by Ethan Hawke
I was putting on my scars as always.
“And if you listen to popular culture or society,” Ezekiel continued regally from his dressing room chair, “they are all talking about how great one kind of man is—what kind? The rich kind. That’s a woman’s voice right there. They want their men obsessed with wealth. That way we don’t notice we’re stuck in a gerbil cage spinning the wheel to keep the lights on—ya know? Yet we all know that most of the rich people we see are miserable, right?”
“I hate to give you the news, but I think a lot of rich people are actually pretty happy, buddy,” I said, out of breath on the ground starting my preshow push-ups.
Zeke leaned over me. “That creep who was the lead of the unmentionable TV show I was on for those years,” he continued, not worried at all about the closing performance, “well, that Archie Bunker mo-fo was a sad, sick prick. Was he richer than God? Fuck yeah. But he was miserable as a dead spider.”
“FIVE MINUTES,” the stage manager announced over the monitor.
I finished my push-ups, stood, and let the blood in my body settle. When we began this run, Ezekiel and I hardly spoke before each show. Now we chatted like old biddies in a hair salon.
“I’m confused,” I said. “Are women the problem or is money?”
“Wait till you hit forty, smarty-pants. You’ll see”—he continued with a sigh—“life’s not a straight trajectory, slowly ascending, where you gain in knowledge and talent little by little until you arrive at some Buddha-like enlightenment. It’s a fuckin’ morass—it’s a slog. Fighting all the way. Sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes twisting in place.” Ezekiel sat back down, completely placid, casually sipping his tea, looking at himself in the mirror and talking nonstop.
“What I’m saying is, there’s this thing out there that nobody wants to say—which is that the goddamn womenfolk are so good at running things they’re even able to hide the fact they’re running the show. The sadist controls the masochist, ya know?”
Putting on my costume for the last time, I asked, “So who’s the sadist and the masochist with my wife and me? We both seem to think we are the one getting hurt.”
“Neither one of you are victims!” Ezekiel’s voice lifted now that I was engaging him. “You know what you have to do? This is the big trick—listen to me now, ’cause this is some real shit—the straight dope—I’m not joking around now. You must use your heart as a spear. You actually have to fight with your tenderness, your perceived weaknesses, your vulnerability, with love, with warmth. That’s the trick: There’s no trick. Be completely open and absorb the world’s contradictions—like for example, the best thing that ever happened to me was being born a black male in America and the worst thing that ever happened to me was being born a black male in America. Those are both true statements. Absorb the contradiction with an open, loving, tender heart. Do you understand?”
My son and daughter entered the room and I barely had enough time to set up the iPad and plug in some headphones for them before I went out for my last show.
* * *
—
Before the final performance, I did the same thing I had done each of the previous eighty-two shows. I stood behind the stage left black scrims and stared out at the audience, looking for my wife.
My mad hopefulness was part of my illness. My outlook was so consistently off kilter, like when you are smashed by an ocean wave and don’t know which direction to find the sky and wind up lifting your head into the sandy bottom of the sea. I believed that if Mary came to the show, I could do it—I could give our marriage one more try. I felt near certain that our union was doomed to painful failure—but still: I did not want to get divorced. I missed my kids badly when they were gone and could not shake the feeling that my balance had been permanently injured. It seemed the fluid in my inner ears was not level and that the separation from Mary was the cause. I felt sure she would come to the play, see how hard I was working, see that I was a part of something of worth, and remember the man she fell in love with—though I hardly resembled him. From the wings, I searched the twelve hundred faces in the house—looked at every pair of eyes. She wasn’t there.
Not yet.
There were two empty seats right front and center—and if she were to come, she would certainly have great seats and be late—so maybe. The facts were lining up against me, however. I just kept hoping I was wrong, like maybe the earth could spin in a different direction, or dogs could talk, or flowers could bloom in a blizzard; anything so that the discomfort of a long drawn-out divorce could be dodged. Starting over seems so impossible when you don’t know how far back you need to travel.
* * *
—
The last performance of Henry IV went by like a pack of ravenous coyotes chasing a jackrabbit. Fast. Daily exchanges that had seemed ordinary became full of power because you knew that you would never be able to perform this simple action again. Scurrying through the ropes and curtains across the back shadows of the stage, rushing to make an entrance on time, picking up our weapons together from the giant barrels—all the mundane aspects of our performance, the tiny beats that held up the flashy ones. They were where it felt possible to touch and hold the magic; just for a second.
After the King spurns me, and leaves the stage, I turn to my uncle and say:
He said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And whisper in his ear: MORTIMER!
That always got a big laugh. I’d never get that laugh again. I’d worked hard on the timing of that joke, but now it was gone. I wondered how long it would be before I couldn’t even remember the lines.
Lady Percy and I had so much fun with one another onstage. There was trust in our eyes. I was finally comfortable touching her body, and letting her touch me. In front of all these people, she allowed me the confidence to gently cup her bottom as I exited and said,
Come, wilt thou see me ride?
