note to reader: i wrote this for a personal narrative assigment for my honours english class. enjoy please!





The Naked Truth

"Ouch!" I yelped loudly, abandoning my dinner and grasping my hair.
"Sorry!" Alicia wailed. "Are you okay Seemy?"
"Yeah, just don't pull too hard next time," I said, massaging my scalp tenderly.
I looked around me at the swarm of actors. It was 5:30 in the evening on a Friday, and we were preparing for our second night of Metcalf's spring comedy, Radio Daze. Around me, fellow actors and acquaintances were applying makeup, seeking out lost costumes, talking to one another, and taking pictures. Shrill laughter ricocheted off the gym walls like lost echoes, and the noises were getting to my head; the voices seared my concentration and split my cranium with ferocious vibrations. I sat on the cool floor of the gym, eating a delicious turkey sandwich as Alicia combed my hair into place, setting it with loads of bobby pins. My scalp felt like an overstuffed pincushion. The hairs were pulled back tightly into an indestructible knot at the back of my head.
"Turn around and look at me," she instructed, "and stop chewing like that."
I gave her an incredulous look. "Is my chewing offending you?"
She rolled her eyes. "You just chew funny, that's all," Alicia responded.
"I chew funny? What the hell does that mean?" I inquired, raising my eyebrows quizzically.
"It's just...oh, never mind. Just look at me and shut up," commanded Alicia.
I turned to face her, crumbs plastered around my lips, and she inspected my head. The turkey in my mouth began to dissolve in my saliva and the blinding white lights above me were hurting my vision. Alicia turned my head from side to side, re-tucking loose pins and smoothing stray hairs down, humming quietly to herself. The turkey grew soggy and tasteless on my tongue. I could feel it deliquescing slowly.
"Looks good," she said, clapping her hands together. I smiled and tried to thank her, but I choked on the bland wad of turkey in my mouth. I gave her a thumbs up instead.
Ignoring Alicia's comment about my means of mechanical digestion, I continued to eat my sandwich, sitting in a corner of the gym we used for the backstage area. I could feel the intense, volatile adrenaline surging through my veins already, and it was 90 minutes before the curtain went up. I thought about everyone I knew who was coming to see me that night: my parents, my friends, and my cousins. I wanted to give them the performance of a lifetime. I envisioned all of them giving me bouquets of flowers, all of them wanting to take my picture or shake my hand. Excitement overtook me like a stubborn toothache.
Chewing the last morsels of turkey and rye, I discarded the paper bag and sighed heavily; the last bite slid down my esophagus with difficulty; for a moment, I feared that it would stubbornly lodge itself in my trachea. Wiping my hands on my jeans and forcing the sandwich down the correct tube with a gigantic gulp, I found an open spot near the mirrors and began applying makeup next to the other girls. I first slathered on pancake foundation, which made my skin feel heavy and old. I grew about three shades darker. Staring at my face, I was reminded of the pumpkin-colored eighth grade tanning bed queens that squawked loudly in the halls like overzealous chickens.
As I was applying lipstick, a bouncing Jackie hopped my way and announced that Circle was going to start in a few minutes. Her surprise entrance startled me and I accidentally colored my teeth; the lipstick tasted acrid and chemical. I jumped up and thanked her quickly. She nodded fervently and bounced away.
"Damn it," I said softly, letting my makeup bag fall to the hard floor with an obnoxious thwack as I raced to the costume rack. I rubbed my incisors on the way, trying to remove the crimson lipstick.
The gym at the junior high school is a standard size gym, with the temporary walls that come and go with the insertion of a key. One wall was used to split the gym in half horizontally, separating the stage and audience house from the backstage area. The backstage area was then split into two parts by the vertical wall; the girls' dressing side, on the right, was used for the makeup room, and the boys' side, on the left, was used for Circle.
Circle was very special to me in junior high. It was one of the best aspects of a standard performance night; it was a time, an hour before the show, where everyone involved in the production stood together and shared their emotions. Circle brought us closer and tightened the friendly knots between everyone.
