Walks

"On no account," cried Lise. "On no account now. Speak through the door. How have you come to be an angel? That's the only thing I want to know."

"For an awful piece of stupidity..."

-- Lise and Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, trans. Constance Garnett

--

Between the two morning shows for schools, the adults in Tom Sawyer sneaked across the street to the Proctor & Gamble park, where we had a potluck. Chicken and potato and spaghetti salads, chips and dips and chicken strips, and I added some break-and-bake cookies. With the sun and grass and tulips in bloom, people took "senior picture" photos of each other. A mother with three kids ate lunch nearby and shot us a dirty look when someone suggested that everyone make a "poop face."

Children's theatre people are, first and foremost, theatre people.

--

Got my tax refund back from the State of Kentucky. I got $62.

The next day, got a notice from the State of Kentucky about auto registration renewal. It will cost $63.

--

Been walking as much as possible from my apartment to the Taft. It's a nice walk, and I like thinking that for the two weeks a show runs downtown, I can act like the other conscientious twentysomethings who migrate across the Ohio every morning. Sometimes, I dress more executively to blend in.

I see women who look no older than me, wearing sheik pantsuits and talking on cell phones, and at once I feel so poor, so out of the loop. What do they do for a living? I used to feel the same way in Hillsdale, when the Kappas (mostly they were Kappas) walked past. What do their parents do for a living?


I tell myself that they're actually in their late twenties, or maybe even into their thirties, and that they look so young because the meaninglessness and tedium of their jobs force them to regain their lost sense of youth through exterior means. But that can't be true, not universally. There's gotta be an 18-year-old genius among them somewhere.

--

Last night, one of our fellow actors was jumped and mugged. He was on a nighttime walk in a bad part of town, making a phone call. He is white; his assailants were black. They came from behind, hit the back of his head, and then kicked him while he was down. He immediately gave up to them the things they took: phone, keys, backpack. (Strangely, they didn't take his wallet.)

The victim is a friend, and he was in high spirits despite the wounds on his face. He joked that they were going to open his backpack only to find two books and a pair of dance shoes. He said when one of the muggers said to take his flip-flops, he pleaded from the sidewalk: "Oh, come on, man, don't take my flip-flops."

They didn't take his flip-flops.

Not sure if this detail is entirely relevant or not, but he is also the only Quaker I know. In fact, he might be the only Quaker I've ever known. He told us he actually went to seminary for a few years before he realized he was spending all his spare time not in the church but in rehearsals at the local community theatre.

Because they took the backpack with the dance shoes, he had nothing to wear on his feet during the show any more. Late last night, I got a text from the stage manager asking if I had any size 9-10 dress shoes for him; I did. This morning, he walked in my shoes.

This is perhaps too ironic, but in the show he plays Doc Robinson, who gets himself stabbed by "River" Joe (can't call him Injun Joe) in the graveyard. He stumbles with his hands clutching his belly and falls onto a tombstone-covered wagon. Upstage and behind some trees, Tom and Huck watch it happen.

We talked about this today. "What I don't get is why Tom and Huck get a big gospel funeral, and everyone just forgets about Doc Robinson, who was murdered a few hours before they disappeared," he said.

I think it's a valid point.

--

In the last chapter I read from The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha is walking to someone's house when he encounters a group of schoolchildren who are standing in a ditch by the side of the road. They all carry stones and are throwing them at one boy, who stands alone. When Alyosha intercedes, he is shocked to find himself pelted with stones--thrown by the boy, not the group. He asks repeatedly what he has done to the boy, who responds by biting Alyosha's finger to the bone. The group disperses, laughing at the Good Samaritan. Alyosha asks one last time what he did to harm the boy, and the boy cries and runs away.

What strikes me about this scene is that Dostoevsky mentions several times that the boy not only has stones in his hand, but that his coat pockets are full and weighed down with rocks, too. The image is one of a victim's hostility: throw rocks at me and I'll save them, carry them with me forever just to throw them back.

The Quaker, mugged in darkness but joking in light; the victim of stoning gathering stones. There are always two ways of reacting to life.