Aw baby. I missed you.

Sometimes you end up in a time and place you could never have imagined. And then afterwards you walk away into the night completely changed and more yourself than you thought possible.

I had become good friends with a young woman who was interested in making films. I had seen one of the flyers she and the young director of a short film had posted around town. It was a casting call. The colorful 8 x 10 photocopy said that they were looking for females and males: early 20’s & 30 – 40 year-olds.

I had joked with Bailie at one point that I might be interested, but that I was well out of the range – nearing 60. She said that they were looking for a father figure in the film. I had replied that I was nearly a grandfather figure.

Still, I was interested. Film is another way to tell a story and I am working at telling stories.

The Friday and Saturday casting times came and went. Sunday, at 6:30, was the last chance. With Bailie’s encouragement in my mind, I walked on down to the Percolator on a brisk February evening. The Percolator is not even off-Broadway. It’s certainly not Hollywood. The Percolator is just a small, non-descript building off the alleyway hidden behind a multi-story, luxury hotel – luxury for Lawrence, Kansas, that is. It serves as an art gallery and meeting space for local artists.

Bailie happened to be standing a short distance away from the building near the alley as I walked up. She said that she recognized my walk in the near darkness. I explained to her that I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time, but that I was thinking I might read for the part. She didn’t hesitate and I could only follow her inside.

Bailie explained to me I would be reading for the part of Ricky, a meth addict, a father who was  not able to connect with his daughter who was bailing him out of jail. Now in real life I think that it is fair to say that I am a decent guy, happily married for thirty years, no kids of my own. This casting call that I had sort of stumbled into the middle of was going to have be just about acting.

But in acting – just like with everything else - experience and practice matters. My last acting experience was on a high school stage. I think I might have had one or two lines.

Bailie apologized for not getting me the sides ahead of time. I didn’t even know that ‘sides’ was jargon for a bit of script. The side in question turned out to be two sides of a half-sheet of paper which Bailie handed to me.  Then she turned to take her place at the video camera on a tripod off to one side from where the director and her assistant were sitting. A couple of other young women were preparing to read a scene in what had become the front of the room. Several more young women sat in chairs near me. Except for a guy about forty sitting in the other corner near the back of the room and a young man behind me, I found myself taking my place on a folding chair near the  back of a room full of 20-something women. Okay, maybe it was six or eight young women. I couldn’t quite take it all in. I had never quite been in a time and place like this before.

I would easily say that all of the young women were pretty. And I suppose that is what you would expect me to say when they all seemed young enough to possibly be my own daughters or even granddaughters. They were each one young and attractive in their own particular way. The way that you would want human beings to be.

I looked down at my lines.

Ricky was being escorted from his jail cell. He walks up to his daughter and kisses her on the forehead. The line he speaks through grinning, yellow teeth is this: “Aw baby. I missed you.” I tried to imagine how those words would sound coming out of my mouth. Then I tried to imagine kissing one of those young women on the forehead. This was not the father figure I had anticipated.

I read further. It turned out that Ricky also had a very trampy girlfriend who would show up shortly in this scene. Ricky was supposed to make out with her like a man who had been in jail would.

Now, I still struggle to find words to describe the feelings jumbling through my mind in those moments. I told myself that I would be acting. Acting. My wife would be grading papers for her students back home. And while – let’s call it - physical affection is part of our marriage, it doesn’t look like it did on the page in front of me. And she and I have only really mostly just practiced on each other. Even in my younger days, I never acted the way Ricky was supposed to act in this film. But this was acting. This is acting? How in the world was I going to play my part? How in the world?

I watched the young women playing the parts of Sara, Ricky’s daughter, as well as her friends – changing off to act different roles. Bailie was at the camera. The two directors were giving direction. I watched the women acting. Which one would be Sara when it was my turn? Which one of them would play my girlfriend?

I sat there watching. I couldn’t escape my age. They were girls up there acting like young women that they weren’t. And they were convincing me that they were the characters they were acting - not the young women who they really were. After several minutes of mild panic, I finally realized that, at least for that evening, there would be no kissing or making out. We were all just reading our lines.

But for a nearly endless short period of time, I had wondered back and forth more times than I can now recount whether I could act as Ricky was being directed to act. With considerable relief, once I realized that those actions were only the questions scrambling my mind, I think that I had almost convinced myself that I could possibly kiss a woman I had never met before on the forehead. But I was not close to being prepared for a make out scene. They mostly felt like girls to me up there. I saw their faces, their bodies. They were human beings.  They were the daughters or possibly the granddaughters of some guy like me.

I understand now, and then, of course, in my mind that they are indeed young women – that they choose to act – perhaps to understand who they are in a similar way that I write to try to understand in some part who I am. But it must take considerable time and practice to learn to separate out the various parts of oneself and then just show some part. This scene was as close as I had come to the art of acting. I became astonished at the level of these young women’s craft. They became who they weren’t – at least with the part of who they were that showed on the outside. But who was the person inside each one of them? I could mostly only feel my own self and wonder at the selves they were.

The young women actors and the young man had finished reading and had left the Percolator. It was still my turn to read the part of Ricky. I would first read as the assistant director read the other lines of the script back to me and then, again, I would deliver my reading of Ricky toward the director. They sat behind a table strewn with scrawled notes.

I could imagine that they were my daughters – daughters that I loved, meant to love, wished that I could love - if only I could stop caring so much more about my own needs – his own needs - the way Ricky must have felt. I wouldn’t even have had to act the awkwardness I would have felt if I had had to kiss their foreheads.

The rest of the scene is on video tape. I gave it a shot.

I stayed to watch the seasoned actor read Ricky. It was completely apparent that what he was doing was so much more what it looks like when someone has practiced acting over time. I shook his hand afterwards. And at no time during the entire evening was I not given complete respect for my own halting efforts. There was some acting and then there was being human that evening. All of the people in the Percolator that evening were themselves and I was me. Bailie hugged me briefly and then turned to talk with the directors.

I walked outside, bundled up into the night. As I thought about what had transpired, I began to laugh. I couldn’t act. And yet it had been fun to try. The difference between play-acting and being your self is vast. And yet, sometimes it is quite hard to tell the difference. We are people playing a kind of game, after all. Shakespeare said that better. And after all, it is common to say that we are not always acting like ourselves. We could, perhaps act better than we do. We are who we are and we act our various parts of our selves all of the time.

As I stood there in front of the camera, I realized that if you intend to be an actor, not only are there countless ways to deliver a single line, but your expressions, your body language and movement – all of it has to be convincing all at the same time if the audience is going to believe the story you are trying to tell.

I think with a little direction, I might be able to get that first line for Ricky right. Mostly, because I wouldn’t have to act that much differently than I already am.

But I wasn’t going to get the part. I get to be the character walking down a dark alley, stars overhead, laughing a little at who he is.