After all the hustle of the day, the
sidewalk was finally left alone, although not untouched. Lots of glass
fragments were scattered all over the place, as well as paper and some pens.
Journalists weren’t really careful with their stuff. Like their cameramen, they
just dropped things wherever it was convenient for them. And the sidewalk in
front of the Oak Tree Hospital was not a place they would respect in any way.
They didn’t care if the patients needed silence to sleep, they’d rather had
their story.
And they did that day. After coming day after
day, waiting for him to finally kick the bucket, the seventy-four year old man
had finally passed away due to complications with the procedure he had gone
through. It had been a very challenging adventure to fight where he knew he was
already a loser. His mother and then sister before him had died exactly the
same way, around the same age. So it wasn’t very surprising at all. That night,
his body was sent to the cremator.
The next day, he was incinerated and his ashes
kept on a small jar to be given to the only person that had been with him
through the last few hours, his partner Eddy. They had been together in the
industry for years and had formed a bond no one could match, especially not in
the modern times when friendships and all sorts of relationships seem to be
built on something very fragile, that could break at any moment. It wasn’t
their case at all, because even then they felt the same towards each other.
They had never dared to be more than friends.
They did agree on having to work together to fight the competition that plagued
acting and all other forms of performance. Sydney, the one you had been
cremated, had only been sixteen years old the day he arrived in the big city,
looking for a chance to shine. Back then, the industry was only beginning. No
major studios existed and the craft of cinema was thought to be a thing that
would have only a couple of years in this Earth.
Sydney, however, had always seen the magic in
the movies and was sure it was going to become the largest groups of performers
and other artists to be known in the world. He began cleaning around and
helping people getting coffee or whatever they needed at the moment. The
directors took pity of him and let him attend some rehearsals and even some
casting sessions. By the time he was an adult in the eyes of the law, he was a
very knowledgeable man, with a great deal of respect for acting. That was what
got him inside an acting school soon enough.
He met Eddy in one of his first productions.
Eddy was an assistant of the director and Sydney had land a role as the son of
the protagonists. It was a big deal to him because he had never acted before.
He was so determined to be good, that he did his best with the little lines he
had. It worked in its favor, as many others started hiring him for their
pictures. It was mostly for the young brother or son parts, but he knew that
was a way to climb to where he really wanted to be.
With Eddy, they shared their love for industry
and their yearning for a time where they could be next to the biggest stars in
the business. When there wasn’t any work, they would go out together and watch
a movie and then walk around or have something to eat while they discussed said
movie. They had fun like that and it was during those long and elaborate
conversations when they probably noticed, for the first time, what was
happening between them. They didn’t acknowledge it, though.
Sydney’s first big picture came in when he was
twenty-five years old. He was offered the role of a young sailor who falls in
love with a mermaid. It was one of those beautiful fantasy setting, with the
grand costumes and the elaborate production design. The day filming started was
the happiest day ever for him, as he had finally reached he point that he
wanted in his career. And although the film was not the serious kind of thing
he would like to dedicate himself to, it was a great way to begin.
It was so well received in the theaters by the
general audience that he was signed on to reprise the role for two more movies.
The studio proposed to him to raise his salary as well as given him many more
accommodations and luxuries in exchange for him staying with them for the saga
of movies they had planned. He accepted but with fear of never going back to
the more serious movies that he had always longed of doing. Maybe, he thought,
he could work something out.
There was the sequel of the mermaid movie, and
then the other movie and then the next one. Suddenly, he had already signed on
for five more, for a whole series with the character, and nothing had changed,
not even the costumes and monsters he fought. It was Eddy who gave him the push
he needed to demand more of the studio and of anyone working near or around
him. He needed much more creativity if they wanted them to stay. That was how
he put his foot down, in the hopes that could actually grow as an actor,
instead of getting stuck forever in the same place.
After all the money he had won for them, the
studio was not that reluctant to let him get closer to the creative process. It
was a revolution: he was responsible for the firing of the screenwriting and
the hiring of a new team of younger, more vivacious men like him. He worked for
long weeks with them in order to create a new great story for his audience to
love. Meanwhile, he was also eyeing some roles in other movies, more dramatic
ones with potent stories and strong characters.
He signed on to a couple of those but then he
realized he didn’t do as well with the dramatic stuff than with fantasy.
Critics said that he was a bit too dry during his performances in the big
movies he got to make. They didn’t say he was bad or anything, but what they
always said only meant that his skills as an actor didn’t really show much
during those grand romantic scenes he had tried so hard to do. It was something
difficult to hear but he had to accept it, as it was a fact.
Sydney kept trying, though. With the help of
his best friend Eddy, he would often get the kind of role he had dreamt of doing.
But he did, he came short of having the reception that Captain Granger had in
the theater. The Granger series were a huge hit among young people and their
parents love the movies too because of its depiction of a true hero. The new
team of writers had done a marvelous job making the character more realistic
and daring. He was who kids wanted to be.
So he kept on doing those movies. He never
stopped. During his career, he filmed maybe more than thirty movies as the
character of Captain Granger. He made money and fame; people loved him and
appreciated him. But they also questioned his life, as Sydney never married. He
argued that the lack of time and the commitment to his craft were the ones to
blame for him not having a big family. He did make some relations public, to
appease the audiences and their thirst for gossip. But they were all lies.
All along the road, Eddy was there, helping
and cheering him on. He was Sydney biggest fan and his best friend in the
world. In their older days, they would still sit down and discuss the movies.
When Sydney retired, they did it always, almost as a rite they had to go
through everyday. And that was their relationship, one were one depended in the
other and vice versa, to push him along the long line of life and resist the
blows life launched against either of them. They never discussed their
relationship further, and it wasn’t necessary because it had obviously been a
great success.
