After the last episode of The Sweet Family, after the SNL guest spot, after the dystopian young adult movie lead. After the snowboarding knee injury, after the long drowsy dinner with poet Aline Verocai. After he couldn’t run during the HBO audition, after the first DUI, after the year in Brazil with Aline, the fourth floor apartment overlooking Marajó Bay with the robin’s egg blue walls. After the bit part in the Coralie Fargeat movie that gets noticed. After the knee pain stops but the painkillers don’t. After the miscarriage, after the poem Aline publishes about that night in The New Yorker that makes him cry for a week. After they move back to Los Angeles. After it’s too quiet in their house. After the fifth DUI, after the Emmys where he stands next to Steve Martin begging Aline to take him back instead of announcing the Lead Comedy Actor. After the rehab. After his first Christmas with his family in three years. After the arrest, the viral mugshot that makes People Magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year. After his lawyer gets him just two years for manslaughter. After he trades personalized letters from the Jacob Barrera to wives, girlfriends, daughters, with other inmates for oxy. After he gets out early for good behaviour. After someone throws animal blood at his Armani tux on the red carpet, after the dead kid’s family takes most of his money in a civil suit, after Aline gets married to someone else, after even the pills can’t fill the gaping maw of loneliness, after he stops going outside. After all that, the studio props manager calls him.
The set for The Sweet Family is being junked, she says. They need the space. She asks if Jacob wants any momentos.
Jacob doesn’t sober up, there’s no time for that, but he does take an icy shower. He scrambles through the closet and finds one clean T-shirt. It doesn’t really fit him anymore. he pulls on his least stained pair of jeans, gargles mouthwash, calls a Waymo because the Waymo won’t judge him. At the studio he has to show the man at the gate his ID. Even after he does his famous catchphrase. He tells the car to park and runs to Warehouse C-1, stinking and sweaty. The props manager comes outside, squinting.
Jacob, is that you? she says.
I came to pick something out, he says, leaning over in the California heat, trying to catch his breath.
Inside on the dusty set he wanders through the kitchen and opens the fridge. The light doesn’t work. He goes up the stairs, trailing his hand on the warm wooden banister. At the top he steps onto the landing and opens the bathroom door and looks down at the cement floor of the warehouse. Downstairs, he opens the empty dresser drawers in Mr. and Mrs. Sweet’s bedroom. He picks up the stuffed animals in the twins’ room, then steps onto the cement and into his own room next door. The ghost of applause follows him. The narrow bed, the Maroon 5 and Vampire Diaries posters. He lies down on the comforter and curls up in a ball. He whispers his catchphrase.
Sage Tyrtle's work is available in New Delta Review, The Offing, Lunch Ticket, and Apex among others. Words featured on NPR, CBC, and PBS, and taught in schools. Read more at www.tyrtle.com.