The Performer

A large city, 1987

In darkness, I tiptoe out across a sleeping landscape. There is a tension within the air, a breath that has been inhaled and will not be let out until the mysteries of these shadows are illuminated.

My breath is deep, grounded. Oxygen flowing into my lungs, my blood, my brain; I know how to contain adrenaline’s effects on my body now. I know how I can use it to electrify every movement, sustain attention from hundreds of eyes.

I pose, the blackness welcoming me with a promise that color will soon return. A swell of music announces a beginning, and the tension here heightens even more. We have no curtains to whoosh open, the choice was made that we should be as close to all those eyes as possible. An immersion into our world that starts with the glow of feigned sunlight—

As though a tiny star is rising in the back of the theater, I sense a warmth and brightness start to grow on me, and I stride downstage. Here, I am as a god emerging from an inky night, and the audience will come to love me. I smile as the light strengthens, as the audience sees me and the most beautiful set I’ve ever performed on.

The music makes way for me. I open my mouth, and start to sing.

***

My face is red, raw from scrubbing off my stage makeup in the dressing room after the show. Eleven other men hop around, frantically trying to get out of their costumes and makeup as fast as possible so they can go off to see their girlfriends, boyfriends, families; sleep is also highly motivating when you have eight shows a week. The dressing room smells like hairspray, deodorant, and somebody’s fish and chips dinner they left in a corner all evening. There are always several minutes after the show is over when we all look like death, flitting about in sweat-stained underwear, our hair matted from wigs and only half our faces unleashed from our makeup.

Evelyn bursts into the room, holding a delicious bunch of flowers, and I catch her gazing at me in the mirror. She immediately bursts out laughing, the flowers quivering as she clutches them.

“Just what’s so funny?” I ask, spinning around in my chair with a truly disgusting cloth in my hand.

“Oh god, Paul… You look awful,” says Evelyn. “I watched this handsome man on stage all night and… well, now I find you like this.”

“You’re cruel,” I say, but I’m leaping up and hugging Evelyn. We both laugh. Nobody minds that she’s invaded this space—you don’t hang about the dressing room if you want privacy.

Evelyn untangles herself from me and presents the flowers very formally. “Your favorite,” she says.

They are. A dazzling selection of marigolds, all a particularly stunning shade of creamy orange. “These are perfect!” I exclaim. I hold them up to cover my face. “Is that better?”

“Stay like that for the rest of the night,” Evelyn tells me, her eyes twinkling. I consider throwing the flowers right back at her, but they are too precious to do anything with except place in a sacred spot by my section of the mirror.

“Just give me ten minutes,” I say, and Evelyn leans against a row of lockers, watching everyone with delight.

I quickly change and rub some cream into my face, trying to soothe the redness. When my skin calms down, it reveals my face to be slightly gaunt, a little paler than it should be. I wonder if that’s what Evelyn sees.

I wonder if I will have the courage to tell her what, for now, only I know.

***

We have a reservation at the greatest restaurant in the city, and probably the world. It is the greatest because they greet me by my name when I walk in, and nearly before I’m finished taking a seat there is a negroni by my side. The restaurant is not fancy, and despite my leading role in the show, I’m no great celebrity. If you recognize me on the street, it’s probably because you’re a theater nerd. But I like that. My life feels cozy.

Sipping matching negronis, Evelyn and I surveil each other. She becomes more beautiful every time I see her. I hope nobody has tried to punish her for that. People underestimate her, until they listen to her speak.

“It’s so wonderful to see you perform,” Evelyn says. “It gives me hope, you know? You always said you wanted to be an actor. Then you did it!”

“You never wanted to be anything in particular,” I say, a little dreamily.

“Wrong,” Evelyn says, slamming her drink down on the table. “I wanted to be everything.”

“You did that, too.”

“I guess.”

“Well, you’re everything I ever wanted you to be.”

“I’m a journalist without a story,” Evelyn tells me, frowning a little into her cocktail.

“Come on, you’ve had tons of stories,” I say, gulping down the last of my drink and looking around for a waiter. “Big stories! You blew open the whole investigation on that business guy—”

Evelyn shudders. “Yeah, I’ve made my career writing about creeps and monsters. At some point, I’d like to write about somebody who doesn’t make me want to puke.”

A waiter slides by, and I order us two more drinks. “Write about yourself,” I say. “Everyone does it eventually.”

“Eventually? Try always. People are always writing about themselves. Especially journalists. We’re the worst of all.”

