The Lecturer tells Doug to let people relate to him more. The Lecturer (a tall man who has a brown beard that doesn't match his greying hair, and a tweed jacket with leather patches that screams Take Me Seriously As An Educator Already) is stroking his beard and nodding his head as he talks, agreeing with his own words.
Doug is nodding too, and thinking about how to let people Relate to him more, even though he doesn't want to. Doug is losing his hair (not even twenty and he's losing it) and there's a bead of sweat diving past the few remaining follicles above his forehead. He is aware of being nervous, aware of the pressure of having this much of the Lecturer's attention, and the attention of the room.
It's one of those grand Lecture halls (hence the Lecturer, and the Lecture). The seating is tiered, and copious, and every single chair is occupied by a person with eyes and all those eyes are looking at Doug. Doug is still trying to let everyone relate to him, even though they are as far from relating as they can be at that moment, because they're all thankful that they're not him, not the one at the front of the class.
The Lecturer, the one who brags about once emoting so hard that he broke his own glasses (hence the tape over the bridge of the ones he's wearing, even though surely by now he'd have replaced the broken pair), is talking to poor Doug and saying the same things he always says about Letting The Audience Inside You and Doug says Letting The Audience Inside Me Do What? And the Lecturer points out the capital M in Me and Doug says he didn't notice it, and the Lecturer says Aaaaah, and the whole class takes a note.
Their heads are bent, to take the note, and so Doug glances around to see if anyone else is like him, with the losing of the hair. He wants to commiserate with someone else in the program, but all the crowns before him are bristling with hair, full and voluminous and shiny and proud, and so he's alone in this too. Alone, on stage, with a balding head, and a question not yet answered and not likely to be answered and a Lecturer Lecturing at him, and him just wanting to be asleep again, so he can have another of those dreams that he always bores his friends with ("yes, Doug, you were you and your father at the Same Time, we get it. No, it doesn't mean anything Freudian, probably.")
(And are they kidding with that? Of Course it's something Freudian. The dream might as well have been scripted by Freud. And edited and directed and key gripped by Freud. It might as well have been a Freud Studios Production, for all the good that would do in making Doug's friends notice, which they never would.)
While the class is taking the note (they are taking a very long time taking that note, even though it is not a Good Note according to the rules set out by the Lecturer earlier in the semester) the Lecturer reaches over to his desk to grab his moisturizer. Doug has not decided if he thinks this is an Affectation (second week of class, "Mannerisms, Tics, and Affectations") of the Lecturer's, the application and reapplication of a Name Brand moisturizer. It is a labored process, with a System of Spreading that Doug has observed and detailed in his notes. A summary:
It seems to repeat every quarter of an hour and it seems to have purpose. Perhaps it is something the Lecturer feels he Has To Do, and so it is then something (a Compulsion) not covered in the class and so not fake and so something that Doug can form a genuine opinion about, to add to his impression of the Lecturer. Said impression is undergoing radical alteration due to his being held on stage like a hostage right now.
He had thought the Lecturer kind and easygoing ("call me Phillip"). Every time somebody had gotten called up to the front of the class the criticism of their Acting had not seemed cruel. It had seemed necessary, accurate, and character building, and thus something the Lecturer was doing as a favor to his student.
But now Doug is up here himself, and he can see that the evisceration of his performances (they are not yet enough in skill and talent to be called Performances) is an act of pure evil. Doug can't help but reframe every single thing the Lecturer has ever said in light of the cruelty of this present evisceration.
The class has finished with the note, and the moisturizer has been put away, and the lecturer is saying broad things about Acting. Things that could apply to any student. Doug thinks his time in the spotlight may be over, that they have moved onto the more group-directed part of the Lecture. He does that shuffle he has seen the other students do when they wish to retreat to their chairs, the small movements of the feet (two half-steps forward, one step back). It is a tap dance that tests the waters, that asks Can I Go Now?
