“My name is Arthur,” he said like a fox. Arthur was not his name.
“I’m Jill,” replied the girl. Her eyes sparkled like moonlight rain, and her hair poured over her shoulders like smooth chocolate. She stood daintily on the crew section of the stage, her arms folded tightly across the clipboard she kept over her chest. With a clockwork smile, she continued.
“Are you here for the auditions?”
“Yeah.” He was there for the auditions – that much was true.
“Which part are you reading for?”
“McMurphy.” He smiled, and gave a little nod. Lucky fucking clipboard.
“Oh yeah? That’s the big one.”
“Damn right it’s big!” he bellowed with a smirk. Jill blushed.
One of those really awkward moments came over them. You know, the kind that makes you feel like you would rather be at home, scrubbing the underside of your toilet. She smiled sweetly, but he didn’t respond.
“Well, you better get ready.”
“Yeah, I think I’m gonna go have a smoke,” said the man. He didn’t smoke, and never had.
He trotted lazily off around the east corner, through the limbo section, and pushed through the ragged swing door that didn’t shut all the way anymore, so security had to watch it especially close. Out in the dry heat, he was squinting. He had just come through the black hole of a back lot, and had rushed right into epic sunlight. It was that weird sensation you get in which your eyes can’t adjust, so your surroundings look like heaven for a few seconds. Everything is all white and hazy, and you can’t tell if the people you see have wings or not. And then the real world comes into focus, and nobody has any wings.
There were several bodies cluttered outside in the narrow alley, most of them smoking – each one likely trying to alleviate the butterflies. Performers, no doubt: desperately yearning for that “big break.” All of them were chatting together, like one brilliant backstage invisible opera. He stepped over the stained cardboard boxes and propped himself against a relatively clean wall section near a garbage can, of all things. A familiar odor came spilling up, settling into his nasal cavities. He snorted, and was flanked.
“Hey, I’m Jeff.” Jeff was an abnormally lanky piece of work with a heavy beard, and he didn’t look much older than laptop computers. He took a slow drag of a cigarette, and jostled his hand out straight to be shaken.
“I’m...ah...Crispin,” said he, who’s real name wasn’t Crispin. Hands were shook, but his grip was limp and stagnant, and he seemed reluctant to make the connection. He drew his hand back, and wiped it swiftly over his shirt.
“You here for the audition?” Jeff’s cigarette dangled from his lips, and as Jeff talked, the cigarette bobbed up and down, like a bad movie line, drawing too much attention to itself.
“Yeah...yeah, I think so.” He stared at Jeff, enamored. The cigarette was talking to him. Bragging to him. Calling him names.
“That’s cool. I’m reading for Billy Bibbitt. Who you reading for?” Bob, bob, bob went the cigarette.
“H-Harding. Yeah, that’s it.” The man was sweating. Stupid fucking cigarette.
“No way, man! I hope you get it. I think you’d be great,” said Jeff with a toothy grin, that cigarette clinched betwixt his teeth, sticking out. The man smiled back, and his eyes widened anxiously.
“Thanks. I’m...I’m gonna get back inside.”
He trotted toward the swing door, stepping over an old sink basin as we went; and relinquished himself back into the blinding black of somber Studio F. For a few seconds, he couldn’t see anything, because the light was absent at best. It was like walking outside, only the reverse. You feel like you are dead, because it’s pitch black all around, and you can’t think or speak or do anything. And then you can see your hand, and you hear a loudspeaker shouting jibberish from behind layers and layers of red velvet curtains.
Wistfully, the man marched around to the front, where a steady line had formed along the stage rail; and all sorts of people were standing there, nervously twitching, performing Zen-concentration techniques, or biting their nails down to dull, bloody tips.
“Get in line, partner,” came a guttural voice.
He looked around a sea of heads all gazing uniformly in the same direction, and zeroed in on an elderly gentleman: the only person looking his way. Kind of scary, really.
“Excuse me?”
“You better get in line. Here, get behind me.” He complied, and stepped in line; as the old codger grinned with cold skullduggery.
“Name’s Clarence. What’s yours, son?”
“Jackson,” said the man. Jackson wasn’t his name, and was scarcely a first name at all. It was one of those hip names, like Spence...or Dobbs.
“Nice to meet you, my man. Who you readin’ for?” asked Clarence, who seemed to be very refined, and was a snazzy dresser. The kind of guy who could wear old knickers well. A real trend-setter.
“Martini, man. You?”
“Who’s the only black dude worth a shit in this play? Orderly Turkle. That’s right! The dude who lets ‘em out.” Clarence had a gift for gab, and that was no lie. His words seemed to glisten when he opened his mouth, but the man noticed that the sparkle was coming from a gold cap, set rather pristinely on a right incisor.
“Cool, man...cool. You gonna get it, you think?” He spoke to Clarence, but was looking Clarence’s gold cap right in the eye. Like when you talk to somebody, and you can’t look at the whole face: just one eye, or the other...or the nose.
“Shoot! If I get this one, I’ll be set,” flickered the gold cap. Gleaming gold like a Midas treasure. Damn fucking dentist.
“Well, here I go. Good luck, chief.”
Chief. Big chief. He waited for a few moments, there on the steps, on the verge of make-believe. One, two, three, four. The seconds ticked off in his head like poetry. One flew east. One flew west. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the game.
“You’re up,” yelled the loudspeaker, now audibly clear. As he stepped quietly onto the stage for the first time in his life, he could see far back into the grim shadows. A man holding a video camera. A woman drinking coffee. Someone coughing.
“Tell us your name, and who you’ll be reading for,” said someone.
There was a pause, and the light came down from above.
“My name is Ken. The Big Chief.” The big one.
END
