Chapter 8 - THE STAGE DOOR STANDOFF
Two weeks later, the January thaw gave way to a brilliant, crystalline Colorado bluebird sky.
At the Buell Theatre, we were in technical dress rehearsals for a massive, multi-million-dollar regional touring production of The Phantom of the Opera. The stage was a labyrinth of rising candelabras, heavy hydraulic bridge sections, and twenty tons of automated scenery suspended forty feet above the stage deck.
At 6:30 PM, thirty minutes before the full cast arrived for vocal warm-ups, I was standing in the wings near Stage Left, holding an electronic torque wrench, checking the safety pins on the main chandelier winch assembly.
The heavy steel stage door—the one leading out to the rear alleyway on 14th Street—clattered open with a violent metallic bang.
A figure stumbled through the security vestibule, past the empty guard desk where the night watchman had stepped away for his rounds.
It was Rick.
He didn't look like an executive. He wore a stained gray Carhartt jacket over a wrinkled t-shirt, his hair unwashed, dark stubble covering his hollow cheeks. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, dilated with a toxic cocktail of sleep deprivation, alcohol, and frantic desperation.
In his hand, he clutched a crumpled manila folder.
"Sophie!" Rick shouted, his voice echoing off the hundred-foot fly loft, bouncing against the acoustic baffles of the cavernous, darkened auditorium.
The three stagehands on the bridge above froze, their safety harnesses clicking against the metal catwalk.
I set down the torque wrench on the worktable, picked up my two-way comms radio, and turned to face him.
"Rick," I said, my voice steady, perfectly pitched. "You are trespassing in a restricted backstage operations area. Turn around and walk out."
Rick crossed the wings in five erratic, lurching strides, stopping six feet away. The sour reek of stale bourbon rolled off him in waves.
"You think you won, don't you?" Rick snarled, his lips trembling with spittle. He shook the manila folder in my face. "Chelsea took my kids! The bank served a foreclosure notice on Highlands Ranch this morning! My truck was repossessed out of the driveway while the neighbors watched!"
"You did that to yourself, Rick," I said.
"You did this!" he screamed, stepping closer, his fist clenching around the paper. "You and your fancy downtown lawyer! You went to my church! You went to my clients! You told everyone I was a thief!"
"You are a thief, Rick."
"I took what I was owed!" he roared, lunging forward, his hand shooting out to grab my shoulder. "I took care of this family! I carried the Miller name! You were supposed to back me up! That’s all you were ever good for!"
He never reached me.
From behind the velvet masking curtains, two burly stage carpenters—Mark and Diego, both six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-forty-pound union riggers who had worked with me for five years—stepped into the light.
Mark grabbed Rick’s wrist, twisting it downward with effortless leverage, while Diego planted a heavy forearm across Rick’s chest, slamming him back against the padded brick wall of the stagehouse.
"Get your hands off her, pal," Mark rumbled, his voice like grinding gears.
Rick thrashed against the brick, kicking his boots wildly against the floor. "Get off me! I’m her brother! Sophie, tell them to get off me!"
David Vance stepped out from the stage manager's console, holding a house phone to his ear.
"Denver Police," David spoke clearly into the receiver. "We have an active, violent trespasser backstage at the Buell Theatre. Suspect has assaulted an employee. Send units to the 14th Street stage door."
"No! No, wait!" Rick’s panic spiked into sheer hysteria. He looked at me, his eyes wide, terrified, realizing that the corporate theatre was not a family dinner table where he could scream until he got his way. "Sophie! Please! If they arrest me again, the bail gets revoked! I’ll go to county jail! Tell them I’m your brother!"
I walked over until I stood three feet from him, looking down into his contorted, sweat-slicked face.
For thirty years, I had feared this man’s anger. I had feared his mockery. I had shrunk inside my own skin every time he laughed at my clothes, my car, my choices.
Now, looking at him pinned against the backstage brick by two men who respected me, I felt nothing.
No hatred. No pity. Only the complete, liberating realization that he was small. Pathetic. Powerless.
"You aren't my brother, Rick," I whispered, so quietly only he could hear. "You were just an expensive bill I finally stopped paying."
The sirens wailed from Speer Boulevard, growing louder, echoing through the alleyway.
Within two minutes, three Denver police officers entered through the stage door. Handcuffs clicked shut around Rick’s wrists with a sharp, heavy snap.
As they dragged him backward through the metal doors into the flashing red lights of the alley, Rick didn't yell about investments anymore.
He wept. He called for our mother.
And then the heavy steel stage door swung shut, sealing the sound of his weeping outside in the freezing night.
David Vance walked over, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. "You alright, Soph?"
I looked up at the forty-foot fly system—at the intricate, perfect balance of counterweights, cables, and lights holding the stage in harmony.
May you like
I picked up my torque wrench.
"I'm fine, David," I smiled, the warmth returning to my limbs. "Let's bring in the chandelier. We have a show to open."
