Life in a Fishbowl

by Len Vlahos

  “Jared isn’t a burden to us,” Deirdre was quick to interject.

  “Of course not, and that’s exactly the point. You don’t think it’s a burden, but he does. Isn’t that right, Mr. Stone?”

  For his part, Jared didn’t know if it was right or not. The feelings in his head were both more complex and more amorphous than that. Whether it was a result of the tumor or something else, he didn’t know.

  “It is called the Death with Dignity Act,” he said, with an emphasis on dignity. “Isn’t dignity a personal thing? Isn’t it for me to decide what is dignified and what is not?”

  Deirdre looked at her husband and sensed that something had changed, or was changing, and it made her scared. “Thank you, Joanne, for coming to see us,” she said, standing up. Deirdre looked at Joanne, trying to plead with her eyes to just let the rest of the conversation go. Joanne got the message and stood up as well.

  “Thank you both. And on behalf of the foundation, we really do wish you and your daughters well.” With that, she left.

  Later that night, after Ethan had fired the security guard and additional workers were brought in to complete The Wall, the conversation about the Death with Dignity Act was featured as the centerpiece on Life and Death. Missing was the confrontation at the door, Deirdre’s tacit critique of the television equipment, and Jared’s flash of lucidity. All that was left was a confused-looking Jared and a tense-looking Deirdre debating the merits of euthanasia with a hospice worker.

  America was none the wiser.

  ***

  The premiere episode of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon aired two nights after Life and Death returned from its hiatus. In its brief nine minutes and thirty seconds, the YouTube video attempted to show the secret underbelly of Life and Death.

  It opened with a clip of Jared reading aloud from one of his favorite books as Deirdre lay with her head on his lap. This was not the debilitated, confused Jared that the network presented in prime time. He looked thin, he looked older, but he looked alive. There were short scenes of the crew servicing the miles of cable and dozens of cameras that lay over the Stone house like an infestation of silverfish. The viewer could now plainly see that the house was less an environment in which people lived, and more a set in which actors played parts. Jackie had even managed to capture the crew in the truck—“Sure, sweetie, come on in,” they had told her—reviewing the dailies. “If we jump from here to here, the director said, “it will make him seem more confused.” Max, with his editing software, zoomed in to show that the clips they were manipulating featured Jared.

  The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon revealed Max’s crude but skilled editorial eye. It was exactly what he and Jackie had hoped it would be: a chronicle of the truth.

  After the video was uploaded, they both sat and waited. Twenty-four hours later, they were still waiting. There had only been seventeen views, sixteen of them their own clicks. Jackie was crestfallen. Not Max.

  Jackie

  I told you, Max, no one cares.

  Max

  Nyet, Solnyshko, nyet. It is not that no one cares. It is that no one knows. Many people will care.

  Jackie

  Like who?

  Max

  The many people who watch you on television.

  Jackie

  But how are we supposed to know who they are?

  And then it dawned on Jackie.

  Jackie

  Wait. I think I can answer my own question.

  Max

  ?

  Jackie

  Don’t go away, I’ll be right back.

  Two minutes later, Jackie sent Max a photo of the stacks of her fan mail.

  ***

  Sister Benedict Joan’s press conference was scheduled to begin at eleven a.m. sharp. Most of the reporters who had promised to come had not yet arrived—par for the course in their profession, she thought—but it didn’t matter, a schedule was a schedule. The Sister was about to step to the podium when she felt a light touch on her shoulder. The Sister whirled around and was confronted by the impish smile of Cardinal Trippe.

  “Why don’t we give this a few more minutes,” he said gently.

  “Timeliness is next to cleanliness, Your Eminence,” the Sister stammered, “and you know what …”

  “Yes, yes, Sister. But wouldn’t our larger goal be better served by more, not less, media?”

  The Sister gritted her teeth and tensed her neck in frustration but nodded a curt assent.

