Actor: A Novel in Three Acts

The heat off the stage lights—hot pink, beige, orange, and red—pressed onto my face, forcing me to blush. All those years underneath of them, they still burned. Embarrassing, but true. Different kinda' heat, my mind recited to itself. Out there, it's clean. Cools off at night. There's a nice little breeze. There was always one more run through, one more line read, to make myself feel secure. It was a lie, but the whole thing was a lie.

In the audience, I heard the rustling of papers, the high-pitched sound of the seats in the audience readjusting. I felt like a specimen on a doctor's table about to be operated on. Instead of focusing on everyone, I imagined Lee standing with me as the world of Shepard's play—the table, the typewriter, the beer cans, the wolves and the endless desert outside and all that vast loneliness—materialized.

Lee's shoulders hunched forward like a vulture. I watched him as lumbered around the stage, awkward but mean—dangerous; he seemed he wanted out. Then he started to full transform into that wretched bird: half human, half buzzard. I felt my breath drop into the pit of my stomach while everything slowly started to talk on the weight of life and time; of trying and failing but not wanting to give up because we knew what that meant. Then Lee kicked over a chair and got his foot stuck in the legs of it and fell down... screaming and chattering. In the background, on the couch smoking a cigarette silently watching, was his brother Austin, black out drunk or near to it.

AUSTIN: Help yourself to whatever's--(motions to refrigerator)

LEE: I will. (he got himself up) Don't worry about me. I'm not the one to worry about.

Slowly, whispers of Lee's thoughts started to mix with mine... his desires and fears; his resentments. Lee's before came to be. He was human again and wandering in the desert alone as the the sky, moon, and stars gazed down at him, indifferent. I put myself in his ragged clothes, his tired body, and his lost mind... step by burdened step, head like an anvil on my bent spine as my breath sunk lower and feet and legs—wide apart—became so firmly planted on the ground stopping to look at the cold universe, they felt like stone. My lips began to move and speak on their own.

“And that was when,” I heard myself mutter. "Out there. Desert.”

Whispers snaked through the audience. Their faceless voices were already judging, observing, and critiquing every little thing about me. The good, the bad, and the irrelevant.

What was I doing? Lee's graveled voice asked me. Why was I there? Who was I to think I belonged in this world?

I forced a professional, maintained, smile. The audiences faint chatter rose again, peaked, and fell away. They were probably talking about how my hair looked wrong or how I was standing weird or all the sweat I was leaking onto the stage. I spread the tiny puddle around with the tip of my boot, trying to thin it out. Now what the hell is he doing? they were probably thinking. Maybe the stage manager had told them about the phone call. I stopped and held up one hand in a modest hello.

“How’s everyone doing?” I asked.

"We're good," a placid, but cheery enough voice said from the darkness.

“I’m Ave," I added, suddenly and weirdly anxious that my overtly friendly tone was coming across as someone who needed saving. "I’ll be reading for the part of Lee tonight. Thank you for seeing me.”

"Ave what?" another younger, metallic and slick voice asked. 

Giving them my last name felt like a betrayal. But, if I didn't, the admission would look weird. I wasn't Cher. I wasn't Prince. I did what I was told.

"Gardener," I said.

This reveal ended up being nothing at all because instead of bringing up Edie, they asked about what I had forgotten.

“No headshot?"

"Ha," I managed. "Miscommunication with my agent, but I can get you one as soon as I can."

"How are we supposed to remember you if you get the job!" This voice was all it's own: playful, carefree... Peter? No, it was a woman's voice.

"I'll get it to you," I laughed, desperately. "Promise."

There was a few beats of silence followed up by a muted, "Sure."