One
I am on the Flanagan deck,
where Colin and I are conducting a war with Mother Nature. With mid-June temps
edging into the 80s, Colin has decreed that not one ounce of stain strike that
deck in direct sunlight. This means a day-long dance in which I hopscotch from
one surface to the next, following the squares of shade meted out by house and
tree.
I am utterly behind schedule. The
clock edges past six and I am still on the upper deck, applying a second coat
that simply has to be finished today.
And Maddalena Hart calls to me. I foxtrot our thousand-bristle brush across the
final foot of plank, unscrew it from the broomstick and drop it into a bucket
of water. Then I race downstairs to my car, grab my evening clothes and retreat
to the back of the house, where the hillside offers some visual shelter.
That’s
the thing about working in the mountains: you can get away with stuff you
wouldn’t dream of doing in the city.
I remove every stitch, grab a hose, brace for the shock, and crank the spigot.
I give myself a thorough soaking, then I use my work shirt as a towel, drying
off as much as possible before I start in on the evening wear.
I am trousered, shirted and
ready to go when I pass by a large black pipe and hear the sound of descending
liquid. Uh-oh. This is the sound of a toilet flush. Looking up, I see a small
window with a light on.
I run up the steps to the
driveway, toss my work clothes in the back seat, and am just pulling out when I
see Mrs. Flanagan’s silver LeMans in the garage. I discover our 82-year-old
client at the kitchen window, and give her a friendly wave. She waves back,
wearing a smile that is equal parts flustered and amused.
A half hour later I am
NASCARring along the sweet swath of Interstate 280, the fog drifting over
Crystal Springs Reservoir like an army of cotton balls. My refrigerator-level
AC has finally deactivated my pores, so I drop in at the Burlingame rest stop
to assemble my dress shoes and tie. I pull into the Civic Center garage with
minutes to spare, sprint up the urine-smelling exit and circumnavigate City
Hall, the frigid municipal wind blow-drying my deck-hair. I arrive at the side
entrance of the War Memorial Opera House and give a wave to the spry,
ginger-haired gentleman who serves as my gatekeeper.
“Billy! Hi.”
“Mister Siskel. Go on through.
Delores is hosting tonight.”
Four of my favorite words.
With her cutesy black-Irish features, youthful figure and actual personality,
Delores forces me to keep an eye on my dirty-old-man alarm system. I cross the
south hallway to find her in the press room, talking to the usual vaguely
European assholes.
“Oh! I went to the Los
Angeles premiere last autumn. They have a new artistic director. Dennis
McClintock. Used to be with Glimmerglass?”
I have never heard one of
these industry whores actually talk about an opera. They chatter like a squad of thirteen-year-old girls in a
cafeteria. Delores has spotted me and is giving me one of her profoundly
genuine-seeming smiles.
“Mickey! Let me find your
ticket.” She shuffles her envelopes, poker-style, and hands one to me. “Oh, and
the info sheets are tucked into the programs.”
“Fantastic. Thanks.”
I head for the coffee and
add a ridiculous amount of cream to bring down the temperature. I know it’s
Mozart, and staying awake is not a problem, but I want Maddalena’s voice to
stream along my synapses on wide-open channels.
Delores leans over my
shoulder. “By the way, Mickey, you know you could have a second ticket, right?
It’s been five years – you’ve definitely passed the test!”
“To be honest, Delores, I am
surrounded by people all week. If I can go on pretending that those tightwads at San Francisco Opera just
won’t give me a second ticket, I may continue to use this as my personal
retreat.”
She swats me with her
envelopes. “No, Mister Siskel! You may not
have a second ticket, and please stop asking!”
“Thank you. I mean, curse you, you miserly press relations…
person!”
Her eyes light up, then she
looks closer and develops a concerned expression.
“Oh, um… You might want to
check your forehead.”
I head for the mirror over
the refreshment table and discover a slash of golden stain over my left temple.
I dip a napkin into my coffee and manage to scrub it away. The chimes go off in
the hallway, so I head out, whispering a thanks to Delores.
There is not a square inch
of the War Memorial that I do not adore. The gilded florets that look down on
the cavernous lobby. The red-carpeted steps that lead to the auditorium; the
scroungy standing-room-onlys shuffling for position behind the back row. The
Olympic-sized gold bricks that cover the north and south walls. The spiky
gardenia of chandelier that shuts off in a dazzling spiral.
My ticket says row L,
fantastically close. I wait next to my aisle seat until my row fills up, then
sit down and applaud the conductor, Patrick Summers, he of the silver mane and
ruddy complexion, who should probably be astride a horse in an Eastwood movie.
The burgundy curtain rises to the heavens.
Cosi fan tutte is the ultimate romantic farce. Rascally bachelor Don Alfonso scoffs
at his youngers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, as they brag on the beauty and
fidelity of their fiancées. He then concocts the juiciest of wagers: the two
will pretend to leave the country, then return in disguise to test the
faithfulness of the other guy’s
chick. Make this a mid-century American film, and the women are tempted but not
won; the assembled cast laughs and smiles for the final scene as someone plays
Cole Porter. In the hands of Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, things are
never that comfortable.
The folks at SFO have gone for a modernized
production. The purists hate these kind of things, but then I hate the purists.
The sneaky fiancés traditionally come back as Albanians, all facial hair and
Middle Eastern robes, but here they’re long-haired ‘70s-era rockers. The baritone
wears skin-tight leather pants, a copper-colored duster and no shirt, revealing
an impressive set of abs and an eagle tattooed across his chest. The supertitle
translator is in on the joke, as well. When one of the sopranos catches sight
of their weird-looking suitors, she asks, “Where are these guys from?
Haight-Ashbury?”
Speaking of sopranos, I have
found myself in a kind of sonic heaven. They have paired Maddalena with a
Dorabella whose mezzo is forceful and vibrant, a perfect match. Equipped with
Mozart’s harmonic magic – long passages of girl-on-girl singing – the two are
sending out chill after chill to give my spine the beat-down.
And then there’s Maddalena,
and since I do go on about her, perhaps I should give you a summary of her
talents. Her voice is huge, and powerful, but never forced. She manages to
maintain the buoyancy of the category known as lyric, showing a gymnastic agility that should be impossible for
someone with such a broad, buttery tone. Her delivery comes with impossible
ease, her tone spinning into the audience like a million tiny Frisbees. And her
top notes are absolutely secure, the dynamics of her phrasing always
thoughtfully dramatic. She also has that rare ability to appear as if she’s
simply talking – as if we should all
go around singing our conversations – when in fact she is launching pyrotechnic
displays of sound that mere mortals may only dream of.
What’s serving to intensify
my obsession is the present-day clothing. They have dressed her all in white –
befitting Fiordiligi’s chaste attitude – a flowing pantsuit with a long jacket
that flits here and there with her movements, revealing contours that one might
not expect from an opera singer. The generous knockers, yes, the stout ribcage
(an occupational hazard) – but the ass on this girl! Medium to generous, as
befits a diva, but possessed of a round shape and firmness that would give your
average construction worker hours of material. Throw in those oversized emerald
eyes, a head full of blonde Monroe ringlets, and those inflatable, flexible
lips that they emphasize for every album cover. By the time she arrives at the
big second-act aria, I’m already a mess, my heart on a platter, waiting to be
frappéd by her performance. But more on that later.
At the end of three hours, I
head downstairs for my pre-drive restroom stop, stopping at a portrait of
Renata Tebaldi from 1968 (in Andrea
Chenier) to run my thumb across her name plate. Maddalena has been compared
with her, and don’t go thinking that I disagree.
[Track 1]
On the drive home, I pop
Maddalena’s rendering of Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” into the cassette player
(it’s an old car), and then I cleanse my palate with some AC/DC. I picture the
modernized Ferrando and Guglielmo onstage with Angus and Malcolm Young, as
young opera fans flash their tits at the stage.
The drive is long but not
difficult. Mozart to me is like crystal meth, and also I have my nightscapes.
My favorite arrives at Stanford, between the satellite dish and the linear
accelerator. The surrounding land is a green vale, dotted here and there by
live oaks and cows, painted silver by three quarters of a moon.
Twenty miles later, I’m
approaching the evergreen mountains behind Saratoga, speckled with the lights
of houses belonging to the rich – who spend most of their daylight hours
denying that they’re rich at all. But this is a previous lifetime, and I’m just
passing through, into the long ascending stretches of Highway 9. The deer
population keeps me alert, chewing on the roadside grasses perilously close to
the asphalt.
The final directions are a
little complicated. Half mile past the fire station, first Ped Xing sign to
your right, through the gate with the combination lock. After that it’s a full
mile of downhill dirt and gravel, the rain channels beating up the suspension,
and finally the much-anticipated left-hand sweep that signals home base,
ancient orchards to the right, cabin of Trey the Fish to the left. I park
between two redwood trees, take a moment to breathe the mountain air, check out
the moonlight sliding through the trees in dull metallic streaks, then reach
back in for my program and make my way to the steps.
“Ahwuff!”
“Jesus!”
It’s Katie. She’s on all
fours in the entryway, and, yes, as my eyes adjust to the dark I see that she
is wearing a dog suit: floppy black ears, big round nose-cap, and a furry white
beagle onesie with built-in paws and a springy spike of tail.
“Pretty cute, Katie. Could
you maybe call next time so I don’t have a freakin’ heart attack?”
“Hawroof!” She shuffles
forward and leaps on me. I pat her on the head and she pants her approval, then
adopts a cartoony growl-voice. “Mrrickey bring bone? Katie want bone!”
“No Katie, I didn’t bring
you a bone. Now let’s get inside and…”
She snarls (as menacingly as
a four-foot-ten blonde can) then pads her way down to my crotch and snuffles
around like she’s hunting for kibble.
“Urrh! Bone!”
“Oh! Okay. I getcha.” I drop
my program on a filing cabinet, undo my belt and drop trou to reveal that yes,
the dog has given the man a bone. She gives my dick a few exploratory licks and
then engulfs it with a messy, dog-like blow job. I grab her floppy ears and
endeavor to get into the spirit of things.
“Katie, you sexy bitch!”
“Haroomph!”
After a minute she pulls
away, circles around and raises her tail into the air. “Rrowf!” she says, what
sounds like a canine command.
Ah,
thinks I. I believe she wants to do it
doggie-style. Access is a bit of a puzzle, until my initial butt-squeeze
reveals a pair of large buttons. I quickly undo them and pull up the panel,
revealing Katie’s round, plump cheeks. I dip a hand between them to find that
she is well-lubricated, then I insert a finger, enjoying the vision of her bare
pussy in the moonlight. My cock is about ready to launch itself right off my
pelvis, so I take it in hand and guide myself home. It’s a grand feeling, but
her tail keeps whacking me in the face.
An hour later, we’re back to
human form, entwined beneath a couch blanket as we enjoy a small summer fire. I
cannot usually tolerate such lengthy stretches of personal-space invasion, but
Katie fits into the curve of my frame as if she were designed for the purpose.
She also has this natural taste and smell that I never tire of, augmented by
spearmint gum, vanilla shampoo, milk-white skin, bubble-gum nipples and labia –
she is my candy girl. Too bad she’s so fucked up, but it’s really not her
fault.
“How was the drop-off?” I
ask.
“Oh God. Same old shit. I
thought I was getting away clean, but then he calls me and says that Sara needs
her Hannah Montana sweatshirt. ‘Just pull up,’ he says. ‘I’ll come to the car
and get it.’ Always trying to get us alone together, like I find him so fucking
irresistible I will me mesmerized by his manly presence and decide not to
divorce him. For seven years I told
that asshole we needed to work on our marriage, for seven years he didn’t do a
goddamn thing, but now, now that I’ve
left his sorry ass – now he
desperately wants me back. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so pissy. But
you shouldn’ta got me going.”
I stroke her hair, the way
she likes me to.
“Y’gotta dump on somebody. It may as well be me.”
She gives me a kiss.
“Thanks, honey.”
“As long as you’re bitching
about other men, I could listen for
hours! It’s just the price of admission. And what a show you put on tonight.”
“I’m a creative little
slut.”
“What do you say to popcorn
and a movie? They’re playing an old Hitchcock.”
She gives me that priceless,
impish smile, eyes the color of a spring sky. “Sounds fab, honey. You’re a great fuck, ya know?”
“Thanks.” I give her lips a
proper chewing and head off to the microwave.
I
have a life-long habit of dating brunettes, so it’s still a surprise to find
this golden-haired creature sitting on the edge of my bed, doing her best to
work out the morning tangles. She is a small sun over my nightstand.
The hour is another thing.
Ungodly. Fifteen minutes later I am re-awakened by a toothpaste kiss, and wet
hair that smells like peaches. I do my best to smile, and then I assemble
enough clothing to ward off hypothermia and walk her out to her car. The
morning is sharp and beautiful, lemon slices of sun cutting through the trees.
A pair of Steller’s jays wing in front of us to carry their squabbling to a
small madrone. I lean Katie against her car and do some more work on those
lips.
“So I was wondering… where
did you get that outfit?”
“Our church did a production
of ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.’”
“I was fucking Snoopy? Good
grief!”
“Yeahbaby.”
“This is Charles Schulz,
spinning in his grave.”
She bites her lip. “I better
go. Air kiss?”
I wrap my arms around her
back, lift her into the air and apply lips liberally, then I spin her a couple
of times so we can look like a scene from a screwball romantic comedy. Or Cosi fan tutte. Then she’s gone, up the
road, down the mountain, off to pick up the kids for church. I must be a good fuck, for all the trouble
she goes to. And I am profoundly impressed at her ability to compartmentalize
between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
I indulge in a couple more
hours of snoozing, but it’s not going to be more - I’ve got too many ideas
circling my bloodstream. My agenda begins with a long sit on the pot as I read
every shred of SFO’s program, including a seriously well-written piece on the
friendship between Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte.
Second is a long soak in my
most excellent clawfoot bathtub. I am a connoisseur of luxury soaps, and this
morning I am breaking in a French-milled Shea butter bar with the deeply sweet
aroma of linden blossoms. Over the next two weeks, this scent will suffuse the
entire cabin. I lather it between my hands, hold the suds to my nose and then
begin with my left foot before the water gets too high.
After that I’m raring to go,
so I keep the breakfast simple: two pieces of toast with butter and strawberry
preserves, followed by fresh-ground Ethopian coffee. I head to my writing
table, positioned before a window view of my twin redwoods, to the right a deep
hollow covered in madrone. To the left is the cabin of Trey the Fish, with yet
another topless woman flouncing on the deck. I make a mental note to thank him.
I position myself before a circle of books – a Mozart biography, Grove’s Book of Operas and the SFO
program (the cast page covered with written-in-the-dark scrawls) – set down a
spiral-bound notebook and pick up a cheap powder-blue stick pen. I don’t play
any music, because already I can hear Maddalena singing.
[Track 2]
If you were a singer in
Mozart’s company, you really couldn’t lose. He would write the role to
accentuate your strengths, and dance artfully around your flaws. Thus was
created one of the scariest roles in the canon: Fiordiligi of Cosi fan tutte, her stunning
rollercoaster vocal lines inspired by the awesome high and low registers of
Adriana Ferrarese.
It’s quite possible,
however, that that’s all she had.
Other than Fiordiligi and a few productions as Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adriana had a pretty lackluster career. This
came from two important shortcomings: she couldn’t act, and she couldn’t do
comedy.
Aha!
you say. (Go ahead – I’ll wait.) So why was Adriana so successful in the
decidedly farcical Cosi? Excellent
question, and here’s your answer: because Fiordiligi is the square peg, holding
firmly to her church-girl principles even as all around her are screwin’
around. This custom-crafted role came about either through good fortune or
because Adriana was sleeping with the librettist, da Ponte. The torridness of
the affair (owing largely to the married status of both participants)
doubtlessly contributed to the libretto’s conflicted views on love and
fidelity.
Regardless, given the way
that Mozart treats Fiordiligi as his own personal yo-yo, any normal soprano
should be forgiven for not being entirely up to the part. Fortunately, we’re
not talking about normal sopranos – we’re talking about Maddalena Hart. Hart’s
easy top notes are the stuff of legend, and her bottom end is not to be
disregarded. For recorded evidence, note the low sobbings at the denouements of
Boito’s “L’altra notte” (Mefistofele)
and Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” (Rusalka)
from Hart’s Favorite Arias album. The
depth of these passages has won the singer much-deserved comparisons to
Tebaldi.
[Track 3]
Naturally, it’s not just having the notes, it’s how the notes are
deployed. Many a singer has come to these clifftop drops and landed on the low
notes with all the tender sensitivity of a professional wrestler. Hart manages
to make the descent more deftly, like a hang glider, dipping her toes to the
precise mid-point of the pitch before catching the next updraft. Not once does
this seem like work, and not once does she lose her supremely intelligent sense
of dynamic flow. Hart often creates the impression that none of this is so
unusual, that these are just everyday conversations that decided to take wing.
Since my rough beginnings, I
have made major strides. I am now able to complete a review in a matter of one
longhand draft, one computer draft and a final read-through. Considering the
fact that I’m not getting paid a cent, this is good. I head for my blog, Operaville, paste in the article, and
then I go to the SFO site to shop for a photo. The images there are sharp, and
beautiful, and provocative. I always feel like I’m cheating, like I’m applying
Chanel No. 5 to a pig. This time I settle on something comic: rocker-dude
Ferrando hauling Fiordiligi over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her
mouth open in a gasp of surprise. Maddalena is so freakin’ gorgeous all the
time that it’s hard to catch her being cute.
I download the image to my desktop, upload it to the blogsite, add the IDs and
photo credit, and press the magic Publish button, committing my words to public
consumption.
I celebrate by preparing my
slow-cook goulash, an olio of red peppers, onions, cabbage and potatoes over a
bacon stock, and spice it with oregano, cayenne pepper and some pomegranate
molasses that I discovered in a high cabinet. While that’s brewing, I sit on my
porch in the twilight treeshade and light up a cigar – a low-priced maduro from
Honduras. I have set my computer to let out a chirp when anyone responds to my
blog, and am pleased, halfway through my smoke, when DD rings in with her first
comment. She’s like clockwork, that girl. I finish the cigar, consume a bowl of
the goulash with a dollop of sour cream, and respond to a text from Katie that
reads, simply, Arf! (I respond with U r 1 fine piece of tail.) Then I mix up
some mango nectar with yogurt (a trick I picked up from an Indian friend) and
park it next to the computer.
DevilDiva: You can’t swing a dead cat without
hitting a modernized opera these days. I take it from your review that this
doesn’t bother you?
Mickey: I always wanted to start a jazz band called
Swing a Dead Cat. But yes! As long as a modernization makes sense, I’m all for
it. Whenever possible, opera should be fun.
DD: But infidelity, illicit sex, the fickle ways of
love -–how can a modern audience possibility relate to these things?
M: Funny!
DD: Thank you for not responding “LOL.” I hate that
shit.
M: OMG!
DD: Smartass. But I’m afraid these progressive ideas
of yours will never do. Opera is nothing but an excuse for fusty 70-year-olds
to impress their friends and obtain valuable tax writeoffs. Fun is utterly out
of the question.
M: Sorry. I had fun, and I make no apologies. And
the thing with the rockers? Hilarious.
DD: Yes, the Haight-Ashbury joke. Audiences love
that stuff. It is a bit unsettling,
though, how often they laugh at the supertitle before you actually get to the
line. I once had a director who brought in students for dress rehearsal and
instructed them to laugh at the funny supertitles right when they appeared on
the screen, just so we could get used to it.
M: Good idea!
DD: But darling! Let’s talk about this segue from
the historical to the musical, from Ferrarese to the way Maddie handles those
intervals. You are a magician, my dear. You are a singer’s dream. If I ever get
a chance to sing Fiordiligi, I’m definitely using that hang-glider visual. Why
are you not writing for Opera News?
M: A late start. I am the Satchel Paige of opera
criticism. And alas! I turned down that scholarship to Julliard.
DD: Okay, I’ll go along with the mythmaking process.
“Siskel left a promising career in professional tennis to write a blog about
opera.”
M: Hey! I’ve got a pretty decent serve.
DD: Okay. But tell me, honestly. Is Signorina Hart really that good? Or are you just buying
into the hype?
M: Sometimes I read the stuff I have written about
her, and I think, Come on! You’re going too far. And then I see her again, I
hear her again, and I realize that I am not exaggerating at all. It’s this
combination of intelligence and vocal power. Intoxicating! I find myself
holding my breath when she’s singing. And you’ve read my other reviews – I’m
really not a gusher.
DD: No. You’re amazingly even-keeled. And fair. So,
did you discover anything new about her?
M: You’re really digging today.
DD: Hey, if you want to be the best, you study the
best.
M: Okay. You know how most opera costumes entirely
obscure the body? Décolletage excepted?
DD: God yes! When I’m doing Mozart, I feel like a
freakin’ parade float.
M: Modern dress, of course, is much more revealing,
much tighter to the silhouette. And this first-act pantsuit… It turns out that
Maddalena Hart, in addition to killer top notes, a beautiful passagio, and a
divine sense of phrasing, has an incredibly fine ass.
I sit there for a couple of minutes, and I’m getting
nothing. This is not unusual. Out here in the boonies, I am a prisoner of
ancient dial-up technology. Perhaps a squirrel is sitting on the wire. I have
half a thought that I got a little too saucy, but DD and I have “gone there”
before, so I can’t imagine she would take offense. I take a break to clean my
dishes. When I return, sure enough, she’s back.
DD: Sorry. Life intercedes. So why no mention of
derrieres in the review?
M: Do you not recall the phrase, “…her bottom end is
not to be disregarded”?
DD: That is so
bad, on so many levels.
M: I save the R-rated stuff just for you, honey.
DD: You do recall that this is a public forum we’re
chatting upon?
M: You kiddin’ me? I’m counting on this stuff to get
me some page-views. In fact, I think I’ll plug in a search tag for “Maddalena
Hart’s ass.”
DD: Yeah, operatic porn is big these days. And what
kind of sleazy readership will that
get you?
Cordell: Somebody call?
M: Cord! Good to hear from you.
DD: Time for Diva to Di-part, hon. But one last
thought: I think you’re in love with Maddalena Hart.
M: Well who isn’t?
C: I’m in love with her, and I’m as queer as a
three-headed monkey.
M: Cordell! Nice bon mot.
C: Thank you. I saw an Oscar Wilde play last night.
DD: Ciao, belli.
M: Buona notte, signorina divina.
C: Not break up this little love-huddle, but rocker
duds? They really did that?
M: You woulda loved the shirtless baritone.
C: Please! I’m strictly about the art. Can I get a
photo?
M: Ha! I’ll smuggle you one from the website.
C: God bless you, young hetero.
Two
The Olsen house lies near
the southern tip of Skyline Boulevard, at the far reaches of a well-organized
mountain community. After a confusing series of forks, I pull onto a hilltop
hosting three large homes under a canopy of live oak. The center house, rather
Frank-Lloyd-Wrightish with all its natural touches, is one that we did last
summer. I recall a terrifically hardy species of lichen that took forever to
pressure-wash, as well as impractical white carpeting that we had to cover with
adhesive plastic runners. But we must have done a good job, since we’re now
putting in stakes with their next-door neighbors.
The
Olsen estate is an assemblage of blue-gray boxes – pretty jarring next to the
chaparral, but they’ve done their best to soften it with modern sculptures and
fountains. My favorite is a jumble of steel rods at the entryway that seems to
represent a pair of figures in erotic embrace. I find Colin piling equipment
along the front steps, his early-Dylan hair bobbing and weaving as he moves.
“Ay! San Franciskel. Right
on time as usual. You are a marvel of punctuality, my friend. Ready to spend
the day on your hands and knees?”
“It’s my natural position.”
He joketh not. Our clients,
a geeky software exec and his intermittently sexy wife, are inordinately fond
of their deck. They insist on preserving it with an organic mineral-based stain
so benign that it must be reapplied once a year. It feels more like we’re
sautéing the deck in teriyaki sauce. But I’ll give them this: at twenty years
of age, their deck is in immaculate condition.
The process is one royal
pain in the tuckus. A glacial drying time means that we must wait three days between coats. It also means
that, after laying the stuff down, we have to crawl around wiping up the excess
with rags. The rags must then be deposited in buckets of water, lest they
inspire spontaneous combustion. You don’t even want to whisper the word “fire” in these parts. This very mountain range
has hosted three major blazes this year, and it’s only June.
Our starting point is the
back deck, which offers one of the best views I’ve ever seen: a steep grassy
downhill that disappears into mile after mile of evergreen mountains, followed
by the faint low buildings of Santa Cruz (the white-steepled Holy Cross Church)
and the Pacific Ocean. I take a mental note to take occasional viewing breaks;
in the throes of labor, it’s easy to forget.
I position my trolley – a
flat wooden board with wheels – set down my paint tray and fill it up with
stain. Then I screw my thousand-bristle brush onto my broomstick, dip it in and
start laying it down. Colin takes up shop at a walkway, three feet down, that
rings the edge of the deck. We’re separated by a long limestone bench, but
still in easy conversing distance. Colin is a painfully social creature, and
not about to pass up the opportunity for a chat.
“Have a good weekend?”
“Yes. I saw Maddalena.”
“Ah! Is this a new one?”
“This is a soprano.”
“Ah yes – the one you’re so
keen on.”
“That’s the one.”
“Did she fulfill your every
desire?”
“All that I could ask for
and not be arrested.”
“Well! Much as I appreciate
a fine voice, I hope you’re having occasional meetings with actual women.”
“Oh, I did. Katie popped in
on me.”
“Ah! The blonde midget.
Guerrilla booty call?”
“Dressed in a dog suit.”
Colin replies in the
long-voweled manner of the titillated Brit: “No-o-oh!”
I answer in the falsetto
voice adopted by every American boy who grew up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus. “She’s a saucy little bitch, she is!”
“Well I wish she would have
a word with my number three. Fantastic woman – absolutely passive in the sack.
May as well be inflatable.”
I stop, mid-dip. “You actually
call her ‘number three’?”
“Not to her face. But she knows she’s number three.”
“Really.”
“How’s a girl going to
improve unless she knows her ranking?”
“I wish I had your cojones.”
“Is that some sort of
Spanish dish?”
“Yes.”
Colin is a committed follower
of Burning Man, a group that assembles a small city in the Nevada desert each
summer for the purpose of burning a giant man. One of the offshoots of the
group’s libertarian leanings is a population that practices poly-amory –
committed couples who give each other permission to screw around. Colin refers
to these types as “polys,” and I cannot help but picture horny men and women
dressed as parrots. It’s clear that he means this expression dismissively,
which is pretty funny coming from a man who numbers his girlfriends. On the
other hand, my dismissal of Colin’s approach has less to do with principles
than laziness. I have a hard enough time managing a single booty call; I
wouldn’t know what to do with a harem.
“So this Katie sounds like
great fun, actually. Why don’t you get involved with her?”
“She’s too busy going
through a terrible divorce.”
“Ah, yes. Nuclear fallout.”
He works his way around the
corner, but returns to work on some side panels. It’s been a half hour, but he
takes up the conversation as if we haven’t missed a beat.
“Anyone else in the
picture?”
“I have this online pal,
DevilDiva, who claims that I’m in love with Maddalena Hart.”
“Ah, yes. You do wax poetic.
But that’s sheer fantasy, correct?”
“Yes. I do not believe in
the celebrity fuck.”
“I know who’s in love with you, mate.”
“Who?”
“This DevilDiva.”
“Really.”
“Classic female stratagem.
She accuses you of being in love with Maddalena Hart, because she wants you to
say, ‘Why of course not, DevilDiva – I’m in love with you.’”
He delivers this with a
swooning passion that truly cuts me up. I gotta say, it’s good to have a boss
with a sense of humor. But I’ve got no answer for his hypothesis.
“Well!” says Colin, happy to
have planted a seed. “I’d best fetch the rag-box. Hellish job, this, but we do
need the work, eh?”
I repeat his favorite
mantra. “It’s a slog.”
Colin abandons me at
lunchtime to go wrangle up some new clients. I have no complaints, because him dealing with the clients means I don’t have to deal with them. All I want
to do is work. Besides, as much as I enjoy our gossip sessions, Colin has a bad
habit of micromanaging.
It’s a warm day, and with no
one around I can take off my shirt and collect some rays. I slip into the
rhythm of the work, and am pleased when I reach that state where I can think
without thinking.
A few hours later, I have
reached the shaded steps near the garage, and am about to slip my T-shirt back
on when I hear a door. Misty Olsen stands on the top step in an elegant
ensemble: chocolate-brown dress, gold earrings, a copper-colored scarf. Misty
is the epitome of the mousy brunette, but like I said she can be unexpectedly
sexy. Something about my midway-dressed state puts a weird charge in the air.
She gives me an embarrassed smile.
“Hi. I’m meeting Mac for a
fundraiser in Los Gatos.”
“You look good,” I don’t
say.
