She was alone because all little girls are alone on that day. Alone with a man—it’s almost always a man, middle-aged, white—alone with the man who entices her into a car, a doorway, a vacant lot; a man who uses her in ways a civilized person can’t quite fathom, can’t quite add to their visual vocabulary.
—“MONSTER,” by Tracy Moens; © 2011 Chicago Herald
Big grin for my bus stop: population six, a rainbow nation of very diverse hopes and dreams, all waiting for the Division Street Super-Shadow. Thirty seats scented with urine, vomit, summer sweat, and industrial disinfectant—the daily life cycle that cauterizes public transportation and keeps our fares down. Artie, our bus driver, calls us the United Colors of Benetton (I’d go with the Funkadelics) and says we’re his favorite stop. Well, duh.
Six days a week we arrive here packaged from small closets and kitchens, semi-ready to meet another workday in our city, the Second City, the City of Big Shoulders. And just maybe the Olympic City, if the festival banners rehung along Division Street are right this time.
Horn toot, the 7-0 looms big and silver and pushes a slow-moving Pontiac forward. The bus door pops open and six Funkadelics bound up the steps. Artie smiles. I smile back. Today’s my first day being me again.
It’s not like I haven’t been here before, but first days are always difficult. They’re the final exit from intricate, intensely constructed fantasy back into an all too often blighted reality. Sound strange? It is, like coming down from a ferociously colorful LSD landscape to grayscale, soundless dust bowl; or a massive weekend romance with champagne and room service that leaves you flushed and tingly, but somehow emptier, some part of you lost in the exchange. And here’s the kicker—you make this journey on purpose, with every ounce of your being, as often as they’ll let you. And as often as your sanity can take it.
That’s what it’s like to audition, if being an actress is why you’re alive. And 99 percent of the time the payoff is “Thank you for coming.”
To do this well, it helps to be desperate or crazy, or both.
For the two weeks leading up to last Wednesday’s audition, I slowly became Southern belle Blanche DuBois, meticulously purging any sense of “me” with yoga, intense meditation, and finally the deep-core exercises of Lee Strasberg that bring the tears and vomit. I’ve not had children, nor do I live in the third world where those children die young, but the process has similarities—death first, as the original you fades away; then new life, only to see your new identity, your creation, wither and die.
Our driver palms his cap, nodding as he accepts the paper bag I offer. He grins at the baked-apple-and-nutmeg aroma, follows my eyes to the Pontiac I’m watching drive away, then back. “Mighty nice of ya, Arleen. Mighty nice.” His salt-and-pepper stubble hasn’t changed in the two years I’ve been riding the Super-Shadow.
“Show business loves ya, Artie.” No doubt, I’m the only passenger who brings him Belfast crumble muffins. Better his waistline than mine; each one of those nutty little monsters is thirty-seven minutes on the StairMaster. I bake them for luck. Not that they work all that often, but my ma said when you gave crumble muffins away it was buildin’ a foundation in Heaven. She was a waitress, too, but over in Bridgeport.
Actually, I should say I’m “an actress who waits tables.” At “thirty-nine” waitressing is one of the elemental ways you know you’re an actress. The other is to learn every bit of craft and art anyone will teach you, prepare for every opportunity like it’s your last, and, finally, pour your heart and soul into the auditions that all seem to end with “Thank you for coming,” then do more auditions, then do some more if you can get them. Pay the price; take every part they offer and play it to the walls. And when you’re finally in the running for Blanche DuBois, for a real part that might be the break you’ve earned, and you have a feeling that you might honestly have a chance—the casting director said something or his eyes did, something—then, and only then, do you bake Belfast crumble muffins.
My stop is State Parkway and Division. At the newsstand in front of P. J. Clarke’s, I sneak a Chicago Tribune off the stacks surrounding the Herald and its tabloid headlines. In a month or two, the Herald will likely join America’s newsprint graveyard. Where it belongs. Barney, the blind kid with the change bag says, “Hey, Cincinnati.”
