They’ve been rehearsing for weeks. Long afternoon hours in the elementary school gym, a make-shift stage and hard wooden bleachers; echoing voices resonate from cold cinderblock walls as Mr Nicholas fulfills long-suppressed ambitions to direct for the stage, encouraging kids to remember their lines, be quiet when off-stage, sit still while awaiting their call.
Through it all, Rufus stays focused on his song. His solo.
It’s unheard of for a fourth grader to pull the main solo in the school play; an honour typically reserved for only the glitteriest of fifth graders, broadway-bound, primed, primped and perfected by over-ambitious parents.
When Mr Nicholas first told him that he would sing the solo, Rufus had been convinced he’d misheard, hadn’t dared to request confirmation, just smiled and said “OK”. Mr Nicholas had nodded, turning to deal with the latest crisis in the waiting troupe, leaving Rufus to try and convince himself of what he’d just heard.
I’m singing the lead, he thought, really?
In the intervening weeks, he’d practised and practised, at home, at school, in the bathroom, in his bedroom.
Never in front of his parents, of course. He’d be just too embarrassed, and they’d be too tired from the multiple jobs they held down. He drew comfort from the fact that they wouldn’t be in the audience when the play was performed for parents and families.
An only child, he’d long grown used to his isolation, the comfort of his own company.
Over long weeks, he’d sung along with the CD Mr Nicholas had given him, at first reading from a typed sheet of lyrics, then singing from memory, and finally standing in his bedroom, imagining the audience before him, listening to him sing, hanging on every word.
The very idea terrified him.
But he’d listened hard when Mr Nicholas spoke to the whole cast about conquering stage-fright, about practising enough that performance became second nature, about tricks to minimize awareness of the audience and their judgement; how they’d sniggered when Mr Nicholas had suggested imagining the audience sitting in their underwear.
Now, as they prepare for the inaugural performance to the assembled school, all that feels like distant, distant memory; another time and place, another life.
It had been a different Rufus who had prepared for this moment.
He is terrified.
The thought of them all, clothed or not, makes his stomach clench tight.
He’s sure he’s going to puke.
On-stage.
He just knows it.
He sits in a corner of the hallway, far from the rest of the cast, staring at the wall, staring at nothing, staring at himself on stage failing completely.
I’m just a fourth grader! he thinks, it’s not fair!
Behind him, the rest of the cast comes to quiet at the behest of Teacher’s Assistants acting as wranglers. Beyond that, through the double doors at the far end of the hallway, the entire school, Kindergarten through to fifth grade, murmuring in anticipation.
Rufus stares at the wall; guts twisting as he tries to remember the first line of the solo.
The murmur eases, and Principal Shiller’s voice introduces the play. She offers fulsome praise to the cast, crew and Mr Nicholas for getting to this point, asks for a grand round of applause. The gymnasium and hallway erupt in response. Members of the cast wolf-whistle, cheer, laugh.
Rufus stares at the wall, his heart beating; a clock ticking down to the dread moment when he will take the stage.
Quiet returns, bringing a subtle shift in the hallway lighting as the gymnasium is darkened in readiness of curtain up.
Rufus stares at the wall as the school play begins.
* * *
Rufus stands, frozen in this moment.
Blinded by the stage-lights, suddenly aware that he can’t even see the audience, let alone what they are wearing.
The piano begins.
His voice is trapped, swallowed beneath his clenching throat.
His pulse racing, breath short.
I can’t see them!
The lights are so bright, so hot; they fill his over-sensate self.
And behind those miniature suns, the gymnasium has disappeared; all is black.
He misses his cue.
“It’s OK,” he hears Mr Nicholas hiss from his right. “Relax. Breathe.”
The piano repeats the introduction.
Rufus blinks but the lights are still there, still burning, even when his eyes are closed.
Good Things, he thinks, the first words are Good Things.
He looks down, away from the lights, sees dim-shapes in the front row. Kindergarteners, teachers, and there, on the end of the row, Principal Shiller.
She nods, encouraging him to go on.
The count comes.
Rufus opens his mouth.
“Good Things…” he begins.
* * *
He floats on the music, his voice disembodied.
Up and above the stage, into the lights, their inferno cores, and through into the very ink itself.
He is red, purple, blue, yellow, green; pulsating in beat, harmony and tune.
No longer Rufus, he is air, earth, fire and water; elemental.
A verse comes, passes into a chorus.
He knows not time, space or place.
He is the in-between and the edge of all things.
He is music.
He is life.
He is light.
* * *
He senses their reaction before he hears the applause, only slowly coming back to himself.
When he does open himself to the sound, it is intense, too much.
What just happened? he screams inwardly, terrified.
The applause is deafening, thunder booming in his ears.
He opens his eyes, but all he sees are the bright burning cores of the stage lights, all he feels is the rushing noise of applause, of cheering and whoops of joy.
He closes his eyes, feeling his pulse beat throughout his head, throbbing, throbbing.
Everything is yellow and red, everything is…
Rufus passes out, tumbling from the stage to land head-first on the cold gymnasium floor.
RUFUS – A NOVEL is a novel-in-progress by Vincent Tuckwood, a Brit author living and working in Waterford, Connecticut, USA. Read more by Vincent Tuckwood.
