je puis seulmente oublier.

[star studded]

<center>Suitcase, end table, radio
A box full of shoes and records
Ready to go

Take me along, I want to ride shotgun
Want to laugh at your jokes
I want to know you better than anyone
But anyone can see why you'd run

I packed a small bag, can you see
A truck full of things you cherish, what about me?

Well, I try to find sanctity
A box full of hearts and letters, but he wasn't you

Lately, couldn't sleep, Christmas Eve
You sent a box of presents, but I still believe

Take me along, I want to ride shotgun
Want to laugh at your jokes
I want to know you better than anyone
But anyone can see why you'd run

Alice Ripley - Shotgun

</center>


Being on stage is really quite painful.

If you're a girl, you're almost always required to wear some sort of stupid heel that pinches your toes too tight and is too heavy to walk properly in. You have a wireless microphone pack ace bandaged so tight to either your thigh or your back that it cuts off circulation, and you end up wheezing or limping. The mic wire is almost always uncomfortably taped at the back of your neck and again at your temple, and when you turn your head it pulls at your hair. If you have to wear a wig, your hair is braided and pinned so tightly to your head that your scalp aches for hours after you managed to fish out all of the hardware and equipment. The lights are so hot that you sweat something terrible, which doesn't do much to help the fact that you're wearing whore's makeup that's an inch thick. If you're a klutz, like me, you almost always manage to stab yourself in the eye with the liquid eyeliner

You spend two hours or so speaking as if you had no microphone on, trying to reach the back of the house with a voice that was only meant to project to about the center of the orchestra seats. If you're singing, you're fighting to be heard over a thousand live instruments. If you're dancing, you're fighting to keep your breath in your lungs for the rest of the night.

But we do it anyway because we're attention-starved kids who never got enough love in high school so we had to go out and demand it from total strangers. We do it because we're swimming in a pool of ten thousand people who are younger and better and thinner and prettier. We fight. We kick. We use our defeats and dismissals as fuel to push harder. We are spoiled brats who push other people out of the way so we can soak up as much of the flood spot that we can. We forget that when you're back in the real world, all the spotlight does is leave little dots dancing in front of your vision, blocking out everyone else's faces.

We know that, as actors and actresses, we had also better learn how to bus tables and set to the left. We sell ourselves nightly to parties of the well-dressed and elderly. We laugh at the women who come in wearing so much jewelry that they look weighed down. We memorize desserts, wines and specials like lines, each said with a smile and a voice we learned in Intro to Performance. We wait tables and host(ess) and relay stories about old shows we wish we were still in, even if they never paid us in full and the director was a sharp-tongued jerk who looked like an overweight penguin.

We prefer the lack of blood and oxygen we experience onstage. We prefer it to the mindless shuffling and ordering. We prefer it to the unsatisfied sighs when the wrong plate is set down. We prefer it to worrying about bills and boys and who was cast when we weren't. We like the pinch of our character shoes and the uncomfortable wireless microphones. We live for curtain calls and applause, standing ovations and full houses. We measure our lives in opening nights, extended runs, in how many 'offs' come before 'Broadway production of', stage kisses, prat falls, choreographed fight scenes, comedic moments and loudest laughs.

Secretly, none of that matters. Granted, everyone wants first billing and to be asked for an autograph. However, it's usually a better feeling if you just have one person to meet you at the stage door and walk you home.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 29, 2006 12:47 PM: Message edited by: midnight radio ]</font>

[star studded]

When we were seventeen, my brother Lincoln suffered what the doctors called an anxiety attack. We went to Boston Latin, and we were sitting in French class. For some reason, they seemed afraid to separate us. We had every class together, we had lockers next to each other, we were addressed as the same person. So we were sitting next to each other in French class, and everything was going rather smoothly. Verb conjugations or something. I don't remember. He might.

About twenty minutes outside of Boston, there's this place called Hopkinton. It's just a little suburb, and there's nothing really special about it except for Flier's Field. Flier's Field is this huge, huge empty field that no one tends to, even though someone should. It's grown over and an allergist's nightmare. Everytime I go anywhere near it I start these terrible sneezing fits. It never bothered Lincoln though, he used to race Nick Sullivan across it almost every time we went there. He would always win. Everytime, without fail. It was amazing, because Nick would always agree to race him. My brother. Lincoln Adler, all-state track champion.

Anyway. We were sitting in French class, and Lincoln looked upset. I could tell, because he's not really a fidgity person, and he was moving all around. We had these ties we had to wear, and he was pulling at his, like it was choking him. Like, he used his fingers to start tearing at the part around his neck. Lincoln wasn't really disruptive in class. I mean, he did some stupid things as a kid, and as a teenager, and I'm sure he's still doing stupid things. But he wasn't a troublemaker, not in school.