He means The Cincinnati Kid, the movie with Steve McQueen and Tuesday Weld. My middle name is Crista but “Cincinnati” has been my nickname since my twenties; a fellow hopeful at the Actors Studio in L.A. thought I resembled Tuesday Weld … if you squinted and it was dark. He’s dead now, an OD after a final “Thank you for coming.”
“We pitchin’, Cincinnati?” Barney flashes a quarter between two black fingertips.
“I never win. Why don’t I just pay double?”
“Could do that. Get me some actin’ classes, too.”
I put a dollar in his palm. “That’s my lunch money, Barn. Trust me, only one of us has to wait tables; you’re Broadway ready.”
Showtime in ten minutes. Apron on, ponytail just right. Chest out, lipstick … man, I can wear some lipstick. Tuesday Weld at “thirty-nine.”
Sniffle. Sniffle.
Suzie. Poor thing; twentysomething, life ruined, and all she has is me. And I don’t know one lullaby for girls already wearing long pants and makeup. In the Four Corners an Irish lass had to harden up a bit by then, hide what troubled her. And I’m not much of a singer anyway—dancer, forget about it, tiptoe you right off the floor—but singer, not so much.
Suzie shrinks deeper into her very attractive shoulders.
I lift. “C’mon, sweetie, let’s get you some eyeliner.”
Suzie continues to sniffle rather than participate in her reconstruction and a lunch rush that starts in eight minutes. She and I are two of nine waitresses at Hugo’s on Rush Street, the North Side’s one block of leafy boulevard de Montmartre. I hug Suzie’s shoulder and lift—
Nope, she’d prefer to sniffle rather than prep her tables. Our manager notices and rolls his eyes—most of us are actors or actresses, so drama is occasionally on sale here, especially when we were sure we had the part. Today I have a right to a bit of drama, given the teaser exposé headline below the fold in today’s Herald, but I’m not going there. No one in Hugo’s knows I’m Coleen Brennan’s twin sister. In the two years I’ve been back I haven’t been near the Four Corners; that life happened to someone else.
I have spoken to two people who know me. One cop, and now one reporter from the Herald. Each time the Herald has asked for my cooperation, I’ve refused. And I won’t read the article today, written by strangers about a beautiful girl they didn’t know. Twenty-nine years ago I watched strangers bury Coleen, a part of me lost in the ether but not gone. A year later my ma died, and I ran … from my father and the Four Corners … all the way to Hollywood; was all of fourteen when I arrived. Axl Rose sang about it in “Welcome to the Jungle”—all the drama a scared Irish girl could stand.
I smile “sorry” at my manager, then tell Suzie, “Honey, Kylie Minogue couldn’t wear the back of those pants any better; from the front you’re Miss Teen USA; you’ll work again, even if it’s porn loops.”
Suzie doesn’t laugh, although it’s true. She has talent and looks and youth, and she will work again—here, New York, or L.A. if she doesn’t quit or self-destruct, self-destruction being a prime career hazard that claims as many of us as service revolvers do Chicago policemen. Window check—I know two Chicago policemen, and not in a good way, but like that Pontiac that spooked me this morning, both are part of another story.
“C’mon, we’ll buy you some blow after work, you can saddle up a cowboy or five.”
Suzie smiles perfect pouty lips and forces herself to her feet. She straightens an apron that will make four or five men risk their families before lunch is over … and sniffles. Suzie will work again. And like one, maybe even two of us in here with stacks of dog-eared scripts in our bedrooms, the kitchen Peg-board of wrap-party photos from the shows we got, and address books full of “contacts” from those shows we didn’t get, lightning will strike—I’ve seen it, been so close I thought it was finally my turn—the stage lights will hit and we’ll be whole.
Whole because beyond the stage lights and adulation, we’ll be welcomed backstage into a new family, a joyous and dysfunctional troupe of drama queens and crew, for birthdays and doctor days, for new boyfriends and teary breakups, marriages and graduations, all the sinew and gristle that binds hearts to souls forever and ever. But only if we don’t quit. In the actress business, persistence and will are all we have; they take the rest, all of it, and don’t apologize.