“Oh,” I do say. “Have a good
time.”
“I hope you finish soon!
It’s got to be hot on that deck.”
“That’s all right – I’m in
the shade now.”
“Well. I brought you a Coke
from the garage. I’ll just leave it on the ledge here.”
“Oh. Thanks!”
“Well… Bye.”
“Have fun.”
Truth be told, I’m pretty
well-stocked. Colin once had a scary brush with heat stroke, so he’s pretty
insistent on throwing Gatorades at me. But still, as soon as Misty drives off,
I go for that Coke. Soda isn’t even all that good for hydration, but when
you’ve got one fresh from the fridge, little beads of sweat on the can – oh,
there’s nothing like it.
Clients of contractors
should understand this. I know you’re paying good money, and honestly there’s
no time that Colin and I aren’t shooting for the highest quality, regardless.
But with this single 50-cent Coke, Misty has purchased gratitude and loyalty,
and a good feeling that will enable me to work that much harder on her deck.
As it turns out, I need
every edge I can get, because the finishing slog is brutal. In the shade, the
deck drinks up very little of the stain, which means more wiping. But I’ve got
no choice; I’ve got to finish this first coat or our schedule will be all
screwed up.
Finally, as the sun lowers
over the ocean, I finish the last few planks. I take care to get all the rags
into the water-buckets, and I take a look down to discover that I am a complete
mess. So here I am stripping off again, a little spooked at Misty’s previous
entrance. I use the few remaining rags for an all-over wipedown, then I take my
softball gear out of my cleverly concealed duffel and get all suited up. I may
be utterly destroyed at all available joints and tendons, but it’s time to
play.
I cruise the familiar
downhills of Highway 9, locked in on a Giants game, the delicious roll of Jon
Miller’s baritone, Tim Lincecum casting his usual spell on opposing batters. I
arrive in time to get in a few warmup tosses and then we’re playing. Truth be
told, I have my best games when I am utterly exhausted. I think it’s because I
truly couldn’t give a shit, and there’s something about apathy that makes for
good softball. I am retired to second base these days, and the position suits
me. During twenty years at shortstop, my fondness for diving brought
fair-to-middling results – the throw to first is just too long. But at second
I’ve got all the time in the world, time to gather myself, get to my feet (or
at least my knees) and make that throw.
Tonight, however, I am
merely the sidekick. Doug, the Japanese fireplug with the surprisingly wide
range, is nabbing everything. He feeds me two perfect double-play balls in the
first three innings, and in the fifth we are offered the chance to achieve the
unthinkable. With men on first and second, the batter strokes a hard grounder
that brings Doug into the baseline. He tags the lead runner and flips it to me
at second. In the slow-mo nature of moments like this, I know immediately
what’s up: we’re going for a triple play. In his rush, however, Doug has tossed
the ball too far from the bag. Instead of stretching for it, I try to pull it
back toward me for the throw to first, and it drops to the dirt.
At the end of the inning, I
join Doug on his trot to the bench.
“Sorry, man. I could have
stretched for the double play, but I could see that look in your eyes.”
“Oh, you read me right.
Triple play or nothin’. You don’t get too many chances at greatness. And I
totally choked on that flip.”
“A little excitement is a
dangerous thing.”
We call our team the Bums,
and we too often play like it. At 47, I am a master strategist (at 47 I have to be), and it drives me crazy, the
stupid things we do on a regular basis. Like Marcus, our blowhard left fielder.
Good with the glove, impressive arm, no more brains than a sack of caramels.
Gets up with the bases loaded, one out, and rolls one down the line for an easy
third-to-first double play. Hit that ball anywhere else on the diamond and
you’ve got at least a run.
We lose by the usual
brutally small margin, and I walk with Doug to the parking lot.
“Kids still small? No one in
college yet?”
Doug chuckles. “The oldest
is four. The youngest is still in diapers.”
“Good. I’m tired of finding
out my friends’s kids are graduating Princeton.”
We walk a few feet in
silence. I take note of Doug’s new-style softball backpack, two bats pointing
skyward in their holsters. He looks like Clint Eastwood, riding into town with
a pair of shotguns. Doug is my only teammate anywhere near my age – maybe 38.
Thank God, because all these youngsters make me feel like an alien.
“How’re things with you?” he
says.
“Oh, same ol’. Lotsa work,
which is good. Couple of operas. Occasional bouts of sex.”
“Ha! You make it sound like
boxing. You oughta be a writer.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
I haven’t told Doug about
the blog. Hell, he’s the only one who knows about the opera thing at all. The
field lights blink off. I have to slow down while my eyes adjust.
“I have the feeling that
something extraordinary is about to happen. I have absolutely no basis for
this. But you get these… signals.”
“I get those. Until I choke
on the throw to second.”
“Ah, but what I’m
envisioning is even bigger than a triple play.”
“Nothing’s bigger than a
triple play.”
“Welp. Here’s my car. See ya
next week.”
“See ya. And for God’s sake,
clean off that nasty arm of yours.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Sixth inning. Grounder to my
right. I take a full-on dive. The ball ticks off the edge of my glove and heads
for center field. My throwing arm lands on a gravelly patch of dirt. In the dim
light of the parking lot, I touch my arm to my softball pants, leaving a
Rorschach blotch of red. I laugh. It’s good to be a guy. It’s good to bleed.
Three
For once, my opera-day
schedule is devoid of adventure. A half-day pressure wash above the Lexington
Reservoir, top of a freakin’ mountain, it’s hard to believe that places like
this exist. Much as I hate driving that dirt road to my cabin, I cannot resist
the chance to get myself clean. So I take my clawfoot bath, sunlight ticking in
through the madrones, doll myself up in the usual black suit, then pick out a
striped burgundy tie that Katie gave me.
So
I’m all moussed up and back on Interstate 280. It’s pretty hot outside, so I’ve
got the AC blasting away like a Wagnerian tenor. I slip in a Foo Fighters
cassette to give myself some audio contrast, and I’m feeling good.
The luxury of time allows me
to scout the curbside parking spaces, and I nab one just outside the Civic
Center garage, with a meter that stops nicely at 7 p.m. I arrive at the press
room a half hour before curtain, and I relish the chance to sit on a couch with
a coffee as I scour the program. This one’s got a vastly entertaining piece on
the life of Alexander Pushkin, although the language drifts into that
neo-Dickens that opera writers feel obligated to adopt.
Just across from me is a
television monitor showing the stage. They’ve given the production a full-size
title screen, a Russian village in the style of Chagall, Yevgeny and Tatyana
drifting overhead, accompanied by a flying cow and a violin. I’ve always
wondered if they use this monitor just to track the show, or if they force
late-arriving critics to sit here and watch the first act on TV. Fortunately, I
have yet to test the system.
I finish my coffee and
article and head for the refreshment table, where Delores has arrayed a fine
selection of crackers and spreadable cheeses. It’s good to be a critic. Delores
is occupied with her twenty-some guests, so I finish my munchies and slither
into the hall.
Tchaikovsky is such a mixed
blessing he’s almost a frappé. The orchestrations are lush, the vocal lines
soaring and graceful, but he’s certainly in no hurry to tell a story, and not
overly fond of quick tempos or jaunty rhythms. I saw Joan of Arc last year, and it literally put me to sleep. “How could
you possibly make Joan of Arc boring?” you ask. Mostly by following that
brilliant Russian tradition of keeping all the action strictly offstage. That
way, all the characters can gather to discuss it after-the-fact. It’s like skipping
the football game so you can get to the exciting post-game wrapup.
Pushkin was hardly innocent
of this himself ; his works are more dependent on social commentary and
descriptive details than plot. But somehow his verse novel inspired
Tchaikovsky’s most entertaining opera. Perhaps because the composer and his
co-librettist, Shilovsky, preserved much of Pushkin’s language and were happy
just to skim the cream from his story. They didn’t even call it an opera,
opting for the phrase “lyric scenes” and trusting that their audience had
already memorized the original novel.
The cast is certainly
promising. The title singer is Jesus Cortez, a Venezuelan baritone who came up
through SFO’s residency programs and is threatening to become the company’s
biggest find since Anna Netrebko. Playing Lensky, Yevgeny’s best pal, is Ramon
Vargas, a tenor who utterly knocked me out in last year’s Elixir of Love. That pure, lyric – dast I say Pavarottian – tone,
delivered with such ease, and a remarkable level of comfort on stage. With the
two of them, the papers are calling it “the world’s first Latino Tchaikovsky,”
but of course at the opera it’s just another night.
The most preposterous role
is Tatyana, a teenager who is rarely played by anyone under 30. It takes at least that long just to develop the
required vocal skills. But for once it’s not Maddalena’s singing that’s
impressing me so much as her acting. I’ll save the details for later, but her
handling of the Letter Scene is a revelation.
It’s a traditional
production, sometime in early 19th-century Russia. They’ve outfitted
her in a white country dress with floral patterns in blue. Her honey-blonde
hair hangs long down her back. She’s gorgeous, as usual.
At the end of the act, I’m
entirely wired on the performance. I’m loitering between the lobby and the
south hall when I find a woman in a beaded silver-blue dress advancing my way.
It’s Delores.
“Mickey! I’m so glad I found
you.” She hands me a blue envelope. “Sorry, have to run. Ta!”
She heads off to the lobby,
leaving me feeling like the straight man in a Neil Simon play. I open the
envelope to find a photographic note card portraying a collection of
pineapples, mangos and bananas in Mozartean gowns and waistcoats. The caption
reads Cosi fan tutti-frutti. Inside
is a handwritten note in a smooth cursive.
Would love to talk with you about your
writing. Please meet me at Jardiniere one hour after curtain.
Grazie – Maddie
I scan the walls, looking
for hidden cameras.
The rest of my evening is
its own rather enjoyable brand of hell. I need to take in enough to support a
reasonably intelligent review, but how is one bit of it going to penetrate my
brain when I know that I will soon be talking to Tatyana herself? (She turns
down Onegin, standing in her regal scarlet ball gown, nicely married to
royalty, every woman’s dream revenge for a first love scorned. And yet, she is
heartbroken.)
The worst part is that
post-performance hour. I understand all the cleanup, undressing, meetings with
friends and fans, but it leaves me with sixty absolutely unkillable minutes.
The ushers are eager to clear everybody out, so all I’m allowed is my visit
with Miss Tebaldi and the adjacent men’s room. Five minutes. After that, I
figure it’s a good idea to fetch my car and re-park it nearer to my final
destination. Ten minutes. Then I take a stroll around City Hall, but it’s
getting cold. I am downright euphoric to find a copy of the Bay Guardian, sitting alone in its box,
and I make my way to the bar to sit and read.
Jardiniere is like the most
elegant retro-‘60s Eichler living room you’ve ever seen. Entering the double
glass doors, you encounter a wide curve of staircase to your left. Straight
ahead is a horseshoe bar with cut-glass ornaments, and along a brick wall to
your far left you’ll find a series of long, straight couches with square
leather cushions, the seating enclaves marked off with armchairs and
glass-topped coffee tables.
The hostess, a young
brunette dressed in black pants and shirt, leads me to one of these couches,
nicely sheltered by the bottom of the staircase. Looking up, you can see
dining-room tables next to the upstairs railing, patrons peering over as if
there’s some kind of a show down here. A nice-looking redhead in the same black
uniform perches on an ottoman and takes my order, a lemon-drop martini. But no
appetizer. I’m hungry as hell, but I don’t think my stomach would be able to
handle it.
The place is pretty full,
but not packed. It’s hard to figure the demographics – locals? business types?
tourists? – but the clothing and hairstyles project a general air of wealth. I
open my paper and pretend to read, but the final fifteen minutes are horrible.
Every voice that jumps out of a conversation, every opening of a door yanks on
my strings. I feel like an actor doing his first Hamlet. I can’t pull this
off! They’ll never buy it. What’s my first line? Oh shit. Why couldn’t
Maddalena Hart remain in the comfortable realm of mythic figure? What the hell does she think she’s doing,
fraternizing with commoners?
She’s wearing blue jeans.
Black pumps, a gray suit jacket over a black blouse. And a gray fedora with a
silver band. She stands in the open area, looking around, and her gaze settles
on me. She smiles. Why the hell would Maddalena Hart know my face? Perhaps I’m
mistaken, perhaps I’ve got myself thinking that every woman who comes through
that door is a diva. But here she comes, and those enormous green eyes cannot
possibly belong to anyone else. I rise from the couch and I manage not to fall
on my ass. She smiles and takes my hand. I hope I’m not sweating. I hope my
breath doesn’t stink.
“Mickey!”
“Hi.” One word, two letters.
That’s all I’m going to venture.
“Excuse the film-noir hat. I
don’t exactly have a Britney Spears paparazzi problem, but we are near the opera house, and for some
reason the hat seems to throw them off.”
“Oh. Yes. I…” Three words.
I’m useless.
She nods toward the
armchair. “May I?”
Silly question. She can sit
wherever she wants. She can set fire to my hair. What am I, the armchair
police?
“Yes,” I say. “Please.”
Okay. That was pretty good.
She sits down and crosses
her legs. Her face is very large. That sounds odd, but I have heard that it’s
advantageous for performers to have large heads. I’m sitting across from an
album cover. Cripes. The waitress arrives and asks about a drink. Maddalena is
wearing pink fingernail polish. She dangles a hand over her knee. Her hand is
very white.
“Whatever he’s having.”
“Lemon-drop martini?”
“Ooh! Yes.”
The waitress leaves.
Maddalena studies me, as if I’m supposed to say something. She has heavy
eyelids, a sleepy look. Bedroom eyes. Lauren Bacall.
“Lemon-drop, Mickey? Isn’t
that a little gay?”
“Well, I’m… I guess… Sweet
tooth.” I’m pathetic.
She runs her left ring
finger along her lips, done up in a subtle pink, almost mauve. Her lips are
almost as pillowy as on the album covers, with those little crinkles at the
edges. Her speaking voice is husky, tired from the night’s work, though clearly
soprano, her accent that enunciated American that verges on European. No trace
of her native New York.
“God, Mickey. How do we get you past this celebrity thing? I know there’s a real person in there, and
I want to talk to him. But you’re all decoupaged into place, like I’m talking
to a Rodin. Would it help if I farted?”
“I’m… sorry?”
She leans forward and lowers
her voice. “Opera singers have tremendous control. It’s all in the diaphragm.
Backstage at the Met, we have competitions. Watch out for that Samuel Ramey. If
he’s had cabbage or Brussels sprouts, he has been known to fart the overture to
Giovanni.”
It’s that last image that
gets me. I chuckle.
“That’s it?” she says. “A
little snort? This is some pretty top-notch material, buddy.”
I attempt to sip from the
lemon-drop, and I realize what a precarious vessel is a martini glass. But the
sweet and the cold of it does me well.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…
you’re stupendous. You’re everything I…”
Maddalena places two fingers
to my lips. “No! Don’t even start. I
know exactly what you think of me, so… just… No!”
Maddalena Hart’s fingers on
my lips. I’m going to pass out. She sits back and gives me a sly smile, a
little wider on the right. She flicks her tongue along her front teeth. I’ve
heard that singers do this, always adjusting the equipment.
“I get more flattery than a
person should. There’s a certain pressure, having to answer to all that
admiration. As for tonight’s performance, I’d rather read about it on your
blog.”
The waitress arrives. Maddie
gives her lemon-drop an appraising sip.
“Mmm. The citrus feels good
on the throat. And, where was I? The blog! The level of understanding, so much more important than flattery. It’s like
this: I’ve been reworking Fiordiligi with my voice coach, Luigi Corazonne. I do
this every few years; it keeps my performances fresh. So I asked the staff at
SFO to gather all the reviews for me. I wanted to see what kind of impression I
was making.
“Most of them? Garbage.
Either critical for all the wrong reasons or favorable for all the wrong
reasons. Drives me insane. But way
down at the bottom I find a printout of your blog, and I am mesmerized. This
historical/critical hybrid, I’ve never seen anything like it. And all these
connections between Adriana and the role. We all know the basic story,
especially the loony tessitura, but I have never seen all the threads drawn
together like that. The affair with da Ponte. The custom-composing by Mozart,
Adriana’s lesser-known shortcomings.
“I felt like I had never
fully understood why the part was written that way. And your description of the
drops – the hang-glider, the toe-dipping. That was so affirming, because that’s
the flaw in almost every Fiordiligi I’ve ever seen. I was so determined not to
stomp those notes. Visualization is drastically important to me, and now I have
this lovely image to help me whenever I sing the part.
“I’ll tell you, Mickey, most
of the critics out there are so damn
sure that they know everything about opera, and never do they land on something like that. It’s all bluster. When
did they all give up on learning? I
didn’t. You didn’t. And no offense,
but I get the feeling that your operatic knowledge is anything but
encyclopedic. But maybe it’s the humility, the not knowing, that opens the way to discovery. Where did you come from, Mickey, and how do you come
up with this stuff?”
Maddie Hart the opera star
is tapping her finger into my chest. I cannot force a word past my mouth. I’m
an imposter. She immediately makes matters worse by taking off the fedora and
unpinning her hair. She shakes it out with a hand and lets it settle along her
shoulders, revealing subtle gradations of platinum, straw and sand. An elderly
woman in a black sequin gown creeps up from behind, program in hand.
“Ms. Hart? I hate to
interrupt, but you were fabulous tonight! Could I trouble you…?”
She hands Maddie the program
and a pen and waits as she signs the cover.
“Thank you so much!”
“Thank you for coming to the show.” The woman walks away, and Maddie turns
to me with a smile.
“You see what I mean about
the hat? It’s like an invisibility cloak. But opera singers have the most well-behaved
fans in the world. I would hate to
put up with those obnoxious movie fans. I asked you a question, young man!”
She slaps me on the knee,
another injury to my sense of reality. In doing so she leans forward, allowing
me a generous view of her cleavage.
“I’m sorry. What was the
question?”
She gives me a broad stage
laugh. I can see the little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
“Let me rephrase it. How did
you arrive at this unique approach to critiquing opera?”
“Oh. Well… I…” Hell. I was
just going to have to tell her the whole mediocre truth. It has to be some sort
of felony to perjure yourself to a diva. I take a deep breath.
“Absolute ignorance. I came
to opera late in life, with little musical knowledge. So I listened to
everything I could get my hands on, and I read everything I could. But still,
it wasn’t enough. I had to see it firsthand, but I couldn’t afford the tickets.
I have this friend who works at a community newspaper, and she said the local
performing groups were always offering her free tickets, whether she wrote
about them or not. With print media dying off, and arts coverage being hacked
to pieces, they’re desperate for any recognition they can dig up.
“So she told me I should
start a blog about opera, and request comps from the regional companies: Opera
San Jose, West Bay Opera, Mission Opera. If they gave me any trouble, she could
vouch for me. But they gave me no trouble at all. Fortysomething guy, corporate
demeanor, no problem.
“After that, however, came
the real puzzle: how was I supposed to write about these operas? I didn’t have
enough expertise to offer much of an opinion about the singers. Or the
production values, or the directing. So I covered my tracks with research, and
I discovered that almost every opera ever created has some fascinating
backstage story. So I connected that to my reviews, and I came up with
something that was, at the least, entertaining.
“The rest is in the details.
I had my newspaper friend hack up my stories until I became a decent writer. I
learned to upload photos, and made sure I got the credits right. I
double-checked the calendar and ticket info. Then I sent an email to the opera
to make sure they read it.
“A year later, I began to
find my reviews being quoted on singers’ websites, and on the season brochure
for West Bay Opera. I sent a query off to San Francisco Opera and was
absolutely shocked when they gave me tickets for the entire fall season. The
second production was Figaro, with
Maddalena Hart as the Countess. But that’s the story. I’m an imposter. I snuck
in through the back door. And now I’m sitting here talking to my favorite
singer.”
“Favorite singer?” she says.
“Or most famous singer?”
“Absolute favorite.” I’m
about to tell her the car story, but I decide that it would be too much. “How
far back in my blog did you read?”
She gives me an embarrassed
smile that takes off twenty years. (Perhaps embarrassment is a youthful
endeavor.)
“Okay. You got me. I
searched your blog for every reference to me, and I didn’t read about any other
singer. But I was pressed for time! Honestly!”
I raise an accusing finger.
“Aha! So you are a soprano.”
Now that our flaws are on
the table, the conversation rambles freely, and it’s easier to forget the
golden identity of the person with whom I am speaking. And I have always found
this to be true: find two people with a passion for opera, and the time melts
away. In this way, Maddalena Hart is everything I have wished for: an intensely
focused performer with a need to constantly poke and prod at the secret meanings
and nuances of her craft, to do anything to increase her understanding and
sharpen her skill. I try my best not to sound like I’m interviewing her, but I
do pick up some tidbits that are bound to pop up in my review.
Maddie and I close down the
bar, and we find that my car is parked directly behind hers. She opens her
door, tosses her bag and fedora inside, and turns to receive whatever farewell
I might offer. The lights of City Hall strike the low overcast and fall over
her in a soft mist, spelling out the brighter tresses of her hair, glimmering
in the corners of her eyes. Even if she were not Maddalena Hart, I would be in
love with her. I take her hand and bring it to my lips. Being a diva, she knows
how to accept this, with a smile and the subtlest dip of her knees.
“I can’t even tell you,” I
say. “So I won’t. Thank you for appreciating my appreciations.”
“Thank you, Mickey. I can’t
wait to read your…”
Maddie stops and looks down,
rubbing her eye as if a piece of dust has landed there. She looks up with tears
on her cheeks.
“Don’t ever stop writing,
Mickey. You do lovely work.”
She kisses me on the lips.
Then she gets in her car, gives me a wave and drives off. I wave back. Maybe
five minutes later, I remember to get in my car and start it up. I doubt very
much if I will have a problem staying awake.
On the lips. I wait until I can see the Stanford dish, and then I play “Song to
the Moon.”
Four
“Continue
straight for the next fourteen miles.”
There’s
no way I could have written that review last night. And this morning, I didn’t
really have the time.
“Continue
straight for the next thirteen point eight miles.”
But
between Maddie and Tchaikovsky and the Latino Brothers Karamazov, I have enough
raw material for a novella, and the first paragraph is pounding on my mental
front door like an angry landlord. Write
me! Write me!
“Continue
straight for the next thirteen point six miles.”
“Hey, Larry. Any chance you
can get this bee-acch to shut up?”
“Oh,
sorry.” He hits a button on his navigation screen. “After a while, you don’t
really hear it anymore. It’s just like being married – and you so totally didn’t hear that from me.”
Between the wife, two
daughters and what you might call an actively present mother-in-law, Larry is
gynecologically surrounded. But he’s got a fantastic degree of patience and a
wicked sense of humor to help him deal.
Despite
the over-persistent vocals, the navigator is a fascinating little gizmo. I
watch the little dot that is us as it crawls past the junction of I-280 and 92.
Me,
I’m a terrorist. I’ve got this gorgeous little nugget of plastic explosive
sitting in my pocket, next to my cell phone. It’ll only work if I find the
right target, and the right time. Larry’s not it. As father of two rambunctious
girls and builder of Silicon Valley startups, he’s got way too much on his
plate to keep track of my musical obsessions. We are alike in so many ways, but
we are outfitted with vastly different lives. I leave the explosive where it
lies, and I keep the conversation light.
“How’s
Calypto?”
“Pretty
good. Still in the development stages. But our investment capital is
super-solid, and I got a nice deal on the new facilities.”
Larry’s
sort of a CFO, although his companies are never quite large enough for him to
cop to the title. Gotta love the names. The first was InSync, one letter away
from a boy band. Next was Expedion, three letters away from an online travel
site. The new one, Calypto, sounds like a foot fungus suffered by Harry
Belafonte. But I shouldn’t make fun. I’m the one who gets the logo golf shirts
when the companies get sold.
Carla and Linda are in the
back seat, maintaining a heavy chatter. The subject, as usual, is education. It
seems like every one of their kids is headed for college, so they’ve become
experts on the new generation of SAT scores, the balancing of tuition costs
with scholarship offers, the all-important question of How far away? and the more important question of Why didn’t we have our kids further apart?
“Oh!
The campus. No kidding – it was actually named one of the top ten best-looking
campuses in the country. Gorgeous.
And I really do think she’ll prefer going to a smaller school.”
“Still
playing ball?” asks Larry.
“Amazingly
enough. All these young punks tryin’ to push me out, but they didn’t count on
my craft and guile.”
Larry
laughs. “Sounds a lot like Silicon Valley. Oh, geez. I better reactivate the
bee-acch.”
He
presses a button and gets immediate results.
“Turn
right, Sneath Road exit, two point four miles.”
“Well,
at least she’s got a new song.”
We’re
into the North Peninsula – Colma, Daly City, South San Francisco – about
two-thirds along my opera commute and deep into Cemetery Central, where the
dead outnumber the living. We swing through the arched gates of the military
cemetery and find infinite rows of white crosses – enough to fill a stadium.
Our arrival, as usual, finds the place in rare form, fresh flowers everywhere,
small American flags planted at five-foot intervals. It’s not really our choice
– Mom’s birthday just happens to be May 31 – but it’s nice that the place
always looks so festive.
We
take a left and spiral up the hill to the cemetery’s central feature, an
enormous flagpole surrounded by commanders, privates and sergeants. Her stone
is modest and horizontal, etched with the words Grace M., wife of LCDR Harold J. Siskel. It’s funny that she’s
lodged in such a boys’ club, but she certainly put in enough time as a Navy
wife to qualify.
After
sixteen years, we have all developed our rituals. I brush away the grass
clippings that have fallen into the engraved letters, then pull out any roots
invading the edges. Carla manages to find one of the military-issue flower
holders – a metal cone attached to a stake – plants it into the lawn and works
an arrangement of roses. They come from her house and Linda’s house,
descendants of the bushes from my mother’s garden. I would leave the house late
in the evening and use my car key to cut off a blossom for my date. My
favorites were orange with swirls of yellow; they smelled like citrus and
vanilla. A year after she died, my father discovered an enormous purple iris in
the center of the garden. “Don’t know where that crazy thing came from,” he
said, but of course we both knew where it came from. My mom had planted it the
previous spring, even as the cancer moved from her colon to her liver.
Sixteen
years later, we are beyond much need for reminiscing, much more apt to sit
around Mom’s name and talk about the kids, the jobs, the A’s, the Giants, our
much more entertaining cousins – sort of the same stuff we would be telling her
about, anyway. In California, it’s second nature to steal ideas from other
cultures, and in this my Scots-Irish clan is very Latino, very Dia de los
Muertos.
A
few minutes later, we have entered our quiet phase – each of us, perhaps,
trying to bring up an image of her face, wondering what she would have looked
like if she had attained the old age she so richly deserved, and trying to
recall what life was like before we learned how to pronounce the word
“metastasize.” Linda retells a piece of the family liturgy, how she took a walk
on Mom’s beloved beach, the day of her death, and found that someone had
written the name Grace in the sand. I
follow with one of my own, Mom’s habit of pointing out her favorite women to Dad
and saying, “If I die before you, you can marry her.” One of those women was Sharon, who eventually became our
stepmother. How we decided that the siblings should meet every year on Mom’s
birthday, and visit her gravesite. And then it gets quiet again. I shuffle a
hand into my pocket and pull out my grenade.
“Last
night, I had a date with Maddalena Hart.”
My
principal target is Linda, she who retains an innocence that can break your
heart. She lets out a gasp (God bless her) and looks at me with wide eyes.
“Oh
my God! Isn’t she that opera singer? What do you mean ‘a date’? You mean you
got to meet her?”
“She
asked me to meet her at a bar after the performance. We talked for three hours.”
My
next respondent is big sister Carla, who is most up-to-date on my opera life.
“Wow! That’s like… Wow! Were you nervous?”
“I
was pathetic!”
“Was
she nice?” asks Linda.
“Nicer
than I could have dreamed.”
I
realize that this level of celebrity gossip is too good not to make use of, but
my bragging has left me feeling a little tawdry. I already miss the sense of
anticipation, the lump of explosive that I have now squandered.
“Hey!”
says Larry. “I think I saw her on PBS once. She’s kind of a babe!”
“Oh
Larry!” I protest. “Maddalena is such an amazing artist that I would never even
notice such a thing!”
And
now we all laugh. Because siblings know better. And now I feel less tawdry.
We
head across the freeway for lunch and pie at Baker’s Square, and by the time I
get home I’m beat. That lead paragraph is still parked on my brainstep, ringing
the bell like a Jehovah’s Witness with a quota. I, however, am too tired to
lift a finger, so I take a swan dive onto the bed and I don’t get up.
Is
there anything worse than the overlong evening nap? When you get up it’s dark outside.
At first you assume that you’ve landed somewhere deep in the night. You feel
this awful regret over the loss of time, and then you realize that it’s eight
o’clock and you have an entire Saturday night in front of you. Then you hear
the sound of a car pulling down the dirt road and stopping at the end of the
drive. And then, for a long time, nothing.
