“Stand by to fade house,” Ignacio says on the headset.
“Standing by,” Benno says.
“Let me have your attention, everyone. Derek would like to say a few words.”
There’s a scraping sound as Ignacio turns his headset over to Derek.
“Tech folk, I’d like to thank you in advance for a superb job. It’s a great honor to be helming this, my first show.”
Helming? He didn’t direct this show. He just stepped in at the last rehearsal.
Derek says, “I’d like to dedicate this performance to the memory of Mr. Apple, our beloved mentor.”
The sound of mics being clicked on and off. Techie applause.
My stomach churns. Mr. Apple isn’t dead. Derek is creating this story to make himself look like a hero.
“Break a leg,” Derek says.
More mics clicking.
Ignacio comes back on the line. “Let’s do it. House to zero.”
“House to zero,” Benno repeats.
The lights fade to black, and I flip on a penlight and close my fist around it. I hold my glowing hand up to my face.
The buzz in the audience dies down. Nine hundred people sit in silence, waiting for the show to begin. Then the stage lights come up, the instruments creaking around me as the metal comes to temperature.
Tom, the super tall actor playing Theseus, steps out.
TOM
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon …
Four days.
It was only four days ago that I saw Summer for the first time dancing in the hallway.
My whole life changed. Then it fell apart. And it only took four days.
I want to quit the show. Right now in the middle of everything. Climb down the ladder and walk out the door. Leave the theater forever like Mr. Apple.
The techies hate me. The actors hate me. My best friend won’t talk to me.
Summer is gone forever.
And once again, Derek is a star.
Why stay on crew? There’s nothing left for me here.
Summer steps out onstage. She’s in full costume and makeup, her face shining and beautiful.
“Stand by for spot,” Ignacio says over my headset.
The spot.
I still have my light.
The thought alone gives me hope.
“Stand by for fog,” Ignacio says.
Fog?
We didn’t do fog at dress rehearsal.
I think about Benno and Half Crack messing with the cam locks behind the theater. Did they install the extra dimmers?
SUMMER
How happy some o’er other some can be!
“Spot, go,” Ignacio says. “Fog, go.”
There’s a hissing sound as fog is released onto the stage.
I pre-focus the spot, aim towards Summer, and flip on the fan.
I push the button to spark the light.
There’s a buzzing sound, followed by a loud pop—
At first I think it’s my lamp that’s blown, but then I see that the stage lights are out, too.
The entire theater is black.
“What the hell is going on?” I hear Reach say in my headset.
“Benno, did you hit the blackout switch?” I say.
“I don’t know what happened,” Benno says.
I imagine him panicking in the booth. I count the five long seconds it will take for him to figure out what happened, reset the cue, and get the lights up.
My count hits five, and nothing changes.
By seven, I know we’re in trouble.
At ten, I hear Ignacio’s voice, frazzled and desperate, over the headset.
“Bring the lights back up,” he says.
“The computer isn’t responding,” Benno says.
Reach cuts in: “Try shutting down the power. That will reset the system.”
“Everything’s dead,” Benno says. He’s so upset he’s slurring his words.
I scan the theater, checking for the familiar red glow of the backstage work lights. Those are the tiny lamps that provide just enough light for the actors to find their way offstage.
There’s no red glow; that means the power is blown for the entire theater.
It’s been fifteen seconds, and the audience is shifting in their seats. People are whispering.
“Reach, flip the breakers,” I say.
“On it,” he says. There’s no argument from him now, no personal issues. The techies are in emergency mode. That’s what it means to be a pro. You put your crap aside.
“Everybody keep it together!” Ignacio says.
That’s when the bad feeling starts in my chest.
I think of the theater filled to capacity, nine hundred people in the pitch-black, with me alone above them.
But I am not alone. My father is next to me.
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t reach for me. But I can sense him there, next to me on the catwalk.
The audience murmurs below. Voices whispering in the dark.
It’s early morning, and I’m awakened by strange voices murmuring in the other room.
I’m in New Hampshire, the cottage where we spent our summers.
I’m annoyed because they woke me up. Even more annoyed because I can’t get back to sleep. I open the door and walk into the living room, ready to yell at my parents for talking loudly so early in the morning.
I see the uniforms first.
My mother sits alone on the couch. Two police officers stand in front of her.
My father is not there.
Back in the theater, my breath quickens, my heart beating rapidly in my chest.
“There’s no power coming into the theater,” Reach says in the headset.
I reach for my father next to me on the catwalk, but he stands a few steps away, just out of arms reach.
“Dad,” I say.
He doesn’t respond. He stands there, an outline barely visible in the darkness.
The dark.
My father loved light. He loved talking about it, thinking about it, painting it. He loved looking at light.
And he died in the dark.
I remember now. This thing that haunts me in my dreams then disappears when I’m awake.
The reason the police were in the house talking to Mom. I remember now.
“Your dad’s car was found in the woods outside of Concord,” they said. “Single car accident. He drove off the road on the way home.”
It’s not like I ever forget it.
I just don’t want to think about it. So I put it out of my mind.
“His car was spotted from the road by a passing cruiser. He went down a gulley then traveled several feet into the woods before hitting a tree,” one officer said.
“You could barely see it from the road,” the other one said.
“It’s easy to do on that stretch. No guardrails. A narrow road with gravel on either side.”
“That’s why we couldn’t find him until morning.”
The crash was bad, but he did not die instantly. They didn’t tell Mom that. I read it later in the coroner’s report. Time of death estimated between four and seven a.m. Which means Dad spent the night stuck in the car, trapped and bleeding.
I think about him alone in the middle of the night, in pain, waiting for dawn to come. I wonder if he saw the sunrise.
I’ll never know.
I only know that since that morning two years ago, I hate the dark.
“I think we blew the transformer,” Ignacio says. “There’s no power in the building.”
I look behind me at the front doors of the theater. I should be able to see a faint glow along the crack beneath the door. There’s nothing. The hall lights are out, too.
“We have to evacuate the theater,” Ignacio says.
“No!” Derek says. “My father is out there!”
The audience is talking now, some of them getting up to find their way out of the theater by the light of their cell phones. They make it halfway up the aisle and get stuck. A couple of kids are crying. An audience member shouts at the stage: “What’s going on!”
Chaos is about to erupt. It could be bad, even dangerous.
“You’re a techie. Do something!” I hear Derek say on the headphones, followed by the chatter of techie voices backstage.
It’s a disaster.
There’s no light, and now there’s no show.
I look for Dad’s image in the darkness, but he’s gone.