Chris Mitchell by Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir Page B

skipped lunch to ride the complimentary blue Schwinn bicycles around the dirt paths backstage. When I clocked out from the photo lab, I would roam around the backstage areas of Disney’s other theme properties: Epcot and Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Contemporary Hotel, the Wilderness Lodge, and Pleasure Island. Anywhere guests weren’t allowed to visit. Backstage entrances were marked with helpful signs announcing CAST MEMBERS ONLY . I liked to go in one Cast Members Only door and out another, relishing the feeling of privilege . Backstage was an exclusive VIP club, and I was on the list.
    I was especially intrigued by the backstage area of the Magic Kingdom, a system of tunnels known as Utilidors beneath the park where Cast Members could travel from one land to any other without ever seeing the light of day, ascending color-coded staircases to emerge behind a fake storefront or a theater lobby. * Rows of fluorescent lights illuminated the tunnels from above, highlighting the walls with a yellowish hue. Thick, insulated pipes of high-voltage cable and chilled water striped the walls of the corridor to form parallel lines along one entire side. Overhead, the AVAC waste disposal system rumbled every time a load of turkey legs was sent from Adventureland to the central garbage-processing plant. ** I would get lost following the twists and turns of the thick pipes of the futuristic trash chute, spelunking the labyrinth of corridors, filled with unmarked doors and unexplored passageways.
    Smaller corridors shot off from the main tunnel like a web of veins coursing beneath the surface of the Magic Kingdom. Painted signs on the walls pointed the way to Frontierland and Main Street USA. Most of the tunnels, it turned out, were there for maintenance, air-conditioning equipment, or concessions overstock, but the center of the maze, just beneath Main Street USA, had a branch of Disney’s bank, a cavernous locker room, and a café called the Mousketeria, which featured Spaghetti-Os in motor oil, innocuously labeled “chicken noodle soup.”
    It was here in these tunnels that I became fascinated with the beau monde sect of Cast Members known as character performers.
    One afternoon, I was sitting at a table in the Mousketeria when Brady and a girl dropped into the seats across from me. “What’s up, shutterbug?” he said, chewing on a straw. “Didn’t think I’d see you at the Queendom.”
    “I come for the food,” I said, “but I stay for the ambiance.”
    “He works over at DAK [Disney’s Animal Kingdom],” Brady said to his friend. Then to me, “This is Jessie. She’s friends with Pooh and the chipmunks.”
    “Charmed,” she said with a coquettish smile. She had a cute face and a solid body, like a gymnast’s. She was wearing a Tinker Bell tank top that showed off well-defined shoulders sprinkled with freckles. “I think I remember seeing you at Nick’s outing party…. Was that you? I was pretty lit. Anyway, it’s good to see a DAK CM [Cast Member] slumming with us tunnel tramps!”
    Brady dropped his jaw in mock exasperation. “Jessie, do you have to whore out to everybody you meet? Give the new guy a break.”
    Jessie punched Brady in the arm, then looked me over like she was appraising a mogul run—top to bottom and back. “Let’s see. You’re prince height. You’re an athlete—I’m a contemporary dancer, so I can tell. I bet you do the Lion King show, right? Or Tarzan. I’d say Aladdin, but he doesn’t live at DAK—just here and Epcot, right?”
    Brady gave her a shove. “That’s what I thought too! Turns out he’s a photographer.”
    I wasn’t certain, but I could have sworn a cloud of disappointment passed over her face. “That’s the theory,” I explained. “But I’m mostly doing lab work right now.”
    “Ohhh.” Jessie scanned the tables behind me, then turned to Brady. “I loathe the thought of leaving, but I have to get over to the Studios for Fantasmic. Track 2 tonight. Fun,