By P. RAFAEL MERCADO

Partition the First

In which I audition for a Play for which I should not have auditioned and fall in love with one for whom I should not have fallen

1.

Aristotle sez: “The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things—and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning…. All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything; they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.”

2.

3.

When I was in my third high school year, I decided to audition for the batch play. I did not know why I decided to do this when I thought I was, rather erroneously, more of an intelligent but silent sort.

Later in my life I would realize I was never really that intelligent to begin with, nor entirely silent. But I was pretty delusional, and perhaps it was this delusion that brought my feet and my constitution to walk up to the second floor of our building and, along with the honor students, audition for the role of Don Pedro. The other kids, most of whom were not my friends (and those who were, I no longer spoke to) gave me this look when my name was called to the other room. They knew me—the same way everyone knows everyone in high school—but they had no idea why I was there, and seemed to entertain the thought that perhaps I had the wrong room. In a brief but sharp moment of realization, I began to entertain the same thought.

They were honor students, the few who actually learned in high school, rather than experienced it as some sort of bizarre social experiment run by the government to test our individual thresholds for humiliation. They were the academic darlings, and I was a mere drone. Their eyes told me they knew this. It was a combination of spite and entitlement that I sensed from their stares, which seemed to say, “You have got to be kidding…” and “Good luck trying.”

I took a deep breath, grabbed my script, and walked into the other room. I barely had a chance, but there was no way I was going to show them how I knew that.

4.

The play was called The Husband of Mrs. Cruz. It was a comedy that wasn’t even funny. I was more or less sure I was not going to get it, and this was reinforced when I saw the love of my life (then; whom we will address as Jeremy for the purposes of this essay) audition right after me for the role I was also trying to get. Everyone loved Jeremy. I loved Jeremy. I was ready to lose.

“He releases pheromones,” explained Ron. “Like queen bees. It makes us want to have sex with him.”

5.

I hung out with my friends at the sports field after the auditions. This was the standard operating procedure. After school, we would congregate and talk about high school things: love, drama, schoolwork, and general existential angst. “How did it go?” asked Danica.

“Fine,” I said. “Jeremy is auditioning, though.”

“Oh,” she said.

I hadn’t told any of my friends I was gay yet, but I was sure they knew. They also knew that I liked Jeremy from the sheer number of times I insisted we talk about him, even though he didn’t actually know us. When she said “Oh,” it meant two things: “Oh, you’re talking about Jeremy again, you gay whore” and “Oh, you’re screwed. That guy’s pretty and is a genius.”

Neither interpretation was particularly encouraging, though both were correct.

6.

I was informed that same afternoon that I beat Jeremy. I was confused as to how or why this happened, but I did. It was a sweeter victory than I had expected. I had battled against High School aristocracy and won. It was like breaking a law of nature. Could they have given the part to me out of pity? “Give that poor boy the part. He can’t act as well as the others, but bless his heart he tried.”

I shook the thought off and basked in the adolescent glory.

7.

The day of the first rehearsal, I had to go to the bleachers at the field. Upon looking at all the people who made it to the play as cast and crew, I realized that these were all the honor students. There were no exceptions apart from me. It was during that short span of time, as I looked on, that I considered perhaps having made a mistake. But it was too late to back out. I suppose that’s what they wanted me to do. They wanted Jeremy to take the role so that their little charade would be kept to themselves, a little class play they can show off to those they considered cretins, subjects, drones. I was not going to let that happen. I was going to show them anyone could do it just as well as they could. In fact, even I could do it, and that was saying something.

Partition the Second

In Which My Mind is Tormented

8.

Epicurus sez: “No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.”

9.

It came as no surprise that the director of the batch play was a plump little girl from the honor section whose idea of humor was based solely on people acting childishly silly: people walking around with their zippers open, people from the province with strange accents, or in my case, homosexuals.

“Funnier!” She would always say. “More actions! More emotions! Movement!” To her, the way I would restrain myself from overacting always made me wrong, but that’s what Don Pedro was. “Don Pedro is about restraint,” I told her. “Okay,” she said. “But remember to move.”

I don’t think she got the point.

Finally, I had it after she stopped me during the final rehearsal. It was after my line where I announced, cathartically, that my son won the election after all and that the previous loss was due to a miscount. If she didn’t like my well thought-out characterization, then, “What if I act gay?”

She looked around and said, “Hm, well, we already have gay characters”—in fact, the father-in-law character was gay, the delivery man character was gay, and the son was also a mildly gay character by this time, all in an effort to satisfy the assistant director—“but what the hell. Go for it.”

