Invisible Threads - Chapter 01

[Writer's note: "Invisible Threads - Prologue" should be read before reading the following.]

CHAPTER ONE

Ten years, two psychiatrists, five therapists, and twenty-four prescriptions later, Gary was standing in the rain. He thought he had arrived early to audition for Superstar, a poor man's cable TV version of America's Got Talent. But, when he arrived a full 24 hours before the advertised time, he found at least a thousand people already waiting in line.

He had not checked the weather forecast before arriving and it rained through the night. No one offered to share a tent or umbrella. Multiple failed efforts by other contestants at drawing him into conversations resulted in his being christened the weird guy. This was not the first time he had been given the nickname.

To make matters worse, he was bored. Boredom was his ultimate nemesis. He could not tolerate it for more than a few moments. He spent the first part of the night crawled up inside his own mind, mentally working through equations, but had reached the saturation point. Besides, transcribing notes into his phone had made his thumb muscles sore.

In desperation, he called his mother.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded sleepy.

"Hi Mom. It's me."

A note of urgency hit her voice, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Just bored."

An icy pause preceded her response. "It's three o'clock in the morning!"

He hadn't checked the time. That probably would have been a good idea. "Sorry. I'm sitting out in the rain." He didn't notice the non-sequitur. Nor did his mother.

"Why?"

"I'm in line for the talent show."

"Oh, that's right. You're in Kentucky."

"Tennessee... Nashville."

"Are you making any friends?"

He looked around at the hundreds of people in line around him. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you should have more friends. Your only friend is that oriental boy."

The usual edge crept into his voice, "Mom, he's from Ohio and of Vietnamese descent. Please don't say 'oriental'. It's considered rude." If he had said 'racist', she would have gone on a rant. 'Rude' hit her where it hurt.

"I'll try to remember that." The tone of voice was unrepentant. She would say what she wanted to say. The rest of the world be damned.

Now he was bored and annoyed. "I'm going to try and get some sleep now. Good night."

He waited to hear her 'good night' in response and then hung up. He wasn't sleepy.

Four hours later, a Superstar intern was working her way down the line. When she reached him, she handed him two pieces of paper, a pencil, and a manilla folder. "This is your number. Wear it at all times. When you hear it called, go forward. On this second piece of paper, there are five questions, you must answer them all before going in. The folder contains a packet of information that you have to read over and sign. Don't sign it until you are with the interviewer in Phase Three. Do you understand?"

He nodded and looked at the materials. His number was 847. It had a safety pin which he used to attach it to his shirt. The folder was a filled with a bunch of legalese that he ignored. The last item was the list of questions. He filled them out.

1. Name: Gary Richardson

2. Talent: Magician

3. Age: 26

4. Present Profession: Graduate Student - Physics

5. Tell us something interesting about yourself

He thought about number 5 for a moment and left it blank.

***

After a week of training, this was Cherie Chandler's first day of actual work. She sat in cubicle B5. She had a small folding table that served as her desk. Her job was to interview magicians - all day long.

Her twelfth interview of the morning had just left. She was required to grade each contestant on personality and talent. The scale was one to ten. Her computer screen was demanding that she input the grades for contestant 794. She lolled her head back and sighed.

"It's not exactly what your professors at the Northwestern Theater School described as a glamorous career in the entertainment field, is it?" The voice belonged to Lacy Birkland, the assistant director. She had appeared in the doorway to the cubicle. She put a very slight sarcastic tone to the word 'Northwestern'. Cherie knew her well enough to know that it was meant in good humor. Lacy had graduated from Winona State University in Minnesota and poked fun at the more well-known school whenever she was around Cherie.

Cherie's head snapped forward. "I sat through some lectures in school that make this edge-of-your-seat exciting by comparison."

Lacy laughed. At 25, she was just four years older than Cherie. "You and me both. Are the interviews beginning to blend together yet?"

Cherie returned the smile. "They're not completely blending together but the lines are getting blurry."

"Use that. Don't put a lot of effort into differentiating between a five and a six. Give all the ones that blur together fives. The talent management team will understand. Use nines or tens for the best and ones or twos for the worst. That's all you need. It makes it simpler."

"Thanks. I'll do that."

With Cherie being a first-year unpaid intern and Lacy being a full-time paid employee, they were on completely different strata within the show's hierarchy, but Lacy always seemed to have an uplifting word. Maybe it was because she had been an unpaid intern herself just two years before.

