Death Of A Freelancer

They say do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. For a freelance writer, that is undoubtedly true.

Act 1

The curtain rises. Before us is the Freelancer’s house, well the Freelancer’s parent’s house, but they’re cool with him living there, as long as he tabs off Twitter and onto LinkedIn when they walk in the room.

From the right, Willy Most, the Freelancer enters, exiting the basement carrying a laptop and a protein bar wrapper. He is past twenty years of age, dressed in a gray sweatpant shorts and a gray shirt denoting the college he attended and a fake major, Rocket Science. If only. His exhaustion, despite having just sat in a chair for seven hours, is clear.

Susan, his mother, has paused ‘Killing Eve’ and sits up on the couch to address him. She loves him, but was born of a different time. A time when no one made a living wage writing about how the different stages of Brad Pitt’s haircut displayed his growing distrust of capitalism, or how much “BDE” Cousin Greg exhibited on the last episode of Succession. To be fair, Willy didn’t live in that time either.

SUSAN: Willy! How was your writing? You look tired.

WILLY: Oh, yeah, some stuff. It’s a process.

Willy had written 75 words.

SUSAN: You didn’t just watch video essays again did you?

WILLY (irritated): It’s a process

SUSAN: Maybe you should get to bed early. You look tired.

Willy sits on the couch.

WILLY: I couldn’t think of anything today. I ended up with 21 tabs open. First I looked up how old Paul Rudd was, then before I knew it, I watched every clip from “The Catcher Was A Spy.”

Susan grimaces. A frequent visitor of Rotten Tomatoes, she is acutely aware of where that movie fell on the Tomatometer.

SUSAN: Maybe if you worked upstairs, you might not…

WILLY: No, it’s me. I spent the other half of the day watching speedruns for N64 games. Games I’ve never seen or wanted to play. I get so caught up. Four hours pass and I haven’t written a word.

SUSAN: It’s okay Willy, maybe you should talk to your father, he might have some ideas that’ll help.

WILLY (irritated, but loving): I don’t want to. He’ll tell me how hard it was for Mindy Kaling to get to where she was. How it didn’t happen all at once.

SUSAN: She lived in New York without a job for three months!

WILLY (sincerely): I know. She’s so great.

SUSAN: Fine. I’m hitting the hay. Get to bed soon.

Susan exits right, but Willy stays awake for hours, watching ‘Sicario’ on cable. The curtain falls.

Act 2

Time has passed. Willy continues freelance. Willy’s father, Phil, is phoning in favors, looking for more work for Willy, things that won’t get in the way of all the writing Willy does.

PHIL: Got another opportunity for you Willy! Radio station! They say you can work the phones.

WILLY: Thanks Dad.

PHIL: Aren’t ya gonna ask when the interview is? I got you a great time, a few hours after they eat lunch so they won’t be sluggish and you won’t be gassy. It’s on Thursday at 2:30. They’ll be in a good mood. Seriously don’t eat any dairy products before you-

WILLY: I don’t want it dad.

PHIL: Wha- I mean, I know this isn’t your dream job, but it’s the one that’ll help you get there.

WILLY: No dad, I’m not writing anymore. I’m not cut out for this.

PHIL: No. You’re special, funny, a great writer.

WILLY: Dad, you know why you never got an invitation to my last improv team’s show for three months? We had terrible initiations, Dad. No object work either. Just two people standing still, not sure who they were, as characters and human beings. But not me. I know who I am. I’m no late night writer, and I certainly ain’t some successful sketch comic. I’m nobody. I blew my job interview last Wednesday. I said my greatest weakness was that I “always do bits.”

PHIL: The site Willy, they bought a piece last week. And a lot of your pitches were on the shortlist.

WILLY: Pop. I made a 100 dollars. Face it, I’m a dime a dozen. There’s a hundred thousand 20 year old dudes trying to make it in comedy, and some of them have pretty funny Twitters.

PHIL: I liked your tweet yesterday.

WILLY: My twitter is terrible. I’m afraid to do front-facing videos. My last two tweets were about soap. Pop, it’s done. I’m going back to school. I’ll get a doctorate in psychology.

Phil grabs Willy by the wrist.

PHIL: Willy, wait, you can take an acting class, book commercial work..

WILLY: Let go of me!

Willy storms out.

SUSAN: Willy, wait!

PHIL (laughing): That was a really funny bit… his best one yet.

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