Lives of the Circus Animals

by Christopher Bram

  “I’m fine, Ken. Just dropped by to say sorry. For reducing you to a cub reporter. Jimmy Olson, huh?” He laughed. “But Week in Review said they need something on Lewse for Sunday or we’re going to look foolish. And you’re the best choice.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Kenneth. “Be fun. It’s time I cross the fourth wall and talk to actors again. I miss it.”

  “You do?” said Ted.

  “Oh yeah. I love talking to actors. The gossip, stories, and jokes.”

  “Good then. Good,” said Ted uncertainly. “I guess I made the right choice. So. Have fun.” And he limped away on his cane, looking mildly disappointed.

  Damn Bick, thought Kenneth. This assignment is just his way of putting me back in my place. Kenneth had been a theater reporter years ago, writing up the half page of items that ran every Friday. In those days, people were delighted when he called. He was attention, he was notice, he was Michael Anthony from The Millionaire, the old TV show, changing lives with a certified check. Now he was just the second-string critic, the man who got blamed for everyone else’s failures and unhappiness.

  The interview was only filler. They could’ve sent any intern or assistant to talk to Lewse. But Ted gave the assignment to Kenneth. Because he thought Kenneth was getting too big for his britches. And because Ted was going to retire soon. And he would die, and Kenneth would still be alive, and maybe even writing for the Times.

  52

  Piece of cake,” Henry cheerfully reported in the elevator. “Easy as pie. But all you have to do in this country is purr at people in a posh accent, and you have them eating out of your ass.”

  Jessie laughed appreciatively and Henry was glad again to have her here. So long as he could say such things to Jessie, there was less chance that he’d forget himself and say them on American television.

  They came out on the street again. Their bulky, boxy Russian was waiting at the curb. Henry assumed Jessie found the fellow as attractive as he did.

  “Thank you, Sasha.” He climbed into the backseat and scooted over to make room for Jessie. “Who’s next? Rosie O’Grady?”

  “O’Donnell,” she said. “She’s very important. And popular. Even my mother watches her. She’s kind of smart, but a smart-ass too. She acts like a tomboy from Queens, but used to be an actress. She’ll josh with you, and you can josh back. You don’t have to play any games with her about who you’re seeing and why you’re not married.”

  “I never do.”

  “And before I forget: Kenneth Prager called. He needs to interview you. I told him he could have fifteen minutes tonight. After the show. He’s the guy who gave you the rave in the Times.”

  Henry took in everything with a roll of easy, regal nods. He suddenly stopped. “But Toby’s play is tonight.”

  “So?” She thought a moment. “And after that is my brother’s birthday party. You’re still going?” Now she looked worried.

  “I’d like to,” he said. “Do you think we can do everything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do we cancel the Times?”

  She laughed. “No, we can’t cancel the Times. Not in this town. But Toby’s play is tonight? You can’t see it some other night?”

  “I don’t know. I could ask. Would it be possible for me to use—” He pointed at her waist.

  “Oh. Sure. Yeah. What’s his number?”

  He patted various pockets until he remembered he carried no phone numbers.

  “I know where he lives,” said Jessie. “I have their number.” She took a plump little book from her purse, found the number, and entered it. She handed Henry the phone.

  He felt like he was holding a pocket calculator against his ear. “It’s ringing,” he told her.

  “Hello.” The voice was thick and half-awake.

  “Toby?”

  “Henry? Oh. Hi. Hey.”

  Henry was delighted to hear his live voice. Since Wednesday he had spoken only with Toby’s answering machine. He could almost smell warm bedclothes in the boy’s sleepy, husky tone.

  “Good morning, Toby. Sorry to call so early. You’ll never guess where I am. In a hired car on my way to the Rosie O’Grady—I mean, O’Donnell Show.” He grinned at Jessie and turned away into a corner, making a private nest. “A pity you didn’t visit last night. There were paparazzi everywhere. Well, a few. But they would’ve photographed us together. You’d be known as my mysterious companion.”

  “Why were there photographers?”

