I couldn’t do it. Even under any delusion I could muster, the end result would be that it was me on the screen being me. No one watching would grasp the craft behind the portrayal, because no one watching had any conception of artistry. There was no curtain of artifice between the intended audience and myself. No one would watch and think, whoa, he’s really putting himself into this role. No one could possibly watch Fox Reality and create analogies to the great method actors of the age.
“Not gay enough!” This was shouted into my face by the casting director. “Fag it up. We’re all sisters here, don’t be afraid to be yourself.”
Did they ask the Asians to be more Asian? Farmers, more hick? Blacks, more street? Of course they did. The woman they ultimately chose to represent the Asian contingent was from fucking Arkansas — “born ’n’ raised in Clinton’s own little slice a’heaven,” she told me in the hallway, accent thick as grits — but she understood the game, and auditioned with inflections jingly with the music of Korea. They had to eventually use subtitles, it was so offensively stereotypical.
“Could you repeat that?” I asked. I had heard the words clearly; I simply needed a moment to shore up my residual levels of self-loathing.
“Did I stutter?” the casting director said. “I said, gay it up. Mince. Sashay a bit. Lisp.”
I sighed. I had no reserves of delusion left to tap. “Could you give me an example of ‘gaying it up’?” I asked. “Just so I know exactly what you’re expecting from me?”
“Well, aren’t you the fuckin’ prima donna.” She put a hand on her hip, put her weight on the opposite foot, and hung her other hand out in the air, palm up, wrist limp. “Like thith, honey,” she lisped. “Vamp it up a bit. Let’th thee the woman come out of the clothet. Now, thtart again. Tell uth a bit about yourthelf.”
I threw a wrench into the gears of my eyeball rotation mechanics to thwart their urge to roll up and expose my contempt. The ATM card in my wallet, my lifeline to the near-drained puddle of nickels and quarters that comprised the whole of my savings, applauded the effort.
I shifted my weight slightly, giving me a more relaxed appearance. “Hi there,” I started, talking directly to the camera, lightening my voice by a good half-octave. “My name’s Gary. I’m an actor by trade, but don’t let that scare you, I’m really a good, good person.”
“Faggier!”
A prancing wisp of lisp entered the dialogue. “You might notice that I’m a little older than the others, so I want to be upfront.” I took a deep breath, as if this was a huge reveal or personal secrets. “I’m thirtyouwth!” A well-placed theatrical cough, just enough to bring a smile to the viewers. “So, yes, a little older, but well, that just means I’ve got more experience. I’ve been around the block multiple times, sister, and I know the neighborhood. And I’m good teevee, I put the show in show-mo-sexual.”
“What, is this a meeting of the NRA? Christ fuck, gayer!”
Jesus. I thrust my hip out and leered past the camera at her, cocking an eyebrow. “Sweetheart, if you knew anything about being gay, you’d know there’s nothing gayer than the NRA. All those big guns, polishing the shafts, stroking triggers, those aren’t gun enthusiasts, that’s a man-on-many-other-men orgy of repressed sexual desires, those are GLAAD conventions. Schlongapalooza.”
“Finally, the inner shrew comes out,” she said, turning off the camera. “Good stuff there. You’re smart, you’re sharp, and you’re completely non-threatening.”
“The homo you can’t wait to bring home to mom and cornhole your brother.”
“Exactly that, smart, with a friendly edge that’ll keep people guessing. Adam Lambert, but not trying so hard. You keep that up, you’re definitely in the running.”
“Terrific,” I said, smiling thanks as my bowels churned with bile. “You’ve got my info, I’ll just get my agent to call you with my information.”
That’s what I should have said. That would have made sense.
But no.
“Wait, wait,” I said, ignoring the dying screams of my bank account. “I just can’t do this. I thought you wanted reality. This is who I am, the real me. You’re layering an artificial construct over something you claim is the real thing.”
