My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies

by Allen Zadoff

  Mom, Josh, and I would leave Dad alone all day, go off to the lake or out for a hike. We’d come back together at the end of the day. Dad would put something on the grill and we’d spend the night as a family, playing Scrabble or going into town to see a movie.

  That was our summer tradition, the rhythm of my life as a kid. There was nothing to think about. There was summer and what we did in the summer. It was simple.

  It’s not simple anymore.

  I sit at the kitchen table, and Mom puts an apple juice pack in front of me without my asking. She pops a straw through it.

  Mom says, “If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  But I do know.

  I’d go back in time.

  I don’t say that to Mom. It would freak her out.

  I pull out the straw and squeeze the pack, watch a drop of juice dribble down the side.

  Mom sniffles and turns away from me. She wipes a tear from her eye. She does it fast and dries her hand on her thigh like it didn’t happen at all.

  “It’s a good idea, Mom. To have a vacation.”

  “You think so?” she says.

  She smiles a little. That makes me feel better.

  She says, “I had a crazy idea we might go to Europe. I’ve got some money saved up. It would be something different.”

  “Very different.”

  “Somewhere we’ve never been. A new experience.”

  “A new experience,” I say. “Good idea.”

  Mom nods like she agrees, like we have a plan now.

  But honestly, I don’t think she’ll do anything about it. Last summer we had this same talk. We planned a trip to California, talked about it for months, then stayed home. The plan dissolved, and we ended up stuck in New Jersey, both of us pretending it wasn’t summer at all.

  I WILL PURGE THY MORTAL GROSSNESS.

  Later that night, I lie in bed with the Maglite next to me, staring at the ceiling.

  I can’t sleep. I’ve got too much on my mind.

  The Maglite helps. I always have a flashlight in bed with me. If I wake up in the middle of the night, a night-light doesn’t feel like enough. I need some powerful illumination. With a Mag, I can turn it on and it makes me feel safe. Police officers use Mags, too. Not only do the batteries last a long time, but the beam is bright and the flashlight itself is really heavy. You can blind a suspect, then whack him on the head. Perfect. You can even focus the lens by turning the head of the light.

  That’s what I do now. I point the beam up at the ceiling, make it fuzz out then focus back to a bright point.

  I aim it at the closet. I think about the cardboard box way up on the top shelf there, the one I haven’t touched in a long time.

  Dad’s box.

  It’s brown cardboard, sealed with tape.

  I remember sealing it and putting it up there.

  I don’t like to think about what’s in it.

  I take the light off the closet and move it back and forth on the wall, watch the beam shifting from place to place.

  I hold it steady and look at the bright circle.

  A spot.

  The flashlight is like my own personal follow spot.

  The idea is kind of funny.

  I imagine how Josh would work a spot in the theater, swinging the light from girl to girl, laughing and waving when they looked up. And if Derek called for him, he would jog over to the ladder and slide down with a hand on either rail like a fireman going down a pole.

  I wonder if I could work a spot like that.

  I think about Derek’s idea of using a follow spot. What if I were his op?

  Spot op. That’s what we call the job. Op is short for operator, the technician who runs the spotlight.

  If I were spot op, the fairy girl would see me. Mr. Apple would know I could handle myself. And Derek?

  He wouldn’t be the only one who looked good.

  I put the flashlight next to my head, feel the warmth of the beam on my cheek.

  I imagine the fairy girl is next to me in bed. Maybe she’s dressed, or maybe she’s just wearing panties. I point the light at her, lift the sheet, and look at her body. Then I hand it to her and she points it back at me. We trade off like that, looking at each other in the light.

  Looking and touching.

  The room suddenly feels hot, and I kick off my blanket.

  I take one last look at the fairy girl, then I turn out the light.

  Just before I fall asleep, I think of the spotlight. Before it was just a nice idea. Now it seems like the answer to everything.

  ASK ME NOT.

  I’m walking backstage before rehearsal the next day when I see a big empty box from Times Square Lighting pushed into a corner. I run out to the stage and look to the back of the theater.

  It’s here.

  A brand-new spotlight up on the catwalk, high over the audience’s heads. It’s a strange place for it because the position is a little too high, but I can see why they wouldn’t take the time to build a special platform for it. Still, I don’t know who set it up or if they knew what they were doing.

  But I know it’s here now.

  And I want it.

  I make my way into the audience where Derek and Ignacio are going over cues.

  “Excuse me, Derek,” I say.

  “Well, well. The saboteur has emerged from his dark den,” he says with a grin.

  I can’t tell if he’s serious or making a joke, so I keep talking.

  “I noticed a new spotlight on the catwalk,” I say, “and I didn’t see it on the light plot.”

  “That’s because it wasn’t there. I made an executive decision. With Mr. Apple’s blessing of course.”

  “It looks new,” I say, because that’s very unusual for equipment at our level. For a public school, we have an impressive theater program. But our equipment is not exactly state of the art. More like state of decay. If we need something special for a show and there’s enough in the budget, we might get a temporary rental. But then the best we can hope for is something that hasn’t had the crap kicked out of it by a thousand other shows.

