Rapture Practice (35 page)

Dad helps me to my feet and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Will you forgive me, Aaron?” he asks.

I look into his eyes, and as I say yes, I feel determination best my hopelessness.
Let’s get through this.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly, with all of the sincerity I can muster. “I’m sorry I hid my music from you.”

“Aaron, we need to destroy these tapes.”

“Sure,” I say. “Throw them away.”

“No, son. I want you to go to the garage and get a hammer.”

“A hammer?”

“Yes, son. I want to go out back with you and we’re going to smash these tapes.”

“Really?” I am confused. “Why can’t we just… throw them away?”

“We are going to smash these tapes as a symbol of you smashing your rebellious will.”

“Isn’t that a little… dramatic?” I ask.

“Aaron, it’s a very dramatic, fearsome thing to commit yourself to God’s will for your life. It is not something to be taken lightly. It’s the most serious thing that you could ever do.”

“And that’s what I’ll be doing by smashing these tapes?”

Dad looks at me with tears in his eyes. “Son,” he says, “I can only tell you what to do. You can answer to please me, and still carry your rebellion in your heart. Or you can answer to please Almighty God who knows your every thought and hears your every word.”

I walk under the balcony landing where my brothers and sister are watching wide-eyed. I walk down the stairs to the garage. I open Dad’s gray metal toolbox and take out the hammer. Dad meets me at the door with all of my tapes in the box.

Without a word, I take them from him and walk out the back door of the house. Then I kneel down on the concrete sidewalk next to the garbage cans, and reach for a tape.

Amy Grant’s
Heart in Motion
is the first one I grab. This is the first album I ever bought, when Jason drove me to Walmart in his sports car one night. I raise the hammer over
Amy’s picture on the cover. She is looking down at a heart-shaped locket she clasps in one hand. I can hear her voice singing the song “That’s What Love Is For,” and my eyes well up with tears as I bring the hammer down.

Crash.

Suzy Bogguss is next.

Crash.

Bette Midler.

Crash.

Wilson Phillips.

Crash.

One by one, I bring the hammer down on the plastic cases and paper liner notes, sending splinters of clear acrylic showering over the sidewalk, ricocheting off the nearby steps. The pounding hammer creates its own rhythm.

Crash.

One day…

Crash.

I will listen…

Crash.

To anything…

Crash.

I want.

Crash.

I will…

Crash.

Not live here…

Crash.

Forever.

As the beat of the hammer holds steady, a melody rips through my chest and blends with the roar of the rage in my stomach. This new harmony swells into a raucous symphony of resolve.

Finally, each tape is smashed to smithereens. Dad helps me collect the shards of plastic and spools of black magnetic tape—the guts and organs of my love songs. He holds the dustpan as I sweep up the final pieces, and when they are deposited in the trash can, he hugs me close and whispers, “I love you, son.”

I understand he is doing what he thinks is best for me, but I also know it will not accomplish what he wants. There will be more music. There will be a day I no longer have to hide it. My tapes may be crushed, but my will is not broken, and I have finally learned not to give myself away. I make no move to break from his embrace. Instead, I stand and let him hold me while I cry.

Quietly.

The Mid-America Association of Christian Schools Fine Arts Competition was held on a beautiful spring day fraught with nerves and tension. Besides performing with the high school choir, the high school band, and the senior high select vocal ensemble, I sang a vocal solo, played the Khachaturian Tocatta in E-flat Minor in the classical piano competition, and performed a humorous interpretation called “Before a Bakery Showcase,” in which I played four different characters reacting to what they see behind the glass at a bakery. These included an obese woman and a four-year-old boy.

When I won in all three categories, vocal, piano, and acting, I had to make a difficult decision. The rules stated I could compete in only one of these events during the national competition at Bob Jones University.

The vocal solo had been an afterthought. I love to sing, but I knew the guys I’d be up against at nationals would all be classically trained, and the competition would be stiff.
Besides, the guy I’d beat out for first place wouldn’t be able to go to nationals if I went, and singing was his life.

I’d worked hard on the piano solo, and I knew I could probably win at nationals, but the nervousness I feel when I sit down to play a piano solo in competition is unparalleled. My palms drip sweat onto the keyboard, and my knee trembles so badly it causes my foot to shake on the damper pedal. I don’t feel like I’m in control of my fingers sometimes. There’s more margin for freak error at the piano—more of a chance my nerves will make my brain hiccup and my fingers slip onto the wrong keys.

More than anything else, deep down inside, I wanted to act at nationals. The rush of being onstage in front of an audience was something I could never get enough of. So I made my decision, and after two days of sleeping on school buses, we arrive at the campus of Bob Jones University, a college in Greenville, South Carolina, well known for losing its tax-exempt status in the seventies by refusing to allow interracial dating.

The college allows students of different races to date now, but the place is permeated with an air of cheerful fascism. The dress code is strict, and the students aren’t allowed to leave campus unless they sign out and sign in at a guard station. All dates between students must be chaperoned by an approved staff or faculty member. Even the grounds seem manicured in a way that feels unnatural. It’s as if the leaves fall directly from the trees into plastic bags every night.