I
stumble from the bed, fully clothed, and peer out the window. Katie’s out
there, but why hasn’t she knocked? In the faint light from her dashboard, I can
see that she has buried her face in her hands. I make my way outside and cross
the front yard, redwood twigs snapping under my bare toes.
When
she sees me coming she waves me off, as if she wants me to go back to the house
and pretend I’ve seen nothing. Yeah, right. I open her door and kneel on the
ground so I can pull her to my shoulder. She doesn’t look like she’s been
crying for long, but the moment she pulls the key from the ignition, it all
comes out.
“It’s
okay.”
“No
it’s not,” she sobs.
“I mean
it’s okay to cry.”
So
she does. This may sound odd, but there’s are few things more beautiful than a
crying woman. Because this is real,
this is what matters. I suppose this is one reason that I love opera. All that
raw emotion.
Five
minutes later, I grab her weekend bags and head for the living room, where she
gives me the full account. Katie has landed herself in a nice little torture
chamber. Given no choice but to move out of her house (she mentions police
visitations, implies abuse), she moved in with her sister’s family. This means
Katie and her two daughters stuffed into a single room, this means imposing on
a sister with her own children to raise – but this is the only way she’ll be
able to get the teaching degree, and be able to support the family on her own.
This afternoon, as I was dining with my sibs, Katie’s sister was giving her the
dreaded speech: “You need to make plans
for moving out.”
Katie
sits on my couch, nursing her nose with a Kleenex. “I can’t stand being in that
house! I can’t breathe, I feel so bad – but what else can I do? I have to think
of my girls.”
I
have no answers, but that’s not my job. I’m the safe harbor, the weekend
retreat. I toss a Duraflame into the fireplace and light it up.
“Have
you eaten? Can I make you something?”
She
waves a hand. “I had some McDonald’s. But I brought some brownie mix. Can you
make me some brownies?”
“Sure.”
I pour some red wine and hand her the remote.
“Make
sure you undercook them by a couple minutes. I like them nice and gooey. And bring
me the mixing spoon. I want to lick the leftover.”
She
gets into this bossy mode sometimes. But that’s okay. She spends every day on a
carpet of eggshells, so I don’t mind her roughing me up. Besides, I’m still
pretty fuzzy from my nap, so clear instructions are helpful. Amazingly, I have
everything the brownie mix demands – one egg, cup of milk, baking powder. I pop
the tray into the oven, then I run a finger through the mixing bowl and lick it
off. Yowza!
We
spend the next hour consuming the entire tray, along with a full bottle of Cab.
Katie’s feeling good, and kissing my ear. I warned her about that. It drives me
insane, and should only be undertaken with serious intentions.
“Mickey?
I want you to make it all go away. I want you to destroy me.”
She
pulls my hand inside her shirt. She’s a nipple girl, and can sometimes reach
orgasm with nothing else. Between red wine, luscious brownies and Katie’s tits,
all thoughts of Maddalena Hart and that first paragraph have escaped my mind.
Now it’s my turn to be bossy.
“Go
to my bedroom, take off all of your clothes, but don’t get on the bed just yet.
I’ll be right in.”
“Oh-kay!” She hops up and strips, leaving a
trail of laundry as she crosses the room.
I
race outside to the car and dig around until I find a brand-new dropcloth. When
I return to the bedroom, Katie is seated on a chair, wearing not a stitch, legs
daintily crossed. I open the plastic packaging, unfold the dropcloth and spread
it over the bed.
“Lie
down, honey – face to the mattress.”
She
squeals and takes her position, the plastic crinkling beneath her.
“Now
close your eyes and don’t open them until… Well, you’ll know when.”
I
dash away to the kitchen, where I pour an entire quart of olive oil into a pot
and warm it to the temperature of a hot tub. Then I take the pot to the bedroom
and slowly empty its contents over Katie.
“Oh
my God!” she moans. “That is so… That
is so…”
I
strip off and saddle her butt so that I may embark on a full-body massage,
working every muscle from head to toe. I manage to keep this going for a half
hour, as Katie maintains a rumbling moan beneath me. My muscles are getting a
little sore, but I don’t care. My cock becomes so rigid that I can no longer
ignore its pleas, so I insert myself into Katie’s pussy as I continue to
massage her back. I didn’t actually think I could do this. The inside/outside
rubdown has an immediate effect on Katie, whose moans are growing in pitch and
frequency.
After
a few minutes, I get another idea and run outside, erection bobbing like a
diving board, to dig up a box of rubber gloves. Katie is mightily curious about
my disappearance, but it helps that she’s halfway to a coma. I pull her hips
until that gorgeous white bubble-butt is pointed skyward, and insert one, two,
then three fingers into her pussy, her breathing working into an excited pant.
Then I pull on a glove and insert a finger into her anus. She tightens up,
putting some impressive pressure on my second knuckle, but then I put my
ungloved hand back to work on her pussy, and soon she’s accepting my multiple
intrusions with glee. I’m a freakin’ gynecologist, and a minute later Katie is
bucking.
She
collapses, my hands still inside of her – but I’m not done. The word was, after
all, “destroyed.” I pull a butt plug from my nightstand – a beginner’s model,
three inches long – and work it into her asshole. Then I collect some oil from
her calf, slather up my dick and re-enter her pussy. After all the attention,
she’s hot as a sauna, and I have to stop for a second before I go spurting out
all the fun. From behind, I can fuck her in standard doggy fashion as my pubic
bone pushes against the butt plug, sending both pistons in and out of her at
once. She starts ramming her ass back against me, slamming the headboard with
both hands and screaming all manner of high-pitched, unintelligible filth.
That’s what I like about the woods. Nobody hears. Except for Trey the Fish,
who’s probably shocked that a 47-year-old gets this much action.
Katie
comes violently, then yells at me to keep going, and thirty seconds later is
coming again, letting out a series of glissandos that would make Maddalena
proud.
I
can take no more. I pull out, stand up on the bed and jerk off as Katie waves
her much-abused ass at me. I shout as loudly as I please and send sprays of
semen over her back. Then I collapse next to her and rub the whole messy
vinaigrette into her skin.
“Destroyed?”
She
turns, eyes wide with energy. “Y-yes.”
“I’m
going to pour you a bath, honey.”
“Mickey?”
When I look at her again,
she’s crying, but I think I know what she’s trying to say.
“You’re gonna be okay,
honey. Just hang in there.”
I kiss her, fill the tub
with hot water and bubble bath, then I carry her from the bed and settle her
into the water, like a baby at baptism.
The straw-colored sun at my
bedside. Fifteen minutes later, she’s back, fully dressed, damp hair, ready for
church. I walk her out. She looks tired. Destroyed. I give her a kiss and say,
“The next step. That’s where you keep your focus. Just get to the next step.”
“What is the next step?”
“Pick up your kids, take
them to church. And don’t let them blackmail you.”
“Right. Thanks for last
night. It was a nice trip.”
I kiss her again and watch
as she drives away, raising a parade of dust. I would tell her that I love her
– because I’ve been where she is, because I understand. But I won’t.
My third wake-up comes
early: ten o’clock. The lead paragraph is back, knocking at my cerebellum like
a Girl Scout with a cart full of cookies. Still, I’m going to insist on the
ritual. I have some new soap that I’m dying to open. French-milled with Shea
butter and mango butter. It lathers
up in a yellow cream, with a ripe tropical smell. I raise my hands to my nose
and take it in.
Twenty minutes later, I’m at
my writing table. Across the way, Trey the Fish is setting up for a party. He’s
an international spear fisherman. No kidding. I went to one of his barbecues
and found myself chewing on a zebra-stripe manta ray from New Zealand. But even
exotic grilling and topless women will not stay me from my appointed rounds.
[Track 4]
I first learned the immortal
Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny
Onegin through recordings. I had little idea of the text, or the context,
but I loved the passion of its vocal lines, the uplifting breeze-like
woodwinds, the life-transforming back-and-forth of the character’s monodrama.
Which is why my first
encounter with an onstage incarnation was so unsettling. The regal music was
there, as were the dramatic vocal lines, but the supertitles stripped away all
the mystery. Basically, you had a teenage country girl attempting to write a
crush letter to her hunky new neighbor, and tormenting herself with a
night-long oscillation. “OhmiGOD! What do I do? I mean, like, if I tell him and
then he doesn’t like me, that would
be like a totally wicked bummer! Does he love me? Does he not love me? Argh!”
The biggest news about SFO’s
production is Maddalena Hart’s innovative approach to this scene. Hart manages
to take Tatyana’s irritating indecisions and paint them with a tennis-match
conviction – as if every flip-flop is, in fact, a solid, committed step in the
advancement of her argument. She does this by delivering each new flight with a
distinct attitude, expression or movement, helping us to step inside the actual
crazymaking mindset of a teenage girl, for whom each new thought marks an
entirely new direction in the course of her life, on par with the discovery of
Relativity. The ride is vastly entertaining, and brings a palette of new and
vivid colors to Tchaikovsky’s legendary scene.
I had a chance to talk with
Ms. Hart post-performance, and she confirmed my impression. Every few years,
she refashions her roles, going back to square one and seeking new revelations
about her characters. With the Letter Scene, she began with the translation,
imagining how each sentence would feel, mapping out her reactions, and using
certain keywords as guideposts. She wanted to be sure not to have the same
exact feeling or reaction more than once. Hart also credits stage manager David
Cox, who designed a choreography of movements to go with these reactions.
And now for the history. In
1877, as Tchaikovsky embarked upon the project, his sympathies stood firmly
with Tatyana, whose first confession of love meets with a heartbreaking failure.
Although Onegin handles the situation with sufficient tact – saying that he can
offer nothing more than a brother’s love – he later proves himself a crass,
shallow schmuck.
During the composition of
the Letter Scene, Tchaikovsky found himself in the exact position of his title
character. He received a crush letter from a former pupil, Antonina Milyukova,
a young woman he barely remembered. His dismissal was much more brusque than
Onegin’s, including an instruction for Antonina to “quell her feelings.” After
completing the Letter Scene, however, he reconsidered his rude behavior and
decided to make up for it by marrying
the girl.
This was a huge mistake.
Tchaikovsky quickly discovered that he was repelled by physical contact with a
woman, and celebrated his honeymoon by hurling himself into the Moscow River.
The anticipated pneumonia failed to arrive, so instead the couple separated.
Tchaikovsky paid her off at the rate of 6,000 rubles a year. Despite all of
this trauma, he finished Yevgeny Onegin
in the span of eight months.
Despite bearing three
children by another man, Antonina refused a divorce. Sixteen years after the
wedding, Tchaikovsky was caught flirting with a duke’s nephew. A court of
colleagues issued a secret missive ordering the composer to kill himself. His
death, soon after, was blamed on the ingestion of tainted water. More recent
biographers conclude that he was, in fact, carrying out the court’s
instructions. Antonina outlived him by 24 years, drifting from one asylum to
the next.
The creation of the Pathetique Symphony, one of the most
melancholy pieces of music ever written, is often credited to Tchaikovsky’s
lifelong struggle with his homosexuality. The piece debuted in 1893, nine days
before his death.
I
upload a photo of Maddalena in her Letter Scene nightclothes, wearing one of
her well-designed expressions: utter radiance, her eyes raised to the light as
she considers the possibility that Onegin’s feelings might be equal to hers.
Her hair looks like spun gold. I press Publish, and I take a beer out to the
porch. I’m surprised to find that it’s only midafternoon. Trey’s party is going
strong, a dozen rascally young guys, a trio of girls, drinking and laughing and
eating God-knows-what from God-knows-where. The road is packed with vehicles;
I’m not sure if I could get out of here if I wanted to. Then I remember that I
forgot to set my computer’s response-alarm. When I go back in to check, DD’s
already there. That girl really needs to get a life.
DevilDiva: Um… Hello? Am I reading this right? You
met Maddalena Hart?
Mickey: Yeah, I did.
DD: All right, you’ve earned your coolness points
for playing it low-key. But please! A few details for the groundlings?
M: She liked my Cosi
review, so she asked me out for a drink. I’m still a little in shock. Three
hours! We talked for three hours.
DD: Did you sleep with her?
M: OMG! You little drama queen. Are you trying to
create a viral rumor?
DD: Couldn’t hurt your numbers, honey. So what was
she like?
M: I told
you I didn’t sleep with her!
DD: I sorta meant, ya know, personality-wise.
M: Doh! Charming as all hell. So much as I imagined
her that it sort of surprised me.
DD: You were surprised by the lack of surprise.
M: Exactamente.
DD: Looks?
M: Well, no one’s as perfect in person as they are
on stage. But I rather like the little flaws. Less goddess-like, more human.
Those eyes, though. Wow.
Cordell: I find that her eyes are even better in person.
DD: Jesus! Am I the only one who hasn’t met her?
C: I’m a voice coach, honey. I meet ‘em all. But I
wanted to thank you, Mickey, for that story about Tchaikovsky. I’ve heard
little bits of it, but I’ve never seen it spelled out in such a beautifully
tragic arc. And the secret suicide command! Is that new?
M: Yes, it is. It was discovered in somebody’s
archive, and reported in a biography a couple years ago. Of course, it might
also have to do with the increasing openness about homosexuality.
C: Amen for that. Meanwhile, so glad you got to meet
Maddie! She is a delight. A bit
mad-making sometimes, how neurotic she gets about the details – but that’s what
makes her the best.
DD: Yes, and now I have an additional reason for
disliking her. She’s met the legendary Mickey Siskel.
C: Maddalena is not our only green-eyed soprano. Mee-ow!
M: I’ll meet with either of you, anytime. I shan’t
forget my roots, now that I’m hangin’ with the stars.
DD: You got a deal.
C: Come up to Seattle and see me sometime.
M: Thank you, Mae West.
I have successfully given
birth to the lead paragraph, and everything that follows, and once the gang
leaves the comments page I realize what a weekend I have had, and how exhausted
I am. I dial up a baseball game – one that I have no intention of watching –
and I collapse on the couch.
Hours later, I awake, and I
realize that I’ve done it again: the accursed evening nap. It’s dark outside, a
whisper of sunset still in the heavens, and Trey’s party is down to a handful
of smokers, a string quartet of glowing orange tips. I notice that the baseball
game has become a soccer match, and that my computer is running its
screen-saver, a labyrinth of colored pipes building and unbuilding itself on a
gray background. I roam across the room, hit the space bar to clear the
plumbing, then click the refresh button on my comments page.
Mad Huntress: You are a poet. I have never heard the
story of Antonina and Pyotr told so well. It is excruciatingly sad. I’m certain
that Ms. Hart had a splendid time speaking with you.
Five
One thing I love about our
decking business: I’m always discovering little enclaves of civilization that I
never dreamed existed. Today I stand atop a sunny hillside next to Summit Road,
ten miles east of Highway 17. Looking at the uninhabited mountains to my north,
it’s easy for me to imagine that I’m in the middle of nowhere. Fly a chopper
over that ridge, however, and you will find the million-plus inhabitants of
Silicon Valley.
Colin
is a magnet for UK clients. Today’s deck belongs to a Welsh couple, high-tech
immigrants who seem intent on re-creating their agricultural homeland. The
fenced-off slope beneath the deck plays host to two horses, four goats, and a
quartet of peafowl – two cocks, two hens. As I’m off-loading the
pressure-washer, I look across the property to find one of the cocks perched on
the branch of a pine tree, thirty feet off the ground. I never knew that
peacocks could get to such heights. Nor that they produced piercing calls that
could eat your brains out. I’ll bet that’s real
popular with the neighbors.
Colin’s
in a hurry to get to another client, so he sets me up with Gatorade and beef
jerky and heads out. The message is clear: I am to stay on-site with my
survival rations and get this deck cleaned up.
The
job presents immediate obstacles. A small balcony means that I have to set up
the washer just below, start up the engine, then climb a ladder, wand in hand,
and hop over the railing. Performing the precarious trip back down, I recall
Colin’s favorite cautionary: “Now don’t go breaking your neck. That would be horrible for business.”
The
shaded balcony railings are thick with moss, and already my clothes have
developed a layer of pond scum. Things get worse on the main deck, where the
cracks are filled up with dog fur and dirt from wintertime puddles. Running the
stream into the cracks, I am blasting myself with black muck.
Fortunately,
it’s a sunny day, so it’s simple enough to ignore my evolution into a street
urchin and enjoy the vista. I am forever delighted by the landscapes that
accompany my work, and I laugh when I think of all those years I wasted in
cubicles.
With
the assistance of Colin’s generous provisions, I am able to work straight
through, and am about to turn the corner onto the last run of railings when I
come face-to-face with an enormous peacock. He has perched on the railings and
raised his tail feathers in a regal display.
I
am half-dazzled and half-petrified. Understanding this posture as a mating
ritual, I fear that the peacock has taken me for a rival, or worse, a potential
partner. The majority of my concern lands on that long beak, which looks like
it could be razor-sharp. This was not
in the company guidebook.
This
calls for a jerky break. I back away, switch off the engine and head for the
cooler. There’s still a little ice in the water, and that first swallow of red-punch
Gatorade is a fantastic sensation. I grab a strip of jerky and plop myself on
the grass next to the driveway. The two goats – ugly, ugly creatures in the
grand British tradition – stand at the fence watching me with soulless eyes,
stretching their necks between the wires to nibble on the grass.
Once
I am sated, I look back toward the deck to find the peacock still there,
feathers at attention. I extend my break a little further by going to my car
and checking my cell phone. There’s a message. The voice is young, female and
nervous.
“Umm…
Geez. Hi, Mickey? This is Delores, from San Francisco Opera? We’ve got a bit of
a crisis here, and we were hoping you could help us out. Could you possibly
meet Ms. Hart this evening? Um, tell you what. If the answer is yes – and I really hope it is – just give me a time
and location and I’ll look it up. I’m really sorry for intruding like this, but
I figured at the least I shouldn’t go around handing out your phone number.
Well. Thanks.”
This
is the single most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. Give her my Social
Security number, my credit cards, my left kidney, what the hell do I care? I
text her back: Coffee Society, Stevens
Creek Blvd., Cupertino, 6 p.m.
The
response is immediate: Thanks. I
return the cell to its nest and I look to the railing. Goddamn peacock still in
place. Goddamn peacock about to meet up with 2600 pounds per inch.
I’m
screwed. I’ve got the station wagon packed and ready to go, but it’s 5:30,
which leaves me barely enough time to get to the coffeehouse. Problem being,
I’m a mess, and I’ve got no change of clothes. Perhaps I should just show up
naked. I take off my Wellies (the Brit term for galoshes), revealing a distinct
line across my calf between mucked-up and not-mucked-up. Well, screw it. If
this is truly a crisis, she’ll have to take me as-is.
The
Coffee Society is a habit that goes back to my previous incarnation. It’s part
of the Oaks Center, one of the few survivors from the early-‘70s trend of
landscaped outdoor malls. The buildings are modestly proportioned, topped with
clay-tile roofs, marked by beamed overhangs, pebbled walkways and fountains.
And oaks, lots of oaks. The specimens out front are old, sprawling live oaks
that give the place the feel of a private university.
The
Society resides in an airy space with angled, open-beam ceilings that give it
the feel of a mountain chalet. The south and west walls are made entirely of
glass, providing a good view across Stevens Creek Boulevard to De Anza
Community College. The college supplies the place with lots of students and a
young, funky energy to go with the laptop techies and the groups of immigrants
who gather for boisterous chats. The college also provides artworks, currently
a collection of airbrushed celebrity portraits that includes a gigantic
painting of Heath Ledger as The Joker.
Although
my cabin has turned me into something of a recluse, I still come here to fight
off cases of lead-block (the inability to come up with that all-important first
paragraph) or to digest a Sunday paper. I also have the occasional need for a
really well-done cappuccino, and the Society is one of the last places in the
Valley to get one. My favorite source is Caleb, a slim twentysomething baristo
with curly blond hair and a ready supply of rhetorical jibes. When I arrive
looking like a kelp monster, I’m an easy target.
“Didn’t
I make it clear that this establishment has a dress code?”
It’s
easier to play along than to explain myself. I adopt an abject expression.
“I’m
very sorry, sir. But a group of ruffians made off with our washing machine.”
“Russians
you say? Damn those Russians! I suppose you’ll want your regular?”
I
slam the counter. “Yes! And I want it now! And a banana!”
Caleb
mutters into his T-shirt as if he’s wearing a wire. “Suspect is ordering a
banana.”
I
hand him my money and switch to the pick-up counter so I can watch the
production. He pours the standard rosetta figure in the foam, but first he
mixes cocoa powder into the espresso, which gives the image an extra sharpness.
The effect is almost a little Van Goghish.
“I’m
waiting for a diva,” I say, attempting nonchalance.
“Aren’t
we all?” He hands me my drink and dashes off to the next customer. I head for
the patio, a railed-off area out front. I’m barely four sips along when I spy a
silver Lexus with Tatyana at the wheel. Since when are prima donnas on time?
And
how does one greet a superstar when one is covered head-to-toe in algae and dog
fur? The quandary is eliminated when Maddie virtually trots to the patio and lassos
me with a hug.
“Hi
Mickey.”
“Hi
Maddie. I’m sort of… I’m filthy.”
“Don’t
care.” She’s not letting me go. This makes me oddly uncomfortable. All I can
see is that pile of lush hair, the straw, the wheat, the honey. I think she’s
afraid to let me see her face. Is she crying? Do I have another Katie on my
hands? I hope to God Caleb’s watching this.
“I’m
sorry,” she says. “All I was sure of was that I needed to find Mickey and give
him a hug.”
“That’s
okay. Can I ask…?”
She
finally pulls back so I can see her face. No redness, no sign of tears, but a
tightness in her features, a pinched anxiety.
“No.
I can’t. Can we go for a walk somewhere? I need to walk.”
“Sure.”
I give a longing glance to my half-finished cappuccino. Maddalena Hart fits her
fingers into mine, and I lead her across the street to Memorial Park.
The
park is a magnet for waterfowl, particularly Canadian geese. The resultant glut
of fecal matter necessitates a chemical treatment that turns the water hunter
green. We walk the asphalt path that circles the pond. I seem to be
compensating for Maddie’s silence by relating a rambling story about
duckherding.
“I
just didn’t think that Mama and her kids should be wandering around next to an
intersection, so I decide I’m the freakin’ Duck Whisperer and I start walking
them back toward the pond. We’re halfway across the field – and I’m feeling
like I need some really tiny cowboys on the backs of dachshunds – when some
five-year-old kicks a soccer ball at them. I coulda wrung his little neck. And
then finally, when I get them to the pond, this big old mallard comes out and
pecks Mama right in the forehead! And I’m thinking, Jesus! These animals are
savages. So I scare him off, and I manage to get them to another pond, but then
I’m thinking, Do we have any business pursuing these St. Francis fantasies? Are
we just screwing with Darwin? Do we have any idea that what we’re doing is
helping at all? Maddie, really – are you okay?”
We
stop at the entrance to a gazebo. Just across a narrow channel of water is an
amphitheater of terraced lawns. They do free Shakespeare there, and it’s pretty
cool, watching a play across a moat.
Maddie
looks at me as if she has no idea how I got there.
“It
looks nice over there. Let’s go sit on the lawn.”
“Okay.”
We
settle on the third terrace. I sit with my back to a low wall. Maddie takes off
her silver-gray jacket, sets it over my dirty shorts and lies on her side with
her head on my lap, looking toward the gazebo. She’s wearing a gauzy mauve
blouse, the fabric done up in stripes of different widths. I work up the nerve
to run my fingers along her hair, the way I do with Katie. I feel like I’m
breaking a law, like a commoner daring to touch the queen. She sighs and takes
a long breath, and sighs again.
“Even
here, even in my escape, I end up at a theater. It’s beautiful, though.”
In
my head, I’m trying to pull up the calendar on the SFO website. I saw her on
Friday, then probably a Sunday matinee.
“When
are you singing again?”
Another
sigh. “Never.”
Oh no. Not on my watch. But I remind myself that she’s a diva – literally,
a drama queen – and given to exaggeration. I spread my hand across her forehead
and use my thumb and ring finger to rub her temples. It’s a trick I learned
from my ex.
“What
happened, Maddie?”
She
hums contentedly. “Won’t tell you. But keep doing that. It’s divine. I love
you.”
Exaggeration, I repeat. But Maddie Hart
just told me she loved me. Jesus. Bring on the kryptonite. I focus my
superpowers on the tips of my fingers. I can’t remember the last time a woman
gave me a massage. I have become a
healer. I will soon have rock singers, ballerinas and movie stars lined up at
my cabin, seeking asylum. Maddie speaks as if she’s dictating a dream.
“I
realize you’re a fan, a devotee, and that I am taking complete advantage of
your feelings for me. But I had to get away, and I… I can’t tell you right
now.”
“Okay.”
Just
over the gazebo, I see a groundskeeper dragging a square of chain-link fence
over the infield.
“Maddie,
I do have one… obligation.”
I
take her to a grassy mound just above the bleachers, and leave her there while
I fetch the car. I give her a clean dropcloth to serve as a picnic blanket, and
a stain-speckled Giants sweatshirt in case she gets cold. Then I take my bag to
a nearby men’s room and change into my uniform (wondering why I didn’t change
into it before – duh!). Maddie’s eyes light up at my return.
“Well!
Mickey Siskel leads a double life.”
I
adopt a baritone radio voice. “Effete opera critic by day, at night Mickey
Siskel becomes Softball Man!”
“Yeah
and you’ve got the tights for it, too. Nice codpiece, by the way.”
“Round
these parts we call it a cup.” I demonstrate by rapping my knuckles against it.
“You wouldn’t want me to go castrato on you.”
She
gives me a stage laugh, a Merry Widow
laugh. Pure manna.
“Of
course not. I don’t need the competition.”
I
descend to the field, feeling like a doctor abandoning his patient. Doug’s
doing his pre-game stretches along the right-field foul line. He gives a look
past my shoulder.
“Jesus!
Who’s the babe?”
“I’m
not sure if you’d believe me.”
“Supermodel?
CEO?”
“Biggest
opera star in the world.”
“You’re
shittin’ me.” When I don’t say anything, he gives me a serious look. “Wow.
You’re not shittin’ me.”
“Nope.
Hey, let’s warm up.”
I
have this ham instinct that kicks in when someone comes to see me play. Where a
normal person might get nervous, I get phenomenally good. With Maddalena
Fucking Hart in the stands, I am destined for greatness. On the first pitch of the game, their hitter
strokes a ball up the middle. I’m heading that direction when the ball glances
off our pitcher’s glove and heads toward the spot where I started. I stop and
sprawl back toward first to knock the ball down, then I grab it with my bare
hand, lunge forward and backhand the ball to first just in time to beat the
runner. Maddie’s soprano whoop fills the field. I clamber to my feet and give a
small bow.
At
the plate, I take a pitch down the middle and push it a little too much toward
right, causing it to elevate. I am so focused on hitting line drives, I’m
muttering curses as I jog toward first, until I realize that the right fielder
has stopped, that the ball is rolling toward the duck pond, on the other side
of the fence. I try my best to fake a home run trot, pointing a finger to my
one-woman fan club as I cross home plate, and make a mental note to never try
that again. The temptations of Lady Home Run can be as fatal as Delilah,
especially to a leadoff hitter, and this one was just a glorious mistake.
Four-for-four,
two double plays (one started, one turned), five RBI, four runs. We win
handily, and on the last play of the game I sprint into right field to catch a
shallow fly over my shoulder. Much to my chagrin, my soprano audience lets out
a resounding “Bravo!” I suppose it’s payback.
After
running the line of hands at the pitcher’s mound, I climb the steps, bag in
hand, and she greets me with a hug.
“You’re
so good!”
“Thanks.”
“Ooh.
You’re bleeding.”
It’s
the scab from last week, which I probably re-opened on that first play. I blot
it against my thigh, adding to my collection of Rorschachs.
“Occupational
hazard.”
“God,
Mickey. You’re so butch, I’d swear you were latent.”
“If
that were true, I probably wouldn’t
go to the opera so much.”
She
grabs my hand, which still puts a shock through me.
“I
don’t want to stop, Mickey. I don’t mean this in… the usual way, but… could you take me home?”
I’ve
had enough of being cowed by royalty. My answers are getting clearer.
“Yes.
Anything you want.”
“That’s
what I like to hear.”
I’m
careful to explain to Maddie about my cabin, so she doesn’t think I’m abducting
her. She makes me stop on the dirt road at the first overlook, where the lights
of Silicon Valley look like a patch of luminous gladiolas. I’m trying to ignore
the gasoline smell of the pressure washer, the piles of decking supplies, the
dozens of empty Gatorade bottles, but I suppose if she can hug a man covered in
algae, she can put up with a few alien odors. But that’s the part I’m not quite
getting. Why does Maddie Hart seem to have so much faith in me? She’s behaving
as if she’s known me for years.
