Great Enough to Be Remembered

The last word fourteen-year-old Billy Moss wanted to say on earth was “cut!” He had spent the better part of his life consuming video media and an egregious sum of carbohydrates. The second thing he’d devoted his life to, if but unconsciously, was sleeping.

While he was awake, a slew of screens corroded his retinas beyond repair. An eye doctor in Montana reported him as a “functioning blind” patient. They did not share the case file with Moss’ overprotective single mother, Lois, who had a lump in her pocket called a wallet and would pay for glasses even if the boy couldn’t see straight, if the doctor had anything to say about it. They did, however, encourage Lois to monitor Billy’s screentime. Billy threw a tantrum by toppling a tall display case of optical frames. He couldn’t be consoled for the next eight days. Lois said she never would have “programmed her kid,” but might as well have spoken to a wall, on account of Billy’s monk-like silent treatment. After she became used to the quieter household, Billy introduced a series of outbursts, most occuring in the dead of night and always punctuated by open-faced weeping. The mother and son’s peace treaty consisted of a window-shopping bout. Lois pulled up to any and all fast-food drive-thru and allowed Billy to rattle off a list of whatever he’d like. The queue of cars that formed behind them stretched out of state.

*

Lois didn’t agree with the first seven doctors who diagnosed Billy with colon cancer. She waved medical forms in their faces and accused them of trying to rob her. The eighth examiner, a Dr. Stephanos, conducted a series of X-rays and tests spanning half a year. If his life expectancy was accurate, Billy would die before the age of twenty. The time Lois had spent in denial would have saved her son.

Billy remained optimistic. Long convinced of his own greatness, he often fantasized about success while his eyes glazed over against the rays of a television. The context surrounding his gift to the world never molded in his mind, but the imagined scenario usually landed him on several late-night talk shows. Meanwhile, a cloud of guilt tortured Lois. She had spoiled Billy to facilitate his later accomplishments, and now he was going to die. She knew she wasn’t like other mothers. Despite her unwavering confidence in him, Billy had never once made her proud. He had taken so much from the world and given it so little, bore its fruit and spat in the soil. Lois spent sleepless hours thinking up a way to amend her sins, researching avenues for children in critical condition. The internet offered group therapy and sleepaway camps for fellow diagnosed. In a drunken stupor she’d even managed to type into a search engine, “my son is dying rewards.” It yielded few physical or meaningful results, only the knowledge that comes with losing a loved one. None of it answered Lois’ question: how do I make my son great enough to be remembered? Any family or friends had died or distanced themselves and she was not a religious woman. The only form of immortality she believed in was sleuthing your way into people’s memories, entering popular canon by word of mouth.

A eureka moment struck Lois while she watched Billy’s mind ice over against the cranked TV set, a western film. His mouth hung open as he made finger guns and shot bandits alongside the lone rangers. Quite literally the only thing Billy had ever done with a modicum of enjoyment was watch movies, TV, and videos on the internet. He’d even got in the habit of bringing his tablet into the bathroom, heaven forbid he be left with his own thoughts, however many there were. It only made sense to Lois, finally, that he make a video of his own. It couldn’t be for some other teenage drone to stumble upon; it had to be major and long-form—a feature-length film. In her deliberation, she decided that Billy must direct. No existing movie would have him, and how many child directors were there? It must have been a short list, and Billy would be on it.

She penned a public fundraiser listing headed, “Help My Dying Son Make a Movie.” Billy had not yet experienced any symptoms, but Lois described a grotesque account of her dying boy’s daily life to mine sympathy from potential donors. He operated on one lung and vomited every three seconds, according to her. The campaign received a couple of dollars over the next four days, but blew up on the fifth. Several news outlets published articles and interviewed Lois over the phone and via email. The local PTA took notice and swirled with gossip. “That pennypincher’s sitting on three lifetimes of inheritance,” one mother said. “She wouldn’t even contribute to the new basketball court.” Rumors circulated—that it was a get-more-rich-quick scheme; that Lois had spent all of her money on male prostitutes—yet no one dared to speak first. Accusing a mother and her cancerous son of fraud would lead to national scorn, even worse if they had been telling the truth.

