Advice From a Teen Idol

Chris Montgomery had the world at his feet. A world of young women that is. Wherever he went, Ben was followed by a torrent of young teenage girls. His fans male counterparts tried their best to steer clear, plagued by a mixture of jealousy and intimidation.

He sighed as he peered around the door to see the crowd of eager youngsters, practically jumping up and down just with the anticipation of the possibility of catching a mere glimpse of him. He squinted, scanning the crowd once more before looking over them to a bored looking young guy leaning against the brick wall. Chris raised an eyebrow. The young boy looked exactly how he felt. Bored, tired and slightly annoyed, all at once.

Chris turned to one of his security guards. "See that young guy?" he asked. The guard looked over Ben's shoulder, following his gaze to the bored teenager, and nodded. "I'd like to meet him." Immediately, the guard slipped out, heading toward the boy Chris had pointed out.

Chris watched with baited breath as his guard approached. No hope of hearing a single world over the gneral buzz of the teenage girls, he squinted further, testing out whether or not he could lip read. He couldn't. But, he got his answer anyway when the guard turned around, and the young boy followed.

"This is going to sound really odd, but what are you doing here?" Chris asked after introducing himself. "You seem really bored out here, and your're not hyped up like so many of the others."
"I always hang here," said the teenager, Ben. "You just had to come and bring a whole crowd with you."
Chris raised an eyebrow. "Well I'm sorry I'm such an inconvenience."
"What are you doing hiding back here anyway?" Ben asked. "You realise that if you just went out, it'd be over. All you've got to do is rush through the crowd to your limo." The words sounded like acid dripping from the boy's tongue.Toxicity in auditory form.
"Easy for you to say."
Ben shrugged. "The longer you wait, the worse it's gonna get. Just rip it off like a band aid I say."
Chris raised an eyebrow. Never in his life did he think he'd be getting advice from someone younger than him. His eyebrows scrunched together as he studied him more closely. Was he younger? He'd thought so?
"Look man," Ben took off his cap and shook out his hair.
Chris gasped involuntarily. How had he missed this? How had he not known? "Ben Anders," he breathed.
Ben nodded. "Yeah. See, I get it."
Chris was in shock. Back in his day, Ben Anders had been just as much of a household name among young teenage girls as Chris was then. And he didn't seem to have aged much at all. "Imagine all the mothers if you and I went out there together," he said, chuckling.
"We'd have all the girls going crazy then," Ben quipped.
Chris shook his head as he considered the reality of it. "No. I couldn't. I can hardly stand the thought of going out there now, let alone if everyone was all over us."
"Don't let the fear stop you," said Ben, clapping him gently on the shoulder. "I remember being your age. One day, they'll forget and you can just go back to doing what you do best. But this is how it is at the beginning."
"So how did you get through it?"
"I said, 'I want to do something with my life'. When my time here is up, I don't want to look back and see that I didn't do anything." As he spoke, Chris was nodding attentaively. Ben had him in the palm of his hand. "I see a lot of people that let their lives happen to them. I want to happen to my life."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In memory of Luke Perry. I knew him best as Fred Andrews in Riverdale.. R.I.P.