A Calling for Charlie Barnes

by Joshua Ferris

Dust as ancient as a Greek chorus swirled in the spotlights, and the musty odor of antique costumes hung in the air backstage. Charlie could still reconstruct on his retinas, forty years later, the sharp negative of the makeup mirror lights, the hot blinding lights of the main stage, and those gentle pools of blue light backstage that cut the sacred darkness on nervy opening nights. The thick clotting smell of pancake makeup and the toxic catch of wig glue in the dressing rooms were, back then, all he required to become drunk with excitement. But it was his ears that best recalled the delicate magic of Red Mask: the whispers of jitters backstage, the sudden shushes, the rude crashes, the soft murmur from the house before curtain, the roar of shared impressions during intermission, and the muted laughter behind the stage doors while outside the wash of oblivious traffic continued in a steady rain—there was simply nothing to compare to it even now.