Foolscap

by Michael Malone

  For his part, Iddesleigh (drugged on the smell of greasepaint) had come to believe he was Bob Fosse (and who in Rome could say him nay?); consequently, he disliked Theo Ryan. He thought it grossly unfair that while he, Iddy, was out there on stage shrieking himself hoarse year after year, Norman Bridges was up in Coolidge Building begging the provost, Dean Tupper, to let Theo Ryan take over the directorship of the Spitz Center. At least that’s what Iddy had heard from Tupper’s secretary; although when he’d confronted the provost with his fear that he was “being used like a finger in a dike,” Tupper had blandly denied the rumors. But Iddy remained eaten with envy. He continued to suspect that the monstrous Theo Ryan was only holding out for more money before swooping in and dropping the curtain on him.

  The band leader constantly told his wife that running the Spitz shows was a thankless pain in the you-know-what: the stage crews persecuted him and the casts had no more notion of the absolute authority accorded directors by real performers (documented in the thousands of show-biz books and movies Iddesleigh had studied) than wild savages know about traffic lights. When his wife suggested that if he felt so misused he should resign, he bellowed at her that she was against him too. Dr. Iddesleigh didn’t want to resign; he wanted the roar of the crowd, wanted it indoors, and for longer than a half-time intermission. He had nightmares that Theo Ryan would displace him before he made it down the alphabetical list he was methodically following to the Ms and so to that great showpiece from The Music Man, “Seventy-Six Trombones”—for which he planned to close drill on stage the entire one-hundred-and-ten-man Cavendish marching band.

  Theo knew how Iddesleigh felt about him. And he’d thought when walking into the theater tonight: poor Iddy, wasting his time being jealous of me. He hasn’t heard yet that a star named Scottie Smith is set to crash like a meteor onto that big stage of the Spitz Center, smashing to dusty oblivion the glitter and glory of the Iddesleigh Years. Unless Theo himself could stop Smith. And even if he could, how well would Iddy get along with a “short fat broad” from SoHo named Barbara Sanchez?

  On stage, the dark-haired woman was dancing. Her pleated skirt swirled tight around her legs, then swirled floating back open as she finished her tryout with a double-shuffle, wing-kick combination. A jolt rushed round the lining of Theo’s brain like nicotine, and made the whole theater change shape and color. And then a hideous whistle blew, the one Iddy wore on a chain about his neck.

  “Thank you, Reverend Fletcher.”

  Reverend Fletcher! This woman was the Cavendish chaplain?

  “Next!”

  Next? How could there be any next! Theo wanted to squeeze his hands around the black turtlenecked throat of that inert little clod, Thayer Iddesleigh, and so cut off his heartless “Next!” Instead, he loped down the aisle toward the orchestra pit to introduce himself to Maude Fletcher when she left the stage. But she stopped beside the piano, holding her tap shoes by their ribboned laces, and from there watched the audition of some cipher in female form whom he remotely recalled as an assistant professor in the Music Department, someone he’d dated once and considered quite pretty. Pretty? Compared to Maude Fletcher, she was a smudge, a smear, a blur, a shadow of an eclipse.

  As soon as the professor finished her tryout and stuffed her sheet music in her bag, a man and a woman lugged a fifteen-foot tube of huge gray papier-mâché sewer pipe onto the middle of the stage and dropped it. Thayer Iddesleigh shouted at them, “This isn’t the time! Get that out of here!”

  The man crossed his arms, offended. He said, “We worked hard on this, okay?”

  The woman said, “If you don’t like it, make the rest yourself!” They stomped off, leaving the pipe on the stage.

  Then a big fellow in a sweat suit (with a huge bandage on his finger)—a man Theo thought he recognized (from Romance Languages maybe?)—lumbered over to the piano, and sang in a slight Italian accent, “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat,” as if he’d kill you if you didn’t.

  After him, Tara Bridges, the English Department chairman’s extremely thin wife, strode forward in tights and high heels, carrying a long opalescent scarf. With a cough, she fluffed out her gray pageboy. Then she stood with her feet spread wide, put her hands on her hips, and bizarrely trilled in piercing soprano with a Virginian accent, “Ahhhhhhh, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you.”