What started out as a fairly mediocre comedy turned out to be an hour-long lesson in stereotyping homosexuals, and I knew in my heart I was the only one doing it correctly.

10.

I never actually did have a conversation with Jeremy during the rehearsals. My friend Benny knew the desperation and sorrow this entailed for me. I told him about it during a rush of loneliness in what was a strange online conversation. He wasn’t shocked, which he explained was because of his tolerant nature, but I think it was because he knew all along, just like everyone. Benny played the villain mayoral candidate in the play, and in between rehearsals he would ask me if I’ve made progress.

“No,” I kept saying.

“Ok,” he said. “Why don’t you let me introduce you?”

“NO.”

Just the thought of him talking to me crushed me, in both the good and the bad way. I tried to do so indirectly, but when presented with the immediate chance, fear just washed over me. On the one hand, I would have loved to talk to him. It would have made my century if I did. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep for about three years just from the high of that initial conversation. On the other hand, whenever he even so much as looked at me, I would lock up and all my secondary functions would cease. I could only breathe and my keep my heart beating. That was it. I would blackout and my bowels would just let go. Not exactly the makings of a good first impression.

During our final major rehearsal, Benny told me about how he and Jeremy got dressed at the same time. “Abs,” he said. “He is hot, man.” I looked at him with disdainful eyes and he got the idea he was not making things easier for me.

Regardless, I sighed and said, “Ok. Walk me through it. He was removing his shirt, and then?”

11.

12.

“It will never happen,” I once said to Benny over the phone, hugging my legs as I sat on a large chair in our dark living room.“Did you think about him today?” Benny asked, like he always did. “Go on. Tell me what you feel.”

I’m pretty sure he never listened to me as much as I thought, but sometimes you just need to talk it out, even if you’re not sure if the person on the other line is necessarily listening, even if it actually does nothing and goes nowhere.

13.

We were rehearsing in the field when Jeremy walked past, and Benny, in one swift motion, greeted him and introduced us. “Hello,” I said. He said the same and walked on. I looked at Benny with narrow eyes and said, “What the hell did you do that for!”

“That’s what you wanted, right? You wanted to meet him.”

I was not, all things considered, a very attractive boy. I had a beard—one of the factors that got me the part, I surmise—I was fat, my nose was too large, my lips were wide, and I vaguely resembled someone who lived under a bridge and showered very infrequently (though I maintain I did not smell like it). I knew that the thing that would hurt my chances most with Jeremy was seeing me. The fact that I was a boy was bad, but the fact that I was an unattractive boy just made it worse.

14.

By all means, it did not turn out to be an awful play. Not at all. Pitiful as the direction may have been, everyone did their jobs. But from where I stood, I felt as if I was the worst actor in the world. I cracked jokes that no one laughed at, and I fumbled through a monologue that I may have delivered too quickly. It was Ron who had shone during that play. During the awards ceremony, when the category of best actor was announced, the various batches screamed various names. Upon realizing none of them screamed mine, I screamed Ron’s.

Benny approached me amidst the chaos of packing up. “This is your last chance,” he said, motioning to Jeremy, who was idly walking around the room, talking to people. He was still in costume, which made him look pretty sexy.

“I still can’t do it,” I said.

I realized it would probably be the last time Jeremy and I would be forced to be together. He hung out with a different crowd, one very far removed from my own band of weirdos. I decided it would probably be a futile effort, packed my things, thanked everyone I knew in the room, took one last look, and went home, where I made the eventually broken promise of never acting again.

Partition the Third

In Which Everything is Brought Back to Normal, Or, At Least, As Normal As I Was Prior to The Events of the First Partition

15.

Lacan sez: “What good are many lovers if none of them will give you the universe?”

16.

A few weeks after the play, it was almost as if nothing had happened. The other actors and the crew did not greet me in the corridors and, refusing to succumb to their snobbery, I ignored them as well. Benny and I spoke less frequently, though we did meet each other by the gate during dismissal sometimes. Seeing Jeremy less only intensified my feelings for him, and once, upon noting his arrival, I literally froze and turned red. “You might not want to do that,” Benny said. “Or else your feelings for him will be obvious.”

A few weeks later, I would manage a “hi.” Sometimes, more daringly, a “hello.” That constituted a vast majority of our interactions for the time we were still allowed to sit outside the gate of our building. Eventually, Jeremy would stop passing by, and we would be forbidden from sitting on the walkway in front of the campus gate.

I still admire Jeremy from afar, whenever I think back or I spot his occasional posts on Facebook. The last time I checked, he is still very attractive in a variety of aspects. This is, of course, despite the fact that I never actually knew who Jeremy was. It was all a play.

17.

His life, thus far, has not been very interesting or eventful.