by Marc Acito
“Well,” I say, “my professors think, and I agree, that my acting would benefit from taking a year off. Y’know, to get a little seasoning.”
“Seasoning? What are you, a steak?”
I sit up, bumping my head on the ceiling. “You see, this is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“Don’t start with me,” he says. “I know you got kicked out.”
And, just like that, my failure rushes into the room, throws on the lights, and shoves its nasty, dirty ass in my face. “Who told you that?”
“One of your teachers. Marian something.”
The thought of the grande dame of the finest drama school in the country talking with the chief financial officer of the nation’s foremost toxic-waste facility makes me cringe. “Did she also tell you I could reaudition next year?”
“Oh, for Chrissakes…”
“But—”
“Eddie, face facts. It’s over. You tried and you fai…It didn’t work out. Cut your losses and move on.”
“But next year—”
“There ain’t gonna be a next year. That’s just throwin’ good money after bad.”
Suddenly my whole body is on fire. “But you…you have to. It says so in the divorce agreement.” I throw off the covers.
“Fuck the divorce agreement. You wanna sue me again, go right ahead. You will lose. I gave in last time becuz I knew how much it meant to you, but there ain’t a judge around who’ll say I gotta continue payin’ for this nonsense. I’m done. It’s over. Finished.”
I pull my knees up to my chest, feeling defeated and exhausted before I’ve even gotten out of bed. He’s probably right. Besides, there’s no guarantee Juilliard will take me back, anyway.
Frailty, thy name is Edward.
“Listen, son,” he says, downshifting into a less hostile gear. “I know you’re disappointed, but, c’mon, dreams only come true in dreams.”
Al always says that.
“You’re a smart kid,” he says. “Why don’t you come home? You can live here rent-free, work at the plant, take some business classes at night.”
Sure, then bury me in the backyard, because I’ll already be dead. “I don’t think so, Pop.”
“Eddie, you’re twenty years old. It’s time to grow up.”
And at that moment, somewhere deep inside me, beneath the nasty-ass failure and the humiliation and the shame, a small, still voice whispers, No. Just like that. No. Not if growing up means becoming like my father, some miserable guy with a tie like a noose around his neck, sitting at a desk in an office, counting the minutes until he retires.
The thought stops me cold, like someone in a horror movie who realizes he’s already ingested the alien antibody or has turned into a zombie. I am a miserable guy with a tie like a noose around my neck, sitting at a desk in an office. How did this happen? In the space of a couple of months I’ve gone from being an actor to being someone who makes a living off of people who are doing what I should be doing myself.
“Don’t you want me to be happy?” I say.
Al groans.
“Listen, if you wanna think I’m a monster ’cuz I won’t let you throw your life away at some la-di-da acting school, fine. I’m just tryin’ to save you a lot of heartache and pain. You have no idea what it’s like to be poor. You never hadda stuff cardboard in your shoes when they wore out.”
Yeah, yeah, and walk ten miles to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.
“You think the world owes you something,” he says, “but I’ve got news for you—the world doesn’t give a shit about you or me or anyone else. The sooner you learn that the better.
“Happy?” He snorts. “Kid, you can’t afford it.”
I place the phone in its cradle and shut my eyes. Fuck him. He doesn’t understand me. Never has. Never will.
But I’ll show him. I’ll show everybody. And I’ll do it my way. I’ll get more gigs and save up my money and pay for college myself. I’ll be the most motivated party motivator there ever was.
I refuse, refuse, to turn out the lights on my life. Ever.
Nine
My first party motivator gig of the season is the Schlonsky bash mitzvah, or, as Sandra calls it, the Schlonsky BM. Sandra refers to all of the bash mitzvahs as BMs, listing them on the calendar behind her cluttered desk (Yohalem BM, Schwartz BM, Krumholz BM) as if she were charting bowel movements at a Florida retirement home. But the Schlonsky BM will be the biggest of them all. Inspired by his son’s Torah portion about Noah’s ark, Joel Schlonsky, aka “the Wizard of Wall Street,” has invited seven hundred of his closest friends for an overnight cruise on the SS Europa, an ocean liner so luxurious it makes the QE II look like a pontoon boat.
