Waste of Space Read online

  Besides, the evidence that’s left is, in some ways, far more enlightening.

  * * *

  The following is a small compendium of documents featuring the applicants that are eventually chosen as cast members on Waste of Space. Not all final cast members are represented in this selection, and not all documents are particularly relevant to the troubles that befall the show, but they are provided here to offer a bit of insight into the curious mindsets of those who would endeavor to audition for this particular reality program in the first place.

  Item: Email

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Date: December 18, 2015

  Dear Mr. Evans,

  You probably don’t remember me, but we met last month at the “Leaders of Tomorrow” luncheon. I’m the one who lost out on the scholarship. No hard feelings, though! For the chair of the MIT Aerospace Engineering program to take note of my academic achievements and flight simulation skills and even go so far as to label me a “future astronaut”—that was reward enough. I am humbled and honored to have met you, and your vote of confidence means more to me than you can ever know.

  Thank you again for your consideration. I hope our paths cross again one day—in space!

  Item: Transcript of audio recording

  Source: Chazz’s cell phone voicemail

  Date Recorded: January 14, 2016

  Hey Uncle Turd,

  It’s me again. I know you think you can keep blowing me off, but guess what? Circumstances have changed. I think you’ll want to pay attention to me this time.

  But first, let’s talk about how you declined to cast me last summer in Pantsing with the Stars—an egregious oversight, I think it’s now clear. I wept for the unwatchable drivel that you doomed yourself to produce without my tour de force personality in the mix. I can only assume that your foul, idiotic casting directors were felled by the brain-altering effects of a chlamydia outbreak. How else to explain their insistence on my absence? My appeal is boundless. My charisma is unmatched. My pores are impeccable.

  And my middle finger is extended in their direction.

  But you’ve got a chance to make it up to me. I heard about your new show. I want in.

  And this time, I think you want me in too. Would be a shame if that video of you and Mom were to end up in Dad’s inbox.

  Tell me when and where I should show up. Peace OUT.

  Item: Post on Cosmic Crusades online forum

  Username: LadyBalwayGalway

  Posted: January 8, 2016

  [excerpt from page 3 of 5]

  . . . and if you freeze the frame at exactly eighty-three minutes and thirty-seven seconds, you can see that the gamma-ray missile that Fekawa Gooe sets up is NOT in fact aimed at the Intragalactic Senate, in fact it’s cocked at an angle of 52.6 degrees, which would in fact point it directly at Lord Balway Galway, WHO, if you’ll RECALL, stated during the Transnebula Peace Talks that his home planet of Gavinjia was sure to escape the conflict unscathed, so OBVIOUSLY the bombing mission was intended as a wake-up call to prove him wrong and send a TELEKINETIC message that . . .

  Item: Online video

  Username: the_entropy_within

  Posted: January 10, 2016

  [IMAGE: hands strumming a mandolin while words are spoken over the tuneless chords]

  looking up at the sky /

  and a thought floats by /

  what if the galaxy /

  is just a strawberry /

  and all the stars we see /

  are only flecks of seeds /

  that get stuck in your teeth /

  and increase carbon emissions /

  and line the pockets of corporate America

  Item: Social media account

  Username: @BacardiParti

  [collection of more than 2,000 photos, half of which are unprintable because they are blurry, the other half of which are unprintable because they feature underage nudity]

  * * *

  Informative as these documents are, there are two cast members in particular who warrant closer attention. They will emerge as the most crucial players in this chronicle for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they personally provide a substantial volume of information about what occurs during production—both of them by way of personal video diary entries, also known in reality television parlance as “confessionals.” A small window into their pre-shooting mental states is provided in the following two documents.

  (It’s also worth pointing out that both cast members choose to express themselves in the form of dispatches to their parents—symbolically in one case, and literally in the other. This is nothing more than a coincidence, but as their body of work will come to show, the bond between children and their absent parents is a complicated one, to put it mildly.)

  The first is a clip from Nico’s personal GoPro video camera. Nico rarely captures himself in the frame of these videos; rather, he uses his words as a soundtrack for the often mundane images he is recording, which are mostly of wherever he happens to be at the time.

  Item: Transcript of video recording

  Source: Nico’s camera

  Battery charge: 100%

  Date: January 16, 2016

  [IMAGE: Nondescript room. From the angle of the camera, it seems that Nico is seated at a large table at the center.]

  Nico: [voiceover] Hi Mom. Hi Dad.

  Um.

  I did something stupid.

  [The camera pans downward under the table, now pointing at his feet. They are rested on a skateboard, which he rolls back and forth.]

  I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know how I did it. A lot of systems had to come together to make it happen. My legs had to push me here, my mouth had to say things, my eyes had to make contact with other eyes, my brain had to formulate thoughts, my hamster-size soul had to blow up to ten times its size and pretend to be a lion. And I can honestly say I don’t know how all those things worked in tandem to do what I did.

  I auditioned for a reality show.

  [pause]

  Shit.

  Saying it out loud makes me feel like throwing up.

