by John Varley
"So you can read?" Moe said, raising one eyebrow. He made a mark on a form in front of him. "That's good. What is he, the fifth reader today?"
"Fourth," said Gideon Peppy from his end of the table. Dodger looked at the star in time to see him put his trademark lollipop back in his mouth.
"You're right," Larry said. "That first kid was lying, anybody could see that." He looked at Dodger and gestured at the script. "So read it, Kenny. Ya got two minutes."
Dodger looked at the script, which was three short scenes. He assumed they had been written just for this audition. He hoped so. They were terrible.
"Okay," he said. The stooges looked up from a whispered conference they had just begun, and Larry frowned again. He had a talent for frowning.
"Okay, what?"
"I'm ready now."
Larry's frown became a full glower. He pointed a stubby finger at Dodger, and leaned forward.
"I don't much like being lied to, kid. Don't give me this bushwah about not seeing the script, then expect me to believe you've boned it in less than a minute. You memorized it, why don't you just—"
"Let the kid read," Peppy said. Everyone shut up and looked at him quickly. He had his trademark yellow shoes propped up on the table, was leaning back in his chair staring at the ceiling. Larry seemed to taste something bad, but turned to face Dodger again.
"Okay. Debbie's gonna read the part of Sue. You'll be Sparky. Go." He pointed at Dodger, then swiveled in his chair and pointedly turned his back.
" 'Gosh, Sparky,' " Curly chanted, in a dull monotone. " 'I didn't think we'd see you again so soon.' "
" 'They can't get rid me so easily,' " Dodger said. He immediately hated the reading, but didn't know just what to do about it. They went through the scene without a hitch. By the end Curly had relented a little and actually put a little expression into her last two lines, but it was no good, and Dodger knew it. There was absolutely no clue as to the character of Sparky in the scene, there was nothing for him to work with. It was a joking skit lacking a punch line, though the cues for laughter were right there on the page: CUE LAUGH. Dodger knew they kept laughs in cans somewhere in television studios. He thought they'd be opening one heck of a lot of cans to sell this turkey.
But the one thing that did work, oddly enough, was a laugh.
* * *
SUE: The boy is so stupid! I can't believe he's your brother.
SPARKY: (laughs) You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your relatives off under the furniture.
* * *
Laughing on cue was something little Ken Valentine had learned early in his education, even before the memorization started. He learned it by being tickled until he thought he was going to be sick. ("It's one of the easiest lessons you'll learn, Dodger. Whenever you need to laugh, just think back to this.") It worked almost too well; when he needed to laugh, sometimes, he found himself feeling sick.
So he laughed, and produced a rather odd sound he'd been making since somewhere around his fifth birthday, a sound that caused his father's jaw to drop and led him to say, "Good God. I've raised Woody Woodpecker."
Later, when Dodger heard Woody's laugh, he compared it with his own and thought his father was wrong (though he didn't tell him that). The cartoon laugh was forced and artificial: Hah hah hah HAH hah. His own laugh sounded real enough... but not like anyone else's laugh, he had to admit that.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dodger saw Gideon Peppy look down. Was he smiling? He couldn't tell, and he thought it best not to look over there and find out.
"Okay," said Larry. "Second scene."
This one didn't go any better. Moe read the other part this time, and he was worse than Curly, if anything. The scene lumbered along until nearly the end, when Dodger hesitated.
"What'samatter, kid?" Larry rasped. "Forget your lines?"
"No, sir. It's just that..."
"Spit it out."
"Well, it's a bad line."
The stooges just stared at him. Dodger couldn't help it; he laughed again. This did not go over well with the trio, but what was he supposed to do? He imagined Larry with his hand over his eyes, Moe with his fingers in his ears, and Curly covering her mouth. He saw he had made no friends here.
"I guess this was a bad idea," he said, and started to get up.
"What's the matter with the line, Kenneth?" Gideon Peppy asked.
Dodger turned toward the star.
"Sir, the boy is supposed to be eight years old."
"So?"
"So, an eight-year-old doesn't talk like that."
"So? I can't believe what I'm hearing come out of your mouth."
"I'm not a normal eight-year-old, sir."
