Acting Up

by John Inman

  It was then that I knew I didn’t much care for Monkey Man.

  I had no sooner set out strolling through the zoo grounds in my damn gorilla suit with the damn pole filled with stuffed animals swaying over my head and breaking my back because it weighed a ton and I kept snagging it on tree limbs and shit, when a group of kids came running down the path toward me. The zoo must have opened for business. The kids squealed in delight at the man in the gorilla suit, and since I figured I was still better off than I would have been scooping gorilla poop, I hammed it up for the little bastards. Growling. Dancing. Pounding my chest. Swinging my arms. Grunting. Hoo-hooing.

  By the time I’d finished, I had sold three overpriced stuffed animals to unhappy parents, and I was pretty sure I had also suffered a heatstroke. Out of breath, blinded by sweat, and suddenly needing to pee, I plopped my ass down on a bench and pondered my life.

  I was a good guy. I paid my bills on time. I helped old ladies across the street. I wore condoms.

  How the hell had it come to this?

  ARRIVING HOME that evening, wobbly from sweating vital nutrients all day while sweltering inside that goddamn gorilla suit, I found Beth crawling around the apartment peeking under the furniture with a hammer in her hand.

  I stood in the doorway staring at her.

  “What are you doing?”

  Beth blew a strand of hair out of her face and shot me a look of pure exasperation. The words “conniption fit” sprang to my mind immediately. It must have been my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw smoke wafting out of her ears. She was clearly furious. Not the humdrum furious you see during road-rage incidents either. This was more like the biblical wrath of God kind of furious, where continents shift and mountains crumble.

  “Cory’s rats have escaped,” she snarled.

  “That’s terrible!” I cried, molding my face into a semblance of sheer outrage. God, I’m such an actor. “They escaped, you say. How awful! However did that happen?”

  Yep. That was definitely smoke coming out of her ears. She was also eyeing me with considerable suspicion. “Wouldn’t I love to know.”

  “Where’s Cory?” I asked, hoping to direct her attention to someone other myself. I’m not just an actor. I’m also a coward. “Why isn’t he helping you search? And what’s with the hammer?”

  Beth groaned her way to her feet while gazing down at the hammer in her hand. “The hammer’s for incentive. The rats’ incentive, not mine.”

  “That should do it.”

  “And as for Cory, the zoo told him they wouldn’t have an opening for several weeks, so he took a job as a bagger at the grocery store up the street. He said he tried to find you at the zoo to tell you, but you weren’t there.”

  I plucked a strand of fake gorilla fur from between my teeth. “Oh, I was there, all right, but I was dressed in a gorilla suit. He probably didn’t recognize me.”

  She almost smiled. “No, I don’t suppose he would.”

  Beth had lived with me for a year. Nothing surprised her. If I told someone I had been dressed in a gorilla costume all day, a normal person would ask for an explanation. Not Beth. Anything of an inquisitive nature concerning my goings-on had been leached from her system long ago. Unless it concerned my sex life. She always had time to snoop through that.

  She threw herself on the couch, plopped her feet on the coffee table in front of her, and patted the cushion beside her. “Sit with me,” she said.

  She didn’t look mad anymore, and the hammer was out of sight, so I did as she asked.

  “You look pale,” she said. “Your hair’s all sweaty.”

  “Gorilla suit,” I groused.

  “Oh.” She patted my hand. “So how’s my little Malcolm doing? How are you and Cory getting along?”

  So that’s what she was up to. Making sure all was copacetic on the home front.

  I dragged her hand to my face and kissed her thumb, which took her by surprise. Her face softened. “You like him,” she whispered.

  I nodded. “I do. He’s a very nice guy.”

  She squinted into a smile. “Cute, too, don’t you think? Handsome.”

  There was no denying it. “Yes, Beth. He’s very handsome.”

  “And nice?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Extremely nice.”

