Open Audition by Chad Oliver

 Here's my story, what I'm hoping comes across is a story about a man who tries desperately to leave his boring town of Priceville, AL, move to Hollywood and become an actor. His acting experience, though (the worst movie of all time), is holding him back. Some things I'm worried about: I'm afraid a lot of it is heavy exposition. I'm also afraid that some of my pop-culture references might seem cheesy. Feels like it might be bloated in some areas and needs more detail in others. Excited to hear your feedback.

Open Audition

When I found out about the audition, I was sitting on the toilet at work. I didn’t need to go, I just needed to get away from the fryer and thumb through the internet on my cell phone. I do this whenever my manager is being a dick or if I just get sick of dropping chicken nuggets into hot oil. That day it was both. You’d think my agent would have told me about it, but I found out on a Facebook post that there would be open auditions for Star Wars Episode VII in various cities all over the country and that one of them would be in Atlanta which is only a couple hours from Priceville and this was a drive I would regularly make. I would have cheered to myself, but an old man was on the other side of the stall wall (I didn’t see him, I’m just assuming he was old because I could hear him grunting as he tried to force out a pee stream). I wished he would hurry up and go so I could have the room to myself again.
The audition was for both the male and female lead in the new movie and it was scheduled for the upcoming weekend. When I read this, I didn’t worry that I was scheduled to work that weekend (I always got off when I needed to), what worried me was the fact that I had so little time to prepare.
The old man had finally released a few drips when I left the bathroom. Maybe if I had run the faucet those drips would have been a full blown stream. But, despite the sign attached to the mirror and the identical one hanging on the door, I didn’t wash my hands: my tiny rebellion against this awful restaurant in an even worse town.
By the time I got back to the kitchen, there was a line of customers waiting at the counter for their chicken nuggets. In the kitchen Derek was scrambling back and forth between the fry station and the nugget station, struggling to do both our jobs during lunch hour. “Kyle!” He was pissed at me. “What were you doing in the bathroom so long? We’re getting behind.”
“Is Jerry in his office?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
Derek had always genuinely cared about the customers getting their food on time, so it probably really pissed him off when I walked past him, right past him, to the back of the kitchen where Jerry was in his office.
“Get back here!” He had yelled, but I pretended not to hear him. I knocked on the door to the office and Jerry told me to come in. He was sitting at his desk eating some of his chicken. He was always eating chicken. He had some spread sheets pulled up on his computer but I don’t think he was really working on anything. I think he just had it pulled up so it would look like he was busy. I mean honestly, how much work could it possibly take to run a restaurant? All you gotta do is make sure everyone else is doing all the work so you can sit in your office and eat chicken.
“Shouldn’t you be out making more nuggets? We’re pretty busy right now.” He hadn’t swallowed his food yet.
“This will only take a second,” I said, “I need the weekend off.”
Jerry wiped his mouth and rolled his chair back from the desk to face me. Half of his belly had been hiding under the desk, but now that he faced me, I could see the whole massive thing. I held back a chuckle. “Again?”
“This time is important. I have an audition in Atlanta.”
“It’s always an audition.” He said, “No. It’s too short notice.”
“You don’t understand. This is a big one. It’s Star Wars.”
“I don’t care what it’s for, we need you here. And right now I need you to get back to work. There’s hungry customers out there, go.” He rotated his chair back toward the desk.
“I am an actor, Jerry.” He laughed. “And I’ve got to make that a priority. Acting comes first. That’s how it needs to be.”
“Kyle, I need you to look at me.” He said, “You were in one movie and that was fifteen years ago. You’ve been wasting all your time at these auditions—”
“It’s not a waste of time.”
“You’re no good.” I wanted to smash his chubby face into the desk in front of him. “I’m saying this because I care about you. You need to stop setting yourself up for failure. I’m not giving you the weekend off.”
Jerry looked confused when I took off my shirt. “I quit,” I said. And I threw it at him.
As I stormed out of the kitchen wearing my undershirt, walking past Derek, who was still struggling to make all the food, I could hear him say, “Screw you, man!” And I felt bad for leaving Derek in the middle of this chaotic day, but my quitting was inevitable if I was ever going to leave Priceville and this waste-of-time-of-a-job to focus on my career.

Jerry was right though. I hadn't been in anything since Goblin Mountain King in 1998. But it's not because I'm a bad actor, I'm not. That movie just made me look bad. My college roommate made that movie right after he graduated and he asked me to star in it. I was hesitant at first, but once I got into it, I was in love. I haven't seen him since the premiere of that movie. We were all (everyone involved in making the movie) amazed and humbled that we had gotten a theatrical release. And the movie actually got pretty famous, but not in the way we were hoping.
