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  Written by Albrecht. Directed by Albrecht. Choreography by Albrecht. Fretted about by Albrecht for five years leading up to filming, especially including the early, foggy mornings he’d stroll, not jog, through the streets near campus. He’d look up at the wooden balconies of the bar row, filled with mist, vacant of persons, and imagine what ideas he could’ve conjured there six hours previous. If a step past a bouncer, a beer, a couple piercing laughs at bad jokes could’ve given him that extra character, bonus dialogue line. But she always dragged him away, down a darker, quieter alley.

  Soundtrack by Albrecht. Cringes by Albrecht throughout grade school because, ha ha, what kind of name is that? The type of name you get with a domineering German-American Catholic grandmother, full of face, easy with dismissal. “A terrible potato salad.” In college, he’d served a foreign exchange student some pizza that the foreigner spat out without apology, horrifying the others at the table. Albrecht had only nodded, eyes downward, then shushed the Americans’ chastisement. Shades of Oma, after all. “Wear the pink polo,” she’d ordered him as a preteen. “I didn’t slave away for a week to buy you something that you never wear.” She’d been a receptionist for a seldom-visited ophthalmologist.

  Casting by Albrecht. Sighed by Albrecht as his soldier-in-training cousin pulled him out on the lawn away from the pool at Albrecht’s high school graduation party. “Going to tell me about plastics?” the graduate asked. The pool belonged not to his parents, but his uncle’s family. They’d just moved back to the area a year before.

  The cousin’s chiseled face beamed with alcohol sweats, his spiky, close-shorn hair glistening in the moonlight. His cam shirt failed to blend him into the shrubs by the fence. “Look at you.” His voice rang higher and more nasal than anyone would ever guess upon first meeting him. “Still got baby fat in your cheeks. You need to go to a comic convention, Albrecht. You’ll find a good nerd girl there.” Never Al with anyone, always Albrecht, like an incantation.

  “Comics are trash.”

  “That Spawn one is good. One of my buds at base showed me one.” They paced about the lawn perimeter. “You just need to take steps.”

  “To? How am I going wrong, Jordan?” A dangerous snark considering the cousin had an arm around him.

  But only laughter in response. “I meet all kinds in the army, man, all kinds.” He always was prone to such non sequiturs. “Remember how I stood up for you in elementary school?”

  “Until you moved away.”

  “You’d do great in Ohio.” The cousin had moved to Florida.

  “You haven’t seen The Graduate, then?”

  “Ohioan winters kill people, you know? But you’re pale enough for it.”

  “Chubby, you mean.”

  More guffawing, the kind that Albrecht could never replicate. “I meet all kinds in the army.” He released his hostage and saddled off to the fence. The attempts to hop it went badly, ending in him lying on his back, dazed eyes scanning the stars.

  Albrecht loomed over him and frowned. “You alright?”

  A slurred, “Oma probably wants to see you now.”

  A likely statement, enough to spur Albrecht back to the house, past chortling family members in the water, water he’d never dip in himself that night.

  Produced by Albrecht. Executive produced by Albrecht. Squirmed by Albrecht to no avail as she towed him away from the bars towards the woods nestled next to the campus, a forest nicked with a sparseness of dirt paths that disappeared in patches, conquered by overgrowth. They always took the alleys to it, not the streets. The tree tops cut off the stars. Vines choked a few of the weaker trees to death, leaving skeleton limbs.

  She bit his lower lip on several trips, but one particular occasion, she moved down and gnawed lightly on his neck, her teeth rubbing with dangerous tease against his throat. He stood frozen as usual. He didn’t know then that this was no common ritual, not something television always censored but came expected with all relationships. Her hand went down to his pants zipper.

  “Please don’t,” he whispered.

  Her fingers rested there for a few obstinate seconds before drawing away. “They say these woods are haunted,” she hissed in his ears.

  “Bigger problem is the muggers, I think.” Inwardly he cringed at the squeak in his voice.

  Her elaborately fake eyelashes fluttered. “What if we got possessed? Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

  His response stayed paralyzed inside him. An owl hooted in the distance. Unknown creatures rustled in the brush. Somewhere, he knew, a cop paused and thought about checking the woods for afterhours trespassers.

