by Sarah Willis
Will’s arms drop. He shakes his head. “Then everything we’ve been trying here has been for naught?”
“No!” Melinda shouts, standing up. “Lars has a point, but you guys have to face the truth. Who cares about us? Nobody. Without theatre, life goes on, people die, lawsuits get filed, roads get paved, presidents get elected. We’re not necessary. We’re lucky enough to have a theatre and an audience—but if you haven’t noticed, that audience is getting smaller. If we don’t change, we will go the way of dinosaurs!”
Now Melinda looks directly at Will. “I sat in on classes at Circle in the Square that tore away the masks and fears we act with. I saw a rehearsal of a script by an unknown writer, performed by unknown actors, that had the audience on the edge of their seats. The one-act was unpolished, raw, and so honest, we wept without relief. We need to learn to act naked. And I don’t mean this as a metaphor. There are classes in New York City where you do monologues completely naked. At first you try to hide, then you find you can’t. I think we should try it here.”
Jimmy McGovern breaks the dead silence that follows Melinda’s speech by shouting, “Oh boy! I could go for that.”
“That’s what we’re up against?” Will asks. Even in the dusk of night, Lars sees Will has lost all the color in his face.
“I think so,” Melinda says. “It is the seventies now. It’s a whole new world.”
“I don’t think I could act naked,” Will says.
“You could try,” Melinda says.
“I don’t think so,” he says.
Lars feels terrible. “Will, I didn’t mean … Maybe we shouldn’t … you know, live the play. Maybe we should let the play live …” He shrugs. Next time he has a great idea, he’s going to keep his mouth shut.
Will sighs. “I must admit, I’m speechless. My instinct here is to go on with the rehearsal tomorrow as planned. Concentrate on its honesty, which we were, and throw in the improvs for those willing to try them. Is that okay with you all?”
“No, sir,” Nate says. Everyone turns his way. Lars takes the opportunity to go sit back down.
“What?” Will says, squinting at Nate. The lines on his forehead scrunch together. It looks painful to Lars.
“It’s Sunday tomorrow, Will. I won’t be rehearsing on a Sunday.”
Will puts one hand to his head. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Well then, we’ll rehearse the scenes that don’t include you, Nate. Is that okay?”
“Fine by me, but I may not be the only one wants to go to church. Any takers?”
Victor Peters raises his hand and nods. Frank Tucker says he’s coming.
“Care to join me, Mac?” Nate asks.
“Sure,” Mac says.
“I might come too,” Myra says. “Maybe it’s time I try church.” She looks at Will.
Lars watches as Will and Myra stare at each other. It takes only a few seconds before Will turns away, shaking his head again. Lars wonders what would have happened if Will had asked Myra why. He’s intrigued by the idea that one word can make such a difference.
“I could use a drink,” Will says, “I’ve got a bottle of Jack Daniel’s inside. Any takers?”
As the actors stand and head inside, Lars thinks that Will could have brought that bottle back out here. He simply wants to change the scene, be in charge. Sometimes in a production, Will will turn a spotlight on a minor character, even when the action is someplace else. It can have a dramatic effect, lessening, or reinforcing, a particular moment. Lars sits at the table in the dark, wondering if there are two different kinds of directors. The ones who control the show, and the ones who follow wherever it may lead them. A play directed by Will Bartlett always has Will’s handprint on it. Is that a good thing, or not?
Melinda feels terrible for Will. She was only trying to inspire him, but instead she upset him. She sees now that Will has a lot of trouble facing change, as much as he pretends to be looking for it. The seventies may be hard on Will Bartlett, Melinda thinks. She wishes she had known him twenty years ago. In his prime. Right now he needs a long massage, and someone to explain that there’s no growth without change. She’s sure Will can understand this, if put the right way. At the right time. Which would definitely not be now.
Melinda takes Chip’s hand before he can go into the house. “A walk?” By the grin on his face, Melinda knows she’s won one small war against alcohol for the moment.
