Road Warrior  by Erin Quinn    

After I returned from Ireland in the winter of 1994, I decided that it was time to put my foot down: no more waitressing, bartending, catering, buffet-girling, cocktailing. I was through.

As a native New Paltzonian, I had gone through the familiar local rites of passage, working as a waitress at Mohonk one summer, then the Plaza Diner, then at Locust Tree. It was a way to save money for college. And everyone always says that a waitressing job is a great education. While in college in Oregon, I continued along the same track, cocktailing at a V.F.W. club for spending money. When I graduated and moved back to New Paltz, I worked at the Egg’s Nest to save money for my trip to Ireland.

In Ireland, I rented a cheap room to work on my first novel. Flat broke, I found work at the Oliver St. John Gogarty’s, an old literary pub in Dublin’s Temple Bar. While Irish pubs do have a legendary charm, by the end of every night my eyes were on fire from smoke, my feet burning, my back aching, my smile fading and my shirt stained with Guinness froth and pub-scum.

It seemed to me that waitressing was the same no matter where you went: It sucked the soul right out of you. But at least if you banged on enough doors, there was always a job, and always a wad of cash in your pocket by the end of night. That was the hook. All I wanted to do was to make enough money to live on so that I could write - anything for the sake of art. But I was determined to find another way.

So there I was, back home again. As soon as I shook off the jet lag, I cracked open the want ads of the paper, scanning quickly past the clerical work, home assembly projects and live-in nannies. Just as I was nearing the bottom and giving up hope, I saw an ad for “Actors and Actresses - $50 an hour. Call for audition.”

I ran it by my friend Amy, also home from college and looking for a job. “You think there’s a catch?” I asked her. “I thought it was harder to get paid for acting then it was to get paid to write.”

“Give them a call,” she said. The agency, “Let Us Entertain You,” was located in Red Hook. The man who answered was very upbeat and enthusiastic. “Thanks for calling,” he said. “Let me tell you about the job....” He explained that they were looking for people with acting ability, who loved children, to dress up as various Disney and movie characters and perform one-hour shows for kids’ birthday parties.

It all seemed legitimate. I had done lots of theatre as a teenager, even some children’s theatre, and hell, I loved kids. It sounded great and I told him so. “Well, come on up for an audition, pick a monologue and we’ll see how it goes.”

As the audition grew closer, 1 began second-guessing myself. 1 wasn’t a real actress; what would 1 do for a monologue? A scene from Hamlet... or Winnie-the-Pooh? What if they made me sing? What if the kids hated me?

Even as I drove up there, I kept considering turning around and calling it quits. I had also secured a job as a substitute teacher; perhaps I could live on that. But the schools called so damned early in the morning. Birthdays happened at normal times, and lasted an hour — as opposed to an entire school day. I had to give it a shot.

Of course I hadn’t prepared a monologue, so when I entered the red suburban house decorated with all types of American folk pieces, antiques and circus paraphernalia, I had no idea what I was going to do. Steve and Mary, the owners, came out of their office to greet me. “Let me get the video camera,” Steve said and disappeared downstairs.

Mary was a petite woman, beautiful, her face always made up like a Revlon ad. Steve was a large, lovable guy with a big heart and a big belly. They didn’t seem disappointed when I told them that I would just improvise something for them. (Much later I realized that the monologue was not as crucial as seeing the dimensions of my body, my capacity for cheerfulness, making sure I didn’t have a harelip or lazy eye. They couldn’t very well send a 200-pound Power Ranger to a kid’s birthday party, but I’m sure they didn’t want to ask those types of sensitive questions over the phone.)

We got on real well. I think I told them about my last job subbing, when an absent teacher had left me instructions that said, “Teach the first-grade class how to tell time.”

“That’s a big deal,” I said. “Telling time is as fundamental as walking, talking, reading or driving. How do you teach that in a day? And why did she leave something that important for a substitute to do?”

It felt like I was regaling friends about my day, nothing less or more. The camcorder made me nervous. But within the next few months, I wouldn’t even know the cameras were there.