  Pounding out the tune funereally on the center’s new spinet was Dr. Bridges’s own secretary, Effie Fruchaff, a minuscule leathery widow probably—despite her red bobbed hair—far past the mandatory retirement age. (No one in Ludd Hall had dared to suggest that she leave; they were all terrified of her.) Slouched down to reach the pedals, Mrs. Fruchaff looked as if she’d modeled her piano-playing style on Hoagy Carmichael—even to the cigarette hanging precariously from her lips. Tara Bridges called on her for a quicker tempo by lashing out with her scarf. “Ahhhh, at-last-I-know-the-meaning-of it all!”

  A tense hand clapped Theo’s shoulder, and Steve Weiner squatted, stylish but woebegone, beside him. “Well, I believe Tara Bridges knows the meaning of it all. But does Norman know she knows, isn’t that the question? What are you doing here, Theo?”

  “Hi. Do you know the new chaplain?”

  “Who?”

  “Her!” Theo pointed. “Maude Fletcher.”

  “Nah. That her?” Steve shrugged. “What do you want a chaplain for anyhow? Spiritual crisis?”

  “Ford wants her.”

  “Ford wants any woman he can get.”

  “Shut up, Steve.”

  Theo’s friend looked at him, puzzled. “Sorry. I guess we shouldn’t speak ill of the Official Life until you get it published.”

  Mrs. Cloverton, financial Aid, staggered in from the wings, immense piles of gaudy burlesque outfits on each arm. “Iddy, couldn’t we use these outfits left over from Funny Girl?” she called, spitting at the ostrich feather tickling her face.

  “Not now! Karen, please! Next!”

  “Well, you tell me where I’m supposed to find six mink coats then!” She tossed the costumes on top of the sewer pipe and left.

  Steve nudged Theo. “Did you see Jorvelle’s audition for this part called Miss Adelaide? I helped her with her Brooklyn accent.”

  “Next!”

  “Jorvelle’s here?”

  Yes, there on the stage steps lounged the youngest Ludd Chair professor, lushly straining the seams of her leotard top, a bandanna circling her Afro. With her were Vic Gantz and Theo’s graduate student, Jenny Harte. Sitting beside them, staring slack-jawed at Tara Bridges, was Robey Something from Philosophy, in an open shirt with the sleeves tightly rolled and a thin belt around his waist like Gene Kelly.

  “I should be off schmoozing votes,” snarled Steve.

  “Why aren’t you?”

  “Robey’s after Jorvelle.”

  “Robey’s gay,” Theo reminded him.

  “Who says?”

  “He does.”

  “Yeah, but what if he isn’t really? He’ll be with her night and day.”

  Theo looked around. Maude Fletcher was now sitting in the front row of the orchestra, searching in her purse. “So you admit it,” he said to Steve.

  “Admit what? Robey’s just wrong for her, that’s all.”

  “Particularly if he’s right that he’s gay.” It must be spring, thought Theo. “Admit you’re falling for Jorvelle, that’s what.”

  Steve nodded, flushed. “So? Okay, maybe I don’t have your looks, but I’m alive, Ryan. I’m not schlepping through my life lately like it was a dull book I didn’t particularly want to read.”

  Theo stared hard at his friend. He stared at the stage he’d avoided for seven years. Then in an irresistible surge, he felt himself lifted to his long legs. He vaulted right over Steve, who fell backward with a grunt.

  “Hey! Watch it! Where you going, Theo? Come on, I was kidding.”
<
br />   “You were right.”

  “Quiet!” called Iddesleigh. “Next! Anybody else?”

  Theo was trotting backwards as he called to Steve. “Ford’s here to see the preacher.”

  “Ford’s getting married? Again?”

  “Quiet!” Thayer Iddesleigh spun about, and nearly swallowed the whistle he’d raised to his lips when he saw Theo Ryan striding down the theater aisle, waving long arms at him, just like in his nightmares. Of course, since they’d never been more than nodding acquaintances, the director couldn’t, without appearing hasty, simply throw this usurper out of his kingdom unless he had a reason. So he said, “Yes?”

  “Hi, Iddy. I want to audition.” Maude Fletcher was smiling at him. He added, “For Sky Masterson?”

  Tara Bridges squealed. “Theo, that’s wonderful!”