Before the fundraiser even met its million-dollar goal, minor Hollywood stars voiced their support on social media, some asked to be cast in the film. The influx of emails, letters, and phone calls drove Billy mad. Lois did not serve him any attention since she had begun this escapade. For the first and last time, she was forcing Billy to do something. After all those absent days from school, letting him drop out before graduation, those discarded dinners she’d slaved over, after all the abuse, she would have this—she would sew her son into the fabric of time.

Of course, Billy was reluctant at first. Any sort of work put him off. He would complete the script using the same technique that got him through grade schools—he made his mother do it. During their initial meetings in the writers’ room—the dining room table—Billy caught the rest of Shark Week through a crack in the doorway. Lois never expected him to contribute; she only wanted someone to watch her brainstorm. She penned a globe-trotting film for the sake of vacation instead of story. The fundraiser had surpassed its goal and she planned to milk it for everything it was worth. Her creative juices tapped out at page twenty-three; the other seventy were ghostwritten by a guy named Phil in Wisconsin. Lois used an alias in their correspondence.

The script uploaded to the campaign webpage and Frank Richards, an A-turned-B-lister, requested to produce and star without having read it. He shared Lois’ motivation in seeking fame. Magazines a decade prior labeled him “the next Burt Reynolds,” but now he was out of his prime and in the process of washing up. He used his dwindling industry connections to mangle a cast and crew together by the end of June.

*

Filming began two months later in Greenland. The cast and crew formed a semi-circle around the lip of a long frozen pond. Campfires and tents speckled the foot-tracked snow. Billy complained about the cold and stationed himself in an air-conditioned production car while Lois stepped in to direct the first scene. “I’ll take over for now,” she said. “I know what he wants.”

Billy watched his mother through the car windshield. She commanded the bodies like a battalion, stabbing the air in all different directions and shouting orders to conduct the masses. To his own surprise, Billy started to feel jealous—it was his movie, after all. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized the presented opportunity to be in charge.

Everyone spun around toward the sound of a car door slamming shut. “Cut!” Lois said and entered “mom mode” at the sight of Billy.

“I saw a spider,” he lied.

“Ok—do you want to step in and direct, honey?”

“Yes.” He shifted his sheepskin cap and approached the actors. The script mystified him; Lois used it as bedtime story material, but Billy refused to listen out of spite. It lacked firearms, car chases, and at least one cowboy.

“Let’s step on the ice,” he said. The crew gave confused looks. “I want to do the scene on the ice. Does anybody have ice skates?”

Lois touched his arm. “Uh, honey, the ice looks too thin. It could be dangerous.”

“Are you calling me fat?” He pushed his glasses up the brim of his nose and stared her in the eyes. “I didn’t think so.”

The others were torn between fulfilling the dying kid’s every wish and staying on solid ground. Frank Richards swayed them. “You only live once. Insurance’ll cover it anyway, right?” He side-eyed his assistant for verification, who did not guarantee it. Richards slipped on the ice and fought hard against the gravity that pushed at his back. Billy insisted that the tripod be set up on the ice, too. The cameraman tried to tell him about long lenses and the potential cost of damages, but it was Billy.

The actors read Phil from Wisconsin’s lines and performed quite well. Richards felt a lyrical groove that he’d not experienced since the heyday. “Ok,” Billy said, making finger guns in the air, “now shoot her like this.”

Richards and the other actor stood ten feet away and did not understand. He put a hand to his ear. “What?”

Billy became irritated and ran towards them to offer directions, but the heel of his sneaker slipped on ice. Lois felt it happen before anyone else; call it “a mother’s instinct.” First her son’s head cracked against the frozen pond’s brick-like surface. The impact caused the ice to crackle and pop around his limp body. Blood seeped from the wound in three different directions. The silence cascaded when Richards realized he may be next. He abandoned the other actor or any idea of retrieving Billy and sprinted for land. The icequake rippled faster, etching a large area before tumbling down into the water below, swallowing everyone above it. As Billy’s legs slipped downward and out of sight, a pinch of relief singed through Lois’ spine.