The lunch rush starts like it’s supposed to. Our customers act like the well-heeled are supposed to. Brass from Furukawa Industries are in booth 1, accepting heartfelt thanks, basking in their save-the-city limelight. One billion dollars buys a lot of PC/PR in protectionist times. Should allow Americans across the land to wave Old Glory whenever we buy Furukawa’s made-in-America cars, or happily bank in Furukawa-controlled banks, or watch Furukawa flat-screen TVs. I don’t blame Furukawa. It works for McDonald’s. Selling obesity to schoolkids is okay as long as you also fund a clown and his rape crisis center.
Everything’s rocking along like Friday should and: my cell phone rings with my agent’s ringtone. Shock. Panic. Sarah calls rarely, almost never—and never, ever, ever when prayed for. And this week I’ve prayed every hour I wasn’t waiting tables. I lit candles at St. Mary’s and watched the sun come up over her steeples.
I flash on my ma’s Belfast crumble muffins and flip the phone open, pushing it between shoulder and ear and the strawberry blond hair the real me reinvigorates twice a month. I dread hearing the “Thank you for coming” or just “Sorry,” but I’m weak and blindly full of hope and acting is a soul addiction that kills you a lot of different ways. I’m already reaching under the hot lights for my order, telling the cheeseburgers and my agent: “Hi, Sarah!”
Pause … endless seconds … the “Sorry” from my agent’s assistant about to begin my long dark descent into the well where Blanche DuBois and I will say goodbye to her life and my dreams. Both eyes close to hide the death from my friends and fellow aspirants, the reality that yet again, after all the investment and risk, the Shubert Theater Company doesn’t want Arleen Brennan as part of their family.
Sarah says: “Grab something, Arleen … The river parted, you got the callback.”
I drop both cheeseburgers—$12.00 each, medium rare, no tomatoes. “For Streetcar?” The stainless-steel counter saves the burgers and most of the hand-cut fries. My other hand rescues the phone. “Me? The Shubert wants me?”
“Just spoke with the director. They’re down to two for Blanche, you and—”
“Oh my God …”
It’s almost too much … after two decades as Arleen the Also Appearing. Oh my God, the big time; lightning has struck. A hip bumps me sideways. Suzie has gently hip-checked me out of the way and grabs her order. “Sarah, this isn’t a joke, right? Don’t do that, not after … For real, I’m half the callback?”
“Yes and yes. Sunday, eleven AM at the theater. The director, producer, casting director, and Jude Law’s agent. You’ll read with Jude. I’ll have the pages sent by the restaurant.”
Oh my God. Finally.
Vivien Leigh was my age—way past her prime, they said—when she played Blanche DuBois. She showed ’em, won the Academy Award for best actress. Vivien was English, playing a Mississippi Southern belle. I’m Belfast–Four Corners–Irish; it’s perfect.
“Sarah, don’t worry; I know all the parts by heart.” Oh my God … finally. “You’re sure it’s me?”
She laughs. “I’m sure.”
Happy feet! Float on air. Waitressing at Hugo’s is … brilliant. “Wait. Who’s the other actress?”
“I’m sending the pages anyway. Worry about Tennessee Williams, not her.”
“Is she big?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Just that she’s flying in from L.A. tomorrow night.”
“Sarah, I am Blanche DuBois. This is it. My turn. Has to be.”
“I never promise clients, you know that, but no actress deserves this part more.”
I deliver the cheeseburgers without touching the floor and kiss both recipients. Tinker Bell has touched me; I can fly. The most glorious lunch rush in history begins to slow. My cheeks have more lipstick than my lips. Tommy, the manager, is showing me where my picture will go—
A man steps into the bar window: Homicide Detective Ruben Vargas.