  Iddy spat out his whistle. After three years, the man waltzes in here and asks for the lead? “These are closed auditions. C.F.D.C. members only.” He hugged himself hard. Ryan was standing in the pit, and they were almost eye to eye.

  “I’m a C.F.D.C. member.”

  Iddy grinned, teeth gnashed tightly. “No, you’re not.”

  But Theo was. His dues were fully paid every year—as Tara Bridges, treasurer (who’d browbeat him into paying them even if he wouldn’t join in), pointed out. He could have kissed her on her glossy plum-colored lips.

  Tara Bridges fluttered toward him. “I knew you couldn’t resist, honey.” She told the crowd, “His daddy’s the one who made ‘Prom Queen’ and ‘Do the Duck,’ y’all remember? And his mama was Lorraine Page.”

  Great, thought Iddy. It really wasn’t fair.

  Theo grabbed an audition form from the stage manager and started scribbling on it fast. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bridges, an incorrigible flirt, took the small band director aside and swiped at him with her shimmery scarf. “Oh, Iddy, now you let him try out,” she cooed, and twirled the two little pink angora balls hanging from the scooped neck of her sweater.

  “All right, all right!” Iddesleigh swatted the scarf out of his face.

  So, up on the stage Benny and Lorraine’s son bounded, up, up, up, until Thayer Iddesleigh was staring at the pen in the pocket of his black shirt. The young man beamed down at him. “Thanks,” he said.

  “What’ll it be, kid?” Mrs. Fruchaff—cigarette bobbing, eyelashes twitching from the constant stream of smoke—swung around on the piano stool.

  Theo clutched at memories. His dad with a summer stock company in—was it the Catskills or the Poconos?—a bright blue tie, black shirt, white suit, with a wad of play money in one fist, dice in the other. But what was the plot, what were the words? He cleared his throat. “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.”

  “You got it.” Mrs. Fruchaff swung back, flipped through a tattered music book. “Take it,” she growled.

  Theo took it. And when his throat opened, the song burst through the dark mood that had constricted him, and out soared all the energy of youth on an April night. The tall, dark-haired young woman paused in the aisle, turned, her head tilted, her hand inside the collar of her black blouse massaging her neck as she listened.

  When the audition finished, Iddesleigh shrieked, “Next!”

  “I can tap,” Theo panted, brushing sweat from his eyes. “‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ Effie!” And he gave them, unasked, a combination step Donald O’Connor himself had taught him when he was ten.

  Jorvelle Wakefield whistled and Jenny Harte jumped up, shouting. Mrs. Bridges hugged him, smelling of Shalimar and gin. Maude Fletcher clapped, then turned away with a smile, walking up the carpeted aisle toward the rear doors.

  Steve Weiner was still staring with amazement, even hurt, at his friend Theo Ryan; he felt as if he’d just lectured a cripple to go out and buy some crutches when the man had suddenly hopped up and turned a back flip on him. Theo Ryan, who for months had slumped against walls at parties, staring at his shoes, had just leapt and slid and spun and flung himself down on his knees, wildly shaking imaginary dice; Theo Ryan had just belted out enormous high long musical notes, Theo Ryan had just done a dance step that looked like something Steve had seen in an M.G.M. musical!

  “Thank you,” Thayer Iddesleigh smiled with his teeth clamped. “Who’s next!”

  Chapter 8

  They Speak Together

  As an imperfect actor on the stage,

  Who with his fear is put besides his part

  —Shakespeare, “Sonnet XXIII”

  Theo had already bounded toward the lobby when Ford Rexford walked onto the Spitz stage and said, “Fuck ‘next.’ Give the big guy the goddamn part.”

  Dr. Iddesleigh stared at Rexford, ambling over in muddy jeans, as the President of the United States might look at a wino who’d somehow strolled into the Oval Office and growled, “Fuck Congress. Give me a billion dollars.”

  “Who do you think you are! Get off this stage,” the little director spluttered. “You can’t use that kind of language in my theater!”