“Well, duh. This is television reality, buddy. No one wants just you, they want you to the eckthtreme.” She gave up her lisp and wiped down her chin, sighing. “It’s been a long day, buddy, and I can’t deal with another ‘actor’” she air-quoted that one “with some oblique moral objection as to what the job requires. It’s all the same. You think I wanted this? I want to direct dramas, not coach actors on how to better flutter their eyes. I spent all day yesterday yelling myself hoarse to get blondes to be blonder, nerds to be spazzier, and brunettes to be smarter. Ironically, the ‘smart brunette’ we’ve lined up is probably the dumbest person on the show, and that is saying something. I mean, this isn’t MENSA, but wow, so dense she could run for Congress. You want this gig? I won’t lie, you’ve got a good shot, you fit the age bracket we want, but you’ve got to play to get the pay. Your call. Tick-tock on this one, I got” another heavy sigh of self-animus “twelve other faggots outside, and then the old people. Oh, god, the old people.”
I stood mutely for a few tension-suffused moments. “Would I have to wear eyeliner?” I asked after a spell of sufficient portentousness had passed.
“What do you think?”
I gathered up my belongings and left.
I watched the world speed past the head of my still-sleeping seatmate. He had dozed through every rest stop, as well as the half-hour we sat at the border as the bus slowly inched forward in the auto lineup until a border guard could be bothered to come aboard, share a tired laugh with the driver, give the riders a bored yet vaguely threatening once-over with his eyes, and waved us through. Homeland Security, protecting your interests with the best of the best. Guess he didn’t see a turban.
I envied him his coma, my seatmate. My id would not accede to my demands of sleep, obsessively walking through the events of the day over and over. Would it have killed me, a little bending? Two months’ work, a steady paycheck even if I didn’t win, and enough money to cover the rest of mom’s draining life if I did. But that was too much to ask. Too much. No one would have watched the thing. Barely anyone.
Enough people would, I argued. Agents would. Directors. Actors. They’d know. I’d carry the taint always. Marked like Cain, or Snookie, doomed to walk the Earth until the end of days.
A little melodramatic, even for you. Too bad you couldn’t have been that queeny during the audition.
Oh, fuck you. And go take a piss, you’ve been holding it for hours.
Fine. But I’m only going because I’ve been sitting for a while and don’t want to get thrombosis.
Whatever.
I stood up, my joints popping with the bus-bends, and prepared myself for the humiliating trek to the restroom. Look, everyone, someone has to expel urine! I wavered and wobbled my way toward the washroom, guided by the gloomy illumination emitted through its entranceway, its door open and swaying slightly with the constant motion of the bus. An old ’N Sync ballad chirped in my headphones, a cheesy ode that I saved from deletion in a bout of sentimentality. This was not helping my nausea. Pizza was probably off, I cursed, remembering the abundance of slices I had absconded with after the audition, picking off the meat and willing myself to ignore the lingering taste of processed pepperoni. Cheapskate producers couldn’t even spring for a decent spread for the applicants, had to get fucking Sbarro, worst pizza on the planet. Probably going to bring Ebola to Canada.
Halfway to my destination, a set of legs bisected the aisle, their master a snoring pimple-jockey who had managed through a combination of teenage surliness and pubescent stank to procure a pair of seats all to himself. I fumed, the thought of returning to my chocolate cushion while this future frat boy had somehow finagled a whole tw
o seats to himself on a crowded bus driving the impulse to knock the kid on his ass. His head and torso had contorted themselves into a precarious loop, his face pressed into the scratchy weave of the chair’s back, the bulk of his torso balanced on the seat’s outward edge. To prevent the upper-half from toppling to the floor (a scenario that appeared likely given the driver’s penchant for targeting every pothole), the lower half was positioned as a counter-weight across the aisle. The feet were propped atop the armrest of the seat across, imprinting against the slack bicep of the octogenarian who sat there, also asleep. The whole effect was that of a mouth-breathing horizontal question mark.
I grabbed the luggage rails that lined the sides of the bus and hoisted myself feet-first over the denim vault, sticking the landing with no small amount of difficulty. Stabilizing myself, I glanced back, slightly impressed that my athletic prowess had managed to overcome the obstacle without awakening the teen.
