Story 2

Timothy Kay

When I read "A Poor Player", I knew we had to publish it.Unfortunately, we had to wait a long time before it saw the light of day. Timothy Kay says having seen the movie Pulp Fiction makes this story more understandable. I take that on faith because I never saw that movie. I can attest to the fact that it is a great story regardless.

Timothy Kay is a writer, game designer, and performer. He got pulled into San Francisco community theater in 2008 by playing assorted roles in Star Wars: Live on Stage. There at the Dark Room Theater, he went on to appear in and adapt many low-budget movie parodies for that tiny stage. Now he pays the bills working at several large venues, getting audience members into their seats and making sure they stay off their phones. Many more of his writings, games and performances can be found at his website: numberkay.com.

I wrote it a while ago, but looking back at it, I really do love this story, and I'm glad that it's finally seeing the light of day.

-- Timothy Kay

A Poor Player

By Timothy Kay

THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

And we've started, and I actually don't know what's about to happen. For the first time in six months, the future's only a plan again. Shit. Now my adrenaline's really pumping.

When the couple in the booth to my left finishes their conversation, they'll pull guns out, and I'll have to react. I know that's the plan, but we'll all only see right now right now.

Until then, I have to be a guy in a diner booth. My pulse vibrates in my temples. I forgot how much I hate this feeling.

I pull a ragged breath. I need to appear to eat breakfast without calling attention to myself, but I can't think straight enough to put things in order. I move my hands by rote, swiping above my empty plate, trying to act like there's some eggs benedict, but I also can't let myself forget what's coming up.

Breathe. One thing at a time. I look at Bruce, sitting across from me, wearing his ponytail wig, pretending to eat breakfast. I wonder if he pictures something on his plate. I've never asked. Who are we right now? At least he has a name, "Long Hair Yuppie-Scum." I'm "Restaurant Patron."

The table between us is small, barely fitting the two plates, so that I can carry it away. It's normal sized in the reality of the diner, but we're only in a booth from certain angles.

One thing at a time. Breathe. I have to trust that Sam and John are miming breakfast in the booth behind me, maybe even mouthing their conversation from later. They'll need to suit up pretty soon, before the next scene can start.

Uma enters as the waitress, right on time, but I don't talk to her until the dance contest. She "pours" coffee from an empty glass decanter and leaves.

I look down. The plates. They're not glued to the table. They could fall when I move, and we can't stop to clean. Who uses ceramic plates as a prop?

The conversation of the couple in the big booth picks up again, almost overlapping, quick as Abbott and Costello.

"They robbed a bank with a telephone."

"You wanna rob banks?"

"I'm not saying I wanna rob banks. I'm just illustrating that if we did, it'd be easier than what we've been doing." The girls are good. They're making good progress. My cue is getting close. Could this actually work? Something has to happen to make this night pre-notorious. John leaves to go to the bathroom, which is gonna be important when this happens again later.

The girls stand up, guns drawn. "Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!" That's it. I lean away and wince in frozen tableau. "Miserlou" plays.

Hold it. Don't breathe. Keep holding.

Lights out. Exhale.

Like we all rehearsed, Sam is the first to move, disappearing through the curtain to get suited up.

I lift the table, thumbs pinning the silverware I can reach. Bruce clears our chairs and the booth wall. I focus on the plates while I slip out through the curtain with the table. Nothing falls. Deep breath, and I hear the applause. I wasn't expecting that already, at the end of the first scene.

Even though the audience knows how our play will end, everyone's in suspense about the details along the way. It's all so much worse for us as actors. We're the ones who have to live through it.

The music cuts out, and the lights come back up on Sam and John in a car, wearing suits as Jules and Vincent. It's several hours earlier.

A few conversations stream by without anything going wrong, despite all the rumors, warnings, and pep talks. Sam and John talk about the royale with cheese, one of those speeches everyone knows. They kill two guys over a briefcase with a lightbulb inside, just like they're supposed to. Then it's later again, and our Bruce Willis sits across the same booth with our Ving Rhames, neither one in a wig for once.

"The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting," says Ving. "That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps." Amen. Same with advice from the future.

I do feel better though, back to figuring out what order things will come in, having a plan. The show's chronological again, and I have nothing to do but be nervous until the dance contest. Maybe I'll pace some more.