Some movie critics have called Goblin Mountain King the worst movie of all time, and in hindsight I can understand that. I don't think its the worst movie ever made, but it certainly does have significant plot holes, the dialogue is written poorly, and there's some cheesy camera stuff going on. These days, the only people who recognize me from the movie are hipsters who watch the movie ironically. They call themselves "fans" but they're really just making fun of me and it kinda pisses me off. I needed a break, a chance to prove myself as an actor and shake off all the negativity Goblin Mountain King had placed on my career. It was going to be Star Wars Episode VII, and my plans leading up to the audition consisted of nothing but research.
I lived in a cheap apartment at the time. The building was crap, but I kept the inside as nice as I could. I had a big TV, on which I studied acting methods. For the next couple of days Star Wars is all that would play on it. I would sit on my modern couch and take notes on Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. I’d even go back to the prequels and take note on all the things they did wrong. I didn’t know that details of the part I would be auditioning for, so I studied them all. Did you know that the line Harrison Ford delivers when Han Solo is about to be frozen in carbonite was improvised? The original script had Han saying, “I love you too,” to Leia when she said she loved him, but Harrison Ford thought it would be more like Han if he said, “I know,” instead. I thought how I should do something like that in the audition. If I get so immersed in the character that I come up with my own lines, surely that would impress them. It worked for Ford after all, maybe it could work for me too.

It was Friday, the day of the audition, and I had a four hour drive to make in my rugged, old Nissan. This was three days after I had quit my job and I had not started looking for a new one. All I had done was watch Star Wars. The drive went by quickly, but I did have to stop and eat breakfast. I decided to stop at a Chicken King (the same chain I used to work at) because my body was so accustomed to the food, I didn't want to risk having stomach problems on the day of such a big audition.
I went through the drive through. The girl on head set sounded pleasant through the speaker, but when I rolled around to pay she looked miserable. As she should be. She was stuck. Just like I once was. And she was probably wondering if she'd ever get out. Just like I once did.
After I ate, I looked up the exact address for the audition on my cell phone because I was getting closer and closer to Atlanta. The Atlanta skyline was appearing over the horizon. The auditions would be held in the Marriott hotel downtown. My thumbs were spazzing on the steering wheel and my left foot was tapping. I turned on the radio to calm my nerves.
I found free public parking a few blocks away from the Marriott. It was a cold walk, and I couldn't tell if that was the reason why I was shaking. When I had finally rounded the corner and was standing in front of the Marriott, I was surprised with the small amount of people in line. The line just stretched the length of the building to the street corner and then it stopped. There had to be thirty, maybe forty people tops. All I had to do was act better than these forty people and I'm in the running for the role. Half these guys were in Comic-Con style Storm Trooper suits too. I can't imagine the casting director taking them too seriously. Walking past them, I also noticed that most of them didn't even bring their headshot or a resume. I really thought that I was going to get the part and that it was going to be easy. I settled into the back of the line, closed my eyes and visualized my flawless audition.
"Hey!" Shouting came from across the street and for a moment, I thought I might get mugged. "That's not the end of the line!" I could see now that the line only appeared to end here because there was a gap in the line on the crosswalk. The line continued on the other side of the road and the guy yelling at me was in it. So I waited until the cars stopped and I could cross the street. On the other side the line seemed endless. It zig-zigged back and forth over and over and over in such a way that it was almost like a puzzle just to find the end.
I had to remind myself to breathe. There were so many people and some of these guys looked like they had actually been to an audition before. Granted, there were still some over on this side who were playing with toy Light Sabers, their pale skin telling me that this was the first time they'd been outside, possibly, ever. But the one's who weren't wielding the plastic weapon of a Jedi Knight were instead holding professional-looking head shots, head shots a lot nicer than mine. Printed in color on photo paper, their pictures looked like they were taken in an upscale studio and with a nicer camera than the one I had used. These were simple things I could have done to make myself more professional and I was afraid that it might be what makes the difference.
I had finally found the end of the line, and the people I would be standing behind for, what I imagined would be, the next five hours. I walked up and asked the tall twig-armed man (who had no chance at getting the part because his body was long, bony, and disgusting), "Is this the end of the line?"
"Why yessiree it is! Welcome to the 'cool' part of the line!" Oh my God. "I'm Anthony!" He extended his veiny, narrow-fingered hand toward me. I shook it.
I said, "Kyle," and I prayed that he would take the hint that I didn't want to talk to him.