No. No. Not now; not here. I crane into the window, wide-eye for the Pontiac that was in front of my bus this morning. Please, God, no Koreans; they can’t ever know my real name, where I work—The window fills. Two stunning models from Elite take turns kissing Ruben’s cheek. He gently pats their bare shoulders, shakes their agent’s hand, and sans partner, Ruben Vargas steps in off Rush Street. No square-faced Korean mafia gangsters follow.
My heart starts beating again. Ruben winks at Charlene, our fresh-faced maître d’ assistant. She beams, hugs him with both arms, cranes for me on the floor, then the bar, and jubilantly waves me over like Ruben brought us the fall line from Prada.
Charlene’s lost what limited poise she’s acquired at Northwestern because whether you’re a college girl, café society, or made gangster, Ruben Vargas is a street legend in Chicago. The man, don’cha know. Five foot seven, same as me, forty pounds heavier, all of it sinewy muscle, but tailored into a mint-green linen blazer and expensive jeans. His jet-black hair is cut perfect and combed straight back. A hint of cologne on smooth cocoa skin. The only mar is a razor-thin scar from mouth to ear. A fine doorway full of man, the Dublin girls would say.
I knew who Ruben was when I was little. He was grown and we never spoke. Ten months ago we were reintroduced at a theater party. An actress there described him as “coarse brown sugar.” I didn’t take the sample I was offered, but she had, and licked her lips when she said it.
My mistake, one of many, was dealing with Ruben with his clothes on. When I get to Ruben he smiles and turns us away from Charlene. “Lose your phone?”
“We gotta get set up, baby.” Ruben scans Hugo’s patrons. “Finish that thing for me like you promised.”
“Ruben, I can’t, I have to prep. I made the callback for Streetcar. Sunday; can you believe it! The lead opposite Jude Law.”
Ruben lingers on the Furukawa table and their corporate glow, then cuts back to me, grinning like a proud papa. “No need to thank me for openin’ their eyes. Congratulations.”
“Finally. I’m so—”
“So we gotta get this done tonight or you’re missing Sunday.”
Blink. Half the brilliant sunlight fades. “What?”
“You heard me. And no more losing your phone.”
My back straightens. “In some other life, I’m missing my callback.”
Ruben squares up. “Princesa, you forgettin’ your responsibilities? What the fuck we’re into?”
“Not we, Ruben. You. I’m an actress.”
“I delivered your audition. Remember? And now you got the callback. And these are bad men who we gotta stop, whether you still believe it or not.”
Ruben hooked me up with an impossible-to-get final-round audition for Streetcar. In exchange, I’d participate in a police sting operation. CPD needed a serious actress who’d accept serious risk for a good cause, a cause he knew would hook me, one I have very personal reasons to champion anyway. I got the audition. And the “bad men” are every ounce of that. But everything else Ruben fed me was a lie.
“Actress or waitress, what you are, princesa, is in too deep to be doing anything but what I say until we straighten this problem out.”
The fading sunlight dies to dark; Tinker Bell flies away, replaced by years of aprons and promises and dreams that always seem to slip out of reach. I lean in at a dangerous cop who knows too much about me, about mistakes I’ve made—his mistakes in his sting, not CPD’s—mistakes he and his crooked cop partner, Robbie Steffen, have set up to be mine if things go bad. And they have. The smart response, the survival response is shut up, say nothing.
But not today. Today I got the callback; today my sister and I are the winners. Coleen and I stare straight at Ruben’s eyes. “Whatever you and Steffen are really into with the Koreans came this close to getting Robbie killed.” My finger and thumb pinch together. “I don’t know why you picked me for this disaster, but I signed up on a lie and I’m not dying for it. So fuck you, Ruben. And fuck Robbie Steffen. And fuck your psycho problems in Koreatown. How’s that?”
Detective Ruben Vargas eases a toothpick into a smile that can mean anything from good wishes to cemetery. “Hope it plays in Koreatown, ’cause we both know they’ll kill you if it don’t. And we both know you’re goin’ back.”