Publicity!

Chapter 1It’s 8:10 A.M. Today is January 8, 2022. I’ve been staring at the calendar on my desk for the last ten minutes. I’ve scribbled an X in red marker on the date January 20…God, how I loathe that date. I placed the marker down and stared at the client who’d been in my office for the past five minutes, praying his troubles would go away. Seated in front of my desk was five-time Grammy Award winning rapper Lil Holler, aka Curtis Lucas. Curtis has had an amazing career for the last six years, all thanks to his management team. He had sponsorship deals from trendy clothing brands and occasional opportunities to write theme songs for television shows and commercials. Unfortunately, Curtis decided to do something completely idiotic, leaving his career and everything he had worked hard for, hanging in limbo. When Curtis called me last night, I expected him to come into my office the next day with a lot to say. It’s been five minutes of silence; the only noise filling up my office are the car horns outside of my three-story office building. “Look, Curtis.” I began finally breaking the silence, as I was no longer drawing Xs all over anything that had January 20 on it. “I can’t help you if you won’t at least tell me what went through your mind, when you decided to post that picture for your eight and a half million Twitter followers to see.” Curtis Lucas reminded me of Eminem, well, a less talented version of him. He was in his early thirties, Caucasian with short blond hair and blue eyes. Huh, I wonder if that’s what his label was going for when they signed him. The rapper seated before me wore two sets of gold chains around his neck, no one understood why, not even him. Record labels felt every rapper should wear golden chains around their necks because it shows importance. I’ve never been into rap music because a majority of the songs tend to be homophobic. As a gay man, hearing those lyrics was insulting. And the ironic part? I know about eighty percent of the male rappers are actually closeted! Hearing those lyrics come out of their mouths is comically sad. It honestly wasn’t surprising because these rappers all have personas and reputations to protect. Lil Holler was no different. Not only is he a White rapper that claims he was born in the South Bronx and faced troubling obstacles, but he created a tough and headstrong facade in the industry that had struck fear in the hearts of his doubters. Unfortunately, that man in question was now shaken up and too nervous to speak, kind of ironic for a man named Holler. “Aight, so listen.” I glared at him and he quickly stopped speaking. He cleared his throat and continued, changing his demeanor from a tough guy to a mature and civilized adult, sounding like the Harvard graduate that the world doesn’t actually know he is! “Alright, so it all began when President Elect Victor Reber won the damn election. I mean, who the hell votes for a racist?” “So instead of tweeting from a fake profile like everyone else does, you decide to take a picture of you shoving your p***s into a blow-up doll’s mouth with the president’s face edited on it?” Curtis nodded his head, “Yeah, I did! It’s what anyone else would’ve done. Why do I get singled out for it?” That question wasn’t one that needed to be justified verbally. It needed to be shown to the clueless rapper. I grabbed the remote control off my desk, pressed the ‘Power On’ button and within seconds the plasma television screen which was mounted on the wall behind me, turned on and Curtis’ demeanor once again changed. This time he had regret written all over his face. “According to multiple reports, rapper Lil Holler wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of a Republican finally leading this amazing country. The loud liberal was so upset that he uploaded a cruel and sexually explicit picture of himself doing something unthinkable to a s*x doll with the president’s face edited on it and posted it online, showing Americans just how much of a traitor he really is! Is this the type of artist you want to support, America? Is this the type of man you want your children looking up to? A man who hates this amazing and glorious country, that his only form of protest is to violate a blow-up doll? No! I know I will no longer be supporting this man or his music any longer.” The annoying and squeaky voice filling my eardrums belonged to Republican mouthpiece Tori Lane. A woman who will do anything to get on top. She bashes and labels anyone against Victor Reber as a traitor. But if you were hiding deadly secrets from your past, like she is, then you too would do whatever it takes to make sure you please the right people in the right places. Republicans who own her network television show are now the ones who own her. I quickly muted the television, not wanting to hear another word that came out of her mouth, for my own sanity. “I’m a traitor?! Is she serious? All I did was pretend to screw a blow-up doll! I didn’t kill anyone. Surely you can do something about this.” “Well hell! Did you forget who I am? I’m Cassian Solis. I am the Hollywood Fixer after all. Meaning people like you who are dealing with things like this, aka a crisis, come to me and I fix it. All I care about is your image, that’s it. Anything else falls solely on you and your team. I’m here to make sure you pop out of this crap storm unscathed.” The rapper shook his head. “I screwed up.” “No, screwing up would be getting a groupie pregnant because you stupidly