Lacy checked her tablet. "You're on schedule, so take a break if you need it." She smiled again. "And count your blessings. Your theater background got you in Phase 3. The jobs in Phases One and Two are brutal. But don't tell anyone I said that."

"My lips are sealed."

Lacv left and Cherie heard her starting a similar conversation with the intern in the next cubicle.

At Northwestern, Cherie's professors and fellow students had made it clear in the polite, caring, and wholly condescending way unique to the industry that she did not have what it took to be in front of the cameras or on the stage. So, she focused on a career behind the cameras. That led her to take a semester off to wade through the seemingly endless on-line interviews that ultimately led to this payless job working on Superstar in Nashville. But it was a resume-builder.

As for contestant 794, she put a "5" under talent and a "5" under personality. His magic trick was adequate but the worn tuxedo and drawn-on pencil-thin moustache was purely the stuff of a kid's backyard birthday party.

After marking the grades, she hit the 'send' button at the bottom of the screen. The screen told her Successfully Submitted. Next contestant 847. Please hit 'Ready' when you are ready for contestant 847. She took a swig of water and hit 'Ready'.

***

Gary followed the stairs to the battery of doors and entered. The warm interior temperature was comfortable after the cold of being outdoors but the large open hallway was crowded. Immediately in front of him, an older woman in wildly inappropriate garb suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and burst out singing. People had stopped to watch and they blocked his way. His anxiety began to mount and he took a moment to attempt to calm himself. She finished her song and the spontaneous crowd applauded and yelled approval. He began to move again.

"This must be what hell is like." Gary realized that he had spoken aloud and looked around to see if anyone had heard him. No one had or cared if they did.

He found the Phase Two waiting area and then understood that the hallway had just been purgatory.

The Phase Two waiting area was a huge, open room filled with wall-to-wall chaos and noise. He found a chair as close to a corner of the room as possible, sat down, pulled his knees to his chest, and closed his eyes. His chest moved in and out as he started taking deep breaths and trying to push the cacophony away.

"Are you okay?" The voice was feminine but he didn't open his eyes to get more information.

His answer came out haltingly. "I don't... do well... in places... like this."

He felt a hand softly come to rest on his shoulder and he jerked away from the touch.

The feminine voice resumed, "I'm sorry. Do you want me to get someone to help?"

He still didn't open his eyes. "No. Thank you. I'll be fine." He forced himself to add, "I appreciate your efforts." It sounded stilted and he knew it sounded stilted. His therapists and his mother told him that he needed to work on his conversational ability. Maybe he would. Some other time.

The unseen Florence Nightingale wandered away into the eddies and pools of humanity and Gary kept his eyes tightly shut and gutted it out.

The sound system blared, "Contestant 847. Please report to Phase Three. Contestant 847."

He now had a task and grabbed at it like a lifeline. Opening his eyes and surveying the room, he saw the marked exit and forced his adrenaline-fueled body to rise and head that way. Frustration continued building within him as he was continually slowed by the throngs of people. Someone grabbed him and yelled "Break a leg, man!"

He contained the flash of anger and muttered, "Thank you."

After the frenzy of the Phase Two room, the hallway was a relief. Lightly occupied and orderly, there were clear signs which he followed to Phase Three. At the Phase Three door, there was a monitor hanging on the wall with a list of contestant numbers and what appeared to be a simple matrix. His number was associated with position B5.

Gary entered the large room and was again buffeted by noise. But at least here there was some combination of order and disorder. The organized matrix of the cubicles coexisted with a variety of cacophonous sounds. He found cubicle B5 without difficulty and paused for a moment just outside.

He mentally reminded himself to look up and make eye contact before tentatively poking his head around the opening. The cubicle held a desk with a laptop, that had a camera attached to it pointed at him. There was one file cabinet and two chairs - one on either side of the desk. Finally, there was a hard-wired internal phone on the desk behind which sat a woman slightly younger than himself.

He opened, "I'm 847."

"Papers." The young woman reached out her hand and Gary handed her the papers which were now spotted with raindrops and sweat. "Thank you. Have a seat. My name is Cherie and 847, in the real world you are known as... Gary Richardson. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Questions one through four look good, but you left question 5 blank. We'll return to that. The primary issue that I want to point out to you is that everything you do or say on this site with the exception of restrooms is being video recorded and anything and everything that you do or say at any time can be used in mass media. Got that?"

He nodded.

"Are you ready to sign?"

She laid the papers in front of him to sign after which she put them in a manila folder and placed the folder in a file cabinet.

"Now, back to Question 5. You left it blank which means that there is absolutely nothing special about you."