  Beth looked considerably relieved. She settled back into the sofa. Her eyes darted about the room, still idly searching for the AWOL rats. Good luck with that, I thought. They’re probably in Tijuana by now, sipping margaritas.

  “I’m glad you two are getting along, Malcolm. Cory’s going to need a friend, I think. I get the impression something is bothering him. I’m afraid his heart’s been broken.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “He told me he wasn’t brokenhearted at all, not because of Susan anyway. That was her name, you know. Susan.”

  “So you guys talked about it.”

  “Yeah. I got nosy and asked.”

  Beth grinned. “I thought you might.” Her grin faded, and she took on her brother’s pensive look. Maybe it ran in the family. Sort of a Williams family trademark. “So I wonder what’s bothering him, then. I know it’s something. He just won’t say what.”

  I tried to waylay her fears. “He’s starting a new life. Worrying about finding a job. Starting all over again. He’s bound to be nervous. I’ll do what I can to try to help him through it.”

  Beth patted my hand. “I know you will. He likes you, you know. He told me so.”

  I studied her face, searching for sarcasm but not seeing any. “Did he really?”

  She nodded.

  “We went running yesterday,” I said. “He met my mother.”

  Beth laughed. “Did she make a pass at him?”

  I laughed back. “Almost. She was working her way up to it.”

  A happy silence settled over us while we both considered that. When we had soaked up every ounce of entertainment value from it we could get, she turned to me once again with a serious glint in her eye.

  “And he never said what is bothering him?”

  “Beth, I’m not sure why you think something is bothering him. As far as I can tell, he’s just a nice, quiet guy who doesn’t get too excited about anything.”

  She grunted disapproval. “That’s not the brother I remember. The brother I remember would be playing pranks and singing songs and making jokes all the time. He’s changed, I think. Something has changed him. He isn’t happy, Malcolm. I don’t like it.”

  “Give him time,” I said. “He’ll settle in. Maybe he’s still a little uncomfortable having an honest-to-god homo as a roommate.”

  “Malcolm, I already told you. He likes you. He told me he’s glad you’re being a friend to him.”

  “He said that? You’re sure he really said that?”

  “Yes. And don’t be getting any ideas.”

  “Like what sort of ideas?”

  She narrowed her eyes and jokingly glared at me. “You know what sort of ideas. The sexy kind.”

  I sat up straighter and did the “cross my heart and hope to die” routine. “Trust me,” I said. “I have no desire whatsoever to try to lead your brother astray. I’ll be his friend if he wants. I’m happy to do it. But I know my limitations. And I know his. I’m gay, he’s straight. And never the twain shall meet.”

  “Good, then,” she said. Another comfortable silence settled over us, but it only lasted about ten seconds. Then she snapped her fingers and dug around in her pocket for a scrap of paper, which she then proceeded to cram in my face.

  “What’s this?” I asked, going cross-eyed because she was holding the paper directly in front of my nose.

  “A tip for an audition. They’re shooting a commercial for a local restaurant. They need people to play customers. My dance instructor told me if we went in together, we’d be a shoo-in. He’s directing it, and you know how much he loves me. We have an audition in two weeks.”

  “What, you mean both of us?”

  “Yeah.�
��

  I snatched the paper out of her hand and read the note. “Cool! You and I haven’t worked together since that production of Sweet Charity at the North Park Theatre last August.”

  Beth’s face lit up. “I know! Remember ‘The Rhythm of Life’ number when your wig flew off and landed in the front row, and some horny old man handed it back to you over the footlights with a note stuffed inside asking you for a date?”

  I cringed, remembering. “I thought I’d die!” Then I studied Beth’s note again. “Wait a minute. This says one woman and two men. Who’s going to play the other man?”

  Beth casually checked the condition of her fingernails. “I told him my brother was in town fresh off a tour of Cats.”

  I stared at her. “You mean Cory? He’s probably never even seen Cats. Broadway shows aren’t real big in Podunk, Missouri. The only cats they have in Missouri are those big yellow bulldozers they use to bury homosexuals in mass graves after they declare hunting season on the poor little buggerers.”