"So it would seem."
"I've had theatrical training, Mr. Peppy. Plus, I am eight, and none of my friends would talk like that." He brushed the script on the table with the back of his hand, contemptuously. "Who wrote this crap, anyway?"
"I wrote it.
Instantly, a line from At the Office, a comedy he'd read almost a year ago, sprang into his mind, and he knew it was his only chance.
"Suddenly I like it a lot more," he said.
Peppy was silent for a full ten seconds, while the stooges gaped. Then he took the lollipop from his mouth and pointed it at Dodger.
"This kid I like," he said. "This kid has big brass ones. He reminds me of me when I was his age." He shrugged. "You're right, it's crap. I dashed it off this morning, what the heck, all we gotta do is see can you remember your lines. The rest is personality. Read him the next scene."
* * *
INT. - NIGHT - THE HOLD OF THE PIRATE SHIP
SPARKY and his friend ELWOOD and the rest of his gang, are manacled to a long chain bolted to the ship's hull. SPARKY has the padlock in his hand and is trying to pick it.
ELWOOD
Hurry, Sparky! I think I hear the pirates coming!
SPARKY
Don't make me nervous. I think I've... there! It's open! Come on, guys, pull the chain through the rings. Quietly, quietly! Now, Basil, Robin, Elwood, you go up through the rear hatch. Boots, me and you and the rest will go to the front, where the guns are. Elwood, find the powder magazine and try to light a fuse. We're outnumbered, but maybe we can send this old bucket to Davy Jones!
* * *
SPARKY and his friends creep through the darkness and hurry up the ladder to...
EXT. - NIGHT - THE DECK
SPARKY pops out of the hatch, surprising the sleeping guard, who starts to rise. SPARKY hits him and takes his gun, turns to blow the lock off the armory door. The gang swarms in.
BOOTS
Come on, guys, grab a weapon! Let's go!
SPARKY
Watch out for Elwood! He's up there somewhere!
* * *
The pirate crew starts to boil out of the fo'c'sle, waving cutlasses and firing pistols. The Gang fights them off as Sparky hurries forward. BLUEBEARD the pirate captain steps from his cabin.
BLUEBEARD
So, Sparky, you've escaped again! Well, you'll not get away this time. (Draws his sword)
SPARKY
It's you who'll be walking the plank tonight, Captain!
* * *
He grabs a sword and the two fight. ELWOOD comes running from the magazine.
ELWOOD
The fuse is lit! Let's get out of here!
* * *
SPARKY runs the captain through, pulls out his sword.
SPARKY
There's an end to your career of looting and plundering, Captain! (Laughs) Get the point? Come on, guys! There's no time to waste! Over the side with you, and swim for your lives!
* * *
The gang leaps into the air as the ship explodes behind them.
* * *
" 'Hurry, Sparky. I think I hear the pirates coming.' "
Silence.
" 'Hurry, Sparky,' " Moe started again, but Larry, who didn't seem to like Dodger at all, interrupted.
/> " 'Samattah, kid? Forgot 'em again?"
"What's my motivation?" Dodger asked.
"Motivation?" Larry wanted to know. He looked baffled.
"Yes, my—"
"Motivation? Motivation?" Peppy asked, around his lollipop. "What's this motivation crap? Suddenly I don't like this kid so much. Your motivation is get loose and kill pirates. Capishe?"
"No, sir," Dodger said. "I mean, who is Sparky? I can't give a good reading unless I know a little about him." There was no response, so he hurried on. "Is he happy? I mean, does he enjoy his life? Or does he worry too much? Is he stupid? I mean, he got captured, didn't he? So... is he worried about the mistake he made? What is his attitude, is the main thing. Should I play him like Errol Flynn, or John Wayne, or the Eliminator?"
Peppy leaned forward and his lollipop stick rattled in his mouth as he talked.