  “It’s brand-new,” Derek says. “And it’s ours to keep. A gift from an anonymous donor.”

  “Can you believe the luck?” Ignacio says.

  Derek says, “It just so happens the donor shares a last name with yours truly.”

  He winks at me.

  “Even luck can use a bit of assistance from my father,” Derek says.

  “So you’re going to need an op.”

  I imagine my credit in the playbill:

  ADAM ZIEGLER, SPOT OP.

  I imagine the fairy girl reading my name and smiling.

  “Why would I give you the spot when you mucked up my lights?” Derek says.

  The actors pour into the theater, excited before their first walk-through.

  “I’m already on lights,” I say to Derek. “It kind of makes sense.”

  “It makes sense to you,” Derek says. “Not to me.”

  “We have to get rolling,” Ignacio says. “I’ve got twelve things to do and five minutes to do them in.”

  Derek doesn’t say anything. He just lets me stand there, my face burning.

  “Places!” Ignacio shouts.

  I don’t move.

  “That includes you, Z,” Ignacio says.

  He points into the air.

  REHEARSE MOST OBSCENELY AND COURAGEOUSLY.

  Usually a walk-through is rough. The actors haven’t worked on the set before, and they have to stop a lot to adjust blocking, their movements onstage. The first time on set, you expect it to go poorly.

  But today is more like a disaster. Actors are forgetting their lines, stumbling over one another, breaking character. It looks like the first day of rehearsal rather than the next-to-last.

  I see what Mr. Apple was talking about. The show looks bad.

  I’m watching it all from the catwalk, where I can adjust lights or
change gels as needed. I can also hear Mr. Apple at the tech table below, sighing as we hit one snag after another.

  “Take the wash to seventy-five percent,” Derek says. There’s desperation in his voice, an intensity that’s been increasing all afternoon as the rehearsal goes on.

  Ignacio calls the adjustment, and the lights get brighter onstage.

  Derek turns to Mr. Apple.

  “This looks a lot better, doesn’t it?” he says.

  “Oh yes,” Mr. Apple says. “Now I can see exactly what I’ve done to the American theater. And why I will never be forgiven.”

  Derek laughs like Mr. Apple is joking. Only I don’t think he is.

  “Miranda,” Mr. Apple calls out to the stage. “Take a step stage left for me.”

  She moves and her face slips into shadow.

  “What’s going on over there?” Mr. Apple says to Derek.

  Derek grabs a headset. “Take forty-seven to full,” he says to Benno.

  The lights in that area go to 100 percent, but there’s still a dead zone, just like I saw on the lighting plot the other day.

  “Who’s on the catwalk?” Derek says into the headset.

  “Me,” I say.

  “Who the hell is me?”

  “Z,” I say.

  “You didn’t focus stage left,” Derek says.

  “Yes, I did,” I say.

  “Have you looked at—why am I wasting my time? You can’t climb down a ladder, much less hang a light.”

  “I hung everything according to the plot,” I say.

  “Of course you did,” Derek says, his accent thickening.

  Charming and insulting. His two specialties.

  He leans over to Mr. Apple. “Our errant technician has struck again,” he says. “But never fear. I have a solution. It’s a perfect time to try our new spot.”

  “Fix it,” Mr. Apple says. “I don’t care how you do it.”

  “Mindy!” Derek shouts.

  A cute little brunette jumps up from her seat in the back of the theater and runs onstage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.

  “I want you on spot,” Derek says to her.

  “Anywhere you want me,” she says with a big smile. She’s wearing a miniskirt with tights underneath. Not exactly techie apparel. She starts to climb the ladder to the catwalk.

  Grace is standing backstage, her eyes flitting back and forth from Mindy to Derek.

  I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.

  I hear Mindy’s footsteps, feel the tiny vibrations. She walks along the opposite side from me until she’s out over the audience.

  She moves towards the spot, looking at it like it’s a foreign object.

  You can tell a techie from a non-techie just by the way they approach a machine. A techie approaches with fascination and curiosity, even if they have no idea how the thing works. A non-techie looks awkward, uncomfortable, out of place.

  Just like Mindy.

  If she’s not a techie, what is she?

  I look back at Grace. She’s staring at Derek, looking hurt.

  Mindy must be Derek’s new girlfriend. DNF.

  I key the mic on my headset. “Hang on, Mindy,” I say. “I want to check out the spot before you work with it.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Mindy says. Her voice has a husky quality that makes me nervous.

  Mindy throws some switches, but nothing happens.

  “I’m serious,” I say. “I’d like to give it a once-over.”

  Mindy manages to flip the correct switch. The power supply comes on and the fan hums to life.

  “I told you I’m fine,” she says. “Derek taught me everything.”

  I start towards her on the catwalk.

  Below us onstage, Johanna and Miranda continue their scene.

  MIRANDA

  O, teach me how you look, and with what art

  You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.

  JOHANNA

  I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

  “Standby on spot,” Ignacio calls on the headset.

  “Standing by,” Mindy says.

  “Ignacio’ I want a minute with it before we go,” I say.

