me instead of a movie. There was all this pressure – go swimming, get a tan.

I tried to take a deep breath and not feel so anxious. Loud rock music blared from the outdoor speakers at the lake. There were people everywhere and in between. It was a lot hotter than when we got in the van to come here. I started to take my shirt off and walk around in my bathing suit, but shyness quickly overtook me. I followed Donna into the clubhouse where the showers were as if she could help me, as if I'd walk back out with tits, a perfect spine, a dad and food in the fridge. I ended up walking around in circles on the damp floor. Some girls were taking showers, some had one foot on the bench as they slathered themselves down with suntan oil. They were all tanning pros. There was a girl on one of the benches with a can of coke in her hand, looking up at her friend and laughing at something she just said. She had braces on her teeth, long legs and her face was glowing from being sun-kissed.

I strayed over to the mirror above the sink. I took my shirt off and turned to stare at the purple bruises on my spine. They looked awful. The skin there was dry, too. I'd never have a boyfriend, I thought.

I threw my shirt back on and went back out into the hot sun, abandoning Donna. That was fine, she'd already made friends with the girl on the bench with the braces. She could do that, make friends with total strangers in about two minutes.

It didn't matter where I went here, I would be on display. It was always crowded with families bringing coolers stocked with beer, and lawn chairs and even food from their house. One time I watched a woman unwrap an entire cooked chicken on a beach blanket, peeling away the aluminum foil before spending nearly an hour slicing off bits and pieces for her kids with a plastic knife and fork. In a way, it was kind of like watching a horror movie. Happy Lake was rumored to be haunted, too. There was a sliding board so kids could slide off of it right into the lake. In the late 80s, a kid slid down it head-first and cracked his head open and died. It was a huge tragedy in a small town like this. The park was closed for two whole weeks. The boy's name was Danny. Apparently on one of the trees in the woods surrounding the lake, someone had carved Danny's Unhappy Lake.

To make matters even worse, I couldn't swim. Donna would try and lure me out into the dark grey lake anyway. Don't let fear control you, she'd say. She had a way of getting me to come out of my shell, talk to the other girls there, and swim out to the deep end where the slide was.

So, I'd awkwardly float around, sometimes with the aid of a pink inflatable float and try and have a conversation with the girls out there and it would typically go like this:

Them: Hey

Me: Have you seen Pet Sematary 2?

Them: What?

And then they'd float away.

*****

I stood on the hot sand, dying for a Dr. Pepper. I watched as Donna slid down the Death Slide, right into the water. A couple of seconds passed before she reappeared. She'd swam underwater in heroic speed and joined her new friends at the other end of the lake.

I sighed, wishing I was pushing the Electric Shark along the purple and orange carpet at Les Cinemas, the smell of popcorn all around me. Then I could watch Pet Sematary 2 for half an hour and joke around with Libby. And I wouldn't be half-naked around total strangers.

What time was it? There was a clock in the clubhouse, so I made my way back there.

Apparently, no one here was on any type of schedule. They didn't have a night job to be at in a few hours. They'd stay here until the sun went down, throw their chicken bones away and go home.

I wandered the clubhouse, never finding a clock, just girls enjoying each other's company, laughing, drinking soda, talking about the last episode of Saved by the Bell.

I went back out towards the lake and sat down in the hot sand.

"Excuse me?" I spoke to the woman next to me. Her skin was leathery, and she had wrinkles around her eyes. She put her sunglasses on her head. I knew exactly where she got those sunglasses. They were the tortoise ones from Roses, the cheap department store. I thought she was younger until I saw her tired eyes dotted with old mascara.

"Do you have the time?" I asked.

"Four." She sounded sad. Maybe she was just hot. She turned over so her back could get some sun. She had a lower back tattoo of goat horns.

I had to find Billy so I could make it back in time to grab my work uniform. I walked back towards the showers and stopped at the vending machine. I pushed the plastic bubble for Dr. Pepper and heard that blessed thud as my soda came out. I abandoned my pink float behind the vending machine and headed off towards the woods as I pulled the tab back and took my first sip of the soda. It was the first satisfying thing all day long.

I got as far as the trail entrance when I saw Billy. At first it looked like he was pushing himself against a tree, but then I saw someone else between him and the tree. He was having sex with a woman. Her bikini bottom was down around her ankles. They were both moaning, but she was the one making most of the noise.

I didn't know much about sex – but I knew it was what they were having. I turned around, stunned, and headed back to the hot sand, to the crowd staring out at a body of dirty grey water, the woman with the bad tattoo on her back, and waited there for everyone to get tired as I finished my Dr. Pepper.

Part 2

Emulsion

I ran my finger around the rim of my soda can, collecting sand and sugary stickiness and wiped it on my jeans. The ride back felt longer, and my shoulders were sunburned. Rain was in the forecast for later. I hoped Billy could pick me up from work.

"How you gettin' home tonight, darlin?" he asked, as if he could read my mind.

"Um...not sure."

"I'll pick you up," he said, and that was that.

I went into Donna's bathroom when we got back to her house and slathered my sunburned shoulders with Aloe Vera and pulled my white blouse on, my black khakis and black Converse and felt somewhat normal again. It was too hot for the flannel shirt, but I put it on anyway because I found it comforting – even the little holes in the sleeve from the staple.

When I went out into the kitchen, Billy was preparing spaghetti for dinner. It was going to be an epic feast after a day of swimming in the hot sun. I almost wanted to stay instead of going to work. They'd probably pile in front of the TV and watch MTV after, or USA Up All Night. The warm cooking smell took over everything. Billy looked back at me from the stove and winked.

"How you doin?" he checked.

"Okay." I smiled before shyly looking down at the floor.

"Next weekend we'll go to the park, darlin, I know that's your favorite thing." He looked back at me again. "Or the movies, which is it?"

I shrugged. I suddenly wondered if Pet Sematary 2 would still be playing at Les Cinemas by then.

"The park," I eventually said.

"Cause the swings?" he winked.

"Yeah." I pressed my lips together to fight back the smile.

"Okay, it's settled," Billy let me know. "We ain't gonna let Donna boss us around either."

I laughed. "Okay. Thank you."

"You welcome."

I tried to act normal and not think of what I saw at the lake – what he was doing to that lady.

I sat down in the chair I always sat in as Billy took down a jar of Ragu sauce.

"Now what you gonna eat for supper? You gotta be there at work soon. Hey, Donna?" he called out. Donna appeared in no time, tanned, not sunburned. Her light blonde hair was frizzy, and she was drinking a Sprite. Sometimes I wondered why we were friends – but we were. She took me under her wing. Maybe she felt sorry for me.

"Yeah?" she sat down next to me in her usual spot, which was between me and the high chair Randi sat in.

I glanced over at the backdoor. It was open and I could see a few fireflies out.

"I'm gonna take Sherry to work," Billy announced. "Can you take over for a second?" he pointed to the pot of spaghetti on the stove.

"Yeah."

Billy turned around, leaned against the stove and crossed his arms over his chest. I think I was always a little nervous around him because my dad was never around, and I wasn't used to anyone looking after me.

"Now what you gonna eat?" Billy asked again.

I shrugged. "Popcorn?"

"Popcorn?!" I liked the way he said it. I liked the way he always smiled and winked at me. I never felt like a burden here.

"Well, tell you what, you'n come back over here after work if you want, I'll save you some dinner."

I smiled, picturing a Tupperware container full of leftover spaghetti just for me. "Okay."

"You tell your mom I can pick you up?"

"Not yet."

"Call her and let her now," he said, rushing off to get ready to take me to work. Billy had made up his mind that my mom was a crazy child abuser.

I smelled him as he walked by, pulling on a faded shirt Dokken Beast from the East shirt. His blonde hair was a lot like Donna's – unruly, though sometimes he kept it shaved above the ears.

I picked the phone up and put my finger in the hole of the finger wheel and slowly twirled it around. Several clicks followed as the finger wheel spun back around then I put my finger through the hole for the next number and so forth and eventually it started ringing.

I hung up without saying anything.

"Ain't nobody pick up?" Donna asked as I hung the phone back up.

"No," I reported. Billy came back in the kitchen.

"That's alright," he said in the most comforting way. "You'n just come back over here anyway."

*****

Upon arrival at Les Cinemas, I was called into Pete's office. I wasn't late, and I wasn't wearing my Nirvana Nevermind shirt (the one that pictured the naked baby boy on it that I got sent home from school once for wearing) and this was before I started dying my hair every color of the rainbow, so I had no idea what I could be in trouble for.

I walked into Pete's office. There was a giant iced tea from Bojangles on his desk, a box of movie posters in the corner and a tall, slender boy leaning against the wall with hair blonder and wilder than Billy's. The look on his face made it seem like he was about to go to a knife fight in the park.

"Sherry, this is Dayton, I need you to show him the ropes," Pete told me.

Dayton was a tall kid who looked like he was born on the wrong side of the tracks. I could just tell. It didn't matter that he had eyes as blue as fancy L.A. swimming pools. It didn't matter that he had blonde curly hair that belonged to an angel on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I felt his volatile energy in the same way I smelled nicotine clinging to his jersey and tight white jeans. He was evil – maybe God was in a bad mood the day he made him and thought it would be hilarious if he made an evil boy insanely handsome.

"Okay well he needs to change," I just said, looking away from him even though he kept looking at me. I think my stern tone surprised Pete. He'd never really heard me say anything at all. If I did, it was usually a submissive "okay" or a polite "thanks."

"Oh no," Pete eventually said. "He's the projector guy."

I tried not to show my grudge even though I'd been after that position for months. And this boy didn't look much older than me.

"Alright," I just said, reminding myself that the poster for Pet Sematary 2 was still up for grabs. The film had one more week left here. And school was starting. And everything was about to suck.

I led Dayton out to the lobby, increasingly perturbed. If I had received the projectionist job that would have made my life a little better.

"How old are you?" I asked glumly as we walked down the hall to Auditorium 3, simply so I had an excuse to open the door and see the first five minutes of my favorite movie.

"Eighteen." Dayton had a very deep voice. He sounded unburdened, too, like he spent his downtime by the ocean, thinking about nothing at all, just enjoying the view.

Dayton was just a cool guy with great hair who scored the most important job here. It wasn't fair. I was in a back brace, working the same dud of a job.

"Well..." I didn't know what to say, or if I did, how to say it. He made me nervous and I didn't know why.

"This is auditorium 3," I said, trying to avoid his perfectly put together face as he looked down at me. I opened the door and looked in at my blessed cave. No one was in there and the feature had already started. I just wanted to go in there, sit down and stay forever. I looked up at the screen as Edward Furlong started to scream that gut-wrenching shrill as he watched his mother being electrocuted.

I let the door close and looked back up at Dayton. He had the same look on his face he had ten minutes ago when I'd first met him.

"What kind of movies do you like?" I asked.

He shrugged, "Horror movies are pretty cool."

"You don't sound passionate about anything," I said.

He laughed. "What?"

"So, okay," I said, wondering when he'd react to something. I opened the door that led to the stairs that went up to the projector booth. I'd never actually been up there and always wondered what it was like.

"You're going to be up there," I grumbled. Then I turned and walked back to the lobby. "This is the lobby, duh, and those are the bathrooms and that's Auditorium 2, it gets all the big features. On the other side is Auditorium 1. Any questions?"

I spun around and he was just standing there.

"Nope."

I started to head back through the office and to the concession stand.

"Do you smoke?" he asked before I trudged off, his hand already in the pocket of his baggy black sweatshirt to bring out his Camels.

"Um..." It should have been a simple question I could quickly answer, but I was having trouble.

"Wanna go out with me?"

"What?" I felt my heart in my throat as I studied all those big blonde curls on his head.

"To smoke," he grinned.

"Oh...okay." I followed him outside. Maybe Pete would just think I was giving him a tour of the outside too. 'And there's the parking lot.'

"How old are you?" Dayton asked me as he causally leaned against one of the lightboxes, blocking the view of the poster.

"Fifteen. Almost sixteen." I didn't know why I tagged those last two words on so desperately.

"I wanted your job," I let him know. He looked at me, those blue eyes as gentle as the Carolina sky at 5 pm.

"Oh?" he was so cool with his replies.  
"Yeah. I think you just got it because you're a dude." There. That should get an emotional response from him.

He chuckled. "Well sorry if I took it from you," he said, pausing to light his smoke. Like a lot of guys, he proceeded to turn an apology into a way of bragging about himself. "But I do have two years of experience doing this." His head rolled back so he could blow a trail of smoke towards the sky. His Adam's apple was quite palpable, and his blonde curls sprouted out from underneath his backwards baseball cap to lovingly frame his ears.

Why did he have to be so beautiful?

"How do you know I don't have experience as a projectionist?" I said, quite combative.

"Do you?" he simply checked. "You know how to splice film?"

"Yeah," I tried to sound extra convincing, but I was really just shouting. I never shouted. I felt embarrassed and looked down at the ground.

"Well I still work at Thunderbird so maybe when I can't work here, you can fill in." Maybe he was being sincere, but he sounded cocky.

"Yeah," I just said. "Wait, the drive-in on Old Crow Road?"

"Yup."

I was amazed. Thunderbird Drive-In might as well have been Paris because I never got to go. One needed a car to go there, after all. Plus, everything they played was R-rated. One time they even showed an X-rated film.

I didn't say anything for almost a minute.

"I have to go back in now," I eventually said. "Your smoke break is over."

For whatever reason, this seemed to amuse him.

"Alright," he said, unshaken by my attitude. He tossed his smoke to the ground, stomped it out with his black boot and when he came back in, he went the opposite direction as me, towards Auditorium 3 and up to his projector booth.

*****

I flung my stupid bowtie across the glass candy case in a tantrum. He didn't have to wear a stupid bowtie. He got to wear regular clothes and be all cool up in the projector booth.

"Life is SO unfair," I dramatically stated as Libby stood next to me. "With a few good movies to watch and then we die."

She stared at me, wondering what all the emotion was about.

"What's gotten into you?" she asked, sounding bored.

"That boy, with the blonde hair," I knew his name, but I refused to say it. "Just waltzes in here from where? And now he's the projectionist?!"

"I always knew they'd hire a dude for that," Libby said. She'd find out some way to rationalize it in her Aries way and I just couldn't deal. I ran for the Electric Shark, done with everyone. I started pushing it around the lobby, nearly running it over a lady's feet as she came out of the restroom.

"Sorry," I mumbled. She held onto her purse extra hard as if she thought I'd mug her – like I was some vagabond that had strayed from Auditorium 3.

Did no one realize what a dark turn that my day had taken? Ugh. And I was sunburned, and my back brace was making the sunburn worse. I left the Electric Shark by the red leather booth and went into the bathroom and ripped the horrid thing off, ripping at the Velcro straps. I tossed the back brace around after it was off, whipping it against the stall door before trying to flush it down the toilet. It wouldn't go, of course, so I just left it there.

I was coming undone. I'd never get that poster if I didn't cool it.

*****

I'd made a scratch on the glass candy case with my bowtie fastener. No one would ever notice, except maybe Pete's wife Margaret, who spent her time here cleaning relentlessly even when there was nothing left with a speck of dust on it. I could see her scrubbing it with Windex, thinking it would eventually disappear. At least I'd given her something to occupy herself with.

I stood at the register, feeling a little better since there was nothing between my blouse and my skin. I took my training bra off too. I'd never grow tits. I was a freak of nature.

"He's kind of hot," Libby said, looking across the lobby at Dayton, who was sitting on the red bench without a care in his curly head. I guess he was taking his fifteen-minute break.

"Eew. No."

I stared back down at that little scratch I'd made. The glass was no longer perfect. There was a flaw now.

I supposed he did have a nice jawline – strong – like if he took a baseball to it, the baseball would just implode and fall to the ground, just a useless ball of cork and yarn.

Libby turned so her back was to the lobby – a big no-no, but Libby didn't care.

"You think he has something crammed in his pants?" she whispered as we faced the soda fountain. "I mean...did you see it? His bulge?" Libby couldn't seem to stop laughing.

Yes, I'd noticed his bulge, but I'd never point it out like Libby just did. Geez.

"It's like he had a bucket of popcorn down there," she continued, chuckling.

"I don't know." I blushed and went over to grab a Dr. Pepper. My one and only vice in this screwed up world.

Where'd he come from? He didn't sound like he was from a small southern town. Why'd he have to get a job here of all places? Wasn't ONE projectionist job enough?

*****

It was a slow night, so I took the Electric Shark again I pushed it all the way to Auditorium 3 and the door to the projector booth flew open and Dayton and I nearly collided.

"Whoa," he said, placing his hands on my shoulders to steady me like I was some tiny figurine about to fall off a shelf. Me and my Electric Shark moved back a little.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Yes," I frowned.

"Okay." Again, he seemed amused. "Oh hey," he called out to me as I started to do something crazy and go into Auditorium 3 to vacuum the aisle even though the movie was playing. It was another big Les Cinemas no-no, to go in and clean during a movie, but no one was in there anyway and I couldn't wait until my break anymore. I had to see Eddie.

"What?" I snapped. Dayton was getting in between me and Edward Furlong now. How dare he?

"Was gonna say if it's cool with everyone, you could come up to the booth on your break, maybe I could show you some things."

I just stood there and stared at him like the lonely nobody who'd just been invited to prom by the popular jock. I couldn't tell what he was up to. It was frustrating.

"You know, projector things," he decided to elaborate.

"Uh, maybe." I didn't know how to respond to him now. Everything about him was so unnerving to me.

"Okay, cool." Then he simply walked away, to the restroom.

Then I had to put up with Donna's questioning about Dayton several hours later when her and Billy picked me up. Yes, Dayton looked like the token bad boy from an afterschool special. The sighs on her lips were temples about to collapse and kill us all. All of the sudden Dumbass Dayton The Projectionist was the only person who existed!

On the way to her house, she started talking about how maybe she should get a summer job at Les Cinemas. For some reason this irked me.

"I don't think we're hiring," I said.

*****

"Edward Furlong's eyes don't have pupils," I swore as I stood behind the concession stand next to Libby the next night.

"Whoa, really?" Libby replied. I supposed it was an outrageous thing to say. Everyone had pupils, right? "You need pupils to see right?"

"They control how much light enters the eye," Libby said, sounding like some bored pupils scholar.

"Oh." Poor Eddie Furlong didn't get enough light in his eyes.

"Oh my god," I suddenly lost all control and had to express myself aloud. "I just want to make out with him so bad, like in a closet, a tiny closet."

Libby nodded towards the little area with the dustpans and Electric Shark. "That one?"

"Any closet!" I cried out. Jimmy gave us a weird look and thus began the typical antics of a night at Les Cinemas. I looked outside and saw Dayton sauntering across the parking lot, his skateboard under his arm.

I looked away, pretending not care.

"I want that poster." I said my mantra, my eyes closed. Some people prayed for a car on their 16th birthday or to get accepted into Yale. All I wanted was that Pet Sematary 2 poster.

"You'll get it," Libby assured, grabbing a broom and dustpan because The Three Musketeers just let out.

Pet Sematary 2 would no longer be playing here after Thursday night. The movies were changing this weekend. Yet, The Three Musketeers was staying another week. Life was totally unfair.

"I mean, you've never been late for work," Libby reminded, storming the aisle for trash. She'd been in a funk lately. She and her boyfriend broke up. When I asked her what he did, Libby responded, "Sometimes it's not what a guy does, it's what he doesn't do..."

"You're always in your uniform, and you're very polite," Libby praised.

"That's true," I said. "It's so true."

"Yeah."

"Thanks..."

I started picking up garbage under the seats. The people that watched The Three Musketeers always left the biggest mess, and the music that played for its credits sucked. Music in general kind of sucked at that point. REM's Shiny Happy People was all over the radio, and then you had songs like Keith Sweat's I'll Give All My Love to You, Tesla's Signs, Seal's Crazy...you get the picture.

I ran up the aisle and grabbed the Electric Shark and pushed it along the carpeted aisle to suck up the popcorn.

"That is seriously your favorite thing to do," Libby observed.

"I know. It's sad," I chuckled.

We left Auditorium 1, dumping our dustpans into the trash, and headed to Auditorium 3. No one knew why Auditorium 2 was on the other side while 1and 3 were on this side. Customers always asked, and I never knew what to say.

Margaret Seacrest looked up at us from the glass display case she was Windexing (trying to make that scratch disappear) and said, "Be safe," like we were going off to some foreign land. I think Mrs. Seacrest thought all kinds of ghastly things went on in Auditorium 3 – there were vampires. People shot up heroin. There were vampires in there on heroin. It was aghast!

"Look out, Libby! We might die!" I joked as we practically skipped down the hall. I opened the door just in time to see the last scene of Pet Sematary 2, which featured all the people who died in the film (nearly the entire cast) before The Ramones Poison Heart played as the credits rolled. I danced up and down the aisle to it.

I sang into my broomstick. "I just wanna walk – right out of this world! Cause everybody has a poison heart!"

Libby laughed at my silliness.

Half an hour later, I was back behind the candy case. What would I end up doing with my life? I listened to Libby talk to Danielle about college. Libby wanted to go to UNC. What was I going to do? No one had ever asked me. I'd never really given it any thought.

*****

I was clocking out when Dayton snuck up beside me. He really did have hair like Layne Staley, and he was good looking, and I did like him, and it bugged me. This job used to be simple. Coming here used to be fun and drama-free. Nothing to worry about, no weird feelings. But now Libby and Danielle were buddying up and there was suddenly a young, handsome projectionist.

"So how long you been working here?" his voice was much deeper than the boys at school. He spoke quiet and yet didn't mumble. I never had a hard time understanding him. I glanced up at that defined jawline and angelic blonde hair.

"Uh...a few months." I looked away from his pale blue eyes and down at the Electric Shark. I gripped the handle like it was my best friend's hand.

"Oh yeah?" he grinned as if he were amused. Was everything I said funny?

"Yeah," I said before walking away. I wanted to stay and keep talking, and I also wanted to avoid him. I didn't understand it and I didn't like it. The way he made me feel. Like I wasn't good enough for him, yet I didn't even know anything about him.

*****

Hours later I laid in bed and could still hear his voice, like some earworm, as he asked me in that deep, mellow voice of his, So how long you been working here?

I tossed and turned in my bed, wondering if he worked tomorrow night. I did. Libby was off. If we were short staffed, Pete might take over projector duties and that would leave me and Dayton to work the concession stand.

That was the night I started having strange repetitive nightmares – the night Dayton first approached me. In each dream, I got shot. In the first dream, I was walking into a building. It was a plain white concrete building with sunlight pressing up against dirty windows when a shot rang out and I felt my flesh rip at my thigh and I fell down on the stairs, the edge of the cement step pressing into my breasts. I lied there bleeding as someone slowly approached me, just standing over me and watching as I suffered.

In another dream, I was in a mall and a guy ran in with a machine gun and started shooting random people. Some people ran down the escalator, trampling each other in a desperate attempt to escape. Others got shot and fell over the balcony onto the first floor.

I'd wake up from the dreams in a cold sweat, looking myself over to make sure I wasn't hurt.

The only good development over the next few weeks was Les Cinemas getting American Heart. The film starred Edward Furlong and Jeff Bridges. It was a great film, although I thought Furlong looked younger in it than he did in Pet Sematary 2. Maybe it was shot earlier and released later.

I took a longer break than I should have, watching about 45 minutes of the movie. It didn't matter now anyway. I never got that poster. In American Heart, an ex-convict (played by Jeff Bridges) was trying to come to terms with his life when his estranged teenage son (Edward Furlong) tracked him down in hopes of building some kind of relationship. I could relate – I couldn't think of the last time I saw my dad.

I looked up at the screen. Furlong looked unbelievably cute in the film. My heart really couldn't take it. I crammed some buttery popcorn into my mouth. I was really hungry, and I wouldn't be able to eat again today after this.

When I went back behind the concession stand, Pete was standing there with my back brace in his hand.

"What's this?" he asked.

"I don't know." I looked away from it, going to the soda fountain to retrieve more Dr. Pepper.

