He looks at the time. A little past six. Plenty of time to change his clothes. He’s through writing today, been to the Y. Dinner? What he calls dinner, he’ll have when he comes back. He sits in the easy chair in the living room, takes the book off the side table, opens it to the bookmark and finds the place where he left off. Should he have a drink? It’ll relax him for the play. But also might make him tired, which could end up being an excuse not to go to the play. Maybe around seven, seven-fifteen, a short one. Better, nothing to drink till he gets back home. Less he drinks, less chance he’ll have to pee during the play, another reason for getting an aisle seat. So he reads for a while and then goes into the kitchen and prepares a salad for the next two days and puts it in separate bowls and turns the radio on and listens to music while he reads the newspaper spread out on the dryer. At seven, he pours an Irish whiskey on the rocks and sits in the easy chair and reads some more of the book and drinks and around seven-twenty he goes into the bedroom to change his clothes. He intends to get to the church about twenty to eight and buy a ticket and find a seat. He’ll have the same book with him, so he’ll read while he waits for the play to begin and maybe even during the intermission. And plays never start on time. He’ll also look around to see who else is there. He’s curious what sort of people come to something like this. Of course, friends and relatives of the people involved in the play, but others. How they’re dressed and what they’re saying. He hopes, though, there are a number of people going to it. He hates being just one of a few people in the audience. Feels the actors are looking at him, and it makes him want to look away from the stage. He changes his clothes, looks at his watch on the night table—7:35, so time to get moving — and he gets his wallet and keys and puts on his jacket and cap and gets his book and turns on the outside lights, leaves only the kitchen light on in the house, and locks the door and walks across the street to the church. So he’s doing it. No big deal for anyone else, but for him? — something. For a while he didn’t think he’d do it. That he’d give himself an excuse not to. For instance: He’ll go next Friday or Saturday night, when the performances should be even better than tonight’s. And after all, he’ll have nothing to do those nights, just as he has nothing to do tonight but go to the play. Other excuses. He’d think of them. If there’s anything he’s good at, it’s that. He walks through the church parking lot to the church entrance. Well, how about that, he thinks. You made it. Congratulations. You deserve a medal. Now, if only the play will be good and not too long. But the important thing is you’re here.
He goes inside. A man’s selling tickets at a card table in the lobby, or whatever it’s called in a church. Not the “nave,” though that came to mind. It has a name. “Vestibule” will do. Or just “the entrance.” But what’s he going on about? Three people are on line for tickets, and he gets behind them. Other people, maybe ten, stand around or are seated in chairs against the walls, probably waiting for somebody or just to go into the theater. So, already a fairly good crowd. His turn comes. A sign on the table says “Cash or check only.” “One, please,” he says. He gets a twenty out of his wallet. The man gives him a ticket—“No. 116,” it says on it; that can’t be the number sold just for tonight — and a five-dollar bill in change. “Now where do I go?” “Oh? Your first time with us?” the man says. “Wonderful. It’ll be a surprise. Walk straight through the lobby, then left down the stairs to the vestry, where the play is being performed. Take any seat you want. The play started promptly last night, so I see no foreseeable reason it shouldn’t start on time tonight. Enjoy.” “Thank you.”
He goes straight, left, down the stairs. Coat hooks line one wall of what seems to be the anteroom to a much larger room with rows of unfolded metal chairs in it, which must be the vestry. Several coats are on the hooks. He stuffs his cap into a side pocket of his jacket and hangs the jacket up on one of the hooks. A young girl hands him a program when he goes into the vestry. “Enjoy the performance,” she says. “Thank you.” Though maybe the vestry is both this room and the anteroom he hung his coat in. He’ll want to look up “vestry” when he gets home. Will he remember? Should he jot it down on his bookmark or the program? He forgot his memobook but has a pen in his jacket. Not worth the trouble. And he’ll remember. About fifteen people are already seated, most near the front. Nobody in the first row, though. Probably too close to the stage, which is only a foot or so off the floor. He takes a middle aisle seat, about halfway from the stage, no one in the seat in front of him. There are about ten rows. He counts them. Twelve. Ten seats to a row, five on each side of the middle aisle, so a total seating capacity of more than a hundred. So maybe a hundred-sixteen was the number of tickets sold, up till then, for tonight. But can’t be. Play’s going to start soon and more people would be here. Maybe it’s the total of last night’s sales and tonight’s, or else they’re not selling the tickets in numerical order. It also could be a lot of people bought tickets in advance for tomorrow’s and next week’s performances. He looks at the program. Two acts, it says, with a fifteen-minute intermission, five to six scenes in each act. “Morning.” “One hour later.” “Three hours later.” “The next morning,” and so on. In the second act: first scene is two weeks later, morning. The program has several local businesses advertised in it. Realtors, the market and liquor store he usually shops at, the flower shop he used to go to a few times a year when his wife was alive. Her birthday, their anniversary, a number of times when she was very angry at him. Flowers or a new African violet plant always seemed to make her feel better to him. An ad for the church’s pastoral counseling. There’s no stage curtain. Actors, he just now notices, are lying on cots and supposed to be sleeping or resting. Mosquito netting covers three of the four occupied cots. One cot is empty and has a rolled-up bare mattress on it. More people take seats in the audience. Still nobody in the row in front of his. He doesn’t recognize anyone. Must be past eight now. He saw no reason to bring his watch. He opens his book and starts reading. A couple come into his row from the other end and the woman sits next to him and the man on the other side of her. Minute later the woman whispers something to the man and they each move one seat over. Could it have been something about him? There was nobody in front of them. She probably just felt more comfortable not sitting next to anyone. He puts the book down on the seat she left. More people come in. About fifty seats are taken. Music comes on. “Waltzing Matilda.” It must be around ten after eight. The lights dim in the audience and brighten on stage. The door to the room is closed. The music fades out. A woman dressed like an army nurse might be dressed sixty years ago walks on stage. She raises the bamboo blinds of the one window in back, which looks onto what seems like a jungle, and then pulls the mosquito netting away from one of the cots and ties a cord around the middle of it. The men in the cots start stirring: scratching their faces, yawning, stretching their arms out. “Rise and shine, mighty warriors,” she says, pulling the netting away from another cot, “rise and shine. It’s a special day.” The program says the play takes place in a military hospital in Burma for British, Canadian and American soldiers in World War II.