At the theater
I’m seeing Othello. It’s a good performance. The audience is elegant and dapper. The story, if you don’t know, is a cautionary tale about the power a mental affliction can have over you, even if not an ounce of it is based in reality. Othello is manipulated into seeing betrayal where there is none, and from this hallucination of hurt, he destroys everything pure and kind in his world. All love is obliterated. From just a single seed of jealousy, grown out of thin air.
It’s intermission. I want to get a soda or something from concessions, and to explore the theater on my own. There are two lines snaking out from the bar in opposite directions. I join the one farthest from me, about twenty feet long. Two ushers come over. One is blonde and thirty-something, a bright face of makeup and a Britney Spears headset. The other is older, maybe in her sixties. She has reddish-brown hair and glasses, almost shorter than me, and she reminds me of someone. I wonder if she’s a volunteer or if this is her job. The blonde one is giving her a managerial instruction, with the tone of someone holding a clipboard. I am the end of the line, she’s telling her, and no one else can be let in. The older one nods, her hands clasped behind her back, but I’m doubtful she’s the best one for this task.
“Tough job,” I say once the other has gone. It’s true. Telling people who have bought expensive tickets that they cannot get their beverages. I know they’ll whine, debate, and join the line regardless.
She bumps my arm, immediately informal, “Tell me about it.” We’re conspirators. I decide I’ll help her if I can.
The trouble begins immediately. With little pushback, she folds under the weight of a tall man in a polo with close-cropped sandy hair. “You could see about the other line...” She trails off, and he takes that as an invitation to stand behind me. She grimaces at me and shrugs her shoulders.
She stands nearby and we chat about the show, then a woman asks where the bathroom is. They are intercepted by another woman coming from down the hall.
“There’s one down the hall,” this new woman says. The usher, my friend, quickly waves her hands, “Oh no, we’re not supposed to let people use that one.” I’m familiar with the phrasing, we’re not supposed to—the discomfort of enforcing someone else’s rule.
“I mean, I just used it,” the new one says. The original asker says something polite and goes off in the direction of the usher’s pointing, to the approved bathroom.
“Yeah, we’re just not supposed to let you.”
The new woman jerks her head back, defensive. I can tell there has been a misunderstanding.
“Well, the deed has already been done, so no need to make me feel bad.” She smiles sarcastically, then looks up from furrowed eyebrows like she’s been wounded. “I was just trying to help.” She puts her hands up, tilting her head to the side, which is what people do when they’re being yelled at, but no one’s yelling at her. I look for an opportunity to help my friend. The new woman’s voice is rising, attracting the attention of others in the area.
“You know, you really don’t have to speak to me that way,” she says, throwing it over her shoulder as she moves away. She looks around for support as she goes, scoffing. She looks at me.
“I think there was a misunderstanding,” I say, but she doesn’t hear. She must think I’ve said something in her favor, because she raises her eyebrows like Would you get a load of this? and makes a cat noise and curls her fingers like claws, mocking the alleged harshness of the usher. I try to speak again, but she continues her exasperated venting, shaking her head, then disappears into the crowd.
I look behind me to the man who illegally joined the line, but he’s not interested in commenting on the situation. The usher is now answering someone else’s question. My heart twinges from seeing someone be embarrassed like that, and heat rises in me thinking about the unnecessary conflict. She had completely misinterpreted my friend’s tone, who was just trying to enforce policies that were slipping from her hands. I wonder at the new woman’s attitude and poor treatment of her. Did she not see what I saw, an older woman in a position clearly only taken out of passion for the theater, who is being disregarded left and right?
I search for the usher’s eyes, to let her know I’m on her side, but someone else is trying to join the line. She is tepidly trying to convince this newcomer that he is not allowed, though he is desperate for a glass of white wine. After a bit of back and forth, she seems to give up and wanders a few feet away. Unfortunately, that is when the blonde manager comes back.
“Billy,” she says, like a mother to a ridiculous child, “she was the end of the line.” She points to me. “This is why I need you here.” She breathes through her nose hard at the end, almost like a laugh, but not. I want to tell her that Billy is doing the best she can. I recognize myself in the manager, and wonder how many times I’ve become exasperated with someone who is not operating exactly how I want them to.
Billy puts her hands up apologetically, “Sorry, sorry!”
“Please just stay by the line, okay?” The blonde gives an impatient smile that is not friendly, and hurries off somewhere else.
Billy sidles up to me and I finally can offer her the comfort I’ve been wanting to.
“I think you’re doing great,” I say. She takes my shoulders from the back, squeezing my upper arms like a family member would do. I find it nice how intimate she is, and proud to be the recipient. The blonde manager would never do this, and that’s what makes them different. I think, also, that there are generational differences around touch and tone, and wonder if something like this will get Billy in trouble again.
“My girl,” she says to me.
“That woman was so upset,” I say.
Billy nods, “She was. But,” she turns toward the end of the line, which is myself and the two men who joined behind me, “Are you all enjoying the show? That’s what matters!”
I say yes, it’s really great. We start guessing if we’ll make it to the bar in time before the doors closed. Announcements are being made to go back to our seats. The close-cropped hair man behind me leaves, and the newer one moves up.
“You could ask her to buy your drink, if you’re smart.” Billy nudges the guy with her elbow.
I laugh politely. I don’t really want to buy this man’s drink, not knowing how he’d pay me back. But the man likes the suggestion—he really wants his drink.
“Well, that would be great,” he says.
“You two would make a great couple,” Billy says. I don’t think the man hears her, and I also think he might be gay. I shake my head, smiling.
Another announcement comes on over the speakers. I release the promise of my mocktail.
“Alright, I’m giving up,” I say. The man is all too happy to take my spot. He will get his wine, no matter what, I think.
I wave goodbye to my friend, who is off to attend to something else, and make my way back to my seat. As we wait for the performance to begin again, I go over the scene with the woman from the bathroom. I remember her words, the wild expression in her eyes of unbridled disgust and irritation. I imagine what I could have said to her to make her understand just how mistaken she was, how in the wrong. Heat, again, sparks in my gut. She, like Othello, imagined a monster where there was none, and abused an innocent in her delusion. I wonder when I have done that—misunderstood reality completely. If I’m doing it now in criticizing her. There could be many times I’ve jabbed at nothing more than a mirage and harmed a friend. I must imagine her an angel. Someone who is teaching me something, even if I don’t really feel it. As the lights go down and the theater becomes black again, I try to let her do her work on my heart, carefully unwinding what needs to be seen.