"Sparky is a happy-go-lucky, smart little fuck, but not so smart he don't get outnumbered from time to time, you see what I mean? He is self-confident but not obnoxious about it. His troops like him, and so do the dames, people are alla time buying him drinks. He's a good boy to be with in a tough situation, 'cause nothing bad never happens to him for too damn long. He's the man with the charm but he don't have no big head about it. It ain't he's too stupid to know it, it's he's modest, see? Also trustworthy. Also helpful, brave, clean, and irrelevant. He don't kick his dog, he pulls down about forty-five gees a year, goes to the church of his choice, votes as many times as he can, always for the right people. He's a schlemiel, you hear what I'm saying? Errol Flynn, definitely Errol Flynn." He leaned forward even farther. "With maybe just a touch of Daffy Duck. Now can we read?"
Dodger was not acquainted with Daffy Duck, but stripped of the sarcasm, he thought he might be getting a picture of Sparky.
"There's a big pirate ship, just across the hall," he said.
"You want we should go read in there? Will that help you find your 'motivation'? That's where we'll be shooting this scene."
Oh, yeah? Dodger thought. I thought you dashed it off this morning.
"Could we have just a second?" he asked.
Peppy sat back and looked at the ceiling again.
"Take a second, take a second." He found Dodger again with his eyes. "I'll let you in on a secret. Only reason you're still here is most kids stink at this stuff. We get most of 'em out of here in thirty seconds, am I right? Tell him, Debbie, do I speak the truth here?" Debbie nodded, quickly. "I thought I saw something when you were reading that other crap. Now I'm not so sure. But I'm hardly ever wrong, so you get a second. Hell, two seconds. Find your motivation. Wake me up when you're ready." And he leaned back again.
Dodger closed his eyes and tried to find the key to the scene. "There's always a key," his father had said. "It may be a key to the whole play, or just to a scene. Hitchcock called it a McGuffin."
Well, there was the padlock, wasn't there? Maybe it wasn't a key, but a lock. If Sparky doesn't pick the lock there is no scene, just guys squatting in the dark.
He opened his eyes and looked down. He made his hand hold the lock, shaped his fingers around it, felt the cool metal. How did it look? Well, it was a little rusty. Everything metal on this ship was a little rusty. It was a great big, old-fashioned padlock, round, heavy, with a big keyhole in it. The wards inside would be big clunky things, iron bars meant to be moved by a thick skeleton key, that might be moved by a splinter of wood pried from the deck of a pirate ship.
He saw it in his hand. Felt the weight of it.
Now, how would Sparky pick a lock? He thought of people who squinted at a task like that, who bit down on the tips of their tongues. No way. Not Sparky. He's frowning, but one eyebrow is raised. He knows he can do this. He's confident, it's only going to be a matter of time, and part of his mind is already occupied with what he's going to do when he gets free. Dodger felt his shoulders rising a little, his elbows moving out from his sides. Jimmy Cagney? Just a little bit of that, but without the meanness. One side of his lip curled up. He was going to beat this damn lock, it didn't have a chance.
He started to work.
"Hurry, Sparky! I think I hear the pirates coming!"
That Elwood, Sparky thought. Always jumping at ghosts. Sparky had been listening, and he hadn't heard a thing. He shrugged it away.
"Don't make me nervous." He felt the rusty ward moving, moving just the tiniest bit. But the splinter wasn't very strong, it could break at any moment.
"I think I've..." With a satisfying clink the shackle popped up.
"There! It's open. Come on, guys, pull the chain through the rings. Don't let it rattle! Quietly! Quietly!"
(Dodger stood up in his chair.)
"Now, Basil! Robin! Elwood! You go up through the rear hatch." He gestured to his right. "Elwood, find the powder magazine and try to light a fuse." He watched his men hurry away in the darkness, then turned to the rest of them. "Boots, me and you and the rest will go up front, where the guns are. We're outnumbered, but maybe we can send this old bucket to Davy Jones, even if we have to go down with it!"
(Dodger stepped up onto the conference table and crept away, toward Gideon Peppy.)
Sparky carefully pushed up the hatch cover and looked through the crack. When he saw the sleeping guard he leaped out and popped him one in the jaw, then took his flintlock pistol as he fell. The gang swarmed out behind him.
"Come on, guys, grab a weapon!" said MoeBoots. "Let's go!"
Then the pirates were all over them. Sparky fired his pistol, then threw it in a pirate's face. He grabbed a sword and began slashing right and left, until suddenly there was the evil figure of Bluebeard, his longtime nemesis.