To break me in, they sent me out with Steve for a Beauty and the Beast show. Steve would do a magic show, and I would be his helper. The first thing I had to do was to shave everything. Princesses did not have hair except on top of their heads. Then Mary had to give me a crash course in applying makeup. Before my life as a princess, I had only worn lipstick, occasionally mascara. Base and rouge, lip-liner, eyeliner, eye shadow and sparkles were way out of my league.

I suited up in a gold taffeta gown with a hoop skirt, high heels, a brown wig and a crown. It was as close to royalty as I’d ever been. Steve carried the trunk with props in it and I carried a large boom box blasting the movie’s theme song. All the kids were sitting on the couch looking starry-eyed as we walked in. I had to guide Steve, who was in the ghoulish rubber Beast mask, with only two slits for eyesight. We greeted the birthday boy, fawned over the kids, shook hands with everybody, and finished off the song with a waltz. The parents circled us with a video camera, and the children sat riveted in their seats.

Everything goes fine until Steve and I do our first bit. We take Polaroid shots with all the children. (Polaroids are a sure hit.) Then, as written in our script, Steve looks at a picture of himself and feigns horror. “Oh, Belle, I’m so ugly. How can you be with someone as ugly as me? I ‘m so ashamed, I will go off into the woods...”

As he flees into a back bedroom, I protest. I gather all the kids and ask them how we can bring the Beast back. They shake their heads. “What are the three words I say to him in the movie to turn him into the handsome prince?” Now the lightbulbs turn on. The birthday boy says, “I love you.”

“That’s right. Why don’t we all say, I love you, Beast, as loud as we can? On the count of three: One, two, three...” On cue, Steve comes running out, his mask gone, his face red and sweaty, his paunch protruding. The children shriek with pleasure. Then in his thick Brooklynese he says, “Thank you, Belle, for turning me into a handsome prince!”

I thought I was going to lose it.

Though Mary and I had practiced every afternoon for a week going over each character’s routine, the special dances, songs, props, voice and face-painting selections, I felt quite unprepared for my first solo venture as Minnie Mouse. First off, the costumes were all designed for Mary, who probably stands four foot eleven and weighs in under 100 pounds. Just zipping up the little red-and-white polka-dot dress was a challenge; forget trying to dance the Hokey Pokey in high heels, or talk in a high-pitched squeal through a large foam helmet for an hour. This gig wasn’t turning out as it had first appeared.

On the drive to Wappingers Falls, where the party was, I nervously practiced singing Pop! Goes the Weasel. The Minnie Mouse rendition had different lines from those I had learned as a kid, and I wanted to get the “pop!” just right. I was so nervous that the kids were going to call me a fake or that I’d forget my lines that I didn’t notice the strange look I received from the man in the tollbooth right away. I had on that short sparkly dress, puffy white bloomers, a big bow on my neck and my hair tucked into a wig-cap as I tried to drive wearing large three-fingered gloves.

“Have a good day,” he said. But the smirk gave him away. “We get all kinds passing through here, all kinds,” I could hear him saying to himself. Oh, well; it’s all for the sake of art.

Balloons marked the apartment where the party was to take place. I quickly slipped on my helmet, smoothed out my dress, cued up the boom box, grabbed the prop bag, and went teetering up the walk. Inside those helmets are head braces to keep them in place. I could hear the sound of my own breath echoing; everything else seemed far away. The distortion of sight and sound, both of which are extremely limited, made me feel like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate when he walks out towards the pool, dressed up in the new scuba-diving equipment his parents had bought him for graduation.

“Hello, Minnie Mouse,” the mother said as they opened the door for me. I pushed Play, and out burst the M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e theme song. “I hear there’s a birthday girl named Ashley here?” I squealed. They led me down a dark hallway and then down a darker flight of stairs. I tripped once, but the father caught me just before I tumbled into the playroom. “Hello, boys and girls!” I said in my most enthusiastic mouse-voice. They looked horrified.

It seemed that mom and dad had sprung a big old Disney surprise on this small group of three-year-old girls. One started crying and ran to her mother. Another latched on to my leg, saying “Min-Mouse, Min-Mouse.” The birthday girl continued playing with her brand-new plastic kitchen set. After I crowned her with the special Birthday Girl tinseled tiara, she took more of a liking to me.

With the help of the parents, we then got them all into a circle for the Hokey Pokey. And by the time I broke out the parachute, I had all of their undivided attention. It was my second major lesson of the job: The Polaroid camera and the parachute are always a sure bet, no matter how tough the crowd is.

