FUSE

       It seemed fitting that my trip home from Colorado ended with a ride from a drug dealer, his girlfriend, and their dog. He had pulled over his large white four door Lincoln and offered me a ride as I hitchhiked on Interstate 84, somewhere in Idaho. I climbed in the back and sat next to his large, white, overfed canine. Turns out, we were all headed to Lake Oswego, and he insisted on delivering to Marnie’s door. 

       Marnie’s house was cottage-like, nestled beneath tall Douglas firs, Maples, large rhododendrons and surrounded by an unmanicured lawn. The property bordering Lakeview Boulevard was hidden from view by a tall, thick laurel hedge. A narrow gravel opening served as a driveway. The half an acre backyard was fenced off with old plank wood and had a substantial garden that delighted me when I was child, pulling up my first carrot from the dirt, which could be eaten right there on the spot. There was also a little fish pond burrowed into the edge of a huge wall of shrubbery, magical to me because of the golden fish gliding in the dark water. On the other side of the driveway, near the back, there was an area shaded almost always from the sun. It was like a cove, and once inside, a solitary wooden bench invited one to sit quietly and be still.

        There was a glad feeling as I settled into my grandmother’s house and a sense of being home for the first time in quite a while. Bill had lived with Marnie for a few years, and he was the de facto head of the house. After a rocky teenage relationship, my brother and I reached a détente. He was a survivor too, in his own way. And Marnie, it was easy to see, was happy to have us around. We shared dinner most nights. Marnie cooking, with Bill and me cleaning up.

       Down to my last few dollars, Bill got me a job at the local neighborhood grocery store where he’d been working for a few years. They put me behind the cash register, an old-fashioned manual push button machine. To my surprise, I became an ace cashier in no time at all, achieving an Olympic level of proficiency. Had there been such a category for cashiers, I would have easily been a gold medal contender. It was primarily a family run store and I enjoyed the comradery. 

       One day I met a wonderful girl. Karen. We were at a backyard party, on a sunny day, and we found ourselves sitting across from each other at a picnic table. 

       “God, I hate parties, “ I offered after we’d introduced ourselves.

       “Then what are you doing here?” she asked with a smile and studied me.

       We talked for a long time about politics and books we liked, and it became obvious there was an attraction, at least to me. However, before anything could develop further, my dad called from Houston and said he’d lined up a job for me in Montreal at one of his firms’ subsidiaries. It was a junior executive position with no clearly defined function. I would train for six months, and then head overseas to work at a massive multi-hundred million dollar construction project in Iran. The idea of an adventure in far- away Persia intrigued me. Two weeks later, I was off to Montreal. The smartest thing I remembered to pack was Karen’s mailing address. 

       “You’ll need to learn French, you know,” Karen had challenged me before I left.

       Over the course of the next eight months, I played the role of a young corporate exec. While there, Karen and I corresponded often, her letters were a connection to home that was important to me. Our letter writing gradually deepened our bond. I wrote to her about Stephen, my mother, and even Gloria. Fortunately, the job overseas fell through, and I had no interest in staying in Montreal. I had been ready to hang up the junior exec suit and tie anyway. I wanted to get back to Oregon. And the greatest portion of my motivation to do so was to see Karen again.  

       Within a year of my return to Oregon, Karen and I married. It would be the last good decision I would make for years. We set up house in Lake Oswego and were happy together. We were a young couple brimming with optimism. Her Dad offered me a job selling cars at their Buick dealership, one of the most successful dealerships in the northwest, and certainly the most respected. I was grateful for the job and began to learn about the tradecraft of selling and set about it with enthusiasm. But after a few months, a curious thing appeared. Insomnia. I started to experience nights of inexplicable sleeplessness. This made no sense, because life was good. We had two cars, a wonderful rental house to live in. Our relationship was strong. I liked her very stable and large extended family, and they liked mine, as small as it was. We spent free time with friends, attended concerts, and shared a love for long drives, singing along with the radio. The future was bright. But the insomnia continued to visit me with increasing frequency. It was maddening. There was one three day stretch where I hadn’t slept at all. I lied in bed on that third morning, my head in Karen’s lap, sobbing, having no idea what was wrong with me. Karen had no idea how to help me.

       After some heart to hearts with Karen, it became clear that selling wasn’t within my natural skill set. I felt impatient with customers. We guessed my job was causing the crazy making insomnia. Maybe getting my college degree would be the best thing. Returning to Columbia was out of the question, it was too expensive, my dad having suffered severe financial setbacks. But, one side of Karen’s family was Mormon, and her grandmother recommended Brigham Young University, a private university with great academics and very affordable. Neither of us were church-goers, nor I Mormon, but a few months later we moved to Provo, Utah. I began my junior year, with a major in Business.   

       I took on a heavy class-load, all serious and challenging. I studied hard and kept my focus, and after the first year my efforts were paying off. The insomnia and anxiety were still badgering me, and other persistent disruptions began to surface, like styes and mysterious rashes. But I was maintaining a 3.8 GPA and was near the top of my class. Burying myself in my studies helped keep my demons at bay, and muted an inner voice that whispered I was undeserving of the good fortune that had entered my life. I didn’t identify with being steady or successful. I was more comfortable living in chaos. 

       With one more semester to go, I looked forward to graduating and then entering law school. Karen stayed busy selling real estate. She was good at it, and we paid $25,000 for a small house and began fixing it up. We loved each other and were close, but things were beginning to crack. At this point, I had all my required courses taken care of, including the ones I was currently working on. There was one requirement, however, that I still needed to check off to be complete, an elective course outside of my major. Scanning through the options, there was a course called Film Appreciation. Basically, the class watched classic films on Saturday afternoons and then a short one page synopsis had to be written about the film seen that day. This was the perfect elective course for me. I loved old movies.