I laugh. It feels good to laugh with Evelyn, like we’re back in high school with our whole lives ahead of us. Recently, every day has felt like there is less and less for me to laugh about. This evening is a welcome shift. I dread having to bring the mood down, to reveal myself.

“So, is your life revolving all around this show?” Evelyn asks. “Or can you make time for fun too?”

“It’s interesting,” I say. “When you’re auditioning all the time, it never feels like you can relax. I always felt like I should have been practicing or something. Now, I don’t need to go to auditions, and I can finally relax a little when I’m not working. But I still have that voice telling me I should be practicing something.”

“Here’s to doing what we love,” Evelyn says, our drinks having just arrived.

“Drinking,” I say, and we clink our glasses together.

“Exactly,” Evelyn smirks, the slightest trace of negroni on her upper lip.

From here, the night begins to feel hazy, as the drinks add up and Evelyn and I descend into increasingly silly stories.

“I had just bought Horses,” I find myself saying. “Patti Smith looked so incredible on that cover. I was dancing around my room to the album, and I didn’t think anyone else was around. My family were all out, at something, I don’t remember. I was spinning around and singing along with the speakers at full volume—”

“—and you didn’t hear me knocking at the door,” Evelyn says, giggling. “But I could hear you, and you were absolutely screaming the lyrics. God, to think you ended up in musical theater.”

“It’s shocking!”

“It was pouring rain, so I decided to just let myself in, because the door was unlocked—”

“Huge mistake on my part.”

“—and I thought I would give you a little scare.”

“I swear you didn’t make a single sound, I was just dancing around and all of a sudden I turn and there’s this girl, dripping wet, standing in the doorway to my room, looking like she just survived a shipwreck.”

“And you,” Evelyn says, now trying to hold back tears from laughing so hard. “Were completely naked! That was something I had not expected!”

“It was very freeing!” I yell, and we both dissolve into peals of laughter, remembering how I had screamed so loudly upon seeing Evelyn that the neighbors called the police. After the police gave us a stern lecture, we stole liquor from my parents’ cabinet and got drunk, listening to Horses over and over again.

Things become quieter between us once our laughter dies down.

“You told me you loved me that night,” Evelyn recalls, looking into the distance. We are now among the last patrons in the restaurant.

“I meant it,” I say.

“Not like I wanted you to,” Evelyn says, her voice low. “I really thought, for a minute, that night was going to be the start of the rest of our lives.”

“Then I kissed you,” I say.

“And then we both knew.”

“I’m sorry.”

Evelyn stared into my face. “Paul, can I tell you something?”

“What?”

“I’m so damn grateful you could never love me that way. This love, this friendship… it’s so much better.”

“I love you, Evelyn,” I whisper.

I cannot bring myself to tell her.

***

For a long time, I craved that godlike feeling of being onstage, where your fate is known each and every night. After a month of rehearsals, you can step onto the tracks of somebody else’s life and perform them, with no surprises. Even if their life is tragic, you know when the tragedy will come, and how they will deal with it.

I suppose we all know our ultimate fate. We all end up in more-or-less the same place, I think. It has always been difficult for me to believe in heaven and hell because, in all honesty, I think we just get one remarkable run at life and that’s it. Nothing before and nothing after.

Despite everything, I am grateful for my run. I am grateful for people I have met and the things I have seen.

When you are performing, you are never alone. As you act out the highs and lows of somebody else’s life, you share their pain and their joy with your cast, with the stagehands and techies and, of course, the audience. If their life is sad, it makes the hurt easier to bear.

I do not want to face my final act alone.

***

Evelyn knows something is wrong. Perhaps I concealed it well enough the night before, but the shallow morning light makes clear what candles and alcohol hid.

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asks. “I only have a few minutes before I have to go catch my flight.”

“I wanted to tell you last night,” I said. “But I couldn’t.”

“Tell me what?”

I want to grasp Evelyn’s hands, but I am afraid she will yank them away in disgust and fear after I tell her.

“I have HIV,” I say, very quietly, so the other people in this coffee shop cannot hear me.

But Evelyn hears. We both start crying. She reaches her hands across the table and holds onto mine tightly, so tight I know she will never let go.

***

It is my final show. For the last time, I scurry out into the darkness, feel the anticipation in the air, pose, wait for the light to shine down on me.

Warmth spreads throughout my body as the lights find me, my skin splendid and glowing as if I really could be Apollo.

I sing and dance knowing I will never sing and dance again, not like this. In the audience, I can only make out a few faces, but they are important. Family who decided to come to my side. Men I loved. Friends I loved. And, of course, Evelyn, who has found her next story.

During my curtain call, marigolds rain down upon me, as if the light has turned to flowers.