Wilderness

"Be still!"

-- Max in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are

--

And there, in that simple two-word command, Max gives some great advice to wild thing and gentle reader alike. Be still. Calm yourself. Take note. Take breaths. Give yourself a moment and reflect.

Or, as Dr. Jackson summed up Eastern Christianity's devotion to meditation: Don't just do something; stand there.

Okay.

--

So I was standing there, in a multi-purpose room with gray carpet, in front of a semi-circle of about thirty sixth-graders. They held in their laps 4x5 index cards upon which, I saw, were scribbled their questions for me. I introduced myself as someone from The Children's Theatre, an actor and a workshop teacher.

They had seen Beauty and the Beast, Jr., on Tuesday of last week, the morning performance when the Beast double had been clocked in the head by a flat set piece descending from above. (The actor was dazed but okay.) Originally, the class' teacher had arranged for Jen S., my co-worker and the actress who played Belle, to come and teach this post-show workshop--more of a Q&A, really--but Jen had come down with a bad cold and so I was asked to do it. I had agreed instantly, not knowing exactly what it was I was supposed to do.

As it turned out, no one knew. These show-themed workshops are new to TCTC, the result of a recent push to boost our repertoire of theatre-based classes. Deondra, another arts integration specialist at TCTC, told me that while he believed these workshops to be a good idea, he had not yet done one himself, and he is our main workshopper: over half of his worktime hours are spent on the road and in classrooms.

So: Here I was, doing a Beauty and the Beast workshop for the first time--both for me, and for this company.

I began with calling for volunteers and having each student wear a costume piece from various characters in the show. The girl wearing the Cogsworth headpiece had trouble hearing, and so I got to talk about that. And in a group of thirty sixth-graders, only one of them was a boy; in a classic moment of typecasting, he had to put on Gaston's boots as well as his muscle suit, which made the poor kid look like a hunter drowning in a big, beige marshmallow. The brown leather boots came halfway up his thighs and made him walk like the Tin Man.

After about ten minutes of this, a true hands-on icebreaker, I sat down and opened it up for questions. That filled the rest of the hour: telling backstage anecdotes, explaining technical positions, revealing acting tips, expounding upon the majesty of live theatre. And those kids just ate it up, smiling with big eyes at every joke, nodding at every truism, giggling at all my quirks and quips.

It was the best workshop ever. For the better part of an hour, I basically rattled on about myself to a captive, star-struck audience.

--

The evening before, I killed a rabbit with a prop pitchfork.

Jen (who played Belle) and I were sent out to the parking lot to investigate an odd sighting: our boss, who had just left for home, reported seeing a bunny that "looked like it was hurt" that was "out in front of someone's car." Our boss asked us to put a box over it, as it looked like it would rain any time soon.

We found the rabbit sitting upright, staring at us, not at all the wounded bunny we had heard about. The only curious thing about the rabbit was that it didn't start and bolt away from us as we got closer and closer to it. Finally, Jen stepped within two feet of the animal and it panicked, flopped on its side, and began convulsing in running-like motions. We realized with fascination and horror that both its front legs were broken.

Inside, I updated by Facebook status (how shallow I can be sometimes) while Jen called Animal Control (or whatever the agency is called). They said a van was on its way, and so I went home to rest and eat before returning in two hours for rehearsal.

When I came back, I checked to see if it was still there, and it wasn't. So I thought the van must have come and picked the rabbit up. But then, there it was, still sprawled awkwardly on its side, about ten feet from where I had seen it last. In two hours of cold, drizzling rain, the rabbit had dragged itself ten feet before stopping where it now lied, panting, waiting to die.

After some minutes of deliberation, I decided to do what had to be done. The animal control van was clearly not coming. I asked the stage manager if there was a shovel anywhere that I could use, and the closest object we found was a prop pitchfork used in the mob scene in Beauty and the Beast (oh, if only those sixth-graders could have seen me now). Pitchfork in hand, I exited The Children's Theatre building as a line of minivans arrived in the parking lot to drop off their kids for rehearsal. I realized there was no way I could bludgeon a small, immobile, woodland animal to death with half a dozen families watching. So I walked around as if I was looking for something, pretending with all my might that I didn't have a menacing piece of farm equipment in my hands. One car waited for several minutes, and I wondered why in the world they weren't leaving, before suddenly it dawned on me: What parent in their right mind would leave their child at a place where a disturbed young man was walking around the parking lot with a pitchfork? I waved and smiled, and the parent cautiously drove away. The entire world disappeared, and now it was just me and the bunny.

I can't say it was easy. I can't say it was the right thing to do. I can't even say that it was clean and humane, or that I felt anything but dirty afterwards. What I can say is this: it was harder than I thought it would be, psychologically and physically, and I don't think I ever want to have to do it again.

As I picked the mud and fur off the pitchfork prongs (no, I didn't stab it, the fur just came off very easily), cleaning the tips with sanitizer from the storage room, some kids who were in the show came up to me, wanting to know what in the world I was doing. "Rehearsal's starting," I told them, "they're waiting specifically for you. You should go."

Only the last part of that was true.

--

Here's the irony of the whole thing, and maybe, lurking in there somewere, the moral. Literally as I walked away from the dumpster at the far end of the parking lot, trying to push the image of that damp, limp, broken bunny out of my mind, trying to think instead about the holiday show we were about to rehearse, the Animal Control van arrived. I realize only now that most of our conversation was asking each other questions.

The driver rolled down the window.

"Hi," I said, casually leaning against the pitchfork. "Are you here about the rabbit?"

"Yeah," he said, checking his clipboard. "Where is it?"

I pointed at the dumpster. "Just took care of it."

"Oh," he said, wincing sadly. "Did it die?"

"Well, it's dead now."

"I see. I'm sorry. I got stuck in traffic."

"I understand. No problem," I said, blinking in the rain. "What were you going to do?"

The driver looked at the pitchfork. "Both its back legs were broken?"

"Front legs. Would you have been able to save it?" I asked, dreading a "yes."

"Nah," he said, looking toward the dumpster. "I came out here to put it down."

"Gotcha." What a relief. Maybe he was just saying that, but I would have wanted him to lie to me anyway if the opposite were true, if there was bunny leg-repairing equipment in the back of his van. The difference between me and him, among other distinctions, is that he does this sort of thing for a living, his service consists of the removal of diseased or deceased creatures from public places, and he is paid sometimes to end animal lives; while I, on the other hand, am an actor who the next morning was supposed to talk to children about the joys of singing, dancing, and acting, who has never gone hunting, and who only twice has contributed roadkill to the sides of roads. Neither of us really operates in the sphere of "real life" as most people understand it, but only he regularly encounters real death, palpable and bizarre and haunting death.

"Sorry you had to do that. No one likes to do that."

"No problem," I said. "Sorry you had to drive all the way up here."

"Just part of the job," he said, and he rolled up the window and drove away.