The Midtown pier terminals are as confusing as they are unfamiliar, and I just manage to get on board before the ship departs for its fifty-mile cruise to nowhere. From there I’m directed below to a windowless cell on something like Z deck, where my bathroom is so small I can shit, shower, and shave all at the same time. Then I report to rehearsal on the ship’s basketball court. That’s right, basketball court. The Europa also boasts a tennis court, two swimming pools, a theater, casino, disco, spa, and planetarium, all available this evening for the Schlonskys’ guests.
I arrive at the gym to find Sandra quivering on the sidelines like a hummingbird. With Parkinson’s. In the center court hover two of the male motivators—a pair of haircuts with hips named Hector and Javier—and a trio of busty comic-book superheroines named Courtenay, Kate, and Robyn. Sandra sees me and rushes over with the speed of someone walking on hot coals. “Edwid! HaveyouseenRex?”
“No.”
She raises her arms, addressing the heavens. “Why? Why? Whyyyy?”
I cross to the group. “What’s going on?”
“Rex missed the boat,” Hector says.
“What am I gonna do?” Sandra says, munching on a cuticle. “The New York Times is here. The New York Post. Women’s Wear Daily. I’m fucked. I’m totally fucked.”
She’s right. Zach, the only other motivator who emcees, is currently in Great Neck doing a BM.
“I swear to Gawd,” she says, “Rex had better be lying in a ditch somewhere or I will kick him until he’s dead.”
Hector steps forward. “I can do it.”
“You?” says Javier. “You can’t find your ass with two hands.”
“I never heard your mama complain.”
“Oh, yeah…?”
“Shaddap,” Sandra says. “Neither of you can do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because Deborah Schlonsky watched our video like this.” She demonstrates by putting her palm up to her face. “If either of you emcees, she’s gonna know I filled in with a backup. No, the only way this is gonna work is if she thinks I got somebody bettah.”
“But you don’t have anybody better,” says Courtenay.
“I’ve got Edwid.”
I gulp. “Me?”
Courtenay looks at me like I’m smelly cheese. “He’s not better.”
“She’s right,” I say. “I’m not better.”
“What about one of us?” Robyn says.
Sandra shakes her head. “Trust me, these people don’t want women or minorities telling ’em what to do. I know, I know, I don’t agree with it—I went to Sarah Lawrence, for Chrissakes—but that’s how it is. It’s gotta be Edwid. Now lemme think.” She points a finger at me like a prosecuting attorney. “Can you do an English accent?”
“Well, sure…”
“Great. You’re a veejay for British MTV. You’re in town filming promos and, because this is such a spectacular occasion, I managed to convince you to emcee this party. Got it?”
“Uh…okay.”
“That doesn’t sound British to me.”
“Uh…awlraight.”
“See, you’re a cinch. Now you just need a new name, something not so ethnic.”
The words tumble out of my mouth like change from a slot machine. “
How about Eddie Sanders?”
“PerfectIloveitnowcomewithme.”
In less than an hour I’m outfitted in the most MTV-looking duds we can find at the men’s store—a silver double-breasted sharkskin suit over a turquoise T-shirt with a pair of bright white bucks. It’s more Miami Vice than MTV, but it does make me feel snazzy. Not that I have much time to feel anything. Once I’m dressed, we rush up to the deck where the guests are gathered for the cocktail hour.
The crowd is a society page come to life: men in tuxedos ornamented by women in gowns that shine like jewels, a whole ship’s worth of Freds and Gingers. In keeping with the nautical theme, models dressed as mermaids float in the pool, while handsome waiters in sailor suits pass seafood appetizers to guests like Mayor Ed Koch, all to the accompaniment of a string quartet dressed as pirates. The perfectly temperate September night only contributes to the self-congratulatory sense that this is the place to be, that the gods of the air and sea bestow their blessings on this gathering.
Then there are the kids.
