[Santa Monica Beach, 2013] 
The crowd roars its adoration. At seventy years young, George Cohn takes off his bowler hat with his right arm bent at a right angle and takes a bow. He is a performer. Was a performer. The cheers melt into the sepia waves at Santa Monica Beach where empty beer cans wash up along its shores. A chill runs up George's spine as he takes in the irony of Fortune's wheel bringing him back to the town of his humble beginnings. 
"Et tu, empty can?" he mutters at the piece of crushed aluminum. George replaces the hat onto his wispy gray head and stares into fog. The sky is overcast. Across the bay, he sees the modern high-rise condominiums of the transformed boardwalk. Everything is quiet now. So unlike the ghosts of promenade performers whistling like it was Luna Park of the Roaring Twenties. George could still see those halcyon icons in his mind's eye—mimes, musicians, merry-go-rounds. They used to litter the boardwalk. The passersby would snatch a glance, perhaps even be provoked to clap along. He could hear the laughter of children parading with their candy apples and kettle corn. 
But the undertow sweeps the sea foam around his ankles. Another wave surges forth, numbing his sore feet with its icy touch. This ebb and flow reminds him that time and tide stop for no man, much less rewind to his days as a member of "the profession." 
George reaches into his trouser pockets and pulls out a newspaper clipping. 20 September 1960 marked the first time George Cohn's name appeared in print. That black-and-white photograph of him bowing onstage at the downtown Globe Theatre was proof of validation. 
He had been a good actor. The best. He'd made a living acting, hadn't he? His Hasidic parents had been dead set against it. His father had been a rabbi and his mother a doctor. They were mortified to see their son making a fool of himself on stage for the amusement of a crowd. 
"Oy vey," his father exclaimed after his first live performance at the Santa Monica Center of Performing Arts. "My son is a clown!" 
"Not a clown, a player," seventeen-year-old George had said, hurt that his parents didn't applaud with the audience at curtain call. 
"My son, my only son!" his mother wailed in Yiddish, rubbing the rouge off his nose with a handkerchief. But no amount of his mother's tears or his father's remonstrances could dissuade George from chasing his dream in the world of theatre arts. 
He joined a traveling troupe of actors and actresses and apprenticed himself to a classically trained Hollywood star. He'd performed at Renaissance faires and Shakespeare festivals all over the United States and Canada. He'd played Prospero in The Tempest and Iago in Othello. He'd recorded audiobooks for world-renowned authors. He'd lived life and loved every second. 
Like a gust of wind, the years swept past him in an instant. His world of acting began a slow decline after IBM introduced its personal computer in 1981. Then MTV and the rise of Dial-up Internet diminished George Cohn. Attention spans shortened. Globe Theatre officially closed its doors in 1999, and he was out of work, a persona non grata at the age of fifty-six. A whole generation now stared into the AMOLED screens of handheld devices. 
"Hey gramps, you alright?" 
George turns around. A scruffy teenager, fourteen or fifteen judging by the timbre of his voice, looks at him worriedly. He's wearing a Lycra wetsuit and clutching a surfboard by his side. George gives him a thumbs-up, but the teen raises an unconvinced eyebrow. 
"The beach closes at sundown, y'know. You've been spaced out for a while. I got worried." 
"I'm remembering, dear boy, of the time when this boardwalk was my oyster. I used to be in the Shakespeare Theatre Troupe playing at the Globe. Do you like Shakespeare?" 
"Sheikh's Pier?" The surfer shrugs, his face aglow from the tiny screen of his smartwatch. "Beats me. I've never been there before."