by Marc Acito
“Somefin’ conservative,” I mumble. “I thought maybe black.”
She rolls her eyes. “Black is for limo drivers and dead people.”
The third floor of Brooks Brothers has the Old World look of a private gentlemen’s club: cherry paneling, egg and dart molding, and a wooden chandelier with carved deer heads holding crystal lamps in their mouths. The saleswomen look like the Daughters of the American Revolution. The actual daughters.
So, as we ascend the winding, Colonial-style staircase to the fourth floor, I can’t help but notice the shapely pair of showgirl legs heading my way. As they approach I take in the snug fit of the skirt on the hips, the high-necked blouse accentuating rather than concealing the breasts, her frosted hair swirling like a meringue, obscuring her face.
“Excuse me,” I say, letting her pass.
The showgirl raises her head to acknowledge me, and my blood turns to ice.
It’s Dagmar. My ex-stepmonster.
“You!” the Terminator cries, her blood-red lipstick like a gash across her face. “Vaht are you doink here?”
I opt for outright denial, answering in Eddie’s jaunty cockney, “Beg your pardon?”
“You stole from me, you son uffa bitch,” she says, wagging a crooked finger in my face. Despite her Bond-Girl beauty, her hands are as gnarled as tree roots. “You ruined evertsing. It is because of you I hef to verk here.”
Please. It’s not my fault if no one wants to buy her creepy photographs of decapitated dolls and rotting meat.
“I don’t know whut you’re tawkin’ about.” I try to pass her but, like a bird of prey, she grabs my wrist, her talons digging into me. “Liar!”
Being a Manhattan kid, Lizzie doesn’t seem remotely fazed by the confrontation. And, being Lizzie, she’s not afraid to step in. “Eddie, who the hell is this?”
“I dunno,” I say, shaking free. “I’ve nevuh seen ’er before.”
“Dat is not true!” Dagmar shrieks. “You are a liar! And a tsief! And an azzhuuuuuuuuull!”
She accompanies this last little endearment with a decisive shove to my chest, sending me hurtling down the steps.
Twelve
Actually, I send myself hurtling down the steps. In my second display of stairway spontaneity in just over a week, I realize that the best way out of this situation is to incriminate Dagmar, so I put two years’ worth of stage combat to use and take a very convincing fall. Naturally, the manager comes running to my aid. When he learns that I am not only British MTV’s hottest new veejay but also a referral from a valued customer, he fires Dagmar on the spot. What follows is something akin to a Godzilla movie, with Brooks Brothers standing in for Tokyo. After a flurry of accusations, as well as the destruction of a rack holding camel-hair jackets and tartan vests, the scene ends with an unhinged Austrian being escorted from the building, frothing at the mouth and vowing revenge.
Okay, maybe she doesn’t froth, but that’s how I reenact it when I get together with my friends to go bowling, the sound of falling pins punctuating the action. I’m thrilled I have stories to tell them, for there is no audience I want to please more. Laughing with your best friends is like eating cake—you do it till your sides hurt. I just wish I could tell them everything. It doesn’t feel natural to keep secrets from them.
Bowling was Paula’s idea. “Never disdain mindless activities,” she says. “They are the only refuge for the brilliant and the only option for the ordinary.” If the sentiment sounds out of character, it’s because she’s been cast as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest and insists on living the role. “Artifice requires rigorous preparation,” she explains. “That is why politicians are so rarely young.”
She’s got a point. The preparation for my first gig as a stealth guest certainly has been rigorous—and terrifying. Chad messengers me packets of indecipherable annual reports and business prospectuses, then takes off for the Cayman Islands before I can get him to explain what the hell I’m looking at. And I can’t ask Natie for help because I don’t dare tell him how I got this stuff. As it is, he’s been looking at me funny ever since the shopping-phobia debacle. So it’s up to me to figure out how to be the Life of the Party for events thrown by Boring, Monotonous, and Drab, Inc.
In the absence of information, I choose to get hammered with my friends.
