Loneliness in the Last Row

“Chapeau!” He murmured from the last row, standing and applauding. Onstage, Niall Whelan took one final reverence before vanishing into the wings.

Niall is a weirdo onstage. He possesses an aura that electrifies, causing hairs to rise, a palpable pulse through the theater’s packed atmosphere. As always surveys the packed hall, seeking two familiar, eager faces among the audience. He considered their absence.

“How did you miss his every single performance? How could you not have been proud of him? You selfish pricks!” I repeatedly find myself agonizing over this question.

Once the curtain descends, Niall dissipates. He simply slips away. He does not attend any cast parties or engage with lingering fans.

He scrubs off his makeup, discards the costume, and exits through the backstage into the back alley, where a cozy café awaits. It’s  dim and understated enough to be a perfect refuge from scrutiny. As he enters, the staff offers a familiar smile.

“Last row free?” he inquires of the bartender, extracting a cigarette, tapping it against the counter, then settling it between his lips.

“As always,” the young man responds, leaning over to light his cigarette.

He navigates the café, an ephemeral presence, past the glow of the main space, down to a secluded nook at the far right. A round table, two mismatched Polish chairs, and a halogen bulb that hums faintly; a sanctuary, unofficially reserved for him alone. He baptized it The Last Row. There, he scatters notes across the table, igniting cigarette after cigarette, until he dissolves into the haze. Soup or perhaps a sandwich. Simple sustenance, just enough to sustain him until midnight, when he shuffles home to his cluttered apartment on the edge of town.

And his home. Windows remain open, even in October. Curtains, thick as blackout stage drapes, obscure the view. The coffee table serves as a battlefield: cups, shot glasses, an overflowing ashtray, and dog-eared books everywhere, stained with ketchup, coffee, wine, underlined and marked by notes and scribbles. The original texts have dissolved beneath a new narrative. That serves as his abode, a sanctuary for writing, rewriting, drinking, reading, watching films, and rehearsing until he collapses. I can imagine: he slumbers now on the couch, the cigarette a dangerous proximity to his fingers.

He constitutes a paradox. Offstage, he appears silent, elusive, withdrawn. Onstage, he transforms into a live wire, a tempest. People admire him, yet no one truly comprehends him. He prevents such intimacy.

Except for one. The guitarist.

Their youth passed as a feverish dream: wild, foolish, passionate. Long nights. In downtown rooftops and damp plateaus. Late dinners that extended into sunrises. They met on a winter dusk. The guitarist played his beat-up instrument on a street corner, and the young actor sat across from him the entire day. At the end, he emptied his pockets into the open guitar case and turned to depart.

“Hey,” the guitarist called out, his voice cracking. “Wanna join me to eat something?”

The actor smiled, nodding hesitantly.

“By the way, I’m Nathan,” the guitarist stated while packing his belongings.

“Niall,” he murmured.

Diner. Whiskey on the rocks. A trashy nightclub with sticky floors and pounding music. They conversed until 3 a.m., as if they were two old friends reunited after years apart.

“What’s your biggest ambition?” Nathan inquired.

“Devenir immortel,” Niall articulated.

Nathan’s eyes widened.

“Becoming immortal, it…” Niall described, sipping his shot.

“Et puis?” Nathan answered, still shocked by their shared obsession.

“Mourir,” they declared in unison. Both had spontaneously referenced the French film Breathless (1960).

“La vache!” Niall laughed, toasting his drink. They both howled, drunk and euphoric.

When the bar emptied, Niall turned to him outside. “I know it seems a little awkward, but you wanna come to my place?”

“Hell yeah,” Nathan immediately responded. That marked the beginning.

They were two bohemians, laughing in the dark. Broke by the past and intoxicated by dreams, watching movies, and rewatching them repeatedly. Smoking Marlboro, ceaselessly. He recalls them curled up on that lumpy couch, watching Maurice (1987), kissing between scenes. Beer breath and ashes. And love. They had leaned French through New Wave films and endless repetition of letters between Truffaut and Godard. One line became their gospel: « Entre ton intérêt pour les masses et ton narcissisme, il n’y a place pour rien ni pour personne. » (Between your interest for the masses and your narcissism, there isn’t a place for anything nor for anyone.)

He remembers how Niall copied it onto a torn scrap of newspaper and tucked it into his wallet. Later, he used it to speak of his father, merely substituting ‘the masses’ with ‘mainstream.’

“What about your mother?” Nathan asked reluctantly.

“You must’ve heard women are more passionate in love and hate, didn’t you?” Niall replied.

Nathan narrowed his eyes.

“Well, I guess I’ve been in her shit list already!” Niall continued, striving for a casual, unbothered tone: “Whatever! Forget it. How about yours?”

“Mine?” Nathan found himself caught off guard.

“Your mom, your dad,” Niall clarified.

“I never met them. I’m an orphan,” Nathan answered.

“No, I’m not.” Nathan smiled.

“You’re not, huh?” Niall shot back.

“Well, the movies adopted me, just like Erice once said.” Nathan replied.

“We are not.” Niall’s eyes flashed.

