A Brief Synopsis of My Apprenticeship with Carolina Artisans Thespian Society; Part I

When my father moved out of my family home in January of 1990, he moved into a sleek two bedroom condo in a newly renovated downtown building. Fitted with no-maintenance necessary appliances, clean high-ceilinged room in cool pastels, and a private off-street parking lot, it was, I would learn, one of Asheville’s preeminent addresses for the recently divorced.

In 1990 or so, divorce spread like wildfire through the parent’s of my peers. About once a week, some dad or another moved out. Bus rides home through North Asheville turned into some combination of support group and dysfunctional family home tour.

“Yeah, there’s Andy’s house. His dad took off last month with a Harley riding x-ray tech named Denise.”

“There’s Bill’s house. His dad left his wife for a student in his senior seminar at the university. They’re getting married.”

“Oh, and Jessica. Her Dad followed a Brazilian flight attendant home to Sao Paolo last year. Her mom’s pissed cause he quit paying child support.”

And the popular favorite:

“Hey look, guys, that’s Kim’s house. Kim’s mom went to the Outer Banks with her reading group, came back, kicked her dad out, and invited her “special friend” Phyllis to move in.”

At least once a day, someone would claim parental separation to snag a hall pass to the guidance counselor’s office. And for every one legitimately distraught child of divorce looking for real answers and affection in the guidance office, there were ten other children of recently broken homes looking to cash in on the opportunity to check out what illicit activity was going down behind the dumpster in the bus lane.

For a time, divorce was the grand unifier. The one commonality between the beautiful, blonde, popular class president, and me, the shirking weirdo, who spent lunch in the library reading about English History, the Russian Revolution, the Beatles, vampires, theatrical agents, and the Catholic Church (not necessarily in that order). I believed our shared tragedies might spark a real dialogue, leading to real, mutually respectful friendship, and possibly a date with the captain of the ninth grad boy’s soccer team. At the time I also believed you could get high smoking opium-scented incense. Both, as it turned out, ended up being untrue.

.

The circumstances surrounding most divorces fell into one of two camps.

Some went driving off in their mid-life crisis inspired sports car with a skanky ho in the passenger seat. Others went crazy, went to Outward Bound, and came back announcing a radical career change just as their long-suffering wives had hit the proverbial ends of their ropes.

My father fell into the second category—the minority position. And though I empathized with the tales of spending Christmas vacation watching a new stepmother named Tracy teeter around the tree wearing nothing but the Frederick’s of Hollywood “Santa’s Little Helper” collection, I could not relate. There was no evidence of hanky-panky preceding my mother’s announcement of impending separation, which I found to be both confusing, and a little disappointing.

“Are you sure Dad didn’t have an affair?” I asked my mother.

She rolled her eyes, and watched my father load the seventh box of dusty New Yorker back issues into his car. As if to say: Are you kidding?

Certainly adultery would have been something. The addition of a busty former secretary might have provided me with tangible reason to hate going to my father’s condo on allotted weekends, instead of the embarrassing, awkward dread that accompanied all visitations. My father lacked all practical knowledge of keeping house. He could not cook, clean, entertain, or fix anything three dimensional. We mostly ate out, and came home to sleep in the ugly, uncomfortable twin beds he purchased for us.

Dad’s post-separation mindset had exactly two manifestations: 1) Wacky, permissive, over-generous, guilt-ridden buddy and 2) Caustic, impatient, oblivious, needy bastard looking to project his ire at my mother on the nearest available stand-in. This worked out well for him as he had two daughters. The Boop could count on spending her weekends receiving new toys and appliances, not having to brush her teeth or hair, and chasing Dad around the living room to the sound of the William Tell Overture played at 77rpm on the stereo. I, on the other hand, took to hiding out to avoid requests such as: “So, when are you making dinner?” or “I think you could be a much more interesting woman if you could, you know, work on yourself.”

As we were located downtown, hiding out was easy. The front door opened onto Haywood Street, which, at the time, featured a book store, a hippie shop, an elaborate Catholic church, and the Main Branch of the public library. My mother’s office was in the building next door, which also featured a frozen yogurt stand and a bakery. On paternal custody Friday’s, I’d come home from school via the bakery where I’d stop for a snack and flirt with a trio of weird ninth graders apt to cut class for breadsticks. After that, I’d drop in at Mom’s office, maybe fiddle with the Xerox machine, maybe collate grants, maybe walk down the hall and pester my mother’s current boyfriend, Dean. The next stop was the bookstore. I perused the fiction aisle until I talked myself in then out of shoplifting a copy of Jane Eyre. Then downstairs to what was then Asheville’s only coffeshop, where I tried to appear cool among the henna haired likely lesbian baristas and purple haired, black clad weirdoes. At the hippie store, I’d look at all the gauzy skirts and brightly colored Mongolian yak sweaters, blow my lunch money on incense or reduced priced dangly earrings. Then, I’d head for the Catholic Church just in time to interrupt the priest’s cigarette break by asking lots of questions about architecture, local history, and, time permitting, excommunication. At which point, it was usually safe to return home to the condo. (Between my mother’s office and my father’s condo, by month two of the separation, most of Haywood Street’s denizens knew who I was.)

Weekends provided even more time to kill. By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, I’d gone pretty much everywhere there was to go on foot (and within reason), leaving me with little option but the public library.

My usual public library routine did not differ markedly from my lunch time library routine. Except having no pantheon of rich, beautiful, popular kids to study from the second story windows, I was able to spend more quality time on reading trashy novels, trashier biographies, and accidentally breaking the microfiche machines. If managed correctly, time could be wasted for up to eight hours, leaving little opportunity for awkward silences around the condo.

It was on one such Saturday, a cold, slushy January afternoon, while my father and the Boop sat at home watching Chevy Chase in silence that I happened to notice an announcement on the library bulletin board.

It read:

AUDITIONS TODAY

Needed: Young Actors

Aged 10-20

To participate in Spring Season

Of

C.A.T.S

Carolina Artisans Thespian Society

Sign-up in downstairs hallway

I was struck by a sizzling bolt of epiphany. Seeing as how I’d shown such promise on the stage and been denied the opportunity to shine by the politics of the Junior High drama club, seeing as how I was currently living a sad, sort of half-life, shuffled between maternal abode and the Condo, seeing as how my celebrity was inevitable, I chalked my fortuitous sighting up to an Act of God, and made a mental note to thank the Almighty at my earliest convenience.

Downstairs, I boldly made to the sign-up table, forged a parental signature, and auditioned.

By Monday, I was informed that I was part of the company.

When my mother learned of my incipient stardom, she did a great job conveying indifference.

“You’re already taking piano lessons,” she said. “You’ve quit at least three other extra-curriculars this year, and you’re in serious danger of failing math. Why do you think this is a good idea?”

I said something along the lines of “acting is my life” and probably added some barbed comment about the divorce.

Mom took my information packet from the audition and went off to call the company head. I paced the living room, anxiously awaiting her decision.

After she hung up the phone, Mom sighed: “This is not what you think, Alison. They’re requiring me to pay‘tuition’ in order for you to be in the play. It sounds like sort of a fly by night operation, and I have, to be honest, a funny feeling about the whole thing. Do you really want to do this?”

I nodded.