One night, ten minutes before the show started, I lay inside a trunk in the middle of the stage, curled up in a ball, unbeknownst to the audience. I enjoyed squeezing into improbably tight spaces, testing the capabilities of my body. It was halfway through my run, and I’d done the show a few times by then, that tight squeeze having become oddly comforting, the smell of wood and the hint of light that shone through a crack at the top of the trunk. It reminded me of those nights in high school when I slept under a table in a classroom. I was taking French at the local community college to strengthen my university applications, even though the bus had stopped running by the time I got out at ten. Mama had agreed to pick me up, but she was too addicted to blackjack by then and ended up thirty minutes late, then an hour, and then didn’t show up at all. But I refused to withdraw. Instead, I slept under the oak table where the college newspaper staff held our editorial meetings. I was news editor at the community college while also editor in chief of my high school newspaper. The windows in that room rested up high and only let in slivers of incandescent light, like the light from that crack in the trunk. That was how this tiny space became one of comfort and put me in the right frame of mind for my daring performance that pushed the limits of my being.

I was not comfortable that night, however, when I noticed that the buzz from the audience was several rungs lower in pitch than I was used to. I’d heard a rumor that the football team was planning to come, but I didn’t believe they’d actually show up until those low voices reached my ears. There must have been a whole horde of them to affect the din of that crowd, as I tried to pick out their conversation. I couldn’t tell if it was my brain or their mouths that formed the word “faggot,” which transmitted a rush of danger into my system as the house lights dimmed, my signal to begin the show.

I emerged from the trunk, as blinding stage lights suffused the darkness within seconds, but not fast enough for me to unsee an entire row, maybe two, of broad-shouldered men, peering at me from across that imaginary border between performer and audience. I suddenly wondered if this was a boundary the young men knew to respect.