Santa Monica and Hoover Street
I thought it would be cool to be a Blue Man.
Auditioning for the Blue Man Group came out of nowhere. I sat one spring afternoon at a table outside the Pazzo Gelato on Sunset Boulevard in Silverlake, Los Angeles with a hangover. I was casually spooning an Earl Grey gelato and fingering the touchpad on my laptop when I saw the ad. “Be a Blue Man,” it read on the listing. Odd jobs had been the only consistent source of income in my life at the time, and I was drawn to this oddest of jobs. A Blue Man? Me? Sure, why not?
At the audition studio in West Hollywood, I was met by a group of other would-be Blue Men. I’d learned three things that day. First, I am an ambidextrous drummer. Second, I really wanted this job. Third, things often do not go as you expect them to. The audition involved crab walking around blindfolded and other activities that made sense for a show involving men in bald caps and blue paint who drum on pipes for an audience. I left positive that I would never be back. The next day I got a call telling me I had been selected to return for the second wave of auditions.
I’d learned three things that day. First, I am an ambidextrous drummer. Second, I really wanted this job. Third, things often do not go as you expect them to.
The next audition day, I joined the would-be Blue Men whose size was now cut in half. Three directors sitting in folding chairs gave specific instructions: “I want you to think of a secret. A deep secret that you must tell us. Your mouth is of no relevance. You must tell us this secret with your eyes.” I walked into the room and placed my left foot in front of me, pivoted my shoulder to complete the pose, and opened my eyes wide with furious intent. I gazed into each of their eyes, one by one, with a feeling of purpose. On the inside, I felt confused. On the outside, I probably looked constipated.
When I looked into their eyes I felt nothing, and I’m sure that they felt nothing too. This was it. This was the moment they recognized me as the untrained, undisciplined, untalented faux thespian who stumbled into this audition because he was on his computer while spooning a gelato with a hangover one afternoon. I left convinced in my heart that I failed. Not only did they call me back, but they called me back three more times.
My father flew into Los Angeles from out of town to visit me. He was supportive of my bohemian antics in an “I’ll wish you the best from over here” kind of way and was just as stumped as I was that I had made it this far. He was on his way to my apartment when I got the phone call that I made it to the final round of auditions. We went into my Silverlake bungalow apartment and cracked open a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. My father poured two glasses, and we looked each other in the eye before making a toast to the future. We sipped the scotch.
That's when the bang happened.
California is prone to earthquakes. I only experienced one once in San Francisco. I was sitting with my roommate, shooting the shit over a glass of scotch when a sharp sound of wood churning disrupted our words. We looked each other in the eyes and a violent rumble followed, making its way down the walls, through the floor, and into our bones. It lasted for only a second, but it was enough to be reminded of nature’s power and how insignificant we are in its wake.
My father and I looked at each other, and I thought of that earthquake. The violence of the bang was accompanied by a tremor that shook my apartment for a moment.
“What was that?” my father asked.
“An earthquake, I think,” I replied.
My father was going to be gone before my final audition so we left the house and started walking towards the Vermont/Santa Monica Metro station to take a train to Hollywood to celebrate. As we walked to my corner, the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Hoover Street, we saw the source of the bang. A white sedan, old and dilapidated, had crashed into the wall of a building. A group of people were trying to pull the car out of the wreck, with one man trying to push the car. My father and I decided to help.
Approaching the crash was like looking at a painting from afar and having it come to life as you walk towards it. The paint becomes sweat, the colors become fumes and still faces become panic in motion. I got between the wall and the hood of the car to join the one person who was pushing. I wondered why nobody else was helping him. As I pushed harder than I’ve ever pushed before, I looked over and realized that his hands were not pushing the car, but resting on it. He was not sweating from the effort but sweating from something else.
The news report would reveal that a driver suffered a stroke at the wheel, resulting in a full acceleration down Santa Monica Boulevard onto the curb at the Hoover Street intersection. The car crashed at high speed into a building, hitting a Mexican man who just so happened to have been standing on that corner, pinning him to the wall. I was standing next to this man.
His face was red like an old plum and his mouth was chapped from dehydration, lubricated by the saliva generated by his begging. He was crying out to his god. “Dios, no quiero morir.” These words passed through guttural sounds generated by failing organs and decimated insides as blood dribbled down onto his white T-shirt. Nobody around understood him.
You think of a human: what that human is worth and what that human contributes to this world. You think about how long it takes him to achieve. You think of him standing on a corner, waiting to join a lover or a friend to go buy a pack of smokes or a beer. Where he came from in life, where he was going in life, and his relevance dissolving into the air like the exhaust steaming from the vehicle that wasn’t in his life a few minutes ago.
I stand next to him, and he tilts his head with his remaining strength and looks into my eyes.
“I want you to think of a secret.”
I look into his.
“A deep secret that you must tell us.”
His eyes are saying something to me.
“Your mouth is of no relevance.”
“Dios, no quiero morir.”
“You must tell us this secret with your eyes.”
His eyes lose focus. His body slumps followed by an exhale. He dies.
I looked down and realized that my hand was on his. How long had it been there? If God exists, did He force my hand to give comfort when all my brain could do was freeze? Was I trying to say “stay” or was I trying to say “goodbye”? Did he feel that his last testament was heard? Or ignored? Did any of it matter?
My father and I walked silently for two blocks and the fear that I couldn’t find moments ago found me. I fell to my knees and cried. Two days later, after my final audition, I was told I didn’t get the part. I felt no disappointment, anger, or sadness. I was no longer the same person. I too was hit by that car. The part of me that died with that man is buried on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Hoover Street. The part of me that survived walks on.
I carry his secret in my eyes now.
By Kenneth Sousie
llustrations done in collaboration with the New Media Artspace at Baruch College. The New Media Artspace is a teaching exhibition space in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Baruch College, CUNY. Housed in the Newman Library, the New Media Artspace showcases curated experimental media and interdisciplinary artworks by international artists, students, alumni, and faculty. Special thanks to docent Stephanie Jones for creating artwork for this piece.
Check the New Media Artspace out at http://www.newmediartspace.info/