[Off-Camera]
October 23rd, 2016
Los Angeles, CA
Kris’ Apartment
A lot had changed in the last year. Almost too much for Kris to even get his head wrapped around. Two years ago, a lifetime of bad decisions had left him an addict with nobody willing to take a chance on him. Everyone that got caught in his wake ended up worse for it. To make matters worse, a year and a half ago, he was finding out that a female that he had planned to publicly humiliate was having his baby, a son that son that changed everything back in March. Eight months ago, he was making a joke that broke up a relationship of someone he cared about too much to admit to anyone, including himself. Exactly five months ago to this day, he married his best friend. Today, that best friend is 23 weeks pregnant with a child of their own. A girl. Two years ago the only thing that he could think about was finishing whatever painting he was working on, and finding some way to get his fix without so much as a dime in his pocket. How could everything have turned around so quickly? Two years is all it took to wipe away twenty-five years of everything else. He was still standing, despite his best efforts.
Here he was, bringing home groceries to a pregnant wife, in a loft in the middle of a city that was starting to have more positive memories than negative. He was seconds from opening the door, seeing her smiling face, greeting his, now speed crawling, and dancing son, and falling into everything that he never thought he would be lucky enough to get. The childhood that did not allow him to be a child was a bad dream. The ghost that haunted him for far too long was now a smiling reminder that things can turn around. The drugs that used to dictate his every behavior, were little more than a low whisper in the back of his head. He no longer needed the negativity in order to block out those thoughts. He no longer had to pick fights in order to validate his existence. For once, he was happy, and hoping that everything he had put together in the last two years was enough to keep it that way.
That is why sticking the key into the door, and turning the handle to greet his family was not a hassle in anyway. Sure, madness would ensue the moment he opened the door. His son would need any of one hundred different things. Heather would need help with someone. Likely, they would probably argue about something he forgot to do, or did not do well enough before the end of the night. But, considering the alternative, pushing the door open was not something that even needed a second thought. Everything he wanted was inside.
“Hello…….” Kris closes the door behind him with his foot, trying not to do so loudly in case his seven month old miniature was asleep. He balanced the groceries in one hand as he moved across the living room and into the kitchen. He found the room empty, much to his surprise, but immediately started to put items away. His greeting had been sufficiently loud. Yelling, or otherwise being loud, would likely only cause an argument.
Heather heard his call. She double checked the boy she had grown to love like her own, brushing sandy blonde hair from his angelic sleeping face. Quietly slipping from the room, a feat not as easy as it used to be now with her new ballooned middle and slowly developing waddle. Kris was putting away groceries, his back to her and she can't help but have a little bit of pride swell in her chest. She’d won.
Yes it sounded bad in that context. She had beat the perfect, ever popular and equally hated Liz Smalls, the boy's mother. She had gotten back the only man that had ever understood her, and she knew that she was the same. Even her own half sisters never understood her like Kris. His way of keeping her sober was to give her an ultimatum. Using his own addiction as blackmail.
She slips in behind him, hoping to hug him from behind but her stomach rubs the small of his back first before her arms can reach around. He drops his arms down to cover hers rubbing them gently.
“I figured that Waverly was probably either about to fall asleep, or having just nodded out so I didn’t want to yell out for you. I think I got everything that we need for the next few days. Liz is not going to be around, so I am assuming he is going to continue being here with us. You know how she is…. Terrible at communicating unless it is about something that she needs anyone to do.” He finishes putting things away in the cabinets directly in front of him before spinning to face her. His hands drop to her ever-expanding belly. “How is this one doing today?”
“Feisty. Definitely half a Cooper.” She smiles but it's evident in her eyes that's she's tired. She reaches a hand up to caress his cheek.
“If she comes out with red hair we may have to worry. Kinda scary. Three Cooper girls and we all have girls. So far Lav & Mara both have red hair.”
He shrugs off the negativity of the idea, “The only other option we have is her turning out like me. Is that something you really want to have to deal with? We already have one in the other room that hopefully never grows into the 50% Liz Smalls DNA he carries. I doubt that our little girl will be more of a handful than he is going to end up being.”
“But look at how great Blade is, he’s a Smalls too. It's all about how he's raised and no Son of mine is going to grow up like she did. He's got a lot of great support Kris. That isn't going to happen. He is his own person. I can see that already.”
She rubs her bump, the only real evidence that she was even pregnant at all.
“We cannot be so sure. I mean his dad is pretty much the textbook definition of a fuck up and his mom is probably the single most selfish individual on the face of the Earth. The one thing that he has going for him is a step-mom that is actually pretty awesome. Let’s hope that most of the genes that he got from my side are the ones that Jason got. I think that would be for the best. You know, aside from the bad luck with wives dying and whatnot, but we really do not have to worry about that for a couple decades. If you so choose to keep me around that long….”