I then placed my foot against his thigh and shoved with all my might.
I reached the lavatory before he could regain his senses and figure out what happened, pulling the door quickly shut behind me. I slid the locking mechanism over to turn the main light on, a light that wholly eclipsed the stand-by light by a good twenty watts. In the dim I could make out the seat of the toilet, spattered with liquid. The wall behind it was layered with shiny polished steel rather than mirror, preventing the likelihood of breakage, a likelihood all the more probable judging from the number of impressive dents that marred its surface. I could just discern my face in the murk, distorted to funhouse freakishness through the metallic depressions, hidden altogether in spots by magic marker graffiti advising that I should consider fucking both myself and my mother, should I be so inclined. The artist apparently hoped I was, although I presumed he would change his mind should he ever meet said matriarch. The self-fucking would have to suffice.
Taking a hold of the grab bar affixed to the wall for balance, I stood on my left foot and toed the seat open with my right, thanking whatever immortal being in charge of bodily functions that all I had to do was piss. The toilet was a square brick of identical metal, rising from the corrugated floor to just below my knees. A bottomless pit was placed in its middle, a smooth hole with walls that descended twelve inches into the belly of the bus. Beyond that, a roiling mixture of used toilet paper, cigarette butts, formless chunks of fecal matter, and an indigo chemical mixture sloshed about, propelled by the natural centrifugal force of the moving bus to rise up the sides of the well and daintily mist the rim. Holding fast to the bar with my left hand, I unzipped my trousers with the right, fumbled with the button until it finally slipped free, and slid my pants down, propping my legs wide and bending slightly at the knees to prevent the pants from slipping and coming into contact with the goodly amount of moisture which, I now saw, coated the entire floor. This accomplished, I slid my underpants down just enough to allow access to my understudy. Freed from the confines of its cotton prison, it flopped and shivered about as the wheels of the bus rumbled over the shoulder of the road. I took hold and aimed, using my fingers to push down the elastic of the boxer-briefs and my thumb to steady the shaft for release. Two streams of urine arched in the air, one splashing against the rim of the hole before hitting the liquid below, the other going rogue and spattering the wall. “Fuck,” I shouted, instinctively letting go of the bar to allow both hands to reposition my fabric/penis arrangement and compensate for the errant flow. My right pulled my underwear down farther; my left pushed the head so that the streams hit alternating sides of the hole, but the angle was too wide, and both squirts straddled the target. Droplets sprinkled my bare legs.
I crouched and leaned forward, hamstrings shaking, trying to lessen the distance the water had to travel and decrease the area covered. Finally, both jets collided with the walls of the hole and sprinkled downward. I moaned with relief (Heaven!), clenching my pelvic muscles and forcing the stream out to finish faster.
A loud crunch resounded through the stall as the right rear wheel — the wheel I was almost directly above — entered and exited what felt like a pothole of satanic depths. My feet left the floor, slid back, up, and for a brief moment I was weightless, an astronaut of the loo. My hands released their fleshy tube to flail for a stable surface. Urine cascaded out of my now-undisciplined member, coating the toilet, the sink, my arms. A single thought popped into my head, barely registering in the onrush of adrenaline flooding into my system: gross. Gravity then resumed, and my knees slammed down on the sharp front ledge of the toilet. I gasped in torment, my mouth sucking in air, my body preparing for the great-grandmother of shrieks, when the recoil of the liquid in the urinal nether-pit discharged a perfect storm of disinfectant slurry directly into my face. And then I did scream, long and heartily, my eyes blind and roaring, swords thrust deep in my sockets and forcefully stabbing my brain, Justin Timberlake assaulting my ears, moaning about the girl he could never have. The taste of chunky bleach overwhelmed my senses, became my world. There was nothing to the universe but searing white torture, chemical death. My stomach rebelled, vomit flowed from my mouth. My body battered itself about the tiny room, insane with agony. My legs tangled in my pants, now down at my ankles and mopping up the liquid. My balance shifted as the bus took a hard turn and I fell into the door, my hands now operating as my eyes, grabbing for everything, anything. A flat surface, a knob, a depression. The sink! Water! I twisted the faucet, grasping at where water should pour forth but feeling nothing. I squinted an eye open, earning another knife-thrust. No water. Above the sink, a gray plastic device labeled ANTIBACTERIAL HAND SCRUB was affixed to the wall. I squeezed the dispenser’s lever feverishly, filling my palm with clear gel. I rubbed it over my face, my mouth, my tongue, swishing it through my teeth, gargling, spitting, yelling with equal parts shame and revulsion all the while. Still frantically rubbing, I slid down to the floor and curled my legs to my chest, gagging as my tear ducts worked overtime.