"Is it a floating device?" his daughter Daniel chuckled. Dayton was there to hear the whole thing. He didn't laugh like the others though, he just walked away.

"Maybe it's a bulletproof vest," Margaret joined in.

Pete handed me my back brace. The look on his face was apologetic but it was too late. I turned and rushed off in tears, grabbing the Electric Shark.

I called in sick the next day. It was my first time ever calling in sick to work. Up until then, I had a perfect Les Cinemas work record. When my mom asked what was wrong – if I was really sick – I just mumbled I had a headache and kept reading my Christopher Pike book.

"If you have a headache, why are you reading?" she inquired. Before I could answer, the phone rang. I didn't care who it was. I was done with the universe.

I heard mom answer and a few seconds later, let out a shocked, "Oh my goodness!"

A few minutes later she returned to my room.

"Sherry," she called my name with a sense of urgency. Was I fired? Did Les Cinemas just call?

"Have you talked to Donna lately?" she asked.

"No," I said. I turned the page. The last time I talked to Donna was the night she mentioned working at Les Cinemas.

I felt my mom's lingering stare and looked up and saw she had tears in her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Billy's in the hospital. He was shot. Your Aunt Betty said it was in the paper." Mom handed me today's copy of Salisbury Post. Nothing was making sense. I couldn't compute any of it. It was like someone was talking to me in jumbled sentences.

Mom handed me the paper after she folded it back to page 3. The print was so small, but I saw Billy's picture there. It was a small black and white photo of his face. He was smiling in the picture and was wearing the same McDonalds baseball cap that used to be Donna's. My eyes caught the words and tried to make sense of them.

According to the article, last night at approximately 7:30, a man busted through the back door of Donna's house, a door I'd walked through about a hundred times. He had a shotgun and just started shooting. Daughters Donna, Kristi and Randi managed to hide under the beds with the assistance of their older sister Donna, but Billy was shot three times in the back as he ran down the hallway.

I remember reading that paragraph over and over. Then I just stared up at my mom in confusion.

"What is this?" I asked before rushing downstairs to pick up the landline in the kitchen to call Donna. The wheelbarrow wallpaper was peeling off the wall around the phone. I played with it as I waited for her to answer, taking down about four more wheelbarrows.

Donna was by Billy's side at Rowan Memorial Hospital. My Aunt Betty drove me there. Billy had been shot once in the shoulder, and twice in the spinal column T10, in other words, the thoracic vertebrate. My aunt dropped me off and I found my own way to Billy's room. Donna's mom, who lived in Fayetteville with a man ten years younger than her, met me outside the room and warned me about Billy's condition before I went in. I remember the room looking blue and white. The blue was a part of the big machines he was hooked up to, which made strange noises like someone sighing intensely. The blinds were white. Everything else felt white too. There was a giant blue tube in Billy's mouth.

Seeing Billy, a man who'd always been out in the yard in jean shorts, tanned and muscular and busy playing with his daughters, fixing cars, filling the kiddie pool, grilling out, helping me up into the tire swing, driving me to work, just lying there with a big tube in his mouth not responding to anyone or anything did something to me. Something inside me was switched off and would never be turned back on again.

I found Donna standing by the vending machine in the smoking area, her hand shaking as she brought her cigarette up to her lips and tried to tell me the entire story. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were dotted with black smudges of mascara.

"We're sitting there...and..." she paused, too emotional to go on. She had a tissue in her fist and bits of it stuck out between her knuckles. She placed it against her face to dry some tears. "All of the sudden the door opens – Billy always kept it unlocked in case you came over...and I look up and see this guy there I'd never seen before and he has a shotgun..." she wiped a tear and her thumb was smudged with black eyeliner. Her hand was shaking so badly. "He just...starts shooting."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. Donna crumbled, landing on the floor in front of the vending machine, sobbing into her hands. I sat there and hugged her for a while, until her family came and took her outside to smoke.

*****

The next week was very quiet. Billy was never going to walk again. Donna and her sisters moved in with her mom. Billy's house would have to be remodeled with a wheelchair ramp in front.

I kept my job at Les Cinemas and started going back, forgetting about the back-brace incident. I just needed to be there. I needed the distraction. Dayton was still there too and seemed to take the job more seriously than anyone expected him to. Great, I'd never get promoted.

I kept to myself, never getting in trouble and never getting praised either. I watched American Heart a few more times until it ran its course.

It was almost like I'd never left the auditorium by the time Dr. Giggles replaced it. I spent more time in there than in my own house. Dr. Giggles was a terrible horror movie about a crazy man who thought he was a doctor and became obsessed with a teenage girl. He reminded me of my chiropractor.

I walked out of the auditorium, my mood never so grim, and ran right into Dayton. Our bodies collided. This time he didn't catch me in time to place his hands on my shoulders in a firm hold.

"Whoa," he just laughed like he didn't have a care in the world, those healthy blonde curls tumbling over his face.

"Can you not see?" I snapped. "Because if not then you shouldn't be a projectionist."

He didn't look hurt, just surprised.

"Hey...you okay?" he checked.

I looked down to hide the tears forming in my eyes. No one ever asked me that.

"No, I hate that movie," I said, nodding at Auditorium 3. From now on, I'd blame everything on Dr. Giggles, I decided.

"Really?" Dayton said. "I think it's okay."

Of course he would! I just sighed, wondering when the sun would come up on my life.

"You okay, Electric Shark?" It was the first day Dayton started calling me that. It made me smile.

"Yeah...no...I don't know."

"When I feel like that, I go out and smoke. Wanna come with me?"

Then he touched my shoulder, the move I'd been waiting for, and softened his voice. For once, Dayton didn't sound cool. He sounded concerned.

"Whatever it is, life is bigger and there's stuff out there that's gonna happen to you to make you forget whatever's bothering you right now, okay?"

I doubted that, but Dayton didn't know about what happened to Billy. I never really talked to him, or anyone really.

"Thanks."

"You got it, kid."

He removed his hands from my shoulders, but he was still looking down at me.

"Wanna go with me to smoke?" he asked.

I followed Dayton outside and he leaned against the posters and we gazed out at the parking lot together.

"You ever...walk through that abandoned putt putt place?" I asked. I hated my quiet southern accent.

"Oh yeah. Sometimes I fuck it up."

"You're the one that did that? Like with the spray-paint?"

He held his hands up in surrender. "Guilty as charged."

"Why?"  
He shrugged. "I need a reason?" then he winked. "You gonna arrest me."

I looked away. My face was hot. I felt faint when I pictured Dayton in handcuffs – though I'm sure he'd been in some before.

"So, why'd you decide to work here?" Dayton asked. He was actually talking to me for real tonight, picking my brain instead of giving me the usual 'what's up,' before he skipped up the steps to his projector booth like some loner movie-playing hero.

"It's close to home, I guess...and I like movies. I walk here, so."

"No one gives you a ride?" he inquired.

I got very quiet. The lump in my throat regrew. "Someone used to," I managed to answer after what seemed like five minutes of silence went by.

"Oh?" he was looking down at me. "Your dad?" he guessed a few seconds later when I just stood there in silence. I looked down at his cigarette, measuring how much more time I had to talk to him by how much of the Camel was left to burn.

"Um, kind of. I mean he was like a dad to me."

"Shit, did he die?"

"He was shot."

"Jesus, so...is he okay?"

I looked up at Dayton. He tossed his smoke down but he stayed and listened.

"He's paralyzed, he has to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair," I began crying. "And he's like...he slept with someone's wife I guess...and her husband just came to my best friend's house and started shooting. He tried to kill them to, Donna and her sisters, and the chair I sat in all the time got all shot up, and he only had the door unlocked because he thought I was coming over..."

"Hey, hey, shh," all of the sudden Dayton's arms were around me in this solid hold and my body was against his and my tears dampened the chest of his shirt. I felt protected. Enclosed. He held me so tight.

"Hey, you know what?" he pulled back and placed is hands on my face. They were so warm, like the gold bulbs surrounding the movie posters. "It's slow, I'm going to ask Pete if you can hang out in the projector booth and I can show you some things. It's gotta be fuckin' boring behind that concession stand." Dayton cursed like it was no big deal. It amazed me for some reason.

"He'll say no," I said, certain.

"We'll see about that," Dayton said, holding the door open for me.

*****

I stood at the bottom of the stairs. It was funny how once I gained access to a place I'd been wanting to go, now I was afraid to go up there. What was up there? A dark room with a pretty boy in it. The room where all the pictures came from. The room I took for granted. The room with the butterflies that would fly into my belly.

I pulled the creaky door open and went up the narrow wooden staircase and pulled the other door open to the tiny projector room. It was so much smaller than I'd imagined – not much bigger than a closet. It had a funky smell to it like a hot, overworked battery. It was so dark all I could see was the glare shooting through a tiny window. I thought about Edward Furlong's eyes, how small his pupils were, comparing them in my mind to this projector booth.

I looked around and saw Dayton lying on the floor. At first, I thought he was sleeping. He picked up a tiny flashlight and shined it at me.

"Oh hey." He got up and reached for his baseball cap. It was black with the name Salt Lake City across the front in white lettering. His curly hair stuck out from under it, hating the restriction.

"Hey...wow it's dark."

"Oh yeah," he said. "My mom's worried about what it will do to my vision." Dayton pushed a stool over for me to sit on. "I usually sit on this," he pointed to it. "But I'm kind of sick of it. One day I'm gonna bring a real chair up here."

"That's not a bad idea," I said, giving a shy smile. I couldn't believe a boy was actually talking to me. I saw a book he was reading on the metal shelves. It was called Masters of Cinema.

"What's this?" I picked it up. "How can you read up here?"

"I don't. I had it with me one day and just left it here. It's a book on film directors and actors and stuff – James Dean, uh...Steven Spielberg – like, their lives, what brought them to do cinema..."

"Edward Furlong should be in it," I stated.

"The kid from the Terminator movie?" Dayton asked, amused as always.

"Edward Furlong, yes."

"Hey, maybe he is," Dayton threw his hands up. "I haven't finished it yet."

"Well if he is, can I borrow it?"

"Sure thing." His voice sounded scratchy,

I walked around. There was barely enough room for the two of us. I moved over to the corner where he'd been lying on the floor. The giant projector took up most of the space.

"Where are you from?" I asked him. "You don't sound like you're from this stupid town."

He pointed to his hat.

"Salt Lake City?" I said.

"Yup."

"What's it like?" I asked, eventually sitting on the stool.

"It's dope, the skate scene is cool."

"Why'd you move here?" I asked. "It's so boring."

"I moved here with I was sixteen. I didn't really have a say over it." He stared at me the whole time he spoke. "So..." he leaned forward and placed his hand on the projector. "Wanna learn some projector stuff?"

"Sure." I bet he had no idea I'd never been this alone with a boy, in such a closed space. I wanted to tell Donna about it, but she didn't even live in the same town as me now, let along the same neighborhood.

Dayton stood right behind me.

"You wanna know how to splice?" He made the word splice sound dirty.

"Uh, sure."

"So..." he leaned forward and suddenly took his hat off and put it on my head. I didn't know what to say. I just sat there, amazed. "Film can easily be damaged," he spoke right in my ear, so it tickled my eardrum. "It's very fragile...you understand?"

I looked up at him. "Yeah..."

"If handled unproperly, it can tear," he said, gazing down at me. I thought he was going to kiss me, but he just kept talking.

"Now if it is damaged, there are two important things you need to know to repair it....this is where splicing comes into play, okay?" he looked down at me to see if I was listening. I nodded. He was seriously teaching me how to do this. It was amazing. I was half listening, but more invested on his deep tone of voice, the smell of his hair, the fact that he was so close to me in this dark room...

"Now, motion picture film is composed of three general parts – emulsion, acidic base and the binder..."

I just kept gazing up at him and he suddenly leaned forward and kissed me really hard. He wasn't nervous at all – just confident. He kissed the way he hugged – taking over with his whole body. He was so strong. I moaned against him as he pulled on my arms to get me to stand up. The projector was flashing through the window, playing that awful horror movie, as Dayton started unbuttoning my blouse.

"I..."

"Shh." He kissed me again, getting the fifth button undone and his hand swept over my little breasts. "You're a sweet girl," he said, right before there was a knock on the door.

He remained calm, buttoning me back up as I just stood there, eyes still closed, lips still parted. Dayton took his baseball cap back, placing it on his head backwards before opening the door. Danielle was standing there.

"We need Sherry back," she said. "It's busy now."

"Yeah sure, I just got done telling her about emulsion."

He made the word emulsion sound so dirty.

*****

I left Les Cinemas that night feeling different. I could still feel Dayton's scratchy stubble against my skin, hear his words as they rattled my eardrum.

I walked outside, about to go on my usual shortcut when I heard him call out to me. The off-grey van was already gone. Besides us, the parking lot was empty.

"Hey you." He dispensed his cigarette on the ground and skated over to me. The slap of his board against the pavement seemed quite loud.

"Hey."

I watched him flip the board up and catch it effortlessly.

"Goin' home?" he asked.

"Yeah..." I looked out at the highway.

"Want some company? I can walk you," he offered.

"Yeah, cool."

He walked next to me, his board under his arm.

"I bet you'd rather be skating," I said after a second.

"Nah. I skated enough back in Salt Lake. My brother drops me off not too far from here, where he works, and then I just skate the rest of the way."

"Oh."

"So, what did you think of the stuff I showed you? Think you can be a projectionist?" he asked, walking a little closer to me.

"It's...a lot more complicated than I thought."

"Yeah..."

"I wanna be able to do it, though."

"You can. I think you can." Dayton sounded like he had a lot of confidence in me. I smiled as we headed towards the boulevard. "It's just a matter of learning the steps," he went on. "Like everything else in life."

"Okay."

I hugged him. It was quite dramatic how I fell into him and wrapped my arms around him, but I wanted him to know how much I appreciated what he just said. We embraced in front of the Les Cinemas marquee, in a tall patchy part of grass as a few cars flew down the highway.

"Hey?" he said after the hug ended. "You know what? It might be better if you came out to Thunderbird, because I'm always alone out there, there's no Seacrest Zombies watching everything we do. We could chill. I'll even bring some beer."

"Whoa...really? The drive-in? Am I allowed? I'm underage."

"If you're with me, it's fine. No one's gonna know," he assured.

"Cool. Yeah, I'll go." Something was happening – in my chest, in my throat, in my life.

"So, um, what's playing at the drive-in?" I asked as we made our way down the boulevard to my apartment complex. I think I was talking too quiet, my voice just a heavy southern sigh. He dropped his hand on my shoulder.

"What's that?"

"What's playing at the drive-in?" I repeated.

"Oh, the Thunderbird?"

"Yeah..."

"Uh, not Dr. Giggles," he said. We both laughed. "Consenting Adults and Animal Instincts," he said.

"Oh..." There was a reason why I wasn't allowed to go to Thunderbird Drive-In. Mom said they showed dirty movies. Porky's played there for an entire month. A girl was also raped there in the mid80s, according to Mom, in the woods behind the big screen. Mom explained it to me in her own words: "Some boys got drunk, that's how boys act when they drink, you have to be careful."

I looked up at the brick parapet with the name of our apartment complex on it, Hopewood.

"This is it," I said, turning into the parking lot. A few porch lights were on. Not mine.

"I'll walk you all the way," Dayton said. "If that's okay?"

"Yeah. It's this one," I pointed to the one in the dark with the empty parking space in front. He walked me right up to the door.

"Okay so you want me to meet you here tomorrow? I have to be at Thunderbird by six, so I'll pick you up at five."

"Um, you want to meet at the mall instead?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "Whatever works."

"Okay, meet me at, um, Blockbuster Music," I said.

"Okay."

I stood there as he looked down at me. I didn't know what he was waiting on and he turned to walk away. I started to unlock the door when he came back.

"Oh hey, almost forgot..." he leaned in and pressed his lips against mine and wrapped his arms around me, taking me completely. I had no idea how to react. I tried to copy what he was doing to an awkward extinct.

He stopped and peered down into my eyes.

"Have you never been kissed before tonight?"

"No..." I said, looking down out of embarrassment. He held my chin up with his fingers and looked me in the eye. "Relax, doll," he said. Then he kissed me again, slowly placing his tongue in my mouth as he pressed himself against me. His hands were on my lower back and I felt them drift downward until he touched my ass, kissing me deeper and eventually he let go.

He lifted my chin with his hand again. I thought I tasted alcohol – I bet he drank up there in that projector booth.

The light in my living room came on.

"Shit," I said. "My mom's up."

"Okay, I'll meet you tomorrow night," Dayton said, as coolly as ever.

I watched him walk off. Once he was in the parking lot, he dropped his skateboard onto the pavement and skated out towards the boulevard.

*****

"You're home late," Mom said from the kitchen.

"Yeah, sorry. The, um, projector broke down, so the movie ended late. We were a little understaffed tonight."

I started to go upstairs, wanting the freedom and privacy of my bedroom. I couldn't believe what was happening. Dayton liked me. Me. He kissed me. It was overwhelming. I felt dizzy. What on earth did tomorrow night have in store?  
"I want to visit Julie's grave tomorrow," Mom announced before I managed to get to my room. "Since you have the day off and Donna's now out of the picture, you and I can spend time together. I've saved enough money so we can eat at that new steakhouse on Main Street. Then we'll take a nice drive to the cemetery. Aunt Betty will drive us."

"Mom, I can't. They want me to work." I tried to stay calm.

She gave me a look, focusing hard like she was reading a book without her reading glasses.

"Okay," she just said before walking back into the kitchen.

I was pretty sure Mom would investigate – maybe call Les Cinemas to see if I was working. On my way to the mall the next day to meet Dayton, I stopped at the box office. It was a Saturday and it was busy. There wasn't even a parking space available in the movie theatre's parking lot. I looked in and saw Libby delivering a giant bucket of popcorn to a customer. I went in and Jimmy stopped me.

"I need your ticket," he said, like he had no clue who I was.

"Don't be a Nazi, Jimmy, I just need to see Lib for a second."

"I can't let anyone past this point without a ticket," Jimmy said.

"Oh my god..."

"What is it, Sherry?" Pete said, quite loudly.

I went over to the counter where he always stood to block us little concession stand nobodies from going into the box office.

"I need to speak to Libby, someone's trying to break into her car." It was a dramatic way to get her attention but that was me. Dramatic. And it worked. She heard what I said and came right over.

"What?"

"Your car's fine, sorry, I need you to cover for me in case my mom calls tonight – tell her I'm working but I'm in the bathroom or something, okay?"

"Where are you going?" she frowned.

"I have a date – see ya!" I ran out the door and towards the mall parking lot.

*****

Dayton was in Blockbuster Music, standing at the listening bar. He wasn't listening to anything though. He was wearing black jeans, a black t-shirt and a comfy black hooded sweatshirt. The only thing not black was the pair of white Converse on his feet.

"Hey, sorry I'm late."

"All good," he turned to me with a pleasant smile on his face. "Gotta get goin' through, it's kind of a drive." He looked me up and down. "You look cute."

"Thanks."

I had on a pair of jean shorts and a white blouse – a tighter one that I usually wore at the movies – and my black Doc Martens.

In my mind, it was closer, Thunderbird. There was a map in my brain of the world, and it was absolutely incorrect.

It took nearly two hours to get to the drive-in. Dayton took Julian Road. The top to his jeep was down and the scrunchie I used to pull my hair back served no purpose. We drove by the huge Lutheran Church cemetery on the way there. Then a duckpond. Then a restaurant that went out of business months ago. Thunderbird was out in the middle of nowhere, because most people saw it as a perverted place and didn't want anything to do with it.

"So you still live with your mom, huh," he said, over the loud Weezer song playing from his tape deck.

"Well yeah...I'm only fifteen."

"Oh yeah, I forget," he grinned at me as we stopped at one of the few traffic lights out here. "You're so young."

He took off again, passing the marquee with the name THUNDERBIRD on it and a blinking pink arrow pointing towards the field and the enormous movie screen.

"Do you live alone?" I asked.

"I have a roommate, he's annoying though. He had his ex-girlfriend over last night and I'm like what is the fucking point in that? Spending time with an ex is like watching a pointless sequel to a horror movie."

"I see..."

"That's why I work a lot too, it's like I don't even like going home."

"Yeah, makes sense." I realized I was talking in three-word sentences, something I did when I was nervous.

****

There were already a few cars parked in front of the screen and people making their way to the concession stand that had a huge bright neon sign that read POPCORN & SODA. A little girl was running around the swings out by the big screen in the little fenced in area. Sometimes kids strayed from the trailer park and snuck in. The swings had candy cane-striped bars. Beyond the gigantic screen was a trailer park.

"Alright," Dayton parked and got out. The projector booth was near the concession stand, up a steel staircase.

"You hungry?" he asked before we made our way up.

"A little bit," I said. I was really nervous. I watched the sun fade as more cars pulled up. A tiny orange Porsche followed a long low-rider brown Cadillac.

I looked back at Dayton as he handed me a hot dog with mustard in a little checkered holding tray. I followed him up to the booth.

"Hey, this is bigger than ours," I said. The booth was about the size of a living room – a very dark living room.

"Yeah man, Thunderbird's the shit."

He got the film ready as I sat in a recliner that he said he found in a dumpster. His goal was to fill this tiny space up to make it feel like living room.

The first movie to play was Consenting Adults, followed by the raunchy Animal Instincts, which was basically just porn.

Dayton looked at me as the dirty movie started.

"Unbutton your blouse, sweetheart" he said, his words sweetly pouring into my ear.

I stood in front of the projector where a little light from it dropped a glare of light over me. I did as he said. I wasn't wearing a bra.

"I have small tits," I shyly spoke. I covered them with my hands then he gently wrapped his fingers around my wrists and tugged at them until I dropped my hands to my sides.

Dayton looked me in the eye. "They're beautiful. I like you, Sherry, or I wouldn't have brought you up here."

There was a sex scene going on and I was trying not to watch it but I gave the screen a few curious glances before looking away again, turning so my back was to the screen. Big "oohs" and "ahhs" from the movie traveled through the drive-in parking lot.

Dayton walked over to me and started to undo his jeans. He turned me around, so I had to watch the movie, pushing me against the table the projector was on.

He held me still, taking my face in his hand so his fingers sank into my cheeks.

"Watch," he told me. I watched as a naked woman got on her knees on the bed and the man got behind her while another man watched. A part of the projector was pressing against my soft breast.

"Watch the movie," Dayton kept telling me.

The man started having sex with the woman, thrusting himself into her.

"How does it make you feel?" Dayton asked me, his hands falling down to my jean shorts. "Watching that?"

"I don't know...strange." I said in a small voice.

"Strange?" he said, unbuttoning the top button of my jean shorts. I started to wiggle around but he held me still. "Shh. Keep watching," he said, holding my face again so I watched the woman on the screen. She was making crazy sounds as they did it doggy style. Her mouth dropped open and it looked like she was in pain.

"That's what I'm gonna do to you," he said. He pulled my shorts down and placed his fingertips against my left ass cheek, touching me over my underwear.

"Oh..." I moved so the projector table wobbled. I had on a brand-new pair of white panties that came in a six-pack from Kmart.

"Shh," he told me. I listened as he undid his black jeans. He started kissing my neck, his stubble was scratchy. "My god, you're so soft," he remarked.

His hand slipped up between my legs and pulled the crotch of my panties to the side and started touching me.

"AHHH!" the sigh fell from my mouth and I felt his cock against my cheek. "Ooooh," I grabbed him, reaching behind me to grab his ass. "I want you." I pushed him into me, and his mouth met mine for a long, hot kiss.

"I'm gonna change you tonight," he said as I looked out of the little projector window at the big picture of a man having rough sex with a woman and another man about to join in. He fingered me, which was intense but in a good way. He said he had to in order to get me a little open since I was a virgin.

"Watch," he said. "Watch the movie." He watched my eyes expand as I watched a woman getting pounded by her man. They were doing it doggy-style. People in their cars down below yelled out profane things like "get her," "ride her," "that a boy!" It was like they were at a sporting event and the team they were rooting for was the guy.