She looked at him expectantly. He could only come up with, "That's correct. Do most people answer it?"

Novel answer but she had a job to do. "Yes. I'm required to have something written in that spot before I let you leave. What can we put there? Anything personal that you feel might make you appealing to a television audience?"

"Not really."

"What's the most important thing that has ever happened to you?"

He didn't answer.

She leaned back in her chair and cocked her head slightly, "We have to get something written down here and we don't have much time."

He was panicking. She would not let him leave without an answer. There was only one, "My father died."

She nodded and jotted a note into her laptop. He did not see the look of mock pity that he had so grown to hate through the years.

She was all business. "When did he die?"

"Nine years ago. On October 5^th."

There was something about the specificity of the answer that made it seem more real to her. "How about your mother?"

"She..." The words faded. He was not making eye contact. He was looking straight down into his lap. He forced himself to finish, "I'd rather not talk about my mother."

"You two don't get along?"

"We get along fine."

This was going nowhere, "What impact did losing your father have on you?"

He was shutting down. His therapists would end the session at this point, but this was not a session and he had to push through, "It impacted everything." He was still looking down into his lap. He forced himself to look up into her eyes.

She was startled again when he looked up. The words were so full of emotion, but his eyes were blank - showing nothing.

She smiled, "I guess we can make do with that," When his eyes again dropped, she continued, "Are you going to be able to do this?"

"I have to."

"I understand that. But for you to have a chance, you're going to have to be talkative and outgoing for up to five minutes. Do you think you can do that?"

He shook his head, "Doubtful."

"Then you are going to spin, crash, and burn. Does that work for you?"

"No."

"Okay, I'm given ten minutes to finish this interview. So, we need to get past this."

We need to get past this was a sentence he knew. It was an indicator that he was not understanding something, and the other person was getting frustrated, "What do you need?"

"Something personal about yourself to finish Question 5."

He tried to force something out of his gridlocked brain and finally boiled his raison d'etre down to a sentence. "Magic is real."

"Bingo!" She typed. "Magic is real?"

"Yes."

"Would you care to elaborate?"

"You want more words?"

"Yes, give me words. I love words."

"Magic is real. That is what I am coming on Superstar to prove. I am going to spend my time on the show categorically proving that magic is real."

"And that fills in question five. Now, do you have a performance DVD?"

"No. I've never performed. Do you need a demonstration?"

"Yes. You perform a magic trick here and I'll create a video and send it forward. We can do that. What's your trick?"

"I haven't thought of a trick for this environment. I was picturing my first trick on the stage that would have the four judges."

"Well, you have l'il ole' me. Bring it."

He thought for a few seconds. "Okay hold your hands like you're praying."

She put her hands together.

"Good. Now say the name of a playing card."

She said the first one that came to mind, "Jack of Diamonds."

"Okay. Now open your hands."

She opened her hands, and a card was sitting on her lower palm face down. She turned it over - the jack of diamonds.

"That's impossible."

"Correct. Or it's magic."

She rubbed the card with her fingers to make sure it was real. "Okay. I guess that concludes the interview. Go back to the Phase Two area and watch the monitors." If you're selected for the next round, follow the signs to Phase 4. In there, you'll be directed onto a stage, and you'll be interviewed and asked to perform your act. This will not include the final judges, but you will be graded on stage-presence, so you need to start mentally rehearsing your five minutes of human interaction. Got all that?"

She had helped him, and he wanted to thank her. He tried to come up with appropriate words, "I think I like you."

"Are you hitting on me?" She smiled.

He re-played his statement back over in his mind and it did sound inappropriate. She was not completely unattractive but that was immaterial. He needed to come up with something that would make things clear, "I don't find you physically attractive."

It took her a few seconds to recover, "I'm going to choose to pretend that you never said that. When you're on stage, give me five minutes. Just five human minutes."

"I'll try."

He nearly ran from the cubicle.

Cherie clicked the button on her screen that brought up the scoring. Under talent, she quickly clicked on 10. For personality, she muttered "One weird guy" to herself and clicked 2. The jack of diamonds card was on the desk and she now picked it up. With the card on her palm, she put her hands together again and then opened them. The card was still there. He had never touched her or moved from his chair. As he had said, this was either impossible or it was magic. Returning to Personality, she changed the score from 2 to 8. That should get him through.

Picking up the phone on her desk, she dialed the 3-digit code for the group lead. "Hey Helen, is there any way that I could follow the status of contestant 847? I would really like to see his Phase 4 if he gets one."