Crowned Heads

by Thomas Tryon

  “Robin?” she said again. “Robin?” He wouldn’t answer, only raised his head and looked around. It had been so long since he had seen sunlight in the room. It brought everything into sharp, ugly relief—the cracked plaster, the unmade bed, the clothes flung about. And the museum; Bobbittland. It was such a little room to hold all those things. Even now the dust that Nellie had shaken up still hung in the air.

  He had picked up Nellie’s balloon, and sat staring at his own childish image on the front of the inflated rubber. The face looked so ridiculous. His face, but not his at all. Someone else’s. A long-ago face. A someone-who-used-to-be face. A yesterday face. He undid the string and let the balloon go and it zoomed around the room, deflating, zipping in crazy circles from corner to corner, growing smaller and smaller, until it fell beside his chair. He reached and picked it up, stretched the rubber out on his knee. He couldn’t make anything of the shrunken face; it was hardly even there. Then he began blowing the balloon up. He blew and blew and it got bigger and bigger, bigger than it had been before. Every now and again he would stop blowing and hold it out, watching the face grow larger, the Bobbitt smile stretching bigger and bigger. He blew some more, looked again. Bobbitt’s smile is a yard wide. He stretched his own lips in a parody of the smile, then blew some more. And blew. And blew. Larger and larger the balloon got, and wider the smile. Until there was a loud pop and he held only the exploded pieces of rubber, then they slipped from his fingers to the floor. “Everybody gets a second chance,” he murmured. When he looked at her again he was smiling his own smile.

  “What’ll we sing for ’em, Nell?”

  “Oh, my dear. Then you will?”

  “I guess … I can try. I guess I could go chasin’ rabbits, couldn’t I?”

  She nodded. “Yes, yes, we’ll go chasin’ rabbits together.”

  “But I’ll tell you this, Nell—when I get up on that stage, you know what it’s goin’ to be.”

  “What?”

  “‘Hokum and Bunkum and Bluff.’”

  “Oh, my dear. Shall I tell you what it’s going to be?” She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s going to be ‘For Old Times’ Sake.’”

  The evening was still and warm. At the east end of the Sheep Meadow stood the open-air stage erected for “Broadway Stars for Children.” People had been gathering since early afternoon, staking out places on the ground, spreading their blankets, setting down their picnic baskets. Some had brought tablecloths, which they laid out, with glasses for wine, and candles or little lanterns. It was a special evening. Everybody felt it, everyone was waiting. They were in a holiday mood. Children were everywhere. They, too, waited, eagerly but quietly. The sun dropped, the breeze drifted across the meadow, while people sat in the purple dusk. Overhead the luminous sky was hung with trembling stars as they came out, one by one, then seemingly all together. Over on the side streets off Central Park West, windows were open where old women leaned thin elbows on bed pillows between cans of wilted philodendron, craning to see. They were waiting, too; after all, the show was free, was for everybody. That was part of the fun of living in New York.

  Backstage, things moved quietly, orderly. The musicians were getting their instruments from their cases, ready to go onstage. The performers stood in groups, waiting for the overture. The women were gowned and jeweled, the men wore black tie and dinner jacket. In her Missy Priss costume, Nellie primped her side curls in a mirror, waiting for Robin. Rehearsal, which had gone on all afternoon, had been the usual havoc; how they were to pull a show off remained to be seen. She was worried. Robin had been nervous working with the orchestra, had trouble deciding on his key, had thrown out all the suggestions the arranger and orchestra leader had made. Everyone had been kind and friendly toward him, had bent over backward to make him feel at home, to welcome him back into the acting fraternity, but he had kept aloof, was cold and even temperamental, until the others began avoiding him, stood around criticizing his work. He’d even whistled in the dressing room, the worst luck in the world for actors. In the end he’d almost bowed out altogether, and even now Nellie wasn’t sure he’d show up.

  The orchestra moved onstage, then the conductor, and the overture began in the darkness, then the lights came up, a huge bank of them set out in the center of the meadow, hitting the stage full face, then Bobby Morse, acting as master of ceremonies, got ready for his entrance.

  “Break a leg, kid,” Gwen Verdon told him.

