Free Attack of the Theater People by Marc Acito Page B

seasoning.”
    “Seasoning? What are you, a steak?”
    I sit up, bumping my head on the ceiling. “You see, this is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
    “Don’t start with me,” he says. “I know you got kicked out.”
    And, just like that, my failure rushes into the room, throws on the lights, and shoves its nasty, dirty ass in my face. “Who told you that?”
    “One of your teachers. Marian something.”
    The thought of the grande dame of the finest drama school in the country talking with the chief financial officer of the nation’s foremost toxic-waste facility makes me cringe. “Did she also tell you I could reaudition next year?”
    “Oh, for Chrissakes…”
    “But—”
    “Eddie, face facts. It’s over. You tried and you fai…It didn’t work out. Cut your losses and move on.”
    “But next year—”
    “There ain’t gonna be a next year. That’s just throwin’ good money after bad.”
    Suddenly my whole body is on fire. “But you…you have to. It says so in the divorce agreement.” I throw off the covers.
    “Fuck the divorce agreement. You wanna sue me again, go right ahead.
You will lose.
I gave in last time becuz I knew how much it meant to you, but there ain’t a judge around who’ll say I gotta continue payin’ for this nonsense. I’m done. It’s over. Finished.”
    I pull my knees up to my chest, feeling defeated and exhausted before I’ve even gotten out of bed. He’s probably right. Besides, there’s no guarantee Juilliard will take me back, anyway.
    Frailty, thy name is Edward.
    “Listen, son,” he says, downshifting into a less hostile gear. “I know you’re disappointed, but, c’mon, dreams only come true in dreams.”
    Al always says that.
    “You’re a smart kid,” he says. “Why don’t you come home? You can live here rent-free, work at the plant, take some business classes at night.”
    Sure, then bury me in the backyard, because I’ll already be dead. “I don’t think so, Pop.”
    “Eddie, you’re twenty years old. It’s time to grow up.”
    And at that moment, somewhere deep inside me, beneath the nasty-ass failure and the humiliation and the shame, a small, still voice whispers,
No.
Just like that.
No.
Not if growing up means becoming like my father, some miserable guy with a tie like a noose around his neck, sitting at a desk in an office, counting the minutes until he retires.
    The thought stops me cold, like someone in a horror movie who realizes he’s already ingested the alien antibody or has turned into a zombie. I
am
a miserable guy with a tie like a noose around my neck, sitting at a desk in an office. How did this happen? In the space of a couple of months I’ve gone from being an actor to being someone who makes a living off of people who are doing what I should be doing myself.
    “Don’t you want me to be happy?” I say.
    Al groans.
    “Listen, if you wanna think I’m a monster ’cuz I won’t let you throw your life away at some la-di-da acting school, fine. I’m just tryin’ to save you a lot of heartache and pain. You have no idea what it’s like to be poor. You never hadda stuff cardboard in your shoes when they wore out.”
    Yeah, yeah, and walk ten miles to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.
    “You think the world owes you something,” he says, “but I’ve got news for you—the world doesn’t give a shit about you or me or anyone else. The sooner you learn that the better.
    “Happy?” He snorts. “Kid, you can’t afford it.”
    I place the phone in its cradle and shut my eyes. Fuck him. He doesn’t understand me. Never has. Never will.
    But I’ll show him. I’ll show everybody. And I’ll do it my way. I’ll get more gigs and save up my money and pay for college myself. I’ll be the most motivated party motivator there ever was.
    I refuse,
refuse
, to turn out the lights on my life. Ever.

Nine
    My first party motivator gig of the season is the Schlonsky bash mitzvah, or, as Sandra