And when I am on horseback,
I will swear I love thee infinitely
She grabbed my package with one hand and then blew me a kiss with the other.
Why is it so easy to tell someone you love them when you are leaving?
After Hotspur died and I had my cigarette and ice cream sandwich, I went and found my kids and gave them each an ice cream. My daughter was getting her hair braided in the makeup room and my son was slaying video–game dragons with Big Sam and the guys in the boys’ company dressing room. I decided to sneak out into the back of the house and watch the final act. I stood in the shadows behind the audience and watched Virgil play the “Chimes at Midnight” scene.
The lighting was a morning blue somewhere between dog and wolf. It made my eyes well up with tears. The set was exquisite in its minimalism. There was no set. Somehow, the way it was built lifted your eye into the actor. It was as if there was nothing else in the world but Virgil Smith and his friend, grave Master Shallow.
“We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow,” Falstaff said.
“That we have…That we have…”
The iambic rhythm was as natural to Virgil’s language as the tick is for a clock, inexorably marking the present and discarding the past; or like the beating of a heart, because it gave energy. He controlled the pace inside my chest, he had his hands on the heart of everyone in the auditorium.
Watching Virgil Smith playing Falstaff on the last night of our production was like watching one of legend’s great rock concerts; the time Jimi Hendrix surprised everyone and played a set in the rain for only two hundred people at a park in St. Louis…only more sorrowful, more funny, and more magnificent. Simply put, the writing was better. It was healthy and intoxicating, like red wine with Thanksgiving dinner, like St. Joan leading you into battle, a walk
-off home run; it felt good like that.
But watching Virgil had a melancholy sting to it as well. Jealousy always spun threateningly close. It was hard to reckon with just how much better he was than the rest of us: Why him, Lord?
At my final curtain call, as I bowed for the last time, I saw the two seats where I had hoped my wife would have sat, still empty. My wife was never going to see the show. It was over. I don’t know why I ever thought she would come. She probably didn’t show up for the same reason I couldn’t ever reach out to her. We both were letting go. We had loved each other madly, like many other young lovers. We wrote poetry. We looked at the stars. We held each other all night long without sleeping. We watched a baby grow in her belly and were so transfixed by the magic, power, and pulse of the universe calling this child into the world that we immediately did it again. And then just like another parallel line of lovers squabbling and bickering, daily life had now given us gripes and grievances that we couldn’t walk around. Why didn’t you do this for me? How could you? You promised! I thought things would be different! I tried! NO, you didn’t! You lied! I was beginning to feel about my marriage just as I was feeling about the play: some of it was elegiac, some of it was torture, I was glad I did it, and I was glad it was over. I couldn’t understand how all those things could be true simultaneously, but they were.
After the final bows, there was lots of hugging and shouting in the hallways backstage. Champagne corks were being popped. Costumes were being tossed. I walked into my dressing room and both my children were on the floor watching Annie on my daughter’s little iPad. She looked up from the film with tears in her eyes. Taking off her headphones, she jumped into my arms.
“What is it?” I asked, holding her sweet little frame.
“Oh, Dadda, I just want to be inside that song.”
“What song, honey? What do you mean?”
“That song Annie sings about missing her mommy and daddy. I want to be inside that song.” She squeezed me as hard as she could.
“What do you mean?” I asked, holding her up and considering her wet blue eyes.
“I don’t know. Don’t you ever feel that way—that you love a song so much you want to be inside it?” She looked at me imploringly.
“Yes, I do,” I said, “I know exactly what you mean. And there is a way,” I added conspiratorially. “If you still want to when you’re older—I’ll show you how.”
I leaned down to kiss my son.
He looked up and said, “Is it over?”
“Yeah, all done,” I said.
“Can I play with your sword?”
Before we went home I took my kids out into the now empty theater to have one last look at the set. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t yet an hour since the play had closed and already there was a crew of construction workers ripping up the floorboards. The back doors to the stage were open and cold air was drifting in, along with a smattering of snow flurries. Somebody in the costume department had given my kids blue and green glow sticks, and they were running through the empty aisles laughing and swinging the neon light sticks. Hammers, snow, people partying in the lobby shouting and drinking, children laughing—it was all almost too much to take in.
Ezekiel was sitting in the middle of the empty theater and called me over. I sat next to him.
“Hurts, don’t it.” He smiled.
I nodded.
The workers were now rather violently tearing apart the wooden slab that held my artillery wagon, where every night for months I would step up, spin my swords, and shout Hotspur’s anthem, “DIE ALL, DIE MERRILY!”
It was done. Never again. There was literally the sweat of thirty-nine actors spread over that stage, every piece of wood was scratched up with someone’s mark, and it was all headed for a dumpster. Our names would be ripped from the seams of our costumes, which would be sent back to the shop to dress some other actor at some later date.
* * *
—
I brought my small people home to the Mercury Hotel. We sat in the back of the cab, my son on my lap and my daughter still playing with her fading glow stick.
