look at me still talking when there's science to do

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

"Dude." Mik arched an eyebrow. "You know I love you, man, but you are not the great Hunter S."

"Yeah, I know." Schuyler slid his feet forward and nudged his toes against the footwell, sliding the seatback down so he could stare up at the rising stars. It was a mild, pleasant night and they had the top down. "You know the problem with my parents?"

"Sometimes they forget to put up the sex swing and it hits you in the face when you walk in the room?"

"Something like that, yeah. You can't work up a good rebellious stage, 'cause they've done it all. You try and memorize all of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' so you can throw quotes in the conversation at random points in time and it turns into a pissing contest between your two dads as to who can remember more of the book."

Mik's grin was feral in the half-darkness. "You could always sell your soul to the devil and become an agent. You know, expensive Armani suits, three cellphones, call everyone 'baby'?"

Schuyler thought about this for a moment and laughed. "Nah. I'm not that desperate."

He took a sip of his vodka Slurpee, and Mik kept driving.

When he was editing, he deliberately cut himself off from the outside.
It was easier that way, because somewhere around the second reel of shot film he came to the realization that he had lost all capacity for linear thought and his mind had taken its cue from his hands, chopping sentences into ribbonlets of word and syllable. Somewhere between the slick spaghetti of celluloid and the editor's drinking game (for every flubbed line, take a drink; for everything that would be on the proverbial blooper reel, take two drinks; for every time the cameraman's laughing so hard it looks like real cinema verite, finish the bottle) Schuyler totally lost touch with reality. But that was fine. Reality was overrated. The reels of film were life and air and food and it was getting assembled into a thing of beauty viewable at twenty-four frames per second.
He stumbled out of the office for breakfast (slurpee, coffee, day-old danish, Raisinettes and a handful of no-doz) and revelled in the purity of a five-thirty a.m silence. No roommates fooling around on the sofa - no sudden clattering of the beads on Mik's dreads followed by Kismet's awkward giggle that meant that he'd walked in on them again; no jackass neighbors across the street blaring spanish-language rap and the smell of empanadas. Silence. A rare thing, but as important as breathing. Nothing but the gentle warm humming of the fridge and the distant whisk of cars on the freeway.
Fridge. Food. Right. If Kismet had eaten his Raisinettes again he was selling her to the Korean deli on Ventura by the pound, and Mik could just deal with it, because older brothers had rights, goddamn it. Fridge. Yeah. Pull the handle and the food comes out. Hee. God, he was just brilliant today. The gamble of food consumption, the obvious parallels between modern appliances and gaming tables. Look out, Tarantino.
Kismet was safe. He still had Raisinettes, although they'd been moved on top of a cardboard container - probably some refrigerator feng shui bullshit, you can't keep your raisinettes in the door or something because that's not your money center, whatever. And some damn pink postit note on top of the container glaring at him like the eye of Sauron. It took him three minutes of dazed sleepless staring to realize that some of the letters on the post-it note formed his name.
Schuyler,
I'm worried about you. Mik says you always act this way when you're editing a film but I'm still worried anyway. Eat something? Please?
x o x o x o
Kismet.
Weird.
It was a bento box from his favorite sushi place. The chopsticks would just not work for some reason, useless in his clumsy grip, so he picked up clumps of sticky rice with his fingers and stuffed them into his mouth, falling down on the sofa and putting his feet up while he ate. Bento and raisinettes - breakfast of champions.
Back to work.
Yes.
Work.
Maybe in a few minutes ...
Just lie here and ...
For a few minutes ...

(Picture here.)
Schuyler squinted through the camera's viewfinder, panning down slowly off the distant stripe of the lighthouse dark against the fog, down to the dock where the actors were - long shot, slowly moving closer to show faces, the dim snail trails of tears down the female lead's cheek.

Oooh, nice. Emote, baby. That's the stuff.

Just as he was working out his thank you speech for the film festival award, she waved her hands in front of her face. "Goddamnit, can I take ten minutes here?"

He sighed, grumbling. "Cut! What is it, Amy?"

"Contact lens thing or something. Sorry, Schuy."

"Eh, no problem. Everyone take fifteen, okay? We'll pick it up later on page thirty-nine." He set down the camera and winced, turning around to find a sweater. It was cold and clammy and damp, and they'd been out here for three hours - making good time, but still. Any interruption was at least mildly irritating.
( Continued. )