Scene From a Mustard Stetson Hat

I had reached my hand into the battered, dried up mustard stetson hat that day. A hat so old and so enshrined in mystique, I wouldn't have been surprised to have found it was the very one Cab Calloway mentioned when he sang Saint James Infirmary.

I had been the last one to draw that class period.

My scene partner was Margaret. I wondered why she never went by Maggie or Greta or something like that. Something more modern, but I never knew. I didn't mind too much because hearing the name Margaret roll off my tongue made every word after that ripe with some sort of salience. Or perhaps it a sweetness? I couldn't piece it together then. I was sheltered from any semblance of desire or whim. A Ben Gunn marooned on an island in my own mind. With hoards of gold and no luxury to indulge.

Margaret. Even now it strikes a plangent chord to pronounce it to oneself. Margaret was popular in the way only theatre kids can be popular. Meaning she wasn't actually popular in the scheme of things, but everyone in our class liked her. She dressed like Lauren Bacall in Casablanca and had the domineering eyebrows to match. Was it domineering? Or just blithely indifferent? She would have been at one with her eyebrows in that sense at least.

She showed up late to the black theater room every Friday but no one could fault her for it when she was as graceful as she was. What she was doing in that period of time, no one seemed to know. Some people wield enigma like a cloak and some, like a stiletto, and Margaret was one of the latter.

I had retrieved a paper from the hat and palmed it, rolling out around to feel out the shape of it.

As my hand unfurled the paper I could hardly look her in the eye.

A story about somebody in love with someone from their past.

That was the damn improv scene we got. While everyone else had gotten some cheesy shit like "Trapped in an elevator" or "Buying a second-hand car", we had the synopsis of a Jane Austen.

We both chuckled to ourselves furtively.

It was the change of genre game. The one where the audience shouts out random genres after yelling freeze. I sometimes think I'd like to stay frozen in time, and maybe that's why I enjoyed that game so much.

The "trapped in an elevator" people went first. They went though James Bond, rom-com, film noir, thriller, and B horror in a matter of minutes.

She leaned over to me to whisper.

"So I'm thinking we can do a business man and a secretary running into each other years down the line." she whispered, "that's one of those classic setups isn't it?"

"Yeah, sounds good. Which would you like me to play?" I asked as casually as I could muster.

"Either way. You can play anything convincingly. I think it's in your eyes."

I smirked to myself at that.

"Well thank you. I'll take the business man then."

"My mom was a secretary so it's fitting I guess. Why I joined theatre actually. Thought it would be more interesting than punching key pads and typing on a keyboard all day."

"You want to be an actress?"

"I've been told I'm not the most imaginative, but I'm giving Hollywood a shot-"

"You ladies want to show us what you've got?"

Mr. Gray, tenured and impatient drama teacher's voice cracked through the black box theatre.

"Sorry, sir, didn't realize they'd finished." Margaret annunciated it with an unapologetic coolness that belied her words.

She bunched up herringbone coat and walked to center stage and pulled her hand to her face miming a telephone call.

"Yes sir, and that's for Tuesday? Yes he'll be able to meet with you."

I walked over pretending to swing a briefcase at my side as she delicately placed the hand phone back on the receiver.

"Marilyn? I thought I recognized you when I came in."

FREEZE! ROM-COM

"Oh my God, Jim right! From Mrs. Singer's English. You used to write me heart shaped notes"

"Shh. Don't tell them about the hearts."

"Aw I ripped those up without reading them didn't I?"

"You did?"

"Oh! Wait, that must have been someone else. No, I was thinking of someone else that wrote me heart shaped notes!"

FREEZE! SCI-FI

"How did you get in the building?"

"Let's just say I'm with the FBI. I'm here to make sure you didn't see anything- inconvenient."

She started to wave her arms around

"Okay, ma'am put your webbed hands up or I'll shoot!"

"GLORP GLORP"

"Wait, I never realized how beautiful you are!"

GLORP?"

"What do you say we head back to Area 51 for some dinner?"

The timer went off.

Even writing it out I'm embarrassed by how. It was so silly and ridiculous no one could possibly find it romantic, but the veneer of farce sometimes makes one lean in closer, hoping to see something more.

"Okay, everyone," intoned a chipper Mr. Gray, "great work today. I think we'll be ready for the show by Friday. Just remember to keep it loose and act off what your partner does. Be in tune with them. That's the secret. It's a momentary partnership, like a person across from you on a subway you get talking with. So really tap into that. You only have a brief time to get to know each other before you pull into the station.

I glanced over at Margaret then darted my eyes away only as she looked over.

"Otherwise, have a good lunch, class. You are dismissed."

