CHAPTER 11

ROHEED COULDN’T BELIEVE the tall tale that Charlie was telling. But then again, he kinda could; things in Yellow County had a way of happening happenstantially. They sat in Charlie’s living room, Charlie looking dejected, seemingly at a stopping point in his story.

“What happened after that?” Roheed implored.

“Ah, you don’t want to hear the rest, do you?”

Roheed just about leapt across the coffee table. “Finish the story!”

“Okay, okay,” Charlie said. “Hold your horses.”

Roheed relaxed a tad.

Charlie got back into narrating mode. “For a while, not much happened on the In Sheep’s Clothing front. I just assumed that the opportunity had gone away. Until . . .”

• • •

Charlie was working at the local Popcorn Movies video rental joint. Outside, a MovieVend movie vending machine had been callously set up by the drugstore next door. On his shifts, Charlie would watch dozens of people rent movies from the automated box instead of coming inside his store for a better selection and some human interaction. It bummed Charlie out big time.

One day, his coworker Anfernee ran up to the register from the break room. He was carrying his phone, laughing, and dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a napkin to wipe away a bit of whatever he had been munching on during his short break. Whatever had propelled him from his moment of leisure and re-snack-sation had been too pressing for him to stop and compose himself before running to share it with Charlie.

“Yo, Chaz! You gotta see this!” Anfernee exclaimed.

Charlie snapped out of his daze. “What’s up?” he squinted, looking towards the screen of Anfernee’s phone.

“A clip from Rich B Words is going viral, like right now.” Anfernee held his phone close to Charlie’s face.

On Anfernee’s phone’s screen, a clip played. In the clip, one of the Rich B Words girls (not coincidentally, due to her Jerd connection, she would be the actress that Charlie would see later with Roheed in the In Sheep’s Clothing movie trailer) was holding a very old pug dog. The girl was as good-looking as the pug was fugly, and this was one fugly pugly. In other words the girl was super-hot.

In the clip, the young woman was sitting with Florence and a couple of other Rich B Words cast members. They were all chatting and barely eating their fancy salads and sipping on daytime cocktails. Innocently, the girl held up her hand to her nose; she felt a sneeze coming on.

“Ah, ah, ah choo . . .” pllbbtttt. She sneezed and it made her fart at the same time. The very old pug’s eyes bulged.

Anfernee almost dropped the phone, he was laughing so hard. “She snarted,” he said through tears and heaving shoulders.

Charlie was just confused. “What did I just watch?” he asked, suddenly feeling older than he hoped he should.

“History in the making,” Anfernee replied.

He dragged the cursor on the timeline back to the beginning and watched the video clip again . . . and again and again.

• • •

Charlie pulled out his phone and showed Roheed that the snart video had millions of views on YouTube.

Roheed watched the video once through and nodded. “I see the appeal of that particular sequence of events.”

Charlie continued, “That clip from Jerd’s show broke records. It was played on The Soup, The View, The Stew, The Daily Show, The Yearly Show, Ellen, Fallon, Smellen, Gallon, Goofus and Gallant, The Late Show, The Early Show, The Girlie Show, and Pontius Tonight. That young lady got a book deal off that snart.”

Charlie showed Roheed the Amazon link to the girl’s book.

Roheed read the title aloud, “Lean In: So You Can Snart.”

Charlie was already typing into his browser to show Roheed another link. “A T-shirt line . . .”

Charlie held his phone up and Roheed saw a webpage full of T-shirts for sale with catch phrases like “Let’s Get It Snarted In Here,” “Oops! I Snarted Again,” and “Snart Happens When You Party Naked.”

“Even a line of frozen dinners,” Charlie said, as he once again clicked through to a webpage, this one showing Snart Ones frozen dinners in varieties like “Pork & Beans, beans . . .”, “Macaroni and Who Cut the Cheese?”, and “Who Beefed? Stroganoff.”

Roheed listened to the whole thing politely, giving Charlie his time. When Charlie appeared to be finished, Roheed said, “I know the snart well. Florence began her deejay career off the popularity of that snart. But what does any of this have to do with Jerd and In Sheep’s Clothing?”

Charlie was worked up, nearly perspiring. “Rich B Words blew up. Everyone wanted to see if that girl was going to snart again. How would the pug react to another snart? Would anyone else do two or more bodily functions at once? Doors were opened for the whole cast and especially Jerd. He got general meetings at all the agencies in Los Angeles.”

Charlie was building to something and Roheed knew it, but he couldn’t put together the puzzle pieces as fast as Charlie was throwing them down.

Charlie continued, “And what was the only writing sample Jerd had to his name when Hollywood came calling?”

Roheed understood it all now. “In Sheep’s Clothing,” he whispered.

Charlie nodded.

“Wow.” Roheed was floored. He was also impressed by Charlie’s storytelling abilities. Maybe this kid does have a future.

“It really makes me think,” Charlie said, gazing out the window. “Is the script good enough to get made? Or would it never have been good enough and the only reason it will see the light of day is because Jerd stole it?”

“What are you going to do?” Roheed asked.

“Nothing.” Charlie looked back at Roheed, a little too intensely for Roheed’s liking. “There’s nothing I can do. And it really sucks because I had this backup plan where if I couldn’t get anyone in Hollywood to read the script I would write it as a novel and try to get it made into a movie that way.”

“Is that something that happens?”

“Probably not,” Charlie chuckled darkly. “Sitting on my computer is a worthless half-started novelized version of In Sheep’s Clothing. I mean, how sad. I have one idea and I keep writing it over and over in different formats.”

That sounded pretty cool to Roheed, actually. “I would like to read it,” he said.

Charlie half-smiled. “Thanks, dude. I’ll send you the PDF when I’m finished—if I ever finish.”

“I’d prefer a Word document,” Roheed said. Charlie was about to be pissed, but Roheed was grinning. “Get it? Like how Jerd stole the script from you?”

Charlie nodded. He got it.