forgot to put on a condom. What you did was just protest the president in a very weird way that I’m sure is going to get you new and perverted followers. No biggy.” “No biggy?” Curtis let out a nervous chuckle, “Bro, I lost seven million Twitter followers. All my deals have been dropped. Sneakers, movies, cartoons, hell, even ShowToyz isn’t going to make me an action figure anymore!” I nodded, calmly listening to his rant. When his record label hired me to take this on, I was skeptical at first, but seeing the passion in the blue eyes of this Eminem knock off, I could tell his career was important to him. “I understand how scary this must be for you. Me? This isn’t my first walk in the park. I’ve done this many times before.” “What?” Curtis gasped, looking at me up and down. “You look like you’re seventeen!” “Awww, thank you!” I have been told I look young by many people and that compliment was always one that made me blush. In reality, I’m twenty-nine years old and in the gay world that’s about ninety-nine. Once I turn thirty, the gay world will legally declare me old and dead. But many of my enemies know that even though I look young and have a voice which outs me whenever I speak, that I kick ass at my job and my bite is far worse than my bark! Knock! Knock! The knocking on my office door caused Curtis to flinch. I smirked, shaking my head. “Come in!” I shouted. The door opened, and standing in the doorway was my assistant, Tony Cruz. Tony is a 5’10” Hispanic man who is notorious for wearing custom fitted designer suits. He has caramel colored skin and dark brown curly hair that tends to be left in a small afro. He has a pair of light brown eyes that everyone compliments whenever they walk into my office. His clean-shaven face and sharp jaw line makes him look more like an innocent GQ model than my assistant. An innocent and naïve face that makes it easier to hide the darkness which lurks within him. “I got the pictures you asked for.” Tony said, showing me the manila envelope he was holding in his hands. “Oh, that’s perfect! How did they come out?” Tony nodded with a wicked smile on his face. “Perfect! Better than any of us could have anticipated.” “And did you take care of the written response I sent you this morning?” Tony once again nodded, entering the office and handed me the envelope. “It didn’t need much revising so it’ll be live in a couple of seconds.” I took the envelope from him and smiled widely. “Oooh, I cannot wait! Thank you so much!” Tony waved at Curtis and he exited the office, closing the door behind him. Poor Curtis had no idea what my assistant and I were talking about. “Do you remember Dave Alex, the former mayor of Singler City?” I asked, which caused the rapper to immediately shake his head. “While Dave Alex was running for mayor, he painted this beautiful image of his family life; wife, kids and white picket fences. You know the same old cliché bull crap closeted politicians use to get votes with. Well, I knew Dave from my college days and he was in a very long relationship with a guy from my public relations class. Anyway, he was caught on a hot mic a few months after being elected, where he referred to gays as—and I quote—Cancerous beings who need to be sedated or eradicated.” Curtis shook his head again, probably this time in disgust. “That’s sick. Why would he say that?” “He was surrounded by male politicians who view the gay community as such and instead of defending the same community he is secretly a part of; he decided to bash us to gain brownie points with the jocks.” Men like Dave have always frustrated me. The closeted gay/bi/pansexual men who unleash their inner homophobia on gay men because they’re too weak to stand out from the crowd. Men like that are sick and disgusting. Vile and hypocritical. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. A world where people who want to seem cool jump on a bandwagon to bash marginalized people. Men who do that aren’t men at all, they’re just scared little boys. “But of course, he blamed that comment on the Ambien he took the night before and all was forgiven. Considering I knew him, he wasn’t on Ambien. Nor was that something he said by accident. But no one said or did a thing. It was labeled ‘locker room talk’ and forgotten by everyone including the media, the next day…well, everyone except me. Tony is very gifted with an ability to manipulate photos.” “You mean like Photoshop?” the rapper asked. I nodded. “In a way, yes. But the program he uses is a bit more advanced; because it shows no traces of manipulation should the FBI, or anyone else, analyze it.” I leaned my back on the chair and continued with my story, getting to the good part, “Someone accidentally leaked a photo of dear old Mayor Alex in a very compromising position and that position was him partaking in some illegal narcotics.” “Wait! You leaked manipulated images of the mayor? That’s illegal. That’s wrong. That’s—” “Genius, I know. I could’ve gone another route, but one thing about me is that I don’t out people. Never have and never will.” I smiled, proud of my accomplishments and the boundaries I’ve set. “I’m getting to your thing in a minute.” I replied just in case the rapper was trying to find the relevancy in my long-winded speech. “Anyway, once those images leaked, the mayor was impeached and his wife forced him into a rehab clinic. Now, I know the story seems bad but he was photographed two years ago at Coachella tonguing down some Twink, so I’d say he’s