When Uma brings John to Jack Rabbit Slims, their car changes to a booth designed to look like the one from the movie, which is designed to look like a car. The girls are now playing waitresses who're aspiring actresses dressed as Marilyn Monroe and Mamie van Doren, and our Ving Rhames plays Steve Buscemi playing the waiter dressed as Buddy Holly, because we thought it would be funny if that was the one colorblind casting moment of the show.

Uma talks about Fox Force Five, the secret agent show she was almost on. She makes the Kill Bill reference we added, though that movie must have been inspired by this conversation, so it becomes a funny little causality loop. My first line's almost here.

We rehearsed all of this, but my pulse is racing again. I listen to Uma talk about those "uncomfortable silences," ironic in a script that barely stops for breath.

The show must go on.

When I enter, it's as myself playing Ed Sullivan because that's as many layers as I can handle right now. "Ladies and Gentlemen, and now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the world famous Jack Rabbit Slims twist contest."

Uma raises her hand to enter, and we start our dialogue. The give and take is familiar. I feel normal because I know where this conversation is going.

We transition into the dance number. As John and Uma take their shoes off, Marilyn takes their chairs, and Mamie pushes the car/car-booth back to give them room. Again, I get to move a table.

A plate slides off.

I'm too late to react. My life flashes before my eyes, including parts I've seen but haven't lived yet.

###

UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCES

The only big surprises I have left will happen on stage.

I'm one of those guys that switched on their first eterna-vid box just in time to get recordings of every important moment I have left. After they happen, I know I'll use eterna-tech to send them back to that day, because it's already happened, just not in my experience.

I've lived five years since my "big inbox" day. The farthest in the future I've seen myself is about five years from now, so... I can't avoid whatever happens then, but some of the last messages imply I will have lived a full life in the meantime. Maybe knowing when the end is coming will help me take advantage of the time I've got left. Wouldn't that be nice?

It's half an hour before the start of our pre-notorious opening night show. The stage manager's doing her deep breathing exercises again, near the hollow plastic shelving unit that holds all our props.

I'm pacing, two steps each way because that's all that fits. The room between the only dressing room and the back curtain of the stage is the size of a queen mattress. The lights here are all off now, except for a clip lamp, red-gelled to minimize light leak onto the stage.

This is usually a quiet spot before shows, but I already hear the crowd forming.

Our Amanda Plummer and our Tim Roth are peeking out through a slit in the curtain. They're recurring scene partners and usually hang out together, so we call them "the girls." They're spotting people in the audience they know and others they'll come to know as a result of this performance.

The fire code limits the house to 49 audience members, but tonight's one of those shows where we'll pack in at least 70 and hope none of them are fire marshals.

Our John Travolta comes over with our Samuel L. Jackson, the only two people not playing multiple parts. The rest of us have to double up, so the cast doesn't overflow that one small dressing room and come spilling out into this little area, which I'm kind of used to having to myself. John suggests they and the girls run lines for when the diner scene happens the second time, a moment that's rumored to become notorious.

Sam acts too cool to run lines, but the others convince him. My only line in that scene is "Stop causing problems. You'll get us all killed." I stand close to them, ready to deliver it. No small parts.

Our Bruce Willis taps me on the shoulder, asks me to come into the dressing room, and says my phone is vibrating. The stage manager glares at me. I still forgot to turn it off.

In the dressing room, the remaining four cast members take up the couches that meet in the corner, oblivious to the crisis I'm pretty sure this night's gonna bring, based on my last call.

The screen says "Unknown Number," but I pick up anyway, if just to tell them it's not a good time to talk.

"Hi." The voice on the other end is immediately familiar. I'm actually hearing it twice. It's our Uma Thurman, the same actress I can see on the couch in the corner, talking to our Ving Rhames.

"When are you?" I ask what must be a call through the eterna-voice app.

"Right after the show," she says, sobbing. She's the third woman in our cast, but outbursts like this are part of why Uma's not one of "the girls."

I go to the corner farthest from the couches and give a lighthearted, "What's up?" I can't bring myself to ask what'll happen, but I can't change the future if she's about to tell me. I also can't hang up on a crying woman, even when she looks so happy right now.

She says, "Everything went wrong tonight. Don't let them do the show!"

"You know I won't stop the show," I say. "You wouldn't have a reason to call now if I do." Again, everyone knows that paradox.

She starts weeping again. "I'm just so embarrassed. Three scenes ruined. Three! I swear they were all somehow your fault."

