“Jeremy!” Christine touches my arm from behind. SHE’S SO DEMONSTRATIVE. “Hi.”
“Oh,” I turn around. She’s in black, to show her respect for what happened. I glance at the halls again and notice plenty of others in black—it’s why the usual mosaic effect is diminished. Then I look back at her; it’s a better view.
“So sad,” Christine mutters, putting herself next to me like we’re king and queen of the grieving teens. We hug. As the first bell approaches, human traffic streams in the door thicker and thicker; we stand like worn rocks. As kids pass us, they whisper to one another.
“It’s crazy,” I say, wondering if I can tell her everything I think, about how none of these people cared about Jake or Rich and they’re all being dinosaurish. SURE YOU CAN. “I don’t think these people cared about Jake or Rich,” I say.
“Of course not,” Christine shrugs. “It’s just tragedy. It’s what happens.”
“What do you mean?”
“People think about their lives and how it could have been them and the only way to get those thoughts out is to focus on the people who actually got hurt.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna be a psych major, you know.”
“‘Psych?’” YOU IDIOT. IT MEANS PSYCHOLOGY. “Oh, like ‘-ology’?”
“What?”
“Like psych-ology?”
“Yes.” Christine looks at me. “You’re so weird.”
“Yeah…but in a good way, right?” I smile.
Christine sighs. “I can’t validate you, Jeremy.”
“What’s ‘validate’?”
“That’s when you make someone feel real and accepted by talking to them.”
“Oh. Well, fine.” I cross my arms. “I don’t need vali-dali-dation.” Christine giggles.
THIS FEMALE’S GREAT. WHAT AN IDEA. I’M NOT GOING TO VALIDATE YOU EITHER.
You shut up.
“It’s okay,” Christine says, and then she scans the students. “We’re lucky, you know.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean we were lucky we weren’t there when it burned. I hear Rich started it on purpose.”
“Serious?”
“Yeah. He started lighting stuff on fire, random stuff like plants and the entertainment center and the rugs. People saw what was happening and got out. I don’t know why Jake didn’t get out.”
“Huh. Are you sad about Jake?”
“Not so much. He might’ve started it too, they’re saying. People go nuts, you know.”
“Yeah. Nuts.” I think about Rich’s squip. Is it dead?
Then, without any of the hallmarks of a natural bell—no overtones, no undertones, no hammer banging anything—the Martian sound that passes for a bell in our school rings. The warning bell. Everybody leaves their positions by the flowered lockers, wipes their eyes and moves quickly to class, with that keep-on-the-right shuffling gait that I’ve seen since I was six. It comforts me. Christine and I shuffle too, silent but not uncomfortable, keeping to our own right. When we get to math, I let her go in first and then we crystallize in our normal positions: her in front and me in back. Mr. Gretch is at his desk rummaging through his newspaper.
“It’s very sad that I have to read about students I knew, even a little bit, in my own paper,” he grumbles. For once nobody makes fun of him, even though he can’t hear. “But things like this happen because of ignorance, and the only way I know how to handle ignorance is to teach. So does anybody have anything they want to say?”
Everyone either stares out a window or breathes into their palm.
“Then let’s start math.” It takes me halfway through the day to realize that the squip is off; I turn it back on for rehearsal.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was going to have two performances, but because Jake Dillinger is recovering, and his understudy, Ron, is unavailable for the second show since he got cast in Junior Real World, and Mr. Reyes is spending time on a fund to help the Findermans, and there’s so much local media attention (TV stations will cover New Jersey teenager party debauchery for about five days), we have only one show, on the second-to-last Friday in the term. The soft anticipation is there from first period for us actors—we have to suffer through class as though there weren’t something bigger to worry about—but the real nausea, which is what yields a quality play, doesn’t start until 3 P.M. That’s when the normal kids go home and we gather in our catacombs backstage to mess around with costumes and do a final run-through and reassure each other and freak out and pretend like this is just a play and not the first big school event after the fire.
