This is Your Whole Life

I had my first audition when I was 17. I was right off the bus. I mean, not a bus but a cab. But that’s what people say when you’re new to Los Angeles. I took a cab from LAX to my audition and within an hour of getting to LA I had a gig, It wasn’t really anything big, just an extra in a commercial for a bathroom cleaner. All these troops of bubbles and foam scrubbers were going to be marching by in formation and me and a woman supposed to be my mom had to gawk and awe at how quick the bubbles and foam scrubbers could clean the bathroom. They weren’t like, real bubbles and such, they were animated, which makes the acting all that more difficult. Tanya and I had to coordinate what face we were going to be making at what time so when the director yelled, “Now, and next, and next, and next, and last, cut,” we would know what faces each other were making.
Tanya was real sweet. She said her real name was Emily but she was trying to be a country music singer, and if that wasn’t going to work she was going to really work the down-home-Mom thing for a while and if that didn’t work out then she was going right back to “Slutsville,” as she put it, and dye her hair blond with platinum streaks and hopefully pull a gig as a jealous fling being used by a cheating husband who eventually kills the wife in order to assure their love will live on forever; the love between Tanya and the husband of course, that kind of role, you know. She said she knew one of the producers that does a lot of the Lifetime original movies and that he really likes her, says she has a face that sticks and that he can at least get her on set for something.
I told her I was real happy just to be watching the blue screen and making my expressions at the pretend bubbles and that I knew it would just work out for us both. She told me I can’t kid myself and that I need to get some kind of image going. I didn’t know what she meant and she stood me straight up and said. ‘Okay, look at me. How old would you say I am?’ I gave her a good long look but before I said anything she told me she was 28.
‘No way,’ I said.
‘Oh yeah.’
‘I was going to say 36 but maybe that’s because the make-up for the shoot since your like, my mom and stuff and since I’m 17 there’s no way you could have me at like, eleven I guess that would make you. But I am young looking too.’
‘No no no, listen for a second. I’m actually 32. I just tell everyone I’m that age because everyone has it broken down here. Everything from the height of your heels to the shade of your lipstick.’
‘I don’t where those things.’
‘You know what I mean. When I go into an audition, I do my voice exercises, study the lines, get the inflexions and tone down right where I want ‘em, but that’s only part of it. I also think, Okay, what are these guys going to think when they first see me?’
‘What kind of voice warm-ups do you do?’
‘Nothing fancy, just the usual. But if they see me and they’re like, What’s with the grown out roots, the droopy tits, and cheekbones that blush from a whore couldn’t accentuate? I’ma goner, not even going to let me read a line. I’m getting the girls done this fall, and maybe some work on the cheeks, I got a good nose though, and that’s what’s important.’
She started pointing at spots on her face and pulling the rubbery skin with her fingers. I told her she shouldn’t do that since the director said he still wanted to shoot a few more takes and she didn’t listen, just asked me if I thought she should get her ears pinned back and I told her no. Then she had me hold he left breast, then her right breast and asked me if I thought one was sinking quicker than the other. I felt real uncomfortable but said they were like, probably the best boobs I’d ever touched. Which isn’t saying too much cause back home I only touched two boobs, well two girls’ boobs, so really like four if that’s how you count them.
One pair was my girlfriend for a long time Michelle who was real sweet and even after everything she didn’t want me to move to LA. We dated for like, two years starting sophomore year of high school when I was running track and she was doing high jump. Neither one of us was varsity yet so we kinda got looked over during practice and could have lots of time to chat. One day we went on a run together about dusk and as we were passing this construction site for an Episcopal church she wanted to go look inside. Everyone in town knew the church had gone vacant after the minister all-of-the-sudden left town. My dad said he swindled a bunch of the old folks in town, saying he was going to take them on some pilgrimage or something.
Michelle took my hand and led me through the stinging nettle and bull thorns, which we get a lot of when it gets dry and hot, to the back door of the church where plywood was nailed up in place of the back door. A bunch of kids used to go down to the church and smoke cigarettes and light fires and drink beer or whatever. It was pretty much a mess and there were lots of weeds and it smelled a little like urine.
Michelle walked right to the plywood, propped a leg against the wall and pulled the plywood open and signaled for me to go under her leg and in. When I ducked down I saw her white panties with soft, pink polka dots all over them but I tried not to look at them but kinda tripped and had to grab her thigh so I didn’t fall. After I leaned against the plywood to let her in I told her I was real sorry and she said it’s totally okay.
