(Exits.)
It's not a dream; I know that. It has dream potential, but then that would be giving my unconscious too much credit. I have all sorts of dreams, odd and coherent and scary and erotic, but this one, no. It's not a dream.
It's not a memory, although there are plenty of those.
This is just a thought I have, occasionally, and if I'm in a generous mood I'll let it play out awhile, give it a good run, enough time to almost smell sawdust and hear hinges squeaking. Enough time to almost know what it's like. Again.
It's quiet; it's gotta be. You can hear my neck sweat, my toes curl, my eyes blink, my hair part. Pretty quiet.
My right hand wavers a little, shifts from tugging my tie to touching my beard, to shooting my cuff to rubbing my nose to forming a fist.
My left hand stays in my pants pocket, out of harm's way. It'll get a chance later.
I'm surrounded by light but I know where it stops. Right...there. There is what interests me. There is what calls me. There is why I'm here, because I'm going to slide a little light over to the other side, you betcha, just wait.
I make a noise, almost imperceptible, sort of a hum, a noise you might make to gather your thoughts, but I know my thoughts by heart. I'm just checking the oil first, running a little air over my cords to assess the timbre, making sure I don't croak the first words because that's the ball game, those words. Game set match. Gotcha.
You want to believe, so I have you. We're both playing a little game here but it's my deck and my call, and you're okay with that, that's part of the deal, and at the end you'll believe so much that you'll clap your hands, and fairies everywhere will get a new lease on life.
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There's a reunion in April. A '70s reunion. Anybody involved with the theater department at my college in that decade is invited. That would be me, class of whenever. I bridged two eras, in a way, 1976-78 and again 1981-83, but it was my first stint that stuck to my DNA. When I returned after three years away, I was actor emeritus, a program note, and it was never the same. Like it ever is.
I was a Navy captain, a young lover, a Southern patriarch, an Irish thug, the Earl of Kent and the hind end of a dragon before I turned 20, and I left school because it felt like pretending and I was much more serious than that, of course.
Pictures have been sent in, scrapbook savings, all to be assembled onto 21st century media, and some were posted online. I snagged a few, including one from "The Little Foxes." I played Ben, the schemer, the brother of Regina, who was even better at it. I look at the picture now and can't see the character, just the boy with paint on his face, a little clown white in the beard and sweet Jesus I can't tell you how much my heart hurts.
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My last play was in a Seattle theater, a one-act, one-man show, not successful. I wiped off the makeup, peeled off the putty nose, picked up my 2-year-old daughter from the sitter and went home.
So.
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I think you're lucky if you find one thing in life that feels right, when everything clicks and purrs and harmony bursts out and you start to hear overtones. I had two: Being a father, and walking out on a stage to set the stillness vibrating in the dark. Lucky is not a big enough word, and I have no regrets over folding up my tent when I did. I moved on, and those days must seem like just an old story to my children, like having once run into a famous person in a taxi or eaten something on a bet. It has nothing to do with me, and I know I will never, ever, ever do it again.
But you don't know me if you don't know that story, and I can't tell you. I have no big words for this. I used be an actor once, is all, and there are still days when nothing feels right and I think I know why.
10:04:20 PM 
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