The Black Nod

I walked into my trailer—small, yes, but mine. My name printed bold on the door like it belonged there. Not "Concierge." Not "Nurse 1." A name. A whole person.

I stood there for a moment, like I had to prove to myself I was allowed to open the door.

Nervous didn't even begin to cut it. My heart was in my throat, doing choreography I hadn't rehearsed. Wardrobe wrapped me in my costume like it was armor. Makeup brushed on a version of me that still felt like me, just sharper. Ready.

Then I sat.

Waiting is its own violence. You mark time in breaths, in voices passing outside, in the weight of silence pressing against your ribs. I sat in that small room and felt the years stacking on my shoulders.

Years of auditions that went nowhere. Not because of talent—I've bled for this, worked for this, earned this. But because the industry wasn't built for Black gay men. Sometimes we get a crack in the door, then it slams shut. Especially now. Especially in Trump's America where the first people fired were anyone connected to DEI. Where our existence became a budget cut.

This role carried pressure I couldn't name. I felt like I was fighting Ali and about to be knocked down in two seconds.

So I got on my knees.

Right there in that trailer, I prayed. Not the sanitized Sunday school prayer. The raw kind. The desperate kind. The kind where you bargain with God and your ancestors and anyone listening.

"Please. Let me be good enough. Let this be the moment that doesn't die."

My hands shook. My breath came shallow. Fear sat on my chest like a stone.

I kept praying. Kept whispering affirmations like they were the only language left. Like words could save me. Like I, too, belong here even when the industry acts like I don't. Like the world tried to break the ones who came before me and they refused to shatter. Like every ancestor who survived so I could stand here.

I worked that scene until the lines became my breath.

Then, finally: they were ready.

A van picked me up. Drove me two minutes to set. I laughed quietly. TV magic.

And then I stepped onto the lot.

The Black PA was first.

He locked eyes with me from across the parking lot and gave me the nod. Not acknowledgment—something older. Something passed down. His eyes said "I see you" and something in my spine straightened. The fear loosened its grip. Just enough.

I kept walking.

The sound person adjusted equipment near the entrance. Black woman, headphones around her neck. Our eyes met. She gave me the nod. Slower. Deeper. Her nod said "You belong here" and I felt breath return to my lungs. Felt the weight shift from crushing to bearable.

I kept walking.

My stand-in waited near the set. Black man, same height, same build. He'd been standing in my place all morning while they set the lights. When he saw me, he gave me the nod. The longest one. His eyes held mine and I felt them—felt hands I'd never touched on my back. Felt prayers from people whose names I don't know humming in my bones.

Each nod was transfer. Power moving from one body to another. Spiritual practice passed down through generations who survived by seeing each other when the world refused to.

Not many of us on that set. Never are.

But the ones who were there—we saw each other. And in that seeing, I rose.

Rose from the fear that had me on my knees. Rose from the years of rejection. Rose like I was being lifted by hands I couldn't see but could feel—ancestors standing behind each person who nodded, adding their strength to mine.

The cameras rolled. I spoke my lines. I inhabited that character.

They called cut.

I walked back to my trailer. Alone this time. The lot was quieter. The magic of the nod had done its work—gotten me through the scene, armored me enough to show up.

But I still went back to that small room with my name on the door. Still sat in the silence. Still felt the weight.

Because the nod doesn't erase the fear. Doesn't change the fact that tomorrow they might not call. Doesn't fix the industry that broke me before it ever let me in.

The nod just says: you're not the first. You won't be the last.

Keep walking.