It’s boring me. What’s more, it’s making ME boring, which is unacceptable. I’m no one-trick pony.

Guess what I’m not doing right now? If you guessed “packing,” then you’re right. (And don’t yell at me, because the odds are, you’re not packing, either.) You don’t win stuff, though, because anything I’d bestow as a prize is getting either boxed up or donated.

Anyway, I’ll just say “motherfucker,” and then let’s talk about something completely unrelated.

Motherfucker.

BAM!

Summer of 2001, I worked as an underling at a professional summer theatre in Vermont. When I say “underling,” I don’t mean to insinuate that I was under-appreciated, because that wasn’t the case. I was simply on the lowest rung of the theatre ladder, as were a number of other talented (unpaid) young people. The theatre was a community, though, and the lead (paid) actors made an effort to make us know we were noticed and necessary, if not “important.”

One of those actors was Ron, a wiry, white-haired septuagenarian, who was cast every summer to play the obligatory “doddering old man” roles. He looked like Mark Twain, and therefore, through transitive theory, also looked a little like Colonel Sanders and Orville Redenbacher. White hair, amiable face, mustache, ability to look convincing in a white, old-man suit… that was onstage Ron.

Offstage, Ron was not old. He moved in the same way he probably did when he was in his twenties. He ate well, bicycled everywhere, and made himself a part of everything. We underlings all knew his name, and he knew ours. He would randomly drop by the filthy Underling Party House, where we took him skinny-dipping, joked around, and taught him how to take a bong hit. Not in that order.

(I’m not usually a fan of pot. It makes me boring, and makes everyone else annoying. But, you know. “When in Vermont…”)

Any other pot-smoking, skinny-dipping septuagenarian, you’d suspect of having an ulterior motive. Not Ron. Ron was just living.

At this summer theatre, where all of us underlings lived in sweatpants and overalls, you could guarantee to see every single one of us dressed to the nines on opening night. When a show opened, curtain call was immediately followed by a proper cocktail party at the main Company House, where we all schmoozed and charmed with the theatre benefactors.

An hour after that bullshit, everyone would pile in the car and head to the filthy Underling Party House, for the real party. The festivities lasted until dawn. Everyone in the company, from Artistic Director to Lighting Intern to Box Office Drudge (me), made an appearance. We all danced and drank, and wound up in the back field, shooting potatoes out of cannons and making out on the flatbeds of trucks. Still dressed to the nines. Unless we were undressed.

For one of these parties, I wore a long, ice blue, backless dress, which I had previously purchased near the ocean. For fun, I also decorated my arm with a henna tattoo, using a kit given to me for my twenty-second birthday. The tattoo was a dragon, its head on my left hand, its body snaking all the way to my elbow.

I remember being at the party, in the kitchen, with a drink in my hand, when Ron (in shorts and tank top) pulled me aside to look at the dragon.

Ron was an accomplished artist, who had illustrated a number of books, and, I think, had even sold a couple of cartoons to the “New Yorker.” Every time he was in a show, he would gift his fellow actors with their own, custom-made, loving caricatures, all set up in front of their makeup tables before opening night.

After looking at my fake tattoo, he asked me, “What do you wanna do?”

“I want to act,” I said.

Ron scoffed. “Why do you wanna do that?” he asked me.

I didn’t know what to say. I’ve had professors and mentors who have told me that to be an actor, I have to define a reason WHY I’m driven. That has always confused me. When I act, I do it because I love it. It makes me feel happy and powerful and whole. Isn’t that enough of a reason? If something I proclaim to love makes me so happy, doesn’t that mean that, in some way, it must love me in return? I think so. When it’s not based on some kind of moral principle, I don’t think I have to make tremendous sacrifices in order to live my life and be happy.

Ron didn’t mean to be so deep, however. He was drunker than I. And, you know. Old.

(Kidding.)

He just wanted to know what I was up to.

Let’s go back.

“Why do you wanna do that?” Ron said. “You’re an artist!”

“Not really. I haven’t drawn in years.”

“You’re an artist. This is beautiful,” he said, again referring to the cheap henna dragon, even going to far as to twist my arm to see the whole of it.

“Well, thanks.”

“Can you make one for me?”

“Absolutely! When?”

“When’s your next day off?”

