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The Intermission

Dec 27, 2015 My family and I were given three tickets to the Broadway production of The Lion King. Tuesday, 7pm. Only the tickets weren’t there when we got there. The theater was sold out. “We came all the way from North Carolina,” I said in a final desperate plea. The man shrugged his shoulders sympathetically behind the bulletproof glass. Mary and I had attended a yoga class in the wealthy little country town of Bedford, an hour north, earlier that day. There was no one to look after Rowan so he came with us. He got a mat from the office and rolled it out directly in front of the teacher at the head of the class. To everyone’s amazement, the little five year old boy stayed on his mat for an hour and a half and did everything. The teacher ended the class by saying, “Take an hour. Don’t go right to your phone. Let this feeling last. Don’t hurry off to the next thing you HAVE to do.” Pshaw. We raced home to change clothes and then down the Sprain Parkway to New York City, navigating around the tolls on my phone, dodging rush hour traffic. We threw a hundred dollars at a spectacular dinner and ate half of it on the subway. We had free tickets to The Lion King. Only we didn’t. I finally got the man who had given us our tickets on the phone at 7:15. “WHAT!? This has never happened! I’ll make a call and call you back.” “I don’t want to go into the show late,” Mary said. Rowan stood by holding her hand with, it seemed, no expectations. Standing there waiting for my friend to call me back, he brought me back to earth. I kneeled down. “I’m proud of you,” I said. “You’re more together than I am.” My friend called me back and I asked him if we could take a raincheck. He apologized and said he’d try to make it right. He didn’t really owe us anything. He’d just wanted to treat us to a show. A cheap seat for The Lion King is, by the way, nearly two hundred dollars. We strolled through Times Square lit up like the day. We carried my mother-in-law’s umbrellas and it never rained once. The moon rose over Radio City Music Hall and I tried in vain to get a picture of it. We caught a subway downtown and ate ice cream. Twice. New Yorkers saw Rowan in his paperboy hat and bow tie and smiled, then seemed embarrassed that they had smiled, and then laughed at themselves. New York City is, above all, deeply human. Then we drove back to Bedford. The next morning, we packed up the car to drive home to North Carolina. I got an email from my friend. Two o’clock matinee. Three tickets. He had walked to the box office and made sure. We hugged grandma goodbye. We left her umbrellas because we weren’t coming back. We were driving at least halfway to North Carolina after the show. We found a garage on the West Side and paid fifty bucks to park the car so we could safely leave all our belongings in it. It was garbage day. Piles of plastic bags and old mattresses gathered along the boulevards. The rain fell lightly as we walked toward Central Park and found the subway line to Times Square. Our tickets were there. Orchestra, center. Not cheap seats. A man came and asked, “Are you Jonathan?” He apologized for the mixup the night before and gave us a bag of Lion King goodies. I gave Rowan the soft baby Simba. “What’s a Simba,” he said. “You’re about to find out.” During the intermission, I stood in line for what seemed like hours for a bottle of water. In the crush, a young boy screamed to his mother from the merchandise counter. I looked over at him. He had Down syndrome, thick glasses strapped around his head making his eyes even larger and wilder. “What do you want?” his mother yelled. “A t-shirt!” he cried. “Make sure you get the right size,” she said. “I did!” “What size?” “A medium!” “Maybe a small. Youth. Youth small,” she hollered. He glanced wildly at the t-shirts and back at her. She held out a hundred dollar bill. He raced over, weaving the crowd. “Make sure you get the change,” she said, nervous and hopeful. He took the money back through the crowd, holding the bill over his head. He made the transaction, looking back at his mother every few seconds. She smiled and nodded. He came back with a plastic bag and a fistful of money. She counted it and smiled. He pulled out the t-shirt and showed it to her. She held it up to him and said, “It fits you perfectly.” “I did everything right!” he screamed and jumped in the air, pumping his fists. “I’m so proud of you,” she said. As they walked away, just before they were out of reach, I touched her shoulder and she turned around. “That was amazing,” I said. “Congratulations.” She smiled and they disappeared back into the crowd. After the show we walked out into the street, dazed by the magic we’d witnessed. A Broadway show, one that lasts, is truly one of the greatest human artistic achievements. I may be a country boy, but I know a lifetime of dedication to craft when I see it. The rain poured from the gridded sky and shocked u...