At last they all marched me up the stairs, down the hall and to the front door in our less-than-organized Minnie Mouse parade send-off. I traded them a giveaway prize to get the agency’s maracas back, blew kisses, gave the birthday girl a hug, and went stumbling towards my car with sweat dripping down the back of my dress, my bloomers all bunched up, my throat on fire from trying to be heard through that helmet, and a $20 tip tucked into my duffle bag. What kind of job had I gotten myself into?

It wasn’t long before I metamorphosed into Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger. I’m not sure of the status of Power Rangers today, but in those days they were all the rage. Before my first stint as one of Zor’s rangers, I had to do some homework. After a day of subbing, I would come home and watch Fox 5, where the Power Rangers were saving the world on a daily basis.

There was the black ranger, played by a black guy. There was the yellow ranger, played by an Asian girl. Tommy, the white ranger, was played by a white guy - the leader, of course. There were red and green ones who kept changing. And then there was the standard, all-American Wheaties girl: Kimberly, the pink ranger. Not only was its overt racism disturbing and the story line puerile, but the level of violence made Steven Segal’s movies look soft by comparison.

I tried to forget the horrendous values I was promoting as I zipped up my fluorescent pink unitard, strapped on my Power Belt, wrist guards, white go-go boots and silk gloves. For the sake of art, I couldn’t take these things so seriously, right?

The directions led me to downtown Poughkeepsie, a few blocks away from the train station. I kept playing the lead-in song, “Go, go, Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” to get into character. When I knocked on the door, no one answered. I checked my sheet again. The address was correct. I was there at the right time. Go figure? To avoid this type of thing, Steve required a steep deposit. Why would they throw it away?

Just as I was about to leave, a woman came walking up the stairs. “You’re early,” she said. “The sheet says 2 p.m., ma’am,” I replied. “I told that guy Steve we needed to change it to 3 p.m.,” she said, annoyed.

“Well, there must have been a mistake then, because the sheet says 2 p.m.”

“There ain’t no kids here. I’m just the aunt, and this party ain’t goin’ off until 3 p.m.”

“Okay, then. I guess I’ll drive around for a while.”

“You comin’ back, right?”

“Yeah, I’m coming back.”

Not knowing what else to do, I found a nearby diner and called Steve. “She did not change it,” he said. “In fact, she called to confirm it was at 2 p.m. They’re jerking you around.”

I now had an unpaid hour to kill, so I sat in the diner, ordered a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette. I was staring out the window, pondering how this $50 an hour really broke down.

Just then I felt someone tapping me on the shoulder. “Hi, Kimberly,” a little girl said, leaning over the booth behind me. “You know, you shouldn’t smoke. It’s not good for you.”

My face turned bright red. Her parents shot me a disapproving look. I quickly crushed out my cigarette and left some money for the bill. I didn’t know what to say. Here I was representing the racist, sexist, violent Mighty Morphin TV series, and I had to smoke on top of it?

“You’re absolutely right,” I said as I stood up, “and that’s just a fake cigarette. I was testing you to see what you’d say. Since you said the right thing, that smoking is very bad, I’m going to make you an honorary Power Ranger.” Taking one of the blow-up swords which I would give to the birthday child out of my bag (luckily we always take two in case one gets punctured), I blew it up and handed it to the girl after doing a quick Power Ranger salute. “Power Rangers must keep their lungs strong and healthy so that they can keep the world safe from harm!”

The girl was smiling from ear to ear. Her parents had lightened up as well. “I have to get back to Headquarters, but it was a pleasure to meet you.”

I wanted to die from embarrassment. How could I have smoked in that pink costume? What was I thinking? I have to be a role model. Power Rangers are never off duty.

As spring turned into summer, the shows started piling up. The costume room was in chaos, batteries were failing, and when the movie Lion King was launched in a middle of a heat wave, I thought I was not going to live to see my own next birthday. There could be three or four shows in a day. Most of them were in Westchester County, where the money was, because each show cost upwards of $200. Every weekend I’d load up my car (a 1982 dirt-brown Toyota with bug-eye headlights and a long sloping front that we nicknamed 007 to take the edge of its ugliness) with all kinds of Elmo, Simba and Big Bird heads (some of whose ears would get caught in the trunk), ball gowns, wigs, makeup kits, towels, trunks, maps, a boom box and lots of water.