As they head in the direction of the woods behind the house, Melinda hears a door slam. Beth. That girl was in a bad mood all night. A massage wouldn’t be enough for her, Melinda thinks. Acupuncture, maybe. Holding Chip’s hand, Melinda pictures Beth with a thousand pins sticking from her skin, a human porcupine. She laughs, then, appalled at her own streak of cruelty, vows she will give the camera to Beth as a penance.
“Something tickling your fancy, ma’am?” Chip says.
“As a matter of fact, I hope so,” Melinda says, stopping in the middle of the field. Why go all the way into the woods? It’s dark enough right here.
Ben watches Will get drunk, the sloppy, fall-down drunk, the drunk of obliteration. Will does it quickly, without pleasure, rants for a few minutes about the lousy support art receives, then staggers out to the barn. Greg Henry’s passed out in his bed, and Norton’s up there watching over him. Chip and Melinda haven’t come back yet from their walk, and Nate Johnson and Mac are playing dominoes at the kitchen table. Ben’s had two glasses of Jack Daniel’s, but he doesn’t feel them at all. Frank Tucker and Jimmy McGovern have had more than a few glasses and are arguing about Catholic ideology, Frank using all the big words and philosophies he can espouse and Jimmy McGovern shouting “Crap! You’re so full of it,” until Ben thinks of Jimmy as the chorus of a long song and begins to sing along. It’s simple fun to tell Frank he’s full of crap, and it passes the time. Lars Lyman sits on an uncomfortable dining-room chair, watching them as if they are performing a play. Myra nurses a glass of something, sitting on the stairs. Every now and then she looks directly at Ben. He is terrified, and thrilled, at how long she holds his gaze.
Beth is camped on the couch. She has refused to let anyone sit next to her—that is, until Victor Peters comes downstairs from his long stay in the bathroom and, oblivious to Beth’s bad mood, asks to sit next to her. Beth swings her legs down off the cushions and says, “Fine.” Victor pats her knee, and Beth just smiles at the craggy-faced older man, as the drinking and arguing resume.
But Ben’s not arguing with himself anymore. The voices inside his head have all quieted. They know a brick wall when they see it.
As they cleaned the dinner dishes a few hours ago, Myra told him she wants to go to church tomorrow to see what she is capable of becoming. Could she be a born-again Christian? Why should she be afraid of such a thing? Why should she be afraid of being different than she is? She is going to face her fears and give in to her desires. All this was said in reference to going to church, but they both knew what she was really talking about. Most people don’t blush when they’re talking about church.
Ben loves listening to Myra talk. He swears she grows prettier by the minute. He told her so as they washed the dishes. She smiled, and he said, “See, I’m right.” She had kissed his hand, right there, in the kitchen. Just at that moment someone had yelled his name. If he was ever going to have a heart attack, it would have been then. He’s sure now that a weak heart is the least of his problems, although a strong heart might be the killer.
“Oh, blow it out your ear, Frank,” Jimmy says. “I’m going to bed.” Frank follows Jimmy, saying something about pagan rites. Myra excuses herself and heads upstairs, giving Ben a little wave of her fingers that makes his knees weak. Victor asks Beth if she would like to play gin rummy.
“Sure,” Beth says.
“Well, good night, Victor. Good night, Beth,” Ben says.
Beth won’t look at him. Ben gets a queasy feeling. His self-worth comes from the friendships he has formed. If some
thing becomes of Myra and him, well, it may end up being just the two of them, alone. These people, they would not forgive him. During the moments Myra looks at him, or touches him, it seems that the two of them will be enough, but right now Ben worries that maybe he needs a company of love, a love of many rather than a great love of one. At least that is what he thinks as he walks through the dark night to the barn, but that’s because Myra is not with him. If she were, he would be thinking differently. He is too easily swayed, bound by nothing but the moment.
In the barn, Will snores loudly. His blanket has fallen to the dirt floor. Ben picks it up and covers Will. Love her just a little more than I do, he thinks, and I’ll leave you both alone. Love her less, and I will not be able to help myself.