When
we pull in at the twin redwoods, Maddie wanders toward the orchard, where the
full moon is painting the field in silver. She stands at the edge of the road
and reaches up with both arms, as if she’s greeting an old friend. Her hair
creates a dazzling silhouette. As I come behind her, she takes a deep breath,
drawing in air with the entirety of her frame, and she does the most remarkable
thing. She sings. She sings the opening lines of “Song to the Moon.” In person,
without an orchestra, the sound is rough and raw. It is the voice that I have
depended on for a thousand small salvations, contained within this physical
vessel, this woman I have spent the evening touching and talking to. She
approaches the refrain and I close my eyes, anticipating Dvorak’s ethereal
turn, the musical equivalent of moonbeams, expecting my heart to collapse right
here in the field – and then, suddenly, she stops, turns, and laughs.
“I’m
being a very bad girl, singing in the cold air.” She gazes back toward the
moon. “But how could I not?” Then she turns back to me, notices something, and
reaches out to touch my face. “Mickey? You’re crying. Does that song make you
cry?”
“When
you sing it.”
She
places a hand against my cheek. “Good answer. Now let’s go inside before I do
further damage to myself.”
I
collect her bags from the car and walk her up the steps. I soon have her
settled on the couch with a glass of pinot noir and a plate of macadamia/white
chocolate cookies. I light up a couple of Duraflames. She twirls a lock of hair
with a finger, which I guess means she’s comfortable.
“If
you don’t mind,” I say, “I’m tired of being filthy in your presence. I’m going
to take a bath.”
She
smiles. “A bath? Not a he-man shower?”
“A
bath. Would you like to watch TV?”
“No
thanks. A little silence would do me well. In San Francisco, they don’t have
silence. They’ve outlawed it.”
In
the bathroom, out of Maddie’s presence, I can feel myself aging. My 47-year-old
body has suffered much abuse. But the water and the mango soap are magical, and
soon I’m feeling better. I slip on a pair of jeans and a golf shirt and return
to the living room.
She’s
asleep. I should have expected it. Whatever affliction has driven her my way is
exacting a toll. She is curled sideways, her head on the arm of the couch, her
jacket folded across the adjacent armchair. I take a blanket from my closet and
drape it across her, pulling it up to her shoulders.
I
fully expect to lie awake for hours, riding the celebrity buzz, but the body is
wise. I’m two pages along on a biography of Rossini when my eyes begin to
droop. I switch off my bedside lamp and drift away.
Next
to me, something is moving. I squint at the ceiling, pull my arms under me and
roll over. It’s Maddie, in striped yellow pajamas.
“Mickey?
Are you awake? Are you conscious?”
I’m
self-conscious. Because I tend to
sleep in the nude. But I notice that she’s lying on top of my comforter, so we
still have one degree of separation. A whisper of light seeps through the
windows. I’m guessing it’s six, six-thirty.
“Um…
Hi.”
“Hi.”
She’s wide awake, full of energy. “I owe you an explanation. But I can’t tell
you unless you’re fully conscious.” She taps a fingernail against her teeth,
perhaps the habit of a reformed chewer.
I
rub my eyes, throw out my arms and stretch everything else, gaining an
immediate preview of all the aches that will follow me for the rest of the day.
I manage to generate one-half of a smile.
“Shoot.”
“It’s
those goddamn minor characters. I’m rushing through costume changes, making my
way to the stage, running parts through my head, and I pass the green room,
where I see Monsieur Triquet and Olga and they’re playing cards with the
techies and laughing, and I’m thinking, Why do I have all this freaking stage time? This is crazy! Why
am I doing this impossible thing? I have placed myself in a position where the
Sunday afternoons of thousands of people, the day’s wages of a couple hundred
musicians, ushers, administrators, et cetera and a notable percentage of the
local economy depends on my doing this horribly difficult thing. Stepping onto
that stage is like a bungee-jumper stepping off the platform. Every instinct of
self-preservation tells you that you are putting your trust in a thin elastic
band – your training, your memorization, your rehearsals, your stage skills –
to prevent you from becoming a messy smudge on the rocks below. But I do it. I
take that leap and these sounds fly from my mouth and I fill the artificial
soul and emotions of this fictional character. And I do understand that I’m
very good at what I do, but sometimes I don’t really understand how I do what I do. What I’m afraid of
is…”
An
idea lands on her satellite dish, her eyes widen. She grips my shoulder.
“When
I was a kid, I would watch these cartoons where the character, let’s say Daffy
Duck, would be thrust out over the edge of the cliff. But he wasn’t aware of it, so he would just hover in
mid-air. However, the second he looked down and realized where he was – that’s
when he would fall. (Of course, part of the joke was that Daffy kept forgetting
that he was a duck, and could fly.) But here’s the lesson: it’s not the gravity
that makes you fall, it’s the realization
of gravity.
“On
Sunday, during the final act, for the briefest of moments, I realized that I
didn’t know my next line, and for just a moment I froze. Jesus, bless him, saw
my predicament and bought me a second by kissing my hand. Then the conductor,
Donald, slowed the tempo just a bit – a grain of sand, but just enough for me
to recall the next line and smuggle it into the flow of the music. I’m sure
that no one in the audience knew a thing. But for me, for just that one
lightning-flash, a chink opened up in my little world, and through that chink I
glimpsed the enormous void of gravity and impossibility that underlies
everything I do. It scared the hell out of me.”
I
fully expect her to break into tears, but this is not a crying thing, it’s
something closer to the brain. Anxiety. Fear. She tucks her head into my
shoulder, I wrap an arm around her as best a civilized-but-naked man can, and I
stroke her hair. I am Mickey, who solves all problems by stroking hair. We lie
in pools of faint light for fifteen minutes. Maddie’s breathing slows to a
regular pace and she says, “Mickey? Could you make me some breakfast?”
Last
Thursday’s inspired round of grocery buying has left me in good stead. I lay
down a base of sausage, wait till it’s sizzling in grease and then slice in
some onions, red potatoes and Yukon gold potatoes. When everything’s fried up,
I stir in six eggs, and dish out our portions when they’re still a little
undercooked. When I deliver it to the coffee table with a pre-sliced grapefruit
and fresh-ground coffee, Maddie looks at me as if I’m Onegin, and I’ve just
said yes.
“My
God, he cooks too. Why have you not been snatched up by someone?”
I
laugh. “That requires an answer of
Wagnerian length. I’ve got a simpler question for you, though. When do we need
to get you back to the opera?”
She
gives my query a long, thoughtful blink. “Thursday. My final performance.”
“As
Tatyana.”
“Tata,
Tatyana. Then I start on Mimi.”
“Really?”
I take a forkful of my scramble and chew.
“I’m
a little old for Mimi. I have to find a way to use that.”
“Oh
come on, you’re not…”
“Of
course I am. A singer spends her entire life playing teenagers, being
constantly reminded of how old she is. And then, when her career is just about
over, they let her play the Marschallin. Finally! Someone her own age. But then
that scares the hell out of her, and she wants to go back to playing the
teenagers.”
I
point a fork at her. “You are
involved in a weird industry.”
“Indeed
I am.” She takes a sip of coffee and gives a satisfied sigh.
“So
I take it,” I say, “that by recruiting me as your rescuer, you have given me
responsibility for getting you back on that stage.”
“This
is what I do. When my cup of stress runneth over, I gleefully share it with
others. I’m lucky to have an occupation where I can get away with this.”
“So
you’re in my hands? I can do with you what I will?”
“That
sounds a little provocative, but yes. I give you the reins.”
“Are
you a hiker?”
“Yes.
I started to look like Montserrat Caballe a few years ago, so I hired a
personal trainer. She works me so hard that a critic recently made flattering
remarks regarding my derriere.” She gives me a look that threatens to melt me
into the floorboards.
I
pretend to take a long time chewing a recalcitrant pepper. I really have no
good response.
“It’s
all right, Mickey. It’s more than all right. It made me feel 14 years old.
Maybe that’s why I thought you could save me from the Daffy Duck Syndrome. And
I was right. Last night, watching you hurl yourself around the infield, that
was… thrilling.”
“I’m
a ham.”
“Oh,
and I’m not? Maybe that’s why we understand each other. Now do your job and
find me a way out of this labyrinth.”
I
take a swallow of coffee, relishing the bitterness as it spreads over my
tongue.
“After
breakfast, you will take a long bath in my clawfoot tub. You will use the mango
soap, which is produced by Valkyries in Valhalla. You will keep the window open
so you may gaze upon the madrone forest. Then you will put on some hiking
clothes – because today, you will be put to the test. Am I clear?”
She
spoons a chunk of grapefruit into her mouth and smiles. “Sir yes sir.”
As
Maddalena bathes, I step to a spot just east of the twin redwoods and manage to
work my cell phone up to two bars.
“Micko?
What’s up, lad?”
“Can’t
come in today. Really sorry.”
“Under
the weather, are we?”
“You
remember our agreement about days off?”
“Throwing-up
sick or a fantastically gorgeous woman.”
“That
last one there.”
Colin’s
voice goes up an octave. “Really? Anyone I know?”
I
consider keeping this to myself, but I don’t see how I can. The man is going to
spend the day sweating on a deck on my behalf.
“Maddalena
Hart.”
I
don’t need to see his face to know that Colin is beside himself. His answer is
packed with incredulous vowels.
“No-o-o-oh!
Really! Egad, friend. You’ve hit the fucking jackpot. Well, you give her a
couple of… you tell her I said hello. And do let me know what’s up for
tomorrow.”
“Thanks,
Colin. I owe you several favors.”
“By
the way, one of the peacocks has disappeared. I hope we didn’t scare him off
with all the noise.”
I
know I shouldn’t say anything, but I can’t help myself. “Maybe he couldn’t
handle the pressure. I’d better see to Madam Diva. Ta!”
“Ta!
You devil.”
Relatively
speaking, Big Basin State Park is right in my neighborhood, so it seems like a
good place to start. We begin with the main trail, where we gawk at monstrous
redwoods whose birthdates end in B.C. After a stop at the snack shack for
granola and bottled water, I lead her to the trail, a half-mile uphill followed
by 3 1/2 miles down. The final half-mile follows a creek banked in thick stands
of fern and moss, then takes a right-hand jog to Blackberry Falls.
The
falls make a modest drop of 30 feet, but the aesthetic qualities are absolutely
premium. It’s got a wide release point, ten feet across, and the water that
doesn’t make it to the big drop funnels off to the sides, running in silver
rivulets along walls furred with moss. It’s very Celtic fairytale Midsummer
Night’s Dream, and of course Maddalena, perched on a wide rock next to the
receiving pool, gives it an operatic context.
“Lucia
di Lammermoor. The fountain, haunted by the woman whose corpse was left there
by her jealous lover. I think Lucia was in love with that story; I’ve always
played it that way. I think she was in touch with the other side. And then the
other side came over and got her. You know, you can go crazy just doing that role. Often during the Mad
Scene I fall into a kind of semi-conscious state, and finally click back in at
a reception three hours later, my stage director waving a hand in front of my
face and saying, ‘For God’s sake, Maddie, where are you?’”
I
have found yet another charming quality. In her blue jeans and plaid shirt,
Maddie shows no sign of the fish out of water. I also notice something about
her teeth. They are a little bigger and out-front than they should be, giving
her just a taste of the chipmunk, making her smile easy and accessible.
“I’m
amazed you don’t all go mad. Like
that soprano in Tales of Hoffman
who’s told not to sing or she’ll lose her life.”
“Antonia.
Eesh. How awful. You know, I was a pianist first.”
“Really?”
“I
was a hyper child. Smart but unfocused. Today they would pump me full of
Ritalin. Instead, they gave me piano lessons. I found out I was good at it. But
I certainly didn’t love it. I only
loved the part about being good. But I stuck with it, all the way through a
bachelor’s degree. I wasn’t good enough to do concerts, but I had just enough
vocal training – choirs, madrigal groups – to make a good accompanist for
singers. They really appreciated that I understood what was going on with the
vocals, the spots where I needed to back off, or wait on an entrance, or a
sustenato.
“One
of them was a tenor named Ray Atlas. He went on to a wonderful career in Europe
– even landed a tour of Les Miserables.
Occasionally, when we were rehearsing, I would make reference to parts of an
art song or aria by singing them. ‘Okay, on this part – la la la la – do you
want me to take a pause,’ et cetera. One time he stopped me, mid-phrase, and he
said, ‘You need to sing somewhere. You’ve got a lovely voice.’ I thought he was
just being nice, or flirting – but the next day I saw a flyer on the auditions
board for a community production of The
Sound of Music. And I thought, What the hell.
“The
Mother Superior. A little odd for a 23-year-old, but I had the right sound for
the part. We had a three-week run, and the audiences seemed favorable. ‘Climb
Every Mountain’ is quite the show-stopper, and I got really addicted to the applause. After the final performance I’m
hanging out by the stage, talking to some friends when this man comes up. He
looked very professorial: balding, spectacles, tweed coat. He said, ‘You need
to sing opera.’ And I said, ‘Well thank you!’ and we talked for a while and I
didn’t think much of it.
“When
I woke the next morning, the phrase You
need to sing opera was sitting on my nightstand like an impatient housecat.
I was pretty well-versed on the local voice teachers – being one of their pet
pianists – and I called the most charismatic of all: Dr. Charlene Archibeque,
six-foot-two blonde, former fashion model, sometimes called “Big Bird” by her
students (but never to her face). Dr. A was personable, but dead serious when it
came to music. I had not had time to prepare anything, so I took something that
Ray was working on – Don Ottavio’s “Dalla sua pace” from Don Giovanni – and sang it up an octave, as I played the chords on
the piano.
“When
I finished, I turned to find Dr. A wearing a very puzzled expression, as if my
head had just sprouted forget-me-nots. She excused herself, dashed down the
hall and returned with a colleague, Dr. Sharkova. Then she looked at me and
said, ‘Again.’
“When
I finished, the two of them exchanged a glance, looked at me with two very
uncharacteristic grins, and the next thing I knew I was in the counselor’s
office, sorting through applications to MFA programs. I ended up at the
University of Houston, got my degree and began to play the regional opera
companies. Three years later I won the Met auditions, and a year after that I
made my debut singing Rusalka. Which explains my freakish attachment to ‘Song
to the Moon.’
“So
I owe it all to two men who told me I needed to sing. And here’s the difference,
here’s what I tell my students. I played piano because I was good at it, and I
enjoyed the approval. I sing opera because I
love opera. And I’m good at it, and I enjoy the approval. And the dresses.
And the money – did I mention the money?”
She
lets out a laugh that rings off the walls. It’s good to see her take a step out
of her funk, and it occurs to me that she has told that story (which she has
doubtlessly told many times before) more for herself than for me.
I
peer at the angle of the sun and say, “We’d better get going. And it’s all
uphill, baby.” I take her hand and pull her to her feet.
“That’s
okay,” she says. “I’m tough.”
“Big
talkin’ diva. Hyah!”
I
don’t really know any diva-worthy restaurants near the park, so I drive over
the hill to Saratoga. My old reliable is Bella Mia, an 1894 Victorian that’s
been dolled up like a layer cake in tiers of sky blue, navy and white. It sits
in the village, a strip of shops whose curbside trees are forever wrapped in
Christmas lights.
Since
we are royalty, a parking spot opens
up right out front, and soon I am escorting Maddie to a table on the patio,
separated from the sidewalk by a picket fence. I love sitting here. I love
watching the villagers walking their labradoodles, the slow parade of Mercedeses
and BMWs and landscape trucks. I sit across from Maddie as she digs into a
basket of pastry bread and a spicy blended butter. After a day in the woods,
she looks pretty roughed-up, but she looks healthier.
It’s like stripping the paint from a beautifully varnished armoire and
discovering that the wood underneath looks even better.
All
through dinner – mozzarella-stuffed chicken for me, shrimp rigatoni for her – I
sense a buzz in the air. For a Tuesday, the place is pretty packed, and I can
feel the attention being progressively focused on our table. Saratogans are
more immune to celebrity than most. Two arts venues bring famous musicians
through on a regular basis, and the old-money culture frowns on fawning. So no
one makes an approach – at least, until we receive our espressos con panna. I
see Maddie’s green irises lift from her drink, and I turn to discover an
elderly couple, leaning on our fence like friendly neighbors. The man is tall
and gangly, with a head of silver hair and a fin de siecle moustache. The woman
is slim and cute, a lady who will never lose her girldom no matter how old she
gets. The man speaks in a voiceover baritone.
“I’m
sorry to interrupt, but my wife and I saw your Tatyana the other night and we
just wanted to thank you. It was magnificent.”
At
this point, Maddie becomes a slightly different person. Public Maddie. Overly
pleasant, effusive Maddie.
“Thank
you so much! I always wonder how it’s coming across.”
The
woman laughs. “How could you ever
wonder about that?”
“This is my wife, Jeri,” says the
man. They exchange handshakes all around. “I’m Leigh Weimers. Used to write a
newspaper column.”
“Yes!”
I say. “I was in your column. Turkey on a Volvo.”
“Ah!”
says Leigh. “Turkey on a Volvo.”
The
women look at us very blankly.
“Up
on Skyline Boulevard,” I say. “I saw a wild turkey, sitting on the hood of a
Volvo.”
“This
is Mickey Siskel,” says Maddie. “He’s an online opera critic.”
“Oh-hoh!”
says Leigh. “Dining with the enemy.”
I
think I am realizing what I like about Leigh. He is exceedingly comfortable in
his own skin, and he’s obviously used to talking to celebrities. If Maddie
weren’t here, I think I’d be hitting him up for some tips.
“Mister
Siskel has the good taste to adore my
singing,” says Maddie. “To a soprano, there’s no quality quite as attractive.”
“Say,”
says Leigh. He pulls out a pencil and a steno pad, which after all these years
must be permanent appendages. “Give me your website. I’d love to see what you
wrote.”
“It’s
operaville dot blogspot dot com,” says Maddie. “He combines his reviews with
historical tales about the composers. It’s delightful.”
“Can’t
wait,” says Leigh. “Well, we leave you to your drinks with a hearty ‘Brava!’”
“Brava!”
says Jeri.
“Grazie,”
says Maddalena Hart. “I would take a formal bow, but I’m sort of trapped.”
“Bye!”
they call, and continue down the street. Maddie watches them go, then turns to
me with a smile.
“Did
I do all right?”
“Yes.
Gracious. Not too effusive. Friendly,
witty.”
“You’d
be surprised. I had a colleague, ten-year veteran of the big houses, and I
heard her arguing with her admirers. ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t very good tonight, I had
so much trouble with that one part in
the third act, blah-blah-blah…’ I had to take her aside and tell her to stop
insulting the judgement of her fans. Even if they’re wrong, just smile and say
thank you.”
“I
think I know someone like that. But no, I give you an A-minus.”
“Minus?”
“Are
you insulting my judgement?”
“Oh,
you’re good.”
“I
just want to give you something higher to shoot for. Have you ever been to a
laser show?”
“No.”
“Well,
you’re about to. Let’s get our bill.”
“I’ll get our bill.”
“Bless
you, diva.”
“Prego.”
I
saw a flyer for the Cosmic Concert on the Coffee Society bulletin board. I
couldn’t believe it was still around. In the ‘70s, my bored high school self
went quite often, and rarely in a non-altered state. It took place in the De
Anza Planetarium, where Maddie and I are lined up with an assortment of college
students and aging hippies. We filter into our reclining seats and gaze at the
star-spangled dome as the laser-master creates a menagerie of ultrabright
shapes and patterns to a rock and roll soundtrack. I am amazed to find that
many of the pieces are the same ones I saw thirty years ago: the B-52s’ “Love Under
the Strobelight” with spinning red telephones, Bowie’s “Space Oddity” with a
drifting green astronaut, Yes’s “Roundabout” with the equivalent of an indoor
fireworks show. My pupils are officially on overdrive, and I feel Maddie’s
fingers wrapping my hand, her hair brushing my cheek, her lips brushing my
cheek. My nerve endings are performing Swan Lake, and I know any second I will
wake up.
After
the show, I’m tempted to drive to Maddie’s car – which is parked just across
the street – and ask her to follow me up the hill. But I don’t think I could
bear the separation. Also, she might wise up and drive back to San Francisco.
So
we drive the mountain. The streetwise deer come out to say “How you doin’?” We
slip into that mode where nothing need be said. We’re descending the dirt road,
nearing the first overlook, when Maddie takes her hand off my shoulder and
searches the controls on my dashboard.
“Where’s
the heat on this thing?”
She
hits a button and finds her own voice pouring from the speakers. It’s “Song to
the Moon.”
Her
smile blossoms like a morning glory at sunrise. “Pull over here.” So I do. She
says, “Keep the song on and turn the headlights off.” So I do, and I join
Maddie in front of the hood. There’s a spread of grass on the turnout, and the lights
of the Valley are laid out before us like a Cosmic Concert picnic blanket.
Maddie holds out her hands and I take the invitation. We dance to Dvorak, we
dance to the song of my resurrection, in the dark and cold mountain air. When
the tape pushes forward to “Sombre foret,” Maddalena Hart comes closer and
closer and I kiss my diva for all I’m worth.
There’s
a third cabin on the property, but it’s hardly ever occupied. Apparently, it’s
being rented by people who never vacation. The previous renter assembled a fire
pit, using stones salvaged from the nearby woods. Maddie and I sit on a log,
caretakers of a vigorous blaze, doing our best to roast marshmallows on the
tips of bouncy coat-hanger rods. I consume my latest victim - blessed with a
suntan worthy of a bikini model – and I decide that it’s time to ‘fess up.
“May
I tell you my story?”
“I
expected you might,” she says, and takes my hand. “I give you the downbeat.”
I
steer a ship’s-captain gaze over the flames to find my subject, a third up from
the horizon, three percent on the wane, a wisp of cloud crossing its beacon.
I
didn’t have much of a calling, but I went to college during the Reagan era, so
I ended up in business school. Finance. I was a very social creature –
president of my frat, an athlete, not unattractive. My guidance counselor said,
You’re good with people – go into stocks. You’ll be good with the clients.
So
I did. Didn’t even need a master’s. He was right, I was good, and it was certainly the right time to get in. Weathered
the early-‘90s recession, got into tech stocks, surfed my way into the Clinton
boom. I married a co-worker, Allison – marvelous girl, beautiful, sexy, smart
as a whip. We bought a house in south San Jose, we were in excellent shape. It
was time to start a family.
We
couldn’t. Seven miscarriages. We got pregnant, but poor Allison couldn’t hold
them. She quit her job, thought that might help. It didn’t.
Our
reactions were a little cross-gender. Each of our miscarriages hit me like a
steamroller. Deep depressions that lasted for weeks, couldn’t even get out of
bed unless I had to go to work. I saw each one as a real, living baby – a
creature that poops its diapers and giggles when you make a face – so each one
was, to me, a genuine, visceral death. Allison seemed wholly unaffected, as if
these were not deaths but failures, part of a process. She wanted to try again,
as soon as she was able, for as long as it took.
After
seven, I couldn’t do it any more. And neither one of us wanted to adopt. That
might seem selfish, but I think it takes a certain kind of couple, with a
certain mindset, to take that on. We were wise enough to know that we were not
those people.
For
a few years we went on as a childless couple. People do this, we said. People
live fulfilling lives without children. I was always the wiz kid at the
brokerage, always on the edge of things, so it was natural for me to get into
derivatives. It was very creative. I was helping to invent entirely new ways to
produce revenue; sometimes it felt like I was pulling cash out of the air. But
a few years down the line, when the inventing part was over, I came to realize
that what I was doing had no real value. I wasn’t producing anything that was
any good to society. I was only using this mathematical sleight-of-hand to make
a stacked deck even more unfair, to make filthy rich people even richer.
I
decided that I wanted out. With no children to provide for, and Allison back at
her old job, I thought I deserved a little time to lift my nose from the
grindstone. I met Colin at a barbecue. He told me that he was starting a
deck-staining business and needed an assistant. I had always done all the work
on our house myself – including painting the exterior and staining the deck –
and, in fact, had found it to be excellent therapy. So I took Colin’s card.
Allison
didn’t like it. She wanted us to be a power couple; she wanted us to keep
piling up money and play the games of the elite: Junior League, charity boards
– maybe the opera. We fought for a month, non-stop, viciously, noisily. I’m
surprised the cops never showed up. She called me a lazy, self-absorbed piece
of shit. I called her a money-grubbing bitch.
I
summarily quit my job and began working for Colin. I adored the work. I loved
the ache in my muscles, the long, quiet hours, the spectacular views. There was
even an element of voyeurism, getting to invade all these private spaces, to
see how other people lived. And mostly, I loved the concrete-ness of the
product. We took these graying, sun-baked, moss-covered wretches, cleaned them
up, stained them over and made them into beautiful objects. I pictured our
clients coming out for their morning coffee, seeing their shiny deck through
the kitchen window and thinking, Maybe
I’ll eat breakfast outside.
As
I got more into the business, I realized I needed a more appropriate vehicle. I
bought my sister’s station wagon. It had already suffered ten years of child
abuse (so to speak), so I certainly didn’t have to worry about being nice to
it. For years, I kept discovering bits of its previous life: a Spiderman action
figure under the passenger seat, a pack of bubble gum tucked under a seat
cushion, an empty juice box next to the spare tire. The only thing I didn’t
like was that the stereo didn’t work. But after hot days I was certainly
grateful for the air conditioning.
Eventually
I moved into an apartment. I let Allison have the house. But that wasn’t
enough. I learned from mutual friends that she intended to ruin me. She hired
an expensive attorney and took everything: assets, bank accounts, my BMW. I
have no idea why she deserved any of this, but it’s amazing what a good lawyer
can do. His most astounding move was to use the miscarriages as an example of
the pain and suffering she had to undergo during the marriage. My lawyer (the
big overpaid jagoff) had no answer for this. The settlement included alimony –
alimony! – and I was soon on my way to bankruptcy. An actual bankruptcy, however, might have put an end to the
bloodletting, so they left me barely enough money to live on. And to twist
slowly in the wind.
The
apartment was now too expensive, but Colin was moving out of his cabin and told
me what a deal it was. I really wasn’t sure about the location, but I was
getting used to driving mountain roads, so I thought, What the hell. It seemed
like a good time to get away from civilization. On a Sunday in July, I made a
trip to the cabin and unloaded my first wagonful. When I got back in, the car
wouldn’t start. I checked the battery terminals, the wires, made sure the alternator
belts were tight. I tried the ignition. Nothing. So there I am, beset by all
these doubts about living in the woods, and already I’m stranded. As the full
weight of this thought struck me – accompanied by the baseline depression I was
already living with – I could feel the life force seeping from my limbs. It
wasn’t sadness, or anxiety – those carry a certain emotional vigor. This was
me, an empty shell, nothing left. This was the bottom.
I
sat there in the driver’s seat for a long time, in something like a
psychosomatic coma. Couldn’t move, couldn’t lift a hand, didn’t have enough
energy to swear. Allison had finally got me. I pictured her somewhere, holding
a voodoo doll, gleefully raising a pin.
Some
time later I noticed the fuse box, just behind the parking brake. I was just
ignorant enough about cars to see this as a possibility. I slid off the cap,
and behold! two fuses that appeared to be loose. I pressed them back into place
and, holding on to the thinnest thread of hope, I cranked the ignition.
The
engine did nothing. But the stereo came to life! And out of the speakers came
this song of indescribable, ghostly mournfulness. I had no idea about the words
– they sounded Slavic, maybe Hebrew – but I could hear the pleading, the
unbearably beautiful sadness. And the voice. I had the usual pedestrian ideas
about opera – that snooty thing that had nothing to do with real life. But this
voice, this woman, was so much the opposite. The voice was big but intimate,
confiding. I’ve been there too, she
said. I know how you feel. I imagined
her as the mother of my miscarried children.
Then
the orchestra began to well up, and the woman’s voice rose to these long,
sustained notes. I felt the sound strike me at a point just beneath my eyes,
and I sat there in my car, sobbing. A minute later, the woman sounded like she
was pleading for her life, and then, suddenly, that was the end. Another song
began, and I cranked the ignition, and it started!
I
find Maddie trying to suppress a smile.
“‘Song
to the Moon?’”
“Sitting
in that tape player, all those years, waiting for someone to reconnect that
fuse.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
She
folds her hands beneath her chin.
“You
know, sometimes I get this idea that what I do has no relevance to real life.
Sort of like your derivatives. But then, someone tells me a story like that.
But I never dreamed that I faith-healed a car!”
“Well,”
I say. “It turns out it was the starter. Apparently, before they completely die
out, they can still work every fifth time or so.”
“But
only if you’re playing the right aria.”
“By
the right singer. No. I don’t give you complete credit for restarting the car.
But you did restart me. In any case,
I headed right up the hill, having no idea that I was driving to a tune called
“Somber Forest,” and I took it straight to my mechanic in Los Gatos. Colin was
nice enough to give me an advance so I could get it fixed. All things
considered, I remained at the low point of my life for perhaps ten minutes. So
I guess I can’t complain. You want another marshmallow?”