doing quite well for himself.” My laughter was probably a little extreme in the aftermath of the story I just told, but I needed it to highlight everything I’m capable of. “Okay, but what does this have to do with me again?” I unclasped the manila envelope and took out a picture. I looked at the picture and continued smiling at the amazing job Tony had done. The picture currently circulating the internet is of Lil Holler nude with his p***s inside of the mouth of a s*x doll and stupidly sticking his tongue out while giving a thumbs up. But the picture in my hand didn’t have him nude and with a s*x doll. Instead, he was standing on the sandy beach wearing shorts and holding a pool noodle over his crotch, similar to the playful way most immature frat boys do for no reason. And on his right breast is a tattoo of the Aries zodiac symbol. Nothing besides the item, lighting and clothes changed in the picture. His smile was the same as the original as well as his position. It was an eerily similar picture in every way. Now I know how weight loss corporations feel when they manipulate photos revealing fake results. “Okay, since your photo went viral, every media outlet has knocked down anything stupid the president tweeted and has made your mishap their breaking news. But here is the original photo we’re going to say was manipulated.” I handed the picture over to Lil Holler and his eyes widened. His eyes were such a nice shade of blue. “Are you kidding me? I don’t even have a tattoo!” “Yeah, about that. I booked you for an appointment in an hour at The Forbidden Ones Ink Shop. Davey is going to give you the temporary airbrush tattoo.” “What? No one is going to believe that!” “Why not? You never take your shirt off and up until this stupid photo fiasco you never posted any shirtless pictures. Trust me, no one even knows you have nipples.” He stopped talking and sighed, probably realizing he doesn’t have much of a choice in this situation. “So, you’re just gonna leak this pic?” “Not quite. Before you stepped into my office, I already came up with a very lengthy response as well as the details of this photo. In a few minutes, it’s going to go live. But before it does, I’m going to need you to read it, so you can get a better understanding of the lie you’re going to tell TMZ when they stalk you at the airport.” I dug my hand back inside of the envelope and took out a piece of paper, I handed it to the rapper and he took it, probably confused about what I was giving him. “Please go on and read it.” I said, the happy-yet sinister smile still plastered on my face. The rapper nodded his head and he began to read the letter aloud, “Yo! These r crazy times so let me get real with u! I dunno what that pic is of me and that s*x doll. First things first, I don’t play that way! Not to mention I have a tattoo on my right chest that clearly ain’t in the photo. I’m being set up by someone! It’s mad sad that y’all think that photo is actually me. Probably them trolls who found out President Reber wanted me to perform at the inauguration. But don’t be mad, I got the FBI looking into this!—” Curtis stopped reading and looked at me. “The FBI? Wouldn’t they deny this claim?” “They could.” I responded back. “But let’s just say the director of the FBI owes me a favor for a pro-bono job I did for him a few months back.” Curtis stared at me for a few seconds and then he decided to continue reading, “I kno how crazy this looks but I ain’t playing around. My fans kno I ain’t about that disrespectful shiz! Y’all kno how I feel about this country and how I feel about nudity. But here ya’ll go! I’m gonna post the real pic of me, I ain’t happy with the people who hacked my phone, took that pic and Photoshopped it to start with. Here’s the real pic. I kno y’all are mad, shiz, I’m mad too! But don’t worry, we’ll get thru this together. Peace and love, Lil Holler!” Curtis finished reading the letter and he stared at it in silence. “This sounds exactly like something I would say!” I proudly nodded my head. “Duh! I don’t care much for your music, but I studied that fake and racist accent you put on during your interviews and I decided to just roll with it.” Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Curtis quickly took his cellphone out of his jeans’ pocket and was met with various notifications. He swiped up and down the screen in excitement. “Holy crap! The post worked! I’m getting apologies from various people and even the network that took my theme song off! I’m in the clear!” “Not yet.” I replied, probably popping the rapper’s balloon of hope. “It’s barely nine A.M. The real news cycle tends to pick up at noon, four, five, six, ten and eleven. We’ll know then if you’re truly in the clear.” Curtis quickly got up from the chair he was seated on as his cell phone began to ring. “Shoot! It’s the president of my record label.” The rapper quickly left the office, answering the phone. I let out a sigh of relief at another job well done. “I assume the letter and picture went over well?” I heard Tony’s voice ask from the doorway. I turned to him and nodded. “Did we have any doubts? Right now, his label will be on top of this and make him a star again.” “And they didn’t even call to thank you?” I shook my head. “I’ve been doing this for five years now, trust me; this job can be thankless at times. I’m just hoping Lil Holler stays away from photo editing apps the next time he’s angry.” Tony nodded his head and I let out a sigh of relief, hoping for the best.