An eternity later, my eyes smarting but clear, I rose unsteadily to my feet, leaving my pants down and doing my best to ignore the gruesome fluid saturating the fabric. I grabbed handfuls of tissue paper and rubbed at my face, applying more hand gel that went on clear but came back blue. I peeked at myself in the metal. Streaks of cobalt and sapphire ribboned down and across my face, giving me the look of a mercenary camouflaged for a fabulous night on the town. I must have popped a few blood vessels; my eyes bulged red. Globules of almost-digested cheese and dough spackled the front of my shirt and pretty much the entirety of the vehicular outhouse. I massaged my face with clean paper, lightening the hues, then applied more scrub to my arms, the urine smell lessening, my fingertips inked. How I was going to leave the room wasn’t a thought to be crossed yet; the only thing important in the world was cleaning myself.
I scrubbed harder, almost frantic.
My head pulsed. The veins squirmed in protest to their forced compression. The skin around my skull felt too tight, constricting my braincase, as if it was a wool toque thrown heedlessly into the dryer. My arms felt anesthetized. It was difficult to hold on to the wads of paper. Adrenaline crash, I decided, forcing my hands to continue their rubdown. Bulbs of sweat loosened themselves from their perches and exited my pores.
My heart palpitated, anxious.
Too anxious.
The emergency was over, although public embarrassment was still pending. I should have calmed down. Even in the throes of my improvised ablutions, I thought: That’s kind of weird, that shouldn’t do —
A boa constrictor snaked its way under the door, undulated up my torso, and squeezed.
Pain seized my body, locking my joints. My brain melted from the stress.
A vengeful deity stomped down from on high and began punching me about the torso.
Strength fled my legs and I slumped, my chin hitting the edge of the sink.
I bet that’ll leave a mark, I thought through the blur, but I couldn’t bring
myself to care.
My head cracked against the metal wall, and again when it collided with the floor.
That really should have hurt more.
A bricklayer took a quick job on spec and sealed up my windpipe good and proper.
I lay curled on the grating.
There’s something I’m supposed to acknowledge when this happens, I thought. All this seems like it should be important somehow. To someone.
Lance Bass chirped out the last few notes of a ballad to someone’s girl, somewhere, that he could not ever have for his own.
God, don’t let that be the last thing I hear.
For a good time, call Brenda.
My vision faded, and the universe displaced itself.
All I could see was green.
Am I outside?
What’s that smell?
Who’s Brenda?
Shel. Sheldon Funk. Shelley to my mom. Shel to my friends, of which I had . . . none to call home about. Gary Jackson, stage name, an alias forced upon me by my agent, insisting Sheldon was not a name that inspired confidence, would not open doors. Not manly-sounding.
My head pressed into the varnish as the message continued.
I remembered everything.
I thought one’s life was supposed to replay before death, not after.
It was unspeakable.
It was everything.
The warmth of the womb, then screaming light. Floating monsters in smocks grab my head, haul me forth from aqueous Eden into the gaseous atmosphere of nightmares.
A spider bites my eyelid while I coo and burble in my crib; my shrieks bring my mother running into the room. Her hands flail at my face, brushing the spider away, her nails wounding in her alarm, scratching my nose and forehead.
My first skinned knee, my mother hollers at the driver who brushed his Buick against me in the Safeway parking lot.
Fiona. First kiss in grade five. Clumsy, sloppy.
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