That was the same exact second Dayton plowed his cock into my vagina, forcing it open. I fell over the projector but remarkably didn't interrupt the film. Dayton was too busy fucking me to even notice if the projector broke.

"Oh...oh god," he sighed against my neck. The pain was intense, he could barely fit himself inside of me but after a minute it started to feel good – really good. I felt this pleasure even in the pit of my tummy. I grabbed his ass to make him keep doing it.

"PLESSE! OH! AH!" I sighed, my arm slipping along the table. I sighed as he kept doing it, giving into the pain, and the pleasure as he pounded away at me.

"Oh Jesus Christ..." I heard him say.

He had me splayed on the projector table and he was behind me, thrusting over and over.

*****

Dayton held me for a while after. Then he did his closing duties and drove me home. I was pretty sore and tired, and the conversation was minimal.

He pulled into Hopewood and kissed me one more time. He said he was working tomorrow. It would be Sunday. Libby worked too. Sundays at Les Cinemas were always fun.

I breezed through the door of Les Cinemas the next night at 6:20 p.m. There was already a fresh mountain of popcorn in the Whizz Bang cart. Danielle was the only one behind the concession stand.

I looked around for Dayton, practically sniffing for him like a dog. Usually he would be walking around the lobby or hanging outside smoking. I was still sore from having him inside me and now I had no clue where he was.

Libby showed up at 6:30 as always, but Pete was nowhere to be found. When he did appear, it was 7:30 p.m. and he hung out on the outside of the concession stand, checking his watch. He was on the projector's schedule.

"Where's Dayton?" I finally asked, unable to keep the question on my tongue anymore. Obviously, he wasn't here.

Pete looked up at me while chewing his gum.

"He quit," Pete said. "Called in around six, right before you showed. Gem of a guy." After his sarcastic comment, Pete went back to the projector booth.

Danielle came over to the Whizz Bang and scooped up some fresh warm popcorn into a bucket. She didn't use the scooper. Everyone else had to but I guess since she was the boss's daughter, she got away with it.

Then she offered me some info. "He probably moved; he said a week ago he was moving back to Salt Lake."

"What?" I turned around and looked at her, but now she was smiling at a customer and ignored me until she rang up their popcorn and returned their change. Then she turned around and said, "He was like now I'm eighteen and can just go back." She narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. "Why? You have a crush on him or something?"

I ran to the closet and grabbed the Electric Shark before anyone could see me cry. When I got home, I played the Pet Sematary 2 soundtrack, blasting Poison Heart by The Ramones.

*****

I spent the next two weeks calling Dayton on my piano phone, but he never answered. One day my Aunt Betty picked me up from work and offered to take me shopping. She seemed very concerned about me. I supposed I'd been withdrawn, not very different than my mom when Aunt Julie passed away. I was a stupid girl who fell in love with a mean boy and I wouldn't forgive myself.

As sad as I felt, I wasn't in the position to turn down new clothes. My rich Aunt Betty wanted to go to Belk, the preppy clothing store on the rich end of the mall. I felt like she had some ulterior motive to this adventure. I bought a couple of things from Belk, including a new flannel shirt and new Doc Martens. Then Aunt Betty coerced me into having lunch and I agreed even though I loathed the food court. I pulled my chair out and shook it until an abandoned chicken wing fell off.

"So, what do you see yourself doing next year?" Aunt Betty asked. I looked around. Every table in the food court shined with grease.

"Not sure."

"I know it's been rough," she said. "With your mom...and what happened with Billy." Betty crossed her arms and kept looking at me. "But you can't let these things affect your future. Have you thought about where you want to live? Have you given any thought to college?"

"No...not yet."

"Appalachian State seems nice. You should look into their courses and maybe we can drive up there sometime. You're almost sixteen," she said. "It's never too early to start thinking about this."

"Um..." I took a waffle fry out of Chick-fil-A bag and that was when I saw him. Dayton. He was coming out of Claire's, the accessory store, with some girl. For a split second I tried to tell my heart it wasn't him – he was supposed to be in Salt Lake City, but it was him. That was his skateboard tucked under his arm, the one with the Misfits stickers. That was his walk, his angelic hair, his sweatshirt I pulled on the night I gave him my virginity. I could still hear the thud of the projector table's legs as he fucked me.

He looked over with those blue eyes I now found less beautiful and more chilling, and I swear he saw me. He acted like he didn't. The girl holding his hand had long red hair that was impossibly straight. She was wearing tight jeans and big hoop earrings.

"What the fuck?" I blurted.

"Sherry!" Aunt Betty gasped.

"What the fuck!" I repeated; this time furious. "What the fuck?!"

Everyone in the food court was looking at us now.

"What the fuck is everyone's problem!!" I screamed before running off.

*****

I ended up in Blockbuster Music after my meltdown. If I couldn't escape with a movie, music was the next best thing. They had a Listening Bar. I could pick any CD I wanted and listen to it in the big headphones. If I wanted it, I could buy it and if not, a sales associate simply sealed it back up and put it back on the floor.

"Can I listen to this, please?" I placed the Stone Temple Pilots CD down. The Blockbuster employee, dressed in an impossibly blue shirt, took a box cutter and sliced it open. When he was busy putting the CD in the CD player, I took the box cutter and slipped it in the back pocket of my jean shorts.

*****

I should have been happy. Or at least in a lesser bad mood. I had new clothes and a new CD, but I was still sad. I turned the CD up really loud as I slowly got ready for my shift at Les Cinemas.

I took the new shirt out of the Belk bag around 6 p.m. and started getting ready. The shirt was nice. The cotton felt softer and the buttons weren't loose. It also fit better. It wasn't slim pickings there – if I found a shirt I liked, there were many more just like it and I could try on different sizes, unlike at the thrift store. There was also this new smell to everything. I sort of felt new myself. As I finished getting ready – brushing my teeth after that greasy food at the mall, buttoning my sleeves and finding my bowtie, I could at least be proud of myself, since no one else was, for sticking it out at the movie theatre for so long.

As I entered Les Cinemas, I was relieved to know Pete had the night off. I didn't even get annoyed when I heard Jimmy was the new projectionist and a new girl was the usher. I didn't bother getting her name. I kept to myself. looked at the schedule. Pete added two more nightly shifts to my work week. Maybe one day I could actually be a projectionist.

As I took my usual place behind the concession stand, Mrs. Seacrest told me I looked nice.

"Thanks," I said. The compliment cheered me up, but I also think she felt bad for making fun of my back brace. Maybe everyone knew I'd had enough, and the universe was going to give me a break.

"You go shopping?" she asked.

"Yeah, my aunt took me."

"Good. Good. So, we got a new usher," she said, waving her fist in the air like it was a big deal.

"I saw."

She smiled a lot more when Pete wasn't around. She leaned against the counter as Danielle went up to the box office.

"We'll see how Jimmy does as projectionist – I don't have a lot of faith in him to be honest."

"I really want to be a projectionist," I said loud enough for everyone to hear. Margaret ignored me that time and started talking to Danielle.

*****

By the time 1994 came around, I was eighteen and still working at Les Cinemas. I had no idea how I managed to hold onto the job, but I did. The bruising on my spine had gotten better. I never went back to the chiropractor. I hadn't worn a back brace since the night I ripped mine off and threw it in the toilet. I never dated another boy since Dayton. Libby was accepted into UNC and was moving to Chapel Hill soon. Somewhere between the hair-dying and the Nine Inch Nails concerts, she'd studied her ass off. I had no clue what I was going to do with my life beyond that summer. All I'd been doing was studying Edward Furlong.

Through the chaos at home and abroad, I'd managed to work at The Cinemas since 1991. One evening, as I sat in the lobby, a rage building up inside of me took over and I got up and walked over to Pete.

"I'm eighteen now and I'd like to be a projectionist," I stated. I was prepared for an argument. No one ever seemed to have any faith in me.

"Alright...I guess we can see," Pete just said. He looked away, out at the mostly empty parking lot for almost a whole minute before continuing his response. "On a slow night, we'll go through the motions."

"Okay cool, I already know about emulsion," I said, however awkward it sounded. "And splicing and all that.

"Alright, we'll see Tuesday – and that's your night off, is that okay?"

"It's great, thank you Mr. Seacrest!"

*****

I arrived at 6:45 p.m., the time Pete asked me to arrive. I was excited to walk into Les Cinemas and not have to put my silly bowtie on or mess up my white blouse with splattering hot butter. Margaret was standing by the red counter and smiled when she saw me.

"Oh, are you filling in for Libby?" she asked.

"No, Pete's showing me some projector stuff," I proudly announced.

"Okay...because Libby's not here yet," she informed.

It was her first time being late since she started working here eight months ago. A car accident, I immediately thought. I was so dramatic. I always conjured up the worst scenario.

Pete came out of the door that led to the stairs that went up to the projector booth.

"Hey Sherry, we'll need you behind the concession stand tonight, we're short-staffed."

Before I could protest, Libby suddenly arrived. I could tell she'd been crying.

"Or maybe not," Pete mumbled. "Well how about you do a little of both?" he said, "Because Libby doesn't look in the right state to work."

I met her in the little area where the schedule was kept, all the backup soda tank system adapters and hoses, the brooms and electric sharks, and sort of cornered her.

"Why are you late?" I whispered. The Seacrests had a habit of eavesdropping.

"You don't know?" she just stared at me; eyes wide with shock.

I shrugged.

"Kurt Cobain's dead."

"What?" Those words made no sense to me.

"He shot himself. It's all over the news."

"What do you mean?" I followed Libby out to the concession stand. People were already filling up the lobby.

"They found his body," she just said. "I heard it on MTV before I left. I wasn't even going to come in, I'm so sick of this place, but I know you wanted to do the projector thing...although I don't know why," she mumbled. "There are cockroaches up there."

"I don't think it's actually going to happen anyway," I said.

I stood at the counter, speechless from the news I just heard. I went through the motions, feeling like I'd left my body. The only silver lining in my near future was the release of the next Edward Furlong film, Brainscan.

*****

April was coming to an end. I had one more month of high school left and then I had no idea what I was going to do.

At the moment, I couldn't wait until my half hour break. I couldn't wait to watch Brainscan, the only thing that felt relatable in my entire world. Furlong looked so beautiful in the film.

Edward Furlong's movie Brainscan came out two weeks after Kurt Cobain was found dead from suicide. Everything just felt weird. Guns were just a part of my world. From seeing them on the big screen in T2, seeing the damage they did to Donna's family, and then knowing one of my favorite musicians blew his brains out with one.

The ominous mood of Brainscan matched mine perfectly, yet again. Furlong's sleepy doom appeal was even thicker this time around. He was sixteen, and already seemed over it all. And he was the one constant thing in my life. He just kept putting movies out – one after the other.

I kept my feet on the seat in front of me as I waited for the movie to start, pondering random things. Would I ever leave this small town? Could girls just not be projectionists? When was my last period? What on earth would I do if Dayton got me pregnant?

Edward Furlong had spent the last year in Canada, on location for Brainscan. There was a rumor that he was married to Jackie Domac, his tutor from T2.

Brainscan started with another mother-drama.

Furlong's character Michael had flashbacks of a terrible car accident in the beginning of the film, crawling to his mother on the road amid shattered glass, to find her bleeding to death. Just like in Pet Sematary 2, his mom died right in front of him.

Furlong looked beautiful in the film. It was right around the start of his Calvin Klein modeling contract. But he also seemed lethargic. It could have been his typical mood, or the typical mood of his depressed characters. He moped around. His sad brown eyes never looked so soulful, he stalked his neighbor with his lazy male gaze and then with the use of binoculars. He watched her undress at night as she got ready for bed. He was taller, I noticed, and his face was starting to take a more grownup shape. I found him more and more appealing. Nothing else in life seemed to get better, just darker. But Edward Furlong got both better and darker as he went on.

In the film, his character Michael got obsessed with a video game and did bad things. He killed people, chopping off one guy's foot. I liked him mean, and I could tell he liked to play mean too. I imagined him chopping off my chiropractor's foot. And Dayton's. And the guy who paralyzed Billy. And just anyone who had wronged me, he'd just go around in the middle of the night and be my avenger.

At first, Michael thought he was only killing people through the video game, with the guidance of Trickster, a scary looking entity that was the game's host. Trickster kind of reminded me of Dee Snider, the singer of Twisted Sister.

One of the film's darkest scenes was when Michael broke into the bedroom of the girl he'd been stalking. He had a pair of scissors and stood at the end of her bed as she squirmed in fear in her see-through nightie. The scene was very rapey and it turned me on. I saw the movie about twenty more times that summer, questioning if he was really acting, or just portraying himself on screen. I was intrigued, immersed, engaged, engrossed. All of those things.

I found a sort of strange comfort watching him in the dark auditorium, looking up into his brown eyes. I wished to be swallowed whole by them, and never have to go out into the real world, the hot parking lot, go home, and try to make some sense out of what I was supposed to do with my life. I did poorly in school, I didn't even try to get into a college. I turned eighteen two months ago and already felt like a lost cause.

I never became a projectionist – not at Les Cinemas, anyway. Instead, I was bumped up to assistant manager, which simply meant I trained new staff behind the concession stand. I got an entire 75 cents raise. I could retire the bow tie, and wore new comfort flannel shirts instead, pulling the sleeves down to cover my scars on my wrist from the box cutter. But nothing really felt like it had changed.

*****

Decades later, as I sat in my cushy Raleigh, North Carolina house, I could finally do decent research of my beloved actor Edward Furlong. It was autumn – things always seemed to quiet down in autumn. It was as if the foliage itself muffled the noise. It was relaxing – sitting there sipping red wine and watching pretty crisp leaves roll over the dry surface of the pool. It was also nice writing a book on my favorite actor and lifelong crush, Edward Furlong. Making coffee, looking up articles, reminiscing. It wasn't always fun thinking about the heartache – but it was necessary. The past was like the Thunderbird drive-in. It was over now, but amazing stories used to play there on the big, bright screen. The place used to be alive and bright with neon signs and the laughter of night owls.

To this day, Edward Furlong offered a distraction from the pain. My friend Christian recently passing away, having to switch literary agents, aging, going grey and still being single. But I didn't mind the single part, honestly. I wanted my space. I loved my home. The house was kind of known around Raleigh for being "the mystery house." It didn't have a walkway or a driveway, so for those reasons alone it freaked people out. But I didn't drive, and I could walk on grass quite well, so I didn't mind these strange characteristics. It wasn't spooky in any way – just quiet. The backyard looked out at the woods. Sometimes I saw a deer, especially if I got up at the right time of morning. The pool I didn't bother with – I never seemed to adapt to summer and I never learned to swim.

I went over to the bookshelf in the living room. The living room was huge since I'd turned the dining room into an extended part of it. Dining alone was depressing – no matter how much I loved being single – so I ate in front of the TV most times. I put an extra couch in the living room and bought fancy throw pillows for the window seat.

I bought a huge book shelf and placed it next to the wall-to-ceiling windows which were covered in burgundy velvet curtains. I also spent a pretty penny on a coffee table made from reclaimed pallet wood – reclaimed wood was all the rage in Asheville right now.

I looked through my books and DVDs I'd collected throughout the years. It was comforting to see all of my favorite books and films right there in front of me.

My cell phone was ringing. I let it go to voicemail – it was probably just my agent anyway wanting to harp away at me about my novel that I just didn't feel like finishing. And she certainly didn't want to hear about my Edward Furlong book. No one did.

I noticed a DVD wrapped in birthday paper on the top shelf. Oh my god. How could I forget? I rushed into the kitchen and dug the little stepladder from the tiny space between the counter and the fridge and carefully unfolded it in front of the shelves. I pulled American History X DVD down from the shelf and went into the kitchen again, not bothering with the ladder. I'd put it back at some point when I felt like it – this was my house, I lived alone, I made the rules.

I took a bottle of wine down from the cupboard. I supposed in the back of my mind I'd been saving it for a special occasion even though there wasn't one.

This. This was the special occasion. I opened the bottle and poured it into my favorite wine glass. It made that glug-glug sound. Then I opened the DVD and the note fell out onto the counter.

A gift for you, even though you suck, the note read, followed by his name, Christian. I held the wine glass up to the empty house.

"This is for you, Christian," I spoke before taking a sip of the wine. Then I got back to the book I wanted to write.

*****

I had no idea as I sat in that auditorium at age fifteen of the drama unfolding in my favorite actor's life. There was no internet back then, so people weren't exposed to every single breaking news story every single minute. Unless a story made its way into Rolling Stone or People Magazine, it was basically kept secret.

When Uncle Sean, Tafoya and Edward Furlong arrived on the set of Brainscan, a pitched battle began between the guardians and their charge, who earned 350,000 dollars to star in the film. Tafoya claimed she and Edward had three fights on set and numerous fights off the set "involving discipline." The fights also were about Jackie Domac. Tafoya specified about one of the fights in which she scolded Edward: "No, you can't go visit Jackie now, you have to give your dog a bath." Then Edward punched a hole in the ceiling of his trailer. Tafoya also claimed she found the thirty-year old Jackie Domac sleeping in sixteen-year old Edward's bed multiple times.

When Edward Furlong returned to Los Angeles in mid-September, he and Domac moved in together and Eddie Furlong supported her with his $2,500 monthly allowance that Bruce Ross and the court approved for him last November.

Ross claimed that even if he'd denied Furlong the allowance, he would never have returned to live with his mother. There was tension between Furlong and his mom that had been there since before T2 even became a film.

"He may end up working at McDonalds and living in a hovel," Ross stated, "But he is not going back to his mother because of what is or is not done with his money. If you're asking do I approve of the situation as a parent of children myself? The answer is no. Edward knows that. I'm not in a position to stop it."

Meanwhile, Sean and Nancy tried to end Furlong's relationship with Domac on January 5th, taking advantage of a change in California's law governing statutory rape, which now permits prosecution of adult women who have sex with minors, and filed a complaint. The police interviewed Eddie. Ross stated that unless the minor complained, the police would not prosecute.

L.A. police detective Aubrey Ginsberg said the matter was "adjudicated." Sean and Nancy also tried to challenge Domac's teaching certificate and wrote the state bar of California to have Bruce Ross investigated.

While all of this was taking place, Furlong was already in New York with Jackie Domac to film Little Odessa. Furlong was originally supposed to go with his mom, but Domac talked him into going with her.

There was no drama when it came to Little Odessa besides what was in the script. Furlong turned in a brilliant performance alongside Tim Roth in the gangster flick. The director of the film, James Gray, had nothing but praise for Edward Furlong, saying it was "a delight to work with him, he was always emotionally present. I think he's a very accomplished actor. And in many ways, he was the most cooperative actor in the picture."

Edward Furlong was mum when it came to his family drama. He never complained. He just did his work on set. "Other than the fact that I got a coke with Edward after the shooting, I would never have known about his family," Gray said, who enjoyed watching Furlong hold his own with Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell. "His role was that of someone from a troubled, broken family," James Gray continued about Furlong's solid performance in Little Odessa. "And in many ways, he used his background to his advantage and funneled his personal tumult into the role. At 16, he's been forced into adulthood and he's handling it better than I would have."

Furlong had been forced into adulthood early. No parenting, a career in fame most people in their twenties hadn't earned yet, and a sexual relationship with an adult.

Meanwhile Edward Furlong had a new teacher named Cheryl Steets who found him up to speed academically when she took over Domac's job in October. But the relationship between Furlong and Domac remained and they were spotted kissing between takes while filming Odessa. James Gray insisted that she was good for Furlong. Perhaps the director truly believed this, or maybe he just wanted things to continue going smoothly on set for the sake of his film.

****

By the end of 1994, Edward Walter Furlong had completed six films and had also stared in Aerosmith's video, Livin' on the Edge, recorded an album and was modeling for Calvin Klein.

In the Aerosmith video, he portrayed a troubled teen (he slept with his teacher, tossed an unused condom into some bushes, and wrecked his car.)

Jackie Domac eventually spoke up about her relationship with Edward Furlong, claiming that she "helps Eddie with managerial things."

Eleanor tried desperately to establish some kind of relationship with her estranged son, which was difficult. Furlong was already legally independent and had a lucrative career, a house, and a growing hatred for her.

Sean and Tafoya eventually went back to their old jobs (Sean worked at a student center and Tafoya was a counselor at a Children of the Night shelter.) They also had to return to their former house and their old "this doesn't belong to a movie star" furniture. Furlong had left them in the dust too. Perhaps that was why he was with Jackie Domac – so that he wouldn't have to deal with his family anymore, and she took advantage of this, not to mention he was supporting her now.

According to an article published in The Hollywood Reporter in 1994, anyone who interviewed Edward Furlong had to sign agreement before sitting down with then 16-year old Edward Furlong. The agreement read that interviewers were not allowed to interview him about his family or his relationship with the much older Jacqueline Domac. After signing the agreement, a reporter headed to a vegan restaurant in Brentwood, California, where a young, skinny Furlong in an oversized sweater and distressed jeans sat next to Domac who held his hand throughout the entire interview.

The interviewer picked up on two things: The quiet but authoritative energy radiating off of Domac, and the reserved mood of Furlong that was reminiscent of James Dean. His wounded eyes would look up every so often and answer questions in an audible tone, but he still seemed a bit tired – sleepy – drugged, the type of behavior the producer of Brainscan complained about earlier that year when they were trying to wrap up production on the film.

So far, Furlong had impressed with films Pet Sematary 2, American Heart, A Home of Our Own, Little Odessa, and of course Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Edward Furlong told the reporter in a relaxed, mature tone of voice, "I've done six films in three and a half years." He claimed the hardest role he did was Little Odessa, a film inspired by James Gray's grief over losing his mother to brain cancer. It was yet another film in which Furlong's character mourned the death of his mother.

Little Odessa received high praise from Variety Magazine in September of 1994: "A highly charged, coolly assured directorial bow graced by riveting work from a trio of accomplished leads, Little Odessa immediately etches a firm place on the map for 25-year old New York newcomer James Gray."

Back at the diner, Eddie told the reporter he had no plans of going back to school or college. "School sucks." Then he said something about Hollywood, something that should have set off alarms but for some reason if it was Furlong, all the red flags were overlooked. If Furlong was part of The Lost Boys (Corey Haim, Corey Feldman) who were abused as children in Hollywood, it would be swept under the rug. It just wasn't a big deal then. When it came to male actors, it still didn't seem that important.

"A lot of people think Hollywood is all glamour and it isn't," Edward Furlong expressed to the interviewer. "It's a lot of hard work and there's a lot of slime involved too. There are some really hard parts about Hollywood."

The interview wrapped up. A polite, soft-spoken Furlong thanked the reporter for the interview and Domac took his hand and they left the diner together.

By August of 1995 (the same year my aunt took my mom to a psych ward for evaluation) Furlong would have fully emancipated himself, stating he was upset about his family talking about him to the press.

James Gray believed all of Furlong's hardships made him stronger. That he was "too with it" to let anything destroy him. "He should not be underestimated," Gray added.

*****

I stood behind the concession stand at Les Cinemas waiting for the right opportunity to strike. Pete was on the phone with some regional manager type of person.

"We are not going to get Heavenly Creatures," he stated, walking back into his office.

One down, two to go. Hopefully Danielle would leave the box office and I could figure out a way to get rid of Margaret then I could get on with my prank. It was close to 7:30. All the nightly features had started, and the auditorium doors had closed. For now, all the customers had all the snacks they wanted.

"Sherry, you good if I use the bathroom?" Danielle asked.

"Yup."

As soon as Danielle left, Margaret took her place.

"I swear I saw someone smoking near Auditorium 3," I told her.

"Oh, that's it!" she snapped, heading out to the lobby and up the hall to the Ruffian Theatre.

I rushed up to the box office area and grabbed the marquee letters. I'd been spying for the last few days, and knew they were kept in a drawer above the safe. The tricky part was changing the marquee, but luckily for me I had a cousin with a truck and a bad attitude, and he was always looking to cause trouble. "A prank?" he said in his thick southern drawl when I phoned him the other day. "What kinda prank?" he asked to which I replied, "A cool one."

