Call me John Charles

they say you forget
they say time sands the edges down
but they never sat hungry on a plastic chair
at 3 p.m.
breathing in fake smoke and hot lights
with their legs swinging
eight years old
in a playground built for grown-up lies

you were behind the camera,
big man in a folding chair,
headset on, script in your fist,
god of all these tired faces
and rented streets,

and i was the kid with the empty lunchbox
you kept forgetting you had.

“daddy,” i’d say,
soft at first,
like you teach kids to be polite
when they beg.

nothing.

“papa.”
you’d move your hand,
but only to point at a grip,
a light,
that poor bastard in the wrong mark.

nothing.

and then…
like i was calling a waiter…
“john charles.”

your head snapped.
“yes?”
sharp, annoyed,
the way you answered everyone else.

not son.
not boy.
just another voice on the set.

you’d keep me there
until 11 p.m.
eyes burning,
the night leaking into the day,
coffee and cigarettes
doing laps around my head.

breakfast with the crew,
plastic plates,
rubbery eggs,
grown men telling dirty jokes
over my head,
ash in the ketchup,
some guy winking and saying,
“your old man’s a genius, kid.”

yeah.
a genius at vanishing
in plain sight.

you’d walk past,
arguing about budgets,
camera angles,
the “emotional core” of the scene,
whatever the fuck that meant,

and i’d sit there
with syrup on my fingers
and your last name on my back
like a tag on lost luggage.

every once in a while,
you’d bark,
“john charles needs quiet on set,”
and for a second
i’d pretend you meant me,
like maybe i was the silence
you were asking for,
the interruption you secretly wanted.

but you never looked over
when you said it.

funny thing about kids…
they keep trying.
we’re idiots that way.
we think love is a door
that opens if you knock long enough.

“daddy.”
no.

“papa.”
no.

“john charles.”
“what? i’m busy.”

lesson learned.
names are levers.
pull the right one
and the machine grunts back.

years went by.
i grew into the silence you left.
filled it with cigarettes
and cheap bars
and women who mistook my distance
for mystery.

you kept directing shows
no one remembers now,
yelling at actors
to cry on cue,
to show hurt
you never bothered to see
at your own table.

and now you’re old.
of course you are.

you call me sometimes,
voice thin as the last page
of a script.

you say things like,
“son, we should talk,”
“life is short,”
“family is important,”

like you just wrapped a scene
about regret
and decided to improvise it at home.

but here’s the hard cut,
no music,
no fade:

i don’t give a fuck, john charles.

you’re still the man in the chair
with his back to me,
only now the chair
has wheels
and someone else pushes it.

you’re still the guy
who answered his name
before he answered his kid.

you’re still the stone
that never turned.

aging doesn’t fix a goddamn thing.
wrinkles don’t turn you
into a better man.
a bad heart
is just a heart
that finally matches the rest of you.

and dying?
everyone acts like that’s the big rewrite,
the last-minute redemption arc,
the moment the audience cries
and forgives you.

maybe they will.
the extras always do.

but when they lower you down,
when some priest who never heard you say “son”
mumbles a line about love,

if i’m there at all,
i’ll stand in the back,
hands in my pockets,
thinking:

you had a whole lifetime
to say “yes”
to the right word.

you chose “action” instead.

roll credits, john charles.
same ending as always.
nothing changes.
not with age,
not with death.

you were a stranger when i was eight
and i’m just returning the favor.