It was in the middle of this heat wave that my air conditioner died. I would drive down the Taconic State Parkway, one of the most poorly designed roads in the country, pouring bottles of seltzer over my head to cool off before the next show. Then I would have to locate the nearest McDonald’s to use the rest room, take a quick nap or reorganize the car between shows. I remember falling asleep outside of a Burger King in my car, the alarm clock mounted on the dashboard.

Just as it was about to go off, I woke to find a half-dozen kids peering in my window. “Cinderella, are you okay?” a young boy asked nervously. I quickly sat up and adjusted my wig. Just like Power Rangers, princesses are never off duty.

“How sweet of you to ask,” I answered. “I was just getting some beauty sleep before I head back to the castle.”

“Where’s your prince?” he asked.

It wasn’t such a bad question. Where was my prince? And where was my fairy godmother?

“Home cleaning,” was all I could come up with. Then I headed off for another show. There were times when I didn’t have the luxury of locating a fast-food joint to take a nap or change. I would just pull into a parking lot, gas station or side of the road, peel off the Lion King costume, towel myself off, throw on a dress and nylons and then apply makeup as I drove. The Minnie Mouse dress always presented a problem, and many times I would have to ask strangers to help zip me up.

This one gas station attendant was happy to help me, but his wife was less than pleased. “That’s my man you’re talking to, Minnie,” she said with obvious hostility, “and no man of mine is gonna zip up another woman’s dress.” I couldn’t believe I was hearing this, and I was already late for the party. “For gosh sake, you know I’m married to Mickey,” I retorted. “I doubt your husband wants a big old mouse, anyway.” At least I got her to laugh.      

The shows always took a lot out of you. Sometimes the tips rolled in; sometimes they didn’t. There seemed to be no science. But dressing up in a fur costume and helmet with the only ventilation coming through wire-covered eyes, dancing, singing and jumping through hoops in the 95-degree heat was almost inhuman. I would force myself to drink two full bottles of seltzer before each full-suit show. But on one occasion, there was no amount of preparation that would have saved me from the sun.

Big Bird is the tallest costume they had. You breathe and see through a wire screen in the neck, with the bird’s head another two feet higher than your own. Still, the big yellow canary had been one of my favorites as a kid, and no matter where I went it was always a crowd-pleaser.

It was a big lawn party for one-year-old Maria in Napanoch somewhere. All the relatives were dishing up pasta under the party tents while the kids and I played directly under the noon sun. We did Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes, then Shake Your Sillies Out. By the time the Hokey Pokey rolled around I was forcing myself to turn very slowly, as my balance was starting to fade.

It must have been 200 degrees inside that costume, and a familiar humming sound was ringing in my ears. I tried to rally some parents to help me with the parachute that we used throw kids up and down in. But my strength was fading as quickly as my vision. Knowing things were not well, I quickly gave the prizes away and told the mother that it was time to take the Polaroid pictures with Big Bird - the last part of the show.

She tried to keep me in the sun, but I ignored her and walked towards a large oak tree off to the side, so that I could lean against it and get some shade. The commingled smell of meatballs, wine, chocolate cake and cut grass were pushing me over the edge. The camera kept clicking. Different children crawled under my arms, leaned on my belly, kissed my beak; it was all a blur. The last thing I remember was the rather thrusting one-year-old Maria into my arms: “Hold the birthday girl. Big Bird, and say Cheese!”

With whatever air was left in my lungs, I kept repeating, just above a whisper, “Big Bird can’t hold the baby, Big Bird can’t hold the baby,” as I slumped down against the tree. There was a field of stars, humming, then complete blackness.

The next time I opened my eyes, my helmet was off, I could see a mobile dangling above me and Elmo-covered wallpaper. Then a woman’s frantic voice: “Should we call 911?”

“He’s passed out in Maria’s bedroom.”

“It’s a she...”

“Do you think the kids noticed?”

“No, we just told them it was Big Bird’s nap time.”

“She must have been dying in that costume. I never thought of it.”

“Throw some water on her.”