I grabbed the Change Arm too, and when I left for the night, I met my cousin and we cruised Jake Alexander until the off-white Seacrest van was gone and we got on with our plan.

As the sun rose the next morning on Salisbury, North Carolina, early travelers along Jake Alexander were greeted with the marquee message: EDWARD FURLONG IS FN HOT

There were no other letters on it. We'd taken down all the names of the movies. It was a bold prank, but it was also my last night there, so why not?

When my cousin drove me to the bus station, we drove by it and I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. It was my revenge for never being allowed to be a projectionist – I'd just been teased about the idea. It was my revenge for being made fun of because of my back brace.

It was also my way of stating the obvious.

*****

I grinned as I remembered that night – standing in the bed of my cousin's truck and holding the ladder steady as he put the letters on the marquee. "This is the dumbest thing, Sherry, I swear," he ended up saying, but he did it for me anyway and we had a couple of cold beers in his truck after, laughing over the act.

I worked on my second glass of wine. I decided to check my phone then maybe watch a movie. I felt like my brain and my soul needed a break from writing tonight.

It was now 2019. Everything had changed. Movie theatres were closing. Record stores and bookstores were too. People didn't go out to meet other people much anymore, instead they ran Airbnbs, inviting strangers into their homes for profit. It was a strange time to be alive.

I, for the most part, kept to myself.

I was right. The call was from my agent, Leslie Nomac. She called to tell me she still thought my book on Edward Furlong was a waste of time, but did I know he was going to be in the new Terminator film? And how was the thriller coming along? This was all on a voicemail, asking me to call her back. Maybe we could meet for brunch tomorrow. There was this great place in Asheville. Did I know downtown Asheville? It was nice now, not like "back in the day." Was Asheville, North Carolina ever a dangerous place to live? Maybe we should see the new Terminator film Dark Fate together, she suggested. If I finished my thriller, Mystery and Esplanade, because it was "marketable." No one cared about Edward Furlong (her words) – no one even bothered to read much anymore, she painfully reminded me, the writer. People didn't even want Furlong in Dark Fate because of his past domestic abuse charges.

"But I will see it with you," she finished. "As a reward for finishing Esplanade, what do ya say?"

I could still hear Christian say, in that scratchy voice of his, "Maybe he's your soulmate, You both suck; so...there's that."

My phone suddenly rang. Someone was calling. That used to be pretty much the only way to communicate. Now it seemed aggressive. Unnerving.

"Yes?" I answered my phone, quite drunk. I'd already gone through most of the bottle on my own.

"Sherry, it's Leslie," she said, warm and inviting like my glass of wine.

"Hey."

"Did you get my voicemail?"

"Yeah...yeah."

"I hope it didn't hurt your feelings. It's just that – Edward Furlong? I mean...and it's not like you met him and this is his story, it's something you threw together..."

Yup, something I threw together, like a bad outfit.

I looked out into the backyard where something had run off into the woods before I could see what it was. A rat or a possum...or a fox.

"It's about more than that," I defended my work. My crush that just wouldn't go away. "It's about the dying art of cinema, the sad state of so-called entertainment in a world where mass shootings have become a trend, it's about a lifelong obsession with someone who obviously went through something terrible and has been on this downward spiral ever since..." Me? Edward Furlong? The whole world?

Leslie was very quiet.

"Are you there?" I asked.

"Yes. Sherry, I pitch fiction, and Mystery and Esplanade is wonderful. You could even bring pulp fiction back. Imagine that."

"Yeah." Leslie didn't get it. I wasn't trying to bring anything back. I was a sufferer. I was a tortured soul. I was in love with pain. I was in love with Edward Furlong.

I was in love with wine, too. I poured whatever was left in the bottle into my glass.

"Let's get brunch tomorrow and talk about all of this," Leslie pressured.

Christian.

Christian was who I'd like to meet for brunch tomorrow in some cozy place in Asheville.

Christian was dead.

Part 3

My Sweet Arsonist

I was walking back home from the Rainy Day Theatre. I was still reluctant to get a car, but good things were happening too. I was now a projectionist and I also had a literary agent. Rainy Day Theatre was an adorable theatre and arthouse in the heart of Asheville. The building was green and pink on the outside. There was a café inside, so sometimes before or after work I would write there.

It was April of 1999. It was a great year for cinema and, in my opinion, the last. It already felt like summer, especially when walking along the highway with no shade. The sun took no mercy on me. Trucks whipped by farting their exhaust fumes. Stray pieces of litter flew up into the air and dust flew in my eyes. Some things never changed – they just became slower, more drawn out versions of themselves. Like me walking along the highway, for instance.

My job barely paid minimum wage, but I still found working in movie theatres romantic, charming, even adventurous. It was all part of my escapism. When I wasn't writing, I was up in that little room, alone in the dark. Everyone down beneath me in the auditorium staring at the big screen, which I was ultimately in charge of, but I also didn't exist. No one ever saw me. I was like a ghost.

Everyone enjoyed themselves at the movies. Even those who didn't fall in love the film they saw at least got to escape their own problems for a while.

I heard a car slow down behind me, hip hop music blaring from the fuzzy speakers. I looked over my shoulder at a little dirty red Toyota. There was a dent in the driver's side door. I could barely see the guy driving. His dark hair was down to his chin, long and sleek and covering his face.

He pulled alongside me.

"Hey," he spoke through the window in a sort of gritty voice, which I'd soon realize was from a terrible smoking habit. The window was open just a crack. "Need a ride?" he offered.

It always amazed me when guys acted like it was just a normal thing for a girl to get in a total stranger's car. But he didn't look like the typical kidnapper. He was cute – I think – his hair still didn't reveal his face. He sounded cute. The king of bad habits and sex appeal.

"I'm good, thanks." I kept walking although it was hot and my back hurt. Pete was right about the job of a projectionist being a bit strenuous because of having to lift heavy equipment.

The guy still drove alongside me and suddenly said, "You don't look good – sorry – I didn't mean...you just look hot." Then he tried again. "I mean hot as in you've been in the sun, but you also look – uh..."

"It' s okay, really," I said, giving him a break from trying to complete a sentence. I kept walking. He kept pressuring.

"You sure? This is a busy highway – trucks and stuff..."

"Yeah, well." I shrugged, almost like I didn't care if I got hit.

"Look, I'm a nice guy – I think you know my wife. I've seen you with her."

"Uh..." Maybe this guy was nice, but everything he said just sounded weird.

"Liz?" he said. Then he pulled his straight brown hair back behind his ears to reveal a face so handsome it was almost cruel. It would make every girl sigh in pain who did and didn't get to be with him.

"LIZ!!" I blurted. Liz was the girl who got me through slow shifts at Rainy Day Theatre with her wisecracks. She even helped me carry film when Dan the Motorcycle Man dropped it off late. She worked in the box office. Between me and her, we basically ruled the place. Plus, the concession stand was staffed with mostly dudes. Liz and I had the important jobs. She sold the tickets. I showed the films. The owner thought it was better for business if a woman was the first person they saw, and he had faith in me as a projectionist.

Liz was very beautiful, with long black hair, brown eyes and an hourglass figure.

I studied Christian's immaculate bone structure and puppy dog eyes. It all made sense now. They made a beautiful couple. It was the first time I actually fully believed there were people in the world that really belonged together.

"Wait – are you Christian?" I asked, glancing in the backseat where a bunch of hooded sweatshirts and CDs were tossed.

"Uh yes – does she have more than one husband?" he asked, cracking a smile. Nothing seemed to bother him. Liz told me stories about Christian, so many crazy ones that in my mind he was kind of a celebrity, a rock star. At one point, according to Liz, Christian had twenty girlfriends. All at once. He kept a list of their names and phone numbers tacked to his kitchen wall so that he didn't get confused when they called him. He underlined their names and wrote beneath them little basic facts so if Anna called, he'd say, "How's the book you're reading?" Or if it was Samantha, "How's the sprained ankle?" It only got weird when they didn't say their name. Sometimes he added descriptions of their voices like 'sounds like girl on Friends.' He planned their dates way ahead of time, because it took a lot of thought. He had to make sure if he took Samantha out, for example, she didn't live anywhere near Katie, the girl next door type who loved to jog. Christian didn't really have a type – just women, apparently. All women.

Now I knew why Liz said, every time she spoke about him, how beautiful he was. It was a soft kind of beauty that slowly took over everything else, like the way it slowly got dark in the summer. First the fireflies came out and sort of eased you into it, lightning up around you with their subtle twinkling. Then the cicadas mating call would build and eventually complete darkness would take over.

Christian had brown eyes, delicate sharp cheekbones and the cutest nose I'd ever seen. He was tall and slender. I guess if I had to compare him to anyone famous, I would say he was a cross between Bam Margera circa Viva La Bam and Skeet Ulrich circa Scream.

"Anyway, yeah," he said, with this little hiss of a laugh. "I'm Christian."

'I'm Christian, God of Darkness,' it sounded like he was trying to say.

"Well hell, you do exist!" I blurted.

He laughed again.

"Sometimes I would think Liz made you up because I never saw you. And I was like no one could be that much of an asshole – like with the twenty girlfriends thing," I rambled on as trucks whipped by right behind me. "But here you are. She described you as being handsome and a little mean."

"Well..." he gave a cool little shrug and messed with that hair of his, "Yeah."

He studied me. Today I wore a tight pair of burgundy plaid pants and a Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt. I had on broken in grey Converse and my blonde hair was up in a ponytail. I was a tad sunburned.

"And you're The Edward Furlong Girl," Christian said. "That's what Liz calls you."

"That's me. My real name is Sherry."

"No," he said, his voice had this raspy texture to it that made him sound cynical. I already knew he liked to argue because of everything Liz had said, but he sounded composed and combative somehow at the same time. "Your real name is Edward Furlong Girl."

"Okay..." I gave in. It was hot and my back was hurting more now.

"Okay, well do you want a ride somewhere?" he offered again, slipping a Camel Red out of his pack with his long slim fingers. I watched him light it, hunched over to escape the breeze slipping through the windows, his hair slipping along those elegant cheekbones of his. Some guys made smoking look so cool. He was definitely one of those guys.

"If you don't mind," I said.

He sat back up and looked right at me, big round brown eyes just staring at me as smoke lifted from his bottom lip. I felt like he was about to say something that was funny and mean.

"If I did, I wouldn't have stopped. There's a lot of weird rednecks around here. It's not really safe to walk, even in the daytime."

"Yeah..." I had no idea why I was still hesitating. And he was right, there was a recent story about a girl who'd been kidnapped by three men somewhere not too far from this very highway, raped and tortured for days before her body was found in a field near Haw River.

"Get in or I'll run you over." Christian had his way of making decision-making simple.

I laughed. He didn't. I got in his car, which was cramped with clothes, CDs, and a bunch of groceries on the backseat.

"Sorry it's not a Porsche," he mumbled, jerking the stick shift around. A second later we were plowing down the highway.

"Hey, who am I to judge?"

"I don't ever want you accepting rides from any other weirdo except me," he lectured, cracking that little grin of his again.

"Awe." I was kind of blushing.

"So, where you coming from?" he asked. "Work?" his tone of voice had such grit to it.

"Yeah."  
"Right on." He took another drag of his smoke. "Where you goin'?"

"Pine Grove Apartments...on Pine Street."

Christian laughed.

"Is that funny?"

"It's just this stupid town. I'm surprised that didn't name the bar I go to Bar." He glanced over at me. "So, Sherry, you're a movie buff? That's what Liz said."

"What else did she say...?" I almost didn't get the whole question out because he suddenly sped up, going way over the speed limit. A few people honked. He ignored them all like he was in some video game – his choices weren't his, the controls were in someone else's sweaty hands. He might not have been a psychotic kidnapper, but he was a psychotic driver. He didn't seem to care who he pissed off. I'd soon come to realize that Christian lived on the edge because the edge was all that was left.

"Uh," he jerked the stick around to change gears. He made a sharp turn down a side street. "Just that you were cool," he shrugged and glanced at me. When Christian smiled it really lit everything up. He smiled at me and I smiled back before biting on my lip and looking out of the window.

"Not that I agree," he said a second later. Then he grinned when he looked at me, laughing. That laugh was darker, husky. I think I laughed somewhere inside. He put his eyes back on the road.

Liz always said Christian smoked too much. His hair was a lot like Edward Furlong's, except straighter and longer.

"There's some good movies coming out this summer," he added a minute later in a tone that made it seem like it was supposed to just be a quiet thought.

"Yeah! Detroit Rock City!" I hailed.

He laughed. "Fuck no. I mean Fight Club."

"Oh right."

"You like Swollen Members?" he asked. Again, he had a weird way of speaking sometimes. "It's a band," he added a minute later in his hoarse voice.

"Oh, no, I mean I've never heard them."

"This is them," he said, turning up the hip-hop group that had been playing since he picked me up. Ah, this shit don't even sound human anymore/It's time to kill...

I didn't mind it. It was certainly better than Dave Matthews Band/Hootie and The Blowfish type of stuff everyone had been so jazzed about lately.

He turned it down for a second. Currently, we were on some backroad near a storage facility. It was a serial killer's wet dream.

"What do you do?" I asked.

"Liz never said?" he sounded somewhere between surprised and disappointed. He spoke again before I could respond. "TechCity, this dumb startup company. I guess it's not really something to rave about..."

"Oh..."

I felt like Christian was unraveling like some nice warm sweater. He was looking for a distraction. Kind of like people driving home from their boring jobs and got excited to see a terrible accident along the highway...

"So, you walk to work every day?" he inquired.

"Yeah. Well, sometimes I wait for the bus, but I don't have a lot of patience."

"You could get a car," he suggested in this funny way like there was this big secret world called Automobiles he was letting me in on.

"I don't have a license," I shared. "I never learned how to drive."

"I'll teach you, it's not that hard." There was never any hesitance in Christian's voice. "Even people that like sucky movies can handle it." Every time Christian insulted me – which was pretty much all the time – he'd look at me and laugh in this way that expressed he was just kidding. "I do drive fast though, sometimes." He wasn't kidding there – we were doing close to 90. "I'm kind of reckless since I'm gonna die next year anyway."

I nodded, almost not catching that last part.

"What?" I looked at him. Sometimes with Christian it was hard to tell if he was joking.

"I have a hole in my heart – Liz hasn't told you that either?" now he seemed annoyed. I could tell by the way he treated the shift, yanking it around, his bicep bulging when he did. I slowly became attracted to him in that car that day and I knew things were going to burn. I could not control myself around bad boys.

"No," I said.

He made a sharp turn off the aggressive highway down a wide country road that would eventually take us to Pine Grove Apartments.

"It's hard for her to talk about but yeah – I've been told since I was kid that I wouldn't live past twenty-five. I'm twenty-four. I turn twenty-five next October." The way he said October, deep and dark, killed a piece of me. It made me picture a pretty red leaf on the ground, crisp and dead. Horror movies on the big screen. People dressed as ghouls.

I just stared at him. I had no words.

"It's okay," he said, laughing a little because I guess I looked so shocked. "It just means I gotta live faster – so drive faster – like this." All of the sudden we flew forward. Forget 90, we were almost at 100 now. I couldn't believe we hadn't been pulled over yet. Maybe this was why, on occasion, Liz took the bus home with me. Thank goodness no deer were out – it was quite common to see them around here, there were Deer Crossing signs all over.

"I can speed out here and not get arrested so maybe I'll take you home more often," Christian said, talking a bit louder so I could hear him over the whipping wind coming through the windows and the loud hip-hop.

I must admit, speeding was fun. It made me feel like I could totally escape my problems – not just for two hours while watching a movie. But forever. Christian was quick about slowing down though, when it was necessary anyway.

"Still happy you got in the car with me?" he was grinning, I could barely tell behind all of that messy hair of his.

"Yes," I said.

He pulled into my shabby apartment complex. It wasn't even as nice as Hopewood.

Christian parked and pulled some of that hair behind his ears and looked at me. The look seemed to say something, but I had no idea what.

"Hey..." he moved his arm, so his hand barely touched mine. "If you're not busy this weekend, I'm having this big cookout at my parents' house." He kept his eyes on mine. "I can pick you up."

"Oh man, that would be cool."

"Alright, I'll pick you up Saturday."

"Okay Christian, thanks for the ride."

"Yeah, if you ever need one and I'm free just let me or Liz know."

"Okay." I smiled at him before I got out of the car and he sped off.

*****

I ended up meeting Liz and Christian at this bar called Daryls. It was a basic American bar with three beers on tap, wooden tables and worn out leather booths, ceiling fans spinning at a meaningless glacial pace against a burnt umber tin ceiling, and top 40 songs playing on the jukebox. Daryl's was an old bar. It had been open since the early 1980s. It did have a certain charm about it, I supposed.

I tried to relax. I leaned back in the wooden chair and listened to it creak, my hand curled around the icy handle of my pint glass. Liz spoke of Christian adoringly beneath the swoosh sounds of the ceiling fans, saying she was so glad I finally got to meet him. Every time she said his name, she dragged it out like a saga. Chrissssstiiian.

He was late – he'd apologized for not being able to pick me up and even tried to arrange for a cab to get me, but I told him I was fine with walking. I even liked walking when the weather was right. It was a nice spring day – a little on the cool side so I wore my Black Cherry chunky Doc Martens, distressed jean shorts and red and black checkered flannel shirt. I pulled my blonde hair up in a ponytail.

Daryl's had that old bar smell – it was resistant of cleaning products. It would just always feel sticky and smell of stale beer. The dark, relaxed vibe set the pace for the night that would begin my bizarre relationship with Chrissssstiiian.

Liz looked down at the scratched-up table. She pointed to the big L and the big C with the heart between it.

"Hey look!" she laughed. "I did that."

"Liz loves Christian?" I had to guess.

"Always," she said. "So..." Liz tapped her long black-painted nails against the tormented wooden table. "What did you think of Christian?"

"He drives fast," I replied abruptly. If I were dating twenty men at once, I'd have "drives fast" written under Christian's name.

"And he has nice hair," I added. Drives fast. Nice hair.

"Yeah," Liz practically cooed.

"He also said he was...um...sick..." I didn't really know how to phrase it.

"Oh, his heart?"

I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "How come you never told me?"

Liz's eyes filled up with tears quicker than the song on the jukebox changes. Hootie and the Blowfish's Let Her Cry started playing.

"Because it's hard to talk about, Sherry," Liz wept, trying to catch the tears before they messed up her perfect makeup, which was minimal and yet gave her such an astonishing glow.

"I know, I'm sorry." I didn't really know what to say.

"And we've been fighting..." she admitted. That didn't really surprise me. Christian seemed so tense in the car. I was too. I hadn't had sex since Dayton. My one and only sexual experience had been weird and followed by amazing heartbreak. In a freaking mall.

Were the ceiling fans getting faster? The music louder? I needed another drink. Reality was too close. Until I could be in a dark auditorium again, Furlong's face on the wide screen, I needed a way to deal. Where was Christian anyway? How come he couldn't pick me up?

"Because he sees it as he has one year left to live and wants to do crazy things..." Liz tried to catch another tear. They just kept falling.

"Liz," I reached over and put my hand on hers. "I'm sorry I brought..."

Her hand whipped out from under mine when she looked up at the front of the bar. Christian's tall, slender physique all dressed in black momentarily blocked out the sun. His hair was the same perfect effortless cool as my favorite actor's. Jewel's Foolish Games was playing on the jukebox as he walked over to the booth, running his long fingers through his hair as he did so. Something about Christian made me think of a rabbit dumbly running towards a bear trap. He was doomed, after all. He was born with a big hole in his heart.

Liz stood up to hug him like a woman greeting her husband after he just got back from war. There was desperation in everything she did. I didn't want to have to remind her, but she was married to a guy who once dated twenty girls at the same time.

*****

I wasn't sure if it was just his body language, but Christian seemed well aware of how good looking he was, and awfully timid about it, almost like it embarrassed him. He played with his hair a lot. It seemed like he wanted to hide behind it. When he smiled, it was sincere and really lit up the room, but it only lasted a minute before he went back into this sulk, as if the entire work of smiling exhausted him. He dressed like he was part of the Trench Coat Mafia. He wore a long black trench coat (even in the summer) that hung down to his black boots. His black chinos were a little distressed at the knee. A plain black t-shirt hung loose on him too. He always had a pack of Red Camels in his back pocket and the way he removed a fresh smoke and popped it between his perfect teeth took about two seconds. He had that little laugh, like a hiss, and whenever he let it out, he would play with his hair at the same time, usually placing it behind his ears. It was a move that was ultimately pointless because his hair never stayed behind his ears. It would sweep back across his sharp cheekbones and over his big almond eyes. It slowly became my favorite thing to watch.

"I'm going to get us a pitcher of Killians," he announced. Then he looked at me.

"Hey Sherry." That was it, he just wanted to say hey. There didn't seem to be a reason attached to it.

"Hey dude," I smiled.

"Did you walk along a dangerous highway today?" he asked.

"Yeah but it wasn't that dangerous." I said.

"Okay well, we gotta get you a car," he said that like it was his top priority. I was stunned by how much Christian cared about me. Dayton didn't care about me. He just wanted sex.

"Is your rent a lot?" Christian inquired, looking me directly in the eye.

"Well yeah – I mean for what it is, anyway. I honestly hate my roommate. He's always having people over. This one guy walked into my room in the middle of the night and I woke up and he was taking his pants off...he told me he thought he was in the bathroom."

Christian and Liz exchanged looks of concern.

"Yeah, Pine Grove sucks," Christian said, flipping his light around between his fingers. "You don't deserve to live there – even if you do like sucky movies."

"Christian," Liz said his name in nervous laughter. I was just laughing in general. Pine Grove did suck. Most apartment complexes around it at least had a pool and decent lighting, which came in handy on nights I had to walk home. Pine Grove was near a creek and the woods surrounding it only fed the darkness until it was all pitch-black. The apartment complex did have a laundry facility, but it was vandalized last week. I didn't like going down there because sometimes the light was burned out. I was used to being in a dark room because of my job, but I knew I was safe. I was the only one in the room.

Christian looked at Liz and said, without a speck of hesitance, "She could live with us. That way she could save for a car. You two work at the same place, I could take you both to work." Christian was a control freak and had a talent of making all of his ideas sound brilliant.

"Uh well..." Liz looked at me. He'd put her on the spot asking her in front of me like that.

Christian put his hand on her shoulder and spoke in the softest tone. "Just for a little bit," he said. "Until the end of summer."

Summer hadn't even started yet...

"Okay, cool. Yeah," Liz said with an extra drop of confident. "It'll be like one long slumber party," Liz said. I could tell she was saying that because Christian wanted to hear it. There was always a twinkle in her eye when Liz was truly happy, and I didn't see the twinkle.

"Alright then it's settled." Christian stood up, towering over both of us. "Time to celebrate with a pitcher of beer."

I started shuffling around for some money when Christian held his hand up.

"No, no, I got this," he let me know.

None of us had glamorous jobs, but Christian would always refuse to accept money from anybody. He'd pay for the drinks, the groceries, gas. Everything. Liz mentioned that he had that old chivalry thing molded into him. He would always pay, always hold the door open, and never let a woman carry anything as long as he could handle the load. He'd never let a woman walk along a highway either. 'Treat women with respect son, ya hear?' his father would lecture. 'But don't get too attached to anyone, because nothing lasts forever.'

*****

On a slow night at Rainy Day about a month prior to me meeting Christian, Liz explained how she and Christian met. It was at a diner one rainy October night. 'Leaves stuck to everything," she specified, "Like his car."

She almost stayed in and ordered Chinese, but a friend convinced her to go out for some greasy diner food instead. The diner was called Moonbeam and it was in a sketchy neighborhood by the tracks. It was a cute 50s-style diner that looked like it had been dropped in that neighborhood – and era – by mistake. Liz said it was some of the best food she ever had though, and the night changed the course of her life because Chrisssstian walked in, his trench coat covered in rain making it sparkle. His hair was wet, he had a smile on his face because his friend had just said something funny. "He looked like he didn't need anyone or anything," Liz described. "And there was something captivating about that. And it sucks when you need someone who doesn't need anybody," she also added.

