Cutback

v

Denver, present day

After the horror film came Errol's big break. His first film had done moderately well at the box office and got him a better agent, which led to a major role in a forgettable teen sci-fi trilogy about a splinter cell within a secret group being trained for the apocalypse. There's also a forbidden love triangle between a couple of morons from different cells. They couldn't be together because they were given different hand stamps at birth or something equally stupid.

As much as I used to resent having to compete for Errol's attention when we were friends, I resented having to sit through those terrible films even more. The dialogue was so melodramatic and the other actors were just awful. Even Errol was phoning it in half the time. I felt bad for him until I found out he made $2.5 million for doing them. They were so abysmal that when he died in the second one, I was thrilled because it meant I wouldn't have to sit through the final installment. But it was weirdly popular for a while and it made him a star.

The press tour for that second film was a nightmare to keep up with. I have a Google alert set up for Errol's name and every day for a month it seemed like I was sitting through some insufferable Access Hollywood interview where he would give that fake party laugh people who know how to make small talk have all perfected.

I used to study how Errol made friends at pubs and parties and on tour buses like a scientist. It helped that he's good at telling stories, which I'm definitely not unless I can use a keyboard. But that awkward laugh was also a big part. There's a timing to it, apparently, and you have to pause at just the right moment. Talk. Pause. Awkward laugh.

During that press tour you couldn't walk into a Target without seeing collectable magazines with Errol's face splashed all over them, Photoshopped within an inch of his life, though he didn't really need it. Usually they stuck him in the back of a group shot in a deserted wasteland where everyone's wearing a lot of linen for some reason that's never explained in the movies. Maybe it's the last fabric left after the world ends.

So when I saw a magazine with just him and his annoying co-star, whose eyes are 30 percent too big for her body, I picked it up and leafed through it.

Inside, there was a poster of Errol by himself on thick glossy paper, the kind of poster we used to hang on our bedroom walls in high school. This time he's in black camo, looking like someone just told him to stare vacantly into the distance at nothing in particular. The camera's washed out his skin but his hair's in fine Elvis form, long on the sides and swept up and tousled in the front, which I've seen him do with surprisingly little mousse. I have dozens of pictures of Errol on my iCloud account and a handful on Facebook that a lot of people have come out of the woodwork to comment on. But I never bothered to print any out.

Something told me I had to get it, that I needed this mass-produced keepsake of my friend because it was real and right in front of me, and if things were reversed and I was the famous one, Errol would be just as proud seeing me on a poster and want to support me.

I walked up to the young cashier and put the magazine on the belt backward, sheepishly trying to avoid her eyes. She flipped it over to find the barcode and pointed at Errol's face. "Oh, I love this," she said, flashing a toothy smile. "Did you see the movie?" I nodded and she gave a lingering glance at the cover.

"Wasn't it so good?" she asked. Of course I really didn't know what to say to that since I felt like I was carrying a secret—I lived with him; he bit me once—so I just said "mhm," waited a second and forced a nervous laugh.

Talk. Pause. Awkward laugh. Sometimes it really is that simple.