  “And you’re sure you’re okay to do this?” The Cardinal nodded toward the podium. This was the third time the Cardinal had asked this question, each time his smile broad and blindingly white. The Sister was growing to hate that smile.

  “I’m sure His Holy Eminence is merely teasing me,” she answered, making it clear that Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration did not enjoy being teased.

  “Not teasing at all, Sister. It’s just that the pressure of speaking publicly can be paralyzing if you haven’t done it before.”

  “I am only here to introduce Your Grace. Nothing more.”

  Three more reporters had filed in, and Sister Benedict tapped her watch.

  Cardinal Trippe grinned, shook his head, and gently plucked the stack of index cards from the Sister’s hands. “Please, Sister, go ahead.” The Sister let out a breath of air and stepped to the podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, her voice gruff and unrefined. The sound of it through the microphone caught her off guard. She was, as the Cardinal had predicted, frozen. The damnable fool got inside my head, she thought in a panic. The Sister looked to the Cardinal, who nodded his encouragement for her to continue. For the first time, she found his presence oddly soothing, almost beatific. It gave her an unexpected jolt of confidence.

  “Please welcome Cardinal Matthew John Trippe.” Her mouth was too close to the microphone, and it caused a momentary ring of feedback. She stepped down from the podium, forcing herself to keep her head high. The Cardinal took her place.

  “Friends,” he began, making eye contact with each of the reporters before him. The Sister marveled at the ease with which the man worked the room. Maybe, she thought, he’s not so useless after all. “We are here today to call attention to an affront to the dignity of human life that is taking place in our community. Of course, I refer to the television show Life and Death.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Cardinal Trippe read through the index cards prepared for him by Sister Benedict, each one more inflammatory than the one that came before. They threw every epithet under the sun at Life and Death and the American Television Network. Two of the cards were so filled with bile and hate that the Cardinal, much to the Sister’s chagrin, simply ignored them.

  No matter. The Sister, having recovered from her poor performance at the microphone, was ebullient. She finally felt like they were doing something, and what’s more, she knew in her heart of hearts it was only the beginning. Sister Benedict Joan was certain that her part in the Stone affair was not yet over.

  ***

  Ethan Overbee was sitting at his eight-foot-by-four-foot solid oak desk in Los Angeles when his phone chimed with two alerts, one from Twitter, one a text message. The desk, which was really the size of a conference table, vibrated with each notice.

  Ethan had two Twitter accounts, one for the industry at large, and a second private account that only a few people knew about. It was this second account—he had programmed it to send alerts—that was now trying to get his attention.

  A private message from @spandau1965, Heloise Spandau, one of his lieutenants in the programming department at ATN, appeared on the screen. She was a no-nonsense, nose-to-the-grindstone employee who didn’t suffer fools gladly. Once, at a full department meeting, Spandau called a junior employee “stupid” and told him that the “air you’re breathing could be put to better use.” It’s not that she was wrong—the junior employee was stupid, he was wasting someone else’s valuable air—but Ethan still had to t
alk to Heloise after the incident, trying to impress upon her how you can catch more flies with honey. That was six months ago; the junior employee was no longer with the company, Spandau was still Ethan’s lieutenant.

  “Catholic Cardinal Blasts Life and Death”

  http://bit.ly/1OLEziq

  Ethan clicked through the link and saw excerpted highlights from Cardinal Trippe’s press conference. He had to smile to himself. Don’t these people ever learn? The more they protest, the more viewers I get.

  The second alert was a text message from Roger Stern.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  There was a link to YouTube and the first episode of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon.

  Ethan, who knew nothing of Jackie’s Russian accomplice, was quick to notice that he was only the twentieth person to click on the link. Roger, he knew, was overreacting. Plus, it was mostly harmless stuff.

  Ethan added a reminder to his Evernote to speak with Jackie about the propriety and decorum with which she needed to approach any behind-the-scenes footage.

  And then he promptly forgot about it.

