“Where did you get this picture?”
“I can’t remember,” said Caleb. “You don’t like it?”
She was frowning. “Not a good picture of me,” she said. “Not at all. But very nice of your father.”
“I think it’s nice of you both.”
They stood side by side at the beach, Cape May, New Jersey, 1959. Black-and-white, all teeth and tans, they looked so healthy and happy. It was a half-truth, like most family photos, or maybe only a quarter-truth. But a pretty truth, nevertheless.
A few inches over was another beach picture, this one in color: Fire Island, 1987. Two young men in baggies stood arm in arm, grinning. Another half-truth, although on some days Caleb thought this picture was a three-quarter truth.
“And that was Ben,” she said.
“Yes,” said Caleb. “Was.”
He waited for her to say something else, that she missed Ben, or ask if Caleb missed him. Nothing special, just something more.
But she was already looking at the next photo, a color snapshot of a solemn seven-year-old boy sitting on a lawn with a baby in his lap, giving her a bottle. He held the bottle with surprising delicacy, too absorbed in his wide-eyed little sister to notice the camera.
“Oh yes,” said Mom. “You used to adore your sister.”
“I still love Jessie,” he claimed.
She shook her head and sighed. “You would’ve made a wonderful father.” She turned away, looked down at his desk and up at the window. “Nice room. It should be easy writing plays here.”
“It should be,” he said. He led her back out to the living room.
“Is there another floor?”
“Nope. This is it. And the terrace outside.”
“This is the place you bought?” She sounded critical again.
“That’s right.”
They went up the two steps to the French doors.
“Ohhhh!”
Caleb thought she was appreciating the view, but no, she was looking at the table of food.
“I won’t ask how much that cost.”
She kept disappointing him, this mother he loved. She sounded trivial and shallow. But she was distracted today, her attention off.
He led her around the corner of the L-shaped terrace. The low skyline to the west was a jumble of billboards, old water tanks, and TV antennas. Pieces of sun were already flaring in a few windows of the flinty apartment building overhead.
“Noisy here. How do you sleep at night?”
“You stop hearing it.”
She looked down. She stood a good three feet back from the parapet. “People,” she said. “So many people.”
He wanted to connect with her, but he didn’t know how. She had come to him today and he was touched, moved, but he didn’t know what to say to her.
“There you are!” a raspy male voice called out.
Caleb turned and saw a man come toward them: Daniel Broca.
“Happy birthday,” he said in a harsh grumble that made it sound like a curse.
He was a short, proud, unhappy man in his fifties. He had failed as a playwright but succeeded as a college teacher. His students adored him, but Broca was prouder of his failure.
“Daniel. This is my mother. Mom. My friend Daniel Broca.”
He brusquely nodded at her. “I see I’m the first one here.” He thrust a gift-wrapped package at Caleb. “Take it. I know you told us not to bring presents but I brought one anyway.”
“Oh, uh, thank you. I’ll open it later?”
“Hmmm.” Broca’s mouth tightened, as if this were an insult but one he would try to overlook. “Nice penthouse.”
“You haven’t been here?”
“No. You never invited me to one of your parties.”
“I’ve never given a party.”
“Still. Nice place. You should enjoy it while it lasts. After that awful review in the Times.”
“It was an awful review,” his mother agreed.
“But just like the Times,” Broca lectured her. “They make you a success, then turn around and ruin you.”
“I’m not ruined,” said Caleb.
In certain moods, Caleb actually enjoyed Broca’s company. His general bleakness made Caleb feel sunny and good-humored. But not tonight, and not with his mother.
“They’re just jealous,” she said. “All those nobody critics.”
“But the Times is the worst,” Broca argued. “Because they’re the most corrupt. And the most stupid. Kenneth Prager, the man who slammed Chaos Theory, is the worst of the worst.”
Caleb needed to get his mother away from Broca, but he also needed to call Jess. If he could get Jessie here soon, then Mom could go home and he could stop worrying about her.