  “Oh, that’s right. You haven’t heard. I’ve been cast in a movie. Greville. Do you know it?”

  “From the novel? The bestseller?” Now he sounded awake.

  Henry was encouraged. “I’m the villain. They’re paying me buckets of money.” He almost confessed how much, but that would be bragging.

  “You’re not rich already?”

  Henry laughed. “Oh no. Not me. Not yet anyway.”

  He was beginning to sound like one of those black rock stars crowing about his bitches and gold chains. To impress Toby?

  He cleared his throat. “But I was calling to let you know that there’s a chance I might not be able to get to the show tonight.”

  Silence. Then Toby’s words came out in a rush. “But you got to come! You said you would. They’re expecting you. My friends won’t believe me ever again if you don’t come.”

  “I’ll do my best. I just wanted to warn you—”

  “You gotta be there, Henry. It’s a special performance. Just for you. And after the show, remember, we’re going to Caleb Doyle’s birthday party together.”

  “You and I?”

  “Yes. He told me to bring you. I told you. Remember?”

  Henry looked over his shoulder at Jessie. “Of course you did.”

  “And after that,” said Toby, “I thought, well, we could go back to your place.”

  “My place?”

  “If that’s all right.”

  “Maybe.” There was a lightness in Henry’s chest that went first to his cock, then to his face. “I’d like that. Very much.” He was hoping this was where things would end, but thought he would have to cajole and push to achieve it. This was much better. This was more promising. “All right then. I’ll be there.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “You’re on Rosie O’Donnell today? Good, I’ll try to watch.”

  “I hope you do. I’d love to hear what you think. American television. I do hope I don’t make a fool of myself.”

  “You won’t.”

  “That’s so nice of you to say. Well then. Until tonight?”

  “See you tonight, Henry.”

  Henry made a kissing sound at the device. He pressed the off button. He turned to pass the phone back to Jessie.

  The car was stopped at a light. Jessie was watching him with a cool, sardonic, disapproving smirk. Sasha in the front seat was also looking at him: Henry saw an amused pair of Russian eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “No,” Henry told Jessie. “I cannot get out of going to this show tonight. Sorry.” He began to chuckle under their scrutiny. “So we’ll just go from one thing to the other, and if we’re a little late, no problem. It’s theater. Where people are always late.”

  Jessie irritably stuffed her cell phone back into her purse.

  “Do you know this show?” Henry asked her.

  “Oh yeah. It was directed by an ex-boyfriend.”

  “Oh?” So that’s why she was unhappy. “You don’t have to come, you know. You can go on to your brother’s party and I’ll meet you there.”

  “No. I’ll come. I should see it. I’m curious. And I want to make sure you get to Caleb’s party.”

  “Good. Yes. Excellent,” said Henry. And Toby would “just happen” to be with them, so both Jessie and Toby would think that Henry was taking him or her to the party. Everyone would be happy.

  Henry was quite happy himself right now. It was all falling into place. Everything was going well. Maybe
sex would click for Toby tonight in a way it hadn’t on Tuesday.

  Leaning back in the soft leather upholstery, he found himself looking up through the rear windscreen at the sky. A tall white skyscraper slowly swung through a tempera blueness full of plump clouds. Then another skyscraper floated past, and another.

  “Will you look at that sky,” said Henry. “All those pretty clouds. Pure Constable. What a beautiful day. What a delicious day.”

  53

  What a vile, stupid, shitty day.

  The sun was out. The rain was over. There was no hope now that Caleb could cancel his party.

  The buzzer buzzed shortly after ten. Elena, his housecleaner, usually came on Mondays, but Caleb had asked her to come today to help set up for the party.

  “Good morning, Cow-lib. We get ready now your shindig?”

  Elena was Romanian, a fiftyish schoolteacher from Bucharest, part of the Eastern Europe emigration that had filled New York since the fall of communism. Caleb had looked forward to discussions of poetry and politics with her, but Elena was finished with “that stuff” and only wanted to talk about American television.

  “Go outside, Cow-lib, out of my way,” she ordered.