  [Nico gets up from the chair. Camera pans to window and holds steady on people walking down the sidewalk—a couple, then a woman pushing a stroller, then two men smoking cigarettes.]

  It was like . . . like I couldn’t help myself. I’d heard that they were holding auditions at the Queens Center mall, so I told Diego that I was going there to see a movie with some friends—which he didn’t buy, by the way. “What’s wrong with movie theaters in the Bronx? Since when do you have friends in Queens? Why ride the subway for an hour for no reason? Are you out of your mind?”

  All fair questions. Especially that last one.

  But it was the weekend, and I pointed out that I can do whatever I want with my free time, and he washed his hands of me like he always does, so I went. Just to watch. Just to film the people in line. Figured they’d be an interesting crowd. When I got there, I saw the DV8 banner hanging across the entrance, and I thought, obviously I would never audition, obviously that is something for the other ninety-nine percent of the teenage population to embarrass themselves with, but when I went inside . . . I got in line.

  Okay, in my defense:

  You know how rough I’ve had it.

  You know how miserable I’ve been.

  (I know you don’t really know. But let’s pretend that you actually watch these videos. That for the past couple of years I have not been pouring the contents of my heart into a digital cache that I’d rather chuck under the B train than let anyone see. Let us pretend that the phrase “pathetic delusion” does not figure into any of this.

  Because the thought of college feels like a five-ton block of concrete pressing on my back, and the thought of getting a job instead feels like the floor is rushing up to squish me against the ceiling. Like I’m trapped in a dungeon in a video game, with all these moving contraptions of torture trying
to flatten me into a splat of pixels. Like no matter what I do, the future is going to crush me.

  I wish you were still here. Diego’s all right, but legal-guardian-slash-older-brother is not the same as parent. And I don’t know why I thought that this show was the answer, but it was something different, a change, an honest-to-God decision in a haze of fuzzy, unknowable . . .)

  [Camera pans away from window and focuses on a pair of vending machines in the corner of the room.]

  Anyway. Back to the mall.

  The line was so long, it wrapped all the way past the escalators and ended near Macy’s. I thought, obviously I’m not going to give them my name, obviously I’m not going to forge Diego’s signature on the waiver, obviously I’m not going to stand in that ridiculous line—

  But the line moved fast, and before I could change my mind, my name was called. They brought me into a vacant store where they had set up screens to make little cubicles, like the kind they use in blood drives. There was a cameraman and an interviewer, a woman with a blouse that was cut so low I could see her bra.

  (Sorry for that detail, Mom, but I couldn’t not notice. It was staring me in the face, and I’m a sixteen-year-old boy.)

  (Dad, it was bright turquoise with little rhinestones. You get what I’m saying.)

  She asked me all sorts of awful questions, and I answered them. Told her my age, where I’m from, that I’m into skateboarding and shooting videos. To be honest, I don’t remember most of what I said, because it all went by so fast, and she kept nodding, so I kept talking—and also, you know, the bra. All I remember is that her face lit up like Yankee Stadium when I told her you were dead, and after that, it all felt like a done deal. That’s when the dread started, the feeling that this might actually happen. Like I’d stepped into a pool of sticky tar and it wasn’t going to let me go.

  I mean that literally. They wouldn’t let me go.

  They brought me into this break room, told me to wait, and closed the door.

  [Camera pans to door handle. Hand reaches out to jiggle it.]

  Locked.

  They ducked their heads in about fifteen minutes ago and said that it shouldn’t be much longer, that they’ll be reaching a decision soon.

  Shit. Shit shit.

  I mean, even if I do get cast, it’s not like I have no choice in the matter, right?

  Obviously I can say no.

  Obviously I’m not going to do it.

  * * *

  The final pre-taping document is another video, this time featuring cast member Titania. She is in a public restroom, aiming her phone camera at the mirror. She looks straight into the lens.

  Item: Transcript of video recording

  Source: Titania’s cell phone

  Date: January 17, 2016

  Titania: Remember Trackleton’s Guide to the Big Outdoors?

  Cute little picture book that you bought for three ninety-nine at the ranger’s station. The pages were held together with a plastic coil. It had maps of Washington’s hiking regions. And it followed Trackleton, that charming, bearded outdoorsman, as he went on adventures.

  His catchphrase was “Keep moving. Keep exploring.” Advice so good it became our family motto.

  You read it every time we went camping, which added up to a lot of readings over the years. We used to snuggle into our sleeping bags, and you would read it aloud to us by the lantern light, little black specks of bugs giving a shadow puppet performance against the walls of our tent.

  [Titania’s reflection smiles.]

  We loved that book. Patrick liked the colorful maps. Nathan liked to chew on the coil. Lily made up songs to go along with the words—remember how you used to tell her to sing quietly so the rest of us could still hear you read? As if that girl would ever stop singing.

  [Her smile fades.]