  ***

  Deirdre could see that Jared was slipping. After the encounter with Joanne from hospice, he retreated to his office and slept for four hours. The brief exchange was that taxing.

  Deirdre was sitting in the kitchen when he woke up and came downstairs. She went to the counter and made him a latte without asking.

  “Thanks, D,” Jared mumbled. She did her best to smile and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze as she passed. Her heart sank, feeling all bone and no muscle. “We need to talk about my will,” he blurted out. Deirdre nodded and sat down.

  “Where do you want to start?” she asked.

  “Well, first, um, do I already have a will?” Questions like this from Jared were becoming increasingly commonplace.

  “No, sweetie. It’s something we keep meaning to do but haven’t gotten around to.”

  “Well,” he said, “there’s no time like the present.” He paused a bit and then said, “Keep limits on net ether.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s an anagram for ‘no time like the present.’ Keep limits on net ether.” Alarm bells were going off in Deirdre’s head. “Is that something I do, make anagrams? Because I’ve been making a lot of them lately.”

  Deirdre couldn’t find the words to answer, so she just shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so. I half wonder if the brain tumor is trying to talk to me through the anagrams.”

  “I don’t really know how to respond to that, Jare. How long has this been going on?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “Have you told your doctors?”

  Jared hung his head and mumbled at the table. “I don’t really know that, either.”

  “Oh, sweetie.”

  “O, thee wise.”

  “Huh?”

  “Another anagram.”

  “That’s actually kind of amazing.”

  Jared paused, then looked up at the television camera not so carefully hidden in the kitchen cabinets. “I guess it’ll make for good viewing tonight.” (Jared was right. The clip of him riffing anagrams with Deirdre had more views than any other clip on the official Life and Death website that day. ATN was able to sell a sponsorship to a dictionary publisher.)

  “What were we talking about?” Jared asked.

  “Your will.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Deirdre wasn’t sure what that response meant and wondered if it was another anagram, but she figured it, like everything else in this conversation, wasn’t good. There was no doubt about it; they were entering some sort of end game. Deirdre started to imagine how it might play out. Would Jared simply just die? Would he wither like this for months, or longer? The one thing she knew for certain was that Jared had passed the point of no return. She had seen it with her mother.

  Her mind kept jumping to the conversation with Joanne from hospice, and how Jared had introduced the topic of euthanasia. Deirdre hadn’t yet let her thoughts go down that road, but now she wondered if Jared had been thinking about it. She wanted to ask him, but she couldn’t do it with the cameras here. Maybe she could find a time on one of their visits to the doctor.

  When she looked up from her reverie, Jared had nodded off.

  She contained her emotion, got up, gently woke him, and helped him back to his office.

  ***

  Jackie and Max planned to unveil the second episode of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon one week after Jackie put “Operation Answer Fan Mail” into action.

  Working with Max, Jackie had created a promotional sheet for their show: a pixilated black-and-white photo of Jared, Deirdre, Jackie, and Megan sitting on a couch and watching television. The scene depicted what the vast majority of middle-class American families did every single night, and was remarkable for how unremarkable it was. Across the top of the sheet, in thirty-six-point Calibri, were the words: “The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon: The Truth Behind the Most Popular Show on Television, Now on YouTube.”

  Jackie printed out 342 copies (one for each piece of fan mail she planned to answer) and included a typed, personal message:

  Thank you so much for writing to me! If you want to see what life is really like in our house, watch the video series I’m posting on YouTube. This sheet explains it all. The next episode will be live one week from today!

  And then she dated it and signed it in ink.

  Jackie folded the sheets, stuffed and stamped the envelopes, and mailed them.

  In addition to the 342 letters to adoring fans, Jackie also sent a copy of the promo sheet to Hazel Huck. Her address was easy enough to find—there were only four Huck families listed in Huntsville, and with a bit of Googling, she was able to determine which was the right one. To Hazel, Jackie added this handwritten note:

  Hi, Hazel!