Ziba and I have just gone to the bar (she’s paying; I’m carrying) when a snack-sized Asian guy with spiky platinum hair flounces in. He’s cute—with a flat, friendly face like the “Have a Nice Day” smiley and a compact body like a Chinese acrobat—but he’s so gay, just looking at him makes my ass hurt.
Kelly spies him—which is easy to do because he’s wearing a buttercup yellow bowling shirt and purple velvet pants tucked into ankle boots—and the two of them spring into each other’s arms, shrieking like junior high girls. Kelly brings him over.
“You remember Ziba,” she says.
“Of course,” the strange little stranger says. “Akron will never be the same.”
He must be someone Kelly worked with this summer. Judging from the outfit, I’d guess it was in the costume department. He has a tiny wind chime hanging from his right ear.
“And this,” Kelly says, gesturing to me like I’m a museum display, “is Edward.”
“Well, helloh,” he says, licking me with his eyes. Then, leaning into me, he murmurs, “I’m hung.”
I flinch. “Excuse me?”
He places a hand on his hip. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s a name, not an adjective. Capital H.”
He winks.
I hate people who wink.
“I know,” he says, “it’s not enough to get airlifted out of Saigon, survive a refugee camp, and grow up gay in Texas. But then to find out you’ve got a name that sounds like a personal ad…It’s even worse with my last name.”
“What’s that?”
“Promise not to laugh,” he says, tilting his head coquettishly.
“I promise.”
“It’s Manh.”
“Your name is Hung Manh?”
“You promised not to laugh.” He covers his mouth as he giggles like a geisha, and I feel myself cringe. Swishy guys make me intensely uncomfortable, with their hinge-like wrists and hips, and their liberal use of double entendres and sexual innuendo. This is not who I want to be.
But the fact that he’s wearing a vintage bowling shirt with the name Mitch stitched on the breast pocket does inspire us to create appropriately trashy noms de boules to appear on the screens above the lanes. Paula, Willow, Ziba, and Kelly sign in as Hildy, Toots, Gladys, and Trixie; while Marcus, Natie, Doug, and I bowl as Tito, Zog, Porch, and Brawth.
The game grows more esoteric from there. When Lady Bracknell breaks a nail, she opts to sit out the game, stating, “Simple pleasures are often neither.” This decision prompts Willow to bowl as if she were Paula, all sashaying hips and twiddling fingers, like a hen trying to fly. From there, we each bowl as the person who preceded us: Marcus capturing Willow’s dazed, somnolent shuffle; Ziba performing a surprisingly accurate imitation of Marcus’s lupine tread; Natie doing an hysterical rendition of Ziba’s runway strut; and Kelly transforming herself into the homunculus that is Natie. Unfortunately, I land on my ass when I attempt to do a high kick as Kelly, jettisoning the ball into the neighboring lane. And I feel a little cheated when Hung imitates me; if his splashy portrayal is to be believed, I fall somewhere on the masculinity meter between Elton John and Bea Arthur.
The only person who doesn’t seem to get it is Doug. I’m sure he doesn’t welcome the prospect of bowling as Hung, a guy so nelly you can tell he’s gay from outer space. But Doug is also the only one of us who doesn’t view the game ironically. Through some kind of mystical groupthink, the rest of us arrived here tonight knowing it was a goof. But for Doug, bowling is a legitimate pastime, something he actually does with his other friends. When Willow compliments him on his bowling ability, Doug gives a hangdog Elvis thankyavurrymuch look, mumbling, “
I’ve always been good at sports.”
“Any activity that can be performed while imbibing spirits is not a sport,” says Lady Bracknell. “Bowling is just alcoholism with unfortunate footwear.”
Doug escapes to the bar to watch the Mets.
From there our game morphs into a version of charades as we bowl in the manner of state capitals, historical figures, movies, and plays, the latter causing a debate when Kelly chooses The Music Man.
“That’s not a play,” Marcus says.
“It is so,” replies Kelly. “It’s a musical.”
“Musicals are bourgeois entertainment for tourists,” Marcus says. “That’s not theater; that’s commerce.”