  She slapped my leg. “You exaggerate. And shut up. It’s not like Cory’ll have to dance or sing. It’s just a commercial. All he has to do is stand around and look handsome.”

  “Yeah, and while he’s standing around looking handsome, I’ll be standing next to him looking like an ugly six-year-old.”

  She considered that. “We’ll put inserts in your shoes and give you a false mustache.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, like that’ll help.”

  She slapped me again. “Stop worrying. This is what I promised Cory we’d do. Drag him along on an audition. Even if he doesn’t get the part, we’ll have taken his mind off whatever it is that’s bothering him. Are you with me on this or not?”

  I clutched my heart like I’d just been wounded to the core. “Well, of course I’m in on it with you. I’d do anything for Cory, you know that.” Oops, I thought. Where did that come from?

  Beth cocked her head and considered me more closely, as if she was pretty much wondering where that had come from too. “Actually, cupcake, I didn’t know that at all.”

  “Well, now you do,” I said, surprising myself even more than Beth.

  Beth and I exchanged astonished stares until, desperate for a distraction, I pointed to the bookcase in the corner and barked, “Look! A rat!”

  Beth grabbed her hammer and took off running. Poor thing. She’s so gullible.

  Chapter Seven

  JUST AS I was becoming acclimated to the idea that I really liked my new roomie in a whole lot of ways that might not have anything to do with being strictly roommates, we both seemed to take a step back and begin to reassess our growing friendship. Don’t ask me why. We did have some mighty cultural differences to overcome, of course, since Cory was straight, and I was the first fruitcup he had ever come into contact with on a day-to-day basis. There was also the matter of Cory Williams being the first man I had ever become truly infatuated with—and yes, I had finally admitted that little truth to myself, no matter how much I tried not to.

  Whatever the reason, it certainly wasn’t a conscious effort on my part to push him away, nor did I think it was a conscious effort on his part to insert some distance between us. It just happened. It was almost as if we had leaped into friendship too quickly, and now we were both a little embarrassed by the fact.

  We didn’t jog together anymore. We didn’t take our meals together. We hardly saw each other at all.

  Cory’s new job at the supermarket might have had something to do with it. I worked days at the zoo impersonating a gorilla. God help me. He had taken a split shift at the supermarket, working mornings and evenings bagging old ladies’ groceries and stocking shelves. Anyone who has ever worked a split shift knows it leaves very little time for anything else.

  Or perhaps he was pulling away because he had started receiving the very vibes from me he had been afraid of receiving all along. I had tried to keep them under wraps, but maybe a few escaped anyway. Just enough to get his attention and make him uncomfortable. Perhaps I should have tried a little harder to keep that in mind.

  Whatever the cause, there were moments when we ran into each other, either coming or going, where I felt a definite unease. Cory started spending more time with his sister and not with me. I tried not to be jealous about it; after all, Beth was his sister. They had a lot of catching up to do. To show you how confused I was by the sudden pulling away, I decided to consult my own personal oracle on the matter, which demonstrates the level of my desperation. And let’s be honest here. I was not only confused, I was also hurt. I was confused by my actions and hurt by Cory’s. In fact, I must have been in dire straits indeed to do what I did next.

  On a day three weeks after Cory had moved in, on a Saturday afternoon, which was also the day before the big audition for the restaurant commercial, I jogged over to my mother’s house.

  She came to the door in pajamas with her hair in rollers and no makeup on her face. I hadn’t seen my mother without makeup since I was in the eighth grade, and that was only because she had been dating a man who was allergic to everything. Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last long. My mother is a Mary Kay devotee. She likes her war paint.

  Standing on her front porch, I raised my hand in silent greeting. She seemed happy enough to see me—I was her son, after all—but the first thing she said was, “No kisses, darling. I have a cold.”

