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Please Clap by Katie Darby Mullins Obviously this story starts in the middle of the failure, in the moment after I realize that I cannot sing and the moment before I decide that I am going to go on all those anti-anxiety pills, after all. I don’t need the judges to say anything (even though they are about to, oh God, and it will hurt) because I can see the camera man stifling a laugh. He has a ring of sweat around his collar that crudely connects to the aged-cheese colored stain underneath his armpits. His sweat smells like smoke. He is so distinct, so musty, that for a split-second I can feel it leaking out of the corners of his eyes. But he is smiling so wide I can see his slightly yellowed teeth and I focus on them, hard, to avoid what’s coming next. The silence washes over me—over everyone, I imagine—like a wave at the beach, its own kind of crush in the distance. But the little red light is on and I realize I only made it through the first round because they wanted me to fail. I am the Monday night audition joke. Why had I chosen a Whitney Houston song? It seemed so stupid, now, that I thought I could use her power and make it mine. I’d chosen an easy one: “It’s Not Right, But It’s Ok.” I felt myself losing rhythm, falling faster and faster towards a resolution, as the poker faces of the judges cracked and everyone looked like a shark with blood in the water, like horrible raccoons on trash day. Like animals. And I was the chum. The delicious garbage. Why didn’t anyone warn me? I could see, looking back, moments where friends didn’t react as I expected. I could hear hesitation in their voices. Oh God, I had thought they were jealous. Jealous. My parents loved my singing—but now, playing their praise back in my head while I watch the first judge roll his tongue over his teeth, I can hear that it was measured. “We love when you sing,” they said, and I can hear now that it was careful. I can hear it. This isn’t the first time I’ve sung in front of people. I sang the National Anthem at a minor league hockey game—I knew then that I hadn’t nailed “land of the free” but I’d stuck “home of the brave.” I had. I sang at a talent show in 7th grade. Mariah Carey. “Hero.” I keep catching myself closing my eyes, like maybe if I just block my vision, the memories will stop. I can pretend that I am the camera guy. And for just a split second, I can see myself as him, looking at my body—my hair curled and wound so tightly that it practically dances on top of my head as I move, dyed box-red, and even though he doesn’t know I spent all morning taking those horrible teal foam rollers out and cursing at them, he seems to know I tried. This makes my failure funnier. I am in a sequin tank top. One arm is reached out in front, like I think I’m Diana Fucking Ross, and I’m singing, “Stop! In the Name of Love.” When I see this from SmokeMonster-CameraMan’s perspective, I drop my arm and pick at one of the sequins, spinning it around and around. One red sequin. “Say something,” I say, and then I remember Jeb Bush saying, “Please clap” and my heart breaks for that stupid son of a bitch all the sudden. “Well, it wasn’t very good now, was it?” says the first judge in a horrible French accent. Is it a put-on? Wikipedia says he came from Oklahoma. “It seems to me you’re very passionate,” says the second judge. A woman. It’s her job to soften things. Her naturally wavy hair falls perfectly at her shoulders. I do not imagine she was wrestling with plastic snap curlers this morning. “You love to sing. I love when people’s hearts shine through.” That. That is what Mom used to say. But now I hear the thick subtext. The third judge giggles. “I don’t think it was all bad,” he says in a way that lets me know that yes, actually, he does. This is the kind of embarrassment that is too awful to watch. The kind that makes you angry so you don’t have to feel it. Of course. They need someone to set the tone. Someone to make the same old Lady Gaga covers seem more impressive than they are. Something to elevate everyone else. I am the pace horse. I am the expectation setter. I am the worst. I can see my immediate future stretching out in front of me. I will go back to my Days Inn room and take off this itchy tank top, shiny symbol of my defeat. I will order a pizza because even though no one has seen it yet, I am pre-hiding from my humiliation. I will call my mom and cry and she’ll reassure me in some pyrrhic way and all I will hear is how carefully she avoids saying “talent” and “beautiful singing.” And even though I can’t fully predict what is coming, I know soon that my name will be shorthand for “awful,” that I will be turned into a human adjective meaning failure. I can see it unrolling and even though I don’t know the nuances of the isolation, I know none of my friends will understand on a national magnitude. So tonight, I will drink whisky until my head gets swimmy and I am out to shore, walking purposefully towards that silent crashing noise on the horizon, as water fills the space around me and there is no reason to exist outside of the cool cradling water. And each cresting wave will fall and all I will hear is please clap, please clap, please clap. |
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