Christian dropped a tiny piece of paper on Liz's table on his way to the restroom after making eyes with her for twenty minutes. They got married a month later. "The sex...was...incredible," she stated. "Unbeatable. Christian is...amazing."

But did he really stop talking to all of those girls he was dating that night they met? I had to wonder.

*****

I watched Christian thank the bartender, leave a gracious tip on the bar, and somehow carry all three glasses and the pitcher of beer filled to the rim to our table without spilling a drop. He poured us cups and then fetched a menu, tossing it on the table. While Christian was sweet and went out of his way to host, there was also something short tempered about him every so often.

"You don't want to cook out tonight?" Liz asked, looking down at the menu and back up at him, worried. Christian shook his head. I found just looking at him completely engrossing. The handsome delicate bone structure of his face – and something ominous down inside. He actually reminded me of Edward Furlong in a strange way, and not just because of the hair.

"I'm a little tired," Christian admitted.

"Are you okay?" Liz's voice flooded with concern. When Liz and Christian talked, they gazed into one another's eyes the whole time.

"Yeah," he told her, with a calm reassuring smile, he didn't look away from her until she seemed okay.

Then he looked at me as if I were a thrilling movie he'd been waiting to see that just came on the big screen. Huge light and booming sound system. Yummy warm popcorn in his lap. A carefree two hours ahead of him.

"I was going to have a big cookout, Sherry," he said in the softest, smoothest voice. "But not tonight. It's been a week. Anyway, this is on me." He nodded at the menu.

"Thank you." The menu wasn't anything exciting. Burgers, fries, hush puppies, fried pickles. I looked up from it to find Christian just staring at me.

I quickly searched for somewhere else in the bar to place my eyes. No one else was nearly as pleasant to look at. Your typical NC crowd of bloated guys with beards and baseball caps advertising something they probably didn't even care about. They just liked to wear hats.

I found myself immediately looking back at Christian.

"We can have a cookout anytime," I told him, because he seemed sad all of the sudden.

He nodded and stared at the table. He wasn't reading the lovey-dovey signatures there, he just seemed deep in thought. Then he threw up his hands.

"Fuck it," he said, grabbing the menu from my hands. "You know what, let's just do it."

"Do what?" I asked, already thrilled. I wanted to do whatever he wanted to do.

"Have a fucking cookout," he stated.

Liz tried to talk him out of it, "Christian, don't, not if you're tired." Then she looked at me and said, "Christian can't do anything halfway – he goes big. So, it will have to be enormous." His heart could only take so much was what she was trying to say.

Christian glanced at me again before pulling some hair behind his ears and looked back at Liz.

"Not that crazy," he said, sticking a cigarette between his teeth. It was 1999 and you could still smoke in certain bars.

"Yeah but you'll be cooking for four people though, Christian," Liz went on. Liz and Christian had a tendency to have subtle fights. They were both Year of the Rabbit. Their fights never seemed to go anywhere.

"Shawn's not coming," Christian said. "It will just be us." Then he frowned and it produced a subtle wrinkle between his brown eyes. "I want to do it."

Liz ran her hand up and down his back, gently. "Okay." She spoke to him like he was her son instead of her husband and I think it annoyed Christian. The guy had one year left to live – let him have a cookout.

I didn't say this though. Christian and I caught each other's eye for a second, however, like he could hear what I was thinking. Dave Matthews Band's Crash into Me was on the jukebox.

"I'd totally take over this crap on the jukebox, but I think we should just get outta here," Christian said. "There's better shit in my car." He looked down at me and I was never prepared for those big almond-shaped eyes. "Let's go. Sherry, you can just stay the night at my parents' house."

"Alright." I liked it when Christian made all the decisions. He kind of became my tour guide in life, even though I had no idea the dark places he intended on showing me.

*****

Christian sped off after we finished our third pitcher of beer. Sometimes, just for kicks, he'd switch and drive in the wrong lane for a few seconds, only getting back in the proper lane when we screamed and begged loud enough. Then he'd give that hiss of a laugh of his.

He drove us to his place first, swapped the little red car for a white truck, and then we went to my place to get my things. I told him we could do it tomorrow, but he insisted.

"You'll be able to relax more tonight if we just get this taken care of now," he said. That was Christian, taking care of everything as soon as possible. Then tonight's dinner would be epic. Maybe because Christian only had a year left to live, but he treated every dinner like his last meal.

My roommate was home, drinking a beer in the kitchen. He watched us walk to my room and Christian carry my dresser out to his car.

"What you fuckin' doin'?" Steven asked.

"Moving a dresser," Christian replied, unfazed.

"Nah, I mean her," Steven pointed at me with his beer can before chucking it into the trash.

"Just wait outside," Christian whispered to me as he went back to collect the bedframe and mattress.

*****

"You did that so fast," I said, amazed.

We were already back on the highway, on our way to their house to drop off my furniture.

"Yeah, just glad to get you out of there."

I glanced back at Liz. She was sprawled out in the backseat, heavily engrossed in Anne Rice's The Witching Hour. She read it at work too.

I supposed even though he was slender, Christian had some nice muscle tone. Maybe it was left over from his days working as a mover – a job he took between the restaurant business and TechCity.

I didn't know why Christian was doing this for me. Maybe I'd ask him later.

"I'll teach you how to drive," he said. That kind of scared me. "When you get off work, I know backroads where I could give you lessons."

"Alright," I agreed.

"Just never do this..." then he suddenly veered off into the wrong lane. Lucky for us, there was no oncoming traffic but there could have been at any second.

"Christian!" Liz yelled. She sounded very hostile with him now. Was it the driving in the wrong lane thing? Or was did it have to do with me?

He gave that hiss of a laugh and got back in the right lane before a truck pulled out of a truck stop and nearly hit us.

He stopped for gas and while he was inside, Liz started venting.

"I hate it when he does that – goes off into the wrong lane. He thinks because he's going to die soon...like he's defying death or something."

"I think he's scared," I said. She didn't respond. I turned in my seat to say, 'you know?' in an attempt to keep the conversation going, but her head was back in her book.

*****

I wasn't the only movie buff. Christian was obsessed with films and was also very opinionated. When we dropped my stuff off at his house, he grabbed his VHS copy of Swimming with Sharks, his favorite movie, and we were off. He drove us out to Boone where his parents had a huge house, apparently, with a pool and a huge backyard for cookouts. They had a bed I could have because Christian said mine "sucked" and he ended up throwing it in the dumpster. He wanted to set it on fire, but Liz and I talked him out of it. I would hear that from him in association to me – movies I liked, music I listened to – it all sucked. It was as if I was his new project and he was going to fix me – reprogram me. I didn't mind, truth be told, because it was attention, and I'd always wanted an older brother, and that was how he came across to me at first – like an older brother. Someone who would keep me straight, make sure I did what I should be doing. Maybe even hurt the person who hurt me the most, the person I hadn't been able to tell anyone about yet.

I wasn't seeking an older brother type, so much as an avenger...

*****

As we drove (sped) to the grocery store, Christian gave me a long lecture on music.

"Nine Inch Nails sucks. They took everything from Sisters of Mercy, and they suck too, because they took everything from Skinny Puppy." He went on and on.

He played Swollen Members, whom I was now a fan of after hearing them in his car before, which thrilled him to no end. He thought by me admitting I liked Swollen Members that I was also admitting how everything I liked sucked.

"One day I'll get you to admit Edward Furlong sucks."

"Never. That will never happen. I'll die first." I wished I hadn't said that. I hoped Christian didn't immediately think about his own death just a year away.

"He can't act, dude." He didn't sound upset – he was too engrossed in his own opinions. "Kevin Spacey can act. Wait until you see this movie," he said those last few words in an amused groan. "Swimming with Sharks is the best movie ever made." There was something hypnotic about the way Christian spoke.

"Hmm, that's interesting – the best movie ever made yet I've never heard of it."

"That's because you like movies that suck," he persisted.

"Guys?" Liz begged. We were clearly getting on her nerves.

After being silent for maybe two minutes, Christian listed his other favorite actors (Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Kevin Spacey) and only stopped his lecture long enough to ask if I liked barbecue sauce. I said yes.

"So, barbeque sauce doesn't suck then, I gather?" I played with him. He just gave that hissy laugh, something he also did when he didn't have a smart enough comeback for me.

"Christian's a great cook," Liz spoke up from the backseat. Christian had an entire meal planned out for the three of us, and said the hungrier we got, the better it would be. I agreed with that. I liked to make myself really hungry to the point of feeling like I'd faint and then indulge in a big meal – something so big I knew I'd never entirely finish. It could have been some psychological issue because I grew up without much to eat. Mom did the best she could though. One night she made a plate of Ritz crackers, come covered with peanut butter and others with pieces of cheese. That was dinner.

Christian had that evening's feast planned out down to the right beer and wine to go with the meal.

The road darkened and got narrower as we got closer to his parents' house. A wooden fence was on one side of the road and giant trees aligned the other side. Tree limbs hovered over us, providing a lot of shade. Even on a road like this with Deer Crossing signs, Christian still went over the speed limit. We were in the country now, with cows and horses off in the distance, dotting the property of someone's ranch.

"Sherry, have you ever heard Eminem?" Christian asked. I'd heard of him, but I was still mainly into rock n roll – heavy bands like Deftones, Marilyn Manson. Angry stuff.

"I haven't listened to him yet," I admitted.

"Do you know what he looks like?" Christian asked, amusement and interest blossoming in his tone.

"Nope."

"Do you know what race he is?" The less I knew, the more excited Christian tended to get, nearly bouncing like a toddler. Also, the more we argued about things, the more excited he seemed to get.

"No, I don't."

"Okay cool," he was darkly delighted. "We'll have to play his CD for you later."

I could not whip out my cell phone (they were still pretty much nonexistent) and look Eminem up and gather facts about him within seconds, so I just had to wait as a complete mystery built in my head.

*****

I looked at how fast Christian was going. 50. The speed limit was 25 mph. Since his folks lived way out in the country, we needed to make sure we picked up everything we needed. Then we'd hit Concord Lake Road and take it to Country Club Drive, according to Liz.

Liz pointed to a street sign. "Shady Drive," she laughed.

"That's an Eminem reference," Christian told me.

I nodded. Then, without much emotion involved in his tone, Christian said to me, "I hate my parents, Sherry." He paused, swerving again, flying right out of a blind spot and across an intersection before pulling into a huge parking lot of a grocery store called Bread and Butter. His little red car bounced up in the air when we hit a speed bump. About five different cars blew their horns at us. I wondered what we looked like to them – some strange red foreign object suddenly flying out of the woodsy country road to grab some barbeque sauce?

I was laughing really hard for the first time in years.

"Was that fun, Sherry?" Christian was practically glistening from his bad deed. "Anyway, I go there because it's a great house," he went on about his parents, "And they go to their fag dinners on Friday nights, so the place is ours tonight." Christian spoke with an ease even when he was obviously full of hate. "My sister drowned when she was nine, Sherry, and my mom wrote this fucking bestseller on grief – Floating Devices, I'm sure you've heard of it, anyway she acts all depressed, but she never once went to visit my sister's grave nor remembers when her birthday is. My mom's a cunt. My dad's an asshole." Christian paused for a second after comparing his parents to various parts of the anatomy. "My sister, to this day, is the happiest member of our family," he darkly finished.

A woman we cut off at the intersection was getting out of her car and walking over to us. She was wearing this baggy purple shirt blowing in the wind. She paired it with tights and UGG boots.

Liz closed her book in the backseat, slipping a bookmark from White Rabbits Bookstore between the pages.

"Yeah, his parents' house is fucking amazing," Liz raved. "They don't deserve it though."

We got out of the car and Christian looked over at me as he tucked his hair behind his ears. The woman in the purple shirt backed off. Maybe it was the way Christian carried himself (like a kid in black with loaded weapons about to enter a high school) but all she did was look at him as she walked by and kept to herself.

Bread and Butter was a very expensive grocery store. It was built five years ago, replacing an old movie theatre no one went to anymore. The grocery store's name was proudly displayed in orange letters across the front of the building that were big enough to be legible from the highway.

Inside, everything smelled fresh and was organized. There was even a coffee kiosk. Stock boys made an extra effort, strutting up and down the wide aisles to make sure not a single item was out of place. Every aisle looked like it had just been mopped.

On our way in, Christian grabbed a big cart, yanking it back to detach it from the line of carts, and asked me if I was allergic to anything because he made his own barbeque sauce. I said no. Did I like asparagus? I said it was okay. I honestly had never had it before, but I was too embarrassed to say. He told me I'd like his. I'd never met anyone with such subtle but solid confidence.

Christian didn't bother looking at price tags. If he liked something, he flung it into the cart. He pushed the cart along, his skinny boy muscles popping. We glanced at each other every so often before quickly looking away.

"Sherry, you want to help Liz pick out the wine?" he asked, handing us a basket for it. Christian wanted to dictate everything, which I honestly loved. He would take care of the big stuff – and he'd end up carrying it all to the car, too.

*****

"I got really good foreign beer, and some Bass too," Christian said later as he lifted the bag of booze into the car. I looked at his arms when his muscles flexed. "It's always good to have one working class beer around." Christian said.

While we drove down the country road that led to his parents' house, I caught myself glancing over at him – his high cheekbones, wide, awesome alert brown eyes and shiny dark hair. Looking at Christian was as pleasant as diving into a heated pool on a cold night.

I glanced out of the window at the scenery. Some farmhouses out here were big and abandoned with their decay a celebration of freedom, and others refurbished with ranches and horses and picket fences recently painted with a fresh coat of white. The barn houses were such a deep burgundy it looked purple. It was all beautiful for completely different reasons. I stared at a road sign that read Irish Creek Country Club 3 Mi.

I looked back at Christian. His eyes were on the road and I wondered what he was thinking. Christian was like a dark angel. I needed to put extra emphasis on the word dark. He'd had two very painful events that had already taken place in his life. That wasn't even counting the fact that he had a year to live.

What did that do to one's psyche? Knowing you had such an awful expiration date on you? Well for one, Christian drank all the time, because why not? And I'd come to find out that while he was taking me under his dark angel wing, he had his own personal reasons for it. His demons needed a punching bag...

Literally.

*****

By the time we got to his parents' house, we had seven bags of groceries and he still refused to let us carry anything. His car was packed with groceries, along with cracked cases of Sisters of Mercy and Swollen Members CDs and black shirts. He'd picked up three bottles of red wine, two cases of beer, two bags of asparagus, three things of ground beef, a box of mac and cheese and all the ingredients he'd need for barbecue sauce. For dessert, peach pie and vanilla ice cream. Everything he bought – the food and the alcohol – he expected us to finish tonight.

"Here," Christian called out to me as I got out of the car, busy looking around at the surroundings of the enormous house – the ground blanketed with leaves, a huge gazebo with a swing in it and a wraparound porch with outdoor furniture – big couches and rocking chairs. There was also a ceiling fan spinning on the roof of the porch. A grill was out in the middle of the yard amongst raked piles of leaves. A few leaves had already strayed from them and scattered back over the yard. There was a firepit near the swimming pool and an outdoor pizza oven.

I caught the shirt Christian tossed to me and he took the first round of groceries inside. He told Liz and I not to worry – he'd get them all.

Daylight was sparse. In about twenty minutes, night would fall and out here in the country, it would be pitch-black. There was a crisp smell to the air. Spring was coming. A new beginning. Would we light the firepit? Get drunk and share our darkest secrets with each other? I could hear the crickets and cicadas starting their mating call. A scent of pine from the woods and chlorine from the pool entwined and took over my senses.

I looked back down at the shirt. It looked like it had spent decades in the back of his car, getting buried under grocery bags and whatnot. It was a black shirt with the words nine inch nails: the downward spiral across the front. I smiled to myself, watched the dead leaves roll over my feet, and went in for an epic dinner.

*****

Christian was in the kitchen, busy getting everything ready. He had all of the ingredients for his barbeque sauce scattered along one of the marble stone islands of the gourmet kitchen. A chandelier hung over both islands. His parents already left for the evening, but there was a framed picture of them hanging in the hallway. His father kept a serious face. He had grey hair – but a nice thick head of it. His mom had her head back in a way that made her look snooty. She was trying to smile so perfectly. I could tell Christian got his looks from her, that perfect bone structure like he'd been carved in stone, and his nice healthy hair.

The floors of the house were a nice bright cherry wood with an almost painful shine to them. I bet they had a maid. Everything was organized and sparkling clean. I was used to not having all the members of my family in my house, but some people had extra people in theirs – maids, chefs. That must have been nice.

I looked at the island where Christian stood. He looked very focused, staring down at all the little containers. He'd brought out a mixing pan and big wooden spoon. His barbecue sauce ingredients included chocolate, ketchup, sugar, coffee, honey, vinegar, cocoa, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, chili powder, salt and pepper, coriander and cayenne.

"It's nuts, I know," he said, with his back turned. Somehow, he knew I was looking at all the little condiments questionably. I didn't even know what cayenne was. "But if one of those is missing you can tell the difference – you really can. It throws everything off, Sherry. That's why culinary school kind of blew me away."

"Wow...sucks you had to quit. Your restaurant job, I mean."

He didn't say anything. He was so quiet it was as if he'd disappeared and I had to turn and look to make sure he was still there. He was. He was looking right at me, hair brilliantly hanging over his eyes.

"Yeah. That definitely sucks." He held my gaze for a minute as he spoke, and he had a strange smile on his face, one that held a bittersweet story. Maybe he'd tell me it later.

"I think it's cool you're a projectionist," he said as we continued to look at one another. "Liz told me you even went to the gym to get into shape so you could carry all the heavy equipment."

"Yeah, thanks." I looked down at the island after a minute because Christian's gaze was quite intense. What he said was sweet though. I never got praise. "I just think it's such a cool thing, you know?" I said, staring at the island and biting my lip. I rarely opened up to people – when I did all I could hope for was that they listened. "The way all those rolls of film have to be spliced together and the light produces the picture on the big screen. It was something I took for granted as a little girl, and then when I realized the work involved and the fact that I could do it – it was awesome. I mean did you know this dude comes around on a motorcycle sometimes to deliver parts of film because there's only so many copies. Dan the Motorcycle Man, that's what we call him."

Christian was just looking at me and smiling. "You get so excited when you talk about movies."

"I love movies..."

He continued to gaze down at me, lifting his hand to barely touch my cheek with his knuckle.

"I'm glad you're here." He dropped his hand and ended the intense glare. He looked at his sauces instead, incredibly focused. "Because later we're watching Swimming with Sharks. It's gonna be a good night."

"Okay. But thank you – because no one's ever said my job was cool," I said, amazed. Bewildered. I didn't want to fall in love with Christian. Liz was my friend. Maybe I should have just left that night. Just left and spent forever up in the dark projector booth. Leave all the drama for the big screen. Instead I stayed there and mumbled on about my job. "The effort that goes into it is just amazing..."

"Same with food," he replied quickly, "I mean but totally different but..." he glanced up at me. "You get what I'm saying."

"I do get what you're saying," I said, looking right at him.

"It should pay more, your job," Christian said, still looking at me.

"Yeah right?"

"Well, now you don't have to worry about money," he said, turning his attention back to the sauce. "Go put the shirt on."

"I will." I couldn't remember where I put it. I took a deep breath. The house smelled like Pine-Sol and secrets...

Liz suddenly appeared, sliding up next to Christian. She casually looked over at the other island where the asparagus, ground beef and mac and cheese were. Christian never looked as content as he did when he was preparing a meal. He kept a subtle smile to himself as he opened all of the little containers for the sauce ingredients, taking the plastic seals off and opening them for the first time and smelling them all.

"Awakening your senses is very important before eating – and cooking," he stressed. There was a lot to do and he was just getting started. It was going to be a late night.

"Christian, let us help," Liz said.

He caressed her shoulder and looked at her sweetly.

"Just show Sherry around the house," he said, "And roll a joint, if you want. I'll meet you guys outside for a break soon." He wanted to play host and chef, refusing any help.

*****

The Merrills' house wasn't just the biggest house in Irish Creek Country Club, but the biggest house in Kannapolis, NC. It was a fact printed in a copy of Southern Living that was on the coffee table in the living room. Bestselling novelist Nancy Merrill and ex-marine Tom Merrill...the article began.

"Oh, and here," Christian handed Liz a bottle of wine. He'd opened it for us, of course. "This is the pre-dinner wine," he said. His tone of voice made everything he said sound even better.

"The Pahlmeyer is for dinner, I got two bottles. The smoky, black cherry liqueur aromas mixed with melted fudge is going to bring out the chocolate, cocoa and Worcestershire in the sauce. I'll shut up now, you ladies go enjoy yourself."

Then Liz started being funny, hooking her arm around mine and putting on her best southern accent because of Christian's "ladies" comment.

"Why I swear Maribelle, if today wasn't the longest! My back hurts and my arthritis is acting up sure as the wind blows. I'm about ready to rest my old tired self on the back porch, what do you say?" she spoke in her weary old person voice.

"Sure," I just laughed.

"We can play bingo if I'm not too tired!" she went on.

Christian laughed through his teeth.

"I need my paper fan!" Liz cried out. "It's too hot outside, Maribelle!"

"Liz hates it when someone calls her lady," Christian explained. "I was just trying to be polite," he said, his voice darkening a bit.

"We're only twenty-one," Liz reminded him in her normal voice as she took the bottle of wine and two wine glasses." Why I don't know if I can even hold all of this with my arthritis and all..." she went back to joking around.

As we headed into the living room with its fireplace and huge TV and another chandelier, I heard Christian mutter again, "I was only trying to be polite."

*****

I went into the bathroom, which was immaculate, spacious and had every single item one needed and didn't need. There were tons of candles, toiletries, an extra guest toothbrush and a vanity bench. There was even a candy bowl of chocolates. Hanging on the wall was a page from another magazine article about Mrs. Merrill. There was a picture of her sitting on the couch and four paragraphs about her bestselling novel, Floating Devices. There was a quote of hers in big bold font from the interview. "Life is full of dark moments, but you cannot let them overtake you – or else you become a dark moment."

It was cold in the bathroom. There was a clawfoot tub. A soft, thick pink rug was on the floor big enough so that my bare feet didn't have to make contact with the ice-cold tiles.

I took my shirt off and stared at my breasts in the mirror. There was once a time I had to wear a training bra. There was once a time when a boy said I had "misquote bites" for tits. Those days were over. At least in my opinion – I had nice, perky tits now and a nice round bottom. Even though I did work out, I made sure not to get too muscular. I liked my soft figure. My blonde hair was down to my shoulders. I decided to let it down, pushing the blue scrunchie into the back pocket of my jean shorts.

I pulled the Nine Inch Nails shirt on. There was a row of rusty nails along the front of the shirt beneath the words nine inch nails: the downward spiral. It felt like it had its share of tumbles in the wash. It was slightly small but looked great on me.

I sat down on the vanity, taking a few seconds for myself. I looked good in the shirt, frayed jean shorts and grey Converse.

It had been a long day and somehow it ended in the biggest house in Kannapolis. I'd moved. I'd gotten drunk at Daryl's, and now we were going to have a whole night of drinking and eating and who knew what else. I just needed a minute to process it all.

I held Christian's shirt up to my nose. It smelled faintly of autumn and cigarettes. I went back outside, and Liz was standing in the hallway with a glass of wine in her hand, staring at me like she knew – like she knew the foundation of her future was already on fire.

"Did Christian give you that?" she asked of the shirt.

"Yeah..." I looked down at it. "I didn't even think he liked Nine Inch Nails."

"He used to," she said, turning around to give me the rest of the tour which in a house like this, could take an hour. "Then he decided he'd go back in time and find something cooler so he could give people like you a lecture." Her tone was kind of cold. Colder than the bathroom.