It seems irredeemably cruel that Jewish tradition requires thirteen-year-olds to make a public show of themselves, for it’s an age when few of us will ever be more homely: boys with just enough facial hair to look dirty; girls with torsos as thick as Russian wrestlers. Then there are the extremes: the awkward, female pituitary case slouching to appear shorter; the elfin midget boy who compensates for his height with sheer obnoxiousness. Taken individually, each one could break your heart with their gawky vulnerability. Together, they’re a band of marauding pygmies. Due to a lethal combination of limited supervision and unlimited funds, they swarm through the party as if the ship were their personal playground, brazenly un-intimidated by the swank surroundings. They make me feel like I’m back in the seventh grade myself, which, as an athletically inept, show-tune-loving reader of movie star biographies, was about as successful as you’d imagine.
My panic attack is interrupted as a helicopter approaches the ship, landing on the deck above with great gusts of wind and generating a chorus of chatter about the identity of the late arrival. I kind of hope it’s a celebrity, preferably someone who’ll recognize my rare genius and jump-start my career.
Instead, a man who looks like Santa Claus in a tuxedo steps out of the helicopter, and the crowd erupts in delight. “It’s Rich Whiteman! It’s Rich Whiteman!”
“Who’s Rich Whiteman?” I ask Sandra.
“I think he owns banks in Texas.”
I didn’t realize you could own a bank.
“He also wrote that book,” she says, “y’know, A Heapin’ Bowl of Values? He gives millions to the Republicans.”
Ho-ho-hum.
Dinner is announced, and suddenly my lungs feel like they’re in a trash compactor. How am I going to do this? I’m not effortlessly sexy and cool, like Rex. Or Doug. Oh, why can’t I be like Doug? (Well, for starters, I don’t have a dick so big it requires its own zip code.) I’m going to fail. Again. What was I thinking? Swallowing my panic, I wobble into the ballroom with all the resolve of lime Jell-O.
Then it hits me: Why can’t I be like Doug? What’s stopping me? These people don’t know who I am. When they look at me, they won’t see twenty years’ worth of accumulated neuroses. Or that I’m an actor, which is kind of the same thing. All they’ll see is Eddie Sanders, British MTV veejay.
I hope.
The Europa‘s ballroom rises three decks to a curved stained-glass ceiling. At one end of the dance floor stands the stage where the Miami Sound Machine will perform; at the other, a replica of Noah’s Ark with waving automaton animals on its deck. I quiver at the top of a sweeping two-story staircase while Sandra signals a deep-voiced actor dressed as a crustacean to do the offstage introduction:
“And now, your surprise emcee for the evening, straight from London, British MTV’s hottest veejay, Eddieeeeeee Sanders!”
There’s an audible “ooh” in the room, followed by an indecipherable applause. Will they love me or hate me? Am I to be the lion or the gladiator?
Then the spotlight hits me.
I’m temporarily blinded, and I grasp the brass handrail for support. Seven hundred people wait for me to say something, to do something, anything. What would Doug do? For that matter, what would I do—not me today, broken and battered on the rocks of Juilliard, but the high school me, the puckish Pied Piper who led the Play People Parade?
I would slide down the banister.
Taking a deep breath, I hop up on the rail for a two-story ride.
I hit the ground running, slipping across the dance floor and finally landing on my ass, which the drummer punctuates with a rim shot. The crowd laughs, but I can’t tell if it’s an oh-what-fun or an oh-what-an-asshole laugh. I hop up, brush off my shiny suit with what I hope is a swagger that says, Guess what I have in my pants?, and holler, “’Ello, America!”
Apparently Eddie Sanders is Cockney.
I hadn’t planned on it, but I suppose it makes sense. British MTV certainly wouldn’t hire John bloody Gielgud, now, would they? Luckily, I have an extensive working knowledge of My Fair Lady, Oliver!, and Sweeney Todd. I just hope I don’t sound like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Pop-pins.
“Blimey,” I say, surveying the surroundings. “Wot a pity the Schlonskys ’ave fallen on such ’ard times, eh?”
The crowd laughs and I instantly know that they’re mine. Oscar Hammerstein called the audience the “big black giant,” a living, breathing creature that every performer has to go out and slay. And that’s what you say when you succeed: I slayed ’em, I killed ’em, I knocked ’em dead. And when you fail, it’s the opposite: I died out there. But, after two years being trapped behind the invisible fourth wall, I realize that this giant doesn’t care whether I’m publicly private or emotionally transparent; it just wants to drink as much free booze as possible without throwing up.
