s u m m e r
sun spots
Lunch came late today.
Pumpernickel, corned beef, swiss, yellow mustard, and dill pickle.
With it came the thoughts of better ideas. And a strange desire. The desire to be animated on stage. To project. I began to daydream all the way back to middle school drama class. I remember how I was always picked to speak the monologues.
It didn't matter what the part was, if it had a monologue it was mine.
I remember feeling strong. I remember feeling powerful.
I was really just a skinny, fairly unpopular kid with a jean jacket and a lot of rock & roll buttons on the front. They were talismans to me. Iron Maiden. AC/DC. Cheap Trick. Black Sabbath. I wrote OZZY across the knuckles of my left hand and tried, tried to be cool.
It was pretty hopeless. About all I could relate to were a few Rush songs and it seemed that most "real" hoods hated them with a passion.
But on the stage none of that mattered. I could project. Given the chance I could overwhelm the room with my voice and they forgot for a little while who I was because I was everything. The lights were out and there was one spot on me. The shiny waxed wood stage gleamed around my feet and I looked into that spot as if it were the sun. I did it so I could look anywhere in the room and not see another soul, only the spot burned on my retina.
I did it so I didn't have to see the sneers and laughing faces I imagined. All I knew was the room was quiet but for my voice echoing off the auditorium walls and with that resonance came a comfort that has yet to be equaled in anything I've done since.
Of course these days it hardly matters.
It all runs thin toward the end. Like a pen losing ink, the line trails off getting smaller and smaller until the dry tip scratches and finally tears the paper.
It all had to tear free eventually.
School had to end.
I had to meet other people who have had drama and who were once masters of their stage.
I never talk about it with them but you can tell who they are.
They are the ones for whom lunch comes late or not at all.
They are the readers, or solitary walkers.
And we all stare at the sun.
goodnight 10.11.99