Me Too
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(Excerpt from Let’s Get All Zen Up in Here, a memoir in essays and art by Annie Wood)

My seventeen year old self is sitting across middle aged, sweaty, Stan-the-producer in his cramped, dimly lit North Hollywood apartment. Stan wreaks of abundant Drakkar and stale Lucky Strikes. He hands me the audition sides and suggests we “jump right in.”

I was never one to shy away from a challenge and cold readings have always been my strong suit. I glance down at the script and quickly memorize the first line.

I read, “What I’m trying to say, Billy, is that I love you too much to let you go.”

Stan adjusts his beer belly and reads the role of Billy, a teen age jock. He reads it as convincingly as one would imagine. “Carla… baby, If you… really love me… you’re going to have to... prove it to me.”

“How can I prove it to you?”

“I think you know.” Stan looks up and grins a grotesque grin.

At this point I’m beating myself up inside for not listening to my initial instinct of avoiding auditions in private locations. But, as young actresses are want to do, I told myself that maybe the producer was just saving money on office space. You know, for the good of the film.

The acids and enzymes in my stomach begin to form a toxic belly tornado. Stan attempts to sooth the dangerous weather patterns developing within me, he puts the sides down and says, “You’re very good. I can tell.”

“Oh… thanks,” I say.

“But I can’t tell…everything. You know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

“This is a very demanding role and the audience has to believe that Carla is able to convince Billy to stay.”

“Okay.”

Stan continues, “And how she does that is the way most women do it. You know, with her sexuality.” With that last bit he glances down to his crotch where his penis is attempting to bust through his corduroys.

I get up quickly. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“It’s that way.” Stan points to the far end of his getting-creepier-by-the-minute-apartment and I slowly, so as not to ring any alarm bells, make my way towards it.

I don’t think my blue belt in Tang Too Do will save me if this large beast decides to leave his sofa. He has at least 100 pounds on me. I suppose I could out run him. If I manage to open the door with my quivering hands. Why does it have to be this way? This isn’t the first time I’ve felt fear in the same room with a man with an offer. An offer of a potential role, a job, an opportunity. Will it always be like this?

I remember when I was a little girl and my mom took me to see the movie, Fame, at the Peppertree Theatre. That scene where Coco thinks she’s getting a screen test but when she gets to the place, it turns out the only person there is an asshole with a camera telling her to take her shirt off. As a kid, I was so messed up by this scene. After the movie, I was livid. I cried angry tears to my mom, “Why did he do that? Why did she do it?” My mom wasn’t sure why I was reacting so strongly and I don’t think I knew at the time either. But I do now. I felt rage by the unjustness of being a female with a dream in a world where some will find a way to use those very desires against you. Some will see your beautiful light and view it as an opportunity. An opportunity to exploit your innocent joy and turn into something ugly and self serving. I wanted the world to be as beautiful as I believed it was. And it broke my little heart that it wasn’t. It still does.

Stan doesn’t seem to sense my inner turmoil because his voice sounds eerily calm as he casually says over his shoulder, “I need to know if you’re able to perform a convincing blow job. So we can practice that part when you get back, okay?”

“Okay, just a sec!” I yell back trying to match his calmness. I didn’t walk towards the bathroom. I was standing, frozen, at the front door. My boyfriend, Danny, was waiting for me in the car out front but this was the 80s, pre cellphones and If I screamed, I didn’t think he’d be able to hear me over the The Beatles blaring on the car radio. I place my hand on the door knob. Please don’t get up. Please don’t get up. I quietly turn the handle and open the door. The door creaks! I’m certain Sleazy Stan is going to leap up, grab me and drag me back into his hellhole. I don’t look back to find out if that’s his plan - I swing open the door and run away as fast as I can and leap into the car.

“What happened?” Danny says alarmed.

“Drive!” I yell.

We take off and I watch the corduroyed creep in the side view mirror. He’s waving after me to come back. I watch him get smaller and smaller until he finally vanishes. I tell myself to erase the memory. Just like in the mirror. To make it get smaller and smaller in my mind until it vanishes.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I will have decades ahead of me to look forward to of pushing away the memories of grown men behaving badly. I will have more Coco-like experiences on the road to pursuing my acting dreams. Luckily, I will wiggle my way out of them just in the nick of time. But that’s not the point. The point is they shouldn’t happen at all. But they will. And when they do, my stomach will eventually stop turning because I will accept it as ‘just the way it is.’ I will laugh them off. I will be the ‘cool girl.’ I will be the cool, laughing girl until… this very moment. At 3:00pm on October 16, 2017. Because now, thank you to those who spoke out about Harvey, thank you, Twitter, thank you 2017, I have finally realized that laughing things off is just another way of saying something is okay. Each time it happened to me - It’s wasn’t okay. Each time it ever happens, in any way, to any girl, boy, woman, man, it’s never okay. If anyone puts someone in a position to feel less than and afraid - that is so very much, not okay. Personal sharing has never been my forte. I like to ask questions. I like to be the helper. But I feel that it’s time for a change. This is when I change. This is when I share and say that yes, me too.

But back then… back then I didn’t even tell my boyfriend what happened. I was embarrassed that I was in the situation to begin with. So when, after we drove in silence for a few moments, my boyfriend turned to me and asked, “Are you okay?”

All I could do was wipe my tears away, force a smile and shrug,

“I don’t think I’m getting a call back.”

xo,

Annie Wood

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