"So that's why he warned me," I say out loud, realizing I shouldn't. I wonder, if she tells me the specifics, if she takes away the only surprises I can still look forward to, will I be mad? I say, "Come on, you know there's no way it all wouldn't have happened like it does. Did. Why call me?"

She says, "Because I have to DO something with these feelings. I tried calling myself, but my phone was off. I saw you on the phone before the show, so I knew I could call you."

I look at her now, so different from the her I hear on the phone. She glances around the room, with a moment's focus on me, closing that loop. I look away.

She says over the phone, "I see you out there now, talking with the audience, laughing with everyone. You don't deserve that. This was a disaster, but people seem to think your mistakes were funny."

That's more than I wanted to know, but it's nice to hear. I say, "Thank you?"

"Ugh. Stop gloating. This is the worst night that's ever happened to me. I even heard ahead that it would be, which makes it so much worse."

I have to fight my growing agitation not to raise my voice and draw attention to myself. Cool as a little Fonzie. "Well, I haven't done any of that yet."

"You suck, okay? I just called to tell you that you suck." She shouts into the other end of the phone, from a couple hours from now, "I don't even know why I'm talking to you."

She hangs up, and I have to apologize to the room for taking another call, even though it was always going to have happened.

###

PROLOGUE

Time wounds all heels, as the old expression goes. Time seems to pass, but that's just (as Einstein would say) our frame of reference traveling through a space-time that already exists. Even all our trying to change the future was already always going to have failed.

I guess once the labs started entangling those first particle pairs to send information back in time, they couldn't resist entangling more pairs to those pairs, until things got so tangled up, no amount of time can undo it now.

People say spoiler alerts are critical if you still want to experience things for the first time as they happen, but internet trolls throughout time always will have tried to ruin that too. People who really don't want to know the future can move someplace like Portland, where eterna-tech is supposed to be illegal. Here in San Francisco, we can appreciate that all kinds of technology -- ships and smartphones, the internet and the printing press -- have come in and changed the world over the years, and it's mostly been for the better in the end.

In the Mission District, on a stage the size of a parking space, my extended group of friends acts out movies from before eterna-tech products changed the way we experience events. It's a hobby that keeps us entertained and keeps things just a little bit unpredictable.

Most of the time, we do our little, low-budget shows for a few weeks, and people from the neighborhood come to watch. Maybe it's out of nostalgia for how linear things used to be. Every once in a while, a copyright lawyer hears about us and shuts down a show, but nobody important pays attention. For tonight, that's about to change, and we all know it.

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player," yadda, yadda, yadda. Yeah, I know a little Shakespeare. Later in that speech, there's that line about "a tale told by an idiot..." In this case, that would be me.

###

DON'T FORGET MY FATHER'S WATCH

The plate hits the ground, just as the music starts.

It cracks in two, rather than shattering, but this is when the shoeless actors need to dance. I need to clear the stage, but my hands are full with the table, and I'm paralyzed.

Ving, in character as Steve as the waiter as Buddy, swoops in and grabs the plate halves, kicking away some shard dust. That doesn't make what happened okay.

That mistake can never be undone, will always have been a part of our opening night.

My nerves and confusion since lights up are finally justified, but that doesn't bring me any relief. Two disasters to go, if I believe Uma.

There's no intermission, so after John and Uma's date, the show keeps going, irresistible as an overdose. After quick-changing, Bruce becomes his childhood self and Uma changes into Bruce's mom to introduce me for my first big scene.

It's been a joke in rehearsals, the number of actors who've played a young Bruce Willis, from accidentally modern movies like the original 12 Monkeys to fantasy stories like Look Who's Talking and Looper. We use the same actor for both parts, turning him into a kid using the stage magic of a propeller beanie and an over-sized lollipop.

I enter, in the Air Force dress uniform from last year's production of Dr. Strangelove and launch into one of the great Christopher Walken monologues of all time.

"Hello. Little man, boy. I sure heard a bunch, about you." The audience laughs. I read somewhere how Walken would take the punctuation out of his scripts, so I did that too. Put my own, in its place. It's fun. I can't believe I considered not doing the voice, but the bad... punctuation, I think makes the speech, my own.

