lifestyle musings of a literary clown (3)

Being Luke Skywalker on 19th and 10th. 

We were ten minutes into his seventh birthday party, and none of his friends had shown up. He had finished showing me his favorite things in the kitchen and telling me all about the snowman he had made on the balcony during the winter when the doorbell rang. It was the pizza man. For a moment, he looked distraught.  

“I wonder where my friends are?” he said, throwing himself onto the sofa.

I sat down on the floor beside him and said, “Your friends will all be here soon. I can feel them approaching with the Force.” He smiled, visibly relaxed, and then turned to me with that oh so inquisitive look only a child can muster. 

“So Luke, when was the last time you went to outer space?” He asked, head full of curls. 

I briefly panicked. What month was it? Did I go yesterday? I mean, when did I arrive on Earth.  Breathe Shelton, I reminded myself. You’re just rusty at improv, is all. “October 15th,” I answered. Of all the questions I had thought the birthday boy might ask one of the galaxies greatest Jedi Knights, the date of my last trip to outer space was not one.  But that’s the beauty of a child’s mind; they’re liable to ask you about anything. I could sense that he was still on the fence about if he should believe I was Luke, so I went full geek, drawing on my own childhood spent reading Star Wars books and obsessively watching the trilogy on VHS. “I had to go back to Ahch-to to check on my Porg friends. They can get lonely.” 

I was glad we had found our conversational rhythm.  When I had first arrived, he had just stood in the hallway with a wide-eyed stare. It can be an odd experience getting children to trust you when you’re dressed as their hero. From his vantage point, he was hanging out with LUKE SKYWALKER, complete with a lightsaber and a beautiful flowing cloak courtesy of a Renn Faire costumer. From my perspective, I was working my first live performance gig in over a year where I was expected to act, and boy, did I feel rusty. These 10 minutes of just 1-1 conversation, when I had been expecting to lead 12 kids through an obstacle course, was frankly divine. It was helping me warm up to the whole experience. Getting back into performing by starting at a kid’s party sounded like a great idea to me at first. But what I had forgotten is that performing for kids as a birthday party character isn’t about transporting them to some theatrical world of heightened emotion; it’s about being, genuinely being, their heroes. 

When I was in first grade, Batman came to my birthday party. Now I know that there is no such person as Batman. Whoever showed up at my party was probably someone a lot like me, in a fancy costume getting paid to entertain sugar high six-year-olds, but I still connect to how real it felt when I reflect on those memories. I remember dragging Batman around by the hand, feeling awed by the fact that he would take time out of his day fighting crime to wish me a happy birthday. It’s been almost three decades since that party, and those memories are going nowhere. Now I’ve seen Fiona Shaw act her way up and down a stage so hard I felt like my mind was going to explode. Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element, with all its gay flair, will live rent-free in my head forever. Yet, truthfully the performance that has stuck with me the most is that of an unknown man behind a mask, standing in my parent’s bathroom (covered in tin foil to look like Mr. Freeze’s lair) talking to me about how important it is to stand up to the bad guys. Kids are sponges, and when you are gifted the opportunity to speak to their hearts and minds through the faces of their idols, you stop being a performer, and you become something else, inspiration distilled. 

“OCTOBER! Why haven’t you gone to space since October?” He asked me. 

“Oh well, I have been busy on Earth making sure everything was okay. It’s been a hard time for some people recently.” I said.

He looked at me, and then his eyes darted to my mask. I wish I could have taken it off and given him a moment of normal human connection. “Is the Earth okay now?” His voice was barely more than a whisper as he asked. What has this year been like for him? Here he is in a penthouse apartment looking out at the majesty of NYC; he’s obviously been able to experience the last year in some state of luxury, but even with this beautiful view, it feels more like a gilded cage than a childhood. 

“Of course. Because the world has strong young men like you, who will help other people after I’ve gone back to Ahch-to.”

“I can help people,” he said with a glint in his eye.

I leaned in. “I can tell; that’s why one day you’re gonna make a great Jedi.” 

“I can be a Jedi?” He smiled this deep, genuine smile.

“If you dedicate your life to helping others and being kind.” Now, who knows what this kid will do with his life, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to have his idol steer him towards empathy. Plus, it felt a very Jedi thing to say.

He jumped off the sofa. “I have something to show you!” He shouted, running out of the room, his Jedi robes trailing behind him. Moments later, he came back in clutching his lightsaber and a stuffed animal whale. 

“This is my lightsaber; it’s not real like yours; it needs batteries,” he said proudly, displaying it before tossing it between us on the sofa. Then he held out his stuffed animal whale with a gleam in his eye. 

“Her name is Whaley. I got her in Miami.” He said proudly. “She wanted to meet you. I take good care of her.” From the looks of it, he did; he held the stuffed animal in the palm of his hand with quiet reverence. 

“She’s a beautiful whale.” I said, “Do you know that when whales sing they’re using the Force.” 

“No, really!?”

While I get that this factoid is not strictly Star Wars canon, I’m pretty sure if any being on planet Earth were natural Force users, it would be them. “Yep, and she’s telling me that she likes living with you because you both have a high Midichlorian count, like Master Yoda’s.” 

His eyes took on an incredulous air. “If you can talk to Whaley, what’s her favorite color?” Kids have strange parameters for truth. One minute he believes my lightsaber is real, and the next, he’s calling me out for saying I can speak to his toys. It’s always funny to me what kids will and will not believe. But what I’ve learned from kids party to party is that the most important thing to do is not break the illusion. That window in their life when they believe in magic and wonder is tiny. To me, that time is sacred, and I’ll do anything to help kids continue to believe. So with a hefty old dose of putting on my big boy boots, I figured it was time to do some acting. Now, I’m no Lawrence Olivier, but when it comes to acting for children, don’t underestimate the power of closing your eyes and waving your hands around.

His lightsaber was blue; his eyes were blue, his birthday cake was blue. Now I may not be Sherlock Holmes, but I had a pretty good hunch. I paused dramatically. 

“Blue.”

“Wowwwwwwww.” and at that moment, I knew I had fully won him over, he believed. Moments later, the doorbell rang. By this point, his friends were 20 minutes late. Which for someone who has spent years throwing parties in NYC is right on time. 

“And the Force is telling me those are your friends at the door.” His eyes grew wide with belief. Moments later, in came a screaming gaggle of children, and I spent the next 30 minutes with a shadow at my side, talking to all the other kids about the wonders of being a Jedi. 

Not long after, I found myself back on the street, trailing my gig bag behind me for the first time in a year. I wanted to stop strangers telling them. “Hey, I just got to perform. For people not on my computer screen.” But I got the distinct impression that no one on the street would care; they were too busy eating brunch in their wood-framed bubbles. It was just a children’s birthday party, after all. But I know, if I did my job right, it wasn’t just a performance; it was the making of a memory that, Force willing, will inspire him for a lifetime.