Law and Order: Musical Theatre Unit

This is an oldie but a goodie- from July 2005. I was fresh faced, bushy tailed, and all that good stuff.

You never know who you are going to meet an audition. Monday I met a moderately crazy girl who appeared to be friends with a seemingly normal guy, he, in turn, gave me his card for accompanying and said he would love to play for me sometime. My roommates and I had just been discussing hanging out to play and sing, so we decided to call him and all go together to see how he was.

Turns out, he has this great studio apartment on the Upper West Side and continued to appear to be a nice and normal guy. He had a BFA in Musical Theatre from the University of Michigan, was currently working as an extra in the Robert DeNiro, and even had an agent! We were lowly paupers in comparison to him. We didn't even know the names of any agents, nonetheless have Equity cards, or movie credits. We had graduated from the inferior UM which boasts such illustrious alumni as Dawnn Lewis and Lewis Cleale. Ever heard of them? Yeah...didnt think so. I felt the urge to kiss his feet. But I resisted.

The singing went fine- we decided to do 15 minutes each (see my aforementioned lowly pauper statement) for a total of about an hour.

When we are done singing I asked him what he does to make money- expecting him to say, waiting tables, working with computers, or walking dogs. You know, the normal part time jobs that consume the time and swallow the souls of out of work actors.

Instead he informed me that the movie pays well, he makes money accompanying, and he is a spy.

A SPY! S-P-Y. That is what he said.

As if that is a normal answer to my question.

Dressing up as a hotdog and handing out flyers in Times Square would have been acceptable, even watching TV and writing down when commercial breaks occur is a more believable answer than spying for a living.

The thing about it was that he answered so seriously- as if he was saying, “I am also a doctor.”

Trying not to laugh I kindly ask him to elaborate.

Lindsay: “What do you mean by spy????”

Justin: “Well, a family friend of mine has an estranged daughter living in NYC. They pay me to check in on her because they don’t know what is going on with her.”

Lindsay: “So what do you do? Make sure shes alive?”

Justin: “Well- I know where she lives and works, so sometimes I will get on the bus a few stops before her and then watch her on the bus. Or I will watch her lave her apartment to get groceries, and sometimes we go on walks through the park. “

-At this point I have no idea what to do. First he says he is a spy and then he is telling me he, and this girl who has no idea who he is, go on walks together in the park. He fails to mention that they are secret walks that she knows nothing about. I suppose spy seems tame now that he has basically admitted to being a well-compensated stalker.

Then, I ask the question that seems very obvious to me-

“Will you miss going on walks with her when they patch things up?”

He looks at me as if I just killed his cat, or have seventeen heads, or admitted that I am a professional stalker as well. He backs away. He...backs away...from ME!

“That’s a really weird question. I don't understand what you mean."

He then looks at my roommates to let them know I am completely insane- perhaps he hopes to save them from living with a mad woman. In an effort to add hero to his long list of accomplishments he wants to tip them off that they have a potential looney toon on their hands.

I would like to point out that he is the spy- he is the one who is writing down a girls schedule,knows where she works, knows when she goes to bed. But, as I stopped myself from kissing his feet, I also resist the urge to point out the hypocrisy in his reaction.

I also resist the urge to apologize- to make it better. To somehow appease this pompous low-rent stalker who was doing vocal coachings with a keyboard and not even a real piano.

We gather our belongings quickly, throw him a wad of cash, and are on our way.

None of us ever saw him again...but every now and then I will look back on the subway and get the feeling that he couldn't quite let go of my 16 bars of "Waiting for Life"...