       One Saturday afternoon, after having watched the classic western, High Noon, I walked up to the projection room and knocked on the door. I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask the teacher about the film. When the door opened, I was greeted by a young graduate student. His name was Sam. The rest of the students had filed out of the auditorium, so only the two of us stood there. Before I could say more than hello, Sam said,

       “Are you an actor?” And I said,

       “What?” 

       “Are you an actor?” he repeated.

       And I said, “An actor? No, no, not even close. I just came up here to ask you a question about the film.”

       And Sam said, “You should be an actor.”

       I sort of laughed, and said, “No, not me. I’ve never acted in my life, except for one time I played Columbus in third grade.”

       “Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “You should be an actor. I want you in my play I’m directing next month.”

       I laughed, again, sort of, and said, “ No way. Sorry. Thanks, but I’m not an actor. I’m a business major. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about the film.”

       “Forget the film. I want you in my play.”

       And I said, “Nope, nope, that’s not gonna happen,” as I subtly began to back up.

       Sam took a step toward me, said, “I want you in my play. You’d be perfect.”

       Turning fully around, I began to descend the steps that led to the exit doors, and said, over my shoulder,

       “No thanks, gotta go, thanks anyway. Good luck.” I picked up my pace a little, but Sam kept right with me.

       “You’ve got to be in my play.” Sam insisted. He seemed harmless, though as I began to lengthen my stride toward the door, I began to worry that I might have entered the land of ha ha. This man wasn’t taking no for an answer. He followed me out of the auditorium, close on my heels, keeping up a steady stream of reasons why I should be in his play. 

       “You’ll play a ground control radio operator in communication with fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain in World War Two. The title is awesome, “Seven Minutes”, and the fighter planes are sabotaged to explode seven minutes after take-off. You’ll be positioned behind a small desk, wearing headphones, with a mic in front of you on the lip of the stage facing the audience.  The fighter pilots aren’t seen, just their voices are heard. It’s a one act play, under a half an hour long.” I lost track of how many times I said no. Didn’t this guy realize how insane it was to want a totally inexperienced person, like me, to be in his play? My god, I took a course in public speaking once and my knees knocked so violently behind the podium I nearly fainted. But Sam stayed with me as we exited the building, continuing with his excitable conviction that he’d found the missing piece for his play. Crossing the great lawn, Sam was unrelenting, pestering me repeatedly,

       “By the end of the play, the saboteur is caught and the allies win the war.”

       “No.”

       “You have to!”

       “No I don’t.”

       “You’re perfect!”

       “No!”

       “You were made to play this part.”

       “No I wasn’t.”

       “Yes you were. Please!”

       “You’re gravely mistaken if you think I’m going to do this!”

       “Just give it a try! You’ll see I’m right!” And on and on it went. Until about halfway across the great lawn, I felt my resistance begin to crumble. The power to defend myself was evaporating. My pace slowed and then I stopped altogether. Turning abruptly around to face Sam, breathing heavily, and looking him straight in the eye, I said, in a voice I couldn’t believe was mine, 

       “Okay! I’ll do your damn play!”

       After three weeks of rehearsal, the play was ready for performance. 

       When it was over, the stage lights went dark and theatre was completely quiet. A few seconds passed and then applause erupted from the audience. It sounded like thunder to me. I felt an elation I never imagined before. The stage lights came back up again and the audience was still applauding as we took our bows. And it was in that moment that I knew, with out any doubt, what I had to do with my life. I had to do this. Perform. And I had to start immediately. Though it was a small play in a small university theatre, with a limited run of one performance, it was a transformational experience, and the fuse had been lit.

       When I came home afterwards, I burst into our house and announced,

        “I’m going to be an actor.” Karen looked at me, startled, and there was a moment of silence. Then, with a look of concern on her face, she said,

       “What?”  

       And I said, “I’m going to be an actor. I’m transferring out of the business school tomorrow and entering the theatre department. I’m going to be an actor.”

       And there was another pause. I had stunned her into silence. Maybe she saw my enthusiasm, maybe she could see my determination. Maybe, more likely, she thought I was losing my mind. But she never protested, she never complained. She simply said, “Okay.” And after four months of reconnaissance in the theatre department, taking acting 101 classes, it became obvious that chasing a degree in theatre would take too long. I needed to go where the jobs were. And that meant Hollywood. 

        Casting aside the promise of a life of stability, security and steady success, I turned our world upside down. We sold our little starter home, packed our things, loaded the U Hall and headed west to Los Angeles. A friend of a friend lined us up with a crappy apartment in a crappy neighborhood that was beyond depressing. I was so focused on acting, I was blind to these circumstances, but Karen wasn’t. We both suffered countless bites that came from fleas propagating in our green shag carpet, we witnessed drug deals on a regular basis, loud fights coming from the apartment above us. We kept a close eye on a neglected little boy, whose mother moonlighted as a hooker. Two career criminals lived at the end of our floor. My insomnia and anxieties hadn’t lessoned. Karen worked for a temp agency while I chased auditions. We barely scraped by. After a couple of months of giving it a go, a tearful and heartbroken Karen had had enough. She sat me down one day and said,

       “Larry, I love you more than anything, but I can’t do this anymore.”

       With deep regret on both sides, we went our separate ways. I buried the end of our marriage like I buried all of my pain. And going solo again, I pursued my new passion with alacrity, completely unaware that the fuse I had lit was attached to emotional time bombs soon to detonate. In the land of make believe, I achieved success quickly, and it was possibly the worst thing that could have happened to me.