For the next hour, Beth plays gin rummy with Victor Peters. Hoping for another seven is about all she’s capable of doing right now. She’s lived with a group of actors for more than a week, fallen in love twice (there was a moment while listening to music with Chip Stark that she fell in love with him, a decision reversed the minute Chip walked off with Melinda, but still, being in love with Chip Stark for an hour has caused all the same pain of falling in love for a week, or a month), been alone only in the shower, seen the way her mother looks at Ben Walton, watched her father be a god and then get reprimanded by the want-to-be earth mother, Melinda, then seen her father get drunk and spit fly from his mouth as he put down the world Beth is looking forward to. Gin rummy seems to be the best way to get through another hour of her life without having to deal with all sorts of conflicting emotions.
Victor Peters talks to fill the silences. He’s kind of nice, even though his face is so old and pockmarked. He talks about his wife with this look in his eyes like she’s sitting next to him. “Helen and I went to Vegas once, thinking we were such hot blackjack players. Lost two hundred dollars before we realized that what we liked about playing blackjack was beating each other so we could kid about it the next morning. Losing to the blackjack dealer just made the game kind of ugly. We hardly played it after that. Gin rummy’s my game now. Stay away from Vegas is my advice.”
His talking makes her feel tired, but since the couch is her bed, she can’t excuse herself to go to bed. He just keeps dealing out hands. Beth imagines them playing cards for the rest of their lives. It’s that kind of night. Twilight Zone time.
Just as Beth gets dealt a winning hand, around one o’clock in the morning, Melinda walks into the house with most of the field still stuck to her damp clothes, carrying her sandals, her curly brown hair a mess, her lips swollen, her cheeks rosy. Beth’s fist tightens around the cards, and they bend and crumple. She hates Chip Stark from such a deep, dark spot in her chest that her heart hurts. The anger she has let drain from her for the past hour engulfs her. And it feels right. It’s her due. She has every right to be royally pissed. Just try and stop her.
Victor Peters looks at the bent cards as they drop on the floor. “Guess it’s getting late,” he says. “I enjoyed our evening together. Thank you, Beth, and good night.” He gets up, using the arm of the couch to push against. He has the kind of arms her grampa had, with the skin hanging down in loose, soft folds.
“Good night, Mr. Peters,” she says. “It was fun.”
“Sleep tight,” he says. Beth can’t remember the last time anyone said that to her. Then she remembers about being mad at everyone. She yanks the blanket over her head and lies down. God knows she won’t get any rest tonight. She’s too mad to sleep.
Sunday
Will stands in the last row of the house: the seats and stage are empty. Where’s the audience? Where’s the set? Myra walks onstage. She’s dressed in a white toga. He expects her to give a speech of some sort, an oration. She just stands there. “Go on!” he says. She doesn’t seem to hear him. She cups a hand above her eyes and looks out into the audience. “Do something!” Will yells. She rises into the air and flies around the stage in a circle, then flies offstage left. Peter Pan? Will thinks. I’m directing Peter Pan?
Myra dreams she is on the stage, wearing a loose white dress, singing loud and wonderfully. The house is full, but Will is nowhere to be seen. She wants him to be there. When the audience rises to its feet in applause, she looks around for Will. She sees Ben.
Ben sees Myra in a large open field, wearing a white sheet that she lifts up into the air like the wings of an angel. He tries to go to her, but with every step he takes, the space between them doubles. Through the woods he can see a house. It takes forever to get there, but when he does, Will opens the door.
Chip’s making love to a woman. He can’t make out her face, but it feels to him that they are meant to be together. They lie naked on a fresh white sheet. He kisses her breasts, her stomach, the inside of her thighs, her lips. He’s overwhelmed with sweetness. Even though he knows it’s a dream, he pretends it’s real.
Lars Lyman is the director of a movie he watches play on a big white screen. He is in control of everything. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing is real. The movie has no end. It’s the greatest feeling in the world.
Frank Tucker accepts an Oscar from a beautiful woman in a white dress, who just happens to be his wife. “I am the luckiest man in the world,” he says. His wife kisses him. The audience bursts into applause.
