He steered the car into a McDonald's drive-through. Ronald popped the glove compartment, retrieved a stack of coupons, and selected one for a Big Mac combo.
He handed the slip to the cashier along with a carefully counted dollar bill and seventy-five cents in change.
The original $2.59 value meal cost only $1.60 with the coupon. Every cent counted.
Bag in hand, Ronald drove back to his apartment.
Venice Beach in 1978 wasn't a wealthy enclave. It was a haven for the working class, artists, and drifters. The safety was decent enough, but the rent was the real draw. His one-bedroom apartment was a steal at under $200 a month.
It was far from the studios, sure, but he had a car. The commute took a little over half an hour, which was a trade-off he was willing to make.
He finished the burger and washed it down with the Coke. He tossed the trash, grabbed fresh clothes, and stepped into the shower.
As he wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror, he paused to look at his reflection.
A dashing face stared back..deep-set eyes, a straight nose, and a physique sculpted by years of athletics.
After Superman hit theaters last year, people started telling him he looked like Christopher Reeve.
He could see the resemblance. He was tall 6 ft 2 in but the coloring was different. Superman had jet-black hair; Ronald's was a dirty gold, dark at the roots and sun-bleached at the tips. His eyes were amber, featuring a deep brown inner ring and a golden outer ring.
It was a look that defied easy categorization—a typical American mix of unknown ancestries.
Ronald dried off, changed into fresh sleepwear, and lay on the bed. In the quiet of the room, his thoughts drifted to Aunt Karen back in New York.
Since he had "woken up" in this body three years ago, Ronald had tragically discovered that he possessed no memories of this body's original life.
He retained only a few muscle-memory skills from his previous existence: driving, sketching, a specific style of traditional jacket wrestling, and a form of "mute English"....he could read and write, but he couldn't speak.
At first, he had pretended to be mute. Aunt Karen, frantic with worry, had taken him to a specialist.
The doctor concluded that the car accident had caused a rare form of aphasia, forcing him to relearn speech like a child.
Ronald had attacked the problem with desperation, using speech therapy tapes and immersing himself in an all-English environment. It took six months, but he finally relearned how to speak. He had tried to reintegrate by joining the high school wrestling team, but his body remembered the wrong rules. He kept instinctively grabbing opponents by the clothes a move from the wrestling style of his past life and couldn't adapt to the freestyle grappling that allowed neck holds.
He lost the inter-school competition, and with it, his chance at an athletic scholarship.
But one day, by pure chance, he picked up a teammate's camera.
It was like a lightning strike. He realized he could meter light by eye. He knew how to frame a shot, how to direct a pose.
He didn't know who he was in his past life, but he was certain of one thing: he had been a photographer.
Aunt Karen had scraped together $200, intending to buy him a beat-up car...a rite of passage for an American teenager.
Ronald had turned it down and Instead, he used the money to buy a used Nikon F2 SLR and several rolls of film.
That camera became his lifeline.
After high school, lacking the funds for college, he took a gap year. He worked odd jobs and shot portraits, saving every penny. With $500 in his pocket, a fortune to him, he kissed Aunt Karen and his cousin Donna goodbye and spent twelve days driving Interstate 40 from New York to Los Angeles.
He quickly discovered a niche: actor headshots.
In Hollywood, everyone wanted to be a star. But when clients saw an eighteen-year-old kid with a camera, they hesitated.
To build a portfolio, he had to charge low rates....$30 to $50 a session.
He needed credibility and he needed to be an insider.
That led him to New World Pictures.
He had applied as a screenwriter, got hired, and then spent months doing nothing but reading terrible scripts.
Two weeks ago, he was finally assigned to the Rock 'n' Roll High School crew as a Production Assistant.
His main job was making coffee, but at least he was on set. Feeling the weight of the day, Ronald set his alarm for 04:30 and rolled over.
In the darkness, time dissolved.
Ronald heard voices. Confused, he opened a door and stepped out. He wasn't in his apartment anymore.
He was standing in a courtyard where a white screen had been erected, like an open-air cinema.
Through the dim light, he saw rows of people sitting on benches.
"Sit down!" someone barked in a language that felt incredibly familiar..the language of his past life.
Ronald slipped into a seat in the back row, right next to the film projector.
Suddenly, the screen flared to life. Ronald jumped. A block of text appeared in aggressive red capital letters:
WARNING
Below it, small white text scrolled:
"Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures..."
A copyright warning?
"Why hasn't it started yet? What's playing today?" a voice from the crowd complained.
The screen flickered, and an image appeared.
The crowd fell silent.
A three-story white building came into view, bathed in gentle California sunlight. It was peaceful, Crickets chirped through the speakers.
Then, text scrolled at the bottom:
A New World Pictures Film, © 1979 New World Pictures.
1979?
Ronald frowned. It was currently 1978.
Why did the copyright date say next year
The camera panned to a large sign with a yellow background and green lettering: Vince Lombardi High School.
Below it was the slogan: "Winning isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing."
Ronald's jaw dropped.
Vince Lombardi High—that was the fictional school from the script. Was he watching the dailies from today's shoot?
The scene cut. A student appeared, staring at a wall map marked with a red 'X'.
"Where am I?" the student muttered.
Suddenly, the school football team stampeded into the frame, picking the student up and carrying him off.
Cut to: A girl with large black-rimmed glasses standing beside a podium filled with bubbling beakers. The sign read: Kate Rambeau, Science Club, Chemistry Demonstration.
Cut to: A handsome guy, the character Tom usually played by Vincent Van Patten walking out of the building. Kate tried to flirt, but the oblivious Tom ignored her to read a book.
Cut to: A stunning girl in red, P.J. Soles, placing a Ramones record on a turntable. As the driving punk rock rhythm blasted out, students began dancing wildly in the playground.
A red title flashed across the screen: ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL.
It really is the movie, Ronald thought, stunned. But it's finished...edited and Complete.
"Boss, change the movie!" someone in the crowd shouted.
"This is boring!"
"Yeah, put on a war movie!"
"We want kung fu! Put on that Jackie Chan flick!"
Suddenly, a figure stood up and marched toward the projector next to Ronald. The man pressed a button, and the screen turned blinding white.
The machine ejected a pitch-black rectangular box. A white label on the spine bore four handwritten characters in flamboyant red ink:
Rock 'n' Roll High School
"Boss, change the tape!"
The man waved the black box in the air...a VHS cassette.
"Ah!"
Ronald shouted, jolting awake, rolling off his bed and hitting the floor with a thud.
Authors Note:-
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