SomeWhere On... (BXB)

...Tudor Court Road

The theater he works at, you can tell was built in the last five years. It's got that weird quality about it. The thing's mostly concrete and glass and it doesn't look like a theater. It looks like a semi-pretty bunker for the apocalypse.

They'd better have a Nokia in there or I'm gonna be so fucking pissed.

It's also kinda hard to miss. It's the brightest building on the entire street.

The inside is mostly polished concrete and white walls. And I look homeless walking in.

"Excuse me?" A woman's asking from behind a wooden desk by the front doors. Signs illuminate the area as the BOX OFFICE. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, uh..." I swallow. "I'm looking for Murph."

She blinks. "Oh. Murphey Walsh?"

"N-no. H...he just goes by Murph."

"There's a couple people who go by Murph." She shrugs. "Walsh, O'Donoghue, Hartland? What?"

"I don't know." I feel like I should know my boyfriend's last name. "He's got black glasses and a blue tie." A stupid blue tie that's too thin for his body.

"Oh, O'Donoghue." She gestured towards an open space. "He's seating some late arrivals. He'll be down in a second." The woman leans down and whispers into a walkie-talkie, "O'Donoghue, someone's here to see you." She smiles at me and sits down, typing away at the computer.

I'm walking away when I hear Murph's scraggly voice on the walkie-talkie, "It's not more late people, is it?"

There's stairs going up alongside staircase-like seating, and it's on two sides so the open space is like a lecture hall. There's a wraparound balcony on the outside of the second floor but the room still feels so empty. I sit down on a padded part of the steps and wait.

"Who is it?" I hear Murph ask. I turn and he's walking down the steps, clipboard in hand and one of those FBI earpieces wrapping around his ear and down the back of his neck. When he sees me, he breaks out in a big smile. "Hey. What're you doing here?" Then Murph's eyes narrow. "How'd you get here?"

"I looked it up on fucking maps. How else did I know how to get here?"

Murph glares, and I bite the inside of my cheek. "That's all?"

I shift my weight to one foot. "...and I wrote it down."

"And?"

"And that's it."

"Oh." Murph's eyes drop for a moment before he asks, "What're you doing here?"

I shrug. "I was wondering if you wanted to get dinner with me. Order something for here. Get takeaway. That sort of thing."

He frowns. "Tommy, I don't get a break today."

"What?"

Murph licks his lips. "My shift is a little over four hours, so I don't get a break."

"When do you eat?"

"Usually when I get back."

"Murph - "

"I know, I know." He sighs. "Look, I have about an hour until Act 1 is over. Do you...want to do something?"

"You're not busy?"

"Unless the stage manager needs me, I'm okay for now."

"O'Donoghue, we have more late seaters," comes the woman's voice on the walkie-talkie.

Murph turns to show the thing hanging off his butt pocket. "Aw, shit." He leans down and presses something on his shirt; he holds it. "How many do we have?"

"Four."

He bites his bottom lip. "Let, let me check with the stage manager. One second, Katy, okay?" He looks at me, a nonverbal "I'm so sorry" in his eyes, and turns to go back upstairs. "Hey, Ron. We have four more. Can I seat them in the back?"

I sit down and wait. Four people - a family, I think - come over into the open space and smile at me. The older man leans forward and asks me if I'm here to see the show.

"No."

"Oh," he says. "Enjoying the theater?" He looks around like it's the most beautiful room he's ever seen. "Pretty, ain't it?"

"No." There's a million buildings that just concrete and glass all over the place. What's pretty about them anymore?

He looks away to say something to his wife.

I think it's his wife.

God, his kids are ugly.

"Hi, can I see your tickets, please?" asks Murph. He has the best "kill me now" smile I've ever seen.

I might be biased, though.

He checks the tickets and gestures up the stairs. "So we're going to seat you in the back row for right now. You can take your normal seats at the intermission since you need to walk on the stage to get to them." They're not happy. "I'm sorry, but this is all we can do right now."

"We paid a lot of money for these tickets."

"I know, and I'm sorry we can't seat you where you were assigned right now." The guy scoffs. "If you'd like, you can exchange the tickets at the box office for another performance at a later date."

"No, we're here now."

"Well, I'm sorry, sir, but the show's already ten minutes into the first act." Murph looks away for a moment, something muffled in his ear. "One moment, Ron." He sighs and gestures up the stairs again. "Would you like to sit in the back row and take your seats after the first act?"

The guy grumbles and follows Murph up the stairs. "Paid $200 for these tickets."

When Murph comes back, he sits down next to me. Out comes the walkie-talkie from his butt pocket and his clipboard gets tossed to the side. "Oh, God," he sighs. He tilts his head back and looks at the ceiling. His glasses shift up towards his eyebrows. "And now...like, forty-five minutes until I'm back in action." He tilts his head down to the floor and exhales, taking off his glasses to wipe his eyes. "I'm sorry," Murph begins, looking at me. "You shouldn't of come. I'm always busy, and I want to do stuff with you, but right now I - "

"There's a patron leaving the theater stage left," I hear from his earpiece.

His gaze drops and he groans. "Thank you, Ron." Murph looks over at the theater doors and sees a man in one of those flowery, like, Hawaiian shirt head towards the bathroom. Murph looks at me. His eyes are glossy and sad.

"Go do what you need to. When does your shift end?"

Murph pulls out his phone. "10:45." He takes my hand. "You don't have to stay for that long, Tommy."

"It's a lonely walk. " I glare him down, smiling. "Wouldn't want you slipping into the street."

"That happened one time."

I smirk. "Of course it did."

He stands. "There's a bar over there." Murph points to one of the stair seating things. "Get some water there. Don't get beer. I'm not carrying you back like I did before."

"Aw."

"Stop it." Murph grins.

I put up my hands in defeat and nod my head over towards the bathroom. Hawaiian man is walking back towards the theater. "Duty calls."

Murph sighs and trots over towards the man. "E-excuse me, sir. Sir!"

I lean back into the padded part of the seats.

At least it isn't gonna be as long as that show on Victoria Street.