"So, Sparky, you've escaped again! Well, you'll not get away this time." He drew his sword and assumed the en garde position. Sparky stood straight, tossed his head, and saluted the captain with his sword. He laughed, defiantly.
"It's you who'll be walking the plank tonight, me bucko!"
They battled back and forth across the seething deck, slippery with blood. Their steel rang in the night, and flashed in the orange light of the torches. Suddenly there was a cry.
"The fuse is lit! Let's get out of here!"
Sparky, who had been toying with the captain, now lunged forward and thrust his blade through Bluebeard's vile black heart. The pirate fell, mortally wounded. Sparky planted his foot on the beribboned and lacy shirt, pulled his sword free.
"There's an end to your plunder, Captain!" He threw his head back and laughed, triumphantly. "Get the point?" Then he turned to his men, arms held high, and gestured firmly toward the stern.
"Come on, men!" he shouted. "There's no time to waste! Over the side with you, and swim for your lives!"
He pounded down the deck, saw the rail ahead of him, and leaped. He was falling, falling, the black sea below rushing up to meet him, and shit! It was a gray carpet!
Dodger just had time to tuck a little and try to roll, but his head still hit the floor with a loud thump.
He sat up and shook his head. There was a ringing sound in his ears. He visualized a ring of twittering bluebirds circling his head, and wondered if this was the Daffy Duck part. Then he looked up, to see four faces looming over him. Larry spoke first.
"Did you see that? Did you see what he did? Jesus, I thought he was going to run right into you, Mr. Peppy. Did you see that? He just jumped right over him. Right over him! Jesus!"
"The kid's crazy," Curly was saying. "I never saw anything like it."
"Kenneth," Peppy said, an island of calm. "Kid, look at me. Are you okay? Should I get a doctor?"
Dodger shook his head again.
"No, I'm all right."
Peppy took the lollipop out of his mouth and looked at it.
"Damn," he said. "I bit my candy in half."
* * *
There didn't seem to be any end to the damn place. After Dodger escaped from the audition, he realized he was still lost. Not only was he lost, but it was getting late. His hopes that hi
s father's audition had gone long were fading rapidly, and every corner he turned seemed to bring him back to a place he'd already seen before. Yet it didn't seem as if he were walking in circles.
When he felt a large hand on his shoulder he almost shouted aloud. He looked up into a narrow, frowning face.
"What's the matter, son?" the man drawled. "You look like you stumbled through a time warp."
You should talk, Dodger thought. They both stopped, and Dodger looked him over. It was a tall man, dressed anachronistically in baggy wool trousers, a gray coat and vest, and a white shirt. The only spot of color about him was a cloth strip knotted around his neck, under his collar. Dodger searched for the word, one he had underlined a few months ago. Necktie. And the shapeless hat perched on his head was a fedora.
He certainly wasn't the only oddly dressed person Dodger had seen in the corridors; this was a motion-picture studio. He'd seen red Indians in buckskins and yellow Chinamen in silk pajamas and black Hottentots in tuxedos. He'd seen green-and-purple extraterrestrials in ancient pressure suits. But they'd all had the look of costumes, somehow. This fellow looked as if he'd just stepped out of a time machine. He looked a little faded, yellowed, like an old photo in an album. He was in color, but it wasn't Technicolor.
"I guess I'm a little lost," he admitted. He was immediately appalled. He was never supposed to admit that. Luna was a strange place, as his father reminded him every time they played there. They had some odd ideas here, ideas that didn't necessarily make single parenting an easy thing. The child-welfare authorities, for instance, would have taken a dim view of Dodger's being left alone all day while his father auditioned. It didn't make much sense to Dodger. What did they expect? His father was a little short of cash right now and couldn't afford to hire a sitter—an idea which offended Dodger anyway. How did they expect a person to get parts, earn a living, put bread on the table if he couldn't look for work?
But if Dodger was picked up, lost, alone, he would surely be taken to the State School. Dodger had never seen this State School, but he had seen Oliver Twist, with Sir Alec Guinness as Fagin, and his father assured him the State School was pretty much like that.