by Blake Crouch
“Let’s do a scene, shall we?”
I follow everyone up onto the stage.
There’s a brown leather loveseat, and Ben and Jane sit down.
There’s a desk with a little lamp and a scattering of books and papers.
I sit on the edge of the desk.
“So, Jim, you’ve read the scene?”
“Several times.”
Boy, my mouth’s dry, my heart pumping like a piston.
“You off-book, yet?”
I don’t know what that means.
“Yeah.”
“Great. So, how about this?” Matt comes and sits on the desk beside me. When he speaks, he’s highly expressive with his hands. “I’ll tell you sort of what I’m thinking for this scene, and if you see it differently or there’s something else you want to try, I’m totally open to that. I really want you to follow your instinct here, because that’s what’s going to make this scene great.” He hops down. “I know the script says you walk in and sit down at rise, but when the lights come up I want everyone already sitting.”
“Okay.”
“Why don’t you take a seat behind the desk.”
I walk around to the swivel chair and sit down. My hands tremble now. I set my satchel on the floor, pull the script out, place it on the desk. Training wheels, just in case I blank.
Matt stands between the loveseat and the desk. I feel that light shining down on me from the blackness of the ceiling. Jane and Ben look so comfortable. I keep reminding myself of that quote I heard somewhere, that if you’re scared, you should pretend like you’re at ease, and no one will know.
“Everything,” Matt says to all of us, “hinges on this scene.”
Great. I’m going to fuck up this guy’s play.
“I know,” he continues, “there’s this temptation to take it over the top here, and some directors would probably go for that, but I don’t think we need to. The play itself, the way it treats relationships, is already so over the top, the acting shouldn’t mimic that, you know?”
I most certainly do not know what in the hell he’s talking about.
“Lookit, there’s comedy here, but fuck up the timing, you know? This isn’t Neil Simon. I want people to laugh, but not too much. The goal, honestly, is to unnerve them. They’ll laugh for the same reason people laugh at funerals. So,” he glances back at me, “want to give it a go?”
Oh God.
“Why not?”
What is my first line? Shit.
Matt walks off the stage and takes a seat in the first row.
“Let’s do the whole scene,” he says, “and I swear I won’t interrupt you the first time. I’ll just go ahead and tell you, Jim, I’m pretty bad about that. I mean, I could work on thirty seconds of dialogue for a whole afternoon. But I don’t think we’re going to have that problem today. Ben, whenever you’re ready.”
Ben takes a deep breath and stares for a moment into the floor.
When his eyes come back to mine, he’s a different person. Vulnerable, wounded.
“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Dr. Lovejoy,” he says gravely.
My line. Fuck. I lean forward and glance at page fifteen of the script.
“Yes, well. My time is extremely. Limited so why don’t you tell me the problem.”
That was awful. Wooden. Perfunctory.
“I’m the problem,” Jane says, crossing her arms and glancing with annoyance into the empty theatre. She really looks pissed.
“I’ll decide that.”
“No, she’s right, Doctor. She most certainly is the problem. She’s an enormous problem.” Ben is so good. I feel like he’s really speaking to me.
My lines have evaporated. I grab the script.
“Sorry, Matt.”
“It’s all right. Stay with it.”
“So,” I continue, and I know it, everyone in the theatre knows it—I am dying up here. “You initiated this session what would you like for me to say?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you come—”
“Okay!” Matt yells, coming out of his seat, “I know I said I wouldn’t, but I want to stop here for a second.” He walks onstage, begins pacing between the sofa and the desk.
“I think I know what you’re up to here, Jim.”
Man, I wish someone would dim those overhead lights. I’m sweating like a maniac.
“I don’t think the whole acting like you can’t act thing is going to work for this scene, and I’ll tell you why. Don’t get me wrong—it’s frighteningly convincing. But like I said before, it’s way, way over the top, and if this play gets any goofier, it’ll fall apart. You know what I’m saying, Jim?”
“Absolutely.”