We sat on the cleanest bench, there were only three since the others were taken out back and either burned or used to sit around the fire by the kids smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. It was just getting dark and she told me to scratch her back a bit as she leaned over on my lap. I did but I tried not to think about her laying on me and I tried not to look at the dimples on her lower back where her shirt crept up. They were real nice to look at but I was in my running shorts which are not only real short but made of a real thin material and I didn’t want her to see my thingy getting all excited.
I kept scratching her back and she started rubbing my thigh and it became pretty obvious I was getting excited because she sat up and looked down at my thingy and smiled and I smiled back cause I didn’t know what to do. She lifted up my shirt a bit and worked her hand in my short shorts and started giving my thingy a hand-job. That’s what everyone at school was calling what we did but some of the older seniors were calling them handies. One of the sprinters came into the locker room one time complaining that he didn’t get blown or even get a handy. He was pretty upset and I felt kinda bad for him but I didn’t know then that a handy was a hand-job which is when a girl grabs your thingy and really starts working it which is what Michelle was doing.
After a minute I was getting pretty excited and kinda relaxed all at the same time then Michelle stopped and pulled her shirt over her shoulders and then the sports bra the same way and there were the first pair of boobs I ever saw and touched. I did see my aunt’s right boob one time when we were swimming at the Municipool and just like that the right one popped out when she was stretching. I don’t really count that though since she’s my aunt.
Michelle put her hand back down my pants and told me I could touch them and kiss them, her boobs, if I wanted to. And since I’d never really done that before I was pretty excited and something strange happened and it felt like I peed my pants but felt really really good too. I got real embarrassed and Michelle just kissed me on the cheek and put her bra and shirt back on and said we should go finish our run.

Tanya was still telling me about some of the surgeries she wanted to do to herself but had to wait until she could either pay off some of her credit cards or get a gig making some better money. She said she was bartending at a Chili’s out in the Valley and I told her I loved that place and she said it’s a good place to do research for roles, even if you don’t have anything in the books or lined up. She told me you have to stay sharp all the time. This acting stuff isn’t just what’s done on set, it’s a lifestyle and if you wanna be one of the greats you have to make it your whole life. I was taking mental notes at everything Tanya said while we were on our break and the director was looking at some of the cuts. Tanya went back to makeup and had them touch up the spots where she was touching when she was telling me about the places she wanted to have pulled and lifted. I stayed near the soda fountain and drank as much Diet Dr. Pepper as I could get because it’s the best out of the fountain and there weren’t many places back home where you can get it on the fountain.
The DP, that’s the director of photography, told us, ‘Places,’ and everyone rushed like we were in a real hurry and Tanya took a while to get there and the director told her to hurry and he didn’t look very happy. We did three more shots and they said we had to be out by 1:00 pm which meant we were already running late and the director said the studio hours were bullshit and that that was that.
Tanya gave me her number and I called her couple times, I even went out to the Chili’s where she bartends. I saw her but her nametag said Stace so I wasn’t sure it was her. I asked the hostess if Tanya was bartending. She looked at me kinda funny, ‘Oh, you mean Stace, she’s right there.’ I had a seat at the bar and Tanya recognized me right away and she gave me a blue drink and called it a strong one and winked at me. Then she asked me how the image was coming and I told her I was working on something real special that I didn’t want to tell anyone about.
‘Sounds like the strong, silent type. It’s been done and you gotta have serious cojones for it, but I think you got a little mystery going for you. Did I tell you that country singer stuff went tits up? Speaking of which, how do the girls look?’
She gestured at her boobs and I said they look top notch and she winked at me again. She told me she would get me another drink and someone dropped off a basket of French fries, which I ate with lots of ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together. Back home that’s fry sauce and they didn’t have any there but it’s pretty easy to make your own.
Tanya was pretty busy all night long but every now and then she would stop by real quick and say something like, ‘These cocksuckers don’t tip for shit in the Valley,’ and she would look at me like she was real upset but then ask me how I was doing. I was feeling real good and I had three of the blue strong ones and started to hiccup which made me laugh a bit which almost made my up-chuck a couple times so I stopped laughing.
When I left the Chili’s I was full of fries and a little dizzy and I had three busses to get home but it was okay because I had a lot to think about my image and what having “serious cojones” acted like. I walked to the bus stop which was about four blocks away and as I stood there in the hot night with all the cars driving past me I just kept saying to myself, this is your whole life, this is your whole life. And it is.