On the second day of competition, I perform “Before a
Bakery Showcase” for the judges in the school’s studio theater. Every audience I’ve performed for so far loves this piece, and this day is no exception. My characterizations are well drawn, the laughs I get are plentiful, and the applause enthusiastic. The winners in every category of the competition are announced on the last night of our stay during a huge Command Performance, which features the best of the competition in all disciplines. When the list of the performers is announced, my name is on it.

That night, I perform in front of nearly four thousand students and faculty. It is my largest audience to date.

As I begin the piece with the fat lady, the crowd goes wild with laughter, and for a few minutes in the spotlight, I am a star. After a standing ovation, I find my seat next to Erica. She is wildly proud of me.

“That was amazing!” she squeals.

The girl who follows me plays a piece by Khachaturian on the piano—not as difficult as the toccata, but the audience isn’t into it. Her incredible technique and amazing effort are met with polite applause, and I know I made the right choice for me. I could tell it disappointed my mom when I didn’t choose to take the piano solo, but acting is where my heart is.

When the awards are announced, I am given second place, but I don’t care. The performance was the real prize. The laughter and applause of four thousand people will ring in my ears long after a plaque or a trophy loses its luster.

Besides, when I get back to Kansas City, I have an audition.

After weeks of looking, I finally found the notice I had been waiting for under the “Auditions” posting in the back of the Arts section of
Kansas City Star
:

MISSOURI REPERTORY THEATRE

Non-Required Equity Principal Auditions

Prepare two contrasting monologues, not to exceed 2 minutes.

Bring your picture and resume, stapled together.

Please call for an appointment.

I called the number. I gave my name. I booked a time after school the following week.

“You’ve got an audition at the Rep?” Erica’s voice is almost awed.

“Yep.” I can’t stop smiling.

“What are you auditioning for?” asks Megan.

“It says that they’re holding auditions for the season, so I think that means they’ll consider me for any part I may be right for.”

Mom and Dad are more cautious about this development.

“What kind of play are you auditioning for?” Dad wants to know.

“It’s not an audition for one play. It’s every play in their next season,” I explain. “I mean, I don’t even know if I’m right for one of the parts, but it’s still good to have the experience.”

Dad looks less than certain.

“But what if the plays aren’t good shows?” he asks. “Not everything they do at the Rep is going to have a good message like
A Christmas Carol
.”

Be patient. Breathe.
I could feel my annoyance creeping into my throat. “I may not get offered any part. I just want to go and audition.”

“What monologue will you do, honey?” Mom asks.

“It says two contrasting monologues, so I think I’m just going to do two different characters from ‘Before a Bakery Showcase.’ ”

“I think that’s a great idea,” she says, and smiles.

Dad glances at her, then back at me. “I guess it’s okay,” he agrees. “What time is your appointment?”

“It’s at four fifty, so that should give us plenty of time to get there after school.”

I decide to wear a colorful tie to the audition. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to dress, but I want to look nice, and stylish. I have a new tie from Banana Republic that has a bright abstract print on it. I iron and starch my favorite white dress shirt, and pick out a pair of brown corduroy slacks. I feel great in this outfit: confident, handsome.

By the time Dad comes to pick me up, I feel like I might crawl out of my skin.

“You okay, son?” he asks.

I nod. “A little nervous.”

I smile at him as we head toward the theater. It’s on the campus of the University of Missouri at Kansas City. I’ve been there lots of times. When I was in grade school and junior high, Dad finished his PhD in education here. The theater is in a lovely part of the campus, surrounded by trees. When Dad parks, he asks if I want him to come in.

“No,” I say, spotting the stage door and a sign pointing toward the check-in for the auditions. “I’ll be fine.”

“You will be fine.” He smiles. “You’re the best actor I’ve ever seen on a stage. Doesn’t matter what these yahoos say.”

Actually, it
only
matters what they say.

This is the first time I’ve acted in front of a professional director—somebody whose job it is to hire and pay professional actors.

What if I’m not really any good? What if I’ve been told I’m good by people who don’t know what being good is?

My heart is racing as I step inside the stage door. I am seeing the guts of a professional theater for the first time: the rigging for the fly system that moves all of the drapes and scenery; the back areas of the stage.

A young woman sees me and smiles. “Are you here to audition?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Name?”

“Aaron Hartzler.”

She finds my name on the list, makes a mark next to it, and asks for my headshot and resume.

Headshot.

I’ve never heard that word before. Makes senses. An actor’s picture must be his headshot. I hand her the résumé I printed up. It has all of the shows I’ve ever done, starting with the one where I played dead when I was three years old. Most of them are Christian musicals I’ve done at school. I also listed that I won second place at the National Fine Arts Competition for my humorous interpretation. Attached to the résumé is a wallet-size school picture of me. I notice that the other photos in the stack she has are glossy, black-and-white eight-by-tens.