Husk by Corey Redekop Read Free Book Online Page A

fanatic (not Muslim)
    someone clinically obese (either sex, female preferred)
    a farmer
    a nurse
    an Asian
    a homosexual, and finally,
    cannon fodder: a few extra ‘others’ to fill out the cast, those rejects with no discernible skills or personality who would in all likelihood go down very early in the series unless they somehow beat the odds and became a fan favorite.
    Guess into which slot I fit. If it helps narrow it down, I never had to come out as a professor.
    At the beginning of the show, every contestant would be provided a card with a series of numbers, akin to a bingo card (ah, hence the title, I just got that). Over the course of twenty-three tri-weekly episodes — plus a surprise finale, broadcasted live! — numbers would fall from an enormous Plexiglas tumbler that hung from the ceiling in the main den. If the number was on your card, you had to perform a task or game, something essentially useless and superfluous to existence in the real world but which was of vital importance in the ‘reality’ of the program. Some tasks would involve physical acts, some would necessitate that the competitor have at least a few brain cells in good working order. Eating things not normally consumed by man was definitely one of the tasks. Survive, and you get to fill in the number on your card. Fail, and you get nothing but sore bones and a foul taste in your mouth. As you’re expected to live with people, teamwork is allowed, and backstabbing is encouraged. Fundamentally,
Big Brother
crossed with the more vicious elements of
Survivor
and
Fear Factor
.
    It was not an easy assignment, convincing myself that somehow, in some microscopic way, this was acting. Most watchers believe that reality television must be just that, reality, not realizing that the primary element in the phrase was
television
. You’re putting out a manufactured article of entertainment, and you want to make sure that it will tickle a certain segment of the masses. This was a game show, and what people want in such series are attractive and relatable personalities that they can heap scorn upon like so much soil over your coffin. Everything is calculated to achieve this effect, nothing is left to chance. The producers know ahead of time, through a battery of personality tests, who will fold early, who will explode on cue, who will sleep around, who will betray, who will win.
    But — and this is how I kept from swallowing my tongue on the lonely bus ride from T.O. to N.Y. — if I could approach it from the aspect of its own artificiality, subvert the paradigm from the inside, perhaps I could justify the whole experience as a prolonged experimental art piece à la Beckett.
    Such was my wretched state of being that this made a modicum of sense.
    And there
was
the money. The monthly fees for Mom’s room at the nursing home were becoming insurmountable, and as much as I feared the blow this show could do to any future reputation as a serious actor — hey, Clooney was on
The Facts of Life
, Alec Baldwin did a few soaps, was this
really
any different? — I dreaded the thought of a future with increased mother contact far more. It was either this or sell the house.
    â€œNot gay enough!”
    Not fucking goddamned fucking gay enough.
    I couldn’t do it. Even under any delusion I could muster, the end result would be that it was
me
on the screen being
me
. No one watching would grasp the craft behind the portrayal, because no one watching had any conception of artistry. There was no curtain of artifice between the intended audience and myself. No one would watch and think, whoa, he’s really putting himself into this role. No one could possibly watch Fox Reality and create analogies to the great method actors of the age.
    â€œNot gay enough!” This was shouted into my face by the casting director. “Fag it up. We’re all sisters here, don’t be afraid to be yourself.”
    Did they ask