  It was then I noticed the red nose, the bleary eyes, and the array of tissues protruding from both sleeves and the neck of her pajama top. She also reeked of Vicks VapoRub, which is a long way from White Diamonds. She ushered me inside, keeping her distance, for which I was grateful. The last thing I needed was to come down with a cold while I was still working in that stupid gorilla suit every day. Sweating like a pig, I was losing enough body fluids as it was. I didn’t need to be oozing snot and hacking up phlegm in there too.

  As soon as I was across the threshold, she closed the door behind me and turned away to sneeze. Turning back around, she flapped her hand toward the kitchen, all the while eyeballing me closely, as if she knew something was amiss.

  “You’re not happy,” she said, her voice a rattling husk of its former self, as if she’d just gone through a case of gin and two cartons of unfiltered Camels. (A bit of whimsy there. My mother doesn’t smoke. It’s perhaps the only vice she doesn’t have. Don’t get me started on the gin.)

  I plopped down at the kitchen table. “What makes you say I’m not happy?” I asked, putting on a brave face.

  “Your aura, my love. It’s positively gray.”

  “Oh.” I was too downhearted to even crack a joke. “Well, you’re wrong. I just thought I’d stop by and visit with my old madre. And my aura is just fine.”

  “Liar. And don’t call me old. Or madre.” She set a soup bowl down in the middle of the table. In the soup bowl sat her crystal ball. I guess the soup bowl prevented it from rolling away and starting a new life somewhere else with a normal person.

  “I’d rather have a bowl of peanuts,” I said. “Or snickerdoodles. You got any snickerdoodles?”

  “Hush.”

  She pulled a red bandanna out of the pocket of her housecoat and spread it over the crystal ball, as if maybe she thought Saruman might be sitting somewhere in Orthanc eavesdropping on our conversation with his handy Palantir. I told you my mother was nuts. Or I suppose it could have been me.

  “He likes you,” she said. “You think he doesn’t, but he does.”

  I fidgeted in my seat. “Who likes me?”

  She wadded up a Kleenex and crammed it up her nostril, daintily twirling it around. Then she pulled it out and poked it back up her sleeve before returning her attention to me.

  “Malcolm, if you’re going to pretend you don’t know why you’re here, we’ll both be wasting our time.”

  I slumped in my chair. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re here because you aren’t happy.”

  “You said that already.” />
  Halfway between a show of impatience and what appeared to be the urge to kick me in the nuts, she heaved a long, put-upon sigh. Then she coughed up a hoarse, mucous-laden crackle of laughter.

  “It isn’t easy, is it, my darling?”

  “What isn’t easy?”

  “Caring about someone other than yourself.”

  “I don’t—”

  She flapped me to silence. “Please stop disagreeing with me. It’s getting on my nerves.”

  “Sorry.”

  She lifted a corner of the bandanna and took a peek at her crystal ball. “Why do I see monkeys?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  She removed the bandanna completely and leaned forward, her nose almost touching the crystal ball.

  “Maybe I should get your glasses,” I offered.

  “Glasses don’t help you see into the beyond. It’s an inner-eye thing, darling. Now do be quiet.”

  She stared into the ball in silence for almost a minute. Just as I was getting antsy, she lifted her eyes to me. She was smiling.

  “You’re silly,” she said.

  That was the last thing I expected to hear. “Why am I silly?”

  “You’ve manufactured a problem that doesn’t exist. You dragged it into being with your own insecurities and your own lack of knowledge about the human heart.”

  “The human heart… you mean like mine?”

  “Yes. And his.”

  “His who?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I told you not to do that.”

  She started plucking the rollers out of her hair while leaning in once again to gaze into the stupid ball. This time she frowned as if she didn’t like what she saw at all.

  She snatched my hand off the table and gazed at my palm. When she was finished with that, she once again blew her nose into a Kleenex. Happily she released my hand before she did it.

  When that task was finished, she said, “Don’t.”

  I blinked my surprise. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t move out of your apartment. Tell me you’re not thinking about it.”