#18 Stay Sober (III)
Apr 29th, 2008 by doing better
My relationship with William the alcoloon deteriorated in the final days of our play.
He approached me one night in the smelly underground hallway where I was trying to focus my concentration and rehearse my lines before the performance. I tried to ignore him, but he hovered near me for several minutes and finally blurted, “Can I get out through that door?”
“No!” I said, and went back to my lines without missing a beat. I thought he might try to lunge past me to the door, but he went away.
Fifteen minutes later, when I had finished warming up and going through my scenes, I made my way back to the dressing room. He was lurking in the hallway.
“Are you sure I can’t get out that way?” he asked.
All the adrenaline that was gearing me up for the performance found its outlet on the alcoloon.
“No, you can’t get out!” I cried. “You know you’re not allowed out during the performance. You’ve been told over and over again. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just behave like a normal person? When you’re in a play, you don’t go out drinking. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
“OK, calm down,” he said. “It’s just that I’m so bored.”
“THEN BRING SOMETHING TO DO! Everybody else has brought something to do. I don’t care if you’re bored. It’s your own fault.”
He then spent the next hour on the phone with his mother, who no doubt thinks of him as her darling, talented, intelligent, golden-haired boy with the charming smile who has got himself into a bit of trouble with the nasty brutish policemen, but it’s nothing a small fortune in legal fees won’t clear up. He said that she was coming to one of the performances, and I wanted to find her afterwards and tell her exactly what her son is like. I suppose there’s not much point, as she’ll have to sit through his trial soon enough.
After that he became incredibly creepy. When I was alone practicing my lines (which is creepy enough in a stinky subterranean passage) he would come and lean against the wall, smirking and watching me until I stalked away without speaking to him. “It’s just because he thinks he’s God’s gift to women,” explained another cast member, “and he is confused by anyone who doesn’t share that opinion.”
He forgot there was a matinee performance on the last day, and the director had to call him and wake him up at two in the afternoon.
On the final night, he escaped one last time. The company that owns the theater also owns a nightclub next door, and they had opened up the fire escape door to transport alcohol into the nightclub.
The alcoloon took advantage of this escape route to go drinking during the intermission.
“Why did you leave?” the director asked him later.
“Because the door was open.”
Excuses don’t come any better than that.
He returned just before the second half started. (At least he returned. We should be thankful for small mercies.) As usual, he reeked of hard liquor. He bellowed all his lines but managed to remain upright. He did not come to the cast party, and I did not say goodbye.
Thank God I never have to see him again. I’ll be sure to write him a letter in prison.