This probably isn’t the right thing to say to someone on her third callback for Starlight Express.
“Millions of people go to musicals,” Hung says. “They can’t all be wrong.”
“Yes, they can,” Marcus replies. “That’s how Reagan got elected.”
“What’s Reagan got to do with Starlight Express?”
Marcus flies at him with his crow black eyes, saying:
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
I recognize the speech. It’s Cassius from Julius Caesar, which would be a good role for Marcus. He, too, has a lean and hungry look. Every frustration Marcus has, all of his righteous indignation, flows into Shakespeare’s words like molten lava.
“My dear boy,” Paula says, “please refrain from this disputatious display.”
Marcus wheels around, eyeing her murderously. “Don’t call me boy.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” she says, dropping character. She gestures to the rest of us, suddenly Victorian again. “Why don’t we pause for libations and light refreshment?”
Marcus skulks off to the bar while Paula and Hung visit what Hung refers to—excruciatingly—as “the sandbox.” When they’re gone, Kelly bounces over to me as if she were about to lead a Fourth of July parade.
“So?” she says. “What do you think of Hung?”
What do I think of Hung? He’s gayer than a purse full of rainbows. He’s gayer than a Liza Minnelli concert on Fire Island. He’s gayer than figure skaters eating corn dogs.
“He’s okay,” I say, avoiding eye contact. Behind her I notice Willow lining up the bowling balls so that they look like a row of faces.
Kelly gives a conspiratorial glance at Ziba. “He likes you, y’know.”
“Ooooooh,” Willow says. “Eddie’s got a boyfriend.”
“What is this, seventh grade?” I pick up a ball to give a practice throw, but it just rolls into the gutter. “Shall I meet him at the bike racks after school?”
I don’t want to have this conversation. It’s not like I’ve got a problem with my sexuality; I just don’t want to be defined by a bunch of leather-clad loonies, drag queens, and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Gore Vidal famously said that homosexual is an adjective, not a noun, but I think of it more as a verb, something you do, not something you are. Unless, of course, you’re living during a plague, in which case I’m not homosexualing anything.
Even worse, I hear from Natie (aka the Daily Nudelman) that the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Bowers v. Hardwick that it’s okay for a cop to just barge in and arrest a man in his bedroom for having sex with another man, which is fascistic and medieval and terrifying, not to mention embarrassing that a gay defendant is named Hardwick.
I pick up another ball. “I’m just really busy,” I say. “Sandra’s got all these corporate events planned for me. Pretty soon I’ll have enough gigs that I can quit working for Irving.”
Kelly’s water-lily eyes grow murky. “Why would you do that?”
“Uh…because he’s a raging sociopath?”
“Of course he is,” Ziba says. “That’s what you want in an agent.”
I throw another gutter ball. This game sucks.
“You can’t quit,” Kelly says. “How’s that going to look for me?”
I look at her, her seashell skin hiding the roar of the ocean inside. “Kells, he made me scrape dog shit off his shoes.”
Willow drifts into the conversation. “Why don’t you just screw up so much he has to fire you? That’s what I do.”
“Good thinking,” says Natie. “That way you’re eligible for unemployment.”
“Really?” Willow asks. “I didn’t know that.”
While Natie outlines the finer points of defrauding the government, Ziba explains why feigning ineptitude won’t work: “No offense, darling, but I can’t imagine you could be any more incompetent than you already are. And we have to consider Kelly’s career.”
No, we don’t. Kelly’s career is doing great. Just last week she flew to Palm Beach to do an industrial show for Kraft Foods, playing a dancing wedge of cheese in an Evita medley entitled “Velveeta.”
“Promise me you won’t quit,” Kelly says. She bats her eyes, everyone’s idea of the girl you bring home to meet your mother.
I sigh. “I’ve got to get out of there.”
“Why don’t you say you’re sick?” she says. “I can tell Irving how worried I am about you, y’know, maybe cry in his office?”
“That would be a good way of showing your range,” Ziba says. “Maybe he’ll start sending you out for soap operas.”