She
gives me a close-lipped smile. “I want another kiss.”
I’m
47, and I’m not dumb. I begin at the upper right-hand corner of those luscious
petals and I work my way across, taking my time to dip my tongue in between.
This will be no surprise to aficionados of opera, but Maddie is very talented
with her tongue. Keep that in mind the next time you see Rigoletto and you hear Gilda whip out a really wicked rolled R. Ten
minutes later, I finish with a kiss on the tip of her nose. She speaks without
opening her eyes.
“So
that’s when you became obsessed with the opera.”
“Yes.
That’s also when I dreamed up my devious, terribly involved plan to find the
woman who sang that gorgeous aria and make out with her.”
She
opens her eyes just barely and gives me a grin. “You are so lucky it wasn’t Joan Sutherland.”
It’s
early morning. We’re at Hobee’s, an American diner with a California
health-food attitude. I’m staring down a scramble and realizing it’s almost
exactly the one that I make at home. Am I in a rut? I laugh at the question
before I’m even done thinking it. Maddalena Hart the international opera star
sits across from me, the sharpness of her grapefruit juice producing two or
three of the expressions that she used in the Letter Scene.
“Have
you seen Rusalka?”
“Nope.”
“So
you don’t know the context of ‘Song to the Moon’?”
“I
considered it magic. You don’t want to come too close to magic, or you’ll scare
it away.”
She
takes a sip of coffee and folds her hands, assuming the demeanor of a
newsanchor. I can’t get over her hair. Even after a rushed shower and a drive
down the hill, the honey, the wheat and the straw tumble to her shoulders like
the hair of an angel. I’m back to the album cover.
“Rusalka
is a water nymph who lives in a lake, and she falls in love with a prince who
comes there to swim. She goes to the witch Jezibaba, who agrees to turn her
into a human, but there are a couple of catches. She must win her prince’s love
without the power of speech, and if she fails she will be accursed forever.
Before her transformation, Rusalka sings to the moon, asking it to tell her
beloved that she longs to hold him in her arms. At the end of the song – those
desperate final passages - she pleads with the moon, ‘O do not disappear! Do
not go!’”
It’s
not becoming for a man to be so constantly enchanted by a woman, but any
attempt at artificial coolness would be lame. So I accept my fate and go the
other direction.
“Are
you real?”
“Full-gonzo
water nymph, baby. Hum a few bars of the Habañera and I disappear.”
“O
do not disappear!”
“You’re
funny. For a prince. And I’ve met a few. So how come, last night, you didn’t
put the moves on me?”
“I
thought I… Didn’t I put on some moves?”
“You
know you could have…”
“I
had my suspicions. But… Damn. You’re probably going to insist on the real answer, aren’t you?”
She
gives me a solemn nod. “That’s what I’m asking.”
I
want to get this just right, so I look away from the hair and the eyes and the
famous face. A trio of overdressed Japanese girls stand outside, taking part in
a serious rund of chatter.
“Oh
God, don’t make me say the word ‘vulnerable.’ ‘Vulnerable’ is the word of
cowards. Let’s say ‘susceptible,’ ‘fragile.’ That’s what you are, and a proud
hunter does not like to knock off easy targets.”
“As
opposed to a Mad Huntress?”
“Yes.
And… You mean a little too much to me, Maddie. Frankly, I worship you. I’m not
ready to carry you down from the heavens.”
“I’m
not a diva, Mickey. I’m not a goddess, or a siren, or even a water nymph. And
it’s the nature of the business that I don’t always have the time for a
standard romance. In fact, for now this it. I’m off to Seattle first thing
Friday. I don’t have a different man
in every port. I kind of wish I did. But I had a feeling about you, Mickey.
You’re one of the good ones.”
Her
anxious expression melts into wistfulness. She puts a hand on my knee and
smiles.
“I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to rain on our parade. It was so sweet of you to offer me
distractions, to tell me your beautiful story. To romance me. To kiss me. And
I’m going to tell Speight Jenkins to use lasers in his next Ring Cycle.”
“Spate…
who?”
She
laughs. “Sorry. Opera singers are so
presumptuous. He’s the general director in Seattle. And he’s nuts! Believe me,
he’ll consider the lasers. But Mickey… I’m certain I’ll see you again. I guess
what I’m saying is… What I’m saying is Yes! Be a little rude next time. I can take it.”
I
slip a hand under her hair, around the back of her neck, and give her a messy,
highly inappropriate kiss. She settles back against her chair, eyes
half-closed.
“Yeah.
Like that.”
I
walk Maddalena Hart the opera star to her Lexus, parked on the street behind
the Oaks Center. I wave her off down the road, and I get in my car, and I head
for the hills. Colin leaves his paint-tray to greet me, looking like a proud
father.
“Behold!
Mickey San Franciskel, diva debaucher.”
I
accept a brisk handshake.
“No
debauching, but yes – a remarkable weekend. Thanks for the day off.”
“Absolutely
no problem. I will expect the same during my impending affair with Jennifer
Aniston. But I will be needing some
details.”
“Of
course! Why don’t I start on these steps, and I will shout my story in your
die-rection.”
“Splendid!”
Six
The Campbell Little League
complex is situated right up against Hamilton Avenue, a busy suburban arterial,
and offers the occasional sight of a home run hopping through traffic like a
wayward frog. But it’s exactly the cramped feel – two fields and a refreshment
stand crammed together like urban brownstones - that gives the place its
atmosphere.
I
enter through a gap in the chain-link fence and am greeted by the sight of my
nephew Kyle straddling the mound. Playing the field or standing at the plate,
Kyle gives me the kind of jitters that perhaps only a blood relative could
feel, but on the mound he is utterly unflappable. He nods at the catcher,
brings those skinny legs together and chucks the ball homeward, not like a
pitcher but like a kid throwing a ball. No blazing fastball, but he’s always
around the plate, and has a three-quarter arm slot that produces a natural
downward spin. He gets a lot of grounders.
Right
now he’s just warming up, so I continue leftward to the main attraction:
one-dollar hot dogs, with an impressive buffet of condiments. I fix one with
mustard and onions, another with ketchup and relish, and head for the main
bleachers, nicely shaded by a wide awning. I find sister Carla high up, chewing
nervously on sunflower seeds.
“Hey!”
she says. “Already stocked up I see.”
“You
kidding? This is dinner. And, well, lunch.”
“That
Colin works you like a dog.”
“We
thought of that for a name, actually. ‘Deck Dogs.’”
Carla
shifts quickly into update mode. She’s quite good at this. Perhaps she was a
broadcaster in a previous life.
“He’s
doing well. It’s a good hitting team, but we’re still tied. At the plate, he
ran out an infield single and flied out to right.”
“Hey,
as long he’s hackin’.”
“Yep,
he knows the rules. Called third strike – the floggings begin.”
I
suppose you need a sick sense of humor to survive parenthood. I like their
priorities, though. They’d much rather Kyle go up there and hit something than
wait for a walk the way some players do.
“Uh-oh,”
says Carla. “Here comes trouble. This kid hit one onto Hamilton last time.
Hopped all the way across, like a…”
“Wayward
frog?”
“Ha!
Yes. Missed all the cars at least.”
The
kid’s huge, twelve years old and taller than me. What are they feeding these
mutants? They’ve got a runner on second, so Kyle’s coach signals for an
intentional walk. Catcher Jack stands up and receives three outside pitches,
but on the fourth the batter takes a lackadaisical swing-and-miss.
“Uh-oh,”
says Carla. “I heard about this.”
Kyle
throws another outside pitch, and the kid takes another nothing swing. Kyle
looks confused.
“What’s
that about?”
“This
kid gets walked all the time, so the coach told him to swing a couple times to
add to the pitch count.”
“Well,
that’s pretty bogus. I say – drill ‘im!”
“Shh!”
says Carla. “Last week, some coach ordered up a beanball.”
“Really?
Wow.”
“They’re
a little touchy about it.”
Kyle’s
coach calls time-out and meets him for a conference. When play starts again,
catcher Jack remains in his crouch.
“Uh-oh,”
says Carla. “I hope they know what they’re doing.”
“I
guess the temptation is just too great. I just hope he pitches it outsi-”
I’m
rudely interrupted by the sound of metal on cowhide. The ball screams over the
left field fence and strikes a large tree right in the midsection.
“Ah,
man!” says Carla.
“Crap.
Shoulda drilled ‘im.”
“Shh!”
“Overgrown
freak.”
Monster
Kid lopes around the bases and is mobbed by his teammates as if he has just
clinched the World Series. Carla chews some more sunflower seeds, probably
gauging how upset her son will be at this latest turn of events. I take the
chance to sample the sweet alchemy of mustard, onions, bread and pork parts.
“So,”
she says. “What’s it like, being famous?”
I
swallow. “I really wouldn’t know.”
She
reaches into her bag and pulls out a folded piece of newspaper. It’s the
society page of the San Jose Mercury-News.
The headline reads Lambs Eat Pasta with
Lions.
And performers dine with critics. International diva
Maddalena Hart was seen al-fresco’ing Tuesday night with local opera critic
Mickey Siskel at Saratoga’s Bella Mia. We can only assume that Siskel’s review
of Hart’s performance in SF Opera’s Eugene
Onegin was favorable, but according to former Merc scribe Leigh Weimers, he
really had no choice. The divine Ms. H was even more divine than usual. LW also
recommends Siskel’s blog, www.operaville.blogspot.com, which offers a unique blend of
critique and tales of the composers.
“Holy
crap! I’m famous.”
“And you just got two hot dogs for two
dollars,” says Carla. “I don’t think life gets much better. Oh! Kyle’s up. I
told him I would videotape his at-bats.”
My
curiosity gets the best of me, so I make a stop at the Saratoga Library. The
place was built three years ago, and is pretty much a biblioparadise. The
computers are shiny-new, and situated around circular tables that offer
generous pie-slice portions of personal space.
I
pull up my blogsite, check the bottom of the Onegin review and find 27 comments. Holy crap. Most of them are
names I’ve never seen, requesting details of my time with the diva. They may as
well be asking for my spare kidney. I do give a brief, vague account to Cordell
– who has certainly earned my trust – but the only person who might rate the
nitty-gritty is strangely absent.
Seattle. Seattle.
My
straw-blonde sunrise returns to kiss me awake. She’s delicious, chewing on
something vanilla to go with the minty toothpaste. Still, it’s harder than
usual to produce a smile. I grunt, force myself out of bed and pull on a pair
of jeans. Outside, it’s already warm – our usual early-summer hot spell – but
Katie is bundled up nonetheless, a white parka over a blue turtleneck. I lift
her into the air and plant a kiss on her lips, but she’s not buying it.
“Is
something the matter?”
The
best way to lie is simply and directly. “No. A little existential funk.”
“Poor
baby.” She trails a finger around my lips. “Maybe you’re having your period.
I’ll say a prayer for you.”
“No.
Sing a hymn for me.”
“You
got it. And it’ll work, too. I’m an excellent singer.”
“I
know. I’ve heard you in the tub.”
I
hold her aloft and carry her to the door. She gets in and beckons me forward
for one last smooch, throwing in plentiful tongue just to make sure I’m paying
attention. Before she even rounds the corner I’m headed for the house,
stumbling through the living room, hurling myself back into bed.
Long,
long hours later, I’m soaking in the tub, threatening to turn myself into a
prune. Maddie’s in Seattle. Probably starts rehearsals Monday. But what now?
Receptions with donors? Dinner with friends? A booty call with a Northwest
critic? I wouldn’t blame her (the smell of Katie all over my sheets), but I
take consolation in what I’ve seen of my fellow critics. Even when they’re
hetero, they’re not exactly appetizing.
I
don’t even bother with breakfast. I start up the coffee, boot up the computer
and discover 25 more strangers on my comments page. It’s like a fucking Mardi
Gras in there. No Mad Huntress, but there at the bottom, at long last, is
DevilDiva.
DD: Bruh-thuh! What the hell is going on here? Did you marry the bitch?
M: Any chance we could talk in private?
DD: Well, since you’re the instant celebrity, I
guess I’ll have to be the courageous one. My email is…
Real-name revelations are not forthcoming. Her email
address begins with DevilDiva@. I flip over to my email account and ring her
up.
M: Thanks. Cyberspace is getting a little wacky.
DD: You’re more popular than a celebrity porn site!
So I surmise that you’ve been doing some fraternizing with Madame Hart? How
exciting is this getting?
M: We were spotted by a retired journalist, who sent
an item to the local daily. Apparently, opera fans read newspapers.
DD: Who knew?
M: Maddie was experiencing some performer’s stress
and decided that I was the one who could help her out of it. I still don’t
understand why. I’ve really done nothing to earn her trust.
DD: Maybe she had
to trust you. Maybe she’s working on instinct.
M: Well, she’s right
to trust me. As a performer, she already means the world to me. And now, as a
person… She’s incredibly genuine, which has to be such a hard quality to
maintain when you’re such a public person.
DD: Hmm, you’re beginning to wax poetic. Do I detect
something romantic?
M: Okay, well, yes. I’m trying to be careful with
the details – and believe me, you’re the only one I’d say anything to, but yes, it was pretty freakin’ romantic.
DD: (Sigh) My Mickey, in love. I think I’m jealous –
but I’m not sure which one of you I’m jealous of.
M: So you would consider going lesbo to further your
career.
DD: Why not?
M: Did I mention how glad I am that we’re not
discussing this on a public comments page?
DD: Prude!
M: Harlot!
DD: And quite the circus it has become.
M: I’ll tell ya. It’s not like Maddie gets hassled
in public a lot – only twice, when I was with her. But she certainly leaves a
wake.
DD: Celebrity is a powerful force. Enjoy the ride,
baby. Will you be seeing her again?
M: She’s due back at SFO in the fall, but right now
she’s off to Seattle to do Bohème.
DD: Mimi?
M: Yep.
DD: Well, even if it was one-tine-only, you’ve got
one hell of a story.
M: Yes, but I’m also human.
DD: Meaning?
M: I call it the Plateau Syndrome. Five minutes
after reaching a new level of achievement, we spot the plateau just above us
and begin the yearning process all over again. We are the grasping species, the
species with opposable thumbs.
DD: Keep grasping, baby. I gotta head for a voice
lesson. Keep me up-to-date, okay?
M: You got it. Thanks for being my confessor.
DD: My privilege. Ta!
I’m about to go for that cup
of coffee, but when I flash back to the inbox I find a strange name: Michael
Sinclair. And here’s what he has to say:
Dear Mickey: It’s not often
that I receive a recommendation from Maddalena Hart! But I scanned your blog
and I must say I’m impressed. I run a website called theoperacritic.com, and
although I’m based in New Zealand, I publish reviews from all over the globe. I
would love it if you would be my West Coast stringer. I don’t pay anything, but
I do have good relations with all the major companies, so you’d be able to get
press comps in San Diego, LA, Portland, Seattle – even Vancouver B.C. if you
feel adventurous. And it’s no problem if you’d like to keep running your
reviews on your blog, as well.
Let me know what you think.
I’d love to have you on board.
Cheers – Michael
I drift off toward the
kitchen, I pour a cup of java and I swear I see letters spelled out in the
steam.
Seattle.
Seven
My own behavior puzzles me.
This is clearly a pleasure trip, but I am treating it like work. I have shunned
the spectacular vistas of the Oregon Coast for the inland cruise of Interstate
5. I am treated nonetheless with gorgeous scenery, running past a bright-eyed
Mt. Shasta, sliding downhill into southern Oregon to find the triangle of Mt. McLoughlin
knifing into the twilight. I take note, and drive on.
The
budget is tight, so I sleep at a rest stop on the flat farmlands north of
Eugene. I am well-equipped, having folded down the back seats and installed a
small mattress. The final stroke is a paper dropcloth, taped over the windows
for privacy. I sleep well and wake to a bickering Mexican family, seven idling
semis and a series of green foothills that could have been shipped in from
Scotland. In the Northwest, breathtaking landscapes are a dime a dozen, but I
don’t feel like I have earned them yet, so I sneak away to the restroom for a
Handi-Wipes catbath and a change of clothes.
The
second day goes quickly; by late afternoon I have sighted the Puget Sound and,
five minutes later, Mt. Rainier, a white fist bursting from the horizon.
Entering the strip-mall stretches of Tacoma, I spot a Motel 6. I pull in, make
my arrangements and head for the pizza parlor next door.
I
am not ready to be a tourist – not till after my work – so I spend the next day
right there in the neighborhood, taking a dozen laps around the pool and
hanging out at a surprisingly lavish Starbucks. A brief nap, dinner at Denny’s,
and I am ready to get myself prettied up.
Not
that I’ve made any changes. It’s the same black suit I wear at SFO, only now
it’s been cleaned and pressed. The same black dress shoes, only now they’ve
been shined. The tie is old, as well, but it’s got a history. An old friend got
married three years ago. The bride told the groomsmen to show up in black suits
and shirts, then handed us mint-green ties, each in a different pattern. I fix
it in place with a silver pin given to me by my father at my own wedding. I
pull out a stainless steel case and fill it with cards bearing the address for
my blog and a photo of Maddalena playing the Contessa in Figaro.
But
here’s the strange part: I have not told Maddie that I’m here. I don’t know
why.
It’s
a glorious day in Seattle, and the skyline is everything the brochure promised.
Maybe a third the size of San Francisco’s, but better organized, like the
figures in Rembrandt’s The Night Watch.
I-5 slings itself into the center of this grouping, and immediately I take a
left-side offramp to Seattle Center. Following my emailed directions, I head
for the Experience Music Project, a Frank Gehry building that looks like a
giant baked potato covered in aluminum foil, take a right and find the parking
lot. I pass through a forest of metallic palms and follow a walkway into a
large central square. Inside a concrete bowl, the Seattle Center fountain
performs tricks for a ring of onlookers. To a classical soundtrack, a 50-foot
spray gives way to 50 smaller sprays, running around the bowl like the backing
flock of Swan Lake. I’m early, so I
stay a few minutes to enjoy.
McCaw
Hall was built a few years ago at the same site as the old opera house.
Accustomed to the historical auras of San Francisco’s War Memorial and San
Jose’s California Theater, I find the modernity of Seattle’s a little jarring.
Passing an artificial creek – a thin sheet of water trickling over ridges in
the walkway – I look up to find a towering wall of glass, a terrarium of opera
patrons milling about on three different levels.
I
enter the lobby to find myself beneath a most puzzling piece of art. A tall
blue construction ladder has been crumpled into a series of bends and folds and
dangled on wires, then used as a skeleton from which to hang a phantasmagoria
of industrial objects: monkey wrenches, heating ducts, bubble wrap, shipping
pallets, motherboards. It’s like a frozen explosion in a hardware store.
I
head for will call and pick up my tickets, then I climb the wide front steps to
the second-level balcony, a spread of chocolate-brown carpet the size of a
football field. I pick up the smell of coffee and track it to a most welcome
sight: a circular table hosting three urns of Starbucks’ best, ringed by a
convoy of silver boats holding cream and sugar. It turns out to be a good-faith
construct, suggesting you drop in a buck for each cup of java. Seattle rocks.
At
the sound of the five-minute chimes, we funnel into one of five different
entrances and descend into the orchestra section, a field of plush navy blue
seats. The balconies drop down on either side against walls lit up in blood
red. The broad proscenium is free of ornament, just an enormous burgundy
curtain.
Even
as a late starter, I have seen a dozen Bohèmes, and I’m beginning to notice the
fine details. In the final scene, when Schaunard the musician enters with food
for his companions, his inventory usually includes a garish prop-fish, which
adds to the impending hi-jinks. This time he enters with a bowl containing
pickled herring. He does, however, bring the traditional baguette, which will
soon be used as a sword in a mock-duel. Perhaps this is an overlooked aspect of
opera: we see the same works so often that we can bicker over the
micro-traditions.
Otherwise,
the production is pretty standard. The
singers are magnificent. Rodolfo the poet is played by a black tenor, Vinson
Cole, which in 21st century Seattle raises nary an eyebrow. Cole is
a local favorite, blessed with a lyric instrument that carries just a tad of
that vigorous spinto edge. The Marcello is fantastic, a young American with a
robust baritone that fills the hall. (Although he is given not a single aria, I
have decided that Marcello is the secret lynchpin to this opera, and have
learned to appreciate anyone who does him justice.)
The
Musetta is nearly spectacular, a tall, willowy redhead with a voice unabashedly
high in its aspect, like the playful soubrette roles of Rossini and Donizetti.
The brilliance of her tone gives the emphasis to Musetta’s flirtatiousness –
which is really her occupation, since she’s a courtesan.
Maddalena
is Maddalena, but in a rather intriguing fashion. I will make you wait for the
details, but I will say that she plays Mimi with three different voices: a
Mozartean lyric for “Mi chiamano Mimi” and the famed meeting with Rodolfo; a
slightly heavier, late-Verdi lyric for the tollgate scene (the couple’s last
attempt at happiness before Mimi’s consumption takes over); and, I swear, a
dark, Wagnerian soprano for the low, ominous lines – the “death tones” – of the
final scene. This evening-long descent is astounding – and it’s also astounding
that Maddie continues to astound me.
The
best operas continue to reveal new treasures even after multiple viewings; my
latest discovery in Bohème is a line
that I have never noticed before. In the death scene, Musetta is warming a
bottle of medicine over a lamp, and she sings, “Oh, don’t let the flame go
out.”
The
finale is roundly ovated by an auditorium of weeping opera fans (Puccini being
lord and master of the lachrymal glands). I find myself feeling proud, either of Maddie or for Maddie.
The
crowd seeps away like a river seeking tributaries. I stand at the edge of the
second-level balcony with coffee number three. The question of the moment is, What now? How does one go about stalking
a diva?
I
stop a passing usher and say, “Excuse me, do you know how I would reach Jennifer
Lim?” (Jennifer’s the press contact, the only name I’ve got in my arsenal.)
The
usher conducts a little internal info search. “She’s probably at the VIP
reception. Are you press?”
I
stare dumbly at my folder. “Yes, I guess I am.”
“I
would bet that you’ll find an invitation in that folder. Just go to those
stairs, up one flight, and you’ll be right at the door.”
“Thanks.”
I
dig out a white square with the invitation. I hand it to a high-society blonde
– one of those 62-year-olds who looks vaguely 35 – and pass into Valhalla.
The
reception room is actually pretty plain, a high-ceilinged space with walls in
yellow fabric and tall, narrow windows that offer views of the parking garage
across the street. There are perhaps 50 patrons milling about, many of them
standing at tall tables, and a center table offering a spread of
luscious-looking fruit. I am much too nervous to eat, but when a waitress comes
by with a tray I take what turns out to be a white chocolate truffle with
key-lime filling. Life as a VIP is good. Another coffee would make me explode,
so I head for a table holding glasses of white wine.
I
work myself into a neutral position, like an airship avoiding sharp edges, and
pick up an interesting conversation to my right. A large man with a velvety
baritone is speaking with a thin man possessing a pair of stylish narrow
spectacles and a pronounced kinetic energy.
“I
don’t even know why they bother with it anymore,” says the thin man, with a
crisply enunciated tenor. “I could sing the goddamn thing myself. ‘They call me
Mimi, I don’t know why, tee-hee.’ Oh God it’s so fucking juvenile, but the hoi polloi eats it up like butterscotch pudding.”
The
large man answers calmly. “They love it because it’s the most beautifully
sculpted aria ever written. Screw the words! Look at the structure of it, map
it out. It’s glorious.”
“Bosh!”
says the thin man. (Do people really say “Bosh”?) “At least Bizet owned up to
his excesses. His melodies are openly
melodic, for all to hear. Puccini’s always trying to nudge it this way and
that, like he’s saying, ‘Look! I really am
an artist!’ And hey, Turandot I’ll give you. Fanciulla, Gianni Schicchi, Suor
Angelica. But Bohème? Tripe. Triple tripe.”
“Don’t
condemn something just because it’s popular, Larry.”
“Oh,
Cordell…”
That’s
where my eavesdropping clicks off, because how many Cordells would be floating
around Seattle? I walk over and wait for a half-second pause in Larry’s thesis.
“I’m
sorry, but… is your name Cordell?”
The
man turns my way, revealing a wide, gentle face outlined by a neat silver
beard.
“Well
yes, it is.”
I
extend a hand and derive maximum enjoyment from my next line.
“Mickey
Siskel.”
Cordell
ignores my hand, grabs me by the shoulders and gives me a big smack on the
cheek.
“Mickey!
In the flesh! Larry, this is the best
goddamn opera blogger in the universe. His stuff is so insightful. You would love it.”
Once
released, I extend a hand to Larry and am relieved when he simply takes it.
“Well,
Mickey!” says Cordell. “What on earth brings you here?”
“I’ve
been promoted. I’m the West Coast stringer for a web site based in New Zealand.
So I thought I would take an opera vacation.”
Cordell
laughs and bats me on the shoulder.
“Oh,
Mickey. That’s nonsense.”
“Bosh,”
says Larry.
“Folderol,”
says Cordell. “You’re here to see Maddalena.” He turns to Larry. “He’s dating
her, you know.”
Larry
arches an eyebrow. “Really.”
“Well,
no,” I say. “Okay. Twice. We went out a couple of times in San Francisco. She’s
probably forgotten all about me. She doesn’t even know I’m here.”
Now
Cordell arches an eyebrow. “You didn’t tell her you were coming?”
“What
kind of boyfriend are you?” says Larry, who is clearly enjoying himself. “Why,
if I was a diva, I’d be incensed!”
“Larry,”
says Cordell. “You are a diva.”
“I
prefer to think of myself as a prima donna.”
“But
honestly,” I say, trying to keep up. “I am not
Maddie’s boyfriend. She just needed some help, that’s all.”
Larry
gives me an appraising look. “That must have been one hell of a review you gave
her.”
At
this point, the only thing I can do is give up. “Fine. And you may as well be
the first to know, Maddie’s pregnant with my child. We’re having an enormous
Episcopalian wedding in January, and all of this will be revealed in a
thrilling second-act aria.”
Shocked
that a hetero could produce something so creative, Larry and Cordell fan me
with gales of laughter. We are interrupted by a man who resembles a toned-down
Andy Warhol, striking a glass with a fork. This is Speight Jenkins, Seattle’s
artistic director. The room grows quickly attentive.
“Greetings!
I am generally sent up here to tell sob stories and ask you for money, but
tonight I’m going to let the arts speak for themselves. Please welcome our
Marcello, Nicolai Janitzky.”
Nicolai
strolls out in a blue pinstripe suit and clasps his hands together over his
head.
“Our
Musetta, Gabriella Compton.”
Gabriella
appears in a slim yellow dress with diagonal slashes of cream. Her hair has
gone magically short.
“Our
Rodolfo, Vinson Cole”
Vinson
enters in brown cords, a white turtleneck and a black leather jacket. He
accepts his favorite-son outburst with a boisterous grin.
“And,
back after a brief bout of consumption, our Mimi, Maddalena…”
The
last name disappears in a melee of shouting and applause. The way that opera
people react to this woman is almost frightening. She enters in a gown of
copper-colored chiffon, every bit the diva, her mousy brown Mimi-wig replaced
by the familiar honey tresses. She smiles and holds a hand over her heart.
“And
now,” says Speight, “I will retire until the next time I am called upon to beg
you for money.”
Speight
receives a mix of laughter and sarcastic applause. The four singers disappear
into circles of well-wishers, and I go back to Cordell. Larry has absconded.
“Seriously,
Cordell, it is a thrill to meet you.
I really appreciate the way you’ve encouraged my little experiment.”
Cordell
places a hand on my shoulder and fixes me with blue-gray eyes. “There are so
few opera writers who are not completely occupied with showing how G.D. clever
they are. I would bet that most of them don’t even like opera. But Mickey, your passion and humor and humility are so refreshing. I always come away with
some new insight to share with my colleagues. You are a hidden treasure, and I
feel compelled to announce your presence to the world. I’m also rather fond of
that Devil Diva.”
I’m
relieved to be out of this thick stream of appreciation. “She is a kick, isn’t she?”
“She
really sasses things up. Uh-oh. The queen approaches.”
Maddie
storms our way, followed by every eye in the room. I am much relieved (and just
a tad disappointed) when she jumps into the arms of Cordell.
“Professore!
It is so good to see you. How are
you? How’s Dennis?”
“Oh,
um, Dennis is gone.”
She
breaks their embrace and holds him at arm’s length. “Oh, I’m sorry. What happened?”
“Got
bored of me, I suppose.”
“Oh!”
Maddie laughs and immediately covers her mouth. “I’m so sorry! I thought you
were saying he died.”
Cordell
chuckles. “Oh! God, I must work on my
phrasing.”