Beth kisses a stranger in a white shirt. Their lips are locked in an unending embrace of complete, utter passion. The kiss is the whole dream, except she wonders if she is really a close-up in a movie. She wonders if the passion’s real, or if she’s acting, and she wonders if sometimes there is no difference.
Melinda dreams of white doves flying, of baking pies, of kissing Will, of standing on a stage and speaking to the world about love and understanding. The world applauds, and all wars end. She’s elected president.
Greg Henry’s leg is broken, and he’s wearing a white cast covered with names. “Love you” is written all over his cast. His leg is broken because … he can’t quite remember. Something about a movie he’s in. Or was? Or is this it?
Norton is in his college dorm room. Theatre posters cover the white walls. Greg Henry is asleep next to him. The whole dream is Norton lying in bed, knowing Greg is inches away.
In the car, the window cracked, Mac dreams of his mother. She’s running through the woods wearing white clothes that are getting snagged on branches. Mac follows her. He wants her to stop running. He passes by a tent in the middle of nowhere.
Nate Johnson dreams of war, which is a dream that comes in summer with the first hot nights. He’s in a tent, alone. Outside is the war, and as soon as he opens the tent flap, he will be killed. He wishes there was someone in the tent with him, someone he could talk to before going outside. That would help make it easier to die. He waits for the courage to open the flap.
Jimmy McGovern dreams he’s in a boat with Nate and Mac. A wall of storm clouds races toward them as whitecaps swell in the water. “Put on a life jacket, Mac! You too, Nate!” Thanks, he says to someone—whoever gave him the chance to do it right this time.
Rain falls into dreams, comforting some, frightening others. Mac wakes shouting—the rain on the car roof sounds like gunshots. Nate hears a young boy’s scream and wakes. He hears Mac yell again, and he runs through the rain to the car. Melinda dreams that with a wave of her hand she opens the roof of the Capitol. “The rain is the earth’s tears. Listen to it!” Beth wakes up and decides she will kiss Greg Henry today or die. Will hears the sound of rain and decides all his problems are caused by the weather, and he rolls back over. Some make the choice to keep dreaming, others, to wake up.
After breakfast (oatmeal, cantaloupe, and fresh-squeezed orange juice, although Mac just made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich), Mac, Nate, Myra, Ben, Victor, Frank, and Jimmy McGovern drive off to church. (Jimmy is going to church just to prove something to Frank Tucker that Mac doesn’t understand.) Mac has never been to church except to go to his cousin Sylvia’s wedding and Grampa Bartlett’s funeral. He knows about God—God has the power to do anythi
ng, if he’s real. If he’s not, then things just happen. Both ideas are kind of scary.
Mac’s going because Nate wants him to, and Mac is willing to do whatever Nate asks. There is something about Nate (Mac calls him Nate now, because Nate asked him to) that Mac trusts, even more than his mom or dad right now, which makes Mac feel bad, but it’s true, and Mac can’t do anything about things that are true; it’s not like you can just change them. His dad keeps forgetting about him. He bumped right into Mac last night and didn’t even know it. Mac’s mom, even though she doesn’t bump into him, is acting funny; sometimes she’s all huggy and weepy, and the next, she’s singing and laughing.
This whole week has been pretty weird, and it’s kind of nice to have Nate to talk to, who sat with him in the lane, finding pebbles that were really neat looking. Some had bands of color running through them, and some were pure white or pink, like jelly beans. Nate showed Mac how to wet the stones in the gully on the side of the lane so they shined. They carried them into the house and put them in a bowl of water. Nate says a bowl of stones will never die and get moldy. The idea of those stones staying the same forever is neat, especially since everything else around him keeps changing so fast, he doesn’t know what to expect. Mac’s decided that he’s going to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every meal, until the theatre people go, and with that decision, he feels a little better. Nate says that Mac’s pretty smart to figure out a way to control his own environment. Mac’s not exactly sure what Nate means, but he’s memorized the words. Control his own environment. He likes the idea of controlling something; it’s better than the idea of God, or no God. Mac wonders if he goes to church when there isn’t a wedding or a funeral, if that’s when you meet God.