For a few seconds, I thought that he might not let go of my hand. He shook it up and down at least three shakes to many. "Well, hello Kyle, it is a pleasure to meet you!" He finally let go of my hand but it was only to present the other two 'friends' he had made in line so far. Like a magician's assistant, he waved his arms in front of a short, plump, very plain-looking girl (who also had no chance of getting a part in this movie), saying, "This is Pat. She's the feisty one." Anthony laughed. Pat smiled without showing her teeth. "And this is Kevin." Anthony gestured toward a twitchy man with floppy hair. Kevin made me nervous. "He doesn't say much." He whispered. "Well now that you know the gang, tell us a little bit about yourself!"
"I just want to focus on doing well for this audition." I said.
"Oh, Mr. Grumpy Pants," Anthony laughed. Way too hard. "Kyle, I'm kidding. I'm kidding! I understand. Crazy Anthony over here!" He laughed again. "I'll stop driving you crazy."
He didn't. When a new person came in line behind me, Anthony would go through his same routine of introducing his new friends, only the next time he had added me to 'the gang.'  He introduced me as 'the grumpy one' which he seemed to find funnier and funnier each time he said it. And the next time, he added the person behind me to his list as 'the cute one.' As time passed Anthony got tired of introducing himself and his 'friends' to everyone. This sounds like a good thing, except that he moved on from just talking to singing. He sang very loudly and very averagely. It seems Anthony was a fan of show tunes. And he knew every single word.
Anthony tried to get Pat interested in singing too, "Do you know any Les Miserables?" He didn't just say 'Les Mis' he said the whole thing. And he seemed to say it in such a way that he wanted everyone around him to know that he knew how to say it correctly. "We should all sing 'One Day More,' it would be perfect!" That's when he started assigning roles for everyone. Anthony couldn't seem to pick up on the social cues to 'STOP' that everyone was giving him. He kept going. Pat looked at Anthony admiringly. She was the only one to join in when he started singing (although she was so shy, her singing sounded more like exhaling). The singing made Kevin cover his ears with his shaking hands. He grunted
This was all exhausting. It was when they got half way through singing 'No Business Like Show Business' from Annie, Get Your Gun that I remembered I had headphones and a cell phone in my pocket. I listened to my own music and 'escaped' with the "Pina Colada Song." I just closed my eyes and envisioned Anthony's audition. I pictured his stumble through lines, mispronounce words, sweat nervously, and eventually cry. I imagined the casting director shaking his head and saying to himself "It's been like this all day, when are we going to see a real actor?" That's when I would burst through the doors like an action hero, a Han Solo type. They would hand me the script and make small talk at first, I would say something funny and they would roar, laughing. From then, I would read through the script simply as a formality (because they know they are going to hire me). And on the spot they would offer me the part.
From then, I envisioned the rest of my life. I imagined myself as a celebrity, as a real celebrity. And I wouldn't have been one of those who are so full of themselves, who think just because they're in movies that they're better than everyone else. I would be down to earth. People would love me. Maybe I'd even give some of my money to those in need. That would be pretty cool of me.
I would keep my eyes closed, only occasionally opening them to see if the line had moved, if it had I would take a few steps forward and close them again. It was one of these occurrences when I opened my eyes and it looked like Pat and Anthony were yelling at each other.
I took off my headphones and my world changed from Billy Joel's, 'Captain Jack' to back and forth shouting.
"Just eat the damn apple!" Pat said
"Just the damn apple!" Anthony said
"Just eat the damn apple!" Pat said
"Oh, that one was good," Anthony said. Pat shyly smiled.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Oh, welcome back," Anthony laughed. "Hey everyone, Kyle A.K.A. Mr. Grumpy Pants is back!" This made Pat show her teeth, smiling. "We're going through our lines."
"Lines?" I said, "What are you talking about?"
Anthony held up the paper that was in his hand, in the stack with his head shot and resume, and it was a script! "Some guy who auditioned when they went through Dallas, he apparently has some kind of photo-whatever memory and he typed up the transcript and put it online! How neat is that?"
"Give me that," I snatched the paper from his hand. He didn't deserve a copy of something so valuable. He was never going to get the part anyway. This was my ticket to a 'galaxy far far away.'
I think I heard Anthony make an annoyed comment, but then I heard him say "Grumpy Pants" again and that made him laugh, so I ignored it all. The script was about two pages long and the characters in it are a 20-something boy and a 20-something girl in an post-apocalyptic dystopian scenario (that's what seems to be in these days). The girl is injured and the boy has just gone on a supply run. His stomach is growling. They flirt and each try to get the other to eat an apple that he found because they are both in love and they both need it. It's all pretty light until the line where the man says, "Just eat the damn apple!" And things take a turn.