“Irene?” he called. “Could you come out here?” Irene knew how to jolly Broca. Caleb could turn the pair over to her.
“So where are all your other friends?” asked Mom. “What time does your party start?”
“Right now,” said Broca. “Maybe they’re not coming. Maybe they feel bad about not liking your play. Let me say again: I loved it. I think it’s the best thing you ever wrote.”
“I know, Daniel. Thanks.” He turned to his mother. “People will come,” he assured her. “It’s early yet. Some don’t like to go out in daylight. And others are in plays. It is a work night.”
“Oh yeah,” Broca agreed. “People will come. If not for your son, then for the free food and liquor.”
Caleb smiled and turned around again. “Irene!”
58
Despite the canvas shades, the apartment was not entirely dark at eight o’clock. The amber twilight filled the living room with an audience of soft brown ghosts. The first performance of 2B began.
Dwight blanked on the first line and Frank had to feed it to him. Boaz screwed up a song cue, so “Losing My Religion” played too soon and too loud. Melissa fell over a chair. Boaz missed another cue, and a mopey Moby song played too long, blasting the room while Chris and Melissa shouted their dialogue. None of the funny stuff seemed all that funny, and the biggest laugh came when Allegra jumped up on Dwight and he went down flat on his butt. Luckily he wasn’t hurt. The march back to the bedroom created a traffic jam in the hall. Dwight and Allegra, naked for the first time with strangers, pulled on their clothes much too quickly and efficiently, killing the comedy. Only Toby’s scenes passed without mishap.
It was like a classic dress rehearsal where everything goes wrong. Except this was a performance and the catastrophe had witnesses. The audience was all friends and fellow acting students, but Frank wanted their approval, not their pity. Watching it fail, and fail so publicly, he suffered more than he thought was possible. The show was only an hour long, but it felt like an eternity.
Finally it ended. There was applause, but it sounded like desperate charity. Most of the audience cleared out as quickly as possible. Only a few friends lingered to offer condolences, including Mrs. Anderson from P.S. 41.
He was embarrassed to see her here tonight, a wry old black lady with iron gray hair, thirty years older than anyone else in the room. But he was touched too. They had shared a lot on Show Boat.
“Sorry you had to see that,” he told her.
“Oh no. I’ve seen worse. And not always from kids.” A city public school teacher, Harriet Anderson was adept at finding silver linings. “I like how you use this apartment. The blond boy was nice to look at.”
Frank laughed. “You want a date?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Seriously. He’s got something. But the rest of it wasn’t so bad. It’ll get better.”
“It can’t get worse.”
“Oh no, it could get worse,” she assured him. “Much worse.”
She left with the last of the witnesses. Only the criminals remained at the scene of the crime. There is nothing sadder than a stage after a bad performance, but this was also an apartment, a home. All joy had been sucked from these rooms. Frank gathered everyone for a postmortem that
wasn’t entirely post. A second performance was scheduled at eleven.
“I’m not going to beat a dead horse,” he began. “We all know this did not go well. There’s little we can do before the next show except eat and rest. So let’s think of this as an extra dress. We made lots of mistakes, but we know what our mistakes were and we’ll learn from them. Okay? I have just a couple of notes, but you’ll already know what they are.”
His chief “suggestions” were that Allegra and Dwight get dressed more clumsily, and that Boaz lower the volume so the songs would not compete with the actors.
“Yeah, our show is about actors,” said Allegra. “Not about your great taste in music.”
Boaz remained by the stereo, on the stool where he had sat during the performance. “My music? My music?” He bared his teeth and gums at her. “This show stinks, so you blame my music?”
“Your music’s great!” Frank said quickly. “But you created a very complicated set of cues for yourself. We need things simple. K-I-S-S,” he said. “Keep it simple—” He left out the last s word.
“So it is my fault tonight is dud?” Anger flattened his English and sharpened his accent. “After all the things you did to my play.”
