Thank You Notes

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone I’ve been involved with in productions for the last year. For all of you out there who don’t know, I started acting again on stage a year ago with the Rocky Horror Show as Brad. Since then I was in Stuff Happens, Guys and Dolls, Hairspray, and the Rocky Horror Show again (as Frank N Furter). A special thanks goes out to my Directors Alizabeth Von Presley, Ryan Foizey, Casey Prince, Chad Larabee, and Chris Okiishi. Another thank you goes out to Lena of BusyBee & WhiteWolf Editing for the awesome header. I would also like to give a shout out to my next performance coming up soon. It’s An Ethical Dilemma of a Sandwich Down the Pants opening this Thursday and Friday at the Theatre Cedar Rapids Underground Play Festival, don’t miss it.

On Hands of Giants

I used to live by the railroad tracks in town.  Trains would fly down the rails with their whistles blowing.  They would pass by my home both night and day.  The sound of a train strikes dissonant chords.  Screeching brakes against a train whistle can be compared to the sound of drilling a tooth out and children screaming.  I grew up with that noise and learned how to sleep through the cacophony.

When I went to sleep that night the storm was only just starting to get heavy.  Up in the sky, a mile-high giant began to stir and wake. The giant in the clouds heaved as he woke and poured rain and hail on the ground below. He started to reach down to the Earth, hesitant at first, then sure with his touch to raze my foundation and rip me from my home.

I thought it was just another train; then I met the sky face-to-face. It was the rain, not wind that finally made me aware of what had happened.  I was at the mercy of the tempest. The rain made it nearly impossible to see.  Everything was soaked.  I pulled the bed sheets over my head to protect my face.  I peeked out and looked into the eye of the tornado. The darkness was only briefly relieved by the lightning storm surrounding me.

Dancing in the wind up above were the items of my wardrobe.  Through flashes of light the shirts, pants, and shoes that flew above took the silhouette of a woman.  At first glance she began to spin and leap across the heavens like a ballerina in the most spectacular and chaotic performance of her life.  She curled her body into a ball, and then, as if struck by a hammer, her limbs reached out for help.  Her arm unraveled and ripped from her body.  She looked back at me once more and then dove into the void of the eye of the tornado and escaped from my sight. 

The bed creaked, rocked and rattled.  I knew that at any moment my fate would be that of the ballerina.  I held to the head-board as I tossed, turned, and twisted.  Looking out from the covers I noticed that I was moving closer to the center of the storm.  I closed my eyes and waited. Inching closer to the center I could hear the tornado screaming louder and louder.

Something heavy hit the left side of the headboard and just nearly missed me.  The screaming began to soften and the giant started to calm.  Still spinning from the recent impact, the bed began its decent. Softly and slowly the bed fell from the sky like an autumn leaf.  The rain dissipated into a pitter-patter. The wind set me down in a field a few miles from home, soaked, shocked, and bruised, but alive.

The storm had come to pass at a pace that was as fast as it was ferocious. Some try to forget experiences such as this. But as terrifying as it was to live through I will never forget that night. The night I flew on hands of giants.

No More Training Wheels

I can remember my first bicycle.  It was a white and baby-blue Schwinn children’s bike that my parents bought at a garage sale.  The bike had to have already been 10 years old.  It was my first bike that didn’t have three wheels…it had four.  My bike may have had training wheels, but it was still a bike.  I rode it all around the neighborhood, with my friends, brothers, and sisters.  I remember the wheels on that bike, they were solid rubber.  I could feel stick and crack on those crooked sidewalks.   I was four and a half years old and I loved that bike.

One day, my dad decided that it was time for me to discover what it was like to ride on only two wheels.  So, we took my older brother’s bicycle and headed for the nearest park with a hill.  My brother had a red Huffy.  It had a single gear and in order to hit the brakes, you had to back-pedal.  The hill we walked to may have well been a mountain to my little four and a half year old body.

At first we stayed on flat ground, and my dad taught me the basics.  Look forward, keep pedalling, back-pedal if you need to stop, and most importantly don’t look down.  He  stood behind me and we started moving.  With my dad there helping me, pushing me, I was ok.  I was just fine.  Then without warning he let go.

WHAT THE HELL DAD!  What were you thinking!  I’m not ready for this!

I fell over.  We tried again, and again, and again.  Every time we started riding I was fine.  Then he let go, I would stop looking forward, look down, and fall.  As a solution, we took to the hill.

We walked to the top hill and looked over the crest towards my impending doom.  At the bottom of the hill was a grassy baseball diamond with a backstop.  My dad pointed the bike towards the backstop, and put me on the seat.  “Ok, buddy, we’re going to go on three.  One, Two…”  I never heard him say three.  I only felt the push, and then the air screaming past my ears.  I felt betrayed.  My own father said, “WE’RE going to go on three.”  We’re is a contraction that implies multiple people doing a single action, and I didn’t see him there on that bike with me.  And what happened to counting to three?  What did he expect me to do, just glide on down the hill like a pro?  Then it hit me, I was gliding down the hill like a pro.  I was on a big kid bike, I was looking forward, and I was flying.  This was the coolest thing I have ever done.  I had already gotten to the bottom of the hill and I was still moving – fast and straight.  I was lost in the excitement.  It was at this wonderful moment that I realized that I was on a collision course with the backstop from hell.  The lesson on how to stop, never crossed my mind.  I could hear my dad in the background, yelling at me with proud joy.  “Good job Justin! You’re doing great!”  Apparently, his realization that I couldn’t stop was slightly behind mine.  My bike hit the backstop, and then physics kicked in.  I flew forward and realized that yes, a four and a half year old boy does have balls. And when they hit the top bar of a red-Huffy bicycle, they do hurt.

We went home after that ride.  I sat on the couch to watch tv.  My dad took off my training wheels.  I would never need them again.