“Always
the voice coach. I…”
I’ve
been standing here like a mannequin, waiting for the moment of recognition, but
now that she has registered my presence, the room goes into that trendy
special-effects mode where everybody freezes in 3-D while the protagonist
wanders the room undeterred, stealing people’s drinks, squeezing women’s
knockers. Maddie’s eyes grow wide with alarm, she puts one hand to her hair,
and then she simply turns and walks away. She stops at the far end of the room,
hidden from view by a circle of elderly women.
Cordell
and I stand there and watch in silence, until social necessity demands that he
say something.
“I…
I don’t know if I have ever seen anything like that.”
“It
wasn’t exactly a glowing review.”
Cordell
covers his mouth and coughs nervously. “I’ll… Maybe I’ll see if I can have a
word with her.”
“No.
Don’t, please. You’re right. It was rude of me to just show up like this. She’s
got much more important things to worry about, and I put her in a bad
position.”
“Well.
Perhaps a bit. Listen, though. I need to chat with a few people – a matter of
keeping the voice students knocking at one’s door – but I won’t be more than
half an hour. Promise me you’ll stick around, and I’ll take you to Belltown for
a drink. I have not begun to pick
your brain.”
I
scan the crowd, every single one of them a well-dressed mystery. “Okay. I’ll
sit here and read my program.”
“Good
boy.”
My
reading is completely ineffective. The words bounce off my eyes and fall into
my wine, forming a white verbal fuzz. I am rescued by Jennifer Lim, who finally
figures out my identity and quizzes me about the New Zealand website. Before I
know it, Cordell has arrived at my shoulder.
“All
right, young Rodolfo, let us away to some fine booze.”
“Falstaff!”
I exclaim.
“Prince
Hal!” says Cordell.
“Well.
We both know our Shakespeare, at least. Thanks, Jennifer.”
“Thank
you,” says Jennifer. “Come back for
The Flying Dutchman.”
“I will,” I say, meaning not a word
of it.
Cordell
takes me by the elbow and we flee the room. “I know a divine little bar on
Second Avenue. And don’t worry, it’s not one of those bars.”
“Ha!”
We
walk past the artificial creek and into the great square. The fountain is done
with its dancing, each of its sprays locked in a steady outpour, colored blue
by a ring of muted spotlights. We stop at a waist-high wall.
“I
never tire of this crazy thing,” says Cordell. “I always like to check in after
a performance. Something about the water helps the music settle into my brain.
Well,” he claps me on the back, “I’ll be seeing you.”
He
walks away, in the direction of the Space Needle. I assume it’s some kind of
gag, but he keeps going, disappearing into a dark walkway.
“Cordell?
Cordell? Where the hell are you going?!” At this point, I am suffering serious
abandonment issues, and I feel the need to express them vocally. “What the
bloody fucking hell is going on here!?”
“Really,
Mickey. It’s a family park. Watch your mouth.”
I
turn to find a blue water nymph, wearing a hooded cape like a goddamn princess.
She attacks me with a kiss.
I
escort the internationally famous opera singer Maddalena Hart into Belltown, a
former industrial zone now filling the city’s constant need for hip new
neighborhoods. We discover a bar called Balls, whose every table is constructed
from the glass-covered play area of an antique pinball machine. We settle next
to a machine featuring circus figures: the bearded woman, the strong man, the
lion tamer.
“This
clown looks alarmingly like a Pagliaccio I worked with in Baltimore.”
I’m
still a little unnerved by my deliverance, so I take a first sip from my
microbrew. It’s a light hefeweizen, but it still delivers a pleasant bite.
“So,”
says the diva. “Do you forgive me?”
I
take a long look at her, glowing in the red light from the bar. She’s still
wearing the copper gown.
“What
for?”
“For
the gross snub. For the Cinderella-at-midnight.”
“I
took my chances.”
“You
certainly did, you bad boy.”
“I
thought you just hated me or something.”
Maddie
laughs, her mouth open like a puppy dog’s.
“Or
something! Or something! Here is Ms. Hart, being the friendly performing arts
professional amongst the important Seattle donors, and suddenly here’s Mickey
Siskel, hunky opera critic softball stud with the sad eyes that can’t decide
whether they want to be blue or green. But that’s not how it happens. It
happens like this – “ she squeezes my name into one-syllable bullets of sound –
“Mickey! Mickey! Pheromones attack
like killer bees. I am fighting this urge to tear the clothes from your body.
The conflict between desire and obligation becomes so intense that Ms. Hart
locks up – Maddie Hart, who has negotiated a thousand social minefields, who
has improvised her way out of a hundred onstage catastrophes. I freaked out. So
– fight or flight. I chose flight.”
“You
wanted to tear my clothes off?”
She
seems to have difficulty with this question. She chews on her lip, then grabs
my necktie and yanks me forward so she can scour my mouth with her tongue. Then
she pulls away, pats my tie back into place and says, “Yes.”
I
like this game very much, so I decide to play along. I take a long swallow from
my beer.
“So,
Mimi. When does Rodolfo get a look at that fine white ass of yours?”
“Ooh!”
She squirms in her seat. “I would really
like that. How’s Wednesday?”
Double-take.
Double-take. “Wednesday? Really?”
“Sadly,
yes. Right now, I shouldn’t even be doing this.
If we did that, we’d be looking at
some major lack of sleep, and I’ve got performances Sunday and Tuesday. I can’t
take the chance.”
“Wow.”
“It’s
the opera life. Constant health paranoia. The human voice is a fickle
instrument. I wish I was a nice sturdy cello.”
I
gaze at the pinball ringleader, top-hatted, redcoated, frozen in a grand
gesture.
“It’s
not the wait so much. I had only planned a certain amount of time and money for
this trip. I gotta get back.”
Maddie
sits back and taps a fingernail against her teeth.
“Former
nail chewer?”
“Oh,”
she says. “Terrible. I can’t help you on time. Wednesday is non-negotiable. But
Wednesday is the Fourth of July,
you’ll recall, and I think your boss should show a little respect for his new
country.”
I
laugh. “I’ll be sure and tell him that.”
“But
money-wise, I think I can get you free lodging, and a little spending cash.”
“Really?”
“That
is, if you know anything about staining decks.”
“Boy,
do I.”
I
am now the exiled boyfriend, and a bit of a CIA operative. I spend a second
night in Tacoma, and then, following detailed instructions, I tootle northward
up the Kitsap Peninsula to Bainbridge Island. I end up in a jolly little harbor
town called Winslow, where I head for the waterfront, and a brick coffeehouse
called the Pegasus. I order an Oregon chai, settle onto a chair and give my La Bohème program a prominent place on
my table. (This is my “tell,” or my “marker,” I forget my film noir lingo.) A
short while later, I am overshadowed by a bald, burly man in a motorcycle
jacket and riding chaps. He’s got a finely trimmed silver goatee, the kind worn
by operatic villains. Perhaps Sparafucile, the hired assassin from Rigoletto.
“I’m
guessing you might be Mickey Siskel.” His voice is remarkably clear and
resonant, a high baritone that would do well for a radio DJ.
“And
you are most likely Bill Harness.”
“Good
to meet you,” he says. “I find it hard to believe that Maddalena Hart is acting
as my general contractor. Perhaps Placido Domingo will do my taxes.”
“I
think Maddie could do anything she sets her mind to.”
Bill
gives me a crafty smile. “Especially when she’s in love.”
“She…
She said that?”
“No.
But I’m familiar with the symptoms.”
“Oh.
Okay. Should we get going?”
“No,
no. Finish your drink first.”
“That’s
why I got it in a paper cup. I’m feeling pretty restless.”
“That’s
another of the symptoms.”
“Okay.
You got me.”
I walk
with Bill to the parking lot, then drive behind him as he leads the way on his
Harley. We stay along the eastern edge of the island, the Seattle skyline
peeking through the trees, and pull to the side just before the road swings
left. Straight ahead, down a steep decline, is a beachside park spotted here
and there with tents and RVs.
Bill
takes off his brain-bucket and walks me through a gate in a split-rail fence.
Past a wide front lawn is a sprawling ranch-style house with conspicuous
Italianate touches: a Romanesque arch over the front door, a statue of Cupid
next to a fountain, and a wysteria-covered arbor supported by scalloped
pillars. Across from the main house are four small cottages, painted in shades
of pastel.
“Nice
place,” I say.
Bill
smiles. “We like it. It’s the Villa d’Umbra, an home for wayward opera singers.
Maestro d’Umbra was Gabriella’s voice teacher. Once worked with Puccini. Passed
away five years ago and gave me the task of running his estate.”
“Gabriella?”
“Musetta,
yes. She’s certainly my Musetta.”
“She’s
amazing.”
“Preaching
to the choir, son. That girl saved my soul. I’ll tell you about it sometime
when we have six or seven free hours. Meanwhile, why don’t we visit the
patient?”
Bill
leads me behind the house to a sprawling field covered in wild grass. At the
far end is a low line of cedars, and beyond that the Puget Sound. There’s
something vaguely unusual about the field – some man-made presence.
“That’s
it,” says Bill.
“Umm…”
I shade my eyes and look harder. “That’s what?”
“We
call it Maestro’s labyrinth. Although I’m proud to say that I built it myself.
Let’s get closer so you can make it out.”
Twenty
feet further, we arrive at a small circular deck.
“People
get the wrong idea about labyrinths,” says Bill. “They’re not designed to get
you lost. That’s a maze. Labyrinths are designed to get you found. By forcing
you to focus on a tightly proscribed path. Maestro had his students walk it
before each lesson.”
The
circular deck is, in fact, a starting point. A narrow walkway of planks leads
away and then veers into a series of loops and meanders that seem to culminate
in a second circle, capped by a belvedere. The reason I couldn’t see all of
this before is that it’s gray with age, and is blending with the surrounding vegetation.
“They
say that the center of a labyrinth is the meeting place of heaven and earth. I
always know when Gabriella arrives there, because she celebrates by bursting
into song. And that is not a sound
that one is likely to miss.”
“Not
at all.”
“We
put some sort of sealant on it, but obviously we’ve let it go far too long.
Maddie tells me you’re just the man to bring it back to life.”
“At
last count, 600 decks.”
“Egad!
In any case, we can take a trip to the store later to get the stain and any necessary
equipment. But if you’re up for it you can start right away, because I borrowed
Cordell’s pressure washer. Cordell is rather fixated on that thing, actually.
He says it’s that final spurt when you shut it off; it reminds him of
ejaculation.”
The
image sends me into a fit of laughter. “Oh my god! I know exactly what he
means.”
“Well,”
Bill chortles. “I suppose you’re familiar with the equipment. Both kinds.”
“That
I am.”
It’s
a sunny day, small clouds scudding along like a herd of white bison, and I am
full of energy. After loading my clothes into the guest cottage, I don my
oldest pair of shorts and the Wellies (feeling very fortunate that I decided to
bring them along) and I set to work. The wood is fully oxidized and mossed up,
creating a marvelous transformation under the spray. I wash the labyrinth in
the same way that it’s walked, and I do feel a sense of its meditative powers.
At the end of four hours I’m finished, and I celebrate at the meeting of heaven
and earth by breaking into the cooler of beer that Bill has generously
delivered.
It’s
only four o’clock, and Bill is off on errands, so I decide that it’s time to
get to that review. I pack a notebook, a couple of pens and Grove’s Book of Opera and take a drive
to the Pegasus, where an enormous iced coffee offers all the right categories
of refreshment.
I’m
not usually into public writing – being prone to distraction – but the Pegasus
has a tree-shaded back patio, and if you crane your neck you can see the
sailboats in the harbor. The seclusion enables me to lay down a sloppy-quick
first draft. The number-one cause of writer’s block is the attempt to write
golden prose on a first foray, and I swear I’m at my best when I’m at my worst.
What
happens next causes me to believe that I have become one of those people who
can conjure people from thin air simply by writing about them. Out walks a
tall, willowy woman with freckles and short red hair.
“How
did I make out?”
“Musetta!”
“Marcello!”
she sings, and laughs. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, but it looks like
you’re wrapping up.”
“Yes.
Pull up a chair.”
She
sits across from me in blue jeans and a green T-shirt, and extends a hand.
“Gabriella.”
“Mickey.
But… how do you know me by appearance?”
She
smiles shyly. “Maddie was pointing you out at the reception. Acting like a
little schoolgirl. She’s got a thing
for you.”
“Yes.
I get a lot of that. And I wish someone would explain it to me.”
Gabriella taps a finger on her
temple. “This may be hard for you to understand, but even though we do this
glamorous thing, it’s still a J-O-B. And afterwards, we’re normal women, and
we’re attracted to certain men for all the same inexplicable reasons as other
women. Apropos of nothing, the deck looks fantastic.”
“Thanks!
Wait till I get some stain on it.”
Her
eyes settle on the high evergreen ridge above the harbor.
“It
actually makes me a little sad. Maestro loved that labyrinth. He was 97 when he
passed away, so I can’t be too sad,
but… I miss him.”
“He
must have had a profound effect on you.”
“Oh!
Everything. When Puccini was dying of throat cancer, he hired Maestro to
demonstrate vocal lines to his students. So really, every line I sing in this
Bohème comes directly from the composer.”
“Wow.”
“I’ve got several of Maestro’s old
scores, with notes from Puccini in the margins.”
“Can
I see them?”
“Sure!
I’ll show you tonight. But only if you tell me what you wrote about me.”
I
laugh nervously. “You remind me of this Jewish lady in Palo Alto. She comes up
to me at intermission and says, ‘So, Mister Opera Critic – what do you think?’”
“Nice
try, Mickey. Now tell me what you wrote.”
“Man!
You’re tough.”
“All
sopranos are tough.”
I
take a sip from my iced coffee.
“I
wrote that your voice has a shimmering brilliance, and I like the fact that you
sing Musetta with an unabashedly bel canto canary-voice, an approach that is
needlessly underrated.”
She
slants her eyes at me. “And yet my signature role is Tosca.”
“Really?”
“Yes.
Too many sopranos are bent on being Butterfly or Tosca or Aida all the time.
They seem to view Musetta as some kind of audition for those heavier roles, so
they try to turn her into a goddamn Brunnhilde. Let’s face it, Musetta is a
high-priced hooker, and utterly superficial – so why not sing her that way? And
later, when she takes off the courtesan stage-face and turns into a true and
caring friend, the contrast is that much deeper.”
“Like
a well-weathered deck.”
“Huh?”
“I
mean - absolutely!”
“Let
me tell you a Maestro story. Puccini was obsessed with America. That’s why he
turned Pinkerton from a Dutch sailor to an American sailor, why he inserted the
Star Spangled Banner into the score for Butterfly.
And why he wrote The Girl of the Golden
West. When Maestro came to the United States, he felt like he was living
out Puccini’s cowboy dreams. And why he built an Italian ranch house, for God’s
sake, and put those split-rail fences in the front yard. So one time I asked
him, ‘Why doesn’t Fanciulla del West
get produced more often?’ And he said, ‘Because the soprano must have eight balls.’”
She
says this with a deep Italian accent and the face of a basset hound.
“You are quite the mimic.”
“Maestro’s
voice is part of me. I hear it when I’m performing.”
I
lean back and hear Gabriella singing Musetta’s Waltz – the final cadenza,
ending with one of those marvelous accelerating trills, like she’s cranking it
with a gas pedal.
“So
where does Bill fit in?”
Gabriella
lets out a chirp of laughter, just like Musetta.
“I
get that a lot. He was a tenor. Sang
Trovatore at the Met. But his career was cut short by family tragedies. The
last of those tragedies left him a mess, and that’s when I met him. My voice
was the light at the end of his tunnel. I needed his tragedies. I needed
something to feel when I sang. This Hell’s Angel phase is only a couple years
old. When his hairline got down to that Friar Tuck thing, he said, ‘Screw it,
I’m shaving it all.’ When he saw how cool he looked, he sorta bunched that
together with all his emotional scars, and next thing you know he’s buying a Harley.”
“I
like the combination. I do some of that tough guy/sensitive guy thing myself.
It really messes with people.”
“Well
I can’t wait to see your review. Maddie says they’re like little opera poems.”
I
raise my hands like I’m fighting off giant mosquitoes. “Pressure! Pressure!”
“Do
Lucia di Lammermoor and then talk to me about pressure, buddyboy.”
“No thank you. Speaking of, do you
know of a library hereabouts with computers?”
“Bosh!
We have a computer at the villa. Especially if you’re going to write nice
things about me.”
“Gabriella,
if I wasn’t so gaga for Mimi, I’d be asking you to dinner right now.”
“Actually,
I’m taking you to dinner.”
Bill
has a light Italian dinner waiting for us: chicken parmigiana, bowtie pasta
with herbs and butter and assorted greens with raspberry vinaigrette.
Afterwards, I grab a cup of coffee and retreat to the computer room. Here’s
what I come up with:
Doria
Manfredi was a teenage housemaid at Giacomo Puccini’s villa in Torre del Lago.
In the summer, when it got too hot, she would do her ironing in the evening, as
Puccini worked on Fanciulla del West.
One evening, the composer took a break to enjoy a cigar, and had a brief chat
with Doria in the garden. Doria lost her father early in life, and probably
enjoyed the company of an older man.
Elvira
Puccini heard the voices beneath her window and made an enormous assumption.
She became convinced that Doria was staying late in order to make love to her
husband. Her suspicions were not entirely unfounded; Puccini’s philandering was
well-known. Elvira fired Doria, and spent the autumn publicly denouncing the
girl as a slut. What’s worse, everyone believed her. Puccini tried to get his
wife to stop these accusations, but with no success. On Christmas morning,
Elvira confronted Doria at mass and threatened to kill her.
Haunted
and sick, Doria purchased a bottle of mercuric chloride, a corrosive
disinfectant, and swallowed three tablets. The stomach cramps began
immediately, followed by five days of riveting pain. In her suicide note, she
asked for revenge on Elvira, and clemency for Puccini, who had done nothing
wrong.
The
town gossips disagreed, and concluded that Doria had died of a botched
abortion. The authorities ordered an autopsy, to be conducted in the presence
of witnesses. The autopsy revealed that Doria died a virgin.
For
a composer who gained his greatest success in the tender destruction of his
heroines – Butterfly’s hari-kari, Tosca’s leap from the parapet, Mimi’s slow
wasting away – this murder-by-rumor must have been a crushing blow. It’s
interesting to note that his two remaining prima donnas – Turandot and Fanciulla’s Minnie – remained alive at
the final curtain.
The
first of Puccini’s beloved victims – Mimi of La Bohème – was apparently based on a friend from his own
starving-artist period in Milan, a friend who also died young. In Seattle
Opera’s production, soprano Maddalena Hart portrays Mimi’s decline in a
profoundly intelligent fashion, using concrete musical choices to play on the
heartstrings of her audience, almost on a subterranean level.
[Track
5]
Hart
is well-known for the range of her roles – from the creamy lyricism of Manon
and Figaro’s Contessa to heavier
figures like Lady Macbeth and Tosca. As Mimi, she begins with a shimmering
lyric tone that accentuates the optimism of “Mi chiamano Mimi” and the duet
with Rodolfo, “O soave fanciulla.” By the second act at the tollgate, as she
and Rodolfo fight off the specter of her sickness, her tone is more of a lirico spinto, darker, edgier. By the finale,
with its ominous lower range and monotone “death lines,” Hart’s voice is as
deep and sultry as a mezzo’s. It’s almost as if Seattle has hired a trio of
identical sopranos to play three different Mimis.
[Track
6]
Seattle’s
Musetta, Gabriella Compton, achieved a similar end by using utterly opposite
means. Known to possess a palette of tonal colors almost as expansive as
Hart’s, Compton intentionally limits herself to a light Rossinian lyric, which
emphasizes the superficial charms that make Musetta, after all, so much fun.
This serves to increase the contrast between Musetta and Mimi, and to make it
that much more poignant when the superficial courtesan reveals her true self, a
dedicated and loving friend. Among the Parisian artists of La Bohème, Friday’s performance offered a virtuosic display of
vocal painting.
As
I punch the review into my blog – accompanied by a photo of Musetta comforting
Mimi on her death bed – I hear a startling sound, and I look out the window to
find Gabriella, her hands raised to the sky. Having achieved the center of the
labyrinth, she has burst into song. I search my data banks and come up with the
Ave Maria from Otello.
The
comments crew is a little slow in responding. Perhaps they have all gotten
lives. A half hour later, as I’m composing an email to Colin requesting a
vacation extension, Cordell chimes in.
C: Mickey! I am amazed at this story – even more
amazed that I have never heard it before. And with your thoughts on coloration
you are once again yanking thoughts from my subconscious and giving them
definition. I thank you, I thank you.
M: Fantastic meeting you in person, Cordell. And
thank you for that special delivery at the fountain.
C: Ha! I picture myself as Rigoletto, hauling Gilda
in a burlap sack. Anything I can do to help out a couple of lost heteros. Oh,
and try not to think too much about that pressure-washer thing.
M: Every time I shut it off, I get the urge to light
up a cigarette. Seriously, though, thanks for letting us use it. That extended
wand is a real back-saver.
C: Oh, length is always
good. (I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.)
Another
45 minutes go by. I have discovered an antique pint of ice cream in the
freezer. I think it’s mint chip. I am just about to dig in when the chime goes
off again.
Mad Huntress: Great. Your Doria story has me crying
all over again. Perhaps this is payback for all the weeping I will be causing
tomorrow. Your insights are as brilliant as ever – and yes, my tonal intentions
were just as you described. I cannot wait to see you. I cannot wait. Did I
mention I cannot wait?
M: Bless you, Huntress. I am your happy prey, and
your ecstatic listener.
Cordell: Shew! Getting a little thick around here.
M: Screw you, old man!
C: Promises, promises.
The
weather over Sunday and Monday is overcast but not wet, absolutely perfect for
decking. I assemble the proper combination of trolley, tray and
thousand-bristle brush and set to work. During my breaks, I find blackberries
going purply ripe on the vine, and I spot several garter snakes. I even manage
to catch one, until he employs that lovely garterish trick of urinating
himself.
At
seven o’clock on Monday, I arrive at the meeting of heaven and earth. I stand
before a three-foot center plank, sweep it with a second coat of golden tan,
turn to take a full survey of my finished product, and I sing “The Joker” by
Steve Miller.
On
Tuesday, the final day of my Maddiefast, I take a drive toward the Olympic
Mountains and split off north to Port Townsend. It’s a divine little town, with
a shopping district of historic brick buildings. I check in at a restaurant for
a meal of grilled trout.
Wednesday
rises under patriotic sunshine and I wake at six, wired by hormones. The only
thing to do is hike to the Pegasus for a cappuccino, but it turns out they’re
closed for the holiday. So I hike along the harbor to the ferry station, watch
a couple of ships come in, then make my way back to the villa. When I return, I
find Bill on the front lawn, wearing white shorts and a white golf shirt like a
cast member from Gatsby: The Musical.
Having seen him only in riding leathers, I find this pretty amusing.
“Mickey,
old boy! Help a bruthuh out, would you?”
“Sure.”
“I
need to lay out a croquet course for the party.”
“Croquet?
How Kennedyesque.”
“By
the way, the deck is astounding.”
“Glad
you like it.”
“I
want you to accept this.” He hands me a bill featuring Benjamin Franklin.
“No,
no really, I was happy to…”
“Not
my money, Mickey. The foundation’s. And, this little barter of ours saved me a
thousand bucks. And, you probably
need gas money to get home.”
“You
are right on all counts.” I fold Ben in two and stick him in my pocket.
We
manage to construct a decent course and give it a trial run, having no idea of
rules other than shooting the ball thingies through the hoop thingies. Having
some facility with the striking of balls, I give Bill a sound thumping. As I
strike the ball thingy against the final stake-thingy, I turn to discover
Maddalena Hart, the opera star, ascending the front walk in a white sundress
and one of those goofy, floppy wide-brimmed hats. She stops three feet away,
fixes me with an irritated stare, and holds out a hand.
“Give
me that mallet.”
I
stand there, blank.
“Now!”
I
hand it over. She takes it and tosses it over her shoulder.
“And
they say opera singers can’t act.” She gives me a lengthy kiss, then peers at
something past my shoulder.
“What’re
you looking at, Harness?”
“A
woman in love,” says Bill.
“Maybe.”
“How
was the opera?” I ask.
She
smiles.
“Fantastic!
But you saw the cast. Nothing but blue-ribbon performers. Makes things so easy. But let’s see your work.”
We
walk through the courtyard and around to the back. She lets out a gasp.
“Darling!
It’s magnificent. It’s… golden.”
“Golden
tan,” I say. “Cabot stain. A blue-ribbon performer. I’ve never quite been able
to figure out, but it makes old redwood look like new hardwood: oak, pine,
maple.”
“It’s
like a big piece of Celtic jewelry. Is it too early to walk on it?”
“Not
at all.”
“Come
with?”
My
answer surprises me. “No. You should walk it alone. You’ve got a lot of Mimi to
shed. One thing, though. When you get to the center, you have to sing
something. That’s what Gabriella does.”
She
laughs. “Great! More performance anxiety.” She gives me a kiss and steps up to
the first circle. Bill comes up next to me.
“She
walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.”
I
can play this game. “And all that’s best of dark and light meet in her aspect
and her eyes.”
“You,”
says Bill, “are the luckiest man on Earth.”
“I
know.”
“Uh-oh.
More guests. I’d better go play master of ceremonies.”
[Track
7]
I watch Maddie until she
achieves the center and sings the first section of Doretta’s Song (more
Puccini). After several smooches under the green pods of the wysteria, we
return to the front yard and encounter a majority of the cast: Marcello,
Colline, Rodolfo, Musetta, Schaunard, Speight Jenkins, plus Cordell and a young
friend. We while away the afternoon drinking planter’s punch, dining on finger
sandwiches, deviled eggs and chocolate chip cookies, and playing a drunken
bastardization of croquet. Groups of two and three take off at regular
intervals to walk the labyrinth, and every few minutes we’re treated to a new
aria. Marcello and Rodolfo sing the entirety of that famous duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and Maddie leans over
to whisper the title: “Au fond du temple saint.”
The
sun is nearing the jagged tips of the Olympics. The members of the party break
into squads of three and four and car-pool to the harbor, where we navigate a
few lengths of pierage to a mid-sized yacht called the Cavaradossi (the name of
Tosca’s painter-lover). Bill takes the wheel, backs us out of our moorage and
steers us into the Puget Sound.
Maddie
and I find a bench and settle in, alternating between dreamy gazings at the
Seattle skyline and old-school teenage makeout sessions. The mist and wind make
it a chilly spot, but the seclusion is well worth the price.
As
the sunlight fades into stripes of orange and royal blue, we slip into a long
channel north of the city and join the nautical equivalent of rush hour
traffic. We pass through the city of Ballard, wait for a good long time at the
Fremont drawbridge and pass under a soaring span between the Fremont and Queen
Anne hills. Trying to orient myself, I recall that the southern side of Queen
Anne abuts the Seattle Center and its lovely new opera house.
The water widens to a lake,
and it seems that we are sailing directly into the city: the downtown
skyscrapers and Space Needle to our south, Capitol Hill directly before us, and
the I-5 bridge, taking its long shot north toward the University of Washington.
In a citifed sort of way, it feels tremendously cozy, a sensation intensified
by the wide field of boats, shuttling into place like Christmas shoppers in a
parking lot. Directly to the north, pedestrians mill the fields of a park,
bursting forth here and there with do-it-yourself explosives. Maddie pulls me
to the prow, the wind whipping through her hair.
“This
is Lake Union. Man-made. There’s a tremendous lake on the east of the city:
Lake Washington. They dug a channel from there to the Puget Sound, and Lake
Union was a lovely little by-product.”
“It’s
gorgeous here.”
“Wait’ll
you see it with fireworks. Speaking of…”
She
leaves her words dangling like a through-composed aria (trust me on this) and
leads me to a side door, which opens on a set of steps descending to a cabin
lined with wooden panels and bunks. Maddie nudges me inside, then locks the
door behind us.
“Okay,”
she says. “I have an unusual request. I want you to stare at my chest.”
“Really.”
“Stop
looking at my eyes! Pig.”
I
do as instructed (why the hell not?), bending my knees in order to bring
Maddie’s tits to eye level. She slips a hand behind her back, undoes the clasp
of her bra then slips it out through the top of her sundress.
“Now,”
she says. “Don’t touch until I say so.”
She
releases the straps from either shoulder and slips the dress slowly down. Her
breasts are medium-sized (half a casaba), milk white, modest enough that they
have retained a pleasantly round shape. Her aureolae are peach, size of a
Kennedy half-dollar, her nipples pink and distinctly erect. She crosses her
arms beneath them, holding her dress at waist level, then cups her hands beneath
each one, offering them like gifts. I am going mad taking in visual
information.
“Do
you approve?”
“Bravi!”
She
smiles, her face flushing.
“Then
touch them.”