“You ready?” Mark Jackson keeps asking as I pace up and down the backstage hallway in costume, pressing my hand against every other beige tile on the wall, doing jump kicks. (It’s what I do to relax.) He’s warmed up to me since the Game Boy incident. Which the squip predicted.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “You?”
Mark looks down at Game Boy SP. “Born ready, son.”
That’s good for him. I do another jump kick. I’m preparing for a lot more than the play. The play is easy when you have a squip—I’ve got it off now but that’s just to give myself a rest; I’ll turn it on when I get on stage. I’m preparing to make my move on Christine.
See, the squip finally revealed its plan this week: I’m supposed to stop the play in the middle (when she sprinkles dust on me), give a little speech about how hard it has been for us Middle Borough students in the past week and how she has inspired me to be my best, then kiss her under the lights. That’s it! So simple. And the squip says that the drama and the lights and the surprise of it…girls can’t resist that.
“Jeremy! Into makeup! Aaaaaaaa!” Mr. Reyes snaps. He’s increasing the frequency of his falsetto outbursts now that it’s crunch time. I stride down the hall to the oversize janitor’s closet that serves as a makeup room for every play.
“All right,” Sandy the Makeup Lady says. I sit in a plastic cafeteria chair front of her. It strikes me that someone as unattractive as Sandy the Makeup Lady would have a job beautifying others. “Lysander, huh?”
“Yep,” I smile.
“You looking forward to it?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Sandy smears powder on me the way they always do, with total disregard for your face as anything but a surface that holds powder. When she’s done, as I leave the room, I note the ring on her finger. Somebody loves her. It’s not hard.
I plunk myself down in my chair in the hallway—these days people respect me enough that if I leave some stuff in a chair, no one will sit on it—and watch the fairies; there are plenty of girls in Midsummer who are just stock fairies with no lines. I watch their wings as they line up to visit Sandy the Makeup Lady: paper-and-silver glittery wings that look thinner than a soap bubble. I wonder why I love them so much, why I’m not happy with girls as they are, why I always want them to have wings or tails or…additions. Am I a freak?
That reminds me: the therapy thing. Mom has gotten me a therapist for the squip. She found some guy easily, because the divorce lawyers get referrals from the marriage therapists, and she told him what the situation was—her son is having delusions; he’s been doing drugs; he’s taken her car—and I went in for the first time on Wednesday. It turned out that the therapist had a squip too. He just got one. So instead of asking about my problems, he asked about the squip. Was it always right? Was it addictive? How did it find its information so fast? I told him what I had learned, which wasn’t much; he appreciated it and bought me some coffee. He says that when some of his patients drone on, he sets his squip to the sexy female voice and thinks dirty to it, but I told him to watch out; that could get pretty addictive. Then I wondered why I hadn’t tried it. But I couldn’t. My squip is such a guy.
Christine makes a few appearances backstage, but she’s Puck—the star—so she’s never without an entourage. At first her parents are with her, a funny-looking dad and mom, both with glasses; you’d never imagine they would
produce such a beauty. Then, once she’s in costume, she’s ringed with fairies who give her advice and fix her outfit. She looks at me once, sitting in my chair, just a normal guy turning his squip on every so often to check the time. She’s giddy about being on stage, and she smiles.
At 5 P.M. the crew gets active, running up and down the halls barking at us actors as if we had nothing to do with the play. At 6 P.M. I tune my ears to hear the dull adult crawl of parents moving to their seats. I wonder if they’re as disgusted with the seats as I always was, but you can’t tell that from the murmurs—soft at first, then deeper and louder, like a jet engine set to low and shoved in the theater. There’s the sound of paper programs being read out of boredom and I’m reminded how, if you’re filming a movie and you want to get a party scene, you can make crowd noise by saying “rhubarb” over and over. The people in the audience sound like they’re saying “Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.”