*****

"I'll make a deal with you," my agent said over brunch in a very busy Asheville restaurant. "I'll take you to see Dark Fate if you finish your book – Mystery and Esplanade."

"I don't even know if he's going to be in it – there was this big thing about how Edward Furlong doesn't deserve a second chance. Woody Allen was accused of sexual assaulting Dylan Farrow, but he's still making movies. Yet Furlong is blacklisted for allegedly hitting a woman back in the 90s? A woman who dated him when he was still a child?"

"I never said any of that's fair, but we're talking about you." Leslie looked up from her Southwestern Omelet. I thought about ordering one more pink mimosa. I stared at the basket of biscuits that were getting cold. All I could think about was Christian. Did he die alone? Did his heart just give out while he was in that weird shed of his making machine guns? What was he planning on doing with all those guns? He'd invested in a machine that made guns. Why? I felt like he had some kind of plan...

"He's in the credits," Leslie said.

"Huh?" I looked up at her, trying to engage.

"Edward Furlong. I checked the IMDB page. That is a big deal – I think it's great, and with the newborn and everything, you know, I don't get out much. I don't know the last time I was at the movies," Leslie went on, stroking the stem of her wine glass. "Bill's all about Netflix," she laughed.

"You think that's why everyone has ADD now?" I mentioned. "Because of stuff like Netflix and the internet and stuff? Like there's so many options, you know? We can't settle. We don't have to. You start watching a film on Netflix and you're thinking maybe there's something better – I don't have to watch this. Then you just spend all your time looking at stuff, flipping through stuff on Netflix or on your phone, unable to concentrate, get lost – escape. When there used to be a time when you'd go to see ONE movie and sit there and watch every second and enjoy it, and fret that you missed an important scene while you were in the bathroom and you'd look at your friend after returning to your seat and he's like all heavily invested in the film, because you know, it's halfway through at that point, and all the good stuff was happening – the guts were coming out – and you didn't want to interrupt his focus but you also wanted to know if you missed the part where John Travolta and Uma Thurman do that cool dance in Pulp Fiction, or did the Blair Witch actually, you know, show up in the woods so you finally knew what she looked like, or did Eminem win the rap battle? Or...something."

I realized I'd been rambling. Leslie was sitting there, her fork in front of her mouth, as she stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Sure...yeah, I guess," she said once I finally stopped talking, and then all the sounds came back to me – the busy restaurant, all the other conversations, the clattering of dishes, the phone ringing, the busboy piling dishes into his wet bus tub. "But what are we gonna do?" Leslie rounded up. "This is just how it is now."

"Yeah..."

"Anyway, your dude's definitely in it," she assured. "Dark Fate."

I wished she'd stop saying "Dark Fate," even though that was the name of the film.

"As himself?" I asked. "Like now? As his 42-year old self? He's been body-shamed a lot. I doubt they'd just..."

"Sherry," Leslie politely interrupted. I didn't like her concerned tone. It was like my nose was suddenly bleeding and I didn't know. "I think you're focused on the wrong things. You're always in the wrong car, with the wrong guy, doing the wrong thing. This is an opportunity to do something right – I have a publisher interested in your book." Those last eight words should make any writer cream their pants, but I just wasn't satisfied.

"It just feels so forced – that book," I said, playing with a piece of cold egg with my fork. It eventually fell off the plate to leave a greasy spot on an otherwise flawless white doily. "I'm used to writing from the heart," I said, still staring at the piece of egg.

"Why do you think Esplanade isn't from the heart?"

"I don't know." I looked around the restaurant, frustrated. The waitress was looking at us. She'd collected our plates nearly an hour ago and we were still there, nursing our drinks.

"Have you ever had great sex?" I asked. Leslie looked terrified that I was about to rant now about sex like I'd ranted about Netflix causing America to have ADD. "I mean sex so good it felt like you'd been completely ripped open and remade over again. You felt like a new person after. Your skin felt sensitive to everything for days after..."

She was just staring at me like nothing computed. Bill probably wasn't the most amazing lover on the planet.

"I mean...no."

"I did. At Thunderbird Drive-In and I'm not talking about that skateboarder Dayton, either, although..." I still didn't have the right word to describe what that experienced had been like, but it did haunt me.

"I know, but I can't justify having sex with a married man," Leslie lectured. "That's why I'm not going near your Edward Furlong book. Mystery and Esplanade, however, I love and think it has promise. It can take you somewhere with your writing career, Sherry."

I looked down at the table. The waitress dropped off my leftovers, neatly packed away and placed in a huge paper bag. Ever since the Days of Christian, I'd gotten used to having big meals – more than I needed. It was comforting when everything else in life felt lacking.

"I don't even know what Mystery and Esplanade is." Now I was just doubting myself and sulking.

"It's an amazing thriller," Leslie stressed as she stood up and started gathering her things, which included a scarf for autumn and the third draft for Mystery and Esplanade. "A drifter now in danger because she's being stalked by a serial killer in New Orleans – it has that old classic Hitchcock vibe to it," she said as she stood up and threw on her nice fall coat. "Finish it." She urged before leaving. "And we'll have an amazing night out to celebrate."

She meant Dark Fate. She knew I was a movie buff, especially if Edward Furlong was going to be in the film. But was he? I heard it was a very brief appearance. There was even a rumor going around that John Connor was going to die in it – that it was some digitized version of him, and they didn't even use his real voice. Who out there sounded like Furlong? Regardless, Edward Furlong was excited for the opportunity to be in the film. Imagine that? Imagine being grateful to be in a film that's part of a franchise that made your career, and the whole reason behind it was that the character was going to die.

*****

The smell of southern cooking (homemade buttery biscuits, loaded potato cracklins, honey chipotle wings, eggs betty, sweet potato pancakes, your grandma's homemade cookies, picnic chicken salad, and pecan style French toast) drifted up from the to-go bag as I placed it down on my kitchen counter. It was a lot of food. I didn't go grocery shopping, because I still didn't drive. An average day was spent writing and ordering in.

I placed it in the fridge for later and went into the living room, in the part that used to be a dining room. I had a huge wooden table covered by a vintage tablecloth from the 1970s. I grinned as I thought about what Christian would say about it – the crazy lemon pattern. He'd say that it sucked, no doubt.

I sat down with my evening glass of wine and brought up the final draft for Mystery and Esplanade. All the little red squiggly lines to highlight typos were gone. It was nearly complete. The New Orleans mystery of who killed the girl and left her body in the parking lot of the abandoned Holiday Inn was solved. It was a polished thriller coming in at 85,000 words. A book I felt absolutely nothing for.

I messaged Leslie. I guess it's done, was the entirety of my enthusiastic text. She messaged right back and agreed to buy advance tickets for Dark Fate. Which theatre did I want to go to? I opted for an IMAX one. There weren't many other options, besides I did want the biggest brightest screen and best surround sound system if Edward Furlong was really going to show up in the film.

I brought up my Edward Furlong manuscript and Christian's Facebook page and poured another glass of red wine from a bottle of Chloe – nothing fancy, but it did the job. Eventually, I went up to the spare room and took out the box labeled "Clothes from the 90s" in black sharpie. I started digging stuff out – my old Smashing Pumpkins shirt, those grass-stained shorts, very nineties chokers, finally coming across the Nine Inch Nails shirt Christian gave me. I took a long, hot shower, slipped the shirt on over my clean, warm body and went to bed.

*****

Christian was rich, or his parents were anyway. I never would have guessed though if I hadn't gone to his house that night for the epic cookout. Christian didn't carry himself like he came from money. His black jeans were frayed at the knee, his black boots were so dusty they were almost grey, sometimes he preferred to hunt and kill his own food, and his car was from the 80s.

I hung out on the couch in the living room. Liz had gone upstairs to the guest bedroom to lie down – sometimes she got terrible migraines. It had been decided that I'd sleep in the living room, on the convertible sofa tonight.

I glanced outside. The walkway to the porch was lit up with lily flower solar garden stake lights. I didn't even know such a thing existed – that one could buy little electric flowers to light the way. It was dark out and we hadn't even taken anything out grill-wise. I saw Christian out on the patio sitting in the rocking chair. He was leaning forward so his hair hid his face. He looked to be in deep thought over something. Sauce? His looming death sentence? I watched as a curl of cigarette smoke left his lips. It was the most beautiful three seconds of watching someone besides my favorite actor in his movies.

Christian stood up, crushed his cigarette under his shoe and came back in the house. I looked through the magazine collection. I read an article on the Bill Clinton trial, got bored, tossed it down and looked up to find Christian looking at me as he leaned against the doorframe. He had the wooden spoon in his hand. It was dripping of dark brown sauce. He held his other hand under it to keep it from dripping on the floor. Little drops collected on his palm. I pictured myself licking it clean before he pulled me by my hair and bit my neck open. Christian was a vampire. He'd already killed Liz. She wasn't upstairs asleep; he'd drained her of her blood. Now he'd take me off somewhere into the woods, or maybe to an abandoned farmhouse, and kill me slowly.

Once my dramatic, overworking imagination stopped, the smell of that delicious sauce traveled up my nose and took over my senses.

Christian's legs were crossed at the ankle, and his beautiful feet were bare. He looked at me, his eyes the same color as the sauce.

"Come taste this," he told me before turning and heading back into the huge, glamorous kitchen.

I followed him. Now that it was dark out, the chandelier gleamed in all its glory. Normally I'd wish for socks to wear on a hardwood floor, but The Merrills' floor was spotless – not a speck of dust. There was nothing out of place. In the living room, there was a giant oil painting on the wall of a girl looking quite sad. It actually gave me the creeps – her face didn't seem to have any real detail other than her sad brown eyes. The rest of her face just seemed to droop away into a shadow. But those eyes watched me as I left the living room and went into the kitchen.

"What's with that painting?" I asked Christian as he leaned against the stove. Things were quiet. It was as if we were the only two people left on earth.

"My freak of a mother got it at a yard sale," he said in his hoarse, bitter voice. He looked at me before dipping the spoon back into the saucepan. The sauce looked so yummy and had a smoky scent to it. My stomach growled wildly. I didn't bother eating today, I just did a lot of drinking and moved my things in the heat. The wine was making me quite buzzy too.

"A week after she bought it my sister drowned," Christian gave me the dark fact. "I hate that thing. To be honest with you, that's why I don't go in the living room."

Now I didn't want to go back in the living room – and I was supposed to sleep there tonight.

"Anyway, the sauce is done," he announced proudly.

"It smells amazing," I commented.

"Yeah, I probably made too much," he said.

"Is it good? Because if it's good you can't have too much."

"Well let's see, open your mouth..." Christian scooped up a spoonful of the sauce as I opened my mouth.

"The shirt looks really good on you, by the way," he said, his voice low so only I could hear. Then he did it – he pinched the sleeve of my shirt, giving it a little tug, then after he let go, his knuckles barely brushed my left nipple. I stood completely still and shut my eyes, still feeling him watching me. When I opened them, he was blowing on the spoon.

"Let me make sure it's not too hot," he said. He tried it first so that I didn't burn my tongue. I stood there waiting for my turn, my panties a little damp. I wanted him to touch me again even though I knew it was wrong.

"Okay, try it," his voice was scratchy as he spoke, holding the spoon in front of my lips, his hand beneath it so nothing dropped on my bare feet. He slipped it over my tongue and a puddle of warm, thick sauce spilled over it. It was a perfectly combined taste of smokiness and chocolate.

"Mmm..." I looked up at him. He had such a still gaze on me.

"You like that?" he whispered.

"Yeah." I had no idea such a sauce could be made, and I imagined perfectly cooked steak (my preference was medium rare) smothered in the stuff and my stomach started growling loudly and I laughed out of embarrassment. Christian smiled down at me.

"Hungry?" he said.

"Yes." My face was a vibrant red.

"Alright, I'll try and get this all going."

But right now, we just kept looking at each other, transfixed. Caught in the red glow of the crush. He ran his thumb along my bottom lip to collect some sauce.

"Open, don't waste a drop, understand?" his stern tone rattled me. I shut my eyes and parted my lips and his thumb slipped into my mouth.

Part 4

Steakhouse-worthy

My phone rang, lifting me out of a food coma I was slipping into. An episode of Breaking Bad played in the background (the one when Marie started going to open house events and lying about her life and a great montage occurred when the spoon was discovered missing and a grief-stricken Jesse Pinkman was playing bumper cars.) A pumpkin spice candle burned in the kitchen, a subtle aroma traveling into my huge living room.

I'd finished all my leftovers from brunch plus two glasses of wine. It was a beautiful dinner, but it didn't exactly replace the feel of strong arms around me, hair that smelled of rain, an affair in an abandoned drive-in. It was very cold tonight too, making me pine for a lover even more.

I pulled the frayed sleeve of my flannel shirt down over my wrists. On my right wrist I had the words Hold on Tight tattooed (Furlong's album) and those scars from when I was a teen and took a box cutter to my wrists.

"Yes?" I answered my phone, sounding awfully tired – as if all of that emotion was coming back. The awkward, shy misunderstood teen falling in love with the cool skater boy so good at lying he should have been sent to prison. So good looking. So detached from his emotions that I sometimes compared Dayton to Michael Myers.

"Hello," Leslie's cheerful voice rung out. She always spoke in the same tone of voice. Positive openness. Her vibe was that of a wedding reception. If she were a drink, she'd be champagne.

"Hey."

I would probably be a sour IPA.

"How are you?" she inquired.

"I'm alright...probably gonna turn in soon," I said. I looked outside. The sky was a mask of grey. Every so often I got a little creeped out being out here all alone by the woods. Hopefully there was a new SNL on tonight, and I could get cozy in bed and watch until I fell asleep. There was, Billie Eilish and Woody Harrelson. At last I smiled.

"I just wanted to remind you to use and instead of so."

"Huh?" I turned the TV down a little.

"Your writing," Leslie said, her tone that of a teacher's. "You have a horrible habit of using the word so instead of and."

"So?" I said, being cute.

"Sherry," she said my name the way she did over brunch.

I took my plate into the kitchen. I wasn't in the mood for criticism, especially right before bed time. I wanted deep dick action, not a grammar lesson.  
"Okay," I said, trying to remain calm.

"For example, when you write he placed his hand on the back of my neck so to keep me still. You could just say he placed his hand on the back of my neck and kept me still."

"Sure, sure, yeah," I said, turning the hot water on so to loosen all the gunk on the plate. I couldn't bother with soap or a sponge tonight.

*****

"Are you seeing the movie with me?" I asked yet again. We were about fifteen minutes away from The Rainy Day Theatre, terrorizing other drivers with Christian's speeding habit.

Christian switched gears, yanking the clutch around so his bicep flexed. His hair was in his face. It was hot and his face was glistening with fresh sweat. He still didn't respond. A Camel Red hung from his perfect little teeth. I didn't know if he heard what I said, or just wasn't going to talk to me. It was awkward, I could hear myself repeating the last question over and over even though I wasn't. And it would stay that way until he spoke.

So, I asked him something else.

"You don't work today?"

"Sherry," he said in a very dispirited tone. "I already have a sucky mother and nagging wife in my life, you don't need to worry about what I'm doing." He glanced at me, taking his eyes completely off the road. "I just want to hang out with you today."

"Oh..." I stared at the speedometer. Christian was doing 60 miles per hour and he was supposed to be doing 40. He made a sharp turn onto a woodsy street that must have been a shortcut, but I'd certainly never taken it before.

"So, you are going to see this movie with me?" I smiled a little, hoping it would rub off.

"No, it'll suck." His voice was a deep pit of certainty. He grew quiet again, licking his lips and frowning at the road ahead.

"It's a fun movie, Christian. I think you need to have some fun. I know things have been tense lately."

He laughed. "You think seeing a movie about KISS with your little pipsqueak stoner guy will make me feel better?" he glanced at me again.

"UGH! What did you call him? I should hit you."

"Yeah, hit me while I'm driving, real smooth."

"It wouldn't matter, the way you drive we'll both die anyway."

He didn't say anything.

"Is that why you do this? Because you're going to die?" I wanted a reaction from him – something more than cool glances and shrugs.

He still didn't speak, he just zoomed forward, crossing an intersection and flying into the shopping center where the movie theatre was. A few drivers honked at us but then they were gone, going to wherever the fading day took them. Christian remained unfazed. He pulled up to the box office and waited for me to get out.

"I'll pick you up after, even though you still suck," he said.

"Okay, thanks..." I started to get out of the car but stopped. I didn't want to watch the movie alone. I shut the door and stayed in the car.

"Look, I know you're hurting. No one's ever as okay as they let on."

Christian just sat there, incredibly quiet.

"Just say something," I begged.

"I'm scared," he finally spoke. I could almost hear his wall crumble. I looked up at him to find his big brown eyes peering down at me. "Yeah, okay?" he held a hand out and sounded defensive now. "I have a year left and I don't feel like I've lived my best day yet...not even close." His voice trailed off as he looked off into the distance. Besides the Rainy Day Theatre, the shopping center offered a Burlington Coat Factory, a Dairy Queen and a Tower Records.

"I don't know why I married Liz," Christian eventually spoke again. "Isn't that horrible? I don't know what I'm doing. I guess I thought she's cool, she'll do. Then the plan was to have kids – my mom wants grandchildren, you know, before I die. That doesn't exactly give me a lot of time. So...we had a kid."

I just stared at him, obviously wondering where the kid was.

"He died. He...Brandon. He was three weeks old. We couldn't even keep a kid alive longer than that. I..." he paused. Someone behind us was honking. He sped up into a parking space, jerked the stick and yanked the keys from the ignition. He sat there in silence for a few unsettling seconds. "This is very hard...to talk about."

"If you don't want to..."

"I need to. I need you to understand me. He died of SIDS – sudden infant death syndrome. I woke up the next morning to Liz just screaming. I never want to hear someone scream like that...again. Ever. And now, because my mom is coldhearted and selfish, she's pressuring us to try again. She's offered us the house – they're going on some lavish vacation soon and said we can stay there. Yeah sure, because I want to fuck in my parents' house where my sister died." His sarcasm was quite sharp. He calmed down after a minute. "Nothing makes sense, Sherry." He paused, eyes on the electric red Tower Records sign. His hand was on the stick shift, but his keys weren't in the ignition. Was he going to stay or was he going to go? These typical questions about guys. These grey clouds...

"It's only been two years since...and I just can't," he eyed me. "I can't go through having another baby and wondering if it's going to die in the middle of the night so...maybe I'm looking for a way out." He glanced at me like I was his way out. His escape. I looked at him like he was an Edward Furlong movie. "Because, to be honest with you, I don't want to have a kid I won't be around to raise. I won't be able to teach him how to be a stand-up fucking guy. Or if it's a girl – I won't be there to protect her..."

"That's all understandable."

"Is it?" he asked, looking directly in my eye. "No one seems to think so."

"I do. You have one year left, Christian. You should do what makes you happy." I reached over and ran my fingers through his hair and he slowly leaned into me, letting all of his troubles roll off his shoulders.

"That feels good," he moaned.

"Yeah?"

I was holding him now and his eyes were closed. There we were in the parking lot with the sun going down on us. I hated missing the previews. The entire process of seeing a film was a religious experience for me. From the second I walked onto the terrible carpet and smelled the fresh popcorn to the second I walked out after all the credits had rolled, the lights came back on and the ushers rushed down the aisle to collect the trash left behind. I didn't just not want to miss the previews, I wanted to be in the auditorium while the lights were still on, long before the feature started so I could hear people walking across the sticky floor as they picked out their seats. I wanted to smell the cold soda and warm popcorn. I wanted to feel the anticipation build. Have time to go to the bathroom or get a last-minute snack and be back in my seat before the lights went down and the curtains parted to reveal the big screen.

"I think you should see this movie with me, Christian," I said, my fingers still combing his hair. His eyes were open now. He actually looked calm.

"I don't know..." he sounded on the verge of agreeing with me. I just needed to nag a little more.

"It's a fun movie," I said as he sat up. I was so afraid he'd start the car and push me out. "It takes place in the 70s, it's just about some kids going to a show, doesn't that sound like fun?"

He got out of the car and walked to the box office. I was thrilled and skipped along next to him. It was humid – the sky was an electric blue with strokes of pink.

"You owe me for this," he mumbled. I just smiled and started to cling to his arm but stopped myself.

*****

I was glad we were seeing the 7 p.m. show for Detroit Rock City verses a matinee. It would be dark when we walked out – maybe we could go somewhere after and talk about the film, our favorite parts, etc.

"You're seeing Fight Club with me when it comes out," Christian decided as we walked towards the box office. A line was gathering. Some people were looking up at the features that were playing like they were trying to decide what to see. That was baffling to me – I always knew what I wanted to see at least a week in advance. I remember flipping through the local section of the Salisbury Post as a teenager, looking at the Coming Soon movie listing.

"Okay," I replied to Christian. I had no problem with seeing Fight Club. I did watch other films; films Furlong wasn't in – just not that many.

"Thirty times," Christian added in that Christian Merrill way. I laughed. Then he put his arm around me and then the other and suddenly I was in a tight hold against his body. He was hard. I didn't know how to react. I sort of squirmed in Christian's hold and rubbed against him at the same time. "This is happening," he whispered in my ear, holding me tight. "And as much as you suck, I'm glad we met." He gave me a peck on the cheek before he released me. I felt his stubble that I couldn't see, against my cheek. His smell – cigarettes and cheap shampoo – stamped my clothes.

"I read the book," I said, once I'd pulled myself together. I was a little rattled by the hug. I did like Christian, but he was married. To my friend.

As the line moved, I tried not to think about what that morning must have been like for them – finding their dead son in the crib. The devastation. The rollercoaster of new life and sudden death. The impact that must have had on them both. How did that not drive someone mad? Did they blame themselves? Did they blame each other?

I tried not to think about it. The movie would offer a perfect distraction.

"The book for Fight Club," I went on. "So, the movie should be good."

Christian was looking down at me. His gaze somehow both calm and intense. "Cool," he said without looking away. The wind took strands of his long dark hair and pulled them across his face. It was the first time Christian said "cool" in response to something I said instead of insulting me. "I read the book too," he added.

*****

A couple of months prior to Detroit Rock City's release, a scathing article appeared in the New York Post. "Terminator 2 kid star Eddie Furlong beat and abused his cradle-robbing girlfriend during the years they lived together, his angry ex charges," the article began.

I kind of wanted to rewrite the article: "Teacher too old to date Furlong finally gets what she had coming."

Jackie Domac claimed that the fights occurred in their Sherman Oaks house. Furlong would start screaming at her before throwing objects around the house in a sudden and vicious tantrum before he pinned her to the bed and beat her in the head with his fists.

Besides charging him with domestic battery, Domac also demanded to be paid for her work as Furlong's "manager" even though there was nothing anywhere proving she'd taken on such a role, and even though he'd been supporting her, not to mention she lived with him rent-free. She insisted she be paid 15 percent of every film's earning he made in the last three years including the juggernaut American History X and John Waters' Pecker.

However, in 2003, an article would appear in the Los Angeles Times called All the News That's Fit to Print and Won't Upset the Faculty. Throughout Jackie Domac's focus on being Eddie Furlong's "manager" she was also still a health teacher. Her number one priority was banning junk food from the Venice High School campus. Reporters for the Venice High School newspaper, Naldy Estrada and Julio Robles, took it upon themselves to go to the Los Angeles County courthouse after finding articles online about Jackie's affair with Furlong, including pictures of them hugging and kissing. She was a teacher after all, around teenagers all the time, so their concern about what was being served in the cafeteria shifted a bit. Now a health teacher had a statutory rape accusation against her. When they discovered that Domac had a "quasi-spousal" relationship with a sixteen-year old boy (Furlong) they thought it best to make sure parents and faculty knew about it.

At the courthouse they found out that on December of 1995, Domac was arrested for "being combative and yelling profanities" at Furlong, and she even became violent with officers – kicking and punching them. It was the exact same thing she accused Edward Furlong of doing to her. She was convicted of disturbing the peace, but the charge was eventually expunged from her record.