  Finally escaping him came, “Can we go?”

  “In an hour. I want to enjoy the night.” And he couldn’t help noticing she hadn’t said, We.

  Art direction by Albrecht. Specifically, painting evergreen the one cardboard cutout he could afford. He’d pondered a lighter green, whether this production invited flamboyance. But the word “childish” entered his head, and thus the darker tint. He thought it’d emphasize the actress more, the actress he’d yet to cast, but who would wear purple eyeliner come filming for sure.

  So makeup by Albrecht. Sulking at the Thanksgiving table four years until premiere by Albrecht. Again at his uncle’s, never his parents. Multiple dining rooms after all, and the uncle and wife and their friends giggled away in one, leaving Albrecht in the other with his eternally mute parents, Oma, the then honorably discharged army cousin, and her, Albrecht’s girlfriend of two years. Her frown matched Albrecht’s, glowering down at the soup appetizer with open disdain. Oma watched the table like a guard tower.

  “They had good food overseas,” the cousin said, half-full mouth spilling orange liquid down his chin. “Hollywood thinks us grunts eat out of a can, but no, they’ve got some casseroles. You’d like their casseroles, Albrecht.”

  “I hate casseroles,” the girlfriend said.

  “There’s these kinds,” and the cousin pointed his spoon at Albrecht,” with carrots in them. Carrots!” Down went the utensil into the slop. “We were at this one site where there were these flies, right? And they lay their eggs in these poor beetles, and the maggots eat the host alive-“

  “Okay,” snapped Albrecht, “this is the dinner table, alright?”

  After a slurp, “How do you like this soup, Albrecht?”

  A snicker from the girlfriend. “I’ve had better at truck stops.”

  The cousin stayed locked on Albrecht. “So, the beetle dies, and the maggots chew their way out-“

  Albrecht slammed his spoon down. “Maybe this gross-out talk gets laughs in the service, but here in regular life-“

  “Oh, it’s on Animal Planet too, just did a show on it. You ever watch Animal Planet, Albrecht?”

  Oma’s squint swiveled from speaker to speaker.

  The girlfriend snorted derisively. “You would watch the Animal Planet, wouldn’t you?” She pushed the bowl aside and lied back in her chair, chuckling. “A communion for you, I imagine.”

  “So the fly,” and the cousin finally turned to her, unblinkingly, tone low, “does that to humans too. Just sticks its eggs in someone, uncaring. Can be a real health hazard, Albrecht.”

  A pause for all involved. Albrecht’s parents shuffled in their seat, mouths firmly shut. Oma faced down, as if a judgment had been made. She’d cooked the soup.

  Sitting up, nose in the air, the girlfriend said to the cousin, “I’m going to put a hex on you.”

  Another pause. Then the cousin’s laughter, his eyes still leveled at her in a way that showed his mirth didn’t come from the idea of spells, but from her. His complete defiance of her.

  “Okay,” growled Albrecht. “Enough. I’m leaving. I’m taking Isis,” which wasn’t her birth name, “away to somewhere a bit more welcoming, a bit more-“

  “No,” Oma said, head still down. “You two aren’t leaving.”

  The cousin held up his hands in the air with surrender. “I’ll le
ave. I’m here all the time anyway, so, ha, not like I’ll miss anything, clearly the problem here, and-“

  Oma turned to him, visage as cold as always. “You’re not leaving either.”

  His face softened, a sad smile playing on his lips as he shook his head. With a scooted chair, a turn away from Oma, and an unhurried stride, he was gone.

  After a minute of silence, Albrecht’s father stood up. “So, should I get Oma’s green beans, then?” Oma even to him.

  Costuming by Albrecht. Knocking by Albrecht. Two weeks to filming. He tapped his foot against the grated landing, glancing about the shoddy apartment complex in fear. Daylight relieved none of his unease. Another round of knocking, more frantic this time.

  The door opened to the groggy cousin, a fog of beer smell clinging to him. His shirt had stayed camo, but he’d exchanged pants for shrunken boxers. “Hey man.” A tired grin. “Didn’t expect you here.”