“Um, Tuesday.” (Underlings had one day off per week, if we were lucky.)

“Okay. Ten o’clock on Tuesday, I’ll bike over to the Company House. Meet me there. You can do my tattoo, and I’ll tell you my life story. How’s that?”

“Sounds great.”

So, ten o’clock rolled around, the following Tuesday. I hadn’t forgotten. I was at the company house, and I’d readied my henna paste, along with the solution of sugar and lemon juice required to dab over the completed henna design. I’d prepared myself for Ron not to show up, because sometimes, revelry inspires us to make promises that turn us into assholes. Everyone knows that.

But, Ron didn’t forget, either. He rolled his bike into the Company House driveway. I met him on the porch, and we set up at the backyard picnic table.

Now, the Underling Party House was way out in the sticks. The reason it was the party house, was that no one gave a shit if it was trashed. It was hopelessly dirty, remote as a whisper, and cheap as a whore. We regularly called the ASPCA on our closest neighbors, when we heard them beating their dogs. Other than the irregular buzz of secondary highway traffic, the dogs’ cries were the only things audible from the porch of the Underling Party House. Don’t get me wrong, it was gorgeous, in its way. The stars hung overhead like an umbrella, and everything we could see from the front porch belonged to us.

The Company House, on the other hand, was where the professional actors lived. Company House was located next to the church, smack in the middle of a picturesque little town where Manhattanites roosted in summertime. It was green and white and clean and yellow and glorious. There was a volleyball court in the backyard, a wooden swing by the garden, and no shortage of open space, shade, or sun. The only time I’ve seen a double-rainbow was in the golden twilight sky behind Company House.

Again, let’s go back.

Ron and I set up at the picnic table behind Company House. There was a tree overhanging, which covered the table with irregular shade and dappled sunlight. Ron and I faced each other. I held a pen in my right hand and placed the sugar/lemon solution on the table, to my left, next to the henna. Ron had complied with my request that he shave the hair off the arm that was to be my canvas.

We began. I drew, and Ron spoke.

By the time I had finished the pen outline of the dragon, Ron had narrated all the way up to his young adulthood. He told me of a propaganda group he had participated in, and how they drove through cities and stood atop vehicles, spouting political statements as they rolled. He told me of cartoons he drew and books he illustrated. Each of these occupations seemed to have been things he was attracted to because of his creativity, and which he fell into because people were drawn to him.

As I piped the henna over the pen outline, he told me about his wife. He emphasized the importance of family. He backtracked, and told me of being in the military, and of being assigned to a mission on and island where soldiers were kings and Americans were gods.

He paused, then told me about being in bed with a coffee-skinned beauty who was willing to repay him for the dinner he bought her. He paused again, and asked me if I was uncomfortable. I said no. He took a breath and continued, telling me how he “pulled out” when he remembered his wife. The way he put it, and the embarrassment he showed a half-century after the fact, made him seem noble. I listened.

The henna dragon dried and darkened on his skin, over which I began dabbing the sweet and sour concoction of sugar and lemon. Meanwhile, he told me of touring with the first stage production of “Of Mice and Men,” which was yet another thing he happened upon because it caught his fancy. More than that, though, he spoke about his love for his children, and how, when he raised his kids and grandkids, he dedicated himself to the first five years of each of their lives, making sure that they understood when he need five minutes to himself. To daydream, to smoke, to swear, to be an adult.

Throughout the process, I barely said a word.

I finished my design around the same time he finished his life story. He thanked me, hopped on his bike, and went back to his summer barracks up the hill. He seemed happy.

The following day, I went in to the box office. On my chair, I found a caricature of me, done by Ron. A simple line drawing, in which I was delicately depicted as being all smile, surrounded by a halo of hair. Each of my eyes was drawn as a squinty, upside-down “U,” like those we draw on smiling sunshines when we’re little.

Ron’s tattoo didn’t last. His weathered skin wasn’t porous enough to absorb the dye. And I don’t know where my caricature is. I think I lost it during a move.

This story doesn’t really mean anything. There are many ways I could conclude it, with some moral about how we were both artists and the abstract outlasting the concrete or whatever, but, I swear to God, I wasn’t going for that.

It’s late, I’m tired, and I have to get up early tomorrow to pack.

Good night.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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