Read Outtakes Of A Walking Mistake for Free Online Page A

he’s cool.”
    “And your mother?”
    “She’s not around.”
    “Where is she?”
    Why do you want to know?
    Don’t you have a script for me to read?
    Dad loves mom, but I don’t.
    “She travels,” I say.
    “Be more specific.”
    “She’s in the circus. She left when I was in kindergarten. I don’t know where she travels.” Yet, here is where my mind travels. Racing back in time, I remember being a seven year old and opening up a letter postmarked from Louisville, Kentucky. In it mom said she enjoyed eating cotton candy and making kids smile.
    All I have are these letters. All I have are these letters. The ocean’s been speaking to me again . This is what mom writes. She’s a free spirit, dad says.
    “How did her leaving make you feel?” he asks, adjusting the camera.
    “Huh?”
    “How did it make you feel?”
    This is not my life.
    I’m not here. I’m not anywhere.
    “It made me feel...I don’t know...I was young.”
    “Try to remember,” Mr. Dolby urges.
    Remember? No way.
    I don’t want to and you can’t make me.
    “Remember,” he repeats.
    And BOOM, I recall the day that dad dropped the bomb about mom. Half naked and wet, I had just come into the house for a glass of lemonade after running through the lawn sprinkler.
    I jolt in my seat.
    Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
    I think of mom watering the vegetable garden she planted in the backyard and the day she painted the sidewalk gold. “Let’s live like we’re in The Wizard of Oz,” she told me. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
    I click my heels and I’m back in the present.
    “Mr. Morris, are you all right? You’re paler than a ghost.”
    “Yeah, I’m fine.”
    “If you’d like to stop....”
    “No,” I interrupt. Tears tickle my eyes. “You want to know how I felt? Fine, I’ll tell you.” Losing focus of the camera, I speak while gazing at the steam rising from his tea; the ghost of mom, the image of her flowing brown curls, ascends from the mist. “It made me feel…like my life wasn’t worth sticking around for. And looking at my life now, I can’t say that I blame her.”
    “There you are!” Mr. Dolby exclaims, after a moment of dead silence. “That’s what I wanted! The real you!” Beaming, he turns off the camera and applauds. “Bravo, bravo!”
    Me, I’m not sure what to think. Here I am dizzy and sullen from this whole mind-bending experience, this hurricane of hurried thoughts, and I’m being praised for it? The truth is out there; theater people are freaks. “I’m sorry, maybe this was a mistake,” I say, rising.
    “Come again?”
    “I’m leaving.”
    “No, no. Wait,” Mr. Dolby urges. Darting across the room, he pulls a script from a metal filing cabinet under an elaborate, porcelain tea set. Taking a deep breath, he regains his composure, maintaining a stiff, regal demeanor. “I believe I have a part for you. The role of Felix.” With neither a smile nor frown, he lightly places the script in my hand as if it were fragile. “It’s a small role, mind you, but a very important role indeed.”
    As my knees go weak, I wonder what warrants his sense of urgency. Does he find me talented? I haven’t even read lines except for the ones Jenny made me say. Is that why he’s giving me a part? Does he think I’m tragic enough to bop his brains out? “Are you sure you want me?” I ask.
    “Of course,” Mr. Dolby says, before explaining the rehearsal schedule to me. “The question is, are you ready?”

Scene 5
    Dehydrating under the golden sun while waiting on dad in the school parking lot, the ubiquitous thought of mom depletes me, draining my brain like a syringe as my neglected heart yells at me for giving a damn about her. This sucks. I should be invincible right now; I should be on top of the world. But no, I just landed my first role in a student film and all I can think about is tired old mom. Why did she leave? Where is she? Is her mind full of me? This is