As the theater around me slowly swelled in humanity, and the house lights began to flicker in warning, I checked my phone, which like an obedient fool I’d immediately silenced upon entry, and saw a text from Lucas waiting for me.
Lucas:I’m so sorry I can’t make it tonight :( :(:( :( milkshake’s gone
Lucas:I know it’s last minute but I’ll try to be at the con tomorrow
I stared at this text for a few moments in uncomprehending silence, then responded,I’m sorry,see you there, hoping that would suffice or make the slightest bit of sense in these, the oddest of circumstances.
I had no idea how the absence of liquefied ice cream had led to us missing yet another—if not the last—of our chances to meet before I flew away to England. But my flask-related activities earlier in the evening ensured I was somewhat numb to it.
He wasn’t coming.
That was fine.
Truly, it was fine. Lucky, honestly, given that I wasn’t exactly at my best. I didn’t want Lucas to be here. Hadn’t spent the entire day silently counting down to this moment. Hadn’t used the idea of finally seeing Lucas tonight as the scaffolding for the whole of my universe, which might otherwise collapse in on itself in a splat of self-loathing and flower petals.
The lights went down, and as I sat there, roses wilting in my lap, I tried to focus on literally anything else. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to notice that Finch, the boy I was here to see, the friend I was meant to support, was actively not sucking on stage. He was, in fact, not sucking to the point of being quite good.
It waseerie. He didn’t move like himself—none of the jerky bursts of hyperactive energy I’d come to know so well. Even when he wasn’t wire-flying like an ethereal creature, he was making lightning switches between the persona of a naïve, fresh-faced, boy-foot bear with teaks of chan, and that of a glint-eyed, grinning,sinisterhobgoblin that clung to the shadowy corners of the stage. He was simultaneously endearing and terrifying, his voice modulating from the brassy ring of a laugh to the rasp of a barked command—exuding watercolor layers of equally bright joy and rage, all vibrant against the canvas of pure, unblemished, sociopathic boyhood.
I, along with every member of the audience, found myselfenthralled.
It slowly began to dawn on me why Finch’s life had been so fraught with misfortune and why his emotions seemed to get the better of him on a regular basis.
The poor bastardwasan artist.
A real one. The kind that can’t bloody help it. No wonder he was so hopeless socially—every faculty, every ounce of will and every synapse were spoken for, caught up in manufacturing a Peter fucking Pan I fuckingbelieved.
There was no growing out of this, either. The boy was doomed; not only was he passionate, he apparently had the talent to back it up. He had no options at all.
I looked down at the roses in my lap and realized that perhaps lilies would have been more appropriate.
I also realized that while Finch’s performance was appallingly good, the play itself was simply appalling. It appeared to be a Peter Pan retelling, but with all the whimsy wrung out. Finch’s Peter was still the lovely, terrifying, Puckish creature he was meant to be, flying and flitting about the stage, but far too much time was spent on “Jimmy Hook,” who wore plaid and a beanie and a beard and lamented his lost youth and artistry. Wendy, who was, I would argue, the most fascinating character in the original work, was relegated to beautiful, mindless prize, and The Lost Boys were a heavy-handed metaphor for a White Supremacist group trying to recruit “Jimmy” into their ranks. Tiger Lily and her people were, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be seen.
At one point, Wendy—dressed in athleisure wear and carrying a yoga mat—tried to explain to Peter that she was in love with him, while Jimmy stood in the background doing some sort of interpretive dance composed mainly of grimaces and stomping.
“Peter, what are your exact feelings for me?” Wendy asked, sitting on a bench center stage, vines and steam valves entwined around her.
Finch, that is Peter, stood balanced on one foot on the back of the bench like an autumn leaf clinging to a dry branch. “Those of a devoted son, Wendy.” He giggled.
Jimmy wriggled in the background in an explosion of silent rage.
Wendy gave a heavy sigh. “I thought so.”
Peter leaned forward into a handstand, walking back and forth across the bench back, which clearly hid a set of parallettes. I’d had no idea Finch was such an accomplished gymnast. “You’re so funny,” he told Wendy, but also seemed to be speaking to the incomprehensible Jimmy—who was now miming making multiple espresso shots and downing them one after the other. “It’s like there’s something you want tobethat isn’t my mother. Something you wantmeto be that isn’t your son.”
Wendy gave Peter a simpering look. “Don’t you have any other type of feelings for me? Nothing in your heart? Nothing in your ... other places?”
My god, who hadwrittenthis?
Peter righted himself and shook his head, grinning widely. “Nope! I want to be a little boy forever and have fun!”
I reached for the playbill and squinted at it in the dark of the theater—I had to know who was responsible for this—and my heart stopped.
The Shadow of Never, written by Dr. Kenneth Lazlo.
I almost laughed out loud but covered my mouth at the last moment. Of course. Hehadtold me he’d written a play, after all.
Distracted as I was, my eye was still drawn to a soft light in the audience a few rows down. Someone was texting during this pretentious middle-aged wank of a play, and I still couldn’t help but think:How rude!