After all the scenes we cut or sped up, and by leaving out most of the "uncomfortable silences," our show ought to come in at about half the running time of the movie. Not this scene. We kept every word. I have no dialogue with other characters to keep me on track -- no net to catch me, but I have pages of Tarantino's writing to lure people in, describing three generations of twentieth-century wars to get the room somber enough to make our plan work. "I got something, for you this watch, I got here." I pull the gold watch from my uniform pocket. "It was your great. Grandfather’s war watch, and he wore it every day he was in that war."

I start to ease off on the Walken pauses, falling into the measured rhythms I've rehearsed, to try and lure the audience in with my best dramatic reading, despite the silly voice. "This watch... This watch was on your daddy’s wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp." I pause and hear total silence. I'm really milking this now. I let anger flare up on, "He’d be DAMNED if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his boy’s birthright." Another pause. Almost there. There's nothing between me and the audience but a giant lollipop and the blinding stage lights. I have to assume they're out there. "So he hid it, in the one place he knew he could hide something...." Pause a third time, just a little longer, for comedic effect. Then get loud. "His BUTTHOLE."

The audience loses it, releasing all their pent up tension in laughter. That was the plan. It was my idea to change the last word. I thought that would be funnier than "ass."

I struggle to hold my face still as the laughter fades, but my twitching lips and eyebrows start a second round of laughter, and I let myself smile, not sure what to do for such a long laugh break.

Finally, things die down. I force my face back to a frown.

I lost my place.

I've got nothing. I'm lost, in the moment.

Bruce sees me draw a blank. He goes off script. He asks in a childish voice, "How long did he put it up there?"

The audience laughs again. My pulse is racing. We're off the grid here, and all I can think is how Uma's going to blame this mistake on me too, just like the broken plate. And she'll be right.

I have to say something. I hear my dried out eyeballs flick side to side in my head as I flash back over everything I've said to this child, what he knows so far, piecing the story back together, what I know that I still have to tell him. Anything but silence.

Bruce makes his childish voice more playful. "He put that thing in his pooper?" Now he's just enjoying himself.

No, wait. I'm Christopher Walken. I have to get authority back. I say in the stern, halting, New York accent. "Kid. Calm down. I washed it."

The audience laughs again, and I'm back in character. I'm calm. I remember the first thing young Bruce said, asking how long, and I realize he was trying to help me, before he distracted me.

"Five long years, he wore this watch. Up his ass. Then he died -- of dysentery." The audience keeps laughing, and I'm back on script.

I made it. The second thing to go wrong with the show has passed. I even turned it into a victory. I feel like I changed the course of the evening. As I leave the stage, I've never felt more alive.

Uma exits with me. She stood back there, silent during my lapse. She'll warn me later about three ruined scenes that will have been my fault. I might not fix the next one with a lucky ad-lib.

###

LE BIG-MAC

In live theater, every performance is slightly different. It's one of the last places audiences and actors can feel like anything might happen, let themselves get lost in the moment, and that's become exotic. Our director for this show insists nobody records it or spoils anything about it, so it becomes one of the few things in our lives none of us can rewatch, before or after.

At high-end theaters, tickets go for huge money on those big, pre-notorious nights everyone hears about but will only ever be seen by those who will have been there.

For us, this opening night is super pre-notorious, so online tickets were gone in two seconds, multiplying in price when the scalpers knew the best time to sell. When the audience shows up, every one of them will expect... something.

It's not nostalgia, because Pulp Fiction is one of those old movies where the structure's almost like all the new stuff, but picking that movie means we're basically doing three different plays, out of order, with kinda overlapping casts. So much can go wrong.

Obviously, it's not that really old show that's so notoriously like our lives now, but everyone does Oedipus Rex. We get it. Dramatic irony.

An hour before the show, I pace the tiny room behind the backstage curtain, muttering my dialogue, double checking my props and costumes, speeding through my big monologue. Usually, I only get nervous right as things start, but I want to be ready for anything. The stage manager stands near me, doing her deep breathing exercises.

Only the actor playing Samuel L. Jackson seems above it all, though he keeps saying we should be doing Jackie Brown instead. He's confident, but it's his first show, his first opening night, and he has no idea the kinds of things that can go wrong once the lights go up. He peeks through the curtain, across the empty stage, waiting for the audience to show up.

I get nervous if I ever look out into the audience. At least during the show, the stage lights are blinding enough to block out my awareness of what's staring back at me.