  “Took me awhile to find this place.”

  “Ha ha!”

  Albrecht rifled clumsily through his pockets. Out came a rumpled check. “Wanted you to have this.”

  The cousin, expression still warm, turned Albrecht’s hand away.

  “I-“ Albrecht regathered himself. “I don’t think Oma was thinking clearly when she wrote her will.” She’d left all of the cousin’s share of the inheritance to Albrecht when she’d died three months ago.

  “No, man, she was thinking of you. It’s fine.” He scratched the scruff on his chin, scruff Albrecht had never seen from him before. “So what are you going to do with it?”

  “Well,” a gulp, “with my share, I want to finally use my film major for once. Take a few days off and make a minimalist short for a festival I’m eying.”

  “Excellent, excellent.” A yawn, a look of apology. “What’s it about?”

  “I base it off the temptation of Christ because, uh, festivals love Biblical imagery, right? But,” his speech quickened in embarrassment, “instead of throwing yourself off a temple, it’s getting back in a toxic relationship. And the ex is the devil.”

  Albrecht waited for a grimace in reaction to any mention of the girlfriend, but he received only a grin in return. “That’s great, bud. Will win a reward for sure.”

  In a lower volume, “You were right, Jordan. About Isis.”

  “Your film sounds really great, man.” He looked back into the apartment’s darkness. “I’d let you in, but the roomie, he’s a former grunt like me. Doesn’t like visitors.” He held up a finger. “One second.” Door closed. Long minutes passed. Door opened. “Here.” A wad of green bills, extended in offering.

  “Oh no. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

  “I met all kinds in the army. One guy, loved the camera, like you. Told me making a movie costs a fortune. So, uh, no fortune, but-“

  “You’re still short from the will fiasco, Jordan, I can’t-“

  “Hey, I’m rooting for you.” He stuffed the bills down Albrecht’s shirt. “This is my root.” A toothy grin. Door closed.

  Set scouting by Albrecht – a small theater who’d run dry on plays and let Albrecht fool around inside to the tune of the cousin’s contribution. Associate produced by Albrecht. Galleries shown by Albrecht to some old film school buddies, who shrugged but didn’t walk out at least. A grand opening of sorts. Dedicated to Oma. Burnt by Albrecht onto a disc.

  The disc went into a box, which Albrecht tapped against his knee in his car. Just some money, he thought to himself. Not a buyout. Not a debt. The cousin, after all, got the pool, the many dinner tables, the career in patriotism. While Albrecht got a flabby waist, a weird name, an unwanted sum of dollars. A growl escaped him. No reason to show this to the cousin, who wouldn’t care, not the splendor of Animal Planet, after all. He’d miss the mic boom slipping into the shot, an error that Albrecht told himself he’d fix in post-production, where nothing ever got corrected. A false promise. He’d never agreed to show it to the cousin.

  Elementary school, though, he thought while driving. Until the abandonment. “Well,” he said aloud, “would it hurt to show him?” He hadn’t even credited the cousin as a financial backer. Which would go unnoticed anyway, because who watches the credits?

  He walked up to the cousin’s apartment and knocked. A Hispanic women with a child clinging to her side answered, her squint at him filled with distrust. When he asked for a Jordan, she insisted in broken English that she was the only resident, had lived there for a week. Albrecht went back to his car, calling his uncle.

  “Jordan? No one knows where he went. Hasn’t talked to any of his friends about moving or anything.” In wavering voice, “He hasn’t been doing well for a while, since the discharge. We’re all very worried about him.” Such admissions of fear rarely spilled out of Albrecht’s family. Oma never permitted them when alive.

  “What about his roommate? Wouldn’t he know something?”

  “Roommate? Jordan never mentioned anything about a roommate.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me that he’d gone missing?”

  “Well, we all know how hard you’ve been working on that film, Albrecht. We didn’t want to worry you.”

  After the call, Albrecht tapped the disc box against his knee over and over again, a woodpecker slamming away against bark. Outside, the sky grew hazy from incoming weather. Something about the gray blotting out the blue reminded Albrecht of emptiness. Of noticing something only when it’s gone. An unfinished production.