You pack your life quietly. It fits inside one suitcase.
30 Rock reruns suppress the sounds of your midnight scooting and shuffling. The discovery of your intentions might renew his drunk and warrantless rage.
Heartburn. Acid bubbles up and burns your esophagus. You pop an antacid.
Nearly out the door, it’s difficult for you to name it anything other than a cult. It’s the only definition that fits the bill: A charismatic, idiosyncratic eccentric with a traumatic past, heralding his own self-assigned genius and one-of-a-kind work ethic, makes big promises to people desperate for big promises.
“I’m gonna make you a star!”
It’s an embarrassing business plan, yet unequivocally effective. You think you would have spotted a false prophet sooner.
But maybe that’s just Hollywood.
5 AM. You sneak past him, your housemate and talent agent, still in a stupor on the couch cradling last night’s last bottle. You like him best unconscious. It’s only in moments like these that your mind can wander freely, uncaged, uncommitted to maneuvering his shifting expectations and the nuclear fallout of failing to meet them. His triggers are sensitive and unpredictable. So daily you slice your feet on eggshells and drip your blood behind you.
Another antacid. You place the house key on the counter before latching the door.
Outside, L.A.’s brimstone smog smites your eyes. You can’t see where you’re going. But anywhere is better than here.
Approaching headlights part the smog. You step off the porch to greet the taxi. And it ferries you out of Hell.
At 20,000 feet, worry’s seed takes root around your gut and blossoms into paranoia. It is an invasive and poisonous growth, stealing all the sun and sucking at your dreams
Have you made a mortal enemy? Is this the end of your career? What of all the work you’ve done, the sacrifices spent?Will he blacklist you? Bomb your reputation? Tout lies and libel you? Will you be ostracized, left alone and never loved again?
Is his brand of villainy commonplace? Is the entire industry peopled by abusive power mongers? Does your morality deem you unfit to make movies?
If not Art, what, then, are movies? Advertisements? Mirages? Pretty lies propped up by light? Are you congregant to a wicked faith? Is abuse a necessary baptism? The only means by which to meet your dreams, your ugly god?
Your life isn’t the story you thought it was or would be. You choke on the stalks sprouting from your throat.
Reflecting on your career, you start to loathe the labors you once loved. How many hours, days, months, years have you wasted in waiting rooms muttering monologues under your breath? It’s strange to sit beside yourself, your competition, the other factory-made fellas vying for the same identity: the sweet and scrawny type, buttered up with boyish charm. Quixotic clones, all equipped with Drama Degrees and the same, misplaced self-assurance that, despite your striking similarities, each of you are somehow different. Uniquely talented. Distinctly human. The prodigy they’ve been waiting for.
Bullshit.
Look: the you in the blue shirt advertises his prestige training and preparedness with annoyingly loud vocal warm-ups.
Unique New York unique New York unique New York unique New York unique New York unique New York unique New York unique New York unique New York unique New York un…
The you in the green shirt scrolls on his phone, playing unbothered. Performative apathy as psychological warfare. By playing nonchalant he silently condemns your squandered effort: “You’re trying too hard.”
Red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather red leather yellow leather r…
The you in the black shirt chats with the auditor, signaling to others his “in” with the company, the futility of your attempt.
“Yeah, we go WAY back. And let me tell you, working with [so-and-so] was SUCH a profound experience, he’s SO smart, fingers crossed he casts me again!”
She sells seashells by the seashore she sells seashells by the seashore she sells seashells by the seashore she sells seashells by the seashore she sells seashells by the seashore she sells seashells
“Alex Rafala?”
They call you in to fail.
“Hi, my name is Alex Rafala. I’m reading for the role of Ken.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
You’re never ready. Your heart leaps into your skull and beats between your ears. Your hands shake and tingle and disappear, deprived of oxygen.
Breathe, damn it.
You close your eyes and force yourself to find a bad memory. You wrongly believe that pain is the best primer for a great performance. Identify the sights and sounds and smells and tastes and sensations of that night you’d much rather forget:
You’re sitting on a damp log outside a budget hotel in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Stray cars passing on the highway down the hill. A half-empty plastic bottle of whiskey. A disposable razor, insufficiently sharp. Your arms burn a bit, but the scrapes are comically superficial. You can’t smell shit with a stuffed-up nose.