  He obeyed. He hated this party more than ever. He was surrendering his home, his privacy, his peace, and for what? So a pack of fair-weather friends could eat his food and drink his wine and say, “Poor, poor Caleb.”

  He heard the buzzer buzz again inside. Elena answered. A few minutes later a stocky, middle-aged man came out on the patio. “Jack Arcalli,” he said. “The caterer? I spoke to your agent, Irene Jacobs?” A very gruff, bass-voiced fellow with short gray hair, a chin beard, and a single hoop earring, he looked like an older, sadder Don Giovanni. He shook Caleb’s hand. “May I tell you just how much I admire your work?” he said in grumbly, mournful tones.

  “Uh, thanks,” said Caleb, surprised and confused. After all, this was the caterer who’d wanted full payment up front.

  Another man, skinny and younger with black curly hair, stood in the French door.

  “My partner, Michael,” said Arcalli. Caleb couldn’t tell if he meant business partner or boyfriend or both. The two men seemed so serious, so caring, they were more like undertakers than caterers.

  “If you will show us your layout,” said Arcalli, “we can start.”

  Caleb took them through the rooms while Arcalli looked for the best spots to set up a table for food and another for the bar. There would be no waiters circulating with trays. People could serve themselves, which was not only cheaper but the apartment wasn’t big enough for extra waiter bodies. Arcalli decided he would do the food outside—“I think the rain is over, don’t you?”—and set up the drinks table indoors in front of the television.

  Banished now from his patio, Caleb withdrew to his office. He sat at his desk, but not for long. His office would be open during the party, and he should make sure nothing revealing was left out. He inspected his shelves. He cleared his desk. He pulled open drawers. In the top right drawer was a badly printed booklet from the 1940s: a Kewpie-doll lady in garter belt and stockings ties up another Kewpie-doll lady with clothesline and spanks her. Claire Wade, his star, had given it to him on the opening night of Venus in Furs. Would Claire come tonight? Or would she abandon him too?

  Only the bottom drawer had a lock, but Caleb had lost the key. He opened it and saw his spiral notebook on top. He took it out and flipped through it: his experiment, his exercise, his mental health doodle. Thirteen pages of pencil scrawl. Auden said that a man loves the sight of his handwriting as he loves the smell of his own farts, but Caleb hated those too. The pages looked like a play, but weren’t. “Conversations with a Dead Boyfriend.” That’d sure pack them in.

  Caleb considered ripping the pages out, but couldn’t. Not yet. Should he bring them to Dr. Chin? Or tell her about them? He tucked the notebook back in the drawer, set the spanking booklet on top, and covered it all with Webster’s Dictionary. The sight of a dictionary would cause most people to close the drawer with a yawn.

  The phone rang. Caleb answered.

  It was Irene. “Good morning, doll. Just checking in. Jack there yet? Isn’t he a trip? He used to be a journalist, then an actor, and is now a cook. Jack-of-all-trades, I call him. But he’s good, believe me. I’m just calling to make sure you didn’t cancel and send him home.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”

  “I know you have. But you should relax, dear. This is your birthday party. You’ll have a good time.”

  “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”

  “There you go. Keep your sense of humor.”

  “You don’t want to come over? I’m feeling a bit fragile right now. A little wired. It’s like stage fright.”

  “What are you afraid of? It’s a party. These are your friends.”

  “I don’t know what I’m afraid of. It’s just—I haven’t seen anyone in days, you know.”

  “Then go take a walk. Have lunch with some friends. Or your sister. Or someone. Just to take the edge off.”

  “Are you free for lunch?”

  “No. Sorry. But I’ll be there this afternoon. Threeish. Can you hold out until then?”

  “Sure.” He took a deep breath. “You know, I didn’t know how nutty I was feeling until we started talking.”

  “So don’t talk about it. See you later. Bye.”

  Caleb hung up and sat there, taking deeper breaths, fighting his sudden surge of anxiety, wondering what was the matter. This really was like stage fright, wasn’t it?