  “Stay out of it, Z,” Ignacio says. “Derek set this up himself.”

  JOHANNA

  The more I hate, the more he follows me.

  MIRANDA

  The more I love, the more he hateth me.

  I hate Derek, so why should I care what happens with his spot?

  It’s not the spot, I realize. It’s the show.

  I care about the show.

  “Make sure there’s a gel on it,” Derek says to Ignacio below.

  “Derek wants it gelled,” Ignacio repeats on the headset.

  “Gel?” Mindy says. “Derek didn’t teach me about that.”

  I click the headset mic.

  “The color filter,” I say. “Look for the handles on the top.”

  I’m a few steps away from her now, pointing with both hands.

  Mindy looks frantic, pulling on different levers. She pulls the seventh lever and the entire set of gels pops out the top of the barrel.

  “Which color?” she says.

  “Spot go,” Ignacio says.

  Mindy holds the red button to make the spark, and a burst of white-hot light shoots out the end of the barrel.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Derek says.

  I jump for her, trying to get to the spot.

  MIRANDA

  Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind…

  I’m too late. The unfiltered light shoots into Miranda’s face, surprising her. Her hands go in front of her to block the light. She struggles to finish her line—

  MIRANDA

  …and therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.

  —and she goes flying off the front of the stage, falling to the floor with a loud crash.

  There’s a gasp, followed by a scream, and then people are in motion, running towards the stage.

  “House lights to full!” Ignacio shouts.

  A second later I hear Miranda’s voice from the pit in front of the stage:

  “My leg!” she says.

  “Oh my God,” Mindy says in a tiny voice.

  There’s chaos below us, people crowding around Miranda, a first-aid kit open onstage, several people arguing about who called 911 first.

  The spot is still on, the beam pointing straight up at the ceiling.

  I reach past Mindy and flick off the light.

  IS THERE NO PLAY.

  The next twenty-four hours are chaos. Rumors fly, texts go back and forth, and everyone is calling everyone else and passing notes during class. First they say Miranda is okay, then they says she’s in really bad shape, and there’s even a point during the morning when people say Miranda died because she landed on a nail, which turned into an infection, which turned into a flesh-eating disease. That rumor is quickly squashed, but it’s replaced with still more crazy rumors. Some of the techies are even betting on what the final diagnosis will be.

  Finally Mr. Apple calls the cast and crew out of class for a meeting in the theater.

  “I spoke with Miranda’s parents not five minutes ago,” Mr. Apple says when we’re all assembled. “I hope this will dispel the rumors that are circulating.”

  The cast sits towards the front of the stage while the crew hangs back. I’m standing in the door of the Cave, half in shadow, with Reach next to me.

  “She’s not dead,” Johanna says. “I talked to her.”

  “You are correct,” Mr. Apple says. “She is very much alive.”

  “I told you,” Half Crack whispers next to me, and Benno passes him a five-dollar bill.

  “But she has broken her leg,” Mr. Apple says. “More than a break, really. A multiple fracture.”

  “Miranda!” Johanna cries out as if her friend just went down in a plane crash.

  “What’s the bad news?” Reach says.

  I elbow
him in the ribs.

  “It’s severe enough that she will be unable to continue in the show,” Mr. Apple says.

  He looks upset. He jams his fist into a bag of donuts, pulling out chunks of dough and pushing them into his mouth.

  A wave of panic passes through me. What if the show is canceled? I imagine trying to get through the end of the school year without tech. There are only five weeks left, but five weeks without theater is like five years on a desert island.

  “We’re screwed,” I say to Reach.

  “Take it easy,” he says.

  No theater, followed by a long summer.

  There’s nothing easy about that.

  “Couldn’t she do it on crutches?” Johanna says.

  “I was willing,” Mr. Apple says, “but the doctor says it’s not to be.”

  “What if she performs in a wheelchair?” Peter Mercurio says. Peter is the last of the four lovers, Lysander. Peter is gay, but you’d never know it unless he told you. He doesn’t even seem like an actor, more like a baseball player who wandered into the theater by mistake.

  “A wheelchair is impossible given our stage configuration,” Mr. Apple says.

  “How about on a computer monitor?” Derek says. “I could set up a multimedia platform onstage, and we could watch her performance on a laptop.”

  “All excellent ideas,” Mr. Apple says. “None of them viable.”

  “Why isn’t anyone talking about the techies?” Hubbard says. Hubbard is the short female actor who plays Puck. She’s usually funny, but she doesn’t seem funny right now. She points at us accusingly.

  “This is all their fault. If they didn’t screw up, Miranda would still be here.”

  “That’s true,” Peter says.

  The actors turn and stare at us. At me in particular.

  Why are they blaming me? I wasn’t even the one on spot.

  Reach steps in front of me, blocking their way.

  “It’s got nothing to do with us,” Reach says. “That circuit board is a piece of crap.”

  “You mean the dimmer board,” I whisper to him.

  For a lighting guy, that would be an embarrassing mistake. Lucky for Reach, he doesn’t have the embarrassment gene.