So about a minute or so later, there was this low rumble, and the lights flickered. And Lincoln was sitting next to me, hyperventilating. My brother. Lincoln Adler, all-state track champion, having an asthma attack. So he had managed to get his tie loose, and his hands were rubbing over the front of his blazer, and when he put them on the desk, they left these clammy, cloudy prints. They called the nurse, and everything was chaotic, because apparently part of the school had lost power, the old edition, the part without the generators.

Lincoln was screaming this absolute nonsense at the time, something about pressure. I don't remember a lot of it, I just remember him yelling "The pressure! The pressure, look at the pressure!" We never really figured out why he was yelling that. We always assumed it was because he was under a lot of stress at the time. He was dealing with probation and community service for what happened at my dad's house, and what happened with the car downtown. Not to mention school, and track, and girls, and work and just the normal bullshit you deal with in high school. He was a good student, which surprised a lot of people because he had such a nasty record. He graduated fifth in the class.

It wasn't until later that we found out that right when Lincoln was screaming about pressure, and hyperventilating and having his anxiety attack, there was a plane going down. It had left Logan, and then it went down. Right in the middle of Flier's Field. There were no survivors.

Lincoln refused to go to Flier's Field ever again after that. He said you could still see the scar that the plane had ripped through it when it crashed down and kept skidding. I don't know how he knew that if he ever went. Maybe Nick told him.

[star studded]

Phone conversations were clever ways to keep in touch without having to really let out everything. They were impersonal on the level that you didn't have to look at the other person when you were lying to them. You didn't have to watch them stare at you, inspecting you for truth and sincerity at all times. Phone lines ticked away, Boston to New York, a phone bill that they'd both scrape to pay on alternating months.

"So how's the weather?"

"Are you serious? I'm calling you, spending fucking seven thousand dollars a minute, and you're gonna ask me about the goddamned weather."

Lincoln's mouth had always been a clever mix of poetry and filth. Althea just rolled matching eyes at her brother's diatribe, the phone pressed between shoulder and ear as hands busily worked away. A hack wrapping job was being attempted, tape and paper making a childish mess.

"Okay.. how's work?"

"Fine. You?"

"Fine."

"We never have shit to talk about, I don't know why I even call you."

"Because. If I weren't here to pick up the phone, you'd have a heart attack." A cynically pitched alto voice rang back at him in a taunting sweep.

"Bullshit."

"I'm not gonna be here tomorrow."

"Why the fuck not?"

"See?"

"Why won't you be here?"

"I'm going out to dinner."

The silence was deafening in that cliched way. Althea's finger nearly tripped the button in an attempt to kill the line, and that judging lack of sound from her brother.

"Who're you going with?"

"Richard Nixon."

"Cut the shit, Althie."

"Okay, okay, I lied. Richard Simmons."

"Come on!"

"Little Richard?"

"I will fly to New York just to slap you in the face."

"That's a lie, Lincoln, you won't fly anywhere."

Another round of silence indicated that Althea had won that portion of the battle, Lincoln's jaw clenching in order to keep himself muffled and polite. It was a rare occasion that paranoias were dragged to the forefront as weaponry, but sometimes there were desperate methods used to achieve the means to a petty end.

"Who's the guy?"

"How do you know it's a guy?"

"I just do. If you were going out with some girlfriend, you'd just tell me."

"His name is Pablo. He speaks minimal English, but boy is he cute."

"I'm hanging up now."

"You wouldn't hang--"

The line clicked, a monotone buzz assuring her that yes, he would.

[star studded]

"Three days, Lincoln? I'm surprised you didn't freak out and call before."

"Shut up." The voice on the other end was something sharp and demanding, his sister's ear assaulted with the sound. "How was your dinner with Richard Nixon?"

"It was alright. I think he stole my wallet, though. Funny how that's the first thing you ask me."

"What'd I say."

Althea stifled her entertained laughter, stretching herself out green couch cushions.

"So. What's his real name?"

"Michael."

"Michael what?"

"Jordan." She giggled, stretching further, satisfied with her answer.

"Althea.."

"Okay, okay. Donovan."

"What's he do?" On the other end, Lincoln was drumming absently on whatever surface he had in front of him. Althea had a feeling it was the counter.

"He's an English professor."

Silence.

"A what?"

"An English professor."

