Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie by Jeff Norton

Author:Jeff Norton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780571308101
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-03-18T07:00:00+00:00

16

In Which I Find My Rhythm Again

Last year, when I auditioned for the school play, I only landed a part in the chorus because they didn’t have enough boys. The experience was the beginning and ending of any Broadway aspirations I’d harboured (and honestly: who hasn’t?).

For my audition for the school musical, Bye Bye Birdie, I’d prepared a monologue from Our Town and completely blown it. I was nervous, sweaty and forgetful. Mr Mojuan, the drama teacher we shared with the high school, pulled me aside afterwards and said, ‘If you can sing, kid, you’ve got a chance, but your acting was more wooden than the boards.’

Mr Mojaun, whom we all called Mojo, seemed to feel that Croxton Middle School musical theatre was just a few steps off Broadway. He claimed to be from New York; but we all think he meant the state and not the city.

I wasn’t allowed to even finish my vocal auditions. Mr Ealson, the music teacher, stopped me mid-song to repair the broken window*. It was humiliating, and not to mention dangerous with all those shards of glass everywhere.

But in my dance number, I didn’t just cut some rug – I’d shredded it. In the theatre world, I’d be known as a single threat.

So Mojo reluctantly gave me a part in the chorus under strict instructions to lip synch. Technically my character’s name was Town Teenager Number Three, but as far as Mr Ealson was concerned, my role was to ‘shut up and dance’. I got to swing and sock-hop onstage and discovered an artistic outlet that dovetailed with my desire for order, control and symmetry. Dancing required discipline, precision and a total commitment to routine. I was made for it.

At the start of seventh grade, when the school musical got announced – this year it was Anything Goes – Mojo wasn’t so generous. ‘We need triple threats, Adam,’ he’d said.

Anything, it seemed, did not go.

‘But this is the only school club that doesn’t involve full body contact,’ I’d pleaded.

‘What about the chess club?’ he’d countered.

‘You kidding? I went to one meeting and Francis Miller tried to gouge out Temperance Taylor’s eye with a rook. No, no, chess club isn’t safe.’

‘Have you considered activities outside of school, Adam?’

Mojo introduced me to the Croxton Sunshine School of Dance and I took my single theatrical talent off campus. For once a week, for ninety minutes, I gave myself over to the Thursday night ritual of choreography.

There were eleven of us in the class, and I was one of only two guys. The other one lived on a farm and came to Sunshine under an assumed name: Nathan Detroit. In class, Nate, who was two years older and at least a foot taller, was one cool customer, but I knew (and he knew that I knew) that he’d get his head handed to him in whatever Hicksville High School he attended if word got out that his Mom drove him into Croxton for dance class. I’d once seen Nate in town coming out of Icy Al’s Used Sports Emporium, with his dad, hauling hockey equipment.

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