Lives of the Circus Animals

by Christopher Bram

  Henry smiled. “You’re too kind.”

  He could look at Toby head-on now, across the table: clear skin, soft nose, wavy sand-colored hair, a sweet suggestion of bags under his eyes. He looked even sexier in clothes than he had onstage, in the same way that Henry often found the dressed boys on the covers of skin magazines more alluring than the meat pies inside.

  The waiter returned. Henry ordered a Manhattan. Toby actually ordered hot chocolate.

  “So. Toby. You’re an actor.” Henry had learned to avoid certain subjects with Americans, but the boy looked so good that he decided to risk it. “Who have you studied with?”

  It opened the inevitable floodgate: college classes, HB Studio—“Herbert Berghof,” Toby explained—the Method, of course, and a book praised by that great butch boor, David Mamet. Henry looked for a place to insert tales of his own training, but the boy never asked. As the saying goes: “It’s you they want to meet, but it’s them they want to talk about.”

  He managed to feign interest until his drink arrived—the boy was pretty to look at—while his mind slipped back to the coincidence of fate, the question of Caleb Doyle. He allowed the boy another five minutes and subtly turned the subject there.

  “How does your boyfriend feel about your flipping your willy at strange men every night?”

  “I don’t do it every night.” He frowned. “And I don’t have a boyfriend. Not anymore.”

  “Oh? What about this playwright?”

  “We broke up. I still love him, but he doesn’t love me.”

  Henry was excitedly blinking, not with his eyes but with his heart. Then he remembered the love cry of Toby over the phone. “You’re certain about that?”

  “Oh yeah. He doesn’t know what he wants anymore. Except that he doesn’t want me.”

  Careful, Henry told himself. There’s nothing here for you. It doesn’t matter if the boy is attached or free. Nevertheless, it was fun to grope around in the underwear of a young man’s private life, especially when the young man didn’t have a clue.

  “I’m sorry,” said Henry. “That must be very painful for you.”

  “A bummer. I never loved anyone the way I love him.”

  “And what do you love about this Doyle fellow?” Bad question—Henry instantly regretted asking it.

  “Well, for the longest time, I loved that he loved me.” The boy looked so solemn. “But now he doesn’t, and I still love him, so it must be something else.”

  “The sex,” said Henry, lightly purring the syllable.

  Toby lowered his eyes, color filled his cheeks. Henry had made a stripper blush? “Sure. But I liked the sex because it meant we loved each other, not the other way around. Sex by itself isn’t that interesting.”

  But interesting enough for some, thought Henry. “That’s a surprisingly romantic view for a man who works at the Gaiety.”

  “I know. It’s weird. But I have a block about sex. I think about it all the time. But I can do it only when I’m in love. Which is one of the reasons why I first started going to the Gaiety. To see how raunchy I could get, doing things I wouldn’t dare do back in Wisconsin. And I can get real raunchy there—”

  “I found you convincing.”

  “But not in bed. Not for real. Then I get all—” He pressed his elbows to his sides and jiggled his hands like flippers. “I guess I’m just a stupid, geeky, old-fashioned romantic.”

  Henry thought this pure-heart-in-the-whorehouse nonsense had gone out with Tennessee Williams. It might only be Toby’s way of fending off predators, yet he did not seem imaginative enough to have made it up.

  “You must think I’m one sick puppy,” said Toby with a proud lift of his head.

  “Not at all. It takes all kinds. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  He sounded and behaved like someone much younger. “Ah. You have years to learn what the world can teach you.”

  “And I want to learn. Everything. I need it for my acting.”

  “You might find it useful for life as well.”

  “But going back to why I’m in love with Caleb?”

  “Yes?” said Henry wearily.

  “He’s smart. He’s read everything. And not just plays. He knows theater, not like an actor but a writer. He wrote a couple of speeches for me for a play I’m in. Before we broke up. I’m still finding out how much is there, layers and layers. It gives me loads to work with.”

  “You’re in a play?” said Henry.

