Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(10)
CHAPTER 2
Baptism
It was February 1971, Mom and Dad had moved our family back to Highland Park, and I’d changed schools yet again. All the hippies at Highland Park High School hung out in the “Glass Hall,” so named because it had lots of windows and a door that opened to the school’s parking lot. Kids used to sneak out that door, go into the parking lot, jump into their cars, and smoke doobies between classes. This winter day the door was closed against the Illinois wind, blowing hard and unsympathetic from across Lake Michigan. I was a sophomore and played lead guitar in a new band, and me, the bass player, and the drummer all slouched against the wall in the Glass Hall. We called ourselves Half Day Road after a stretch of highway that divided our two northern Chicago suburbs, Highland Park and Highwood. We thought we were the real stuff. More than anything I just wanted to fit in at this new school and jam with my new band. But the life I hoped for was all about to change.
She walked straight toward us, a teacher named Mrs. Barbara Patterson. She was a powerhouse of a gal, a tornado of a woman. Blonde hair. Set jaw. The power of poetry running through her veins. She slowed when she neared us, stopped, and gave a diminutive sniff. Our clothes were cool and raggy, and my bandmates and I all wore scruffy jackets. I’d let my hair grow crazy and curly; it sprung out horizontally in a wild mass of thicket.
Mrs. Patterson was the theater teacher. She looked at us and said, “I’m directing West Side Story for the spring play. You guys all look like you could play gang members. Come and audition for the play.” It sounded more like a dare than a request. Then she was off and walking fast on her way down the hall, and we shrugged it off and laughed, and one of us scoffed, “Who cares about plays?”
We needed to display bravado among ourselves, we three boys. Rebellion was the unwritten rule of 1971. None of us had ever been in a play before. But on that cold winter day, a warmer thought began to blow in the back of my mind. The previous year, when I was a freshman over at Glenbard West in Glen Ellyn, the school had put on West Side Story. All the kids went, so I did too. And you know what? That play wasn’t half bad. All those Jets and Sharks running around, fighting with knives, rumbling in the streets. Pretty cool, I’d thought. Me and my ragtag buddies at Glenbard went out and bought jean jackets afterward so we could dress like the Jets in the play.
The bell rang and I didn’t move. As a rule, I skipped most classes, but that day I thought twice, sighed, and ambled into history class and slid into a seat near the back. The teacher was saying something about a book I hadn’t read. My eyes glazed and I stared out the window, working hard to become invisible. Years later, I came to love history, but that day in the classroom, I was still a horrible student. Yet for some reason teachers kept passing me year after year. I was sixteen years old, and I still didn’t read or write well. My sister and brother were both better students than I was, and they were into sports: Randy played football and Lori was a cheerleader. Nothing much made sense to me except the Who; Jimi Hendrix; Crosby, Stills & Nash; and the fringe jacket I always wore.
The hour passed. Class ended and school was over for the day. One of my bandmates found me, and I said, “Hey, let’s see what’s going on at this audition.” He said sure, so we ambled over to the cafeteria where the audition was taking place. We didn’t know what to do or even what an audition was, but we spotted a line of girls heading into the cafeteria. Every girl’s hair was flowing and parted in the middle, and they all wore beads with their bell-bottoms cut low at the waist. The groovy sight was all the prompt we needed to head in there with them. We scribbled our names on the sign-up sheet and found seats.
Kids packed themselves tight inside the makeshift audition hall. Someone shouted a handful of names, and a bunch of kids went up to the stage and were handed scripts. The first kids read their parts and sat down and another handful of names were called. Hey, that’s me. I jumped onstage, grabbed a script, and found out which character I was supposed to read. One of the kids in my lineup started reading his character’s dialogue. Pages rustled and turned. Another kid started reading his lines. Another kid. Another. Man, they’re really blowing through their lines fast, I thought, when suddenly dead air blasted against me and silence filled the room. A lone cough echoed off the back wall.
“Hmm-hum, hey there,” I said, glancing about me. I was at least four lines behind. “Hang on, Jason. I gotta find my place. You guys are going too fast.”
The kid who’d just read wasn’t named Jason. I didn’t know his name, but I’d delivered my retort in such a good-natured nasal twang that my faux confidence cracked everybody up. The kid was smiling. The audience was chuckling. Even Mrs. Patterson grinned. So I ran my finger down the page, found my spot, and read my line. Everything cranked up again as the others continued reading their dialogue. In a flash it was finished. So that’s an audition, I thought. Well, that wasn’t half bad.
Next morning in the hallway near the drama department, a list was posted. Everybody crowded around to look. Me too. I scanned down the list—way, way down. I kept scanning but didn’t recognize any of the names. Well, who cares?! I thought, but kept reading. My eyes kept scanning down, scanning down. Toward the very end, when I saw this, a soft light came on inside my soul:
PEPé---------------------------------------------GARY SINISE
Pepé was a Shark. A gang member. He was in the chorus and had to dance a little and even had a couple of lines. The role required an actor’s touch. I tried to take in all it might mean, seeing my name on the hallway list. I didn’t know anything about acting, and I knew I fumbled my lines in the audition because I couldn’t keep up with the other readers. But maybe, just maybe, my ability to entertain the crowd had caused Mrs. Patterson to see I’d taken her up on her dare. Maybe she saw some sort of potential I didn’t see in myself yet. Because the words on the hallway list didn’t lie.