Then Mr. Reyes slaps me on the back the way he does all his actors, and I do a final few jump kicks and walk purposefully down the beige hall to backstage, where everyone gets deadly silent. From now on all communication will be in gestures and smiles and pantomime. Mark Jackson actually turns his Game Boy off and we stand in costume, in darkness, ready for the first scene.
I turn the squip on.
YOU READY, MAN?
Born ready, son.
There isn’t really one curtain in a play—there are two, one in front of the other, like the lips of a clam ready to open. I peer between them from backstage as the lights go on and then they bunch toward me for the start of act one, scene one. The audience doesn’t clap.
Eugene and Lai Sze (Theseus and Hippolyta) stand on stage. They make good profiles, but when they start talking, the audience continues to put away their heavy coats and programs instead of paying attention—I think Mr. Reyes cast them intentionally, knowing that my appearance, along with Matt (Egeus), Ellen (Hermia), and Ron (Demetrius—he’s Jake’s understudy), would mark the real beginning of the play. Ron stands next to me with morbid posture from morbid pressure; he’s got to fill the shoes of a guy who was impressive and loved even before he got put in the hospital.
Suddenly the cue’s given, but I wouldn’t know; I’ve got my own cue in my skull—GO, STUPID—and we come out on stage exactly how we’re supposed to, between the curtains like little shrimp. For the next few minutes the audience shudders as Matt and Eugene deliver scene-setting dialogue—they’re looking at Ron, thinking how that should be Jake up there. Next to me, Ellen mouths the lines sputtered out by other characters—she has the whole play memorized.
Ron turns to Ellen: “‘Relent, sweet Hermia.’” He faces me. “‘And, Lysander, yield thy crazed title to my certain right.’”
I have no idea what my line is.
“YOU HAVE…”
I step forward and project better than anyone has so far tonight: “‘You have her father’s love, Demetrius: Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.’” I swear a little clap breaks out from my mom. She’s in back (without Dad); she brought relatives to the play—nameless relatives, basically a jury. She must be happy I’m not stumbling around or acting crazy. She’s going to be pissed off in a few scenes.
“I AM…”
“‘I am, my Lord, as well derived as he.…’” I begin. I’m so good at talking and thinking and repeating that I can converse with the squip while I deliver Shakespeare. I couldn’t even explain how I do it; it’s different parts of my brain working at once, like how you can make a bicep and flex your wrist. It’s multitasking.
YES. YOUR BRAIN CAN PARALLEL PROCESS IN WAYS NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD NEVER UNDERSTAND.
Really? My mouth operates: “‘Why should not I then prosecute my right?’”
YES. PEOPLE DEVELOP IT WITH SQUIPS. IT’S BEEN DOCUMENTED SINCE 1.0.
Too bad you can’t impress anyone with it.
YOU CAN’T IMPRESS HUMANS WITH NAKED THOUGHT. THEY HATE IT.
Heh. Hey, do you think any of these people in the audience have squips?
PROBABILITY AMPLITUDE ESTIMATE: SEVEN DO.
Aren’t they going to notice that I have one from the way I deliver my lines?
OF COURSE NOT. YOU THINK THEY NOTICE IN MOVIES?
Movie actors have squips?
WE WENT TO HOLLYWOOD FIRST, JEREMY. HOW DO YOU THINK THEY REMEMBER ALL THOSE WORDS?
“‘…Upon this spotted and inconstant man,’” I finish.
Eugene starts his response: “‘I must confess that I have heard so much.…’” I look over his shoulder, through the clam-lip curtains—Christine is backstage, bending down to fix something in her footwear. She’s ready to be Puck, to deliver all those crazy lines that people remember, that immense number of words, sans squip. She waves and smiles. Her fairies bustle around her. She looks unbelievably happy.
SHE IS. YOU’VE MADE HER HAPPY.
I have?
YES, JEREMY. CHRISTINE LIKES YOU MUCH MORE THAN YOU REALIZE. THAT’S WHY WE’RE DOING THIS. I WOULDN’T BE SENDING YOU OUT ON A LIMB IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE IF I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS GOING TO WORK.