  I’ve been thinking a lot about that book lately. About Trackleton’s cheery optimism and can-do attitude. I hadn’t for years, not since it slipped out of Dad’s pack during the hike through the Columbia River Gorge. But after our last trip—the trip—it all came rushing back to me. I can’t get it out of my head. And I finally realized why.

  It had only two rules: Keep moving. Keep exploring. Hard and fast, with no room for error. Don’t overthink them, don’t second-guess them, and everything will work out.

  But life isn’t like that at all. Keep moving, and maybe you’ll succeed. Or not. Keep exploring, and maybe you’ll be happy. Or not. Do both, and they could lead to the best possible outcome.

  Or do both, and they could ruin everything.

  Keep moving, keep exploring.

  I’d always thought it was good advice. The best advice.

  But I’m not so sure anymore.

  * * *

  The applicants are impressive enough to warrant this response from Chazz Young, the CEO of DV8, delivered via an all-staff conference call.

  Item: Transcript of audio recording

  Source: Chazz’s cell phone

  Date: January 18, 2016

  Chazz Young: Hey guys! Chazz here.

  So I’d like to bring the entire DV8 family up to speed on our new project. As mentioned at the companywide meeting last week, this project is going to be groundbreaking. It’s going to break, like, every ground that’s been put there since television started.

  So over the past week we’ve been holding casting sessions in cities around the country, and—hang on a sec, before I go any further, we all need to give up some mad, mad props to the publicity department. Thanks to your commercials, press releases, and social media efforts, over ten thousand kids came out to audition! That’s a lot of hormones to shoot into orbit!

  So as usual, we’re implementing the classic smash-and-grab casting technique our network has become famous for. Any of you out there who are new to the DV8 family, allow me to elaborate on our patented selection process. Back when we were a tiny fledgling network that didn’t know any better, we dragged out the audition process for weeks. We left no stones unturned, no cell phones untapped. We were thoroughly exhaustive in our attempts to pinpoint what potential castmates might do to one another.

  But let us recall the season-four finale of Alaskan Sex Igloo. We had thought, based on Saffron’s tendency to fly off the handle and start stabbing things, that she would break one of the icicles off the ceiling and use it to stab Khaleesi. We spent all season leading up to it, right? With foreboding music? And tasteful close-ups of the icicles? And Saffron’s confessional, where she talked about “getting her stab on”? It’s why we cast her. But for all of our efforts, look what happened—she and Khaleesi hugged and cried and shared a snow cone. With Jared. Jared was the one who was supposed to be so lonely and ignored that he left the safety of the igloo to seek the loving embrace of a grizzly bear!

  But the bears never came. And no one got stabbed.

  From that point forward, we decided to take a more hands-off approach. Now, rather than have the whittled-down pool of applicants come in for a final round of casting, we simply go with our gut reactions and finalize the cast based on their original, uncut interviews. In fact, we whisk them directly out of the auditions as soon as their parents or guardians sign the waiver! (Reminder to all employees: any questions from the press that contain the word “kidnapping” should be forwarded straight to the PR department.) And so we are proud to announce that we have already chosen the final ten cast members—only one week after auditions!

  We’ve still applied the standard network reality casting percentages: fifty percent male, fifty percent female; sixty percent white, thirty percent ethnic, ten percent undetermined; balanced dispersal of ages from fourteen to eighteen; plus the four Golden Tokens: gay, foreigner, disabled, and orphan. And as per usual, we’ll be throwing all sorts of plot bombs and crazy situations at the poor bastards—with the new added twist of a live segment at the end of each episode.

  Of course, we’ll still leave some things up to chance. Fifteen percent of the editing will be done on the fly, based
solely on the relationships and developments that we’ll be monitoring closely over the course of each week. Who knows how it’ll unfold? Who knows where it’ll lead? Who knows what those hyperactive, questionably sane caricatures will throw at us?

  I do: Drama.

  * * *

  A brief word about Chazz Young, CEO of DV8, walking innuendo, and overall trash barge of a human being.

  The word that pops up most often when people attempt to describe Chazz is “exceedingly.” He is exceedingly tanned. His teeth are exceedingly white. He is exceedingly self-centered, as evidenced by his initiative to move the human resources department to the basement of DV8 headquarters so his twin puggles could have their own corner office. He is exceedingly arrogant, treating everyone involved in his television productions—cast members, crew, staff, and, yes, interns—as insignificant specks who exist solely to make his star shine more brightly. And he is exceedingly cocky, given the fact that he unilaterally declared himself to be the best candidate for on-air talent. Plenty of talented hosts have presented themselves to DV8 over the years, and although a lucky few manage to grab a sliver of airtime now and then, it’s Chazz’s vinyl face that you’re most likely to see whenever you tune in. Especially when it comes to something as high-profile as Waste of Space.

  Which calls to mind another of Chazz’s qualities: he is exceedingly lazy. He thought that Waste of Space was going to be a home run no matter what, and that all he had to do was plug in the numbers to a tried-and-true formula that hadn’t failed him yet. But when someone as oblivious as Chazz Young stops seeing people as human beings, he might also stop noticing other details. Smaller details.