Doug feels the Lecturer's damp hand on his shoulder, and he hears the Lecturer's voice telling him not to go until he is sure his character wants to go. And Doug says am I acting right now? I thought I was just me? And the Lecturer says We Are Always Acting. Doug is proud to have teed the Lecturer up for a perfect swing (see, again, everyone else taking a note of this pronouncement) and he feels like that favor must be enough, must make him worthy of being allowed to leave this spotlight.
It isn't. The Lecturer does this thing (another Compulsion?) where he adjusts his pants, pulls them down, then up, then re-tucks his shirt. It is one of those things that will die out in a generation or two, because the number of people tucking in their shirts is dwindling. When his trousers are fixed he tells Doug to pick a point on the wall, take a deep breath, and tell the entire class something Real.
Doug looks for a point. He scans over the faces peering at him and tries to look past them. Important to Act towards the audience, but he cannot find a place to look that doesn't have a pair of eyes looking back, so he decides to turn around and face the whiteboard. The Lecturer should comment upon and discourage such a move, but he is distracted with his moisturizer again, perhaps re-applying because of the brief contact with Doug's shoulder a few moments ago.
Doug takes the deep breath, and feels the back of his throat go dry. He swallows a few times to clear it. Doug's throat does not make a habit of becoming dry, but this is the start of the school year, and so infections and illnesses are spreading. A sore throat would not be a surprise.
"In senior year," he starts, "I, uh... I sat with my friends in the student lounge, and I told them that my hand smelled like shit, and that I couldn't figure out why. I tried to get some of them to smell it too, to confirm it for me. And, um, of course none of them would. I... I kept asking them 'why would my hand smell like shit?' and they didn't say anything, anything at all.
"There was a silence like the one in this room, and every one of my friends avoided my eyes as I held my hand up in the air. It was easy for them to figure out that I'd been scratching my ass in my sleep, that I hadn't showered or even, ah, even washed my hands. But I didn't know that. It was a couple of weeks before I worked it out and felt embarrassed in, uh, in- in hindsight.
"I...I started washing my hands a lot, after that. And I would make sure that they knew, that my friends knew I was washing doing it. I started bringing a heavy sponge into school, using it in the washroom when all the other guys were peeing. The skin on my fingers cracked, from the constant drying-out.
"One of my teachers noticed that my homework always had these red fingerprints on it, and she noticed my hands, and sent me to the nurse, who sent me to the counsellor. The guidance counsellor. And I told him about the shit on my hands, and the washing, and the sponge, and my friends, and the way the soap would sting as it got in the cracks, and how I would think about how that stinging was the feeling of all these germs and smells being burnt out of me.
"I told him all this, and he got real quiet, and he picked up the phone and called my parents, right in front of me. I had to stay in a hospital for a while. And I'm, I'm on some medication. Sometimes I still feel like my hands are dirty, but I have this limit, this number of times I'm allowed to wash them. In a day, I mean. I stick to that limit, and my skin doesn't break, and I manage to keep all my blood on the inside."
He smiles at that, like it's a little joke. None of the audience can see,though, because of how Doug has turned himself away from them, so they don't take it as a joke, and they sit there, shocked.
The Lecturer has long since stopped applying the moisturizer. He did not finish the process this time, getting stuck on step 2. His fingertips are covered in the cream, and poised for the next part of the procedure, but he's too busy looking at the back of Doug's head, and trying to think of something to tell the boy.
Thirty seconds after he finishes speaking, Doug realizes that he can go sit down. But he'll have to turn around to do that, which means acknowledging that he turned away in the first place, which was a ridiculous thing for a supposed actor to do. He contemplates walking to his seat backwards, so he won't have to look anyone in the eyes.
A drop of moisturizer falls from the index finger of the Lecturer's right hand. He rubs his hands together, ignoring the usual system, even though that causes him some slight psychic pain. He opens his mouth and asks Doug to turn around, and Doug does, and the Lecturer smiles at him, and asks him if that story was true.
The class takes a note.
"Doug" is a short story by Avery Edison. If you enjoyed it, please consider passing it on to a friend, or sending Avery an email.