“Call 911.”

“Whatever you do, don’t let the kids see him like this.”

“It’s a she...”

Soon the birthday girl’s two aunts, Rose and Marie, were placing a cool washcloth on my face and talking in soothing voices.

“I didn’t drop the baby, did I?”

“Shhh, you’re okay, doll. You need to have some fluids and some spaghetti and stay out of the sun for a while.”

I stayed with aunts Rose and Marie under the tent for a couple of hours until my electrolytes came back into balance. I felt underdressed in my halter top and shorts, and people kept asking me which side of the family I was from.

“She was Big Bird,” Rose whispered.

“Oh,” they’d say, with raised eyebrows.

After a while, I took a can of Coke, shoved my costume into a plastic garbage bag and slipped out the back door... because I had to get to another show.

My biggest break came when Pocahontas was launched. I tried to forget that disturbing article I had read about the man who designed the new Native-American Disney star by combining the features of supermodels Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, and then adding Barbie’s configurations to it. How did that add up to anything but marketing a porn star for children? I posed this question to Steve and Mary, but they just shrugged their shoulders and told me to make sure I see the new movie in case I had to do that part.

You see, the one accurate feature they allowed Pocahontas was the color of her skin. Being a red-headed pale Irish girl, it was a far cry from my natural coloring. So Steve and Mary utilized other girls for this part -- until the last month of summer, when she became so popular that there would be four employees booked for Pocahontas shows throughout the weekend. They were forced to bring me into the fold.

I was thrilled. After sweating through the summer in fur costumes and hoop skirts, I would finally get to play a character who wore a basic summer dress. Even if it was a one-piece, shoulderless rawhide dress with fringes, it beat the hell out of Barney.     I have to admit I looked ridiculous in that long black wig which hung down to my bottom, the moccasins and plastic jewelry, with a tom-tom slung over my shoulder. Mary suggested that I go to this costume shop in Kingston and purchase dark body makeup to help me look a little more like the Disney cartoon. But I couldn’t be bothered with all that. What mattered was that I was Pocahontas on the inside: that I was free from the confines of fur and helmets, and that I was one with spirits of nature.

The kids loved it. We would do a tom-tom dance, sing the Colors of the Wind theme song, jump from hoop to hoop pretending we were leaping on rocks, crossing the river to get to John Smith, my big Anglo hunk. I began to feel so comfortable as Pocahontas that I no longer saw myself as I truly was. During this one party, while handing out wish-feathers for all the girls to throw into the parachute before I tossed them, the birthday girl began caressing my cheek

“Pocahontas, you’re so beautiful,” she said, staring into my eyes with complete adoration. “But why do you have so many freckles?”

It had been a year and a half of shows. The novelty was wearing off. I was showing up at a certain kid’s birthday party for the second year in a row. I was growing depressed. The Little Mermaid was having a revival. I was the only one, save Mary, who could fit into the costume, because of the small purple halter top that didn’t fit any woman boasting more than a B cup.

Though the Mermaid show was sweet and silly, with an underwater theme and lots of Caribbean-beat tunes, the costume was another matter. Mermaids aren’t supposed to have feet. So they designed a skin-tight green Lycra mermaid bottom with sequins and a ruffled skirt to hide feet. It was impossible to drive in, and just as difficult to walk in, because my legs were practically sutured together. To move at all, I had to hop. I would pray for one-story houses with no stairs.

To top it off, Ariel (the name of Disney’s mermaid) sported a bright pinkish-red wig, with makeup that seemed to place me more easily on 42nd Street than at a child’s birthday party. “Do you have to do that one?” my mother asked me while I was struggling to get into the top. “It puts the feminist movement back about 20 years....”

The guys in the tollbooth just laughed or rolled their eyes. I felt like the lady who used to walk the streets of New Paltz in those cork-bottomed clogs and red wig. “At least you’re not in an office nine to five, honey,” my mother consoled. “Isn’t this confining enough?” I said as she zipped up the side.

It wasn’t just the hopping or the whorish wig or the exhaustion from the shows that was starting to get to me. It was many of the people I dealt with: people with more money than they knew what to do with and condescending attitudes, who kept procreating children named Ashley, Cody and Montana.

