Finally hitting 50 but looking way older, Tom was celebrating alone, parked in his dark green sedan from the year 20 years ago with the flaking roof that looks like burnt mold and the passenger side door that doesn’t open.
That side door accident happened after the director, from that Israeli financed movie, came home early while his wife’s legs were wrapped around his sure to be next big thing movie star neck. He had gotten out of there without being noticed and celebrated by gunning the engine and lost control. That guy had suspected him from the start and maybe that’s why he had been pulled from the picture or maybe the wife found out that he had been messing around with the makeup artist, too and got pissed off and that’s why he got the heave-ho fuck-over. And that wasn’t his big last mistake.
The sun was setting and he gave the rearview mirror a quick winning smile glance for practice. He thought that he still had the look but his sunglasses were still on his face so of course it hid a lot of the wear and tear. He lit a Camel and took a puff from his old reliable friend, the only thing that has given him comfort from the consequences of bad decisions to slim changes taken to ungentlemanly behavior and pure assholism. He rested his arm out of the driver’s side window, that never closes, and let the ash fall to the ground.
That window he broke himself. After that chick at the bar, who he had wanted to take home, laughed in his face when he told her what agency he was with. She had said that they haven’t called it that for over ten years. She knew he was lying and showed pity by not asking the agent’s name, knowing that he was probably dead or retired. He blew her off, dismissing her as if she wasn’t hot enough for him. Even if he had known at the time that she could have cast him in a pilot or helped him get an audition, he probably would have treated her the same shitty way.
It used to be so easy for him to get what he wanted and that night his want was to be needed and he needed to be adored. He picked the bottom of the barrel and when he took her home thinking he would give her the meanest fuck of her life she said, “No", that she, "wasn’t ready for that,” and he snapped from the rejection. To be discarded first was a blow to his ego, he had wanted to be the one to roll on his side with indifference in the morning. He walked back to his car, punched the window, got in and left.
He takes a drag from his cigarette and looks across the street. He could see Linda walking towards the car. He had parked around the corner from the house that she shares with her English boyfriend. If they just got married he wouldn’t have to pay alimony any more. Why can’t she be with a rich guy that would marry her? That guy lost his looks after his weight gain and never got another commercial gig. From Peter O’Toole to Peter Ustinov in a blink of an eye with the help of Guinness Stout.
Linda’s body leans on his arm and she comes in close with a greeting that purrs from when they were together, “Hi Tommy, sorry I’m late.”
“Sugar, you are always late. That door is jammed, you have to come through the window” explains Tom.
“But Tommy, I’m wearing a short skirt,” said Linda.
“So, you have the legs for it,” said a smiling Tom.
Linda climbs through the passenger seat window and settles in to what feels like the beginning of an affair.
“I got you that gun that you wanted,” said Tom.
“A gun? I didn’t ask for a gun? You don’t really have a gun,” she said in disbelief.
“You asked me to get it for you because you were afraid of Patrick, your boyfriend,” said Tom.
“I’m not afraid of Patrick. I didn’t ask for a gun,” said Linda.
“You asked for a gun. It’s in the glove compartment, here,” said Tom.
Tom opens the glove box for her and she looks inside with caution and kill-the-cat curiosity. She sees a gun and takes out a hair trigger semi-automatic Glock 35.
“It isn’t loaded,” said Tom as Linda examines the gun closer.
But the gun is really loaded and he guides her hand so it points to her heart and he presses her finger into the trigger. “She wanted me to get her a gun because she was afraid of her boyfriend. It just went went off.”
Tom is 50 today and Linda isn’t with him and he isn’t parked around the corner of her house. He is sitting in his car over looking the ocean. He doesn’t have enough for rent. He’s just sitting in his car smoking, daydreaming with pondering schemes, but he did buy that gun.
He never made it big enough to buy a place by the beach. He was on the upswing when Linda married him and she left him after the studio dropped him from what turned out to be a long running series with residual checks that today could pay off a mortgage in a year. It was his fault that he got dropped but he never told Linda why. They were twins, a personal milestone and he just couldn’t say, “No,” to that. And they did look old enough, but he knew and did it anyway and got caught in his dressing room. If he had been essential to the show and well liked by the cast, he would have been able to stay, but he wasn’t and his character went off to college and after that he never got a callback.
For all of his life he has been betting that he could act anyway he wanted, but now at the expense of losing big it just doesn’t seem to have been worth it in the long run.
He opens the glove box and takes out the gun and reclines his seat all the way back. He lays there resting and closes his eyes. Maybe he should have just liked that chick from the minimum wage Lake Arrowhead timeshare job he’s been working and lived with her. She didn’t seem to care that he was down and out or was a used-to-be actor.
His last thoughts were, “I bet she would have loved me.” And then he pulled the trigger.