CJ My Savior

24 Jan 2011 1 Comment

by oliviamwhelan in Uncategorized

11:13 AM. I am in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – which is not a part of Philadelphia. (thank you, Amtrak conductor).

12 hours prior, I find out these out of NYC casting directors want to audition me as a model, and I am pissed. I’m not a model. The last place I want to be is at a model audition. Add to the mix the day, time + location of said audition: Saturday, afternoon, in a strange town that is two hours further away from my home than I thought it was… I don’t deserve this.

“No Starbucks here, Honey,” says the blonde waitress in response to my inquiry.

The place across from the train station is not a Starbucks, nor is it near one. It’s a hybrid of diner, deli + bar. Excepting 11 am improv in the Triple Crown Basement, I have never been to a bar so early. The other customers give off an “AM regulars” vibe: jackets off and half-empty beer bottles in hand, as if it were an hour before midnight instead of an hour before noon.

“Hi, there sweetie,” says one of the patrons.

A table in the back is far from human company; I roll my suitcase there and count down the hours before I show up to a model call.

This is the part of an actor’s career that I hate: the obscure, questionable auditions in hard-to-reach places. The ones where no one clearly explains why you are wanted, with what you are auditioning with, what you are auditioning for. Go, and you may be locked in a room with a crazy woman who carries a microphone in a holster. Skip this one, and it turns out the vague audition in a “Brooklyn Pretzel House” was for Pedro Almovodar. Your sanity, pride and safety are always at stake.

For this particular audition (model call?), I’m apprehensive about being the only non-model in a room full of, well, models. I plot out the worst possible way this audition can go: I’ll arrive in this conference room with my stupid rolling backpack. My bangs will look crazy. There will be 300 other girls there, all of them tall and thin. They will stare at my Canadian thermal boots. The casting director will lecture me on eating 9 servings of fruit instead of the recommended 5. It will be announced to all the models that I was called in by accident and (in short) I won’t get the job.

“Sugar Buns!” Someone announces.

There is a back entrance by my table. One gentleman makes a game of naming everyone who enters through the back: “Sugar buns!” he calls the next four patrons who arrive. He then cries out “Peanut Butter!” and “Cookie!” to the following two customers. I am afraid of the men in the bar.

But the blonde waitress is able to reign in the rowdy. I ask for her name after she hands me a cup of black coffee, and she tells me it’s CJ. CJ calls me Honey and Sweetie. CJ speaks in a southern accent (which shouldn’t be the case in Southern Pennsylvania). CJ asks if anyone in the bar has bothered me. I tell CJ no.

When it occurred to me these auditors wanted to “see my runway walk”, I sent myself immediately into a spell of whispered “fuck yous” directed at my computer screen. I relayed my incredulity to friends, family, co-workers. It almost felt like an “if I die, you’ll know what happened to me” final statement kind of thing. “If I don’t come back from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, it’s because I’m dead. Dead from shame & humiliation – a misinformed casting director is indirectly responsible.” But CJ’s genuine calm helps me forget my not-a-model anxiety.

I sip my coffee and concentrate on the things I can be happy about. Like the friends I reached out to after my initial audition freak out; their jokes and words of encouragement, their phone calls, emails, gchats, text messages.

“Ain’t no goddam Pat Bennetar!” cries CJ. I don’t know what brought on this comment, but it makes me laugh.

CJ manages this establishment from 7am till closing every day. She doesn’t own the bar, but if she did she “sure would do things differently.” CJ talks about the people who come here, about how they are sad and lonely and sometimes a little dangerous. But she doesn’t judge. One day she wants to run a breakfast diner, but in the meantime she’s a waitress at a bar. “I guess we all hafta do things we don’t wanna, right?”

I pay my bill and extend the handle of my rolling suitcase. I straighten up all 5’5 3/4” of me and make my way to this mystery event. I don’t wanna. But sometimes we all hafta do things we don’t wanna, right?

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