Basking in the thought of Circle, I dug through the hanger rack to find my costume, knocking dresses and blouses and skirts of other female actors askew onto the floor.
"Oi, Seemers, you look like a dead doll," exclaimed Seth from across the way as I found my costume.
"Shut up you dingbat," I retorted, chucking my high heeled shoe at him. "Now get out; I refuse to get naked in front of you. Go do your makeup somewhere else."
"If I must," said Seth, rising and taking his maquillage with him, curtsying on his way out. With no other males around me, I commenced changing.
I tore out of my clothing so fast, one would have thought hyenas were nipping at my ankles. Three minutes later, Naseem and her grungy clothing lay forgotten for the night; Claire in her pressed office wardrobe emerged, pristine, infallible, and so unlike Naseem. I stole one last glance in the mirror, fixed my buttons, and raced into the other half of the gym, where fellow actors and crew members were beginning to circle up. Our director, Mr. Orth, was talking on his headset, and stage hands floated in and out of the room like black ghosts.
"All right people, let's do this," yelled Mr. Orth, beckoning us closer. Everyone grabbed hands; I slipped in between Carly and Jackie. Carly gave my hand a light squeeze and winked at me. I grinned widely. Jackie giggled as the lights went out.
Mr. Orth began by giving us a little "schpiel" on the previous night's show and then a few minutes of necessary critique. He told us that each night we would get better, and no matter what happened, he would always be proud. He then squeezed hand of the person on either hand of him; in this way, Circle commenced.
Half an hour later, when Jackie squeezed my hand, it was my turn to talk. "I just want to say that last night, despite some shaky moments and petty flaws, we did absolutely amazing. I love each and every one of you to death, and I know that everyone here will do an even more marvelous job tonight. Break a leg, and break a friend's leg; rock on and live large," I said, making eye contact with everyone. I addressed some people personally, then blew a kiss into the group of actors and techies. Twenty minutes later, as Mr. Orth gave us one final note, we all cheered loudly with excitement, and then disbanded, flooding the gym like a swarm of garrulous, pre-pubescent thespians.
In my rush to return to my precious makeup and mirror space, Mr. Orth wrapped me in a gigantic hug and suffocated me in his suit jacket. "Break a leg tonight kiddo," he said with pride, kissing my forehead.
I said, "You're going to get pancake on your suit." What came out was, "Yir gong tuh git ancape un yir soot."
After we parted and he had wiped a smear of blush off of his suit, he patted my back and left the backstage area. I felt alive, like someone had replaced all my blood vessels with hot electric wires; I could not stop jumping. Billions of assiduous bubbles were exploding rapidly in my veins and I thought I would self-destruct from sheer anticipation. It would be many minutes yet before I would actually be on stage, but thoughts of who would be in the audience electrified me even more. I felt like a bull with his horns ablaze.
I thought it would never happen, but the house lights went down, the mumbling of the audience grew silent, the stage lights lit up, and we began our second performance. Time went by, actors floated in and out of the wings, and hurried costume changes were ensued. Minutes crawled past, agonizingly slow, and I could not wait to get on stage. I paced like a caged beast, chewed my nails, and tried to do some homework.
Finally, a stage hand, came to me and said, "Get ready Naseem, you're on in three minutes." I threw down my math homework with glee and raced to stage left, where I collided head on with Carly in the faint lighting.
"Sorry!" I mouthed, horrified that I had run into her.
"It's okay," she whispered, then patted my shoulder. "Break a leg sweetheart!"
The silence on stage was my entrance cue. I strutted out with utmost purpose, my eyes adjusting painfully fast to the brilliant lights. In my hands, I carried a clipboard and various other props. I set them on the desk and responded to the other characters' dialogue as we had rehearsed so many times before. After a few moments, the other actors filed off one by one, and it was my turn to address the audience personally.