  Out in the living room the TV came on. Elena often turned on the television for company while she worked. Caleb heard the others stop moving, as if all were pausing to watch.

  54

  Henry Lewse. Wow. I can’t believe I have you on my show.”

  “It’s good to be here, Rosie.”

  “This man is a class act, folks. Henry is known as the Hamlet of his generation.”

  “Alas.”

  “That’s not good?”

  “Oh, I suppose it’s better than being known as the Coriolanus of my generation.”

  When the audience only politely chuckled, Rosie laughed for them. “That’s minor Shakespeare,” she explained. “For those of you who, like me, think Shakespeare is just another one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s boyfriends. Did you see Shakespeare in Love?”

  “Oh yes. And enjoyed it thoroughly.”

  “So what brings you to our side of the herring pond? You’re not doing Shakespeare here. You’re in a very American musical.”

  “But it’s all acting, Rosie. Whether you do the Bard or Broadway or soap commercials. Besides, I’ve done Romeo. I’ve done Hamlet. There’s nobody else for me to play until I’m old enough to do Lear.”

  “Which is quite a few years yet, isn’t it?”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “And that’s your next big goal? To play King Lear?”

  “Or Prospero. In The Tempest. We Shakespearean blokes are divided between those who hope one day to play a bitter old fool, and those who’d rather play a wise old man.”

  55

  He smiled. He twinkled. He scratched his ear. He was so down-to-earth, not at all what she’d expected. He didn’t even wear a tie.

  Molly Doyle sat at home in Beacon watching Rosie O’Donnell as she did every weekday morning. It was a treat she allowed herself after indoor chores: to sit in front of the tube with a cup of instant gourmet coffee. She couldn’t believe her ears when Rosie announced that her guest today would be Henry Lewse. Her daughter’s boss. Who was going to her son’s party. Small world, thought Molly. Small, small world.

  “And you’re a big villain, I hear?” said Rosie. “They’ve cast you as the evil Mr. Greville. In the movie of the bestselling book.”

  The audience ahhhed.

  Henry chuckled—Molly couldn’t help but think of him as “Henry” now. “Oh yes. I’ll be the man you love to hate.”

  “B
ut nobody can hate you, Henry.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he purred sinisterly.

  “Ooooh,” went Rosie, making her big-eyed chipmunk face as she waved her palms in the air. Then she announced a station break.

  No, Henry Lewse was not the snotty, stuffy Englishman that Molly had pictured. He chatted about Shakespeare as if he were everybody’s favorite writer. Rosie clearly liked him. But Rosie was smart herself, a little like Jessie. One of the things Molly loved about Rosie O’Donnell was how much she reminded her of her daughter, although Rosie was chubbier than Jessie, and happier.

  The commercials ended, Rosie returned, but Henry was gone. Molly was sorry she wasn’t going to Caleb’s party tonight or she could meet Henry and tell him in person how good he’d looked on television.

  “And that’s all for today, folks,” Rosie declared. “I want to thank my guests again. Oh, I almost forgot: you can see Henry in Tom and Gerry at the Booth Theatre. We’ll be back Monday when our guests will be Mira Sorvino and her fabulous dad. Have a great weekend.”

  Molly turned off the TV and went into the kitchen to fix herself some lunch before she worked in her garden. Things should be dry enough outdoors after so many days of rain.

  Small world, she told herself again as she opened a can of soup. She knew people who knew famous people. Her own children, in fact.

  So why didn’t she go to Caleb’s birthday party? He invited her.

  No, he didn’t really want her there. He was just being polite.

  But he and his sister had dared her to come. They said she was frightened of the city. Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t scared of the city. She grew up in Queens. How could she be scared of New York?

  She should go. It would knock her kiddos off their high horse. The train ride was only an hour and a half. She could zip down for a visit, see her son’s new apartment, meet her daughter’s famous boss, prove her love, and be back home by nine—or ten at the latest.

  Do it, she told herself. But don’t call them. Surprise them. That way, if she changed her mind, they wouldn’t think she chickened out.