curtain call
As the crowd’s roar began to lull, the curtain quickly lowered. I remained bent at the waist as it shot up again, and when it was fully raised I lifted my head, and then my torso.
The curtain came down for a final time and the lights behind it brightened. When I turned around, the others were not laughing or dancing as you might expect. This was, as the Americans say, not our first rodeo.
There were a few solemn hands to caress my shoulder, some admiring glances, a bottle of champagne in my changing room, the typical afterglow.
I can’t say, precisely, what was different. The sensation was that of pedalling a bike uphill, straining so that your head is lowered and your eyes squeezed shut, when all at once you notice a sensation of change, a shift from push to pull. But, on a bike, the mystery is easily solved. In life, it’s not so easy to open your eyes.
‘Another excellent performance, I’m sure.’
The City slid past, rendered sepia by the window’s tint.
‘Is everything okay, sir?’
‘Pull over, please.’
‘Sir?’
But, his question notwithstanding, Elliot pulled the car to an obedient stop.
‘Shall I wait, or -?’
‘No, I’m fine on my own tonight.’
He knew not to press, for better or worse. Maybe if Elliot had insisted on keeping me in that car, just the once, things might have turned out in another way. But, then again, maybe the only other option was delay.
As the car lifted off of the curb and folded back into the flow of traffic, I was reminded of another car, a more modest one that left me behind under more or less the same circumstance.
It happened when things were just getting started, and before Elliot found me. The adrenaline was pumping blood into dormant cavities of my eyes, or perhaps within an obscure region of my brain, in either case the effect was that of colours and sounds and shapes and smells erupting like spring grass. I had to get out of the car, had to remove my shoes and socks, had to run free in the space left by the lifted veil that had long shrouded the sidewalk and street and windows and doors. The sky - well, the sky was the same as always, the same as it is now.
It was an exhilarating walk. One that continued well past the rising sun, and ended with me stumbling back into the theatre, shoes in hand, still dizzy. My performance that day was, according to me, one of the finest - perhaps, if you could point to one, that sleepless show was indeed it, the performance which stoked a promising bonfire into a raging inferno. Thanks to that mysterious well of energy that we call youth.
It’s not that I feel old now, but that youth leaves the body in fits and starts until you realise, much later, that it isn’t coming back this time. The drug is long gone, even if the decay is only just beginning. My knees, on more occasions than not, hitch with my stride. My eyes glaze right across neon signs over darkened stairs, my stomach seizes at the sound of a pulsating basement.
As Elliot inched the taillights away, there was a weight lowered rather than one lifted away. A weight to being alone, a weight that I had never felt before. Maybe it was there all along, as such things tend to be, buried under sweat and wax.
I knew then that something was lost, but not what or why. My actions that followed were not choices, they came from that primitive gland that does not consult or debate, it only directs. My (still robust, at the time) legs motored past a stylish cafe where I might be seen, a trendy restaurant where I might indulge, and a nostalgic pub; soon enough (or maybe it was hours later?) I found myself tucked into the fluorescent white and yellow corner of a quick serve Thai joint.
It was only in the seat that I recognised the place. I’d been there before, opposite my brother. He was out of place, wool and silk, in a way that seemed to please him. Listen, he had said, it’s entry level. But it’s just to start, after a month or two I can pull some strings.
Pad kra pao. Simple, savoury, basil and chilli. It sat untouched while I bent over a strip of blank receipt paper, filling it with a narrow column of my block capital handwriting.
What you’re doing is… it’s brave, I respect it. But maybe it’s time. Don’t you think it’s time? It would have happened for you, by now.
It could have been nothing, venting. The paper could have crumpled into the bin. I could have, at least, copied the message onto letterhead. But, I didn’t do that. As the city grew cold and quiet, my legs pumped once again, they lifted me onto one or another well worn path; in the City all roads led to the theatre.
You’ll always have the memories, Eric, you can be proud that you gave it a real shot, but memories don’t pay the rent.