Rumors disagree exactly why this performance will become so notorious, which is all part of the no-spoilers rule. The director doesn't want anyone to know the details, but we have to experience the most dramatic opening night of our lives with no idea whether it's a big deal for good reasons or bad ones.

I start to wonder, are these rich people only coming to see us mess up? Should we even care about doing the show right? I do. We worked hard on this.

The costume designer comes and asks me to change into the tuxedo pants I'll wear as Harvey Keitel later. He needs to "pin the hem real quick." An hour before the show.

"You said you'd sew that."

"I will," he says, "tomorrow, and tomorrow you'll totally send me a text earlier thanking me for it."

"That's probably sarcastic," I grumble as I change, but it's something to do besides pace.

"No sudden moves," he tries to joke as he puts in the pins. I don't laugh.

Our stage manager pulls in another peaceful breath. She's the only one allowed to call backwards and warn herself about things like tonight, in case someone's gonna get hurt, but when the rest of us can't help but ask, she never spills. Like a little Fonzie, she always plays it cool.

That's part of why the director hired her. He tells us not to be weak in the face of mystery, but I've seen him ask her too.

A phone vibrates nearby. The costume designer looks up at me and smirks, and I realize it's coming from the pocket of my street pants.

Our phones are supposed to be turned off, but most people have learned it's not worth calling ahead to ask our future selves about these shows, or to wait for them to call us. Our future selves don't have a reason to break the rules about spoilers because we know better by then that calling us now won't change what's already happened to us by then. It's probably just some break-a-leg wisher explaining why they can't come.

The costume designer stands up. "Okay. Just be careful. You're on pins and needles tonight." I still don't laugh.

On the other hand, the whole cast has the rest of our lives to go through one moment of weakness and send back a warning. This could still be a call from the future.

I pick up the pants, like I'm changing back. I go to the corner, slip my phone out and answer it without looking, my head turned to block the stage manager's view of what's in my hand.

"Hello," I whisper.

Silence on the other end of the line. Then someone blurts, "I'm calling to -- I'm just apologizing again."

"Oh. Okay." I stammer quietly, "But I can't really talk right now."

"Uma called you, didn't she?" Is that the director?

"Nooo." I draw out the word, buying time to understand the question and sneak around to the back hallway, where I can actually be alone. "Will she?"

Another pause. "I... I don't know. You're ahead of me." That is the director's voice.

I say, "Really? You're gonna play the 'I'm still in the past' trick?" He's the one always talking about how we should keep this time sacred, spoiling it as little as possible.

"Alright, but I should be calling right after...." He sounds drunk. "I can't get through to anyone else at that point. Don't listen to her. Just clear your mind. It's gonna be fine."

"Oh, forgive me for being suspicious of this phone call then." I mean, has he forgotten even the most basic of paradoxes?

He takes a deep breath. "Sure, sure, that night was a big deal. It's a big reason I got so much attention for my next three shows."

"Oh, I get it. You mean, it's all gonna be fine for you."

"I told you, I'm sorry. I've been apologizing lately to all of you for... you know. That's how I heard Uma called someone before the show and spoiled what would happen that night. That's not fair. See? I'm trying to undo her interference." He's really slurring. "I see myself in the future, and I'm so confident, man, like I'm back to knowing that moment of uncertainty was real, so I must make this call at some point."

So, he wouldn't be calling me, except he thinks she already called, except she hasn't called -- not yet, at least -- and he thinks he probably will have called me someday, so he's doing it... whenever he is. A person could go crazy thinking about this kind of stuff. I tell him, "You're making my head hurt. Just say what you're gonna say."

"Okay," he says. "Alright. Okay. It doesn't matter if things go wrong. Things might seem dark as they go. They're supposed to. The happy ending is already written." He does tend to talk like that. "Just act it out. Follow the script. You're just an actor."

"Thanks, boss."

"Well, uh... uh, just remember...." I hear him stumble to ad-lib something better, but he ends up leaving me with that old saying, "Time wounds all heels." Our director, ladies and gentlemen.

###

EZEKIEL 25:17

The second time through the diner scene, everything is reversed. The first time, my back was to the audience. Now I'm facing downstage, into the blinding lights, trying not to picture all the people out past them. "The girls" partly block me, in the downstage, sideways booth this time, while Sam and John take center stage in the big booth, so everyone can see what those two were up to during this scene at the beginning.