Estrada and Robles later presented their findings on Domac to the principal of Venice High, Janice Davis. Davis told them they were not allowed to use their tape recorder during a sit down with Domac's union representative. They were also told by Jackie Domac's representative that they did not have the right to portray Domac in such a dark light and were ordered to stop gathering information on her.

In 1996, a year after Domac was arrested, Before and After was released. It was Furlong's 8th film following The Grass Harp. Despite the film's cast (Meryl Streep, Liam Neeson) the film flopped, grossing only 8.8 million in ticket sales. The film meant a lot to me, however, and not because I saw it in the theatre. I don't think it got a wide release. I watched it on TV one night. It was one of the few things I watched with my mom. It was one of the few times she seemed alert – not staring out of some window, missing her dead sister.

*****

Whatever occurred in that Sherman Oaks house, whoever yelled profanities and threw punches, the fact of the matter was that Furlong was finally free of Domac and it was easy to see the weight had been lifted from his shoulders in Detroit Rock City, a fun-loving film about teenage boys in a band wanting to see their biggest influence – KISS. It didn't seem that Edward Furlong's career was over even though he had filmed eleven films by now. That meant he'd filmed eleven films in nine years. And just around the corner was the prison film, Animal Factory.

Detroit Rock City also stared Natasha Lyonne, whom Furlong began dating at the time, shortly before he dated Paris Hilton, which would kick off a bar fight between the two starlets, one claiming to the other, "he belonged to me first!" But this was supposed to be happening – these were the melodramatics Furlong should be enjoying, not being groomed by a health teacher while filming his first movie that would kick off his career and the downward spiral waiting in the distance, just like the charred ruins of the set surrounding him in 1991.

*****

It was 1999 now, and whatever was left of the 90s was going to be enjoyed. Even though Detroit Rock City took place in the 1970s, the free-spirited vibe seemed to be the same.

In Detroit Rock City, Furlong played Hawk, the singer in his friends KISS cover band. Furlong did at one time, when he was first starting his acting career, express interest in being a musician. He released an album, Hold on Tight, in Japan in October of 1992, when his uncle was freaking out about money and who he could fly there first-class. One of the other songs featured on the album was a cover of The Doors People Are Strange.

The role as Hawk just seemed to suit him. His hair was the perfect shag, he spoke in that sexy slacker voice, always with a cigarette burning in his hand, he had a strip scene, he slept with an older woman and talked about his mom who died giving birth to him (the scene didn't make the final cut.)

Christian leaned forward to order the tickets.

"Yeah two for the gayest movie you have," was how he said it when the box office girl asked us what we were seeing.

"Detroit Rock City," I clarified before jabbing him in the side with my elbow. I was handed our free tickets.

"Don't tell Liz – don't tell anyone," he warned. "I mean it, I don't want anyone knowing I saw this."

I rolled my eyes and opened the door, gleefully walking into the wonderful warm smell of fresh popcorn. It felt like a hug from a dear friend. One of the new girls was pushing around the Electric Shark. The cinema was like a different world. Calm, yet exciting. In every auditorium was a different story being told, everyone's eyes looking at the screen. At least for two hours, total strangers were quiet together, enjoying the same thing.

We made our way to the concession stand and ordered the biggest thing of popcorn available, the biggest Dr. Pepper and a box of miniature Snicker bars. The concession stand girl neatly placed it all in a snack tray. Wrinkled hot dogs twirled around in the hot dog machine. The Rainy Day Theatre had a huge banner of a little girl holding her mother's hand in the rain, running to the box office. The banner was hung in the lobby. The theatre played cool music. It wasn't mandatory that the song be on a movie soundtrack. Right now, Billy Idol's Eyes Without a Face was playing.

"Oh my god, I love this song," I exclaimed.

"God, you suck," Christian said, but there was some affection in his tone that time.

I stared down at the floor. I knew what was happening. It was growing, this crush. Those grey clouds were starting to break. I felt like he was going to take my hand. I felt like he was going to invite me to his parents' house when they were on vacation.

"How is it that movie theatres manage to find the ugliest carpet?" I nervously bantered.

"Yeah, it's just their thing I guess," he said, laughing a little as his voice trailed off. What was he really thinking about? I loved the way he talked, I loved how his voice got even deeper when he said the last word. I found myself wanting to touch him. He'd probably try and kiss me again in the dark auditorium. People always made out during movies.

We sat in the third row from the screen. Christian dropped his pack of Twizzlers in his lap and stretched his arms around the back of the seats so one arm was behind me. It was a slow process, but eventually he wrapped his arm around me and brought me into him.

Being in a cold, dark auditorium again thrilled me. It felt like home, especially knowing I'd be watching Edward Furlong. I hadn't seen him in anything since Brainscan. I was going to be reunited with my first love – on screen anyway.

As the lights went down and the light from the projector beamed from the projector booth window, I slowly leaned into Christian. I was finally lost in the dark, snug pocket of entertainment.

"I missed American History X," I shared in a quieter voice now that the previews were starting.

"You would miss the only half-decent thing he's done," Christian mumbled. I looked behind us. There were four or five other people in the auditorium, their heads just dark circles under the white ghostly glare of the projector.

"I'm gonna tell Liz tonight..." he said as I pressed my face against his warm neck. It was always a bit too cold in movie theatres, so being close to him was extra special. "Tell her...about us?" I asked, reaching into the bucket of popcorn. He put his arm around me.

"Yeah," he looked down at me. I knew he was going to kiss me soon and I prepared myself. Because boys never just kissed, they did other things with their hands, grabbing and groping and getting more aggressive by the second.

"What are you gonna say, exactly?" I looked back at him, wanting him to. He didn't respond right away, he just kept looking at me like I was a big screen lighting up with a motion picture. He started touching my face and I shut my eyes.

"That I have one year left to live," he said. "And I want to spend it with you." Then he picked up some popcorn and waited for me to open my mouth and placed a few pieces of perfectly cooked buttery popcorn on my tongue. He picked up some more popcorn and held it up to my mouth and started to feed it to me before pulling his hand away.

"Say please," he said, his voice soft.

"Please..." I begged. He started to feed me but then he leaned forward and got his kiss that time. I gave in. The kiss was wonderful. His hand was on my hip and I got a big whiff of that smell, trying to identify the shampoo he used.

"What shampoo do you use?"

He looked at me like he couldn't believe that was what I was asking.

"Herbal Essences," he said, his voice soft and scratchy. "It's Liz's..."

"What's the scent though?"

"Ocean spray...or something," he said before leaning into kiss me again. The kiss was long, my open to let his tongue in, his fingers against the back of my neck, his other hand slowly making its way up my thigh. He tasted like candy (raspberry Twizzlers) and smelled like girl shampoo.

"Oh..." I sighed.

"I'm gonna tell Liz," he whispered in my ear. "And then I'm gonna take you somewhere and fuck you so hard," he informed.

*****

When the movie was over, Christian stood up and said, "That was terrible, and you owe me."

"Oh, come on!" I said, following him up the aisle. The doors in the back opened and light poured down the aisle. The lid to the giant trashcan was open and the smell of garbage, along the with the awful smell of scented garbage bags, replaced the smell of fresh popcorn.

"You didn't even like the part where Furlong vomited and stripped?"

"You're sick, Sherry," Christian stated. Then he placed his hand on the back of my neck as we walked out into the lobby. It was quick and sudden, his fingers pressing firmly into my flesh. "Sicko," he said in a low sort of groan.

We drove to a faraway diner that turned out to be Moonbeam Diner, the very place where Liz and Christian met. It was just as Liz described – a charming diner randomly placed in a bad neighborhood. It glowed with warm light and smelled of warm. good ol' American diner food – fries, burgers, shakes. The 50s-style diner was the perfect place to go to after a movie to discuss it.

"Okay," I smiled as Christian grabbed the giant laminated menus behind the napkin dispenser and placed them on the table. There were images of burgers and crinkled fries, bowls of soup, chili, BLTs and shakes made with homemade ice cream.

"We can talk about the movie now – what was your favorite part?" I didn't know why I bothered asking him that, but the best part about seeing a movie was discussing it after, letting each scene roll around on your brain like a delicious piece of food tumbling around on your tongue.

"The Fight Club trailer," he said, his voice as scratchy as ever. I could tell he was horny. He kept looking at the young blonde waitress in the tight pink skirt. On our way here, he touched my knee at every traffic light.

"Come on, Christian," I smirked, "You must have enjoyed something to do with the actual movie."

He looked at the waitress again. She was too curvy for the uniform. Her tits and ass jiggled when she brought plates to her tables.

"Natasha Lyonne is cool I guess," Christian mumbled. Then he looked back at me. "But the movie was stupid. You're still totally unforgiven and you owe me and will spend the rest of your life doing what I say for making me suffer like that."

"Christian," I laughed, but he didn't seem to be kidding.

"Oh – oh wait, you want me to say something about your favorite actor," Christian spoke. "Yes, I thought the way his hair hung in his face was groundbreaking."

"Me too," I grinned. Christian rolled his eyes.

The blonde waitress came over to take our order. Christian rested his elbow on the table, his chin on his fist, and gave her those puppy dog eyes.

"Hey, you two, what can I getcha?" she asked, removing the ink pen from behind her ear. She had the classic waitress look down.

"I'll have the chili," I said.

She jotted it down and turned to Christian.

"The BLT, thanks," Christian said.

"How you doin' sugar?" she asked him. Apparently, Christian was a regular.

"Okay I guess."

"You gonna keep this one?" she pointed at me with the pen.

Christian eyed me like he'd never considered it before – keeping me. What were his intentions? With me, with Liz, with anyone?

"Yeah," Christian eventually replied. "Unless she leaves me for Edward Furlong."

"Ha!" the waitress laughed. "Well I don't know about him but now Brad Pitt maybe!" she laughed so loud her mouth opened wide enough to see her piece of chewing gum. Then she pounded her fist into Christian's arm. "You cute but you ain't no Brad Pitt!"

"Okay," Christian just smiled like he wasn't insulted. "Thanks, Darla."

"Alright, I'll have your order up soon," Darla said.

"Oh, can I get a vanilla shake?" I asked before she rushed off.

"Me too," Christian said.

I looked out the window. It was starting to rain.

Christian looked across the table at me and scratched his head. "Maybe he's your soulmate," he shrugged.

"Who? Edward Furlong?"

"Yeah, I mean, could be," he shrugged, his eyes wide and focused on just me. "You both suck; so...there's that."

"Give me a break," I said. His insults didn't get to me anymore. "You don't believe in that shit – soulmates."

He laughed and played with his hair some more.

"Do you ever think about cutting it?" I asked, studying his healthy skater-style cut.

"Fuck no," he gave me quite a mean look. "How do you think I got twenty girlfriends at once?"

"You brought them all here," I assumed.

"Not all the time but yeah, this was my go-to place. It was – and now you're gonna know how much of an asshole I am – the decision place, like I'd get to know them a little and decide if they were steakhouse- worthy."

I had no idea what to say so I just laughed.

"You are an asshole!" I eventually yelled.

"Yeah, a horny one. Then, if they were steakhouse-worthy, I'd take them to Longhorn or whatever, there was this one girl that liked to shop at Casual Corner so I'd take her to the Olive Garden nearby, anyway then I'd take them home and fuck them. Sarah had the best tits on the planet and one night she wore this tight white blouse and it just went so well with the brown leather décor of the steakhouse. I couldn't wait to fuck her. I couldn't wait until she was under me, her blouse unbuttoned and those eyes big with shock as I pounded her."

I was horny now too.

The waitress returned with our vanilla shakes. The paper cups were cold and filled to the rim. Two giant pink straws accompanied them.

"Do you still talk to other girls?" I asked. I could do that. I wasn't his wife. I had no emotional attachment. I did like Christian, but I wouldn't call it love.

I took a sip of the cold creamy milkshake.

"What was your favorite part?" he asked. "Of the movie?"

Okay, maybe I was in love. He just asked my favorite question on earth. What was your favorite part of the movie?

"The part with Edward Furlong," I laughed. Christian sighed and looked away.

"I guess when he had pizza in his hair," I specified.

"God you're a dork."

And that was how he avoided ever answering my question about whether he still talked to other girls.

*****

I was now dipping my fries into the vanilla shake. The place was cool. They played Patsy Cline and never closed.

"You know, you've shared a dark story about you so maybe I should share one with you about me," I decided. "I didn't have the best time growing up. In fact..." I dipped another fry. He watched me patiently, listening. "Most of the time it was hell. My father wasn't around and..."

"I know, your mom was institutionalized," Christian said in a soft voice that, dare I say, was sensitive.

"Well yeah but before that happened...my chiropractor convinced me to lift my shirt one day because he said the teacher told him to check my breasts...that...they might be uneven because of my scoliosis."

Christian got this new sharp look in his eye.

"It was such bullshit but...I did it. He groped me. I just sat there, frozen. The stupid...paper sheet they put on the examination table...kept moving around under me. And it was so fucking cold in that room. And then my best friend's father was shot and paralyzed. It was all just – fucked up. I kept asking myself how come my chiropractor wasn't the one in a fucking wheelchair? But life doesn't offer any answers – just escape. Movies. Fiction. Whatever. The only time I was happy was when I was sitting in that auditorium watching his films..." I got quiet for a second. "When Kurt Cobain killed himself, whenever someone made fun of me, when Dayton...I'd just go and sit in there and everything would just disappear."

Christian was very quiet, just staring at me as if I were still talking. I wondered what he was thinking.

"I'm sorry, Sherry," he eventually spoke. "But you seem like a tough person. You are. I kind of knew that when I saw you walking down the highway. I said to myself now there's a tough chick and I should probably have kept going because...I'm an asshole, but..."

"I'm glad you stopped," I said. He looked at me like he didn't believe me.

"I lost my virginity in a projector booth," I shared.

Christian laughed at that.

"Jesus, you really did spend all your time at the movies."

I laughed too. "Yeah. Yeah, dude."

He was looking at me like I was still talking, and he was listening even though I wasn't saying anything. Then he leaned back and got this stupid grin all over his face.

"When Liz told me she worked with a girl who was

obsessed with Edward Furlong I was like she must be insane."

"Why do you hate him so much?" I asked.

"I don't..." he actually sounded sincere. "I just think he's overrated. Kid stars get picked because they're cute. It's kind of sick. They rarely get picked because they're talented. The director or casting agent – whoever – just hopes they can pull it off so they can get rich on this poor kid's looks. They're taken by strangers to audition because they're cute. They get record deals and modeling deals and god knows who gets their hands on them along the way. It's sort of like glamorous prostitution. Maybe that's what I hate it. Yeah," Christian looked off, his voice trailing off too. "Yeah. Maybe that's it."

*****

There were equally long lines for Fight Club and The Blair Witch Project. Both features were sold out since it was opening night and the Rainy Day Theatre staff had never looked so stressed out. Liz and I felt insanely lucky to have the night off and a little guilty for coming here and making the staff work that much more. Christian still hadn't told Liz he wanted to be with me. Every day he told me that he'd do it that night. Maybe tonight would be that night for all I knew.

I had to admit I was a little envious of everyone going to see Blair Witch. That was the film I was in the mood for. But I owed Christian for Detroit Rock City.

I stared down the hallway at the auditorium where the film was playing. The Blair Witch Project was spelled out in little gold bulbs above the door. Fight Club was in the big auditorium. 1999 may have been the last decent year for movie goers. That summer seemed especially exciting for movies.

Fight Club was about the only thing I heard Christian admire so much. It put him in a sparkling good mood for the next several hours. We went to Moonbeam and had an exciting discussion about it over their classic vanilla milkshakes. Yes, it was Brad Pitt's best performance by far. Darla was envious we got to see it and was saving up money to catch it next weekend.

We drove back home and drank well into the night. Christian surprised me with a copy of American History X and we watched it. I cried when Furlong's character died in the end.

"That's why it's so good," Christian laughed.

"You're just mean!" I threw the VHS jacket at him. Liz went to bed early, tired of our shenanigans. I looked up at Christian, wondering when the moment would come when he'd tell her.

I stopped worrying about it and drank another glass of wine, following Christian out to the deck – the place summer nights were meant for. Christian tossed the empty beer bottles on the table and we sat down, casually glancing at each other.

"Today was fun," I said.

"It's not over yet," he said like he had something else up his sleeve. I was just excited to see Christian happy about something. He kept smiling as he talked about Fight Club, running his hand through his hair.

"I can't believe they did that to Jordan Catalano's face," I said of the scene where Jared Leto's character got his face mangled by Edward Norton.

"That was the best scene," Christian laughed.

We both grew quiet. I could feel Christian looking at me even though I was staring at the wooden boards of the deck.

"You wanna burn it down?" he suddenly asked.

"What?" I had no idea what he was talking about.

"The chiropractor place. Office or whatever. You wanna burn it down?" Christian always wanted to set fire to something. Ever since the day we met, he'd mentioned burning something.

I shook my head. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Sherry, you need to talk about this. I feel like it's the thing that's...getting in the way of you. You. You learning to drive, you having a roommate that's not a total jerk. I don't care about many people, but I fucking care about you." He stretched out his long legs and looked up at the sky, which tonight was clear and full of stars. I stared down at the black boots he always wore. "Maybe that's why you like Edward Furlong so much, you were both abused."

Then I just started crying. The tears were very warm, probably because of the bottled rage inside of me.

"I was stupid enough to do it. I was stupid enough to believe him when he said needed to see my breasts. That room was so cold..." I started to cry. "He just stared at them for the longest time and then he...he..." tears rolled down my cheeks.

Christian leaned forward, eyes on me, his voice soft, his hand on my shoulder. "He what? You need to talk about this," Christian said. He was right – I needed to. I needed to finally let this go.

"He told me he knew how to break my neck, that if he did the adjustment just right, he could even paralyze me. I was so scared and shocked, and he told me this as he kept putting his hands all over me...that's why I had sex with Dayton, because I was scared my chiropractor would end up raping me...I just wanted my first sexual experience to be somewhat my choice."

"Yeah," Christian said in that raspy voice of his. "We need to burn it down." He slipped a cigarette between his teeth and lit it as the wind blew. A storm was coming, or at least rain. I could feel it when the wind would suddenly blow.

Christian was just looking at me as I cried. He hadn't washed his hair in a few days, and it hung down in his face, all greasy. He only moved it to take a drag off of his smoke.

"I have a can of gasoline in my car," he said so calm it was chilling. I wondered if he just drove around with gasoline in his backseat just looking for places to burn. "No one has to know you were involved. You can just watch. I want to do something that matters before I die. I want to do this for you."

All this time I'd been looking for an avenger, he'd been looking for an excuse to avenge.

He tossed his smoke to the ground and walked to his beat-up red Toyota. He wasn't bluffing, I could tell by the way he walked.

I got in on the passenger's side and experienced one of those moments that were rare – when I knew if I did something, it would change everything. I'd never feel like this again. 1999. Taking a risk, being scene, my pain was finally on the outside. Where would it go from here?

*****

Speeding never felt so good. The adrenaline rush running through my veins felt cooling and godlike. It was quite a drive to Salisbury, and we needed the right music – what would vigilantes speeding through North Carolina at midnight listen to?

The window was down and so was my hair. It was blowing all over the place. I'd been in the same outfit – jean shorts and NIN shirt and grey Converse for weeks. Christian always wore the same thing too. That was what vigilantes did. I bet Bonnie and Clyde never changed clothes.

"I know you like to dominate the music, Christian..." I said as I looked down at the dark floor, searching with my hands. Every CD felt the same, of course, but I was convinced mine would feel different. "But I have the perfect song to play for this."

"Take the lighter out of my pocket," Christian said. His voice never sounded so deep.

"Which one?" I asked in a hush tone because I was startled.

"The front, the right," he specified. "Just do it, Sherry," he said a second later, pressing on the gas as we flew down a woodsy road. Christian was always so tense. Life had really screwed him. He was only given 25 years to live. His son died after being alive for only two weeks. His sister drowned. I glanced at him. What if it was him? What if there was something about him? Like the Grim Reaper?

I slipped my hand down the front pocket of Death. I felt him. Did the prospect of arson give him a hard-on? Something had.

"Christian!" I fussed. "There's not a lighter in your pocket!"

I took my hand out as he gave that hiss of a laugh.

"I meant the glove compartment, sorry."

I opened the glove compartment and found a little black lighter and began searching through the hooded sweatshirts on the backseat around until I found it. Black Love by Afghan Whigs. The album cover had fire on it. Were we really going to do this? Burn the whole building down in the middle of the night?

"You'll like this," I said, slipping the CD in.

"Okay," Christian said. It was so unlike him to let me control the music or anything for that matter, but he did that night.

I played Going to Town as he drove just a little over the speed limit. There'd never been a more perfect song for a situation.

Lover mine/Get your coat and come outside/I wanna take you for a ride/On into town/Lover fair/we'll be looking sharp I swear/I want them all to stop and stare/When we take 'em down/Go to town! Burn it down! Turn around! And get your stroll on baby...I'll get the car/You get the match and gasoline

*****

Halfway there, I begged him – when normally the act terrified me.

"Do it, please."

He knew exactly what I was talking about, although at this hour driving in the wrong lane wasn't exactly dangerous – everyone else was home, asleep. But I still got a rush from it. Because it was wrong. He swerved into the wrong lane, driving faster than he ever had. If there'd been an unexpected driver on the road, we would have all died.

I stuck my head of the window.

"YEAH NORTH CAROLINA, FUCK YOU!!!"

Christian drove in the wrong lane for nearly five minutes before swerving back into the right lane.

He pulled into the gravel parking lot of the old chiropractor building. It looked a lot smaller than I remembered, but it was the place. I recognized that window I stared out of while he did it, just crying as I quietly fell into myself, where a dark black cancer would grow and ruin everything.

Christian got out of the car. I'll never forget the sound of the slap of his car door shutting. It was loud. Heroic. He had the can of gasoline in his hand and immediately started pouring it all around the building. There was no hesitation, no second thought. He poured every drop out and threw the can aside. It landed in the driveway, making a lonely, empty thud sound. He didn't even blink as he brought out a matchbook from the back pocket of his black frayed jeans.

"No," I rushed to get out of the car. "Wait."

He paused, the match between his fingers, inches from the striking surface.

"What?" he asked, looking down at me.

"I don't know." I stared up at him, caught in hesitation. Christian never hesitated. I watched the wind blow his hair across his face. How he stood there, 6'1, in his black clothes, about to set fire to my biggest nightmare.

I placed my hand around his hand to keep him from lighting the match.

"You pick a great time to change your mind, Sherry."

"Please..." I was shaking. I hated being back here. "This is how you want to spend the last year of your life? In prison?"

He was still just looking at me.

"Let's just go...somewhere," I pleaded.

"What do you want, Sherry?" he kept looking at me. No one had ever given me that sort of attention, like I was the only person in the world, the only one that mattered.

"I can do this for you," he went on. "What else am I going to do? Cheat on my wife? Drink on the fucking deck? Just waiting to die in North Carolina?"

I looked back at the building. Mom would drop me off here every day. She had no idea of the kind of creep she left me with. Or maybe she was too lost in her grief to care.

"He's not in there," I said, swallowing over the lump in my throat. I looked back up at Christian. "It's just a building. It's just a structure. Let's just go somewhere, okay?"

It was starting to rain.

"Where do you wanna go?" he asked, the matchbook still in his hand.

"Thunderbird...Drive-In." I didn't know why I said that. It was the first place that came to mind.

"Are you sure?" he checked. "It's pretty old and creepy now."

"Yes." I placed my hand on his wrist again, urging him to not strike the match. I tried to push his wrist back, but he was a lot stronger than he looked. We held each other's gaze for a long time.

He headed to the car. I could tell he was upset – he really wanted to destroy something. He was frustrated – sexually frustrated. Unless they were really quiet about it, he and Liz didn't have sex anymore.

We got in his car just as the rain started to fall heavier – a sheet of wet angry grey. Christian leaned forward and I smelled gasoline – some must have spilled on his hand when he poured it. He was actually going to burn the place down for me.