  “Yes. Well. A new piece some friends and I are doing.”

  “I’d love to see it,” said Henry. “I truly would. But I can’t. The worst thing about a long run is one has no time for friends’ work. Alas.” He cut off the invitation before it was offered. His prick had led him into more bad theater, fringe and otherwise, than he cared to remember. “And what else do you love about this man?”

  “Oh, that he’s good-looking.”

  “Of course.”

  “In my eyes anyway. I don’t think anyone else sees how handsome he is. To them he’s just short and skinny.”

  “As short as I am?” said Henry.

  Toby closed one eye and studied him. “No. I think he’s shorter.”

  “And he’s successful,” said Henry. “That’s something you must love about him.”

  Toby looked confused. “No. I’m happy for his sake he’s done well. But it has nothing to do with why I love him.”

  “Success can be sexy,” Henry argued, not without self-interest. “Like having a nice body or good sense of humor. It can’t hurt that his success is in a field that you’re just entering.”

  “No,” said Toby. “I’d love him even if he were a stockbroker. Or a garbageman or a dentist.”

  Now he was putting Henry on. Either that or the boy had a remarkable gift for lying to himself.

  It was late. Henry was tired. He had finished his drink; Toby’s cup was empty except for a brown lick of dried foam. Now was a good time to move on to the next phase.

  “I’d love to continue this,” said Henry, “but I’m exhausted. You must be tired too. We both put in a very full day’s work tonight. We should say good night. Unless you’d like to come back to my place.”

  Toby stared. Then his face began to twist into various grimaces of regret and apology. “Sorry. No. I can’t. I’m flattered! Like you wouldn’t believe. That an actor I admire wants to sleep with—I mean, that is what you want. Or am I—?”

  Henry raised his hand to stop his noise. “I expected you to say no. But I had to ask. Just to make sure.”

  Toby looked guilty. “Don’t hate me. I told you. I’m not like that. And I didn’t lead you on.”

  “You didn’t. And you’re right. It’s better this way. Wiser. That we not throw away this wonderful first meeting in nasty old sex.”

  Henry meant to be sarcastic, yet he couldn’t tell exactly where the joke landed. He had expected to be turned down, yet was oddly pleased when Toby did say no.

  “I’ve enjoyed our talk,” he continued. “I’d like to get together again sometime.”

  “You would?” said Toby. “I would too.”

  Henry paused, pretending that he had to think about this. “Have you seen Tom and Gerry yet? Pure fluff, but quite engaging. Or so people tell me. You showed me yours tonight. It’s only fair that I show you mine.” He laughed. “What night are you free?”

  The boy frowned. “I got rehearsal all week for this play. Except Tuesday. Yes! Tuesday we quit early. Half the cast has a catering gig.”

  “Tuesday night it is. Very good. There’ll be a ticket in your name at the box office. And then I want you to be my guest for dinner afterward.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes I do. I hate to eat alone.”

  You transparent old lecher, thought Henry as he paid the check. Surely this boy sees through you.

  Outside they bid each other good night. Henry wanted to kiss Toby on the cheek, a professional theater peck, but he re
stricted himself to a cordial handshake.

  “This has been an honor,” said Toby.

  “Please,” said Henry. “It should be a pleasure.”

  “Right. Sure. It’ll be a pleasure Tuesday. See you then.”

  Henry watched the boy head down Eighth Avenue, walking with a contented, bouncing ostrich stride, his head held high like a ballerina’s. The loose seat of his jeans squashed and unsquashed under his ample bottom, the single fold of denim flipping from cheek to cheek. Henry waited to see if the boy would turn around for one last look back. He never did.

  Henry turned and started uptown toward his apartment.

  What the hell was he doing? What did he want from a playwright’s ex-boyfriend? One could understand why he was an ex. His contradictions were intriguing, but also maddening. What Henry should want, of course, was to get Toby in the sack. But this felt more complicated than lust. He’d already seen him naked. There was no mystery there. And Henry did not want romance. He did not want to fall in love with Caleb Doyle’s ex.

