text: “Stage to Black”. John pressed down on the sliding knob to dim the lights on Act II. He brought the house lights up for intermission and watched the audience rise from their seats, their conversation growing louder as they moved toward the back of the theater. Ten minutes until lights up. Ten minutes. He slipped a blue latex glove onto his left hand and made his way through the heavy red curtains that separated make-believe from real. An unlit American Spirit hung from his mouth as he passed by dressing rooms filled with costume changes and actors reciting lines into mirrors. The euphoria of performance. All of it for a Thursday night audience buying discount tickets and overpriced wine served in plastic cups. Giggles followed him as he pushed against the backstage exit, lighting up and exhaling into summer. Five years doing stage tech at the Almost Corner Theater. A summer job that had quickly evolved into a way of life. Black shirts and Levis, alcohol and shows, tattoos and shows, parties and shows, after-parties and more shows. Lots of shows. More cigarettes too, but he’d been cutting down. Liza made him promise. She thought he was done, but he was still smoking a pack a week. Better than two. His car was filled with breath mints, cologne testers, and latex gloves. Those goddamned latex gloves. They stopped the smell sticking to his hands but fuck. The looks he got, especially on the drive home, a guy with tattoos wearing a latex glove, smoking on the highway. All of this behind her back and for no good reason at all. Liza knew he was still smoking. Five minutes. He took a hit, savoring the moment, letting it all out, unsurprised as the door opened behind him. Enter Sharla. “What’s up John? Bum me a cig?” He gave her a hard look, pressing the yellow pack into her palm. Ten shows down, and she hadn’t yet brought her own pack, or for that matter offered him a smoke. “Lighter?” She giggled, an instant of orange lighting up against her dyed black hair. Ten cigarettes and not one coming back to him in return. Not even a lighter he could pocket. Three minutes. He caught her staring at his tattoos, geometric shapes, from the shirt sleeve down into the latex glove. She looked back up at him. “Ernest just tried to kiss me back there. I turned away and he wasn’t too happy about that. He pushed me against the wall, but I still didn’t kiss him.” John frowned, exhaling, watching her inhale and twirl her cigarette in elegant circles. Two minutes. “Hey Sharla, how come you never bring your own cigarettes out here huh? Why you always bumming them from me?” She smiled. “How come you always wear that blue glove when you smoke?” He flicked his cigarette. “C’mon, let’s get back inside.” Her smile turning to laughter as he pushed the glove into his jeans. “It’s your girlfriend, isn’t it? She doesn’t like you stinking of smoke, that it?” He pushed by her to find the backstage door locked in front of him. She began to pull at his shirt. Her hands turning him around. Her face moving close to his before she spoke. “I don’t want to kiss Ernest.” One minute. He banged on the door behind them. “Fuck. We’re locked out, we’ve got to go through the front.” They ran around the block, John holding Sharla’s hand as they entered the theater. The audience already seated, waiting for the lights to come up, watching John and Sharla run down the aisle. Watching as Margaret, their diminutive director, jumped up and down, waving the script in her hand. Her hair bunched up in a nervous bun over thick-rimmed eyeglasses. She looked like a school teacher and her angry whisper echoed into the theater. “What the hell John?! Sharla! Places! Now!” Sharla pulled at his jeans, slowing them down before she slipped out of his hand. He took his seat at the switchboard and watched her scurry through the tense curtains. Act III. He turned the spotlights on, bringing the stage back to life. Suddenly smiling. Smiling because he tasted like smoke. Smiling because the girl who bummed all of his cigarettes just walked on stage with a blue latex glove on her hand.