  But other people had recognized the Great Man—either from Life or Time, or books or Broadway, or from the National Enquirer, or from Cherokee’s bar in Tilting Rock. One of them whispered something to Iddy, who then looked as the president might if told by an aide that the disheveled derelict he’d just had thrown out of the White House was Albert Einstein. For while the bandleader didn’t know the face, he certainly knew the name. He’d even seen the movies made of five of Ford Rexford’s plays. He’d even been told by his source in the Coolidge Building that Norman Bridges had claimed the cursed Theo Ryan might be able to persuade Rexford to premiere a play at the Spitz Center, so that precisely “that kind of language” would be used there. It was just Iddy’s you-know-what luck that he’d stuffed his small loafered foot in his mouth, and would never hear the end of it.

  But Rexford was holding up his arms in friendly surrender. “Whoa, guy. Your decision. Director’s the boss.” He laughed, and then everyone else laughed too. “Great space you’ve got here,” the playwright added, and he affably agreed to sign autographs for the gushing group of stagestruck amateurs who’d swarmed shyly around him.

  Meanwhile, out in the lobby, Theo Ryan would have liked his first words to Maude Fletcher when he caught her at the doors to have been more memorable than, “Stop! Just a minute!”

  And exhilarated as he was by his performance, ready to fall instantly in love, he would have liked her first words to him to have been something memorable too, like:

  Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

  Which mannerly devotion shows in this.

  For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch.

  But in fact, alarmed by his urgency, she said only, “What’s the matter!” Then she smiled. “Oh, hi! You were great in there.”

  Theo stared at her, still panting from his dance.

  “You’ll get the part,” she said. “I blew my last note. Was it noticeable?”

  He shook his head.

  She stood waiting, brushed the short, lustrous black hair behind her ear. Her eyes were dark green like the forest in the hills behind his home. She kept smiling, a puzzled smile. He stared at a large red button on her blouse that for some reason said, “8%!” finally, he blurted out, “A friend of mine needs to talk to a minister. Ford Rexford.”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought that’s who that was. Wants to talk to me?”

  But at that instant, Ford himself burst into the lobby, swooping down on them with warm easy words. “Theo, you were damn good! You too, darlin’. Maude, right? Maude, can I talk to you in private just a second? Theo, wait right here. You know, Reverend Fletcher, my daddy was a preacher, but he was an s.o.b. and ugly besides. Now you…” And he led her out the wide glass doors into the night.

  Theo waited right there.

  He was still waiting when Jenny Harte came looking for him. Theo had seen th
is young woman nearly every day for three years; she had been his best graduate student, was writing her dissertation with him, and was the teaching assistant for his large drama survey course. Still, he’d had no idea she was involved in these musicals. Twenty-four, blonde, Jenny wore dancer’s shorts and tap shoes. Theo reminded himself that she owed him two chapters on her dissertation. She was very pretty.

  She smiled up at him. “There you are! Hi! I just wanted to—” She slapped his hands together in hers, then hers flew away. “You were fantastic! Really! Did you sing professionally? I bet you did. Wait’ll the class sees you in this!”

  “Oh, hi, Jenny. Thanks.” He ran his hand through his wavy hair, a gesture that increased his resemblance to the young Gary Cooper. “I just did it, you know, on the spur of the moment.”

  “You’re kidding! Well, you’re really good!”

  “That’s nice of you…” He noticed over the pocket of her black blouse one of the red buttons that said, “8%!” “What’s that button for? They’re all over the place. An everybody’s in black.”

  “Bleecker. We want an 8 percent raise for the Bleecker cafeteria workers. Take one.”

  Theo absentmindedly pinned it to his shirt. “Did you try out too?” he asked, staring past her toward the doors.

  “Sure. I’m usually in these shows. I’m not all that good, but I love it. I played Dorothy at camp, and after that I wanted to be Judy Garland.” She hunched her shoulders wryly.

  Theo, who’d met Judy Garland backstage once when he was six, said, “Happier, I hope.” Then he stepped around her to push open one of the glass doors. He saw Rexford already coming back up the steps alone. “Where’d Reverend Fletcher go?” Theo asked him, holding the door.

  Rexford waved at Jenny. “Home, I guess. Said she lived next to the chapel. Got in a sports car with a guy wearing a leather jacket. Hey, she agreed to do this counseling bit with me. Praise Jesus!” shouted the playwright. “Goddamn, if women like her had preached the word in Bowie, Texas, I’d still be washed in the blood of the Lamb.” He spun in a circle and threw open his arms. “Theo, babe, you did good! It was just bubbling away down there in your blood, and whoosh, out it came!”