"So he's like.. wicked smart and stuff?" The boy attemtped to stifle mocking laughter, forcing his sister to scowl, despite the fact that he couldn't see.

"I guess. We didn't exactly sit around and discuss Theater of the Absurd, or existentialist theories or anything.."

"I'm sure you were really disappointed."

"Totally. Look, I gotta go, I've gotta get to work in like.. half an hour."

"Don't get asked out by any quantum physicists on the way there."

It was Althea's turn to kill the line without a goodbye.

[star studded]

It was a room, like any other room, with a table lined with old, staunch men whose accents were almost assuredly fake. Althea stood before them, a youth. Wide-eyed and innocent. They preened over her papers and with a wave of her hand, she was told to begin.

"What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? Racks? Fires? What flaying, boiling... in leads, or oils? What old or newer torture must I receive, whose every word deserves to taste of thy most worst?"

Why is that man staring at my resume, don't stare at my resume, I made up half my resume, look at me, stop looking at that, look at me...

"Thy tyranny together working with thy jealousies; fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle for girls of nine, O! Think what they have done and then run mad indeed, stark mad.."

...no, not at my shoes, don't look at my shoes, I hate these fucking shoes.. why'd I pick these shoes, why'd I pick this monologue, why'd I pick this career why...

"...for all thy bygone fooleries were spices of it. That thou betray'dst Polixenes 'twas nothing; that did but show thee of a fool, inconstant and damnable ingrateful, nor was 't much thou would'st have poisoned good Camillo's honor."

...does this panel hate me? If I don't get a callback I can go tomorrow with Lynn to get groceries..

"The death of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts --- thoughts high for one so tender, --- cleft the heart that could conceive a gross and foolish sire blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no, laid to thy answer but the last, ---"

Why am I working so hard? These are the people who cast Linda Blair in a musical. Jesus Christ, I suck, I suck, I suck... inhale.. prepare..

"O lords! When I have said, cry, 'woe!' --- the queen, the queen, the sweetest, dearest creature's dead, and vengeance for 't not dropp'd down yet!"

Althea paused, to take in a deep and replenishing inhale. Language, to her, was an exercise, something that the breath and body had to be able to support in all fashions.

"Thank you very much, Miss Adler."

"Thank you." A wide and appealing smile.. and with her bag scooped up, it was time to plod herself home to a strangely blinking machine. Shoes were kicked off, the button pushed, expecting to hear Lincoln's short, staccato messages on the end of the tape.

The voice from the machine made her turn her head.

<font color="#7F8190" size="1">[ June 03, 2004 08:27 PM: Message edited by: selfless cold and composed ]</font>

[star studded]

In a flurry, after psyching herself up for a good eight minutes, Althea dialed a bribed phone number. Just another machine.. and for this, she was eternally thankful.

"Hey there. Um, hopefully you'll get this before Ruth gets in, because I don't want you to get in trouble with the missus. But, thanks for the phone call, even if you did obtain my number through some sort of.. freaky magic thing. You'll have to teach me that someday. So, yeah.. um.. if you wanna do something at some point, you should give me a call, and we'll make plans. Or something. You've already got my number and everything. Oh, and can you tell me whether or not I'm going to get a callback for this Shakespeare company I auditioned for? Because.. that'd be really helpful. Awesome. Have a nice evening, Doc. Bye bye.."

[star studded]

"I'll never understand it. You're like the perfect ice cream cone eater. You never drip, you never lose your ice cream. Look at mine, it's a mess.." Althea motioned to her cone of strawberry ice cream, which had a few pink rivers drizzling from the sides, and she traded off hands to lick her fingers clean.

"I've had nearly thirty years of practice. You'll learn someday, grasshopper." Walter Edward Adler was miles taller than his younger cousin, but both had the same shockingly dark hair that seemed to run in their family. He was soft-spoken and semi-mysterious, if that was what you could call it. Everything he said was delivered deadpan, flat-toned and articulate. His smiles were loose and fleeting, but always genuine, and his ice cream cone was a neat swirl of vanilla. "Lincoln tells me you have secrets." It was an ominous sort of accusation that she knew Eddie could pass off as merely an observation.

"You're only twenty-seven. Don't go getting all retirement-fund on me. And what sort of secrets? And when the hell did you talk to Lincoln?"

"Do you forget that his beloved Uncle Pat is my father? I lived with Lincoln for a year before I moved out, do you think that I don't call and see how he's doing now and then? How easily we forget our loved ones, Althea." Eddie's stride was slower than her own, especially considering he'd pause with each dramatic point he had to make, letting Althea crane over her shoulder to stare at him. "Now, back to your secret-keeping."

