A black veil surrounds me in a chill chamber as I wait for the lights. It comes in darting wisps barely penetrating the abyss. Gripping a broom handle and dustbin with shoulders slightly rolled forward, I watch the angled beams bloom across an orderly mess. I scurry through the rows sweeping popcorn specks and retrieving garbage to the brim of a trash barrel. I leave it in a closet with the broom jutting upwards from a pile of popcorn. After exchanging pleasantries, I clock out and leave, waiting on a bus that carries me to a campus littered with sprawling oak trees and old vines clinging to brick buildings. I slump forward, coated by a fat pack filled with clothes and shoes that I will change into backstage, past gently swung double doors revealing a dark theater and stage.
I was new and unpopular to the group. Untested and reserved, I found myself assigned to minor roles after an embarrassing first addition. In front of an exasperated audience of three instructors, I stumbled through lines with forced or no feeling, little rhythm, and sideways glances at odd moments to recall words. When I proceeded, it lacked pause or affect. Dismal as my performance was, heads peaked up at the sound of my voice, hovering above gruffness in peeling tones that resonated from a wide forehead. I spoke with crisp enunciation, although tripping through lines beneath a fray of brown hair. In hopes that voice could one day remember the lines, the instructors gave me the part.
With less unkempt hair now, I oriented myself on the fringe of the group, my voice traveling with me, offering curt greetings and shy laughter, retreating inside to be entreated back out. Between conversations, a small teacher marched forward waving his arms and calling attention, "Alright everyone, circle up. Come on, in here, let's go. You too Sebastian, Ricardo, let's go." Some snickered and imitated his gestures, standing arms akimbo with pert glares at stragglers. In each other's wingspan, Mr. Salinas encouraged us for our next play, asking for a moment of silence, prayer, and meditation. The rehearsal went on and I waited for my lines, anticipating the light.