I walked out of the classroom without saying goodbye to her, with only a brusque flap of the hand to part.

And that was the way it went most the time between us. We went to each other's performances and acted opposite each other if we were lucky.

I fell deeper into my infatuation with every play and musical we did. Once we did a production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. A poor translation of the French one and when she sang the French version of I Will Wait for You, I thought I could've cried. I didn't, but I wish I could have.

The way she chased after the train, that's what did it. Her voice was neither redolent nor hars. I must have seen her kiss Ricky a thousand times, and yet everytime it made me angry. Not at him, but that innocent idiot in love.

I found out later he was gay, at one those theater kid parties, but that had never occurred to me then because I was convinced by the smoke and mirrors. I'm gullible that way.

I suppose that it's sad if you think about it. We tried so vainly to fulfill these Hollywood ideals, that our very art possessed no truth of ourselves. It was a game of transplanting ourselves.

"Would you do that line again for me?"

"Which one is that?"

"From the top- All love is…"

Mr. Harold: All love is a pantomime. Nothing in this world can prove it. Love is blind not in my eyes, but in the face of absolute certainty.

Jade: But you must be certain. The way your heart skips a beat. The way your eyes dilate. Is that not provable?

Mr. Harold: Misattribution of arousal. A man sets out on a suspension bridge and meets a woman standing in the center of it. She gives him her number and he calls her back. He thinks he is romantically attracted to this woman. And why? Because he cannot distinguish the symptoms of fear from love.

Mr.Harold: Were you driving a fast car over a rickety bridge when we met?

Mr. Harold: I am always hurling forward in a fast car over a bridge.

Jade: Be serious. You were standing on a train platform when we met. The doors shut before we could say much else.

Once I went to the suspension bridge over Fall creek and I parked in the dead center and sat over the edge, my feet dangling. A man had crashed there ten years ago and went over. His car had never been retrieved. He was alone when he died. No one knew where he was going. Why he had been going 100 mph. When they pulled him out and his eyes were abalones and his hair seaweed, but the serenity of his face-he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Even in the newsprint. I kept it in my pocket.

Jade: Well why don't you just leave me for him then, hm, if he's your perfect ideal?

Mr. Harold: See my theory is there's no such thing as love. Not in any true sense. There is no discretely marked road sign at which we can say we are in love. It is circumstantial. We think we fall in love because the weather is warm and we were running to catch our 10 AM lecture. We think we fall in love when the lights are dim and we are scared of strangers in the night.

"Okay very good. We're going to take a short break and come back and have you audition with someone else to get a feel for things

That's when I ran into her. It had been fifteen odd years. I knew her face immediately. The same way I would instantaneously recognize it in a crowd of a thousand.

Margaret: Sylvie? 9th grade. Mr. Gray's theater class, is that right?

Sylvie: Margaret. It's been so long hasn't it? I never kept in touch did I?

Margaret: I was just headed out for lunch. What do you say I buy you lunch and we come back to finish up this audition?

Sylvie: Oh, that's not necessary.

Margaret: It's my treat really. Fifteen Years.

She shook her head in astonishment.

Margaret: Really. It's good to see you again.

Sylvie: Well alright then.

We headed out and drove around looking for somewhere to eat for several minutes before we ended up at a Waffle house. We walked in at 2 PM and the only other people were an older gentleman folding paper airplanes out of napkins and a few men in business suits cackling over wages and stocks.

Sylvie: What are you up to these days?

Margaret:Playing secretaries and housewives on TV shows mostly in daytime television slots. Nothing exciting but it pays the bills.You?

Sylvie: Odd theater jobs. Worked at the ticket booth for a while since I can't earn enough on acting alone. Try to make my break on Broadway every year or so and get an audition or two to no avail.

Her eyebrows pitched themselves as tents.

Margaret: Well, here's hoping for this next time. Didn't you want to be a screenwriter?

Sylvie: That train has left the station. Are you auditioning for this production?

Margaret: Yes, the part of Jade actually.

Sylvie: That seemed like an intriguing role.

Margaret: It was. I hope I get it. At the very least I might have the privilege of working with you again while I'm in New York.

Sylvie: It would be wonderful to work with you again. It looks like you'll get to

Margaret: So, you ever settle down? A spouse or kids?

Sylvie: No, haven't had the time to slow down and think about it I guess. You?

Margaret: Yeah. A husband but no kids. Ricky actually. From our graduating year. I don't know if you would remember him.

Sylvie: Ricky? Ricky who got the part of Guy in Umbrellas?

Margaret: One and the same.

Sylvie: I hope you two are happy.