He places his hands over hers on her stomach, and then hunches down to be face to face with the baby bump. “What do you think, huh? Think I can somehow convince mommy here to put up with me for that long?”
There's a rumbling sound and Heather laughs. “Sorry to ruin the moment with my stomach rumbling. You came home with food at the right time. And...”
She gets a serious look on her face
“If I can wait and deal with your shittiness before we got together I think I can put up with it for a good long while longer.”
He does not pull his eyes from the baby bump. “See, look at her, trying to convince me that it is all stomach rumbling instead of you talking to me. She just doesn’t understand, does she? It is okay, we have lots of years to train her better once you pop out of there and join us.”
Smiling, he pulls himself back up to his feet and presses his lips to his wife’s forehead. “It will require lots of training, but we will get you there.”
“Ha Ha Ha, Kris.”
She reaches around to grab his backside, squeezing hard and smirking at him.
“I know what your idea of ‘training’ is. “
She eyes the grocery bags. “So what's for dinner?”
He shrugs, “I don’t know what kind of training the baby and I can give you that involves my backside. Granted, there is a ton of things that I can think of, just not baby related. I think this may be the very first time ever that you have been thinking sexually and I was not. This is a milestone. We should celebrate!”
He gives her backside a squeeze now, and smiles widely at her.
“The food thing is all on you. You are the one with the weird cravings and I am the one that has eaten dumpster food before and not incredibly picky. Pregnant lady’s choice.”
She smiles, “Don't worry, nothing weird today. Was thinking pasta.”
She moves from his arms and starts to pull out the things she needs.
“Are you still against all the names on my updated version of our names list?”
He laughs lightly, “I would not necessarily say that I am against any of the names that you put on there. I am not just particularly sold on any of them. I mean we have to look at her lovingly for the rest of our lives. I wouldn’t want to call her by a name that she shared with a stripper that threw me out of a club, or any of the porn stars you worked with. That would be awkward.”
She sighs. “That narrows the list significantly you know.”
She sets up a pot on the stove.
“What about naming her after someone we care about?”
He shrugs, “Well that would work. Do we have people that we care about? I mean I already have a baby named after me. Do we care about more people than just me?”
He has trouble keeping a straight face through his words.
“Maybe one of Jason’s dead wives? Or we could name her after Liz even. I mean if she was not so exceptionally bad, we may not have ended up together. We should send her a thank you card at the very least.”
Heather stops, looking over her shoulder at him. He attempt at being annoyed is short lived as she smirks. “Then should we send one to Kaden too?”
Again, he shrugs, not one to be shaken by sarcasm. “I am pretty sure he has a restraining order out on me, and I could probably get in a lot of trouble if we did.”
He gives out a slight sigh, and the tone of his voice changes, dropping the sarcasm altogether. “Your mom maybe? Or either of your sisters?”
“I think they would both kill me if I did. Neither were particularly fond of their names. Hence why Vi changed hers. And Angel was on the list. I believe you said it was like setting up a stripper pole in the nursery.”
“We could always name her after you….” He looks down at the floor. “I think I could get used to Honey Halich….” He tries to fight back the smile that just saying it brings to his lips.
She rolls her eyes, flicking some raw spaghetti noodles at him.
“You are still the only one in position of my only hetero video you know. Actually I was thinking someone else...”
She takes a deep breath. “What about Lindsay?”
His sister’s name knocks the air out of his lungs. She was mostly just a quiet voice in the back of his head pushing him to be happy for the both of them these days. However, for the longest time she was the driving factor behind not allowing himself to be happy in the least. The suggestion caught him off guard, and he struggled to find a way to address those feelings.
“So that is a no on Honey then?”
“If it's too hard, then it's fine. I thought maybe it would be a nice tribute to her. I know it's hard to talk about and...”
She sighs.
“Just pretend I didn't say it.”
He shakes his head.
“It is not that. Just caught me off guard.”
He clasps his hands in front of his waist and rolls his thumbs around each other.
“Is that something that you would be okay with doing? I mean… I have done some pretty terrible things when thinking about her is involved. The whole not wanting to get married. Never wanting to let anyone get close to me. Not wanting to be happy because she never got the chance to be. It is a lot. So is this just an offhand kind of thing, or something that you have been thinking about?”
She stops putting the pasta in the pot, but doesn't turn right away.