  He was surprised that Doyle still lingered in his head, a man he’d never met. But there he was, right behind Toby. And behind Doyle was his sister, Jessie, Henry’s little assistant, like a lining up of planets, an omen of high drama. What kind of drama, Henry couldn’t guess. If he were a nobler, more sentimental soul, he’d want to reunite the two lovers. But that plot felt old and hackneyed, with no fun and games for poor old Henry Lewse.

  MONDAY

  20

  And how did that make you feel?”

  “Guilty. Stupid. I had no business lashing out at my mother. My sister didn’t help matters, but I can’t blame Jessie. We need her more than she needs us. Our mother, I mean. But I should be glad of that. I wish she took my work more seriously, but I agree with her too. Because it’s not real. None of it.”

  “What isn’t real?”

  “My work. What I do for a living. My so-called living.” He took a breath. “Which is why I want to give up writing and theater. It’s time that I do something real.”

  Seeing your therapist was a terrible way to start the week, and ten in the morning far too early. The mind was too scattered, the tongue too loose. Caleb surprised himself by leaping so soon from his visit home to this new idea.

  Dr. Chin, however, took it in stride. “And what do you want to do instead?”

  “Shouldn’t you be asking why I want to give it up?”

  She laughed, a light, musical titter. “Oh, there are so many reasons not to write or act or paint. But okay then. Why?”

  Caleb was annoyed by her first question, which was the right question, the hard one. “I could give a hundred reasons,” he said. “But the real one is that my circus animals have deserted me.”

  “But you broke off with Toby. He didn’t desert you.”

  “I don’t mean Toby. I mean my bogies, my writing demons.” Why did people always bring up Toby? “There’s a poem by William Butler Yeats. ‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’? Where he says he gave his heart to the theater, but he’s all burned out and his animals have run off. It’s the poem with the lines ‘I must lie down where all the ladders start,/In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.’”

  “I think I know that one. Vaguely. The way I know most poetry.” She laughed again, this time at herself.

  Caleb had been seeing Dr. Chin once a week for almost a year. She was a psychiatrist of no particular school, eclectic and pragmatic. He thought of her as “the Laughing Therapist” or sometimes “Dr. Chin, Medicine Woman.” She was Chinese, but the southwestern look of her office—Georgia O’Keeffe on the wall, Navajo blanket on the sofa—suggested wisdoms of the Far West rather than the Far East. His mockery of her included fondness and respect. He’d gone through all the usual phases in the therapeutic relationship: angry resistance, giddy infatuation, bitter disappointment. Now he felt at ease with Chin, relatively. She was so transparent, willing to make mistakes and admit them, open in her uncertainty, without guile or harsh judgments. She could be flaky, especially when she wasn’t paying full attention, but there were occasional flakes of gold in her musings. Caleb was rarely tempted to lie to her.

  “Maybe you should go there,” she suggested. “The foul rag-and-bone shop.”

  “Toby? No. Toby isn’t the problem. Toby is just a symptom.”

  “You still believe that he was using you?”

  “Or something. He wasn’t there for me. He barely knew me.”

  “‘Using’ is such a slippery concept,” said Chin. “We all need help from other people. Certainly other people have helped you.”

  “Yes. But I always knew who they were, and why they were helping. We helped each other. Or maybe we used each other. But we never called it love. We never mistook it for romance. Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not ready for another boyfriend.” He frowned and looked away. “I brooded all weekend about Ben.”

  “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “But his death was six years ago. I feel like I’m using him to justify self-pity.”

  She thought for a moment. “A little self-pity now and then is no crime. You’ve been through a very painful experience. It’s natural that it reminds you of other painful experiences.”

  “But I’m measuring Toby against Ben. Which isn’t right. I pretend the old love was clear and solid, but I know it wasn’t. It began as half-love, make-believe love. Then Ben became sick, and I had to live up to that love.”

  “Like the couple in your play.”

