It’s not just the cameras and the microphones. If they were capturing the truth, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, if I’m being honest, my family—well, really, my parents—signed on for all this when they invited ATN into our house. But they didn’t sign on for the lies.
The network doesn’t want you to know the truth. They want you to see my dad at his worst; they want you to think my mother, sister, and I are helpless; they want you to think we give a shit about Jo Garvin. (Jackie, who was something of a prude, didn’t want to use foul language. Max convinced her that the soliloquy needed it.)
This isn’t real life. Nothing on TV is real life. It is fiction. The only part of this that’s true is that my dad is dying, and that he is—that we are—being robbed of our privacy and dignity. Think about it. What if your father or mother or sister or brother was dying? What if it was your son? What would you want?
If you really care what happens to my dad, if you really care what happens to our family—Max cut to an extreme close-up of Jackie talking to the camera—then I beg you, don’t watch the lie that is Life and Death. I promise I will give you updates via YouTube, but please, get these damn cameras out of my house.
The third installment of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon was posted at three a.m. Pacific standard time, just twelve hours after Jackie had done the principle photography. A team of Azeroth guild members based in London was standing by. The minute the episode was posted, they unleashed a social media campaign announcing its arrival.
It took each of the first two episodes more than a week to top one million views. The third episode got there in twelve hours. The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon had gone from being viral to being a phenomenon.
***
Ethan was back in California, asleep in his Malibu beach house and dreaming about a girl he knew many years ago. For some reason, every time the girl opened her mouth to speak, a loud buzzing sound came from the back of her throat. It was happening in a rhythmic pattern—mouth closed, mouth open, buzzing, mouth closed, mouth open, buzzing. It took on a hypnotic quality, almost like a—
The cell phone vibrating on the bedside table buzzed Ethan to consciousness. He tapped the answer icon and mumbled a groggy “What is it?”
“It’s your ass, Overbee, that’s what it is!” The sound of Roger Stern’s voice was enough to bring Ethan into a hyperwakeful state.
“Roger? What time is it? What’s going on?”
“Time is immaterial.” This was one of Stern’s favorite sayings, though no one was quite sure what it meant. “As for what’s going on, check your e-mail. I want a full report on how you’ve contained this problem before the end of the day.” He hung up.
Before the end of the day? Ethan thought, still in a fog. I’m not even sure what day it is.
Ethan used his phone to check his e-mail, and he saw it right away. A link to a new installment of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon. He paused a beat, then hurled his cell phone at the nearest wall, cracking its screen and leaving a dent just under a framed Andy Warhol original. It was 4:30 a.m. He landed in Portland five and a half hours later.
***
The entire Stone household was abuzz with the news of the latest YouTube posting. The third-shift director, who received a phone call from Ethan at 4:45 a.m. local time, was instructed to have his team go through the previous three days of outtakes to find out how and when Jackie had managed to record new footage.
While a growing number of crew members were secretly rooting for Jackie, their first loyalty was to their paychecks. Besides, they were too terrified of the damage Ethan could do to their careers if they failed him, so they did as they were told.
It didn’t take long to find the image of Jackie picking up the rock in the backyard, bringing it into the house, and cracking it open in the bathroom. After that, they watched her disappear into one blind spot after another, always reappearing twenty seconds later. You didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to piece it all together. You only had to know to look.
Andersona, also on orders from Ethan, confined the Stone family to the house, not allowing anyone in or out. While Megan, who had become persona non grata with the family, stayed in her room, Jackie took her computer and crawled into bed with her mom. She looked for Max online, but he was still recovering from his all-night editing session and had gone to bed very early.
When Jackie heard Ethan arrive, she considered hiding but knew it was no use. She looked at the camera in the corner of the ceiling in her parents’ bedroom—an unfathomable invasion of privacy, she realized—and said, “Tell him I’m on my way down.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, Mom, that’s okay. Besides, you can always watch it on TV tonight.”