"I haven't kept any secrets!"

"Oh ho ho.." He lifted an index finger, tipping it towards her gently. "Then why have I not been told that you have an audition for the Regency.."

"Because I already had it."

"You sneaky thing! How'd it go?"

"Won't know for a week."

"Okay, what about the serial fetishist you met at the laundromat?"

"The what!?" Now it was her turn to stop in her tracks, mouth agape, strawberry ice cream still melting over pale fingers. Eddie's slate face didn't move except for a lift of eyebrows. Thin shoulders shrugged.

"Lincoln said you met some guy in a laundromat. I just assumed that the only person who would agree to taking a girl he met in a laundromat out to dinner would be a fetishist. Sits there, stakes out the different batches of laundry and whoever has the cleanest pairs of underwear, that's who he works the mojo on. Maybe he has an obsession with people's clean clothes.."

".. did your parents have you tested as a kid?"

"Multiple times. Oh, and Lincoln said he was like, some sort of Nobel Prize winning brain surgeon or something. Which goes along with my theory, because, you know people who are in high-stress positions like that are usually a little, you know.." He made a twisting finger motion at his temple, whistling a familiar 'cuckoo' tune.

"He's a fucking English professor!"

"And he doesn't own a washer-dryer?"

"Will you let that go?"

"When you kiss him, does he taste like Downy?"

"Eddie!"

"It is a valid question! If you answer yes, I have more proof of his obsession with clean laundry." He explained it to her as though she were not seeing some obviously clear picture, his hands out to the side. This, to Eddie, was a matter of life and death.

"Oh, drop it. I am not discussing my mundane, non-existent love life with you."

"Why not? I discuss my mundane, non-existent love life with you."

"You're married!"

"Your point?"

Althea found herself lost in a chipper sort of laughter as they rounded the corner. Eddie, who trailed along with the most interest, was just shaking his head at her oblivious denial.

"I'm just making sure you don't fall head over heels for some lunatic. It's my duty as your only family in New York to look out for you. What would your mother say if you brought home someone who smelled like dryer sheets?"

"She'd say.. 'Aaaaalthie, he's such a cleeeaaan booooy.' And Michael would run." Althea's Jersey-accent was loud and brash, and Eddie's dark eyes were wide with intrigue. They walked along for a few moments in silence, enjoying the warm, breezy summer day, the scream of traffic and the sprawl of the green park they traipsed through.

"So the laundry-man has a name.."

"Eddie!"

[star studded]

Her door was unlocked.

Her mother had warned her of things like this happening, tresspassers and all sorts of terrible people who were bound to enter her life in shreds and patches, especially considering the neighborhood. Fishing around for her only means of defense, a can of pepper-spray was procured from her purse, and held out in front of her as a shoulder gently tipped into the door.

"I know you're in there, fuckbag!" Eyes that were winced closed peeled open. She expected to see her apartment in shambles, but everything was in its place. The only sign of struggle was the cabinet that swung open over her stove.

"Did you just call me a fuckbag?" The voice now laughing at her was familiar, and rather than spraying in its direction, she lobbed the whole can. Darting from his spot on the couch, Lincoln stood, catching the can and grinning. "Christ, Althie. Is that anyway to treat your brother?"

"What the hell are you doing in my house!?"

"Why are you screeching like a howler monkey!?" His impression of his sister's hysterics were dead on, from wide eyes to the over-excited bobble of his head.

"Did you pick my lock, Lincoln?"

"You should use the deadbolt." Friendly advice was offered as he flopped back on the couch. "And I ate some of your chips."

"You aren't moving in."

"No shit, I'd move back in with mom before I moved in with you." He laughed lightly, fumbling for a remote control.

"Why are you here?"

"Boston's boring." Shoulders shrugged as if that were the only answer he was prepared to offer over. "I'm staying with Glory."

"Glory? Glory Corgan?" Althea's purse dropped to the chair she usually tossed it in, the beginnings of a headache starting to pulse in her temples. "That kid's a fucking moron."

"Hey, he's an upstanding youth in the community and I won't have you badmouthing my roommate. Wanna go for dinner?"

"Are you paying?"

"Nope. I'm broke. You're paying. Hey, your message machine's blinking, should I che--"

"NO!" She nearly lunged for the answering machine, putting herself between it and Lincoln in a defensive motion. There were two messages she had yet to erase from the secretive/mysterious English professor, and who knew what the new message had to say.

"Is it your sugar daddy calling?"

