#05 HOLLYWOOD EXTINCTION EVENT

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I had to go to the airport and put Corso in the app as a “favorite driver.” Wishful thinking. I didn’t expect him to respond.

This time, I was going to Santa Fe to shoot a commercial for OpenAI. I didn’t ask why they didn’t generate a set or even the actors because I needed the work. If they wanted to give employment to humans working IRL, I wasn’t opposed. No moral stance there. Funny thing, the commercial I made for them turned out to be the last commercial they put out before they went bankrupt. Gemini and Claude took their market share, so no tears to shed there.

Corso came up in the app. Surprise, surprise, he’d accepted the ride. I accepted on my side and went downstairs to meet him.

As soon as I got in the Tesla, he started talking. His mood was different from the other times I’d ridden with him. Brighter, lighter. Almost manic.

“I drove a guy who said he would introduce me to the Guide.”

I didn’t understand. “Sorry? What?”

“The Guide. She’s like an oracle. She knows the way to the turn-off. I just have to keep taking riders until I get her. It’s only a matter of time.”

“How will you know she’s the one?”

“I won’t,” he said, “but I assume something weird will happen and then I’ll know.”

I nodded. He may have lost his mind, but he was cheerful and that was a nice change.

He seemed to sense my skepticism under the surface and started to explain how the turn-off worked. “It’s a time slip,” he said. “The drivers are saying they happen.”

“Like, often?”

“I don’t know.” He caught my eye in the rearview. “That’s why I’ll be glad to have the Guide. She’ll walk me through it and everything will be okay.” He smiled, which was rare, and also optimistic, even rarer. “Everyone is going to figure this out. People adapt.” He nodded as if convincing himself of the truth of this.

“Adapt to what? Our careers cratering?”

“No,” Corso said. “I had a cinematographer on a ride. He’s working as a wedding photographer now. He’s happy because he makes people happy. Production managers are working as wedding planners. Set designers are becoming interior decorators.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. I wasn’t sold. “Yeah, and actors are in the emergency room pretending to be surgeons and carpenters are waiting outside Home Depot to get day work.”

The sour note I’d injected didn’t upset him. He shrugged. “Everybody’s a gig worker now.”

“I listened to your recording of that screenwriter,” I said.

Corso laughed. “What an asshole, eh? Well, I’m leaving him behind where I’m going.” He let a pause fall, then remarked, “Change is inevitable. Culture is always changing. The movie business is always changing and people are always afraid.”

I thought he sounded smug, if not cryptic. “Those of us who are marching to the future face the unknown.”

He knew what I meant, and snapped back, “The past I’m going to is an unknown! It’s a past that hasn’t happened yet or a past that happened in a parallel time that we haven’t experienced. But it still matters. I’m going to make it matter,” he said.

I wanted to ask how, but he already sounded crazy enough.

“American Airlines, right?” he asked. It seemed like he was disengaging from me and didn’t want to talk any more. Maybe he thought he had overshared.

“Yes,” I said. “Going to Santa Fe.”

He didn’t ask why, just slowed down at Departures to let me out. “Good luck,” he said. It sounded final.

I was haunted by this encounter. He was going into the unknown and wasn’t worried about it. I had his digital recorder with me and wanted to listen to the other rides he’d recorded.

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