Taken By The Bull

“Sit yourself down, there.” Steve pulled out two of the chairs around the heavy old table, one with each hand. “I’m guessing you’ll be thirsty after that jaunt.”

“And you’d be dead on the money.” Mikey set the camera down on the tabletop with a thud and collapsed into the chair with a heavy sigh, legs sprawling as he settled in.

Staci glared at the back of his head; clearly he was done with filming for now, and although she couldn’t really blame him for taking a break it still meant that, from here on, the only material she was going to gather would be audio only. Even that wouldn’t have much technical value if the camera guy was caught on tape, chattering away.

“Soda, iced tea, juice? What’s your pleasure?”

“Water for me, thank you.” It took every ounce of discipline that she possessed, not to follow Mikey’s example by collapsing loosely into her seat. Instead she kept her knees together, feet flat on the floor and back her straight; hands folded on the tabletop before her. “With ice, if you have any.”

“In this heat, you can bet your ass that we do.”

“I’d kill for a soda, right now.” Mikey would drink anything that had fizz to it. “Any flavor will do.”

The chiming of ice on glass sounded, sweet as a bell; and a moment later Staci was served a tall glass of iced water, and Mikey received something bright green and heavily carbonated.

“Thank you,” Staci smiled, fingers wrapped around the cool glass almost as soon as it touched the table-top. “You’re very kind.”

“Hell no, it’s the least I can do to thank you both for listening as I talk about a whole bunch of nonsense that probably doesn’t add up to more than a fart in a thunderstorm.” Steve remained standing by the counter, leaning comfortably against the dark wood and white marble as he sipped from an iced tea. “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you get into the news business? Most of the media people I’ve dealt with seem to be a damn sight older, and they still don’t know what they’re doing.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d turned the conversation away from himself; whether it was because he simply forgot that Staci was here to interview him, or because he was uncomfortable with the attention, she didn’t know. Still, since Mikey had put them into down-time mode, there didn’t seem to be any harm in answering the guy.

As she opened her mouth to speak, Mikey got there first. “I always meant to be a filmmaker. Indie movies, you know. Horror, thrillers, fun stuff. Took a wrong turn out of film school and ended up here, instead.”

“And how long have you been in the business?”

“Since I was twenty-two. So that’s – let me think – six years, now.”

Staci failed to hold back her smirk at that; she’d seen Mikey’s resume, and knew that he’d been ‘twenty-eight’ for six years and showed no sign of growing older any time soon.

“Is that so?” Steve nodded amicably. “You ever think about throwing it all in, and going back to movies?”

“Every day.” Mikey shrugged. “But there’s trains to catch, and bills to pay. And the people I work with make it all worthwhile.”

“Yeah?” Staci’s eyebrows quirked upwards as she turned her head, and stared him in the face. “Who the hell’s that?”

“Oh, Greg, of course.” Mikey’s expression remained deadpan. “And Lindy, from HR. Everyone else there su*ks.”

“Oh yeah.” She nodded sagely. “That lot are the worst.”

“Especially the reporter I work with on all those grocery-store openings and high school grad ceremonies. Ugh.”

“Her?” Staci rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Staci whats-her-face. She’s a bi*ch. Always making you stay late after you’re meant to be getting home. I hate her.”

“Look who she’s got to work with though. That camera guy is such a slacker.” Mikey sighed dramatically. “You can hardly blame her for everything.”

Steve watched this exchange with eyebrows raised, sipping from his iced tea. “Never mind horror or thrillers,” he interjected. “You ever thought of shooting bad comedy movies?”

Mikey drew a sharp breath at that. “Ouch. The truth. It burns and stings.”

“How about you?” The bull-rider turned his attention onto Staci. “How’d you get into this line of work?”

“I… Uh.” She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I took an internship at JMN after I left high school. Used to work for three bucks an hour. But it was worth it.”

“Damn! How did you ever manage to live off of that kinda pay?”

“Lived with my mom.” Her feet shuffled on the floor, while she stared hard at the melting ice that floated in the water in her glass. “I don’t know what I would’ve done, without her.”

There was a brief moment of silence, before Mikey broke it with a scraping chair and a pained sigh. “Look, it’s getting late in the day. I gotta head back to Jackson.”

“Already?” Staci turned reproachful brown eyes in his direction. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, his presence made her feel oddly safe… Even if he was barely five and a half feet tall and built like a half-collapsed shed. “It’s not even three yet.”

“This way, I won’t have to fight the traffic quite so hard. Hey. Look,” he poked her shoulder gently. “You’ll be fine. You got the mini DV, and the audio recorder, you don’t even need me.”

“Well,” she muttered. “That’s always true.”

“Thanks for your hospitality, Steve.” Tucking the camera neatly under his left arm, Mikey offered his hand. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“Likewise.” Steve shook his hand warmly, as if they were the best of friends. “I’ll see you out, okay?”

“Nah, it’s fine. You stay and answer more of this one’s questions. Not even I can get lost, just walking down the driveway.”

As Steve showed Mikey to the door and waved him off, a slow sense of awkwardness began to creep over the young reporter sitting quietly at the kitchen table. Now Mikey’s gone, she thought, all I have left to do is talk to Steve and try to find out his secrets, so I can expose them to the world, and… Ruin his reputation. All while he’s being a total sweetheart. Maybe it would be better if it turned out there wasn’t any story here, at all?

Then she remembered all those years of working for three bucks an hour, all the while dreaming of the day when she’d get her big break. It’s not always an easy job, she reminded herself, running her finger along the lip of her glass. In fact, it’s never an easy job.

She looked up as a door closed, and footsteps sounded in the kitchen behind her. “Steve, I was wondering-”

The words died on her lips, as she saw Seth standing there, running his hand through his dark blonde hair. “Uh, hello, Miss Wilder?”

“Seth! Hello again!” Pushing aside her surprise, she was on her feet in a moment, extending her hand in greeting. “We stopped by to have a look around, and take an interview.”

“I see. Well.” Slowly he accepted her handshake, an uncertain uneasiness in his eyes. “I see you here, but I don’t know nothing about this ‘we’ business.”

Steve asked the same question, she thought, and in the same kind of way. Either they’re both very alike and tend to take everything literally, or they’re a little on the paranoid side. “Mikey, my camera operator, just left. He has to get himself and the van back to Jackson, but I’ll be sticking about a little longer.” Releasing his hand, she sat back down, pulling her knees demurely together.

“Aight.” Leaning back against the door-frame, he crossed his arms over his chest; much as he had the first time she saw him, back at the event last night. “So you’re here to talk to Steve, I guess?”

“Yep.” Nodding, she tapped her fingernails absently on the tabletop – and then remembered, that Seth was a part of the PBR circuit, too. “And yourself, of course. If you have the time.”

“Oh, I always got the time.” He shrugged, turning his head to stare out through the open window into the garden beyond. “But nobody’s ever listening.”

Before she could think of anything to say to that, Steve’s wide-shouldered shape appeared in the doorway, striding into the room with a casual stride. “Well hey, little brother. How’d the social networking go?”

“Same old same old. And by that I mean, there’s nothing more soul-crushing than working your own PR machine.” Seth shrugged, and walked past his taller brother to the refrigerator, opening the door with a heavy clunk and pulling out a can of beer. “Especially when that machine is rusted to sh*t. I’m gonna head out and take a walk, you two have fun with your interviews and suchlike.”