Bitter words sit sticky on your tongue, repeatedly slurred:
“You’re a fucking coward. You’re a piece of shit.”
“You’re a fucking coward. You’re a piece of shit.”
“You’re a fucking coward. You’re a piece of shit.”
Salt tears. Stinging cheeks. And the sound of your parents crying over the phone.
“Thanks for coming in.”
It’s already over. You must have mangled that monologue. The casting director’s disinterested tone communicates everything you need to know. His subtext: “I’m not convinced you’re human.”
He doesn’t look up. He grabs the next resume.
You don’t perform anymore. Not after Los Angeles. And when faced with the sudden vacancy – the absence of anything to do – you start to believe them: You are not human. At the very best, a loser. You wasted your 20s – formative years set aside for self-discovery – overly-committed to a fruitless career and foreign identities.
Your existence feels unpracticed, atrophied, made muscle-less by the exhausting routine of memorizing other people’s words:
Rehearsal, rejection.
Rehearsal, rejection.
Rehearsal, rejection.
You impoverished yourself performing a life. You are without interests or hobbies, opinions or wisdom. You aren’t sure how to describe yourself, what to write on your dating profile. And now, malnourished of meaning, there is no fat to place upon the altar of your abandoned church. You have nothing left to sacrifice.
You finger the blood-damp hole in your chest, the gaping cavity where God used to live. It was there your heart beat fast and churned passion into purpose. Now it whistles when the wind blows through.
You can’t move. Congealed blood keeps you to the couch, where you’ve festered for two years. But maybe this is best. You are, after all, a vile contribution. Perhaps that’s your purpose, to remove yourself. Relativity requires two points. very society needs a loser, an outcast, someone to mark the boundary, the elsewhere not here. So, exemplify unacceptability. Be the, “Don’t be…” Be the leper even Jesus won’t kiss.
You think this might be right. Couch-potatoed. Foolish you, you were never meant to create. You are a consumer. You are a good consumer. A great consumer. You are perfect this way.
Watch T.V.
Watch T.V.
Watch T.V.
Joe, your dear friend and especially patient roommate, returns home with a Happy Meal in hand.
“My guy, they’re giving out Pokémon cards at McDonald’s right now.”
You perk up. An echo from your childhood bounces about the hole in your chest. Nostalgic defibrillation. For the first time in many months, you are motivated to move, inspired to rise and revive a buried interest, long forgotten until now.
You shed the skin still stuck to the couch, a snake outgrowing his former shape. You are out the door and back again before Joe can finish his four-piece chicken McNugget meal.
You rip your pack, delicately, of course, so as not to damage its contents. Your hippocampus flares. Your amygdala blushes. Yes, your whole brain revels at the electric sensory recall rolling in fast.
You slide your thumb slowly over the shiny cardboard. You remember this texture. You pinch it between your fingers and balance it on your palm. You remember this weight. You pass the card under your nose. Oh, the smell. You remember this smell.
You’re suddenly a boy. You’re standing at the 7/11 counter beside your father. Your younger brother, too, both flush with five dollars, saved allowances. You begged your father to bring you before school, asserting the need for a new pack of Pokémon cards. He pretends to want a coffee.
“What’d ya get?” Joe pops another nugget into his mouth.
What Eucharist is this? How can something so simple, so silly, stir you so strongly? You smile.
It’s infrequent at first. You grab a pack if convenient, if there, if placed near the counter of whatever store you’re shopping in. They are guilty pleasures, ironic indulgences, never serious. You’re sure to measure their meaning conservatively, quick to label their novelty as fleeting and insignificant.
But you are pestered by your itchy interest, creeping wider like a roaming rash. Stray packs can’t scratch your flaring curiosity.
A bit of research leads you to a card shop in Midtown Manhattan. One Wednesday evening in early autumn, you enter the store gripping a bad deck built with bulk stashed inside a plastic bag and sit near a few folks gathered toward the back. They welcome you immediately, warmly.
The butterflies in your stomach drop dead. You thought, as an amateur, you’d be expected to audition. You worried the club was exclusive to experts, proven players, real people. It isn’t. Fans are fans, and Pokémon is, apparently, for everyone.
You’re invited to play despite a debilitating unfamiliarity with the rules and meta-game. A match with you surely won’t be fun for someone more experienced.
“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you! Andrew, by the way.”