“Your play?” said Allegra. “It’s our play. All of us.”
“No. I wrote it. And it was great. Before you and everyone else started fucking over my words. People hate this script. They would love mine.”
“Your script,” said Allegra, “was TV dog shit.”
“Guys!” said Frank. “We’re not going there. Nobody’s blaming anybody. Okay?”
“Dog shit? Dog shit? I’ll show you dog shit.” Boaz got up and walked toward Allegra. “You.” He pointed. “You and your cheating heart. Your dog shit lies. Your dog shit love.”
“Bo-eeee?” Allegra leaned back in alarm. She shot a worried look around the room.
The others watched Boaz fearfully, all except Dwight, who watched Chris. Frank wondered what they knew that he didn’t.
“You never loved me,” Boaz sneered. “You used me. For sex and rent money and my script and my music. I am just a writer to you. Just a man. And you are a man-hating lesbo.”
Allegra let out a gasp like a silent cough. She covered her eyes with one hand, then lowered the hand to her mouth.
“Fuck you with a spoon,” said Boaz. “Two spoons. Anything but my meat. Because you’re not going to use my meat again!” He stormed over to the door, threw it open, and charged out. His boots banged down the stairs.
Allegra dropped her hand from her mouth. “Wow,” she said dryly. “Wow, wow, wow.”
“Is anybody going to tell me what this is about?” said Frank.
“You don’t want to know,” Chris said sadly.
And Frank got it. “Oh shit.”
“It’s not like it sounds,” said Chris. “It’s not nothing, but it’s not like it sounds.”
“Hey. Thanks for the public declaration of love,” said Allegra.
Chris faced her. “I told you. I’m sorry. But I don’t feel about you the way you feel about me.”
“You still don’t trust me?”
“No! Because I still think you’re straight.”
“Didn’t that prove anything?” Allegra pointed at the door.
“Yeah. It proves straight girls are trouble.”
“Guys?” said Frank. “Guys? Can we finish this later? We still got another performance.” But this was more interesting than their crummy little play. Frank wished they could drop the play and reenact the fight for the next show.
“Yes!” said Toby. “Henry Lewse is coming! Remember!” He was eager and enthusiastic, as if he hadn’t noticed any disasters.
“Right, right, right,” said Allegra. “I’m cool. First things first.”
Henry Lewse was more important to her than either Boaz or Chris.
“I suppose Boaz won’t be coming back,” said Frank.
“I hope not,” said Dwight.
“Okay then,” Frank continued. “I’ll do the music. Let me look over the CDs. Why don’t the rest of you go get something to eat?”
He wanted to be alone; he needed to be alone. He sat on the stool by the stereo while the others drifted out.
Things could not get worse, he told himself. He wanted to believe in a Zen of failure, that once you hit bottom, things can only get better. But Harriet Anderson was right: anything can get worse.
“Frank? Frank? Do you like the stuff I added? Does it work?”
Toby, of course. He squatted down beside Frank like a farm boy, looking up at Frank, hopefully, needily.
“Works fine, Toby. If the rest of the show worked half as fine, we’d be in great shape.” He continued to shuffle through the clatter of CD cases. Boaz had actually picked out some good songs. He just had too many of them.
Toby was nodding and thinking and nodding some more. “I just hope Henry likes it.”
“If he doesn’t,” said Frank with a shrug, “I’m sure he’ll understand. I bet he’s done his share of turkeys.”
“Henry Lewse? Oh no, not Henry.” Toby thought a moment longer. “You think the show is a turkey?”
59
Applause erupted out front, solid and loud. Backstage in the dressing rooms, it sounded like a hailstorm. The phenomenon never ceased to amaze Jessie: it was weird like people but as natural as weather.
“I wonder if they like it?” she asked the New York Times.
“Hmp,” went the Times.