  Chin hadn’t seen Chaos Theory. She disliked theater, distrusted it, which was another reason why Caleb respected her. Unlike his mother, however, Chin read his plays.

  “Yes. Yet another way that Chaos Theory is about me and Ben,” he admitted. “But I was using Ben there too. His spells of dementia in the hospital? I gave them to a schizophrenic. I made them funny. And then I gave my feelings of helplessness to the wife. I made us straight. Which is more universal, you know. More commercial.”

  “We’ve been through this, Caleb. You do nobody any good by punishing yourself with these accusations.”

  “I thought your job was to make people confront the worst.”

  “In most cases, yes. But some of us use the worst in order to avoid looking at things that can be changed.”

  “I’m not fishing for—oh, not compliments, but the it’s-okay-be-nice-to-yourself stuff. I hate hating myself. It’s boring. But there’s nobody else to hate. Except Toby. Only I don’t hate him, not really. And Kenneth Prager.”

  There was a long pause from Chin.

  “The reviewer at the Times,” Caleb reminded her.

  “I remember. I thought we’d finished with him too.”

  “Just a hack, I know. But I can’t find anyone else to blame. Except the jerk producers who insisted we open the play before it was ready. Jesus. I finally write an honest play. I make up for a phony play about sex with an honest play about love, and I get kicked in the teeth. Rejected. By a hack at the New York Times. It’s like you said last week. That he was trashing my life with Ben.”

  “I didn’t say that! I said that for the world to reject your play might feel like they were denying your experience with Ben. Or words to that effect.” She returned to her notes. “I have no idea who this reviewer-reporter-critic person is. And he is not the issue here. You are the issue.”

  Her vehemence surprised Caleb, confused him.

  She cleared her throat. “Let’s get back to Toby.”

  “Do we have to?” He tried to sound humorous.

  “You said Toby was just a symptom, not a cause. You mean your breaking up with him was just a symptom?”

  “No. My falling in love with him. He’s a blank. A kid. There’s no there there with Toby.”

  “You once said that he was half saint, half whore.”

  Caleb snorted. “I’m not so sure now about the saint part.”

  Chin smiled but waited for a serious reply.

  “All right,” he conceded.
“It’s true. I was in love with him. But it was like loving a dog. It was all about me, not about him.”

  “And you blame him for that?”

  “No. I blame myself. Or if I blame him, it’s only because I was disappointed there was nothing in him to love. Just a blank, an empty space, like an empty stage. Most actors have that, you know. It’s where they play their parts. This big hole that they need to fill with make-believe and fame.”

  She said nothing but sat there, thinking.

  “You think I mean a different kind of hole?”

  “What? Oh.” Her eyebrows twitched. “It sounded like the sexual side of the relationship was fine. And holes are holes.” She sighed. “No, I was wondering about your fear that he was using you, combined with your decision to stop writing plays.”

  “It’s not a decision, it’s an inability.”

  “Maybe.” She placed her finger over her mouth.

  Caleb frowned. “You’re saying I want to fail? In order to test Toby’s love? To see if he’ll love me even if I were a flop?”

  “It’s an idea.”

  “But I’m not in love with him now. And I’m already a failure.” He began to laugh. “So what would the point be?”

  “You’re right. There can’t be any possible connection.” Her sarcasm was as light as a feather. “But we’ll continue this next week. I see our time is up.”

  Of course. He should have sensed the end approaching. Chin regularly finished sessions like this, with a new, often pesky notion for Caleb to worry around in his head over the coming week.

  As he stood up he could not resist saying, “Shouldn’t you be encouraging me to get out of art? What’s Freud’s line? Artists are just weak souls who retreat into fantasy and hope to find there ‘honor, fame, wealth and the love of beautiful women’? Or men in my case.”

  “You’re being silly. You know I have the highest respect for art and artists.” She opened the door for him.

  “You once told me that books and art and plays are nothing but elaborate coping mechanisms.”

  “I cannot believe I said ‘nothing but.’ There’s nothing wrong with a good coping mechanism. See you next week.”