My son stared at his fingers and said, “Do you ever notice that your thumbprint looks a lot like the rings on the inside of a tree?”
“No, the inside of a tree looks like the tracks of planets going around the sun,” my daughter corrected.
“No, the inside of your eyeball looks like stars and galaxies and stuff, not trees.”
“Supernovas look like jellyfish,” she noted.
“That’s true, but they also look like eyeballs.”
“Sometimes, your heart and veins and stuff, when it’s not inside your body, looks like a jellyfish.”
“Dad, do you think we all have a jellyfish inside of us?” my son asked.
“Or a supernova?” my daughter pressed.
Looking at them both, I said, “What happened to ‘Why is the sky blue?’ ”
I paid the fare and stepped out in front of the Mercury. It was now a full-blown snowstorm. My son turned his face up towards the falling snow and let the giant fat flakes fall into his mouth. Then, once inside the heat of the lobby, with his face all flushed and his cheeks red, he said, sighing, “Snow would be perfect, if only it was warm.”
I put the kids to bed. My voice felt assured reading to them that night and they fell asleep quickly. Once they were down, I paid one of the hotel cleaning ladies a handful of cash to sit in my living room and watch TV until I got back from the cast party. She was a cool old lady. The kids liked her and often sold strawberry lemonade in the lobby with her help. She had my phone number, so I wasn’t concerned.
In the cab to the bar, I checked my messages and, to my surprise, there was one from J.C. He said he was in New York but wasn’t coming to the party; he didn’t like drunk people, and he didn’t like the fact that when things went well, as they had with our production, people tended to think the director was responsible for how it all evolved. He wanted to thank me for not missing a show. He told me that in the six times he’d directed the play, he’d never had a Hotspur make it all the way through.
“Lastly,” he said, “I will never cast you again until you quit smoking. If you look at the history of artists, self-sabotage is more responsible for the collapse of our dreams than the whips and scorns of time. So, get to work, take care of yourself, and good night.” He hung up.
I sat in the quiet of the cab and considered J.C.’s message. It was important to him that I hadn’t missed a show. I compared his words with King Edward’s advice about letting things go and being willing to see yourself as replaceable. I wondered who was right. What would they say to each other?
The party was somehow dismal. The show was over and there was nothing to talk about. All the guys were hammered except for Big Sam, and everyone just sloppily told each other they loved one another. Bumping my way through all the drunken people at the old Broadway hangout Joe Allen’s, I tried to avoid Lady Percy, because she was with her husband and I didn’t want any strange goodbyes. It was not a problem; she was avoiding me. I was looking for Virgil because I wanted to tell him what a goddamn revelation he was—as well as apologize for my earlier outburst. He wasn’t there and I swelled with anger all over again. Why couldn’t he just show up and be a regular guy—just once?
Zeke said wisely, “Dude, he’s not a regular guy—why should he pretend?”
Then, standing in front of me was an actress I didn’t know well. She was one of the “tavern girls” and played largely only in those scenes, but I didn’t share any stage time with her and hadn’t had much contact with her throughout the run. Act 3, scene 1, opened with her naked, looking at herself in the mirror while Falstaff talks and tries to find his pecker. It was a good scene, and she was brave and funny in it. But truth be told, she had a sketchy, dangerous vibe. Now she stood drunk in front of me and slid
a note into my hand.
Immediately, I could tell from the handwriting and by the expression on the young woman’s face that she had been my secret admirer.
“Somebody gives you secret notes every day and you’re not even curious who they are?” she asked contemptuously. Her eyes exposed heartbreak, not by me, but by the finality of closing night.
I started to give a lame answer, but she cut me off.
“Somebody thinks about you, sees that you’re in pain, reaches out, but you don’t even want to say thank you—or notice them?”
“Thank you,” I offered.
“I guess you’re just used to everyone noticing you.”
“I loved the quotes you gave me,” I said sincerely. “I loved every one of them.”
“Well, fuck you,” she said, snarling. People began to turn and stare. “I worked so hard and I really cared about this show and about you. I was worried sick about you. You were so thin and sad. And you don’t even know my name, do you?”
There was an awkward silence. Then, praise Jesus, without a thought it came out of my mouth: “Shannon. Shannon McQuarrie. You are great in the tavern scenes.”
“I was great, past tense.” She turned and spoke to the people staring at us. “And now we’re all just supposed to walk away, forget everything, and be polite. But I don’t want to be polite. I don’t want to forget. And J.C. can’t even show up? Virgil, I didn’t expect—that fat fuck. But I got naked for you all every night. We went through something together— And I don’t want to pretend we didn’t. I’m going to miss this show; I’m going to miss it badly”—she turned back to me—“but I hate you for being so fucking cavalier. I guess you’re off to some other job, got a film to shoot in Timbuktu or something? I don’t have another job and I’m going to wake up tomorrow and want to talk to everyone…” She started huffing back her sobs. “I just hate this fucking show. And I hate you…”