When Dreams Come True

CW: sexual assault

When I was younger, fresh out of college, I worked for a theme park. The theme park on the west coast. Yes, the one you’re thinking about.

(I’m hedging my words because I don’t know if the man still works for the company, and the last thing I need is someone coming out of the woodwork to “smooth things over”.)

I worked hard and put up with a lot and I was finally placed on a show about space wizards. I loved the space wizard property ever since I was a kid, and better yet, the people working on the space wizard show were all funny, nerdy, fans of the space wizard property. They were close — like a family, anyone would say. And with good reason — with six shows a day with 45 minutes between them, there was a lot of time to get to know one another. At Christmas time, the cast and crew put up stockings with all our names on them in the breakroom. Potlucks were as common as the colds we all passed around from the violently snotty children the cast encountered above.

I say above; that’s because the show was housed in a tunnel underneath the stage. The only such tunnel, originally intended to shuffle trash back and forth between the restaurant to the compactor. (Everyone always asks if there’s a tunnel network. Nope. Just the trash tunnel.) We were in close quarters.

I, the introvert that I am, spent some time with the cast and crew, but most of it in the back room where the costumes were kept. It could get raucous, and my undiagnosed-autistic self wasn’t always up for the noise. But still, the cast always kindly asked after me, including the lead actor.

He was handsome and he knew it. He was hilarious. He was a talented martial artist and stage combatant. He was many people’s favorite space wizard, and he was usually scheduled for the weekends, when the most people would see him.

He also had a tendency to go on diatribes about the women he dated, and those could get cringey, but with all of the above, people forgave him this. Including me. Everybody had an edge, after all.

We shared the breakroom with some fairies in a neighboring land, and some of them were known to steer clear. I wondered why, and one of the galactic fascist space wizards told me that they spread rumors about the lead space wizard groping fairies, but they were just that. Rumors.

These rumors would get referenced several times, including by the space wizard himself, usually derisively and disbelievingly. Some of the fairies would come by and make fun of them too. If the fairies were able to laugh about it, I thought, surely it was as far-fetched as they made it sound?

Throughout all this, my personal life ran parallel. I didn’t go to the hangouts, even though I was invited. I preferred to keep my work separate. I got married, and we started talking about our long term goals. I loved it, but the space wizard show was burning me out. There were scary moments with guests and I was constantly worried that something was going to go wrong. It was time to move on.

So I did my last show, and the cast and crew wished me farewell. I was cleaning up in the back room when the lead space wizard came in. “One more hug,” he said, curling me into his arms. He held onto me for a moment, then said, “You never got one of these.”

He grabbed my breast, hard enough for me to feel through my bra. I froze. Like a twit, I smiled — bared my teeth, more like, and laughed impotently, “Stop.”

He didn’t. After what felt like forever, I finally got myself together enough to move out of his grasp. More cast came into the back room to hug me goodbye, and he disappeared into them.

It was my last day. I had literally five minutes left on the clock. I knew now that those rumors of fairies getting groped must have been swept under a rug by HR — he’d talked himself about going to see them, after all, and he was back and some of those fairies were not.

So I clocked out and turned in my badge without saying a word. I got into the car where my husband and my friend were waiting and cried. They thought I was just emotional about leaving my friends — and I was. That was the hard thing. I was going through it about leaving a job of three years where I did things people literally only dream of. I fought the red and black horned tattooed man on a rising stage at four in the morning. I signed training academy certificates for kids who had just finished the show. I chatted with galactic fascists in white armor who marched me backstage to the delight of guests.

And all of that was tainted now. I couldn’t think back fondly without being reminded of the space wizard who took advantage of my quiet and my leaving to help himself to my body.

I have lots of regrets. I think about why I didn’t shove him, why I didn’t yell, why I didn’t report. I can rationalize why — I was a quiet person by nature who hated conflict (I’ve grown out of that) and knew that the company wouldn’t do anything since I was leaving. I also felt badly — I knew that other people had it worse. It was just a boob grab.

But it wasn’t. It was multiple boob grabs. Not just mine. It was those jokes that went over awkwardly and uncorrected because no one wanted conflict. It was a culture of silence. It was a moment that marred months of happiness.

I am learning that there is a type of abuser who puts on a great face for everyone but the few he knows he can get away with unmasking around, whether it’s because they agree with him or because they are powerless. I was young, quiet, a crew member (not quite the same as a cast member), and on my way out. Those fairies didn’t have the cache that the space wizard did — he was, after all, a named actor who appeared on many, many home videos, did all the promo work, and made a cameo in a major superhero film.

I am learning, too, that the “we’re a family here” environment also makes it harder to speak up. I feared if I said anything to the rest of the cast, I would be remembered much less fondly. After all, the space wizard was popular among them. There have been stories this week out of an industry I’m tangentially involved in about a much more heinous (I think) abuser who chose his victims on the periphery of a big happy group that everyone wants to be a part of. To be allowed in that circle would be for a dream to come true, and to speak up would be to spoil that dream. I know that’s where I was.

There are many more takeaways, but it’s getting hard to think about this. I’m not sure why I put this out there other than to finally have it out. I’ve been carrying it with me for years. My legacy at the company is dead now, and so is the show. There’s no reason to stay quiet, and that quiet has been its own punishment. Maybe now I can think back fondly again.