"Alright," he said, looking like he was about to kiss me. Then he straightened up and started the car.

*****

He drove all the way out to Thunderbird, which was now just a rusty version of what it used to be. It was just an abandoned grassy field.

He parked, shut the car off and looked at me like I owed him something. I sat very still and felt his hand on my knee. He started to move it up my leg towards my thigh. Then I felt his knuckles graze my belly under the NIN shirt as he unbuttoned my shorts.

"Chris..."

"Shut up." His tone was final.

"I have something to tell you, Sherry," he said. Now what?

He removed his hand and stared out at the old tattered drive-in screen.

"The day we saw that movie together..." he started.

"Detroit Rock City?" I said.

"Yes." He paused; his eyes closed. The smell of gasoline wafted off his black clothes. "That was the best day of my life. Thank you."

I didn't know what to say. I turned and looked at him. He turned around in his seat and gave me a big kiss. My jean shorts were still unbuttoned, but he didn't try and get them off that time.

"Let's get out," he said instead, wanting to have a walk around the old forgotten drive-in.

*****

I saw the old rusty THUNDERBIRD marquee, with a big arrow pointing to the field we were walking through. Beneath the arrow was where the names of the movies used to go. And there'd been bulbs too, that flashed on and off. And music pouring out of parked cars while people waited for the movie to begin.

"It used to be jam-packed this time of night, or I guess with people trying to leave..." Christian said.

"Yeah I know. I lost my virginity here."

"Oh." He looked around and saw what looked to be an old shack with rusty metal stairs in front of it. "Is that the projector booth?"

I could barely look over at it. "Yup."

The big 6050 square-foot screen was still there, but it looked like a giant weathered sheet of paper. It was kind of creepy out here. It was hard to imagine that once it was full of cars and people and lights and sounds and lovers. I could see a small building, completely rotten, that was once a concession stand, too.

I pointed to it.

"I got a hot dog over there."

"You got a hot dog in the projector booth too."

I jabbed him in the side. "Christian!"

He just laughed. "So, who was the guy?"

"Dayton. Blonde hair, blue eyes. I don't know."

"What?" he asked, maybe because of my dramatic sigh each and every word was wrapped in.

"Nothing, Christian," I said.

"Does Edward Furlong know about this?" he asked, hilariously.

"Shut up," I grinned.

Christian looked back out at the projector booth. "I wanna go up there. Let's go."

"Uh, no. That place was disgusting even when it wasn't an abandoned fuckhole." Christian found my wording funny and laughed some more.

"I wanna go, come on."

We walked up the steel staircase. Tall weeds sprouted up between the steps until we got to the top. There was absolutely nothing in the projector room but debris from the collapsing ceiling. It was caving in on itself, which wouldn't take much. It was like a birdhouse in the middle of a storm. It was sad to look at it, to smell.

The projector window looked out at the weathered screen. The stool Dayton used to sit on was on the floor. The seat was completely gone, and the metal pole it fitted on was a complete rod of rust. Someone had spray-painted a swastika on the wall where Dayton used to hang his hooded sweatshirt. A wax paper Coca-Cola cup was on the ground. It had to have been there for at least five years or so.

"This is sad," I said.

"Yeah," Christian shined his flashlight around. "People will eventually choose convenience over adventure, I think. It's going to kill the world. Going out, doing things like this...I feel like this is where everything's headed. Just a forgotten field."

He leaned forward to look out of the projector window into the night, the tall grassy field and collapsing screen.

"I think it's really something what you do – heroic, even," he went on. "You spend your time in a darkroom, behind a little window so people can see the big picture. You do a lot of work so they have these spectacular two hours of entertainment."

I put my hand on his back. I wanted him to turn around and look at me.

"I think you're heroic."

He finally turned around. When he did, I saw tears in his eyes.

"Heroic? There's nothing heroic about me." He put his hand on my face.

I leaned forward and rested my head against his chest. He pulled away and reached for something in his back pocket. He took out a flask and unscrewed the cap and passed it over to me. It had the Texas longhorn symbol engraved on it. I took a sip. It had this crazy peppermint taste to it, and it was so strong I felt like smoke had taken over my brain.

"What the hell is this?"

"Absinthe," Christian informed. "Liz can't take the hard stuff so she doesn't drink it, but I knew you would. It's very strong," he said.

"No shit." I looked behind me as if I could see anything. Christian noticed.

"What?"

"I bet there are rats up here." I was sure I heard something moving under the collapsed debris. He shined his flashlight around. I didn't see anything, but I also didn't look that long. My eyes went directly back to him. He was holding the flask out to me.

"Drink it. Pretend it's Edward Furlong."

I took a sip. I'd never tasted anything like it in my life. It stung like I'd imagine a scorpion to. I handed it back to him, coughing a bit.

"No thanks," I said.

"Come on, Sherry," he said, darkly.

"This is kind of weird," I admitted, looking around the old projector booth.

"Wanna go back down? I know a huge rock we can lie on and look out at the stars."

"Yeah," I said, already heading for the stairs.

*****

We walked along the field, the dead earth crunching under our feet. I looked up at the faded notice sign that read TO ALL VANS, TRUCKS WITH CAPS, CAMPERS & TALL VEHICLES ***** PLEASE!!!***** PARK IN FRONT TWO ROWS OR BACK ROW THANKS AND ENJOY THE SHOW!!!

There was a giant rock randomly placed in the middle of the field. Christian said it was an attempt to keep people from parking out here. I looked around the rock for a place to wedge my foot so I could climb when Christian suddenly lifted me up. Someone had vandalized the rock too, writing the message Don't Bother in bright red spray-paint.

Christian lied down on the rock, pulling me back with him and pointed at the sky. That was the big feature here tonight – all the stars.

"This is not comfortable," I said, with an awkward strain in my voice, and we both laughed. Christian sat up and handed me the flask.

"You just need to drink more," he said. "Drinking makes everything okay." He shook the flask at me.

"This stuff taste like poison," I said, but I drank it anyway.

"It does have wormwood in it," Christian informed. We both got quiet for a minute. I was thinking about American History X.

"I can't believe you showed that movie to me – thank you."

"X?" he said, looking back down at me.

"Yeah."

"It's a good movie, alright? So, he's done one good movie," Christian held a finger up. "But he still just sits there and sulks like he's in timeout – the boy can't act. He got discovered because he was cute – and he's building a career on that – good for him – but everything you see on screen is just him, he's just this weird angry kid."

"No," I said. "That's not true. Sure he uses his darkness and emotion to make the character more genuine, but that doesn't mean he's just being himself. You have a lot to learn, Christian."

Christian gave a subtle laugh in response. "Okay," he said, looking back up at the sky.

"Seriously, one more bad word about him and I will push you off this rock, I swear to god."

"Pssssst," he just laughed. "Do it, I've fallen off plenty of times anyway."

"No, you haven't..."

Then he rolled off the ten-foot rock. I looked down in shock, barely able to see the outline of his body in the dark.

"Christian!" I looked down at him as he lied there on his side, laughing. He got back up, pulling on his pants which were loose around.

"You're totally insane," I said as he climbed back up.

"Your turn," he said with a sloppy smile on his face. The later the night, the more twisted the night. No light got in those pupils.

I actually prepared myself, because I never knew with Christian and thought he'd push me off, but he didn't. We just stretched out on the massive rock and gazed at the sky instead.

"It's so pretty," I said.

"Yeah, I used to come here all the time."

"Did you bring girls here?" I asked.

"No, I don't bring anyone...usually," his voice got deep and scratchy and a new cigarette hung from his teeth. "Every man needs a place he can go just to think. I'll sit up here and do this, look up at the sky, and won't go home until I feel okay again, until I don't feel like destroying everything in my path. One night...I probably won't go back home at all."

"Because of your heart?" I turned to look at him. "Is that why you're so angry?"

"Yeah, lots of things. I used to be really angry about knowing I was going to die young, but I've accepted it and now..." something big was about to slip off of his tongue. He was so beautiful lying there, his hair spilled over the rock, the moon gave me just enough light to see his face.

"Maybe I'm lucky, Sherry, because most people have no idea how long they have on this earth, and I do..." he looked at me, I think, for reassurance. "You know? Maybe that's not so bad."

I nodded.

He suddenly jumped down, so he was looking up at me as I sat on the rock in my little jean shorts, the shirt he gave me, and distressed Converse.

"Get down," he said, tugging on my ankles.

"No," I said. I liked to rile him up. "I like it up here," I said, leaning my head back so I could look at the stars. I grinned. "I think I'm just gonna stay. I'm gonna stay until it all comes alive again. Until it reopens and shows a movie."

"It won't," he said, darkly.

"You don't know that." I looked down at him. "One day maybe people will become nostalgic, Christian."

"Sherry." He was getting really bent out of shape. I could tell by the way he ran his hand through his hair that time.

"I can't see," I said. "To get down."

He reached up and grabbed me. I cried out in laughter and tried to fight him. A couple of seconds later, my feet were flat on the ground. I was too dizzy from the absinthe to do anything but stand there and he hit me square in the boob, right in the left tit.

"OWE!!!" I folded over myself, mostly from a state of shock.

"Now you hit me," he said, extremely composed. I tried to straighten up, but it felt like a knife just went through my soft breast. He towered over me, just standing there with his perfect hair blowing in his perfect face.

"Did you bring me out here...to beat me up?" I asked.

"No, of course not. We're going to beat each other up." He sounded so cool about everything.

"Oh god, is this a Fight Club thing?" I groaned.

"Yeah," he said, all smiles as he ran his hand through his hair.

"God, you're such a boy."

"Come on Sherry, hit me." He was so excited. "You know you want to. You've wanted to since the day we met."

I couldn't argue there.

He held his arms out to his sides and said I could punch him anywhere – his body was available for my fists to go wherever they pleased. His black shirt rose up when he held his arms out so that I could see his happy trail between his shirt and black jeans. I looked him up and down, his slender body with its perfect height. I'd never wanted anyone so bad in my life. But I couldn't have him. It was wrong. It was wrong to even think it or have to acknowledge the fact that it was wrong. It was wrong that we were even out here. So, I took all of that sexual tension and wrongness and put it in my little fist and slammed it into his ribs. It was such a turn on, to feel his warm flesh against my knuckles. I did it again. I imagined rocks being pelted against satin sheets.

He didn't fold over like I did, moaning in pain. He simply tugged some of his beautiful hair behind his ear, grinned and did that hiss of a laugh.

"That all you got?" he egged me on. His body still right there for my little fists to plummet. "Come on, Sherry. I want to feel pain."

The way he said that turned me on. He took his shirt completely off. His jeans drifted down below his jutted hips.

I punched him again in the same spot, harder. At least I thought it was harder. He didn't flinch.

So, I punched him again, even harder. I wished I had bigger hands. I had the daintiest hands. Mom used to call them "piano hands." I was determined to hurt him. I kept hurling my fists into his ribs. Christian laughed again, which angered me more. I hit him again. I started to go for the balls, but he was quick to turn sideways.

"You said anywhere," I snapped.

"Yeah, too bad you're not fast enough." He messed with his hair again, standing up straight as if to offer his body to me again. He was really pissing me off. Then he glanced off into the distance where the rusty marquee was. Did he see something? Maybe we weren't the only sleepless, lost souls that came out here tonight to beat the crap out of each other, have our own little fight club in the middle of an abandoned drive-in. I took advantage of him being distracted and punched him right in the balls. He toppled over.

"You bitch..." he groaned, falling to his knees as I took off across the field. I knew as soon as he felt better, he'd chase me. A thrill shot through my body at the thought. I had no idea where I was going. The ground was a deathtrap. There were great ways to twist an ankle out here – beer bottles, broken beer bottles, wooden planks, all kinds of debris. I knew I'd be in trouble once he got me. America's favorite pastime had become a post-apocalyptic landfill. I kept running, amazed I hadn't fallen yet like the girl in the horror movie, eating it when her foot got trapped under a tree branch.

If he punched me in the tits for fun, how bad would it be when he was seeking revenge for me hitting him in the balls? I was sweating as I ran through the dark field towards the tattered drive-in screen. I dashed between the rusty rods of the screening tower. I hid there, where the tall grass came up to my knees. I tried not to think about all the creepy crawlers out here. Spiders, snakes, rats. Poison ivy, used condoms, broken glass, broken dreams.

I didn't see Christian anywhere. That was scarier than him catching me – me being out here all alone. So, I called his name.

"Christian?" I called out into the darkness.

And that was how he found me.

"NO!" I screeched when he grabbed me from behind, his body pressed against mine. We rolled around on the ground, wrestling with each other. It wasn't sex – but it was the closest we could come to it without feeling like total scum.

"NO!" I called out as he managed to grab my wrists and take control, even though I was on top of him. Once he had me still, he said, "I want you Sherry." His face was glistened with sweat. His jeans had slipped beyond his hips. His shirt was still over there by the rock. "I have a year to live."

I wondered if that was what he said to all those girls. Surely, they looked into those puppy dog eyes of his and felt sorry for him.

I listened to the eerie whistle the wind made through the screen holes. The entire thing sounded like it was about to topple over. It wouldn't be a bad way to die, I supposed, if it just suddenly fell on us.

"Stop!" I said, but I was laughing so he knew I wasn't serious. I tried to get off of him but ended up rolling around in the tall grass so I was on my back and he was on top of me.

"I'm going to get you naked right here," he started to peel my shirt off. It was a hot humid night. I felt the grass against my back as I wiggled around under him. My jeans shorts were slipping down passed my hips. This thrilled Christian.

"Yes," he sighed against my neck as my legs wrapped around him and I stopped fighting.

"Do you at least have a condom?" I breathed against his neck.

"Nope."

"Oh," I twisted around and wiggled some more as he pulled my jeans shorts all the way off.

*****

Shortly after filming Stoic, a movie about prison inmates in which Edward Furlong's character rapes one to death with a broomstick, a salacious article came out via The Wrap detailing Edward Furlong's assault on ex-girlfriend Rachel Bella (whom he met on the set of Jimmy and Judy) and their son Ethan, born in 2006. Bella claimed Furlong beat his son in the testicles after he walked in on Furlong urinating. She went on to press a long list of charges against him. At the time, Edward Furlong was addicted to many drugs including prescription pills and cocaine. According to Bella, Edward Furlong threatened to "rip" her boyfriend, Ron Zvagelsk, "a new one," as well as "dismantle his face."

He left her a voicemail saying he wasn't giving her "anymore fucking money," before threatening to assault Ron. "I will fucking rip him a new one," Furlong said on the answering machine. "You can fucking see if you like him when his fucking little pretty face is all deformed." Bella also claimed that one afternoon, possibly to humiliate their son Ethan, Edward Furlong pulled the then 3-year old's pants down in front of his mother and brother after Ethan walked in on him in the bathroom. Furlong also "admitted to me that he hit Ethan in the testicles to teach him a lesson."

Decades ago, when Furlong first started acting, he expressed an interest in dark films. He wanted to take on dark roles. He liked violent films. It seemed to me, the darker the role he took on, the darker he became in real life. Many roles had long-term effects on the actors portraying them (Heath Ledger playing The Joker in The Dark Knight, for example.) How was playing all of these characters affecting Edward Furlong's mental health? What about that behavioral problem his mom mentioned back in 1990?

In early 2011, Furlong made a Red Carpet appearance for the premier of The Green Hornet (a film that received online hate for no real reason before it was even released) shortly before he was taken into custody during a court appearance for violating the stay-away order in December. Back in September 2010, Rachel Bella claimed Furlong "pushed" and "bruised" her and left threatening messages claiming he would "hire people to come and beat her with chains and bats." Furlong denied the allegations, but a judge issued a three-year restraining order against the actor and ordered him to undergo counseling.

Furlong was freed on $75,000 bail but was too broke to pay child support. Because of this, he chose to not promote his next film, This Is Not a Movie, co-staring Peter Coyote and featuring music from Slash.

In the sci-fi experimental film This Is Not a Movie, Furlong plays Pete Nelson, a bi-polar man who spends what he thinks will be the last few days on earth in a Las Vegas hotel room, where his split personalities argue about what to do before the world ends. One wants to explore his past and blames the way his life has turned out on "the system," another personality thinks they are all fictional characters in a story by a hack writer while the third personality doesn't see the point to figuring anything out when the world is about to end and just wants to find some prostitutes and party.

The film felt like it was based on a William S. Burroughs novel and even had a Burroughs quote at the beginning of the film: "A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on."

Since Detroit Rock City, Furlong's career really hit a wall. This wasn't to say he stopped making films. He actually went on to make 38 more films, including Animal Factory, where Furlong played a young, privileged boy who got sent to prison for marijuana privileges. Following Animal Factory was a slew of struggling independent films, including Jimmy and Judy.

No one ever saw Furlong as a victim, they snatched him up to star in films when he was young and pretty, and once he got addicted to drugs, his temper got the best of him and his looks faded The Hollywood Machine spat him out. So, what now?

*****

Late July 2012, around the same time the Aurora Colorado theatre shooting took place, I'd finally put a down payment on the house in Asheville. Sometimes I was lonely, and others, very content.

I knew the day after the shooting everyone would be watching the same thing, invested in the same horror, but it wasn't a movie on a screen, it was reality. It was the news constantly covering the graphic details of what took place at Century 16 at Town Center.

Everything was changing. Mass shootings were becoming a thing. The grim details took over the mind. A man named James Holmes, described by the media as "a loner," stormed a midnight showing of The Dark Night, throwing grenades before opening fire, killing twelve and injuring 70. The media dug for details on the shooter – he tried to kill himself at age 11, he was terrified of "ghost nails" that would tap against his bedroom wall at night. According to his psychiatrist, he'd been obsessed with killing for years prior to the shooting. Holmes received 12 life sentences without the possibility of parole plus an additional 3,318 years.

Was that why? Was that one of the reasons, at least, people preferred to stay home now instead of going out? It just wasn't safe to go out. Everything was unpredictable – not in the fun entertaining way that rock n roll once was, for instance, but now people were afraid for their lives. It was better to stay home. Safer. More convenient. As a result, places like Thunderbird was left to rot. There were less job openings at the cinema and book stores. Now it was more about Uber, Uber Eats, Postmates, Grubhub and whatever new delivery service was just created five minutes ago. Stay home. No need to put on real clothes. Watch Netflix. We'll bring you anything you need.

I felt like the movie theatre days were numbered. I needed a literary agent, so I got one. That felt like a great accomplishment, and now she wanted me to finish a book I didn't feel passionate about. I knew I shouldn't complain, but if I wasn't in love with what I was writing, then it was a grueling process. Was it really good? I wish I felt excited about it. Leslie insisted Mystery and Esplanade was "enticing." It had a certain mood about it. She could even see it as a Netflix original, she said, or an HBO miniseries. I just wanted to see my book on a bookshelf before I died. I supposed Mystery and Esplanade was my chance.

I stared out at the bone-dry pool as fall leaves filled it instead of chlorine water. It was almost November. There was still no more word about Edward Furlong's appearance in Terminator: Dark Fate. Certain theatres had already decided not to show the film because they took extra precaution now in fear that there'd be a mass shooting. The Joker had the same issue. But the worst things couldn't be predicted.

*****

I stumbled upon an interview with Edward Furling at Days of the Dead in Las Vegas on YouTube recently. The interview was quite depressing. He mentioned one of his favorite films he did was This Is Not a Movie, the film that followed his custody battle and child abuse charges. He was upset that it didn't get enough attention. He said he sounded "like a douche" but he did play three characters. The interviewer asked Furlong if he had any new projects in the works. Edward danced around the question (not even mentioning Dark Fate) before jokingly saying "no one wants to hire me," but it didn't seem like he was kidding. A few seconds later he talked about going to the Third Street Promenade, a mall in Santa Monica, California, because "there were a lot of performers there." He even mentioned taking a coffee cup along and asking for money. He didn't seem like he was joking. He said he didn't "do the fuckin' internet," when asked why he didn't promote more stuff or try to meet a girl. Furlong was old school. It didn't seem like he was going to change, and what if he did? He was body-shamed all the time. He'd gotten fat. He had a bad reputation.

As for Jackie Domac, she was still working on films. The last thing she worked on was The Adventures of Sheriff Kid McLain. She was listed on the IMDB page under "miscellaneous crew."

I looked back at my laptop. Time was running out. I needed to be in downtown Asheville in about two hours. I was seeing Dark Fate tonight with Leslie. I would also be handing her the final draft of Mystery and Esplanade.

I couldn't wait. Surely Furlong would be in the film. He was listed in the cast, after all. Terminator 2 owed him. James Cameron owed him. The film was, after all, how he met Jackie Domac, a woman who should have gone to prison for statutory rape.

I got ready, slipping on a new black leather shirt, the NIN shirt and a new pair of beautiful matte-black Michael Kors heels. When I heard my phone ring, I didn't inwardly sigh as usual. I rushed off to retrieve it.

"Hello?"

"Hi!" Leslie sounded very amped. "Ready for a fun night out?"

I was actually. The plan was to have drinks in the lounge at King's Imax before the film.

"I am, but I didn't eat yet and I was thinking...maybe going to a steakhouse first and then the lounge."

"A steakhouse?" she said, like they were unheard of. I bet Bill was a Grubhub guy. They probably ordered in a lot and watched Netflix. Bill probably held the remote. I bet the sex scenes in Mystery and Esplanade were the most exciting thing to happen to Leslie in a while. She probably never went out on a Friday night either.

"Yeah, I don't know, I feel like I deserve it. You know? I'm steakhouse-worthy."

"Okay, sure, I could go for some steak," she said.

*****

Christian never took me to a steakhouse. It was silly, but as we inched closer to that giant Longhorn Steakhouse marquee that was all I could think about. Big cities had skyscrapers. Raleigh, North Carolina had the longhorn steakhouse marquee. It was massive, towering over all the other signs and dominating the view from the highway.

"So, what happened?" Leslie asked once we were settled into a comfy leather booth. I'd just told her the whole Christian Merrill story. I felt like I at least needed to give her the short version of it, since she wasn't going to read Edward Furlong.

"I don't know. I freaked out. I moved out after the night at the drive-in and moved in with Dan."

"Dan?" she almost laughed. "Dan the Motorcycle Man?"

"Yup."

"How'd that go?"

"It was a strictly roommate situation. Honestly, it was kind of nice. No drama. And of course, we shared a love for..."

"Cinema?" Leslie finished.

"Yes."

"And you never talked to Christian again?"

"No, I moved out the next day while they were both still asleep..."  
"Well..." Leslie started to say something. Then she turned sideways in her chair and looked out at the restaurant's décor – deer heads hanging on the wall.

"At least you had your time with him. And you can't keep blaming yourself for the affair. He had a part in it too."

"Yeah..." I sipped my beer. It was getting closer to showtime. "Well..." I reached for my vintage briefcase I bought at a thrift store. I paid too much for it, but I had an undying appreciation for warn leather. The smell, the texture, all of it. The smell reminded me of rain. It reminded me of that night with Christian. The rain, the decay of the drive-in, gasoline.

I took out the thick manila envelope and placed it on the table in whatever space was left. Leslie got a big goofy smile on her face. Dealing with me might actually pay off. For me too.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked. "Or...is it the Edward Furlong book?"

"Take a look," I just said.

She glanced inside and saw the title page for Mystery and Esplanade. She placed it inside her bag.

"Thank you. You're doing the right thing."

We headed to the theatre and had just enough time to grab some drinks when we got there before heading into the auditorium for Terminator: Dark Fate.

That night, as I went into the auditorium, Glendale, California was being evacuated due to a brush fire. Most of California was burning in fact (the Tick Fire near Santa Clarita, the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County and the Getty Fire making its way toward the 405 near Sherman Oaks) and I had to wonder, as I was about to take in the new film from the Terminator franchise, if California may soon look like the charred ruins the film used from the Universal fire for T2.

But I was in a dark auditorium, escaping from all the world's worries in the best way at last, waiting for the lights to go down. Waiting to escape. Waiting to see his face and hear his voice.

The End