“Kris, your sister's death has been the catalyst for every moment in your life since it happened. Just like my step-father raping me was mine. I'm not saying you should celebrate either, obviously not. They're both horrible unspeakable things, but as much as they set us on our individual paths, and despite the pain it gave us, it was those things that eventually led our paths to cross.”
She finally turns.
“So yes, I have thought about it. I thought about it the entire time I fought the urge to drown myself in whisky and the waters of Laguna beach after you chose Liz. I thought about it when you accused me of not being loyal to you after and I thought about it the moment you comforted me when I was crushed by yet another man. Our story isn't a disney fairytale but it's ours. Do I wish it had been? Fuck no. Then we would be just like every other cookie cutter relationship that dies and falls in our... Circle? I don't even know what to fucking call that cesspool. Regardless in the end, all roads lead back to her. She didn't ruin your life though, you just tried to make amends for your mistake. Atone for it. Did you ever think that all you needed to do was forgive yourself? She probably wants you to let go and be happy and maybe, naming the baby after her will help you to feel that forgiveness too.”
She's nervous. Deep conversations were sometimes a hit or miss with Kris.
Hearing her out was always the easy part of the conversation. Heather always seemed to touch on what the little voices in the back of his head told him to do. His problem was that the rational voice, was the small one. The rest of him was the turn and run, and go nuclear to get out of these kind of situations. She was getting too close to the core of him. Anyone else would have been cut loose by now. In fact, she had been cut loose once before. At the same time, getting her back was the first time he had ever allowed himself to be honest about what he wanted out of life. The first time he allowed himself to value someone more than himself. He was much too invested to run at this point, and she had delved way too deep with her words for sarcasm to brush it off.
“Forgiving myself? It has never been a matter of forgiving myself. It has always been a matter of thinking that there was anything in me worth forgiving. Anything worth doing anything positive. Her accident laid down the path that I spent twenty years on. Telling you how I felt was a step off of that. Getting married was a big leap away from that. I no longer think that I don’t deserve happiness because she will never get the chance to be happy. Instead, it is just kind of my job to be happy enough for the both of us.”
He pauses and considers the name that they would be giving to their daughter. He already knew that this baby girl would probably be the one puzzle piece that snapped everything together and made running back to his old ways impossible. He had built a life. However, his marriage was still in its infancy. As much as his son meant the world to him, so far he was only able to be a part time parent because Liz had partial custody. This little girl was going to be the single thing that made his past life cemented as just that, the past. Why not build the barrier to the past with the one thing, that if changed, would have erased everything else?
“Let’s do it.”
Heather had seen that look in his eyes many times since they had been friends, lovers, even spouses. She knew all too well how internal struggle tugged at you. She knew that bringing her back into his life was a chip in that barrier he surrounded himself with. One of many decisions, unlike him, that had ultimately led to the crumbling and destruction of that wall. She knew him so well, yet still had so much still to learn about him. It made every day an adventure.
She smiles and steps in closer to him, looking up.
“You're sure?”
He laughs lightly, “About absolutely nothing in this world….”
He reaches out for her hand though, and once their fingers interlock her pulls her close enough to wrap his arms around her, pregnant belly and all.
“But I am willing to give it a shot.”
“I love you. I don't think I tell you enough. I love everything you are, even when we argue and I give you the silent treatment. I mean it could be worse, I could have an evil second personality or something?”
The dig at her sister was meant to reduce the overly mushiness of the moment.
“If we are made to compare the particular Cooper girl I ended up with to the other two, I think I won. One of them is not just a little crazy, but full on insane. The other one has just relentless banged Parker…. Oh… wait... “
Heather punches his shoulder, “Don't tell him this, but that stereotype about once you go black... Is just a stereotype.”
“Oh, I tell him that every single time he talks about having slept with my wife.”
He gives a light shrug of his shoulders though.
“We are all good as long as the baby does not come out looking any kind of chocolate though.”
“Not a chance. As weird as it is having your sister date your ex... They are good for each other and he's a great Dad to Mara. But we're getting off topic here. We just gave our daughter her name.”
“At least the name she will go by before turning 18 and requiring a stage name. Assuming that she takes after either of us in the least.”
The words come out as sarcasm, but it only takes a moment for the reality of them to sink in.
“We should consider locking her in a closet until she is 30….”
“Then she'll really turn out like one of us.”
She looks serious for a moment before chuckling.
“Do you ever think that we teeter on the border of either being really awesome, or really terrible parents?
“So far, I think we’ve done pretty well with KJ. I love him to bits so I can only imagine how good it will be with Lindsay.”
She smiles.
“I know we all have our fears Kris, especially as parents but I think this is one area that we might actually not fuck up in.”
He kisses the side of her head, and nods in agreement.
