Pad and Scod were freshmen the same year I started going to Eastern New Mexico University. They had both graduated from Eldorado High School and had been rather successful in their school's Drama department. I had seen Pad perform about six months earlier in a play titled "Line" at the ENMU Drama Festival, but this was the first time I'd met Scod. There were two other students from Eldorado my freshman year: Elad, who would eventually marry Chud, and another person named Tood (who was not my roomate). But it was Pad and Scod whom I would have the most interaction with.
I got to know them better when we were working on the Theatre department's first production of the school year, "How the Other Half Loves." We were part of the backstage crew. I guess I burped audibly backstage during rehearsal and Scod started acting sick. Pad told him Scod was allergic to burps. I didn't buy it, but they kept insisting. I still didn't buy it. But because they kept it up, I started acting like I bought it and then they finally admitted to fabricating it. I got back at them by writing a short play about someone who claims to be allergic to burps. It was actually doing to be produced for the Alpha Psi Omega (the Theatre fraternity) Evening of One Acts. I told them if they pulled any more stunts like that, I was going to write a play about it.
So there would be times when we would sway between being friends and antagonizing each other, or so I thought. I figured out sometime later that all they were doing was patronizing me, so that meant we were probably never really friends to start with.
One of the things about being a freshman in the Theatre department, and I didn't realize this at first, but there's kind of a race to see who gets cast in the mainstage shows the earliest. Getting cast first means you get to start the foundation for your reputation as an actor. The first production of the year was "How the Other Half Loves," which has only six characters. One freshman got cast for that, and it wasn't any of us. (However, this casting appeared to be politically motivated. It was an obvious effort to cast a freshman and he was rather lackluster during the performances, except for the drunk scene.) The second production was "The Threepenny Opera." This time, none of the freshmen theatre majors were cast, even though there are a lot of characters in that play.
After the cast list was posted, Dr. R, who was directing, put up an announcement that he was also looking to cast people in non-speaking roles as beggars. I approached Dr. R and told him I was interested in playing one of the beggars. He said he would consider it. However, Pad and Scod went to Dr. R, got on their knees and begged him to be cast. He went ahead and cast them. I was angry on so many levels. I was angry that I took a high-ground approach to trying to get cast and they came in, put on a show and got in the production. I was angry that he didn't cast me anyway, because there was plenty of room for beggars. (I even understand that a third person got cast, but dropped out of the show, and I still was not asked to be a part of it.) But basically, I was mad because, at the time, I thought we were friends, and they just cut me out of the whole ordeal.
I worked with Pad again on the crew for the annual Dance presentation. I was running the sound booth. Pad was the Stage Manager. Right before a dress rehearsal, Pad asked me to do something backstage. I told him I had to get the tapes ready for the show, and he snapped, "Yeah, I can see how that's really difficult!"
Everybody ooo'ed and aww'ed over them and wanted to work with them. They frequently got cast in student projects for the Advanced Directing class. I had to admit I was lucky to get cast in one project, but it was practically out of pity.
The next year, I finally managed to get cast in a mainstage production for "A Midsummer Night's Dream." I played one of the mechanicals. However, they were cast in the leading roles of the young romantics. And again, everyone ooo'ed and aww'ed over them.
After the fall semester ended, Scod decided that he didn't want to do theatre anymore and focused on his other studies. However, Pad continued and got cast in "Deathtrap," in which I also played a role. We had one brief scene together. But there were issues surrounding Pad and his participation in the play. A graduate student trying to get her Master's at Texas Tech had cast him in a play that was to be part of her thesis. He would be required to rehearse this piece rather extensively, to the point in which it would interfere with his rehearsals for "Deathtrap." Push came to shove, and he was told he would have to drop out of the other project as the mainstage production took precedence. This didn't sit well with that graduate student, who had already been rehearsing the piece for three weeks and would have had to start over. At the beginning of rehearsal one night, Pad got mad at the director, Mr. H, and quit the production. He decided to come back.
The next day, before rehearsal, he said something like, "Boy, all of this drama over me." I said, "Well, that's what you get for being a popular actor." He then said, "But I'm not." I WANTED TO STRANGLE HIM AT THIS POINT! I wanted to scream out as I was bashing his head into an auditorium chair, "YOU ARE THE MOST IN-DEMAND ACTOR IN OUR CLASS AND YOU KNOW IT! EVERYBODY WANTS TO WORK WITH YOU! I WOULD DO ANYTHING TO HAVE EVERYONE RESPECT MY THEATRICAL ARTISTRY LIKE THEY DO YOURS! AND I CERTAINLY WOULDN'T BE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT!"
I have no idea how the issue with the graduate student played out. Pad and Scod did not return to school the next year. However, Pad and his classmate Tood (who also did not return) did come back for a visit once. They came in the theatre building and watched a little bit of a rehearsal. I said hi to them, but I didn't really talk to them. I think I just got enough information to determine that Pad was not coming back to ENMU.
That was the last I saw of Pad and I never saw Scod again after sophomore year. I feel the same way about them that I did about Toilethead in terms of standing in the way of other people getting their shot on the stage, but that they specifically kept me from being able to grow artistically in the Theatre department. If they hadn't been there, I'd like to think that I would have been seriously looked at for some of the roles they had been able to land.
I have no idea what happened to Scod. His name is actually rather common and difficult to pinpoint on the Internet. As for Pad, it appears that at one point, he became the head of the Drama department at West Mesa High School in Albuquerque. Later, he appeared to have started a counseling business in Albuquerque. He got married at some point prior to 2010, when his mother died.
It wouldn't bug me if I never heard from either one of them again, but there are a lot of people in my life like that.
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