I remember pulling up to this one mansion in Briarcliff Manor. The whole town looked like one big country club. The mile-long driveway was filled with Jaguars, Mercedes and every type of four-wheel-drive suburban vehicle known to man. I felt embarrassed by my car, my outfit, my job. “So what are you doing now that you’ve graduated college?” I didn’t know which answer was worse: “I’m writing a novel,” or “I dress up as Barney.”

Long driveways and mansions only meant one thing to me: lots of hopping with a duffle bag on one arm and a boom box on the other. Where was the ocean? Where was Prince Eric? This particular party had dozens of pre-teen girls and boys, a large swimming pool, pony rides, a deejay, and go-karts that looked better than my own car. I had stiff competition. The parents did not want to be disturbed from their cocktail party in the garden, so I tried my best to get the kids into a limbo line. “Can I have a volunteer to hold the other side of the limbo stick?”

Someone’s drunk uncle came up with his slimy hands all over me. “I’ll help you with the limbo stick, Ariel.” I wanted to push him in the pool. “When does the adult party start?”

“It’s already started in the garden, and I think they’re calling your name.”

“Isn’t the Little Mermaid testy today?”

Quickly finding another volunteer, I tried to shake off the nausea and return to the limbo game. I managed to keep the children’s attention for a while. Then the deejay called for a water volleyball game. I waited outside the garden until I could get the mother’s attention to get my pay envelope. Then I hopped back down the driveway. I sat on the roof of my car, changed back into my shorts. I couldn’t take the top off without someone’s help, so that would have to wait. A man in a nice summer suit went walking past me. I didn’t even look up. “It’s not easy being a mermaid, is it?” he said with a smile.

“Depends on the day.”

Even though my novel was getting close to finished, and I was making enough money doing the shows to live on without substitute teaching, I was beginning to wear thin. Was this better for the soul than waitressing?

More often then not, the children were adoring, their faces lit up like Christmas trees the moment you walked in. And no matter how tired, beat-up or resistant I was to doing another show, their ecstatic joy upon seeing their beloved Disney star come to life in their very own home seemed to push the rest of the world back a few inches.

The movies came and went. Ariel. Then Snow White was re-released. Cinderella made a big comeback. The Tickle Me Elmo doll did wonders for the Sesame Street character. Pocahontas and the Power Rangers were still going strong. I even started doing singing telegrams, and found myself, dressed as Carmen Miranda, leading an entire police department in Rockland County on a conga line.

But the defining moment came when I had to play a pumpkin for an October birthday party. “You just have to make it up as you go along,” Steve said. “You’re good at that. Use one of the other scripts, but just change the story around.”

I stopped by my mother’s house so that she could help me stuff the pillows into the large orange body-sack. I had a green velvet hat that tied around my chin for a pumpkin stem, orange tights and green booties. It was pushing me towards tears.

“Honey, what’s wrong? I think you look adorable.”

“I look ridiculous. I don’t have a name, I don’t have a movie, I don’t even have a TV show; I’m just a big squash!”

“Think of all the famous people who got started this way. Remember Bette Midler doing those bunnygrams in Beaches?”

“F. Scott Fitzgerald was never a pumpkin. Hemingway was never a pumpkin.”

I regrouped and climbed into my car. All for the sake of art, but it was difficult to turn the wheel with my pumpkin belly pushed up against it. There had to be another way.

A few months later I began working as a feature writer for the local paper. I kept writing more and more stories, until I was able to give up the entertainment job for good.

The business is still going strong, I hear. Steve and Mary have left it in good hands while they ran off to join the circus, a lifelong dream of theirs (they were even married in clown costumes). Most of their employees are SUNY-New Paltz theatre students trying to make an extra buck by doing acting of some sort. Others are like I was, trying to bring in money to subsidize another passion. Still others that I met in that costume room just loved playing make-believe for a while, and making children happy. That was the greatest hook of the job.

And I still remember my pal Amy trying to cheer me up after a long day playing the Easter Bunny outside the Home Depot in Newburgh all day. We decided to go visit a friend who lived down the street from my house. “Don’t change,” she said. “Let’s surprise her.”

We began strolling down the street.

 “You know, I kind of feel like Harvey,” I said.

“And I kind of feel like Jimmy Stewart,” she said.

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