They were in Henry’s dressing room, Jessie and Kenneth Prager, the man himself. He sat there, gripping his little notebook, saying little. Jessie had seen him on TV and even in public—last week, in fact, at P.S. 41—but never this close. He was taller than she remembered, more physical, but also paler, drier. One might say he looked more like an accountant than a drama critic, but Jessie had a good friend who was an accountant, and he was smart and funny.
“Do you always wear a suit?” she asked.
“Of course not. I just didn’t have a chance to change.”
The simplest question seemed to make Prager squirm. She enjoyed needling him.
“So it’s not mandatory? You could wear a Hawaiian shirt?”
“Excuse me, Miss—”
“Doyle. But you can call me Jessie.”
“Miss Doyle.” Her last name meant nothing to him. “You don’t need to entertain me. I can wait for Mr. Lewse alone.”
“No trouble. And I want to introduce you two.”
It was hard to believe that this long, lean drone in gray was the maker and breaker of reputations, the Buzzard of Off-Broadway. Well, he did look kind of buzzardy.
They heard the actors coming, a growing noise, as if water were pouring backstage. Prager slowly stood up.
Henry swung into the doorway—and stopped.
“Kenneth Prager. New York Times.” He held out his hand. And a light snapped on in his eyes. It was a look of love: straight-guy love, a fan’s love. Jessie remembered the same spark in her father’s eyes whenever he spoke of a favorite baseball player or hero cop.
“If you say so,” said Henry in his dry Hackensacker manner. He shook the hand as his own eyes blinked and darted around. He often came offstage looking like a man on amphetamines. “Jessie? Time?”
“Oh? Right. Ten-forty.” The show had run a few minutes late.
He signaled her out. “You too, my friend,” he told Prager. “We don’t want this interview too intimate, do we? Family newspaper and all. Be with you shortly.”
Prager joined Jessie in the hall, looking mildly hurt.
“Sorry,” said Jessie. “We have another show to see tonight. And I should warn you: he can be real wired after performing. He’s had a full day already. Talk shows and radio and stuff.”
“I’ve had a full day myself,” said Prager, pretending nothing was wrong. “I’d like to go home.”
Princess Centimillia walked past, glancing at Prager. He gently turned away, as if afraid of being recognized.
“Come along,” he said. “You’re the Times man? Sorry. We’re late. I have another show to see. A friend’s show. But you can interview me on the drive over, can’t you? It won’t be too out of your way.”
They charged out the stage door into the alley. A thick pack of fans stepped forward.
“No!” Henry shouted. “Not tonight! Come back tomorrow. I’ll give you everything you want tomorrow.”
And amazingly enough, the fans backed away.
“I’m late, I’m late,” cried Henry with a laugh, and he sprinted away. He’d make a wonderful White Rabbit, thought Jessie.
The limo was parked by the curb. Sasha stood by the open door, welcoming them home. They piled into the back: Jessie on the left, Henry in the middle, Prager on the right. Jessie noticed Hamlet in paperback up front. Sasha must have bought it during the show.
“West 104th Street,” said Henry. “And step on it, my good man. What time is it?”
“Quarter to eleven,” said Jessie. “But they’re not going to start without you.”
“You think?”
Prager was playing with a black tape recorder the size of a cigarette pack. He aimed the pack at Henry.
“Mr. Lewse? Shall we?”
“Oh no. Call me Henry. Please. I’m turning more American every day. No more English formality.”
“But he isn’t America,” said Jessie. “He’s the Times. Where they mister and missus their own children.”
“Henry,” said Prager, firmly and defiantly. “You’re one of the most admired actors of our time. You’ve done everything from Shakespeare to Beckett. Now you’re trying your hand at musical comedy. And there’s talk of you playing a suave movie villain—”
“Buzz, buzz, buzz,” said Henry. “We like to keep busy.”
“So,” Prager continued. “Do you see yourself as a highbrow visiting low culture out of financial necessity? Or do you actually enjoy trying as many different things as possible?”
Lives of the Circus Animals Page 28