  Out he went and did his introductory comic spot, which had the audience laughing right away. He listed the names of the stars they were about to see, and Nellie took heart from the cheers that rose when Bobbitt’s name was announced.

  The actors from The Wiz opened the show with “Ease on Down the Road” and “Everybody Rejoice.” They were followed by Carol Channing, then Zero Mostel. Still Robin hadn’t appeared. Doug Henning went on and did his magic tricks; the kids ate it all up. After him came Beverly Sills, who sang her two numbers. Then Nellie heard her own name announced; she and Cyril Ritchard were doing a sketch from Bobbitt and Alfie, with Cyril playing Willie Marsh’s role as the butler. The lights went down, Nellie took her place in her rocker, her reticule in her lap, the lights went up, and Alfie came out in his butler’s costume. Nellie thought she’d never seen such an enormous audience; the faces melted back into the darkness for what seemed a mile. Microphones planted all along the stage apron picked up the dialogue and carried it out to the audience through giant banks of speakers on either side of the stage. “Where’s Bobbitt?” she heard a child near the front ask. Where indeed? Nellie wondered, glancing offstage, where the other actors were watching from the wings. Cyril Ritchard took her hand, she rose from her chair, the orchestra struck their musical cue, and they did “Hokum and Bunkum and Bluff” from Bobbitt Royal. The applause was very gratifying as they went off, passing Angela Lansbury, waiting to be introduced.

  “Has he come?” Nellie asked the stage manager, who growled something and turned to his cue board. Obviously he hadn’t. She went to the canvas backing at the rear of the backstage area and peered out. There was no sign of Robin. Angela came off, and still he hadn’t come. Joel Grey went on, then Lisa Kirk.

  Nellie saw the television producer coming across the parking space. He’d been on the telephone; there was no answer at Robin’s room. Nellie’s heart sank; he wasn’t coming after all. The kids from A Chorus Line were on, singing “What I Did for Love,” which was their only scheduled number, but the applause was so great that the stage manager signaled an encore and they went into the famous high-kicking show finale. Then Pearl Bailey, and then Robert Preston with Jerry Herman at the piano. Following him would be Gwen Verdon, then Robin in the next-to-closing.

  Gwen was halfway through her last number; backstage, things were in turmoil. A hurried conference between the stage manager, the director, and the producers broke up, and the stage manager called, “Cut the next-to-closing spot. Get ready for the finale.”

  “What’s happened?” someone asked.

  “We got a no-show.”

  A no-show? In show business there were never no-shows, unless you were Judy Garland. And Bobbitt wasn’t Judy Garland. Bobbitt was Robin Ransome, Master Bobby Ransome, who hadn’t grown up. Nellie’s insides felt like lead. He had let her down again. Then she saw the back canvas ripple, move as someone from the outside felt his way along, looking for the gap. Between the divided flaps a figure appeared, silhouetted against the light. The flaps closed, the figure moved toward the rear stage ramp and came up: Robin.

  But what had happened to him? Where was the dinner jacket and black tie they had rented and had fitted so carefully? He was wearing cut-off shorts, striped stockings, a wildly colored shirt, zany hat, and on his back, his nonsense pack.

  Confusion prevailed as Gwen Verdon finished her number and the stage manager got ready for his improvised cue to the finale. Nellie rushed to him and said, “He’s here—he’s come.” The stage manager signaled Bobby Morse, telling him to pi
ck up the next-to-closing spot, and Bobby trotted back into the lights and faced the audience. The conductor received this change of cue over his earphones, he struck up Bobbitt’s introduction, while Bobby began the rehearsed introduction, building it slowly, carefully. It was the moment they’d been waiting for: Bobbitt at last.

  Only it wasn’t Bobbitt at all. What came shuffling out on stage into the glare of the lights was Mr. Thingamabob, with his turned-up shoes, his funny hat, and a crazy mask with goggles covering his face. Since he did not pick up his musical cue the conductor cut the opening and the orchestra vamped while Mr. Thingamabob did a little impromptu clog dance. He’d dragged a stool onstage after him, and he sat on it, fiddling inside his nonsense pack, pulling his legs up, just as he used to sit on the mushroom. “Oh, my goo’ness,” he began, improvising one of his familiar routines, “lookit all them folks out there.” He had a puppet on one hand and was talking to it. But somehow it was all different. Nellie watched from the wings with the others. He looked seedy, shabby, and there were no laughs.