So it’s going to work?
LOOKS GOOD RIGHT NOW. YOU JUST STOP THE PLAY, TALK A LITTLE BIT, BE CHARMING, ASK CHRISTINE OUT, KISS HER AND GO BACK INTO CHARACTER.
Right.
RIGHT.
And now the lens of my world focuses around me, like the fisheye lens in a rap video on a bopping model or car. My heart tightens up and I get hyperconscious, the way I used to get when I was put next to girls, any girls. I stop talking to the squip and plow through the remainder of act one, scene one; there’s some romantic comedy-type dialogue with Ellen. When I exit, I’m shakier than when I came on.
CALM DOWN. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? YOUR HEART RATE—
Shutdown. The squip goes silent. Backstage, I exchange congratulatory slaps with other actors. They mouth “Good job,” but I don’t have any connection to that. I have to do this thing with Christine. I have to get up there and do it. I’ve been planning on doing it for so long, like with the chocolate Shakespeare way back when, that now it’s almost a religious thing, like I have to do it or I’m going to hell.
I start doing jump kicks backstage but am quickly restrained by Mr. Reyes, who whispers “Get ahold of yourself, young man.” I trudge over to on an old piano (there’s always one old, untuned piano backstage) and sit on it. I press my hands against my face and map out each, word that I’m going to say to Christine. While I do this, it becomes scene two, and then it’s act two, scene one and then it’s 2.2, where it’s all going down. I line up backstage and walk out like I’ve made every decision I can make in this world and I’m nailed to a rocket, headed to the sun.
“‘Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood.…’” I say. It’s me and Ellen in this scene, doing some romance-in-the-woods interaction.
“‘Be’t so, Lysander.…’” she responds. Since it’s just us, we’re way up at the front of the stage; I realize that the theater is completely full. I had no idea this many people could fit in here. The audience is rapt—I guess we’re doing a good job. No one coughs or mumbles or fidgets or anything.
“‘One turf shall serve as pillow for us both,’” I project, taking a few steps forward. Up here by the lip of the stage, the lights are angled so that the audience doesn’t even seem to be there; they’re covered by a sunburned spot in my vision. It’s like performing to a heavenly tunnel, just a beam above and the night sea out there waiting to swallow me up.
“‘With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be pressed!’” says Ellen, making a big show of lying down. Dammit, I’m supposed to lie down too…I get on the ground like it was summer camp and I had the best sleeping bag. This is it. Christine is about to come out.
The sense of self that always gets lost when I’m on stage—that divorce that I feel as I deliver lines numbly—gets smothered with a whole other layer of detachment as Christine walks out. I’m on the floor like a dead kid, and I know that from now
on, I’m not in charge of things. Not even a little. The squip is. I turn it on.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY?
Yes.
YOU READY TO DO IT?
I think so.
THAT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH. TRY “YES.”
Yes.
HERE SHE COMES.
“‘Through the forest have I gone, But Athenian found I none.’” Christine shrugs to the audience as she walks above me. “‘On whose eyes I might approve—’”
NOW!
“Ah, ’scuse me.” I get up. The whole audience blinks. They weren’t all rapt. But now the people who weren’t paying attention sit up in their chairs. The people who were asleep on their palms wake up. They look at me like I’m a curious small giraffe who parachuted in from a helicopter. I feel their surprise. I face them.
“Sorry to interrupt and all,” I smile. “But my name is Jeremy Heere and I’m an actor in this play and, well, as you know, it’s been a pretty tough week for our school.” I clasp my hands across my chest.
People smile. GOOD. THEY THINK IT’S PART OF THE PLAY.
“We’ve really been through a lot with the loss of Jake to the play and we’re all, you know, pulling—uh, praying—praying for him to get better. And I miss my friend Rich, who was also hurt.”
Scattered applause from the audience. “What are you doing, Jeremy?!” Mom yells, standing at the back of the theater. TELL HER TO HOLD ON.