It won’t be long before you consider Andrew a best friend.
Six months later and many milestones met, you aren’t the new guy anymore. You’re Alex, our friend, a goofy and gladhearted alternative-play enthusiast, a dependable attendant to our weekly hang, a vital contribution to our found family of card slinging scalawags. Thus, Wednesdays are your favorite, the brightest night of every week, reliable illumination during darker and darker days.
One year later and, (un)surprisingly, cards aren’t the crux anymore. Sure, cards are nice, and collecting them is fun, but that scripture is second to ritual. You exhibit reverence for an essence higher than the game’s material apparatus. Though hypnotizing, holofoil can be hollow. You’d rather be awed by artful interaction, the game mechanics of your communion, so brief and wonderful and irreplicable.
During unofficial matches, your gang plays with proxies, placeholders for unowned cards, slipped into sleeves behind random bulk. Some print them in color. Others simply pen the information on scrap sheets of paper. The artists among you might doodle the subject, elevating their frugality with a fun bit of wabi-sabi.
No “thing” ever matters. The fun is there regardless. The cards are only totems; intrinsically valueless visual cues meant to medium your collective imagination.
Thus, your parish is a playmat placed on any table, a shuffled deck – proxies permitted – stacked on top, random and ready to draw. The course of any match – like your life – cannot be plotted. These sermons cannot be scripted. And nor would you want them to be. They are improvised by equals and set to the rhythm of flicking cards fwipping between friends.
You realize you were wrong. Your purpose was not your profession. God is not a governor and cannot be hoarded in your chest. It is the space between two people, card players, perhaps. And laughter, let free, is their prayer.
A lifetime since you started performing. Five years since you stopped.
You’re in Tokyo attending a month-long writer’s workshop, penning a personal essay and struggling to describe the meaninglessness met after departing the entertainment industry.
Time to take a break. You duck into a basement bar spotlighted on social media. Their schtick? Unique craft cocktails inspired by any trading card presented to the bartender. You’re surprised. You thought it’d be crowded. But the bar – softly underscored by jazz – is nearly vacant, save for two customers perched near the back.
They’re playing Pokémon.
You commit to introducing yourself. But not before a colorful splash of liquid courage.
“Kore o onigashimasu.”
You present your order to the bartender, a recently purchased “chase” card: Team Rocket’s Nidoking ex Secret Illustration Rare. It seems a solid pick. A spiny, purple pachyderm, kinetically posed, shattering the earth with an explosive stomp. Hopefully, the resultant drink packs a proportional punch.
After a big sip and a deep breath, you greet your fellow enthusiasts. You indicate your interest in playing by gesticulating at your sticker-slapped deck box.
Eyebrows up. They graciously agree. One scoots further down the banquette and invites you to sit. Their warm welcome reminds you of an early Autumn Wednesday, the night your life renewed.
You win your first match. Handsomely, too. You’ve come a long way and your confidence is brimming.
While swapping spots and sharing games, the three of you do your best to better the language barrier. Their English isn’t great. Your Japanese is worse.
But you make do. By way of brute force, aided by translation apps, the lot of you can communicate basic information: Favorite Pokémon and deck archetypes, timelines and tournament records. Sometimes a simple sound or gesture is all that’s needed to joke or tease or make reference to a canon aged thirty this year.
Others gather and chat. They’re clearly acquainted. Regulars, perhaps, and ready to rumble. As 8 PM approaches, the first of your new friends informs you that the bar’s weekly tournament is set to start soon. You suspect it’s reserved for the small squad of locals lingering near the bar. But they invite you to participate.
The universe is suddenly smaller, densely contained to a basement bar in Tokyo. This sacrament, this communion, like any worth hosting, insists on the present and the people you’re with. And who are you with? Courteous nerds, locked-in and fast to bond – even wordlessly – over stiff drinks and a good game. Who better than they? Where better than here? Right now, there are no others to know, nor places to be.
The tournament is over. Your glasses are empty. The ice has melted. You are 7000 miles away from home and yet never so close. They invite you to return next week.
“Hai!”
The world widens. Your debt to sleep comes due, and the trains are stopping soon. Before leaving, three drinks deep and especially courageous, you translate a phrase on your phone and blurt it across the bar.
“Asoba sete kurete arigatō!”
Laughter abounds.
Cover by Caleb Oquendo