  “What’s he doing?” they asked.

  “Crazy,” they said.

  Mr. Thingamabob was falling flat on his face in front of all New York. Expecting Bobbitt they had got—who? Most of them didn’t even know Mr. Thingamabob, had never heard of him.

  “We want Bobbitt,” someone called.

  Robin got rid of the puppets and took his hoops from the pack and did his juggling act.

  “Bobbitt,” they called, louder now. “We want Bobbitt.” They were doing a clap/chant. “We—want—Bobbitt. We—want—Bobbitt….”

  There was an awkward stage pause, while Mr. Thingamabob looked to his right, then his left, then to the conductor. He ducked his head, slid off the mask, and raised his face again, revealing his long tangled hair and bearded face. He spread his hands as if to say, Well, here I am.

  “That not Bobbitt,” a child was heard to state. Someone booed, then someone else. There were jeers and catcalls.

  “Somebody get the hook,” Nellie heard the stage manager mutter, referring to the stage hook they used in the old days to yank bad performers offstage.

  “Bobbitt” was talking, but you could hardly hear him.

  “Get him a mike,” the stage manager whispered, and a stagehand ran out with a mike stand and placed it in front of the stool. Robin’s voice was suddenly picked up and tossed out through the loudspeakers. It was hoarse and gravelly, and still weak.

  “What you sees is what you gets, folks,” he was saying, trying for another laugh. Still nobody was laughing. Nellie felt cold waves of embarrassment shooting up her back. Robin was out there dying, and she was dying for him. Not the audience, though; they were hating him.

  “That is,” he continued, his hand toying nervously with the mike stand, “I used to be Bobbitt.”

  “Bobbitt growed up,” another child said loudly. It started a small laugh.

  “Not everyone would agree with you, darlin’,” Robin told her. He ducked his head, tried to see out beyond the glare of lights.

  “Take off the beard,” someone called rudely. “You look like a bum.”

  “Rootie-toot to you, too.” The old familiar Bobbitt line got a laugh, quick but genuine. Robin gave the beard a tug.

  “Won’t come off,” he said. “It’s for real.” The sound of his swallowing came over the loudspeakers. The orchestra had been vamping through all the remarks, the conductor not knowing what to do. Finally he whispered to the lead men, and they went into the introduction of “Sky High Over the Moon,” Robin’s first rehearsed number. He missed the cue, and they started again. He began, his voice coming out in a croak. “Sky high over the moon, twice after morning, half after noon….” His face was dead white in the light, and he kept jerking and ducking his head. He mangled his way through the number, and got off his stool. Nellie thought he was going to walk offstage, but he moved to the orchestra, where he borrowed the lead guitarist’s instrument, then returned and sat on the stool again.

  “We rehearsed that number this afternoon,” he said into the mike, “but you really had to be there.” His voice was still shaky as he tuned the guitar pegs and plucked a chord or two, and there were more random impolite comments from the audience. They were restless, disconcerted, not understanding what was happening. Was he drunk? Stoned? It was a downhill disaster after all the Broadway professionalism that had preceded it. The other performers were grouped in the wings, standing on tiptoes, trying to see. Nellie clutched her reticule and prayed as Bobbitt began again. Gradually the rest of the stage lights had been dimmed to black, and he stood in a single spotlight, strumming the guitar, singing. Nellie could see he was in terror. His voice cracked several times, he hit a wrong chord, then another. From time to time he would look toward the wings, in panic, but he was imprisoned in the white cone of light. From out there in the audience came coughs and murmurs, more restlessness, talking out loud. Nellie pushed her way through the people blocking the stage entrance, and moved onstage in the darkness.

  Robin hadn’t noticed her, but he heard a child somewhere near the front pointing up and saying, “Missy Priss.” Then he felt her presence as she moved near his stool, standing out of the spotlight, but close. He turned, glanced at her.

  “What must we do, Missy Priss?”