"You're fucking sick, Lincoln." Yanking the machine from it's spot, the light died when it was unplugged to be relocated in her room where no one could spy.

"Where are we going to dinner!?"

"The Life Cafe!"

[star studded]

"So.. what are we doing here again?" Lincoln was eyeing the candy at the front of the pharmacy-slash-convenience store, his heart nearly palpitating at all the colors and lights he had been allowed to be exposed to. Fingers scratched at mussed, black hair, a lazy yawn emitting despite the fact that it was almost noon.

"We're getting something for my friend, and then you're going to work, and I'm getting on the subway."

"Wanna buy me some Twizzlers?"

"No!" Shuffling down the aisle, she was eyeing the batches of assorted pills and syrups, looking for what would do best. "What's that fever reducer.."

"No idea. Look!" Lincoln's voice forced her to turn, and there he was, in a pair of novelty oversized glasses.

"Will you take those off and stop acting like a twit?" Reaching forward, she snagged the glasses off of his face and stuck them between the Dimetapp and Advil.

"Come on, have a little fun! They're even playing our song!" He pointed upwards to the small white speaker, which was playing a Latin-powered Ricky Martin hit. Althea winced, her head shaking at him. Lincoln had already started swishing his arms to the beat, his hips twisting in a retro sort of dance.

"I am not dancing with you in the pain relief aisle.."

"You know you waaaaaant tooooo.." His toe scuffed the carpeted floor, and pretty soon, his sister was joining in. Fingers pointed and she dipped her knees, shuffling along to the beat until the song was over. The pharmacy had been turned into an Adler family dance party.

"Okay, okay. Enough. I have to get this stuff. What's more carbonated, Pepsi or Sprite?"

"Ginger ale."

"I don't know if he likes Gin--" A hand slapped over her mouth.

"He!?"

"Now who's the howler monkey?" Althea opened the small cooler door to snag a Sprite and a seltzer, just in case.

"Your fifty year old, quantum physicist, sugar daddy."

"Once again, I insist that you're disgusting. He's not fifty. Or a physicist. Or any sort of daddy." She paused a moment, her face screwing into something contemplative. "I don't think."

Lincoln's eyebrows simply rose in consideration.

[star studded]

"Come do it!"

"No!" Althea was adamant, browsing the shelves of the local Barnes and Noble, Eddie at her side, hands stuffed into his pocket as he stared at the oversized, strangely proportioned sketch drawings of authors.

"Why not? You're funny! You work well in front of audiences, and we need a sixth person because Dave's not gonna be there next week!" His shout wasn't so much a shout, but a raised murmur. Eddie Adler never rose his voice, mostly because he didn't find it necessary.

"Which one's Dave?"

"Dave's the blonde with the glasses." He noted Althea's blank stare and sighed. "You know, Tornado."

"Oh! Aw, that's a shame, I like him, he's funny."

"And so are you, and that's why you're going to come do the last hour set with us next weekend." He stated it matter of factly, plucking a book from the shelf and thumbing through it without any real interest.

"When was the last time I did anything with Guerilla Improv?" She was sure he'd have no answer for this, but then there it was, rattled off like a laundry list.

"December 24th, 2002, you were nineteen and you played the Christmas Eve Improv-Fest with all of us at the Comedy Connection in Worcester. You did an entire scene with Flash and I based on the suggestion 'John Stamos'."

She stared blankly at him for a moment, amazed at how he remembered something like that. "You're a machine!"

"So come do it. Next Saturday, eight o'clock at --"

"I don't really feel like it, Eddie. Really."

He watched her for a moment, trying to decipher the code before it dawned on him, from one performer to another. "You're upset that you didn't get a gig with that theater company, aren't you."

"No!" She scoffed at the very notion, her head shaking vehemently. "No, don't be silly."

"I'm not being silly. Look, I know you're disappointed that it's another summer of waiting tables and wandering around New York looking for work, but that's pretty much what you asked for when you came out here, Althie. It's what happened to me when I came out here.."

"Yes, and now what are you doing, Eddie?"

He paused, sighing in almost-defeat. "Working at the Martin-Beck and doing GI on the weekends. But I'm almost thirty! You'll get something, it'll just take time. Which is why you're going to come guest spot on Saturday, we'll get you a uniform, and a code name and everything. It'll be good exposure."

"You guys look like freaks up there in those camoflauge outfits." She mumbled irritably as fingers coasted over the crisp, glossy spines of the fiction section, nothing catching her eye with a particular flair.

"Will you do it?"

"Fine. Just this once."

"Can we give you the code name Twinkle-Toes?"

"No!"