“Do you think?”
No, no, no. For a sexually ambiguous young man to suddenly develop mysterious health problems leads naturally to one fatal assumption. And that makes you a pariah. Not to mention dead within a year, which would be really hard to fake.
There’s got to be another way.
In the Irving-infested days that follow, I resist the urge to leave at lunchtime and never come back, reminding myself that a promise is a promise, even though I’ve never really understood what the phrase means. What else would a promise be? A jelly doughnut? A wingback chair? A promise is a three-legged dog. Still, when Irving rips the phone out of the wall and aims for my head, I find myself wondering whether my mother was right. If I work for the Dark Overlord much longer, maybe I will end up with an aneurysm or a brain tumor. Or at least a concussion.
And that’s what gives me the idea.
A brain tumor—who could argue with that? Sure, when our receptionist had to take time off for her grandmother’s funeral, Irving made her bring a copy of the death certificate, but surely he’s not going to put up with an assistant who suddenly goes numb on one side.
I start off with small, telltale signs, wearing sunglasses inside because the light hurts my eyes, walking into walls, and giving him phone messages from people who didn’t call. (“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say Patti LuPone? I meant James Lapine.”) Then, claiming I hear bells, I start picking up phones when they don’t ring and (best of all) dropping coffee on Irving’s desk. It’s so much fun, I wish I’d gotten a brain tumor weeks ago.
Finally I shuffle into his office one day after lunch in what I hope is the manner of someone with a terminal illness.
Scene:
“Irving?” I say, my voice quavering. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Irving looks up, his eyes launching scud missiles.
“God, this is harder than I thought it would be,” I say, giving a nervous laugh.
I mean this, but not in the way it sounds. In my mind I hear Marian Seldes say, Stay in the moment. Use the discomfort.
“I’ve, uh, been to the doctor,” I say, swallowing. Swallowing’s good; it shows the character is uncomfortable, dry-mouthed. “I have a growth on my brain.” I heave a deep breath, hopefully approximating someone struggling to put on a brave face. That’s what good actors do—instead of playing the emotion, they struggle against it, the way you would in real life.
Edward, you’re not in the scene, Marian Seldes says. I see you watching yourself.
Damnit. I can’t help it. Every time
I act I want to yank my eyes out like Oedipus and put them on the other side of the room to see how I’m doing.
I had the same problem with my Chekhov scene, although it wasn’t entirely my fault, because I got assigned the opening of The Three Sisters, which is full of that clunky Chekhovian exposition (“As you know, you are my sister…”). What’s more, I couldn’t relate to any of those world-weary Russians in mourning for their lives. I mean, if you long to go to Moscow, then fucking go already.
I look at Irving, who doesn’t say anything, the maggot. “They think it may be from too much aspartame.”
He puts down his Fresca.
“I need to have…an operation.”
I feel myself pushing for an emotion. Why can’t I feel it? What’s wrong with me? I’m an uptight, airtight box, an empty space. I quiver my chin and hope for the best.
“So I’m sorry to say that I’m going to have to quit.”
Irving sinks back in his chair, momentarily at a loss for words. Then he bangs a fist on his desk, looks up at the ceiling, and addresses an unseen and fickle deity, crying, “Why, God?”
I’m shocked. And thrilled. This is more than I hoped for. Maybe I’m a better actor than I thought.
Irving continues to address the heavens, his palms outstretched, his voice rumbling like thunder. “Why does everything happen to ME?”
The rest of the office buys me a get-well card.
Once I am freed of Irving, Manhattan instantly becomes a happier place for me, the autumn in New York that Sinatra sings about, the one that transforms the slums to Mayfair. Dappled light dances among the trees, shimmering in the cranberry-, saffron-, and pumpkin-colored leaves, and I feel more motivated than ever to motivate these partygoers to my advantage, to live a life of mystery and intrigue. I turn my full attention to my first corporate event, a party for Beautonics®, Inc., a Midwest-based beauty-product company and the makers of the mousse that keeps my hair from looking like a tumbleweed.