  We don’t know each other, but I wanted to thank you for what you tried to do for my dad. I read about it in a newspaper. I’m glad there are still nice people in the world. I also thought you would like to see my new video series. Tell all your friends.

  Sincerely,

  Jackie Stone

  Andersona, the ATN producer who had, under orders from Ethan, been trying to develop a relationship with Jackie, was thrilled that her charge was answering her fan mail. She sent Ethan a note to report that “the Stone girl is finally getting on board with the program.”

  Andersona provided Jackie with the envelopes and stamps and offered to take her to the post office. She even let Jackie interview her for her “school video project.” She was starting to feel a really strong bond with the girl.

  For Jackie and Max, everything was going according to plan.

  ***

  The lead director of Life and Death, a veteran of reality TV by the name of Nigel, was growing concerned. Jackie and Deirdre were keeping to themselves, and while Megan had her friends over, they expended so much energy mugging for the camera that the footage wasn’t really usable. Worst of all, Jared spent more and more time sleeping. None of it was making for very good television. Nigel spoke to the producers, who spoke to Ethan, who arranged for the first celebrity drop-in.

  While viewership for Life and Death remained high, the incident with Sherman Kingsborough and Trebuchet left a bad taste in the collective mouth of America, so none of ATN’s franchise stars were willing to be connected to the show. The best the network could offer was a character actor from a sitcom called Oh, Charlie. It was a family-based, formulaic show about a teenager named Charlie who always seemed to be getting into trouble and then posting his exploits online. It was like a pale imitation of iCarly for boys. The actress who played Charlie’s aunt Kelley—Jo Garvin—was tasked with doing the drop-in.

  The producers prepped the family at their daily morning briefing. They encouraged Jared to get lots of rest as they wanted him at the “top of his game” when their guest arrived; the girls were asked to
dress in their finest clothes and “smile, a lot”; and Deirdre was asked to serve dinner. Everyone agreed with varying degrees of enthusiasm: Jackie rolled her eyes, Deirdre shrugged, and Jared simply said okay. Only Megan, thrilled at the chance to meet a real TV star—not realizing that she had more star power than Jo Garvin by a factor of ten—had a grin that stretched around her entire head.

  When their dinner guest arrived, the entire Stone family, even Jackie, was on its best behavior. Deirdre and Jared greeted Jo warmly at the door, invited her to sit down for hors d’oeuvres, and then into the dining room for a home-cooked meal. Dinner consisted of Shake ’N Bake chicken, Kraft Stove Top stuffing, Green Giant green beans, Wonder brand bread, and Entenmann’s crumb cake for dessert. Everyone drank Coke, and everyone, other than the kids, had Folgers coffee with their dessert. The entire meal netted ATN nearly a million dollars in advertising placement fees.

  The conversation was mundane. Jared and Deirdre talked about their home life, their struggle with Jared’s cancer, and Jared’s time in the legislature. Megan talked about school and boys and her favorite television shows, including Oh, Charlie, which, of course, gave Jo an opportunity to promote the next episode. She had even managed to bring a thirty-second clip, which the family awkwardly interrupted dinner to watch. Jackie was mostly silent.

  When the meal was over, everyone escorted Jo to the door to say good night. Jo, who wanted the girls to now call her “Aunt Jo,” even kissed Megan on the head before she left.

  Of course, the next night, when the episode aired, America saw a decidedly different version of events. Thanks to the magic of editing, every member of the Stone family, even Jackie, hung on Jo’s every word. Only Jared—who had been a polite if somewhat withdrawn host—didn’t seem to be part of the conversation. The editors succeeded in making Jared look befuddled. They had captured a series of grimaces he made in normal response to conversation and used those to project the image of a man in dire pain.

  When Jo was interviewed by Andersona after dinner, in a temporary studio built on the front lawn of the house, she was able to make herself cry when talking about how moved she was by Jared and his family and how cancer was such a truly awful thing.