SQUAWK BOX

 

She asked God to help her make career choices that would lead to work in theater or TV.  She felt she had the talent to play certain characters that everybody could recognize B not leads but best friends and similar supporting parts.  God didn=t disagree.  When at bedtime she knelt by her bed as she had done since she was a little child and asked for his approval, he was even encouraging.  She ought to move to the city, he said; there was no way she was going to make a career anywhere around here.

She moved to an artsy neighborhood in a fair-sized city where she knew one or two people who were connected in this way or that to theater or improv groups, and she did get some bits, and thought that God had seen the right way for her, though it might take a while.

I don=t seem to be getting very far, though, she told God.  I=m not making my nut here.

You should consider ancillary work, God said.  Maybe try getting some voice-over work.

Really? She said.  It wasn=t something she=d considered.

Sure, God said. You have a very pleasing voice.  You take your chances, and I=ll see what I can do.  Off-shot, so to speak.

She did begin to go to agencies and got some auditions, but not much showed up for a long while.  Then, like forgotten seeds springing in warm weather, she began to get a thing here and there C a public-service announcement, a commercial C and build a Abook@. 

Kneeling by her bed at night, she thanked God.

Mostly your own doing, God said in his warmest way.

She didn=t say that she wasn=t landing any real acting jobs.  That would have seemed ungrateful.

It was a little lonely, doing voice-overs.  She sat alone in the booth with the large mike hanging over her head, and spoke into it, separated from it by the pop screen C it kept her p=s and t=s from going plosive.  The voices of the engineer or the producer in the studio would cut in on the squawk box nearby and tell her to do another take or speak more slowly or more forcefully, pronounce some word differently or emphasize something she didn=t necessarily think ought to be emphasized.  Some gigs went smoothly, over and done in minutes; others went longer.

Today=s was a political commercial for a local candidate, and it was little aggressive, which she didn=t mind.  As she read on C there had hardly been any rehearsal, it was a busy shop C she saw a word she didn=t know how to pronounce.  She=d never seen it before.

She stopped and said.  Hey, Bob.

It=s Eric, said the squawk box.

Eric.  What=s this word in the third line?  I don=t know it.

What word?

It=s spelled p-f-u-i.  What=s that?

You can=t read it?

I don=t know what it means.

Well just read it.

How can I read it when I don=t know what it means? APuh-foo-eye?@

Another voice broke in (the people in the studio couldn=t talk to her when she was talking to them) and she heard Just a different spelling.

What?

It=s phooey, the other voice said C the producer, she thought, or the client.  Just an old spelling.

Oh, she said, feeling stupid.  Huh.

Somehow it took her several takes to get the thing right, in their opinion. They didn=t want phooey, they wanted pfui, kind of dismissive or snarky, a noise not a word.  Finally they said okay, that=s a wrap, we=ll patch it, thanks.  And she got her coat and bag and went home.

I feel like I=m not getting anywhere, she told God that night. I know I have talent. You told me so, didn=t you?

God took a while to answer.  She was about to repeat the question, but she knew not to. 

You=re doing the right thing, God said at last.  Be patient and be aware. 

Yes, she said.  I will.

What else could she say?  Under the covers in the lumpy bed she said thank you without saying words.  She turned one way, then the other.  A car alarm went off in the street below, and then stopped.  Frost was forming on the window.  She thought of God=s face.

Pfui. That was the sound they wanted, a sort of who-gives-a-shit sort of noise.  She hadn=t been able to make it. Now she could.  Pfui.