That was it. That was the line where all the tension of the scene is let out. This was the one I needed to perfect. "Just eat the damn apple." I said to myself. This was the line that would need to impress them.
I handed Anthony the script back and thought about, "Just eat the damn apple." How would I say it? Would I shout it? Or would I deliver it more like a plea, "I am begging you, just eat the damn apple!" That could work, it could play out like I improvised that line. Maybe that would impress them.
The line seemed to move more quickly throughout the day. I think that those who were dressed up with toy light sabers and Storm Trooper costumes got impatient and left, leaving behind only the real actors, and making the line shorter. Eventually we crossed the crosswalk that had created the gap in the line, and then into the hotel itself. All this time, the only thing I thought about was "Just eat the damn apple." I'm sure Anthony was being annoying, Pat was being odd, and Kevin was being creepy but I didn't notice it anymore. "Just eat the damn apple." I had to get it right.
I remember when I could see the door to the audition room my mind drew a blank. I remembered the line was about an 'apple' but that was all I could remember. Kevin entered the room. A few minutes past and I was scrambling in my mind to remember that damn line. Damn! I remembered the word 'damn' was somewhere in the line. It was something about a damn apple. Kevin exited the room smiling crookedly and still twitching.
Pat entered the room after a deep breath. What do you do with damn apples? You buy them. "Buy the damn apples!" I whispered to myself. That wasn't right. You pick them! "Pick the damn apple!" That's not it either. Pan exited the room crying.
Anthony turned to me before entering the room, gave a curtsy and said, "Wish me luck!" He skipped into the room, I could hear his enthusiasm resonate through the door and I wanted him to eat dog shit. Eat! "Eat the damn apple!" I repeated it in my head over and over so I wouldn't forget. Anthony left the room and told me to "Break a leg!"
I entered to room, I took a few steps forward before I could see anybody else. There were three people sitting behind a table, all with a pen in their hands. As soon as they saw me they wrote something down. "Good afternoon," the man in the middle said.
I didn't recognize who the man in the middle was until I was halfway through saying, "Good afternoon," back and my voice cracked because it was J.J. Abrams. I coughed, "Excuse me."
J.J. Abrams said stood up and walked toward me, he took my resume and head shot and handed me the script, "That's alright," and he read my name, "Kyle." J.J. walked back to his seat. "Just whenever you are ready, we'll give you a minute. Read the male part and Kristy, here," he pointed at the lady sitting to his left with his thumb. "She will read the female part."
We got started. My mouth said the words on the page, but my mind was only on, "Eat the damn apple!" We read through the first page and we were playfully fighting about who would eat the apple.
"That will be enough." J.J. said, "Thank you."
"Wh-what?"
"You can go now."
"But you didn't even let me read the best part."
J.J. said, "That won't be necessary." He shooed me away with his hand.
I took a step toward the door. "Just eat the damn apple!" I pleaded, "Just eat the damn apple! You need it more than I do."
"Okay," J.J. said, "I don't want you to finish the reading because I already know we aren't casting you. You're too old. We're looking for someone in their twenties."
I was stunned, "I could play younger."
"Even if you were the right age, I recognize you. You're that guy from Goblin Mountain King, right? I couldn't ever hire you. No one would take the movie seriously."
I left after he said that. I was done fighting for the role I clearly wasn't going to get. I don't remember anything about my walk out of the building, across town, or back to my car. I just remember walking out of the audition room and then being in my car. I just remember sitting in my car for probably an hour before starting and I remember screaming. I wasn't even screaming words. I wasn't cursing J.J. Abrams for not giving me a chance, I wasn't cursing myself for being a bad actor, I wasn't cursing Goblin Mountain King for ruining my career. I was just screaming noise.

I spent the next four hours driving and planning my apology to Jerry. The next day, I would go back into the Priceville Chicken King and beg for my job back. I would tell him that I am willing to work every weekend and tell him I am remorseful for how I handled the situation before and that it would never happen again. That I may never go to another audition again.
So the next day I went into the restaurant and walked straight back into his office. He looked up at me when I opened the door and before I could deliver my apology speech, he reached down under his desk, grabbed my shirt and threw it at me. "I can hire you back," he said. "But you're only going to be making minimum wage."
"Okay," I said.
I started to close the door, but while it was still cracked, Jerry said, "You gotta stop setting yourself up for failure, Kyle."