Actor: A Novel in Three Acts

On the cold floor of my apartment, I woke.

From my stomach to my back, I flipped over and listened to the distant resonance of the sounds of a city I did not know: birds chirping, hobos retching from drink from the night before, taxi horns and tires squealing, and the heavy metal rumblings of delivery trucks on their morning routes. Foreign, but familiar; orchestral. With those accompanying sounds, I looked up and stared at the ceiling, noticing a crack within its plaster striking clear across, like God himself had purposefully flicked that exact spot. Why me? I wondered, confused between the trappings of Lee's victimization and my own personal woe. Or me? Not me, but parts of me. Only parts of parts of parts.

I sat up and looked around at the apartments sparseness, resembling more of an empty stage than a place to live. It resembled a drunk tank, which would have been a little too Method given Lee's character, even for me. I told myself I would figure it out.

The temperature at what I assumed was 7 or 8 AM was already sweltering. Everything felt sticky and wet, like the aftermath of one of my old conservatory’s yoga sessions or music-to-movement lessons. Those were the worst: slipping and sliding and thrusting around in the dark with a gaggle of bodies, emoting through gestures and projected, maybe “real moments” moments of therapeutic ensemble release. One of the gifts of awareness of these classes was becoming hyperaware of every physical tick one had, as well as pain, which I felt in my right butt cheek. I kneaded the flesh and muscle against the hardwood as I began to worry that the audition would be just as hot as in the apartment. Sweating on stage was a pain point for me because I sweat a lot, to the point that it became a distraction. Edie had warned me about Midwest summers, but I didn't have the context to understand them. My mind only went to Chicago's freezing cold and biting winters, which, I assumed, I would see soon enough.

It will be fine, I told myself. Hamlet's "To be or not to be" came to mind, specifically its end:

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all, / And thus the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, / And enterprises of great pith and moment / With this regard their currents turn awry / And lose the name of action.

When the memory of the audition and everything that was about to be or not to be flooded over me—real life and consequences and not mere musings—I rose steadily from the floor like Dracula. My shoes had been kicked and thrown off wildly in the middle of the night, along with my heavy black peacoat, which Edie and Dean gifted me before I left, blanketing me like a baby during the night. The whole scene was ridiculous, the whole vibe, and it was clear the ones that knew me best—Edie and Dean—thought so too. But maybe that was all part of the severing process; it was funny, in those moments of dispossession, when I took a second to look at myself objectively, unable to keep myself from laughing.

With no coffee or food in the apartment, my mind and attention could only return to my audition.

For art, lacking was always a good thing. Being without brought me down to two foundational reactions: fight or flight. Fight to create, or resist and do nothing. The bigger question was what to fight for, but it had worked. I'd gotten through all the sides and memorized most in a pretty good clip, reading through the play once and the lines as many times as I could until I passed out. The old trick of writing down the first letter of each word to lock in the dialogue helped too. Prepare, prepare, prepare, Edie always told me, and she was right. To think otherwise was to show that I wasn't fully invested in the stakes, which would only be revealed in the voice, the body—everything, on the stage.