I turned to face the crowd and glided downstage, gesturing dramatically as I recited my monologue. The lights were swelteringly hot on my skin; I felt (or imagined) the pancake on my face start to bubble in the intense heat and drip down my cheeks. I found familiar faces in the crowd while speaking: some close friends, some classmates, and a myriad of family members. Their smiling faces boosted my already enhanced energy and I began speaking more fervently when suddenly, the unthinkable happened.
Perhaps I had been over gesturing, or maybe my costume had come undone at the seams; maybe I had gotten fatter and did not fit properly into my dress anymore. Somehow, the buttons in the back popped open, and before I knew it, the soft cotton of my dress was rushing downward, brushing past my skin; in a matter of seconds, the garment had collected at my ankles. Bathed in incandescent stage lights, I stood in nothing but my undergarments, a camisole, and stockings, in front of an audience of two hundred. I felt the first tinge of nervousness in my throat and the hot prickle of embarrassment in my face, but I never stopped speaking. I am nearly naked. What the hell do I do? I thought. It seemed best to collect my dress and slip it back on while speaking; I did just that, and a few words later, my monologue was finished. I exited quickly, knocking past people who were covering their mouths in shock and whispering about me as I rushed past them in the dim lighting of the right wing.
Once in the safety of the girls' dressing room, I stood frozen and humiliated. I was not sure whether I should have been laughing or crying. I did both; I wailed furiously in between my gut-wrenching giggling sessions. I hugged my knees to my chest as I rocked back and forth. My senses danced on the dangerous edge where comedy and tragedy inevitably intertwine.
Seth appeared in front of me. "Oh. My. God. What happened to you out there?" he asked me, peering at me with his large eyes.
I hiccupped a few times, gasping for air in between the tittering and the tears. "I-I don't know," I sputtered. "One minute I-I-I was clothed and the n-next I wasn't!" I started to laugh so hard I choked on my own spit, which caused me to giggle even more.
Seth stared at me dubiously, and then burst out cachinnating as well. It took me a while to regain my senses and my pride, but after thirty minutes or so, I had substantial lung capacity that enabled me to stand on my own and continue for the rest of the night.
During bows, I noticed furtive glances that were exchanged between the audience members as I stepped up for my bow. Ignoring them, I smiled, bearing my neon pink braces and even pinker face to the audience as the clapping swelled every passing second. Grasping hands with either actor on each side of me, I looked into the audience again and bowed in unison with the rest of the cast as the ferocious round of applause grew deafening. When the house lights came up and stage lights went off, the cast quickly darted backstage, whooping and hollering as the audience filed out into the hallway.
In the foyer, nearly everyone who hugged me or shook my hand that night did not mention my wardrobe malfunction on stage or teased me.
But there are always exceptions to the rules.
"Nice nipple gate there m'dear; are you trying to show up Britney Spears?" joked my cousin Ted, wrapping his huge arms around me and hugging me with all of his strength.
"It was not a nipple gate, it was an accident," I said back to him, trying to punch my way out of his loving grip.
He ruffled my hair, kissed my forehead and told me it was the best show he'd ever seen.
"Which one?" I asked him, raising my eyebrows.
He pondered dramatically for a second. "Both," he responded with a silly grin. He punched my shoulder and winked. "I shall wait for you in the car."
"Aye aye captain," I replied, saluting him. With that, he melted into the crowd of people.
As I had expected, I was showered with compliments and three bouquets of flowers; I had my picture taken with various people, strangers and family members included. Cast and crew members also complimented me, a few of them making fun of my costume deficiency. After twenty minutes of basking in post show glory, I retreated to the dressing room, where I deserted Claire and reclaimed myself for the next fifteen hours. I hung my costume up and stared at my dress briefly, reaching out to touch the cotton before I went home for the night.
In the end, I realized that a horrifying incident, whether it is on stage or not, is needed to complete the bigger picture, and laughing at yourself is necessary for growth and self respect.

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