They envisioned themselves as a duo: a street performance team. Lovers. Artists. Yet their lives grew more settled, and precisely then, discord, bickering, and disagreements took root.

Once, Nathan experienced a bizarre dream. They walked together on Liberty Blvd. Suddenly, rain began to fall.

“I forgot the umbrella, wait here for a sec, I’ll get it,” Niall stated as he walked away.

Nathan waited. Five minutes elapsed, then hours, months, and years. Niall never returned, and Nathan’s passive vigil persisted. Time, a terrifying concept, passed so slowly, or rather, did not pass at all. He finally awoke, his drowsy eyes searching for Niall. He found him absent, fearing he might be trapped in another sleep cycle. However, the Marlboro scent and the faint sound of music from the radio promised wakefulness.

He quietly followed the aroma and song. Niall lounged on the couch, reading a slender book, the ash from his cigarette poised to fall, completely oblivious. Nathan stood over him, took the cigarette from his lips, tapped the ash into a cup on the table, and inhaled deeply. Niall tilted his head, which rested on the arm of the couch, and smiled warmly, drawing the exhaling smoke into his lungs. He appeared admirable, yet vulnerable, from that angle. This image remains the most indelible in Nathan’s memory. Time has blurred it, but it has never could to erase it.

They both secured roles in a well-known troupe, attaining a permanent address. Nathan regarded it as temporary employment, while Niall’s perspective diverged entirely. Weeks transmuted into months, and Nathan felt the air thicken, offering less freedom. Niall blossomed under the security of repetition; Nathan withered.

“I thought we were running,” Nathan whispered one night, after another sold-out performance.

Niall turned to him, slowly. “What do you mean? We have no need to run anymore.”

“Wow, just like that, our dreams mean nothing to you anymore?”

Niall’s silence resonated louder than any argument at that moment.

“I cannot compel you to come with me.”

“You cannot understand, Nate, everything has changed already,” Niall insisted.

“You’re damn right. Why did I not notice before?!”

Then they comprehended: this man would forever belong to the theater alone. Both would remain isolated, even if an entire world revolved around them. Their closing night, they made love. It felt less like an ending than a continuation of all their endings. They spoke until dawn, holding each other as though either might awaken into a world where the other had vanished, the grim visage of their terrors obscuring reality itself. When Niall finally succumbed to sleep, Nathan watched him for a prolonged period, then gently caressed his golden hair, whispering: “I just wished… I could love you a little less. Or a little more.” Then he rose, dressed in the dark, and departed. No notes. No goodbye. Only the burden of choosing their own path.

Last night, after all those yearning years, Nathan waited outside the theater. As Niall emerged, he sought to intercept him, to compel recognition. They jostled. Niall’s bag slipped. Papers, books, his wallet, all spilled onto the cobblestones. Nathan knelt instinctively to assist. As he did, Niall’s wallet fell open. The scrap of newspaper peeked out; the trophy of Truffaut’s heartbreaking words, and theirs, still there. Niall did not look up or voice complaint. He merely gathered his belongings, offered an apology, and continued walking.

“For what? You still avoid confrontation,” Nathan thought, choosing not to pursue Neil, unwilling to disturb his solitude and all effort to handle it, unlike his own. He simply shoved his hands into his pockets and walked in the opposite direction.

Back in Paris now, Nathan spread the ash of his boundless loneliness across Odéon, the cafés, the streets, the riverbanks; all specters of what might have been together. Every poster bearing Niall’s name becomes a bruise. Every encore applause, a farewell. He once believed in freedom. He stood close to absolute freedom and, consequently, to absolute happiness. Gradually, he began to forget Niall and the ethereal mood of that damned house.

And yet, on a calm, starry night, he dreamed of Niall once more, and his peace shattered. Niall’s reverse high angle, surrounded by a halo of light encircling him, smiling. Nathan reached out. The image dissolved into smoke and dust.

It is truly absurd, is it not? Once, only sleep could separate them. Now, only reality can.

That explains it. He returned pursuing a distant nostalgia, a lost era, a vague memory, a troubled dream. He came to relive the taste of their love affair, for their late-night conversations, and for getting drunk with him. However, it did not transpire. He could not bring himself to shatter Niall, as he himself had been shattered. He desired to be free, as a breeze, but now he is merely a gypsy blue, having observed Niall’s departure from that city where, once, their lives had brimmed with passion and aspiration, living within his private, impenetrable inner world. What an irony for an actor.

Niall now resides in darkness. He performs under stage lights, but then retreats to the hypnotic blackness of the scene, then home to a silence that engulfs. The coffee grows colder. The cigarettes shorten. The Truffaut quote yellows. On the other side, Paris gleams. Nathan, somewhere out there, still plays guitar.

The city’s light never touches Niall’s windows. Now, it stands as a memory: burned, bright, and unreachable.

Nathan wished he could gather this half of himself, enveloped by longing, from this damned city, street, and house, piece himself together, and depart without looking back this time.

Never mind. On s’y habituera! As Rimbaud did, perhaps, if we dare to hope.