Matt approaches me. “I think it might help if we get you out from behind this desk. Connect you to Gerald and Cynthia a little more. Here,” he comes over, “let’s slide your chair out to center stage.”
This is dynamite. Now I’m sitting six feet away from Jane and Ben, and they’re going to see the fear dripping from my face. My inability is so fucking glaring, I’m on the verge of running the hell out of this theatre right now.
“And Jim?” Matt says as he walks back to his chair on the front row, “let’s slow things down a little. Feels like you’re rushing your lines a tad.”
Jane gives me a reassuring smile. Ben’s looking up into the lighting grid. I wonder if they’re embarrassed for me.
“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Dr. Lovejoy,” Ben says, beginning the scene again.
“Yes. Well. My time is extremely limited…” I stop. If I don’t take control of this situation immediately, I may lose everything. I begin to shake my head. Then I stand and look at Matt.
“I’m sorry, but I strongly disagree with you here. Look, you’ve written a cutting edge play. There’s no doubt about that. And what is it you told me earlier that your goal was? To unnerve people. Right?”
An uneasy nod.
“What is more unnerving and uncomfortable than watching someone onstage who is totally dying? They’re trying so hard, but they’re forgetting lines, rushing lines, overacting. Mumbling. Trembling even. It’s painful to watch, but it’s also funny. Isn’t that the juxtaposition you’re going for? Uneasy laughter? What better captures that than a character who comes on stage before a few hundred people, and everyone’s thinking ‘is he acting like this on purpose’? Honestly? You tell me.”
“I see what you’re saying, Jim, I do, but—”
“But what? It’s staring you right in the face, Matt. You told me to go with my instinct. ‘That’s what’s going to make this scene great.’ Didn’t you say that?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, my instinct is screaming at me, and this doesn’t happen often, but I know in my gut, that this is how I should play this scene. Don’t you feel it? We’ve had an epiphany here.” I look at Jane. “Do you feel it?”
“Maybe. Yeah. I think I do.”
“Ben?”
“It’s his show, man.”
“Well, I feel it, Matt,” I say, stepping down toward him onto the next panel. “I feel it in my bones, man.”
Matt removes his glasses and squeezes the bridge of his nose between his eyes.
“So what you’re telling me,” he says, “is you want to do this scene like you can’t act? That’s what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Do they pretend they can’t act either?” he asks, pointing at Jane and Ben.
“No, just me. Otherwise, the audience would know. They carry on just like in the previous scenes.”
“You’re sure about this?”
I’ve won an Oscar, asshole.
“Absolutely.”
Matt stands and stares at me sort of dumbfounded. He glances up at the lighting grid, at the sofa where his stars sit, at the desk, like he’s taking his whole production in once last time before I royally fuck it all up.
When his eyes come b
ack to mine, he shrugs, says, “All right, Jim. All right. Hell, that’s why we’re at Hamilton. To try shit out.”
He walks back to his seat, sits down, crosses his legs.
“Let’s run it again.”
Chapter 7
Manta ~ eavesdrops on the graduates ~ watches the eel ~ Henry’s ~ “Twice as Deep” ~ the beauty of Corey Mustin ~ like a demon in the house of God
Though the sun has long since descended beneath the metallic range of towers, when I step out of Hamilton Studio, the hot air engulfs me like a waft of furnace heat. The sidewalk brims with the Village night crowd—perfumed, elegant creatures, breezing past en route to food and drink and entertainment. I walk with them. It’s 7:30, and I’m famished.
There’s a Thai restaurant up ahead. I step inside. Very trendy. Very hip. Since I’m alone, the maître d’ promises she can get me seated in fifteen minutes. I can’t quite tell if she recognizes me, so I don’t push it. Besides, you think Jansen has ever dined alone?
It’s insanely loud. I make my way between tables to the crowded bar. When the bartender asks me what I’d like, I order Jansen’s specialty without even considering it. I’ve worked hard today. A drink is very much in order.
