Schadenfreude

You are a bad friend. Deal with it. Accept it and move on. Anything you try and do to change this is a waste of time; learn to accept your inner arsehole. You feel bad, sad, and alone. So you take a moment to think of what’s going on in your life right now, right here, in the present. Why not make a list? Do one just like Mrs Farman taught you to do in year one:

1)  You are a struggling twenty-four year old actor, working at the London Dungeon’s to support your nowhere but down career.

2)  At last week’s party, that girl you like, Emily, she kissed your best friend Richard: she didn’t even give you a chance.

3)  You and Richard are performing in an actor’s showcase tonight; he’s the better actor and you know it. 

 Is that all you could come up with? Fine, let’s roll with what we’ve got to play with. You have been doing this acting career thing for three years now. Your 2:2 from Goldsmiths in Drama Studies is not paying the bills like you promised your Mum and Dad, who, by the way, really think you’re wasting your time. There is no job for you in this industry but to scare school kids and Chinese tourists who get roped into the dungeon via posters on the Northern Line. You are not even a brilliant ghoul; your regional accent comes through.

 You don’t want to think about Emily kissing Richard, because you really thought that you had a chance. But you’re too shy. You close down like a little boy who’s at his dad’s workplace, too scared and embarrassed to say anything. You want to stay in bed and play with yourself like every other morning. But you need to get to the showcase; the chance to get an agent; the chance to see if you’re worth it. You know the answer.

  You get out of the bed and go to the mirror. Your lips are stained red from that awful bottle of corner shop piss you were sucking on last night. Dark circles are under your eyes, but not in a sexy way. Your left eyelid looks like it’s drooping a bit – are you forming an aneurysm?  Boyish stubble which doesn’t quite go all the way round your face makes you look nineteen. As it stands, you do not look like a presentable human male. Nor do you look like your character from the monologue, the handsome American destined to pick up women in classy cocktail bars. No, you look too Artaudian today, your life resembling the theatre of cruelty quite well. You have a shower and shave and then run like hell for the tube.

 Your headphones are too tangled to listen to your motivational song: Death by White Lies.

Your breath smells of stale red wine.

You catch a glimpse of yourself in the window of an Estate Agent’s: you look a mess.

A wanker in a Porsche Boxer turns into the road that you’re running along. He sprays your jeans when driving through a gigantic puddle, leaving a stain the shape of India on your jeans. Big thumbs up for you.

 You arrive at the venue and wonder why you put yourself through it all. It’s not like this makes you happy, you haven’t smiled in over a year. But today you’ll have to appear happy and normal; you’ll need a permanent selfie smile. It’s held at a church hall, usually reserved for sixtieth birthdays and Judo for the elderly. In the entrance hall there are agents who you recognise; people who you’ve been sending headshots to for the past year with no success. One of them (a woman, mid-thirties?) glances over at you. She regards you and possibly remembers your face, but decides you look too shit today. You decide to quit drinking. Maybe find an AA meeting after this showcase is over. Then you remember you have that good bottle of Polish Vodka at home, so maybe another time.

 You find Richard pacing in the hall, which is packed with about twenty other young actors with fuck all else to do. He is warming up his voice with that endless rhyme that was drilled into you in that module ‘The Method: Part II’.

‘One-One was a racehorse.

Two-Two was one, too.

When One-One won one race, Two-Two won one, too.’

 You try and say hello, but he quickly holds his hand up to your face so he can finish the rhyme. He looks clean, his face isn’t patchy or un-shaven. Back when you first met in first year, you thought that under the right light he could be quite attractive. That was when you went through your Bi phase, but you never could handle the sex, could you? He finishes his rhyme and smiles at you; tells you look cool. You start to tell him the story about the Porsche and so on but he waves a hand over his nose. He offers you a mint and asks what monologue you’re going to use. You tell him: Mamet, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Oh right, he tells you.

 You’ve been friends since you and he had that thing, chemistry? Whatever, you and he have always gotten on; in your last Christmas card to him, you called him your brother. Because he’s literally the only friend you can share your humour and distain for the world with. That and you both think you can make a living out of actors, you naïve youth, you.

