Crisis Actoran oral history

by Steve Straight

I started out legit, doing those drunk driving crash demos
at the local high schools.  In the van I’d change
into my bloody shirt and ripped jeans.  Did my own makeup, too,
got really good at gashes.  I could tell I had something
by the looks on the kids.  They couldn’t keep up
their cool faces when we brought the real.

I was too old for a Sandy Hook kid,
but I could pass at Parkland, they said,
and sent me a first-class ticket.
I played three different victims for that one,
just changing my shirt and hat.
You have to be careful of cell phones now.
Word could get out, like it did for David Hogg.

Then the big one, Vegas in ’17, what a logistical nightmare,
hauling in the full stage, all that equipment,
building those huge hotel sets.  Took weeks.
Two more victims that time, carted off on stretchers.
Damn guy playing an EMT whacked my head
swinging me into the ambulance.  Bled for real
that time, needed three Advil.

It’s so simple to get parts now with a supposed
mass shooting every month—like that would really happen.
I did that church thing outside Charleston in ’15,
played my first cop.  Orlando was cool,
that nightclub one, but we went through blood packs
like water.  Those clothes are permanently stained.

The guy who played the perp in Boulder
let me handle his AR-15.  Told me the ammo fires
at three times the speed of sound!  Man, just holding it
made me want to shoot someone.

Hold up, gotta check that text.  It’s them,
all right.  They want me down in Washington
again.  More Antifa bullshit.