This is the last scene. Uma's about to call me two hours ago and say I'll cause three disasters tonight, but I've only lived through two so far. She'll be out here in a second, as the waitress again, but I have so little left I can screw up, I'm actually starting to relax, starting to think clearly. It's my last chance in all of time to be a part of this particular performance, and I'm not sure I want to lose the feeling of not knowing what's gonna happen.

I use my knife and fork not like an idiot this time, imagining eggs Benedict onto the mismatched plate the stage manager had ready "just in case one broke tonight." Bruce is across from me, eating his own eggs, or whatever it is he pictures there. I still haven't asked.

After the robbery starts, I lean back in fear, where we stopped the first time. Then I have nothing left but to deliver my one line.

Sam does his Bible passage. "And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger...."

Now, audiences can't resist shouting along with certain lines, which our director hates. It's true, a crowd chanting along drowns out the nuance of the performance. Plus, they miss any little changes we've made. This moment will only happen now, and they might be missing it.

Audiences sometimes treat us like an old, familiar video file, just hearing themselves reciting along with the version of events they already know. If we were a file, they could skip around like a modern story, watch things in any order, but that wouldn't change any of the scenes themselves, just their experience.

I squint to look out into the tech booth, to the right of the audience. The director's there, standing behind our lighting tech, biting his nails. He has no idea he'll also call me two hours ago, from when this has all already happened, to complain about his regret and his success. Poor baby.

Then the wall of my diner booth falls over.

I don't know how it happened. I didn't touch it, but as laughter drowns out our last scene, I can see why Uma's about to blame that on me too.

I lift it back up and hold it while Sam and the girls wait out the laughs and finish the scene. My life isn't the Greek tragedy I feared it might be. Not right now.

I go backstage and wait my turn, and I take my bow.

So, in the end, I did like Shakespeare said with my hour or so upon the stage, a little fret, a little strut. "And then is heard no more."

###

TRYING HARD TO BE THE SHEPHERD

When there are just a couple minutes left until the show starts, I'm alone in the dressing room. I stare at myself in one of those mirrors surrounded by light bulbs, but at this point I know more than enough to worry. Uma told me things would go wrong, confirmed it from the future, just like the director said she would.

From my pants on the nearby couch, my phone vibrates again. I still, still forgot to turn it off. I pull it out and see it's an eterna-vid call from myself.

I really don't want to answer this one. Everyone else is in places, ready to start, but myself must know I'll answer, or I won't have called right now.

"I don't have time for this," I tell my face on the screen. Screen me's older than I am, calling from years from now, near the end of my life.

My future self says, "The show's gonna be fine. Don't worry. I never got around to telling myself that."

I can't get used to this kind of conversation, what my voice sounds like to other people. "Great," I say, "you called 'cause you called." My hands wave in circles, moving my own image along with my phone. "Thanks for closing the--"

"Time," myself cuts me off, "it--"

"Wounds all heels." I finish the sentence for myself. "I know."

"No," my future self says, "it heals all wounds. Don't let any of this stuff bother you. Nobody's watching from the future, except in faded memories, and the mistakes weren't ALL my fault. I wouldn't even be making this call. I hate hearing my own voice -- still -- but I needed to hear it back then, which, for you I guess, is still now."

I say, "This isn't exactly psyching myself up."

"I know. It didn't work for me either. For you. Had to happen. Bye." Myself hangs up before I can answer.

Applause. I look over and see a sliver of stage light leaking through a crack in the back curtain. This is happening now.

The director welcomes the audience to our opening night. He tells them to turn off their phones, which I finally do too, and I join the other actors just backstage, waiting to enter. I'm last in line.

This is when I get the most nervous.

I try hard not to worry. I know I will be calm about this, eventually, but that doesn't help now.

The lights go out, and the cast quietly gets into position. I follow onto the unlit stage, with nothing between me and the audience but air.

I hate this part. Why the hell'd I let my past self get talked into doing another show? After six months off, I forgot about this feeling.

I'm in the diner booth, my back to the audience, so I stare at the back curtain and try to forget what's out there, try to be in the moment. My heart beats harder. I can't wait for this uncertainty to be over.

I'm across from our Bruce Willis. My back is to our Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta. Our Amanda Plummer is in the booth to my left, but the first to speak will be our Tim Roth, across from her. I strain to swallow, and I can feel my adrenaline start to pump.

I know what's supposed to come next, but I have to wait for it to happen.

Come on.

Let's go.

The lights come up.

END

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