“Hopefully…”
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[On-Camera]
Kris’ Apartment
October 27th, 2016
Light comes through the window at the far end of the room, behind where Kris sits. He is dead center in the middle of his couch with nobody else around him. His laptop, with the camera already recording, is placed in front of him on the coffee table. He leans forward, towards it, his hands clasped together in front of his body, resting in his lap.
“Some people are, of course, going to ask why I am doing this to myself all over again. It is not as if this road I am taking has ever been especially profitable for me. I have enjoyed very minor success in a handful of places. I have earned a good chunk of money. On the flipside of that, I have lost friends, made dozens of enemies, ruined relationships, destroyed families, broken bones, and made an uncountable number of poor decisions for the sake of making an uncountable number of poor decisions. I left this line of work in order to escape these facts, and break the cycle of self-destruction.”
He sits back and sighs heavily, before running his fingers through his hair.
“I left and created a real life for myself. That is not to say that I did not have a life beforehand, but it was arguably not one worth living. In the last year, I put together the things in life that most people take for granted. I cleaned up my act and found normalcy. I have a wife, a son, a house, and all the happiness that I could ask for. These were all things I used to run from and push away when they got anywhere close to happening. I did not believe that I was deserving of this kind of life, so I went out of my way to deny myself these things. I never had normalcy in my life, not even from the start. If I didn’t deserve it as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, my thoughts were that they had no place in my adult life.”
He rolls his eyes, looking almost sickened by himself. It was very clear from his body language that he no longer followed the same pattern of thought that he was describing.
“Instead of running to the things that I wanted, I ran towards conflict. Instead of building a foundation for myself, I sought out chaos. If I couldn’t find it, I created it. Whether it be through substance, women, or words every decision was aimed to create friction. My job of choice? Fighting. But fighting was not enough. Anyone can step into a ring, have a match, and feel good about their effort whether they win or lose. That was never enough for me. Not even a win was enough for me. I needed to manipulate, irritate, vex, enrage, or otherwise break down anyone that was scheduled to stand across from me. If that meant breaking up their relationships, so be it. If that meant poking and prodding at the tragedies in their lives, then it was just the price of playing the game. I needed everyone across from me to want to see me dead. I savored the rage within the beating more than a result at the end of the night. Every time the bell rang I needed to face an individual that I had made less than human by way of being a slave to their rage. Most nights, losing was actually preferable to walking out victorious. If they won, it was a result of my successfully twisting them up inside. The psychological game was more important that the physical.”
He pauses to collect his thoughts in order to put them in their simplest form.
“My life, my career, my every decision, has been atonement for things that were out of my control. The beatings, the harsh words, the broken bones, and everything that came with them was punishment. I created a situation where I was given what I felt I deserved. All of it was a fight I was determined lose everyday until the moment that I finally walked away.”
He laughs, but it seems to lack any real job at all.
“Stepping away was my first ever act of self-preservation. Before that, I led a life of tearing myself apart. Afterwards, I cleaned myself up. I allowed someone to finally get close. From that point, to this moment, the metaphorical snowball has continued to roll, gain momentum, and grow. Everything that I craved in life has started to fall into place. Relationships that were damaged have begun to be mended. Walking away, at the moment that I did, probably saved my life. That does not mean that there is not something significant, or important, that is still missing.”
He gives a look around the room, almost as if to check to make sure that nobody is eavesdropping before he lets scores of individuals watching in on some secret.
“A big part of any addict’s recovery is making amends and correcting mistakes. You are literally tasked with owning up to the personality flaws and bad decisions, no matter how small. The time I spent in this profession was littered with bad decisions, broken promises, and missed opportunities. Now, I have no delusions of grandeur. I could never set everything right, nor would I be welcomed back into many of the places that I have wronged. The only way that I can even make a dent in the negativity, is to come back and show everyone that I can do things the right way.”
He holds up his hands as if to stop an imaginary person from being able to interrupt him.
“Don’t misunderstand me though. This is not the kind of redemption tour that is going to be all hugs and rainbows. This is not going to be me coming back as the defender of all that is good and righteous. Rules will, as always, get bent or broken. Faces will get pimp-handed when they least expect it. People will be offended by the things I say and do. SmackShots will be distributed to previously unbroken jaws. Fans will probably end up booing more than cheering when my face lights up the screen. I am not promising to be someone that I am not. I am promising to show up, play my part, and for once, actually care about putting on a show worth watching.”
He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and rubs his hands together in front of his mouth.
“So, for the first time in a long time, we have finally arrived at the one thing that is left for me to say.”
“I am Kris Halich.”
“Someone call the ambulance….”
“There’s gonna be an ACCIDENT!”