  “Why, we must put pluck in our hearts, else why did the good Lord put us here? Surely not to chase rabbits!”

  Without a break he segued into “Lotsa Pluck,” and somehow the hoarseness was disappearing. His throat had relaxed, opened up, his hands stopped trembling, the words came out free and easy. “All it takes is a little pluck, then you add a little luck …” and he heard some of the children in the front rows singing along with him. He nodded, started tapping out the beat with his foot. “Little luck, lotsa pluck,” he sang, nodding, his smile coming easy now. “Little luck, lotsa pluck,” the children sang. The grownups, too; they were all singing along with him. From his side he heard the familiar voice; Nellie was singing, too. “Luck … pluck.” He glanced at her, they nodded, smiled, like old friends meeting for the first time in years. Then, before he realized it, the song was over. He looked out at the audience in surprise; they were applauding. He grabbed Nellie’s hand, pulled her into the spotlight, called back to the conductor, and while she leaned against him, his arms around her waist, they sang “Ditto” together.

  “I love you.”

  “Ditto, I love you, too.”

  “I need you.”

  “Ditto. I need you, too.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you say, I’ll say ditto …”

  “I won’t let you go your way, I’ll go ditto …”

  And on each “ditto,” the audience took it up, joining in as loudly as they could. “Ditto! Ditto!” Nellie’s bonnet kept slipping and getting in the way; Robin pushed it aside, making faces, milking the business for laughs.

  The applause was even greater. He tried to keep Nellie with him, but she had suddenly slipped away, and he was out there alone again. But what she’d brought him she hadn’t taken with her; the applause. He nodded at the conductor and they went into the two remaining numbers they’d rehearsed: “Magic Carpet” and “Really Truly True.” He hadn’t sung them publicly in almost fifteen years, but somehow, now, it seemed all right. He was there. He had them. They sat quietly out there; nobody stirred, all those thousands of faces, the children watching the Bobbitt they had come to see, their parents the grown-up man they remembered as a child, part of their pasts. They leaned back on their elbows, crossing their feet, with the wide night spaces above them, and the stars, listening. It wasn’t the Bobbitt they remembered, because of course he’d grown up, was a man. It was a man’s voice they heard, a good, clear baritone. It floated out from the giant speakers, surrounding them, and in its lilt they heard things that made them remember other things, other days, when they were younger, happier, sadder, but they were thinking, We’ve all gotten older. Everybody does. Fifteen years is a long time. I got older, he
got older, she got older, the world got older. Bobbitt got older, too. Somewhere along the line we all grew up. It would be some time before the same realization came to their children. But in fifteen years they would be saying the same thing: We all grew up.

  Why, Bobbitt—you grew up….

  Give ’em the old schmaltz, Willie Marsh had said. Robin wiped the sweat from his brow and gave them more, gave ’em schmaltz. They … it wasn’t so bad, that they. They wanted him. He could feel the strange wonderful thing in him; whatever he bounced off them bounced back.

  He finished, heard the applause, then a child’s voice speaking out to him.

  “Bobbitt …”

  He looked into the little face down there in the audience.

  “I love you.”

  “Why, thank you, darlin’. Ditto.”

  The microphones had picked up the exchange; they laughed, they cheered. Now, he thought, get off while the getting’s good. He looked to the wings, where the stage manager was applauding with the others, motioning for him to continue. He looked at the orchestra leader, who nodded. Robin winked, whispered a cue, then turned back to the audience. He wiped his forehead, crossed his leg, reset his guitar, struck the first chord, and began softly.

  “Let’s take a little cuppa tea, just you and me,

  For old times’ sake.

  Or maybe yet a glass of wine, yours and mine,

  For old times’ sake …”

  It had been so difficult, now it was so easy. Why was that? he wondered. He could see out past all those faces, up through the trees to the buildings, and past them, up into the sky, and past that, it seemed, to years ago, past all the years that had gone between, to a scared kid bouncing out onto the stage of Orpheum and all the Capitols, short pants and scared, giving them the old schmaltz. But scared; always scared. Drowning men, they say, see their past before their eyes; but suddenly he wasn’t seeing his past anymore; he wasn’t even drowning. It just felt … good. So easy, so simple.