At the last moment, before slipping the paper through the slot, I pulled it back. At the bottom, I added my personal phone number and a ps (thank yourself! - an inside joke amongst the cast), to assure the reader that the note, while strange, was, in a literal sense, legitimate.
I didn’t mean it like that, wait. I’m sorry to be harsh, but you know I’m right. If you would just listen…
Maybe, even then, there was a part of me hoping to be pursued. The cast would perform a grid search, block by block, with helicopters overhead. It’s a beautiful thought but, more likely, that is simply the nature of a backward glance.
Even if I did want pursuit, I surely didn’t want to be found. My phone splashed into the river, followed by my wallet, after it had been relieved of cash.
You imagine me doing this with excitement, or perhaps anger. Despair, euphoria, hate, love. The truth is, my arm barely moved, the gesture was so sudden and subtle that it surprised me as much as it did the dutiful lady who happened to be pushing a stroller along the bridge. There was an urgency and then there wasn’t. At that point, and from then on, my legs returned to my control, and a certain panic began to fill my lungs.
At the base of the bridge, I found a part of the city that was new to me, and that was something.
There was a blacksmith, of all things, belching orange in the dark. But a wave of heat kept me from stepping into his garage. A seamstress, too focused to interrupt. Some bricklayers let me test the heft, and laughed as I quickly left.
Although you could say that I found him, I think it’s true that he found me. No words were spoken on that day, and I can count on my fingers the ones he uttered since.
There were no questions, no interview. He simply grunted towards a knife and a knobby bit of wood. I held one in each hand for about an hour, long enough for my palms to itch, before he grunted again. From then on, I watched the old man and copied his strokes as best I could. The results were not pretty, not at first. Maybe they still aren’t, I’ll leave that up to you.
But I kept cutting, and cutting, and sanding, and cutting. For one year and two and three, maybe four. My clutter filled the corner of his shop as my clothes became worn and soft. Irregular, uneven, too thin, bulky, grotesque.
I made the decision, with clear-eyed enthusiasm, to be on the stage, and not just on it but at the centre of it. Day after day, I had pursued. The heat of doubt was a kiln, it hardened my shell. And with that protection I fought everything, myself included, that tried to barricade the path. Nothing, I now realise, is more intoxicating than the not-yet-satisfied dream.
With the knife, there was only repetition. It was a quiet pursuit, with no guidance or scorn. It was… calm, and nothing calm can be good enough.
That’s why I decided to burn it all. To shovel my scraps into the furnace and leave before he could, finally, shake his head in disgust. I didn’t need words, but I wanted them. So I rehearsed them to myself, hunched over a block that I was digging with the blade, on an unusually warm late winter day. The prepared announcement grew into a ramble and then a tidy speech before collapsing into a few bare sentences. I waited for a young woman with metal in her nose to leave the place, so that I could do the same.
I’m sorry, I’d say. I tried.
He’d look up, maybe. A curt nod would be too much to bear.
It’s just that I don’t feel it, I’m not making progress. I don’t have the passion that I should. I work and work but the fear is missing.
The young woman laughed. She must have been laughing at one of mine, or even at me directly. My clothes, my unshaven face. The smell of me leaking across the room.
I don’t have talent, so what’s the point?
‘Fuck yeah!’ she said, before slamming her palm on the table. The bell above the door dinged and I glanced up from my toil. When I was sure that she had gone, I gathered my breath.
There were no congratulations, no contract was written up. Just a crumpled note, sitting alone. When the bell dinged again, I took the money and shoved it into my pocket. I left the old man with the customer and returned to my half-carved wood. That’s when I noticed that my knife had been sharpened, that the necessary edges and counters were obvious, that I liked the potential of this piece better than all the ones before.
Each day I imbibe of the old man’s skill, and hope that some of his wisdom comes with it. But, for now, I’m still limited, I still need words. You don’t have to listen, but, if you’ve nowhere else to go, grab a knife and take a seat.