That’s showbiz, baby.
I station myself at the base of the stairway like a tenor in the Ziegfeld Follies singing about the most beautiful girl in the world, then introduce the members of the family, who are escorted by the other motivators to a throbbing Latin beat. Depending on the guests’ abilities, my coworkers either dance with or around them; indeed, nine-year-old Shoshana struts like Tina Turner, which suggests someone actually gave her a cocktail during the cocktail hour. After the entrance of Joel and Deborah Schlonsky, who have the slick good looks of a game-show host and the model who gestures to the prizes, we turn our attention to a large screen above the ark, which shows a video parody of Gilligan’s Island:
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a boy named Dan,
And how he read his Torah portion,
Then became a man.
At the end of the video, the door to the ark opens and out pops Daniel, a miniature version of his father, as if he’d been shrunk in the laundry. It’s a great piece of theater, but having Mayor Koch hand him the key to the city is a bit much.
During the six-course dinner I hang out with the marauding pygmies, building a bond so that they’ll want to dance later, even though they are so uniformly awful it’s like they came off a production line in hell. I swear, if one more kid sucks the helium out of a balloon and tells me to follow the Yellow Brick Road I’m going to rip out his larynx. Once the music starts, however, my primary function is to shout, “Lemme hear you say, ‘Yeah!’” and get people to clap above their heads. I lead every conga line, judge every dance contest, and draggle across the floor with every elderly aunt from Boca. I bound, I cavort, I joke, I flirt, I wiggle, I strut. I do the Robot and the Moonwalk. I’m hip enough that the boys want to be me, sexy enough that the girls want to do me, and professional enough that the parents want to pay me.
And, for the first time since I did Godspell in high school, I feel totally, exhilaratingly alive.
After it’s over, I stand alone at the ship’s stern, staring out at an inky black sea. I’ve always wanted to stand alone at a ship’s stern staring out at an i
nky black sea. We’re about as far from the coastline as Wallingford is from Manhattan, but we might as well be in the middle of the ocean. A Yentl “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” moment.
My reverie is interrupted by the arrival of a seventh-grade girl.
“Okay, here’s what I wanna know,” she says. No “hi,” no “hello,” no “Do you mind me interrupting you while you stare out at an inky black sea?”
She’s a spindly puppet of a girl, but fashionable, with a permed, asymmetrical bob that drifts to one side like she’s standing downwind, and a vaguely galactic silver dress with sleeves like atomic-bomb clouds. She has unusually bushy eyebrows, which she wears parted in the middle.
“Were you really the emcee for Prince Andrew’s wedding to Fergie?”
I laugh. “No.”
She turns and shouts to her friends gathered on the deck overlooking ours, “I TOLDJA, MARCY. YOU OWE ME FIFTY BUCKS.” The girls giggle and scatter. My companion rolls her eyes. “They’re so immature. My friend Marcy? She still wets the bed.” She taps her hands on the railing, unsure of what to say next.
“So wot’s your name?” I ask.
“Lizzie Sniderman. You’ve probably heard of my dad, Shel Sniderman?” She pauses. “The producer?”
“Cahn’t say I ’ave.”
“Oh. Well, everyone thinks Aaron Spelling invented Jiggle TV, but it was really my dad. He did this show called Hollywood Vice Girls, about female cops who go undercover as prostitutes…?”
“Never seen it.”
“It was ahead of its time.”
“So you live in Los Angeles, do you?”
“I wish!” She collapses against the railing for emphasis. “I live here. With my mom. She’s a lawyer for a big accounting firm.” She mimes sticking her finger down her throat. “She’s all pissed becuz she wasn’t invited. But I’m the one who goes to Daniel’s school, not her. She doesn’t even know Daniel’s parents.” She pops up again. “But my dad? He says when I’m sixteen he’ll throw me as big a party as I want, which is way better than having a bat mitzvah, ’cuz you get just as many gifts and you don’t have to go to Hebrew school. You’ll emcee it, right?”