By Olive Saraf
The year was 2018. As I had every morning before and as I would every morning since, I stood outside the Citi Bank on the northeast corner of 96th and Broadway. I was waiting for my school bus to arrive, late as always – or maybe I was early, I’m not sure. I was wearing baggy sweatpants and a cropped t-shirt, leaning against my bag, which was leaning against the window of the bank. I was alone, watching pedestrians flee to the subway at rush hour like they were being chased, feeling like I belonged in this chaotic, comforting city.
From around the corner of the bank, a man came up to me, clearly intoxicated and a bit deranged. He stared at me and asked me my name. I didn’t say anything. He asked me how old I was. I didn’t say anything. He asked me what I was doing there. I didn’t say anything. He stepped slightly closer. I didn’t say anything. All I did was hope that someone would notice him talking to me. They would know what to do – I didn’t. But no one came. I was alone.
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It felt like the spotlight split in two, shining on my face and hers, burning tears into my eyes. My red face felt exposed. My body quivered. My heart broke. I was sitting in a room of hundreds of people, feeling like I was the only other person there. The only one, enveloped by cold theater air and my crushed velvet seat. It was just Heidi and me.
A few summers ago, in 2019, I went to see a play called, What the Constitution Means to Me. It sounded like someone was trying to follow up Hamilton by making another radical, historical piece of theater that ultimately would not live up to par. We had gotten house seats right in the middle of the theater. I could feel the packed room surrounding me – it was a normal New York City theater experience. When the lights finally went down over the audience, fifteen minutes or so later than they were supposed to, a middle-aged woman in a bright yellow pantsuit walked out on stage. A singular spotlight shined on her. She introduced herself as Heidi. She started speaking about her experience at a mock constitutional convention she had gone to in high school. I assumed that was just the introduction to the play, and that the other characters would soon arrive. There were no other characters.
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I kept hoping, kept waiting for someone to save me from this wretched interaction with this pathetic man. Still, no one did anything. After what felt like too long, one of the boys at my bus stop arrived. Finally, I thought, someone I know is here who can get me out of this. I watched him walk towards me, I watched him glance at me sorrowfully, and finally, I watched him continue walking away to the Dunkin’ Donuts down the block. I guess it made sense to him. He was safe from the strange man. I stayed exactly where I was.
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I was standing in the middle of the room on top of a piece of neon marking tape under turned off lights. It was just me, my friend, and my director. My eyes were closed; I was centered, focused. Just be angry, I told myself. I opened my eyes and they both started charging at me from the far corners of the room. I started saying my monologue: “Custom? What custom?” They kept coming towards me. “The custom dictates…” They wouldn’t stop moving. I froze.
I was playing Penelope in my high school’s spring production of The Odyssey. I had been working on this one scene for weeks – a moment where my character, tortured and bruised by the men around her, had finally had enough. My director had me doing an exercise in which I stood in the center of the room and delivered my line while she would stampede at me. She would only stop, back off, once my line was powerful enough to convince her she should. Needless to say, I was not very convincing in my anger or power quite yet.
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Time felt like it was moving too slowly. What was just a few minutes felt like ten. I stared at the building across the street, determined to keep my attention away from this man. I could feel his presence next to me. I could hear his voice atop the rest of the New York noise. I wanted to step out of this discomfort and keep moving away, but I had to stay; I had to wait for the bus to arrive and drive me away from this misery. But time was moving too slow, and the bus was moving slowly with it. I looked in front of me at the loads of New Yorkers walking to the subway just across the street – it was rush hour. No one looked my way. The bus would be here soon.
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Heidi wrote the play in 2017 to reflect on her family's history through the lens of the document we so desperately venerate in this country – the Constitution. The set behind her was a recreation of the Constitutional debate competitions she went to in high school. She simply stood at the birch-wood podium in front of presidential portraits and talked. But she didn’t just talk about her troubles memorizing the Bill of Rights, or debating peers that were all slightly, yet dauntingly older than her. Gradually, she began to talk about the tragic origin stories of generations of women in her family. She talked about how all of the four generations before her came into this world as a result of forced sexual encounters. She talked about how unprotected she felt by her own history; how this seminal document was a concrete pillar in all four generations. Yet, it did not protect, but rather stood in the way.
All I could think about was how much I wanted to give her a hug. I wanted her to cradle me like my mother. And I wanted to comfort her too. But as the show came to a close and the audience rose to their feet in the heat of the applause, I stayed in my crushed velvet seat wiping the inspired tears from my cheeks, saving them in the fabric of my clothes as I transferred them onto my pants. It was just Heidi and me.
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We reset. I went back to the neon tape and dormant lights. “What custom?” I said louder. My director stopped me right away. I still wasn’t getting it. She told me I couldn’t just raise my voice and wave my hands to evoke anger. Instead, I had to understand my character’s perspective to the point of conveying utter frustration. I had to believe it; I had to believe her. We reset. Scream, I thought to myself, just be angry. I went back to my place and closed my eyes. It was just Penelope and me.