Alex & Ren - after auditions
Alex had to work for a few hours on Saturday morning and he knew he wasn't going to get to the Community Center until late. He could tell himself all he wanted that he didn't know why he was going to the play auditions, but the truth was he knew it was some kind of good for him. It was the first time in his life he'd had a steady job, steady housing, and steady income. Even if he wasn't exactly making bank at the comic shop, it was enough to pay the rent, buy food and smokes, and pay the cellphone bill.
What it left him was free time. But the thing about having free time was that filling it usually wasn't free. If he wanted to actually be entertained by something other than the weird-ass Tonya Harding comics he found in the bargain bins at work (or whatever the ever-living fuck that Hansi thing had been), he was going to find something else to do. While he wasn't about to be singing and dancing on stage anytime soon, he figured being part of the stage crew for the play was something that would get him out and about a few hours every week. It could even surprise him, and he might find that he enjoyed it. Of course, he didn't know the first damn thing about what stage crew did and he was pretty sure he had never been to a play where attendance wasn't mandated by the staff of the Rose Elementary K through 8.
He felt a creeping kind of dread as he entered the Community Center because it seemed pretty quiet. Shit, shit, shit had he missed it? And he didn't even think he knew who he was supposed to be looking for. What had the name been? Damn, damn, fuck. He ducked his head into a couple rooms but they were empty, but as he moved around the building he thought he heard some voices from somewhere up ahead. He shoved his hands into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and looked through a set of double doors. It looked like the actual auditorium, and thank god someone was in there.
He recognized the man at once, because it was the same dude who sold him coffee like two to three times a day most days. Shit, but Alex didn't know his name. Was he running this gig?
"Uh, hey," he mumbled as he kind of slouched over with a nod of recognition. "D'you know if I'm too late, or?"