John Biscello

Since I was young I have been seeking permission to exist. This I have sought from a variety of sources. And not just permission to exist, it had to be formal permission, perhaps an official document, or permission bestowed from an authority figure, someone who I rate above me or somehow more important. The permission had to feel significant or meaningful. Let’s say a girlfriend granted me permission to exist, it wouldn’t stick or hold, wouldn’t “take” as the saying goes. The permission had to hail from someone who typically wouldn’t grant that sort of permission, someone who would withhold or leverage such permission-giving. The permission had to come from someone who refused to grant it. I imagined there was some document floating out there with my name on it, and the header, Permission to Exist, in bold block letters. Why do I seek this permission? Is it somehow connected to a deep down need for ultimate forgiveness? Forgiveness for what? For being born? As if some gremlin voice had told me You shouldn’t have been born, but since you were, you’d better do everything you can to earn your right exist though you will never be granted that right.

This plague of permission-to-exist led to my becoming a stand-in. I was going to say professional stand-in, but I do not get paid. In that respect, I am an amateur stand-in. I met a professional stand-in when I was visiting Japan. I was out walking with my friend, Saki, who saw one of her girlfriends, Ai, sitting outside a café, eating ice cream with a man. Ai and Saki talked a bit, introductions were circulated (the man was Naoko), and later, when I referred to Naoko as Ai’s boyfriend, Saki smiled and said Naoko wasn’t Ai’s real boyfriend, he was a stand-in playing the role of her boyfriend, as she was going to meet a high school friend of hers and the friend’s fiancé and didn’t want to show up by herself. It was the first time I had encountered a stand-in in real life (I had seen it several times in films). The idea intrigued me. It was almost a year later when I decided to become a stand-in. I put up flyers, printed business cards, and the information was kept cryptically simple: Male Stand-In Available for All Occasions (No Charge) and my phone number. I received a number of calls from people who wanted to know what a stand-in was and what I was actually offering. I also received plenty of calls from the mentally unbalanced set. Eventually, I got a few gigs, pretty basic ones. I attended a funeral in someone’s stead, went to a party, delivered a package. Through word of mouth, my gigs grew, both in number and variety. I was the stand-in for a break-up. I met the woman at a café, and explained to her that I was there to break up with her on behalf of her boyfriend. I had memorized what he had told me to express and delivered the speech, but soon I was operating and speaking freely and spontaneously based on the woman’s reactions and engagement. It amazed me how she went from being completely shocked by my role and what I had come to say and do, and then not only accepting but embracing who or what I represented and pouring out her grief, anger, disappointment, and emotional messiness in a nearly one hour session. I was a receptacle who took none of it personally. Without any personal investment or attachment, I found it easy to fulfill the role of target and scapegoat.

I am not interested in living my own life, or trying to assemble and construct a life that I am responsible for managing and maintaining. It’s too hard to hold an identity together, to convince others of that identity, to have that identity mix and mingle and become part of an endless interplay, and it’s especially hard when you have little to no conviction that such an identity is real or lasting. As I see it, identity is a trap with lots of built-in advertisements and slogans trying to convince you that it isn’t a trap, but something important and necessary. Identity is not necessary. Having to do something to confirm, substantiate, and continually prove to myself that I am this so-called identity, or that I am these things, but not those things, this dishonest and unstable calculus of affirmation and negation being leveraged … to what end? As a stand-in, I become whatever someone else needs for a little while. That is part of the allure. It is only for a little while. It’s like putting on a pair of clothes, and then taking off that pair of clothes. I do not stay in the clothes. This life as an amateur stand-in suits me fine. The amateur part is also key. No money is exchanged. I feel as if I am providing a service to people. I am making myself useful. I think that circles back to and connects with my permission-to-exist disease. I imagine that in a very straightforward way—I allow myself to exits for others, briefly, a surrogate and unpaid rental who will accommodate the needs and wants of others. I am beyond grateful to have no life to call my own.