I
run my pinkie around a nipple and then cup a breast in my palm, taking in the
warmth, the spongy texture. I do the same with my left hand, then I bring her
breasts toward each other and take turns sucking each nipple between my lips.
Maddie
takes in a gasp of breath. “I will give you three hours to stop that. You can
be rough with them, if you want.”
I
squeeze a breast, then I stuff it between my lips as deeply as I can, using the
suction at the back of my mouth to pull at her nipple.
“Oh
Jesus!” she sings. “Oh fuck! You’re good.”
After
a minute of this and other manipulations, I take a time-out to enjoy Maddie’s
lips. I’m surprised to feel her hand on my crotch. I grab her hair, run a
tongue into her ear and whisper, “I think it’s time for you to meet someone.”
“Yes,”
she says, and kneels on the floor.
“Now,
don’t touch until I say so.” I undo my belt and lower my pants. My penis is
about as hard as it gets, glowing white in the faint light from outside. Maddie
brings her face inches away and runs her eyes along its length. Now I know how
she felt, this sense of being observed but not touched.
“My,”
says Maddie. “It’s lovely.”
I
am of average size, but blessed in matters of aesthetic quality. My dick looks
like the one in the textbook.
“Thanks,”
I say. “I got it from Mom and Dad on my birthday.”
Maddie
is panting; her breath is wafting over my cock.
“May
I?” she asks.
“Be
my guest.”
She
places a finger at the tip and runs it all the way to the base, then circles
the shaft with her fingers and runs them back to the helmet.
“You
can be rough with it, if you want.”
She
tightens her grip and strokes downward, which feels divine. Then she leans
forward and kisses the tip, pulling it slowly into her mouth like a crescendo
sustenato (trust me on this) till I’m four inches gone. Then she clamps down
with her lips and swirls that virtuosic tongue all the way around. Ec-stasy.
Out of / body. She squeezes my balls and pulls my cock all the way in. Jesus
Christ, Buddha, Krishna and the Seven Dwarfs. I am fucking the album cover.
Then
I hear a gunshot, and I see colors: emerald, lavender, cherry. Maddie pulls me
out and giggles. “Fireworks.”
“Should
we go see them?”
“Don’t
you want me to finish you off?”
“It
takes me a long time to come, honey.”
“Ooh!”
she says. “That could prove beneficial.”
“Smart
girl. I truly hate to say this but, Unhand my penis!”
She
gives my dick one last kiss and addresses it as a separate personage. “Bye,
honey. See you soon.”
I
try my best to tuck myself back into my boxers, and am grateful to know that it
will be dark outside. Maddie has quickly reattached her bra, and is redoing her
lipstick.
“Are
we ready?” she asks.
“One
last thing,” I say, and I give her ass a squeeze. She returns the favor, and we
re-enter the civilized, fully clothed world to explosions of blue and gold.
It’s
me and Maddie Hart, walking the loops of the golden labyrinth. The moonless sky
winks at us through pinholes in the dark blue fabric.
“So
extraordinary, watching the fireworks against the hills of the city. I’ve never
really seen anything like that.”
“It
really was beautiful,” she says. “And absolutely brilliant of Bill to cook up
that bratwurst for us.”
“Good
thing we both had one. Otherwise one of us would have bad breath.”
We
attain the center. She turns to me and grins.
“Are
you going to sing something?” I ask.
“No.
I’m going to take you to our cottage and strip you naked.”
We’re
there in seconds, and take turns removing each other’s clothing. Maddie’s body
is just as I had dreamed: white skin, luxurious curves, a modest layer of fat
to make her fleshy and grippable. I lay her down on my bed and I introduce my
tongue to every square inch, working from face to breast, down her abdomen to
her kneecaps and back to her pubis, covered with a down of blonde. I pull her
legs apart, place a thumb on either labium and part them like the petals of a
flower. I’m running my tongue along her clitoris when she places a hand on the
top of my head.
“Ooh!
Okay. There I’m a little sensitive.”
I
back off and reinitiate by blowing air on her, then giving little flicks with
my tongue. I run my tongue between her labia, gathering her musk, and then I
happen upon the key combination. I take a labium into my mouth, then use
suction to run it in and out between my lips. Maddie begins to moan. I insert a
finger, then two, and she begins to gasp obscenities. Then her legs start to
quiver, she begins to pant, and yells her way into a bucking orgasm. I am
inundated by a rush of moisture; she grabs my head with both hands, signalling
me to slow up. I run my tongue all around, as if I’m licking a wound. A minute
later, as her breathing subsides, I rise onto my elbows and wipe the fluid from
my face.
“Maddie!
Brava!”
She
pulls me forward and gives me a sloppy kiss.
“Is
there anything you’re not good at?”
Funny
she should ask. The penis is a fickle instrument, and right now, distracted by
all the focus on Maddie’s privates, mine has decided to go on strike. These are
the joys of being a fortysomething male with a circumcised cock. Sometimes the
erection doesn’t come back. Katie and I have worked up a repertoire of nasty
maneuvers to get around these occasional bouts – mutual masturbation, private
porn shows – but you can’t just pull out the whole freak show on a first
encounter. I really don’t want to sacrifice the romance quite so soon.
“Mickey?
What’s the matter? Are you… disappointed in me?”
I
curl up next to her and kiss her on the cheek. “Now let’s not even start that. It’s just one of those
things. I find it’s best to go with the flow.”
“But
I’m leaving tomorrow,” she says. “And I so
wanted to fuck you.”
“Stay
here,” I say. “We’ll try in the morning. It’s all right. This is a great start.
I enjoyed feeling you explode.”
She
smiles. Good. She has purchased the gambit.
“That
was awful nice.”
I spend some time spooning, fondling
her breasts, and we drift off to sleep.
I
wake in the morning with my cock in Maddie’s mouth. I’m erect, which gives me
hope, but there’s something about her eagerness that loads me up with anxiety,
and my cock subsides. (“What the hell
is wrong with you?” I want to ask him. He’s like an ornery, ill-performing
employee who refuses to be a team player.)
I
talk Maddie into the kind of gynecological finger-bang that I performed on
Katie, hoping that the sight of my digits surrounded by that broad white ass
will inspire other parts. The nastiness of her position brings Maddie to
another orgasm, but not to the fucking she had so looked forward to. What’s
worse, the clock is running; we have to get to her hotel by noon.
We
both take quickie showers, bid our farewells to Bill and Gabriella and take the
ferry to Seattle. I’m grateful for the crossing, which gives us the luxury of
some stillness amidst the rush, a chance to stand at the rail and slip back
into the romantic gestures of yesterday. I drive into the circle at her hotel –
in the middle of the downtown retail district – and kiss her for as long as I
can. Tourists stream past, completely unaware that I am kissing the world’s
best opera singer. I decide to ignore my failure completely; I thank her for a
wonderful visit, I tell her that she’s a lovely woman, that I am crazy about
her, and that I will see her again soon. I lead her to the elevator – one of
those exposed, glass-walled models, and I watch her rise to the heavens until
the lobby ceiling cuts her off.
I’m
not due at work till Monday, so I take the ferry back to Bainbridge and drive
the long loop of 101 around the Olympics. In the tiny town of Sappho, near the
northwest tip of the contiguous U.S., I stop at a roadside stand and buy a bag
of Rainier cherries, yellow orbs with streaks of red. I chew them down, one by
one, and toss the pits out the window.
Heading
toward a town called Queets I spot the incredibly late nine o’clock sun
hovering over the Pacific and take down the last cherry, having long before
lost my taste for them. I feel my blood vessels filling with regret. Call the
male gender silly, but penetration matters, completeness matters. I had a
chance to be inside of Maddalena Hart, a goddess with whom I may be in love,
and I failed. I am the grasping, opposable-thumbed homo sapien, and I don’t
care about the plateau under my feet, I want that one up there, just out of my
reach. This will bother me all the way down the Northwest coast of the United
States.
Eight
The drive around the Olympic
Mountains is more of a chore than I’d expected. I end up sleeping on a roadside
just north of the Columbia River, near Ilwaco (seriously, where do they get
these names?). The next day, the drive down the Oregon coast is sunny and
straight, but once I enter California I’ve got a major dilemma: keep driving or
face another showerless night.
My
general grubbiness wins out; the last hundred miles is murder. First I have to
crawl the stoplights of 19th Avenue through San Francisco (despite
the fact that it’s two in the freakin’ morning) and then I have to drive 280 to
San Jose with both windows open, singing along with Melissa Etheridge’s Brave and Crazy album, and slapping
myself between songs. And then, I
have to drive to my cabin.
By
the time I pull in to the twin redwoods, I am in a virtual dreamstate. I
stumble up the steps like I’m dragging a dead body (Rigoletto again) and take a
swan-dive onto the couch.
Still,
astoundingly, I’m awake. And here is why: all the way home, I have thought of
nothing but my non-functioning dick, and finally I have landed in a spot where
scientific research is possible. Not only that, in my current position – my
face scrunched against the couch cushion – I am looking directly into the
regions beneath my coffee table, where lies a DVD titled Conversations in Cum. This groundbreaking documentary records the
efforts of Sir Harry Broadstaff, who manages to interview and film a series of
eager, buxom models while fucking
them. For whatever reason, the sight of a randy twenty-year-old trying to
assemble cogent sentences as her producer’s schwanz slides in and out of her
pussy (duly recorded by regular downward pans) is enormously stimulating. Who
says men can’t multi-task?
And
this I know about my own physiognomy: I achieve my most vigorous erections
precisely when I’m nearly dead to the world. So I roll myself onto the floor,
take the DVD from its case and crawl like the dog that I am to the player. Soon
I am naked on the couch, stroking a film of Vaseline over an enormous stiffy.
Maestro Broadstaff is conducting three varieties of intercourse with a
stuttering, eye-crossing, lip-chewing brunette from Arizona.
Take
that, o ye gods of erection! But it’s
not enough to just get the hard-on.
After my irritating failure with La Diva, I’m determined to keep this one
going. I work myself toward the point of ejaculation – can actually feel the
sperm working its way up my shaft – and then I back myself down with light,
calming strokes.
Then
I fall asleep. When I awake, Sir Harry’s got a Romanian redhead, taking his
broad staff from behind as she discusses the political significance of Vaclev
Havel. The power-nap has diminished my erection not a whit. I work it harder,
like a tennis player approaching the net, then slowly back it off. It’s now
gaining that special brand of rigidity that comes from long-term stimulation.
And
then I fall asleep. This time it’s a slender Italian woman with long black
hair, the young Cher without the schnozz. She steps into the room, spots the
producer’s cock and says, “Now that’s
what I’m looking for!” She’s wearing a little black dress, the kind you see a
fancy fundraisers. I’m expecting the standard fellatio, but instead she takes
ahold of the penis, positions it beneath the hem of her dress and slides her
way down.
This one is so good that I can
almost feel it myself. She bucks and slides, throws her head back, grabs at her
small tits. It's all too much. I put my hands around her hips, I reach
underneath to grab her ass and then I gush inside of her for a long, long time.
She lets out a husky shout, shakes on my dick like a madwoman, and then I fall
asleep.
The
area around the cabins plays host to a healthy population of Steller’s jays.
They are always raucous, but this morning they seem to be coming through in
hi-def. When a cold draft sweeps over me, I discover that some idiot has left
the door open. I stumble to my feet to close it; the sudden motion alerts me to
the fact that I need to pee. Remembering little bits of my nocturnal jackoff,
this seems logical.
I
take the kitchen route to the bathroom, and open the door to find that someone
is already. A long olive-complected arm is draped along the rim of my bathtub,
a stream of raven hair hanging to the floor. A pair of black almond-shaped
eyes; a fetching smile.
“I have
to say, honey, when you decide to open a bed-and-breakfast, you go all out. The
clawfoot tub, the mango soap. This view! And that prefab erection. Best pillow
mint ever.”
This would be my ex-wife.
“Hi
Allison. What the fuck do you want?”
She grabs her tits and points them
at me like six-shooters.
“The
fuck I wanted, I already got.”
“Yes.
Mind if I pee?”
“Ooh!
And a free show with my bath.”
I
flip the lid and soon have a healthy stream bubbling the water. The ease of my
lewdness bothers me, but perhaps shamelessness is the one luxury of hating your
ex. Alley places her pretty little chin on the edge of the tub and makes a show
of watching.
“Mmm.
Firehose.”
“Pressure
washer,” I say. I give a final shake and dab the tip with a square of toilet
paper.
“And
so neat!”
“Well,
as long as you’re going to narrate my fucking day for me, this is me taking a
shower.”
She
adopts the tense whisper of a golf broadcaster. “It appears that Siskel will
now be taking a shower.”
I’m
not trusting the warm water to last, so I rinse myself down, turn off the taps
and lather myself from toe to shoulder. After two days on the road, my fresh
bar of gardenia soap is a little chunk o’ heaven. I stand there for a full
minute, feeling like a human potpourri, then I restart the water and rinse it
all off. I advance through the shower curtains to find the last ounces of water
circling the bathtub drain. As I proceed to razor, toothbrush and comb, the
smell of coffee progresses from hallucination to aphrodisiac. I stop by the bedroom
for a pair of jeans and enter the living room to find a fresh mug of java
perched atop the case for Conversations
in Cum. I ease onto the couch, locate a Giants game on the tube, and an
inning later find myself served with a plate of bacon, eggs and home-fried
potatoes.
“Well!
What’s the occasion?”
She
sits in an armchair opposite me and crosses her legs. She’s back in the little
black dress.
“I
receive goodness. I give goodness back.”
“Says
the woman who strapped my balls to the hood of her Beamer. Oh, wait – that was my Beamer.”
She
grants me a close-lipped smile.
“Really,
honey. Such old news. And I sent your
balls back to you a long time ago. Married a rich lawyer? A rich lawyer who
fucks around on me every chance he gets?”
“Business
trip?”
“Vegas.
Where he’s got hookers on speed-dial.” She whistles a stream of air over her
cup. “Meanwhile, I’m expected to represent our power-couple corporation at the
Villa Montalvo dinner, where every available dick is guarded over by some
botoxed old-money harpie. And you know
how I get when I’m not being properly serviced. Imagine my good fortune,
finding your front gate wide open.”
“Shit!”
I slap my forehead. Leaving the gate open could be grounds for eviction.
“Hakuna
matata, honey. I locked it behind me.”
“This
pains me to say, but… Thank you.”
“You’re
welcome. But why were you spanking the monkey, honey? Is it so hard for you
day-laborers to find companionship?”
I’m
not about to despoil Maddalena’s name.
“The
women on the DVDs are not so high-maintenance.”
Allison
sets down her coffee and chews on a fingernail. This is the closest she gets to
expressing actual emotion.
“Sad
to say, I’ve got to agree with you. Some of the heinous bitches I meet in
Saratoga… It was pretty awesome, all that cum you shot into me. Wow.”
The
thought of it draws a hand to her crotch. She opens her legs and hikes up her
dress, revealing pussy lips the color of tawny port and a patch of black pubic
hair shaved into a heart.
“Nice
work.”
“Jing-Jao
at the salon. She’s the best.” She runs a manicured finger along her slit and
dips it inside.
“What
do you say, ex-husband? Fuck the woman who fucks the attorneys? Strike a blow
against The Man?”
My
cock is instantly hard. (I really
gotta have a talk with that dick.)
I
wave a hand toward the rug. “Why don’t you give me a show, porn queen?
Money-grubbing slut? Carnivorous bitch?”
As
my language gets worse, her fingerwork gets faster.
“Ditch-digger,”
she hisses. “Welfare mother. Blue-collar piece of shit. Why don’t you take a
good look at the ass you gave up to be a dick-stainer?”
She
crawls onto the rug, pulls her dress slowly upward to reveal her tight little
cheeks, then reaches underneath to bury two fingers in her hole. I don’t know
why this mutual loathing makes such excellent foreplay, but I am grateful for
any mojo that comes my way. I yank off my jeans, take my dick in hand and rub
the tip along her entrance before jamming myself inside. Allison lets out an
aristocratic shriek, grabs two fistfuls of rug and slams back against me. I am
filled with luscious hate.
If
Allison is the antidote to my impotence, Katie is the antidote to Allison. I am
condemned to using the next woman to get over the last woman, an endless circle
of humping.
With
Katie I am as tender as possible, spending a long time kissing, a long time
caressing, and a long time bringing her to an oral climax. After that, we
assume the friendliest position possible, sitting on the floor, facing each
other, our arms around each other’s backs. After a half hour of this slow
squirming, I experience a quiet orgasm, leaking into her as I shiver in
pleasure. It’s about as nice of a fuck as one can have, and by now I have
thoroughly recovered from the Seattle fiasco.
Katie
has brought along some lovely foodstuffs: two New York steaks, fresh asparagus
and one complete pineapple, accompanied by a bottle of Pinot Noir. Afterwards,
we sit on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watch Roman Holiday, which we have both seen several times.
“How
was your trip?” she asks. “Did you see the opera?”
“Yes.
It was great. Beautiful drive, too. Really wore me out, though.”
“Did
you meet anyone up there?”
Katie
is on the trail. Women are amazing at this. But I have put some thought into
it, and I’ve decided not to divulge anything until I’m a little more certain
about Maddie.
“Yes!
I ran into Cordell. He’s a voice coach, one of the regulars at my blog site.”
Katie
is not swayed. “Because it seems a bit much, going all the way to Seattle for
an opera. I know you’re a fanatic and all, but I just thought… there might be
some other reason.”
She’s
already jumped from bloodhound to pit bull. This could be trouble.
“No,
I just…”
“Because
you promised me. You told me if some other woman came along, you would tell me.
I need to know these things.”
Pit
bull to prosecuting attorney. I am so screwed. I place the popcorn bowl on the
coffee table.
“Okay.
Yes. I’ve started seeing someone.”
“Oh.”
The
tight-lipped response. She stares at the television and taps a tattoo with her
foot.
“Is
she pretty?”
“Does
it matter?”
“Just…
curious. Is she nice? What does she do?”
“She’s
an opera singer.”
“Mm-hmm!
So you went to Seattle to see her sing.”
“Well…
yes.”
We
settle into a compressed silence. Gregory Peck pretends that the monster inside
a statue has bitten off his hand. Audrey Hepburn screams.
“I
saw a documentary on this. Peck didn’t tell Hepburn he was going to do that.
That’s why her response was so…”
“What’s
her name?”
“Maddalena
Hart.”
Katie’s
eyes get bigger. “Isn’t she the…”
“Yes.”
“Holy
shit.”
Now
that I’ve got her semi-catatonic with my star-fucking, I feel the distinct need
for a visit to the ‘loo. I take a good long time, and afterward I give my prick
an examination. The head is showing spots of pink and purple from all the
activity. This used to freak me out as a teenager (when most of the abuse was
self-supplied). I take five minutes washing my hands; I return to an empty
living room and the sound of ignition. I dash outside just in time to see
Katie’s headlights streaming around the bend.
I’m
really not sure what I will do about this. Continue screwing my ex-wife? But I
do have a half-bowl of popcorn, so I sit back down, drink some pinot noir
straight from the bottle, and abandon the movie for a replay of the Giants
game. I already know that we won (a three-hitter by Cain), so I’m guaranteed a
happy ending. What more could a man ask for? The loneliness is deafening.
My
cell goes off. It’s a text message. An unknown number, a strange area code.
How was the trip?
I save
the number as Maddie and hit Reply.
Exhausting. How was yours?
Claustrophobic.
Felt like one of Papageno’s birds.
How
could you not love a woman who goes to the trouble of texting Papageno on her cell phone?
U R Fantastic.
In what way?
All
of them.
It’s
silly, it’s juvenile, but that’s what text-flirting is all about. An hour
later, the Giants are into the seventh inning, and Maddie and I are still at
it.
A
pair of headlights sweeps across my windows. I come to the front porch to find
Katie’s car parked across the drive. I walk slowly into the clearing, not
knowing what to expect. Katie gets out and peers at me over the roof of her
car. The tension builds until she bursts into motion, running across the
clearing. She lands at my chest and begins to sob. I slip a hand into my pocket
and turn off my phone.
Nine
Somehow, Colin manages to
live alone in a 1908 four-bedroom Victorian with a one-acre backyard. I pull in
under a shade tree and walk the long drive, discovering oversized body parts on
dropcloths: an arm here, an arm there, two legs, torso, a world-beating rack. I
find Colin and some other guy on the hedged-in porch, applying paint to a
five-foot-tall head. She looks like Sacagawea as drawn by Diego Rivera, all
Aztec cheekbones and wide brown nose. The eyes are enormous white diamonds with
green irises.
“Micko!
Meet the goddess of Joyism, Iluana.”
“American
Indian?”
Colin
gives her a long study.
“I
suppose so. You recall the Camarena deck?” He holds up a can of Cabot stain, a
reddish brown hybrid we call Coco Ray. “Oh, and this is my helpmeet, Greg.”
Greg
is a bald man with an egg-shaped dome. His skin hangs basset-like from his
face, and shakes when he talks.
“A
million small suns. Helpmeet - wonderful word. A million small… Iluana, the
helpmeet of a million small suns, flies with Coco Ray to the conference of
contrabands.”
“Hi,”
I say.
Colin
laughs. “Sorry. Greg’s in riff-mode. He’s a poet. He gets hooked on these
phrases and has to speak them all day until they sprout a poem.”
Greg’s
eyes get wide, like someone’s just shot him with a taser. “Like an oyster
working a pearl.”
“Wonderful,”
I say.
“A
million small suns.”
“Exactly.”
I turn to Colin. “Could I fetch the sprayer? I have to get to a softball game.”
“Oh!
Certainly. Carry on, Greg.”
“A
million small suns,” says Greg. “Preposterous.”
The
paint sprayer is next to the garage, freshly cleaned after some clogging
issues. Colin begins the briefing.
“Let’s
see, you’ve got the gate code…”
“Check.”
“Cell
phone for Mrs. Atkins?”
“Yep.”
“Gave
you the layout of the deck – oh, and don’t forget that little porch out back.
They’re on vacation all month, so it’s up to you as far as the schedule, but
whatever you do, avoid the sun! Morning, evening, whichever you prefer. I trust
you completely, my friend. And if anything comes up you are utterly on your
own. You might be able to smuggle a text onto the playa, but it would probably
take me too long to respond.”
“Have
a great time,” I say. “I expect some naughty stories.”
“If
nothing happens, I’ll make something up.”
Colin
and I maintain a handshake professionalism, but for occasions like the annual
Burning Man sendoff I use the he-man hug.
“Have
fun.”
“Thanks,
pal. And thanks for handling this job. It does help the old cash flow.”
“No
problem.”
I
pick up the sprayer, loop the hose over my shoulder and head off.
“Ta!”
says Colin. “No fuckups!”
“Ta!”
Greg
pokes his head out of the hedge.
“A
million small suns!”
“Bye,
Greg.”
We’ve
got a couple of new infielders, so I’m back in left field, which is kind of
nice. It’s relaxing to turn off the brain and just go fetch the ball. I’ve been
doing pretty well (for an old fart), but the infield commits a couple of
bobbles and soon the virus is hitting the whole team. I have no idea why such
things are contagious, but they are. My centerfielder is chasing a base hit
when he steps on a bald spot and goes down like he’s been hit by sniper fire.
“Okay!”
I shout. “I think we’ve got enough for the blooper reel now!”
Famous
last words. I’m chasing a flare down the line, trying to get a lower angle on
the ball, when my feet get tangled up and I go down like I’ve been hit by a
shoestring tackle. The ball clanks off my glove and falls to the grass.
“What
the hell!” says Doug. “I’ve never
seen you do that.”
I
adopt the rumbling baritone of sports documentaries. “It was the end of a
brilliant playing career for Mickey Siskel.”
“Yeah,
right. Get up there and get a fucking hit.”
We
are a much more talented team than our opponents, but that never stopped us
before. We’re tied in the top of the seventh when someone lifts a lazy fly to
my left. Something in my gearbox goes off by an inch and the ball clanks off my
glove again.
Oh no, says my body. Not this time, you fucker. I follow the
ball down, slapping at it with various appendages as I crumple to the ground:
the left elbow, the right hand, a ricochet off both knees, bada-bing. Now I’m
crawling, and I manage to slide my glove beneath this last bobble just before
it hits the grass. Lying flat on my stomach, I raise my glove to show the
umpire, and he signals the out.
“Well,”
I say. “That was entertaining.”
Doug
is laughing up a storm. “You probably saved a run. The runner couldn’t decide
if you were going to catch it or not, and he got all brain-locked.”
“That’s
what I’m talkin’ about.” I tap a finger to my temple. “Stragedy.”
We
eke out the winning run and slither away like a man smuggling the ugly girl out
of the bar. I’m feeling just as unsettled as my glovework, driving into the
suburban night, gathering stray thoughts at the stoplights.
At
the left turn to the 85 onramp, I flash on my early July doubleheader: the
ex-wife and the booty call. Allison’s quick fadeaway is neither surprising nor
disappointing. Her mojo-resuscitation act was like chemotherapy: a little is
effective, but too much will kill you.
As
for Katie, I suppose this is the nature of booty-call arrangements. They
survive on the understanding that they are not
real relationships. When they go on too long, or become too regular – when they
begin to take on the appearance of
relationships – they are bound to scuttle themselves on the next sandbar. She
stayed that night, she kissed me goodbye in the morning, and I haven’t seen her
since. Desperate as she is for any candle in a dark existence, I think she was
able to ignore her growing attachment, but when she came up against a mythic
figure like Maddalena Hart, she decided it was time to quit. I’m sure she’ll be
in church this Sunday, rationalizing our Saturday nights as a sinful mistake,
feeling the kind of warmth that does not emanate from a pew. I don’t deserve
to, but I miss her.
I
come to a stop at Prospect and Saratoga-Sunnyvale, the dark mass of the Santa
Cruz Mountains looming across my windshield, and I’m thinking what a lonely man
I have become. Thankfully, the decking business is booming. But when it’s this
busy, Colin and I tend to split the jobs, so even there I’m losing
companionship. I try not to go home too early, because the solitude around the
cabins is pretty thick, and it’s not like you can dash to the corner for a
late-night coffee.
Thanks
to softball, tonight’s schedule is just about right; it’s 10:30 and I am
pulling up to Saratoga Village, my final stoplight before the long, slow rise
of Highway 9. It is precisely at this right-hand turn, each and every night,
that my thoughts turn to Maddalena.
September
23. That’s when Guillaume Tell opens
at SFO. That’s when I am guaranteed of seeing her in the flesh. Left alone
without my usual supporting cast, I find myself aching for her. Silly, poetic
thing to say, but that’s what it feels like – a deep-tissue bruise, a separated
shoulder. I am hopeful, nonetheless, that her two-month, three-opera stay will
give us an idea as to what, precisely, we will do with each other.
Meanwhile,
I subsist on a diet of text messages. Neither of us are fond of phone calls,
which are just close enough to actual contact to max out the frustration level.
But these little tapped-out thoughts are okay. I am surprised at their power.
At
the turnoff to Sanborn County Park, my cell shakes against the cupholder. Being
a performer, Maddie keeps a night-owl schedule, so one-thirty Eastern is
nothing unusual.
Did you win?
Barely.
A W’s a W, bebe.
Comedy softball.
God I miss u.
Just another month.
Loooong month.
Don’t worry. It’ll seem like 15
mins.
Oh sure.
Trust me.
How’s Mathilde?
Rossini’s
tough! Especially GT.
She
always seems to catch me on Highway 9, so I have learned to type by touch as I
navigate the curves.
Front gate.
I
don’t dare text on the dirt road, however, so I always let her know when I’m
about to go into cyber-silence. For some reason, Trey the Fish has reattached
the lock on the wrong side of the gate. I have to yank it over the crossbar to
catch some light from the highway. I return to the car to find Maddie's
signoff:
Drive carefully! Never know what night
creatures you may encounter.
Thx honey.
I
switch on my brights and follow the usual tracks: the short first climb, the
sandy straightaway, uphill past the hiking trail, the long gravelly downhill,
the tricky outcroppings of rock. Approaching the first overlook, I catch a
flash of red reflector, then a bright sedan, then a woman in a white pantsuit.
I crunch to a halt, sending up a cloud of dust that follows me as I jog into my
high-beams and lift her off the ground. She lands laughing.
“Gotcha.”
“I
thought…”
“They
wanted me here early. Some sort of… Oh who cares? Kiss me!”
I
kiss her until all deep tissue bruises and separated shoulders are absolved, and
then I hold her tight as she hums in my ear. When I open my eyes, I see the
lights of Silicon Valley spread out like a million small suns.
“A
million what?”
“Nothing.
Poetry. God it’s good to see you.”
I
have thoughts of showering, of pouring Maddie some wine, maybe scraping
together some dessert. I recall that I have peanut butter. What can you do with
peanut butter?
