Secret Bands and Crossed Roads

By Olivia Mozée

             

          For as long as I can remember, I’ve closed myself off from others in the same way a crime scene gets wrapped in caution tape. I think it all started when I was little and my friends and I started a band called– and this is the real title– “The Pokémon Sailor Moon Band.” Remember, we were young enough to believe that we lived in a world free of copyright infringement laws.

            In our minds, this band was the hottest thing since the

Spice Girls, but we made sure not to tell anyone else about it, especially not our parents. We played hits such as “Heart and Soul” on the piano and lip synced to our favorite Backstreet Boys hits; Plus, I recall at least one jaunty rendition of the Fairly Odd Parents theme song. 

            Anyway, my parents eventually asked why they often heard my friends and I singing along to the boombox and stomping around my room. I confessed that I was in a super-cool-but-totally-secret band. Being professional musicians, they offered to record us in their studio, burn CDs of our work, and of course, they told all of their friends that we had a super-cool-but-totally-secret band. The spark of having a band was quickly doused, and I lost the ability to tell anyone anything ever again.

            I suppose I can blame the band incident for many times when I bit my tongue instead of spilling my guts about all the stresses making my stomach feel like a bunch of butterflies at mating time. However, after keeping stuff bottled up for too long, the breakdown always occurs. Nowadays I usually rant to my boyfriend (who then proceeds to offer me a cup of tea, if only to shut me up), but back when I was reveling in The Realm of Single People, I was often tempted to just pull a stranger off the street and start complaining about my problems. I never had the cajones to do it– I mean, biologically, I don’t even have cajones– but it was tempting.

            Thirty-year-old Andrea, the protagonist of Julia Genoveva's THE CROSSROAD, does have the gall to pull

Julia Genoveva

this move, though. For Andrea, advice and solace come from strangers that she meets in a random, roadside diner. This decision to open up to people she doesn’t know is an unexpectedly effective method of getting her life out of its current standstill state, partly due to one especially intriguing patron that catches her attention.

            Does Andrea have a certain incident that made her closed off from the rest of the world? Maybe she too had a terribly named band and enthusiastic parents? Who knows– we might be more alike than I know.

            Are you an open person? Or do you prefer to keep to yourself? Who’s the one person or the group of people that you confide in, and why? Comment below and let us know about your secret-sharing habits.         

            THE CROSSROAD will be performed at Series B of the Strawberry One-Act Festival on August 5th (Weds) at 9 PM and August 9th (Sun) at 7 PM at Tato Laviera Theatre, 240 East 123rd street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. Tickets are available at www.therianttheatre.com.