The restaurant is called Manta, and it’s filled with aquariums. There’s one behind the bar teaming with these swollen goldfish that look like they’ve been puffed up and deformed by gamma radiation or something. Sitting in my barstool, I sip the Absolut and watch them drift lazily through the bright blue water.
I glance over at a staircase, where a tiny waitress carries two monstrous trays up the steps to the second level. I know it’s sort of mean, but it’d be funny as hell if she took a tumble with all of that food.
The maitre d’ returns and I follow her across the room to this other bar which backs up against an enormously long aquarium. All of the stools are occupied except for one. She seats me, leaves a menu. I glance down the bar at my tablemates. Most have books open beside their steaming plates, and a sort of concentration in their eyes which precludes engagement.
After the waiter brings me a glass of water and takes my order, I pull out the script and bury myself in my lines. I won’t have this safety net tomorrow night. It knots my stomach just thinking about the performance. Matt’s nervous, too, doubting whether he should let me go the acting-like-you-can’t-act route. But it’s a done deal, because that’s the only route I know. I keep telling myself I have no reason to be nervous, because the worse I am, the more uncomfortable I appear to the audience, the better it will be.
The peanut chicken is good and spicy as hell. I spend most of my meal sucking on ice cubes, trying to quell the fire on my tongue. There’s a table directly behind me, and everyone’s having a terrific time. From what I can gather, they all attend NYU, and they’re graduating this coming weekend. It’s four guys and three girls, and they can’t stop laughing about this time one of them “blew chunks” all over an English professor after a hard night of partying.
Man, they’re happy. They keep saying things like “Dude, I was so fucking wasted!” and “yeah, but we only hooked up that first night in Nassau” and “totally, we’ll like totally hook it up.” And they really seem to enjoy saying fuck. But that’s understandable. It’s a fun, versatile word.
What’s most interesting about this group, is they’re all business majors, so they’re going on to law school or grad school or into the workplace. And you can tell they think they’re very well-adjusted, since they’re not only exceptional students, but “know how to party.” They’d probably describe themselves as intelligent professionals by day, and wild, clubbing maniacs by night. I suppose they think that juxtaposition makes them interesting, which is fairly sad, because if you were sitting here listening to them, it’d take you all of five seconds to conclude they’re the dullest young people you’ve ever seen. That constant laughter doesn’t fool me. But they don’t know they aren’t interesting yet. That realization will be along in about five years.
After they leave, I put away my script and just sit there with a cup of black coffee, mesmerized, because on this end of the aquarium, a moray eel moves ribbon-like through the teal, glowing water. With a huge, birdlike head and these terrifying teeth, he glides openmouthed through his section of the tank, restlessly circling the same rock, and watching me through beady, reptilian eyes.
When I leave Manta, it’s only 9:00 p.m., so I don’t feel much like returning to my Bronx hotel. I walk up 2nd Ave. for a long, long time, not really conscious of anything except the underlying murmur of the city.
A few blocks north of Stuyvesant Square, I pass the door of a club called Henry’s. The Blues pours from the open doorway, and I hear the crowd applauding the moaning of a guitar. I’ve gone nearly to the end of the block when I turn around. Returning to the door, I shell out the twelve-dollar cover charge and enter the smoky room.
It’s loud as hell. I don’t really want a drink, so I don’t bother with the line to reach the bar in back. Instead, I squeeze my way through the crowd, until I spot a recently-vacated table in a corner. The martini and shotglasses have yet to be cleared, but I don’t mind. I hang my jacket on a chair and take a seat.
The club is small. Posters of famous musicians adorn the walls, and the stage is well-lit and lined with enormous speakers aimed at the audience. It’s the kind of place that’s so dark, you don’t even notice who else is in the room. Just you and the band.