 He beckons you closer and starts telling you to remain calm and relaxed, that this is an important event. You could do well out of this. You should get into character; method acting, you know? He gives you a smile and tells you you’ll be great. He says that you are great actor. You try and remember what that teacher said, the one from Scotland, who once tried to seduce you backstage, what was it he told you?

‘Think of a time when you were unhappy and channel it, channel the fuck out of it.’

 This should be easy for you, you are unhappy with your current situation. But you were never any good at method acting, because nothing interesting has ever happened to you: you’re a middle class boy whose parents still pay your mobile phone bill. When did you last cry? You can’t remember, but you know you were close to tears when you got kicked out of the club last week. Emily and Richard? That made you sad. But Richard is also your best friend; you want him to be happy. You’re not sure, but you try and think about Richard kissing Emily, but end up feeling slightly turned on.

 A boy in a green jumper and tracksuit bottoms his pacing up and down the hall reciting his monologue. He is shouting his lines and is so loud and stupid that you want to tell him to fuck off.

 A girl and her friend take a selfie.

 Two boys are saying their lines backwards.

 You have a headache; you need two Ibuprofen and a glass of water.

 You suddenly find yourself in the middle of the room. There are now chairs with people sat in them; you catch Richard’s gaze, he gives you a wink and a smile. In front of you there is a long table, with all the agents sat there, with some theatre reps shoved at the end. Some are crunching Ginger Nuts, some are taking a swig of coffee, papers shuffle and then a woman with red hair and Velma glasses announces you to the room.

 You stand there awkwardly, not knowing whether or not to give a short bio or just break into character. You’re headache is still there, pressing on the side of your head. You try and think of what your character would do if he had a headache. Drink? Do more coke? If only.

 You speak the lines. You try the American accent, which makes you sound like a post-stroke patient from Northern Ireland. A few heads linger on you for a while, but then return to their papers and their Ginger Nuts. That crunching sound, you want to break one of their faces. But one man looks interested, he eyes you, tries to see you in EastEnders or an advert for Yazoo. You make it to the end and find that your armpits are so damp from the sweat. But he nods; he takes your headshot and puts it in his pile. You notice he has the largest pile of all; he probably took that guy in the green jumper who shouted his way through his piece.

 You cannot believe you are watching Richard get yelled at. One of the agents, a short camp man, tells him that he’s wasting his time. He stumbled on his lines. He didn’t take their advice or instruction.

‘Wasting your time, really, you just are’.

 You at first feel you should say something, defend your friend. But something’s going on. Something is preventing you from really feeling bad. It goes back to you being a bad friend, but it’s also that you are enjoying this. You enjoy watching your friend, the better actor and (apparently) kisser get berated and torn to shreds. It’s probably not right, you should feel bad. But instead you feel a sense of relief. You failed, he failed. You stay low, he stays low. It’s like your dad told you once when he once drunk: ‘seeing friends fuck up makes you feel less of a fuck up, and that’s one of life’s great joys’.

 You can’t see Richard’s face, but his body is perfectly still, his hands hang limp by his sides. It reminds you of school, when a teacher shouted at someone, you didn’t need to see their face to know it was about to crumple and stream tears.

 The man waves Richard off; when he turns round he doesn’t look at you. He heads straight for the door. You quietly exit the room and head to the entrance hall where you see the toilet door close. You know you will try not to smile when you speak to him. When you hear him say he blew it. When he admits he lost it. Richard the great actor, the boy who you always wanted to be as good as is now a sobbing mess in church hall toilet. You feel a feeling only afforded to the down and out. That sense of joy at others misfortune. You feel that frightening power of harm.

 You hear a yelp followed by a groan. You go in to find him clutching at his bloody fist, with blood smeared on a toilet door. Tears stream down his face and drop off his chin.

 You tell him it’ll be okay.

 You go to give him a hug.

 You say don’t worry.

 You look at him and feel something better than achievement. You feel Schadenfreude.

 He tells you that he blew it. He lost it. He’s blacklisted.

 When he looks away, you smile, just like you thought you would.

 You are a bad friend, and you love it, and you know it, and you love it.