She nodded, raising her eyebrows and pressing her fingers to her forehead, pulling out a cigarette which she lit only for the stench of the thing to evince that it was in fact, a stage cigarette. We both choked and she quickly threw the thing in a half and half creamer she had left over.

Margaret: God. I'm very sorry. I forgot I still had those from a tv gig last week. I get mixed up sometimes. Can't tell the props from the real thing.

Sylvie: So do I. We all get consumed by this profession sometimes. Hard to tell the difference anymore. Except that fiction feels more real than life sometimes.

Margaret: I think you may be right on that count. You know, I think you may have made a much better name for yourself than me. I always knew you would somehow.

Sylvie: Oh. stage work is all it is. It exists only in the minds of an audience and dwindles from public consciousness in a matter of days. I wouldn't say that's a name.

Margaret: Better than programming for doctors offices and retirement homes.

Sylvie: Well I can't argue that, but you're closer to Hollywood than I am to Broadway.

Margaret: You know I always thought maybe we'd get cast as leads at the same time. Never expected it to take fifteen years.

Sylvie: Neither did I.

Margaret: You know what Mr. Gray said about the subway car or whatever it was? I always thought that's what we were like no matter how long we knew each other. Old friends on the downtown train.

I began to fold a napkin up to occupy myself.

Sylvie: Mr. Gray was full of wisdom, wasn't he? We should say a toast to him. I sometimes wonder what he'd say if he was still alive.

She held up her coffee cup.

Margaret: Toast. Probably get irritated by our posture and tell us to talk with our bodies, not our words and to say what we mean.

Sylvie: He would, wouldn't be?

Margaret: Too late to ask him. Not worth wondering about some things once the moment has passed.

When she went to the bathroom I scrawled on a napkin,

The liminal space between dreaming and sleep that's where I wanted to spend the rest of my life-

then crumpled it up and stuffed it in my pocket. We left the diner and went back to the theater, neither of us speaking a word on the way back.

Curtain fall.

At RISE:

Jade: Maybe we are strangers in the night. The ones never daring because we will always be running from something. Catching the next train to nowhere.

Mr. Harold: I hardly remember what I was running from.

That fear doesn't stop for you or for me. It has no destination. All I ask is that you give it a chance

Jade: I love you. I always have. I don't want to fight over that.

JADE reaches out to hold MR. HAROLD's face and caresses it a moment and then kisses him.

MARGARET touches her forehead with her thumb and index finger and raises her piquant eyebrows, a facsimile of Sesshu Toyo ink mountains. Her forehead creased as smoothe parchment. We look at each other a moment as the scene ends and reality roils back like a blanket of smog.

"Thank you. Very good. So we'll let the both of you know by Friday if you do get the role."

Margaret nods courteously to the casting woman. She doesn't look at me, only holds a hand out to the side. A traffic signal to say goodbye. I think perhaps I can see a glint in her eye as she brushes out the door with the flickering exit sign. I stand there a moment, then sling my coat over my back and walk out the opposite door, picturing the end of The Searchers.

At RISE:

(Subway Station Night. It is the platform and yet it is not the subway station I know. Not the New York one at any rate. It seems to be morning. I can't remember if this was in the script. If this is just a dream or a hallucination, but the only person there is the CONDUCTOR, a metal voice that crackles over the speakers and drifts through like a tumbleweed.)

-Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the conductor. The next stop is-

I walk through the shafts of sunlights, so like limelights I can almost be sure there is a man behind them that is moving them, and I am blinded. The subway passes and I can feel the air kiss my cheek. Beyond the way I see two jazz dancers with only the raiments of urban decay. A man and a woman. It's exactly like something out of Chicago and choreographed so meticulously it must be a part of the play, mustn't it?

The newspapers accosting them shield their faces from my view, but I think it is Margaret. She has on a print sweatshirt bearing the I Heart NY Logo except that the bottom two letters had cracked and flaked off into illegibility. The other wears an old mustard stetson hat shadowing his face, and a suit to match. They seem to hear music in their head, for they are synchronized as wind up music boxes might be to mechanical chimes.

-Stand clear of the closing doors please.-

I think that I can almost hear the crooning of Sinatra in The Best is Yet to Come as if playing on one of those old Ham radios, but it sounds as if it's trapped in drywall. The car tears us apart. I sing along in the midst of the din though no one can hear. The empty subway passes and then the dancers are gone. I'm not sure if they were ever there or if I imagined them.

-As you exit please be careful of the gap between the platform and the train, and never go onto the tracks for any reason-

I hear the drone of applause from the muffled radio

-The Next Stop is-

I wonder where the next car is. It should've been here by now.