Man, this guy is just wailing on his guitar, and what’s interesting, is he’s as far from the epitome of a blues guitarist as you can imagine. He looks like a computer engineer—thin, tall, silver-framed glasses, smooth-faced, and dressed like someone who has never given a thought to style in their life. We’re talking blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a white, sweat-soaked tee-shirt. You’d probably think that he had the voice of a timid, fourteen-year-old boy, but when he finishes his guitar solo and steps back toward the mic, what springs from his mouth is the grittiest, wisest, most mournful crooning I’ve ever heard.
The song is apparently called “Twice as Deep,” and he sings this chorus over and over:
“I put you in the ground
but you crawled back out
You been hauntin’ me, baby
You been spookin’ me, baby
I’m a ghost, too, but I gotta sleep
Next time I’ll bury you twice as deep.”
When the song’s over, he introduces the drummer and the bass player.
“And I’m Corey Mustin,” he says, “and we’re going to play the Blues for you all night. Two, three, four…”
They rip into another song, this one slower, softer, sadder. It’s about how he’s been so lonely since he moved to New York, and I wonder if the song is really autobiographical. By the middle of the song, I’m feeling pretty sorry for the guy. He sings with his eyes closed, like he doesn’t care if everyone knows what’s in his heart.
“I ain’t seen a soul
Since I got off the bus
Who smiled like they smile back home
I been wanderin’ the streets
Cause I got no friend
And I can’t stop thinking about home
I drink through the nights
And sleep through the days
Can’t take much more on my own
A man needs a woman
A man needs a friend
But all I’ve got is this gun.”
Man, I like the Blues. Corey Mustin breaks into another solo, and I settle back into the chair and just watch him go, his fingers sliding up and down the neck of the guitar like they were designed for nothing else. And the look on the guy’s face while he plays is something you so rarely see these days—purposeful, not a glimmer of self-consciousness, pure fluidity, unselfishly doing what he was put here to do.
And as I sit here watching him play, I start feeling kind of sad, and what makes me sad is how beautiful Corey Mustin is on stage. His talent is a glimpse of truth. It touches me like nothing I can remembe
r. It unnerves me, too, and the only way I can describe it is to compare it to how demons must feel in the presence of God. He’s beautiful. They know He’s beautiful. But they hate Him because He’s beautiful, because they’re ugly and despicable, and nothing will ever change that.
I haven’t been here ten minutes, but I stand up and push desperately through the crowd, tears welling in my eyes, beginning to spill down my face. He’s singing that chorus again by the time I reach the door
“A man needs a woman,
a man needs a friend
but all I’ve got is this gun.”
And as I step back out into the night, all I can think is fuck you Corey Mustin. I’d kill him if I met him on the street right now. I really would.
Chapter 8
rain ~ the acting workshop ~ warns of the hardships of Hollywood ~ the big night ~ into the black
I promised Wittig I’d come talk to one of his acting workshops on Thursday, but when I wake up in that disgusting bed, the only thing on my mind is that I’ll be on stage in less than ten hours.
I slip into these olive slacks and a baize button-up, so I’m looking pretty sharp. Since I’m not supposed to be at Columbia until 11:00, I drag the chair over to the window and sit down.
It’s raining for what must be the first time in days, so I crack the window and let the cool damp air filter into the room. Before long, I’m inundated with the smell of wet concrete and metal. The sound is all raindrop-pattering and tire-sloshing over wet streets.
Those dice-throwing boys must be indoors today. I wonder what games they play when it rains.
I walk into the classroom at five minutes past 11:00, and wait until I’ve shaken Wittig’s hand to remove my sunglasses. It’s the ultimate I-am-a-Star statement—wearing sunglasses on a rainy day. But, you know, people expect this sort of thing from me now, and I’m not in the business of letting them down.
I can tell you the class of fourteen students is pretty thrilled to meet me. Seven girls, seven boys, and they’re all sitting on the hardwood floor along the wall. This isn’t a normal classroom with chairs and a blackboard and all that educational jazz. For one thing, it’s a very large room called a studio, with big, curved windows looking out on the misty campus. Pretty breathtaking actually. And there are props all over the place—chairs, couches, wooden cubes—that make the room look kind of like a playroom for college students.