Maddie
has other ideas. She nudges me like a border collie working a sheep, driving me
across the living room, to the edge of my bed and over. She yanks at the layers
of my softball gear – pants, sliding pad, athletic briefs – until she unearths
my cock. She works it over with her tongue until I’m sporting a grade-A
hard-on. Then she hops off the bed, removes her pants and readies herself to
hop onto my dick, which is now limp.
She
looks at me. “Is it all right to yell?”
“Yes.”
“Neighbors
won’t mind?”
“No.”
“FUCK!”
She
stands to give her diaphragm more room, and delivers her next three notes with
an impressive amount of volume.
“Fuck!
Fuck! F-U-U-U-U…”
I’ve
got my hand clamped over her mouth, an arm around her waist. She’s still
yelling – I can feel the force of her breath against my palm.
“Maddie?
Honey? Ya gotta stop, Maddie.”
It
takes her a few breaths to calm down, and then she peels my hand away.
“Why?”
“Because
I am not going to explain to the
opera fans of America how it was that the end of your singing career was
inspired by my limp dick.”
She
takes in a hissing breath that might be a rising indignation, then lets out a
little burst, like the first puff from an air compressor. That’s the hole in
the dike; the rest is a flood of wild, rolling laughter that sweeps me along in
its wake. Two minutes later we are flat on the bed, pantsless, trying to stop
before we asphyxiate ourselves. After that we grow silent, and I think I know
why: we’re both afraid that the next utterance will send us right back into the
water.
Maddie
curls across the bed, grabs my dick and gives it a stern look.
“Why
don’t you like me? Everybody else
likes me.”
This
isn’t as funny as it should be. I am drowning in frustration.
“When
you got home from your drive, did you masturbate?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Hard
as Wagner.”
“Wagner
is hard. I’m so sick of this.” She
releases my idiot cock and leans back on her elbows. “Sadly, this has happened
before.”
“Really?”
“I’m
a pretty intimidating figure. La Diva! Tenors and penises cower before her.
Christ.”
“Sorry.”
She
leans up and gives me a kiss.
“If
I was smart, I would sleep only with men who know nothing about opera. But
don’t worry about it, honey. Please
don’t. Well. I gotta go.” She hops off the bed and fetches her pants.
“Huh?”
“My
boy-genius stage director. Jose Maria Condemi. He’s one of those fucking
morning people, and like an idiot I agreed to meet with him at nine o’clock. No
way in hell I’m accomplishing that
from here. I’m awfully sorry, Mickey. I feel like I ambushed you. But I had to
at least see you. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I adore you.”
“I
adore you.”
“Now
put on your pantalones, Dimaggio, and walk me out.”
I
lean her against the hood of her Lexus and kiss her like a lover should.
“Thanks
for surprising me.”
She
taps a finger on my chest. “Your assignment: don’t touch that thing. Get a lot of sleep, and be here at seven tomorrow
evening. I’ll bring dinner.”
“Nice.”
“I will think of something.” I give her a
last kiss and watch her drive away. When I get back inside, I open a beer and
crash on the couch. I have a visual flash of Maddie giving me head and my dick
starts to stiffen.
“Oh
fuck you. You had your chance.”
I
turn on the TV and search for the most non-sexual shows I can find. The Disney
Channel. Murder She Wrote. The McLaughlin
Group.
My
sleep is pretty spotty, so I spend much of the next day napping on the couch as
a classical station lulls me in and out of slumber. I manage to take an
afternoon hike through the madrones, and then I head for the bath so I’ll be
presentable for La Diva.
She
pulls in exactly at seven and parks in my front yard, which is really just dirt
and tree droppings. I meet her at the door and give her a kiss. She seems
excited.
“Hi.
I need some help loading up.”
She
opens the back door of her Lexus and hands me a couple of wardrobe bags on
hangers. I attach them to the curtain rods over the living room drapes. A few
trips later, we are adrift in a sea of clothing. I sit on the couch expecting
some sort of explanation. Maddie hitches her thumbs into her jeans pockets,
surveys the landscape and says, “So. Who do you want to fuck tonight?”
“Ummm…
pardon?”
“I
have just pilfered a hefty portion of the San Francisco Opera wardrobe
department. Any lyric soprano you’d like. We’ve got Violetta, Gilda, Mathilde,
Manon, Micaela…”
“Ooh.”
She
flashes an amused smile. “Oh! Micaela. That’s
interesting. Okay. Here’s what I want. Lose the coffee table. Leave the
armchair. Round up some candles. Then just relax, watch some TV. This may take
a while.”
She
fetches a bag reading MIC ’06 and
leaves for the bathroom. I close all the blinds and curtains, lean the coffee
table against the far wall, pull the rug to the center of the remaining space
and position the armchair atop that. Then I set four large candles on an end
table and add an incense holder with a stick of patchouli. A half-hour later,
as I’m dozing through an episode of Seinfeld
(George as a marine biologist), the kitchen door closes, and three knocks
resound from the other side.
“Two
minutes! Light the candles.”
[Track
8]
I
light the candles and incense, setting the room in a hazy orange glow. I sit on
the couch, an expectant audience. Maddie gives another three knocks and enters.
She wears a long gray skirt with petticoats, a white rectangle of apron
descending from the waist. Above that is a white blouse with puffs at the
sleeves and a chocolate-brown leather corset. Her collar is open, revealing
just a hint of cleavage. She wears her hair tied up in a blue scarf, flowing
out the back, and her face is marked with swipes of dirt, as though she has
been on an arduous journey. She speaks in clear, unaccented English, but the
formality of her tone implies a 19th-century European.
“Thank
you so much for taking me in! These travels have been much more difficult then
I expected. It’s very gracious of you.”
She
listens for a moment, as if someone is speaking to her, and then smiles.
“Oh!
Well, you see, I am on a quest of sorts. I am trying to find my beau, Don Jose,
who has taken up with gypsy smugglers. His mother is quite ill and… May I sit?
Thank you.”
She
settles rather properly on the armchair and takes a sip from an invisible
glass.
“Thank
you so much. Yes, you’re right, it is quite dangerous. I’ve never really done
anything like this.”
Another
attentive pause.
“Oh,
well. I… care for Jose quite a lot. We grew up on neighboring farms, and we
played together as children. And I remember this one day. I was twelve. I was
beginning to… develop. I was walking back to the house after milking the cows.
Jose was working the fields. It was hot that day, and he had taken off his
shirt. He waved to me; I went to lean against the fence and talk to him. He
continued to work as we spoke. I could see the muscles moving in his arms, like
the strings of a guitar, and the way the sweat shone on his back.
“I
don’t know if it is proper to describe what it was that I was feeling. A
tingling. Like the tickle on your skin when your clothes rustle in the wind.
Only this… tingling seemed to emanate from beneath my skirt. I wanted so badly
to reach down and rub myself, but of course I could not. And watching Jose, I
recalled something I had seen two days previous. A bull approached a cow in the
field and, amazingly, he stood on his hind legs behind her. I had heard of such
things, but I had never seen the mechanical aspect, the way the bull’s tube of
flesh slid in and out of the cow’s backside. I tried to be disgusted, as I knew
I should, but I was fascinated by the beauty of the design, as if these two
dancing animals had rehearsed all their lives for this one performance. And
that same tingling beneath my skirts – though why I should feel this way about
a bull and a cow I do not know. I almost could not keep my hands off of myself.
That Sunday, in church, I prayed for God to remove these temptations, or at the
least to let me understand them better.”
She
stops for a moment; her thoughts seem to drift. Then she squints her eyes and
purses her lips.
“I
detest gypsies! Filthy, ignorant animals. You see, I always thought that Jose
and I were rehearsing. I suppose that I loved him. But I was a terribly shy
girl, and I did not tell him a thing. Before I knew it he was in the army and
off to Seville – Seville, that evil place. It was there that he met this Carmen
person. I do not know what he sees in her – she’s not even pretty. But now… Now
I have what it will take to win him back. If his mother’s sickness is not
enough, then I will simply have to give myself to him. I am ready, I love him,
and that should be enough for God. Just the thought of it… just the…”
She
reaches inside her blouse, brings out one white breast and tweaks her nipple,
arching backward. Then she opens her eyes and smiles.
“Everyone
at home believes that I am a good girl, but I have spent years walking by the
field with the bull and the cow, and… well. I know, sir, that your wife is away
at her sister’s, and I hope that you do not think that I am taking advantage of
circumstance, but I wonder if you… if you would show it to me.”
It
takes me a moment to realize that I have been drafted – that I am the kindly
farmer who has offered her lodging. I stand and shuck my shorts, revealing a
hardening but untrustworthy member. She giggles.
“It
is not so large as the bull’s, but it is much more handsome! Here, I have
brought some oil with me. Perhaps you’d like to rub it? I have heard that men
like to do such things.”
She
pulls a small vial from her skirts and hands it to me, then dashes back to her
chair as though I were the bull in her story. I pour some of the oil into my
hand, apply it to my dick and make a good show of stroking it.
“Ooh!”
Her eyes squint in pleasure and she places a hand over her skirt. “It’s that…
feeling again, that tingling. Only now it’s unbearable. Are we… Are you sure
that we are quite alone?”
I
nod.
She
looks around nervously, then slowly gathers her petticoats until, in a narrow
gap beneath all the layers of clothing she reveals her pussy. She opens her
legs further, displaying the moisture coating her labia, then reaches down to
rub her clitoris and dip a finger inside.
“Oh!
Oh! I see now why I have wanted to do that for so long! What an incredible
sensation. I think it is time…”
She
closes her legs, reaches into her skirts and extracts a large black dildo, made
to look as realistic as possible.
“I
hate the gypsies, but they do occasionally prove themselves useful. This one
was a peddler of novelties, and he sold me this, a life-cast from the erect
member of a Zulu warrior. ‘Even though you may not yet want to join with a
man,’ the peddler said, ‘this will give you an idea of what it feels like. And you won’t get babies.’”
She
spreads her legs again, pushes her petticoats aside and inserts the black cock.
The sides of her entrance cling to the dildo as it slides in and out. Micaela
moans.
“Oh!
It feels so good. I want Jose to fill me like this. Sir, oh sir, please. Be my
Jose. Put your thing inside me. Show me how it feels.”
I
leap from the couch, take her hand away and push the black cock in and out,
faster and faster until Micaela’s eyes begin to bug out. It’s the filthiest
thing I have ever seen, and it’s divine. I take the dildo and throw it to the
floor, take my cock in my hand and I am inside of her, aloft on a cloud of
petticoats.
“Oh,
Micaela, you feel so good.”
“Jose!
Jose! Je’taime Jose. I will love you forever.”
The
layers of identity are getting pretty deep. I am the middle-aged farmer banging
away at the lost little girl as the pretends that I am her soldier-boy. Carmen
could never be this hot – she’s too fucking obvious.
I sink into the illusion and continue pumping Micaela into the armchair. I hold
myself deep inside of her as I drive my tongue into her mouth, then I stand up
and order her outside. I push her against the Lexus and I lift her skirts so I
can surround my dick with that plump white ass.
Then
I’m on the ground, redwood cones digging into my butt as Micaela bounces on top
of me, all of our parts delicious hidden beneath her petticoats. She takes off
her scarf to release her hair. I find myself shouting a long string of yesses
as Micaela begins to sing. She looses a top note into the trees; I can feel the
vibrations all the way down to my dick and it’s too much. I explode, gushing
into her. Micaela screams; the sound echoes off the hillsides. I grab her by
the waist and continue to empty myself out, then I roll beside her. We spend
the next five minutes laughing, kissing and smiling, leaves and sticks and
God-knows-what entwined in her hair.
“Micaela!
You are a bad, bad girl!”
“You
knew that all along; that’s why you picked me.” She kisses me and snuggles her
face against my neck. I roll onto my back and see the moonlit sky, jagged
silver patterns sketched across the treetops. A jetliner skates across,
flashing red and white signals.
My
non-existent neighbor snuck in while I was away and left an old picnic table
next to the fire pit. I am high on sex and feeling ambitious, so I construct a
pyramid of aged logs, douse it with lighter fluid and soon I have a raging
fire. So raging, in fact, that Micaela and I are forced to sit on the opposite
side of the table, digging into the baked lasagna that Maddie picked up at
Bella Mia. She has decided to keep the costume on for a while.
“So
this monologue. Did you rehearse that?”
Micaela
wipes her mouth with a napkin and kisses me just beneath my earlobe.
“That is the kind of well-developed
backstory that any decent soprano should come up with. Really, it’s the one
part of the opera where we get to be
the creators. The backstory builds the character, the nature of the character
affects the musical and dramatic interpretation, and those interpretations
determine the flavor of the production as a whole.
“The
critics, bless their hearts, have always said that my Micaela has a little more
umph than most, and now you know why.
I don’t buy the hapless innocent. This is a girl who ventures into the
mountains all alone, knowing full well that there are murderous gypsies up
there. She wants Jose, she has always
wanted him, and she will do just about anything to get him away from Carmen. My
backstories are not usually so explicit, but you can bet there’s a lot of
suppressed sexuality there, and it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that
she would put her virginity on the line. When you picked her out of the lineup,
I thought, Well shit, this is a piece
of cake.”
“The
corruption of the girl next door.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Elena
Mendez.”
“Pardon?”
“Girl
next door. Used to lay out by her pool, which was just visible from my window.”
“Pervert.”
“Oh yeah.”
“When
you men see all that innocence, you just want to go in there and mess with it.”
“I
get the feeling Elena wasn’t all that innocent. Not from the looks of that
bikini. What was that aria? Was that the famous one?”
“‘Je
dis que rien ne m’epouvante.’ Yes, the famous one. And she sings it at that
very point in the opera, on her way up the mountain. Little did we know she had
just spent the night banging a farmer.”
We
enjoy a long laugh, and then we return our attentions to the lasagna, which is
extraordinary. After Maddie finishes, she lifts my right leg over the bench,
straddles me, takes a draught of wine and swirls it into my mouth. When we’re
done, her eyes are half-closed and dreamy.
“Having
you inside of me, I can’t tell you…”
And
she can’t, because she’s crying. I settle my head against her chest until she
recovers. She wipes her eyes, laughing.
“I’m
sorry, honey. I guess I was really anxious about this.”
“Me
too.”
Once
the floodgates have opened, there’s no stopping us. Being a professional,
Violetta is an expert cocksucker. Manon is into full-body massages and having
her toes licked. Susannah is a saucy little wench who enjoys filthy language
and (much to Figaro’s surprise) anal sex. Donna Elvira keeps slapping Don
Giovanni in the midst of intercourse. The Celtic priestess Norma is a tender,
generous lover who likes it on top, surrounded by banks of candles. Lucia is a fucking
maniac, speaking in tongues, changing position every two minutes and constantly
referring to Edgardo’s tool as a dagger. The Queen of the Night brings along
whips, handcuffs and (much to Papageno’s surprise) a strap-on dildo.
And
Rusalka. In a pool of deep blue light, the water nymph plays with her newly
granted human body until she brings herself to a slow, quiet climax. She does
the same with the body of her prince, holding and licking his staff for long
minutes, then spreading herself open and inviting his entrance. After
shuddering to a wordless climax, she sings to the moon as the prince continues
to stroke slowly in and out.
The
following evening, the woman who is all of them returns home after a day of
errands and appointments. She looks a little frazzled, her hair tied up in a
bandana, her face lined and weary from the heat. She greets me with a hug.
“So,”
she says. “Who do you want tonight? I’ve got Mathilde, Desdemona, the
Marschallin…”
“I
want the opera singer.”
“Oh.
Tosca?”
“Maddalena.”
She
looks at me in the filtered shade and gives me a smile that grows and grows.
“Excellent
choice.”
The
next day is our last before she begins rehearsals. Regardless, I decide that
it’s time I get to that deck. Maddie invites herself along (“After all, you’re
always watching me work”), and sits
in the shade with a cooler of beers and a book.
The
Atkins house is a veritable mansion, built on a steep, sunny hillside far back
in the Santa Cruz Mountains. After a few back-and-forths with the pressure
washer, I conclude that the deck is completely hidden from neighboring roads or
houses. I head for the far corner, out of my diva’s vision, and remove every
article of clothing, save the Wellies. Then I return to my work as if nothing
is awry, following a pair of planks all the way down. The mix of sunlight and
mist on my privates is intoxicating, but what I’m really after is audience
reaction.
Making
my full frontal turn, I find that the joke is on me. Maddie has planted a
chaise lounge at the center of the adjacent deck and is lying there absolutely
starkers, like a plus-size model at the Playboy mansion. She gives me a little
wave to let me know that I’ve been had. I raise my wand, sending a spray that
catches the breeze and settles on her radiant white contours. She spreads her
arms as if welcoming a lover.
Ten
Excepting the actual
Burning of the Man, the most popular Burning Man event is Critical Tits. Three
thousand women bare their breasts, hop on bikes and ride across the playa. The
men are sworn to polite behavior, but inevitably there are gawkers and
photographers. Applying his usual savoir faire, Colin has devised a way to
satisfy his visual appetite in exchange for a useful bit of sheep’s clothing.
Armed with a gas-powered outboard margarita blender, he and his cohorts station
themselves near the course and offer up free refreshments.
“We’ve
got this thing down to an artform, really. Every year we move closer and closer
to the finish line, so as to catch the comely females at their thirstiest. We
had to wait a devilishly long time, but once they arrived they came in droves!
At one point, we must have had three hundred. Or six hundred, depending on how
you’re counting. I was like the happiest fucking dairy farmer in the contiguous
48. Eventually we ran out of ice and cups, so we simply bent the young ladies
over backwards and mixed the margaritas in their mouths. One large-breasted
lovely allowed me to drink directly from her mouth as I fondled her humongous
knockers. F-u-u-u-uck!”
We
are re-doing the Deck of the Cursed. We laid down the original two coats a
couple years ago, and spent most of our time mollifying our female client’s
paranoid fantasies. All of which came true. Wide stretches of peeling paint and
freckles of black mold. I have labeled it a “mystery deck” – one of those decks
that suffers from some environmental malady we are simply not equipped to
diagnose. Regardless, we are here to supply a free restaining, and I’m kicking
in my labor at no charge to Colin.
Colin
is a freakishly fast stainer to begin with, but the memory of all those breasts
has kicked him into overdrive. He reaches the final five feet of the final
three planks and swipes them over in about two seconds.
“Well,
mate, why don’t you head out? I’ll clean up the equipment. I wouldn’t want to
keep you from your international singing sensation. How are things going, by
the way?”
“We’ll
need a much bigger deck for that
story.”
“Oooh!”
says Colin, twisting the vowel into lascivious ribbons. “Lots of dirty, filthy
sex I hope?”
“With
several different women.”
“Really!”
“All
of whom are Maddalena.”
Colin
hops over some planks onto a concrete step, the beginning of his escape route.
“You’re
being a Sphinx, my friend. But perhaps I should wait till another day for the answer
to the riddle.”
“You’re
absolutely right. I’m off!”
“Ta!
And thanks again for, er, volunteering.”
“I
suspect we’ll be making this an annual occasion.”
“Heaven
forfend!”
It’s
awfully amusing to have a boss who uses “forfend” in a sentence. I dash to my
wagon, make a three-point turn and climb the driveway.
I
am determined to fine-tune my routines, so I have brought along a pack of
Handi-Wipes for a cat-bath at the Burlingame rest area. Fortunately, tonight’s
opera is casual-dress, so I’m able to settle for blue jeans and a rugby shirt.
A half-hour later, I pull into the lot with my VIP parking pass and make my way
across the Lefty O’Doul Bridge to AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco
Giants. I follow the Habitrail of walkways and escalators until I come out
before an ocean of seats along the first-base line.
My
next instruction has me a little baffled: Report
to shortstop. That’s just a little too close to my childhood fantasies. I
wander lower, past the gateways into the box seats, then I spot a queue next to
the dugout watched over by a guy in a blue security jacket. Ah, thinks I, this is where the dream ends. But then I see that Mr. Beefy is
simply giving the patrons a hands-up over the transom. Onto the field!
So
I’m standing in the on-deck circle, peering up at the stands like I always knew
I would, someday, and I take a tentative walk toward the infield. Three Mexican
kids rush down the third-base line and slide across home plate. What manner of anarchy is this? I find
myself in front of the pitcher’s mound and I figure, Why the hell not? I ascend
the hill, place one foot next to the slab and lean forward, holding an
invisible ball behind my back. My catcher signals for the curve. Uncle Charlie.
The Yakker. I give him a nod, then straighten up and bring my hands together,
eyeing the runner on second.
“What are you doing?”
A
winsome blonde has ventured onto the field. Too late. The pitch must be made.
“World
Series, game seven, bases loaded, up by a run. This is my seven-year-old
fantasy. You didn’t appear till I was
twelve.”
She
waves a hand toward the plate like a game-show model. I make a dramatic
delivery, square up my feet and snap my head toward right field.
“What?”
says the blonde.
“Home
run. We lose.”
She
swats me on the shoulder. “What kind of fantasy is that?”
“Future opera critic. I had an early
passion for tragedy.”
“Give
me a consolation kiss, then.”
“Honey!
I’m a professional athlete on national television.”
“Good!
I need some crossover exposure.”
I
tip back my Giants cap, I tip back Maddie’s Giants cap, and give her a hearty
smooch. A nearby picnicker says, “There’s no kissing in baseball!” and we walk
away laughing.
She
brings me to shallow left, where a pair of low-slung camping chairs proffer
ice-cold beers from their respective cup-holders. An adjacent box holds two
jumbo hot dogs loaded up with sauerkraut, plus a bag of peanuts.
“My
God, honey, if we could just have sex right now, I’d have all of my favorite
things in the universe, all at once.”
“I
get the feeling the management would frown on that.”
My
mind flashes back to a night game at Candlestick Park, the Giants’ old stadium.
When the occupants of the left field bleachers look skyward, pointing and
giggling, I follow their fingers to a mostly-clothed couple in the desertlands
of the upper deck, fucking like bunnies.
“Honey?”
“Oh,
sorry.” I join her in sitting down, and I tip the first swallow of beer into my
mouth. It’s a hefeweizen, my favorite.
“Do
you realize that Omar Vizquel and Barry Lamar Bonds may have possibly trod upon
this very spot?”
“That’s
why I prepared this.” She holds up a
Zip-Lock bag containing a granular red substance.
“You’re
giving me dirt?”
“Dirt
from this very infield.”
I
lean over to kiss her again. “You are the greatest of all women who ever trod
the Earth.”
She
flashes her best curtain-call smile. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only
you and my mom.”
“Good
company.” She puts a hand on my cheek. “I’ll be right back. But don’t wait for
me. Eat that hot dog before it gets cold.”
I
assume she’s off for a bathroom break. I sit back in my chair and start in on
my dinner as David Gockley, the opera’s general director, appears on the giant
DiamondVision hi-def scoreboard. He says the usual stuff, everybody around me
stands and I see the face of Maddalena Hart, ten stories high over the
centerfield bleachers. She nods at her cameraman and starts into the Star
Spangled Banner. I look behind me and spot her behind home plate, a silhouette
against two small spotlights. Then I realize the better view is on the
scoreboard. I picture myself scaling those five-foot-tall lips.
I’m
quickly into another flashback. Placido Domingo doing the honors at an Oakland
A’s playoff game in 1990. His approach is remarkably straightforward, delivering
two immediate messages: I’m respecting your country’s song by not messing with
it, and my voice is so awesome it’s going to sound great regardless.
Maddie
takes the same approach, her shimmering vibrato drifting over the bay, but when
she strikes the word “home” she launches a Rossinian cadenza, endowed with
skipping scales and a long, accelerating trill. It’s a satire, really – a
comment on thousands of pop-star showoffs. For those who haven’t yet gotten the
joke, she takes a lengthy pause, and a wheezy inhale, before releasing the
final three notes. The crowd responds with equal parts laughter and applause.
The
camera follows her as she walks across the diamond and (I suddenly realize)
toward me. I turn and greet her by bowing and kissing her hand. She smiles and
talks through her teeth.
“Such a ham.”
“Says
the queen of Hamsylvania.”
She
bursts out laughing. “Damn you!”
We
sit and sip our beers.
“Awesome
cadenza.”
“Merci.”
Tonight’s
offering is a live simulcast of Saint-Saens’ Samson et Delilah. I’ve already seen it; it’s perfect for a stadium
audience. Enormous sets, lots of action and sex sex sex! The score delivers a
brand of exoticism that just drips with sensuality. The voices are strong –
especially Olga Borodina, who does such a great job with the seduction scene
that you kinda forget she ain’t exactly Miss Universe.
In
a lot of ways, I prefer this vantage to the fancy orchestra seats. For one
thing, the spectators here are allowed – nay, encouraged – to talk, and shout,
and cheer. The Chronicle has handed
out placards with SAMSON on one side and DELILAH on the other. My favorite
reaction comes when our heroine first broaches the subject of hair-cutting.
Some guy in the lower boxes yells “Don’t do it!” In the temple scene, a troupe
of sinewy male dancers charges through a tribal rite, wearing the kind of
butt-revealing loin cloths that tips off the presence of a gay stage director.
Three college kids clear out a spot near the left-field line and do their best
to mimic their moves. They’re pretty drunk, but I gotta say, they’re doing a
good job.
In
the center of this comedy, I sit upon the consort’s throne as the city’s most
beautiful woman kisses me and hands me peanuts. The national anthem has
succeeded in revealing her true identity, so every few minutes we receive
autograph-seekers. The amateur opera fans are even more polite than the serious
ones; I think they’re even a little afraid of her. The sweetest are a young
mother and her eight-year-old daughter, who demonstrates her aspirations by
producing a few artful screams to the music coming from the simulcast.
“You’ve
got some real power!” says Maddalena. “You could be a great singer.”
The
girl hides her mouth with her hands and giggles as Mom guides her toward second
base.
“You
are so good,” I say.
“Part
of the job. Besides, you think I
sounded like an angel at that age? I know of certain home movies that could
easily be used for blackmail. Ooh! Get ready. Here comes the big demolition.”
As
Samson grunts and roars at his pillars, a gray-bearded black man lofts a
football into deep left field. His teenage son receives it on the warning track
as the temple falls. Something about this is perfect.
I
am an acolyte of Willie Mays, so it’s impossible for me to traverse the front
plaza without touching Willie’s statue for luck. He has just completed that
enormous swing and is dropping his bat, his feet already churning. I grab on to
one enormous shoe, and immediately hear a baritone voice.
“Excuse
me, sir, could you please keep your filthy hands off the statue?”
I
turn to discover Joe, who I met a year ago in a pre-opera lecture. Joe is a
higher-up at a huge firm in Silicon Valley, but he is one of those rare
individuals who is interested in absolutely everything.
His willingness to fill in at the last minute has made him my primary emergency
opera date. He repays this seeming rudeness by treating me to overpriced
post-opera absinthe at Jardiniere. One night we spotted Deborah Voigt sitting
at the bar after a performance in Un
Ballo in Maschera. It took Joe 15 minutes to convince me to go up and pay
my respects. She was delightful, and the most famous opera singer I had ever
met.
“Joe!
Did you like it?”
“It
was fantastic! I especially like all the detail you get with that high-def camerawork.
It’s like watching a movie of the opera. Oh! This is my wife, Carye.”
Carye
is a cute, bright-eyed blonde with a bird-like face. She pulls a hand out of
her jacket and offers it to me.
“So
you’re the one who’s been culturifying my husband. It’s very reassuring to meet
you. Last-minute trips to the ‘opera’ tend to make a woman suspicious.”
Joe
smiles. I spy a familiar set of green irises in the middle distance and brace
myself for a most delectable introduction.
“And
this is my girlfriend, Maddalena. You may remember her from earlier.”
Maddie
chooses that moment to whip off her ballcap, unleashing her blonde mane, then
shakes hands with Carye.
“No!”
says Carye. “The national anthem? That was fantastic.”
“Wait
a minute,” says Joe. “Maddalena Hart?”
“God’s
gift to the opera,” says Maddie.
Joe
is very quiet for a moment (a rarity for him), then he manages to get back onto
his rails.
“You
don’t know. Maddalena Hart this, Maddalena Hart that. You don’t know how
ceaselessly he talks about you. But this!
This is going too far. Did he stalk you?”
Maddie
treats us to her best Die Fledermaus
laugh. “Quite the opposite. I pestered poor Mickey till he could not refuse
me.”
“And
you can just imagine what a fight I put up. Restraining orders, heightened security…”
“We’ve
been insufferable ever since.” She sneaks a hand behind me and gives my butt a
good squeeze.
Carye’s
eyes get bigger. “Come to our place right now. It’s my birthday, and we’re
having some friends over. They’d get such a kick
meeting you!”
“How’s your schedule?” I ask.
“I’m
okay,” says Maddie.
“Okay
then,” says Joe. “Andiamo!”
“He
learned that from an opera,” I say.
We
tail Joe and Carye to Pacific Heights, manage to find a parking space around
the corner and take an elevator to their apartment. The interior is white,
white and white, and the windows offer a stirring cityscape, the Golden Gate
peering in from the top left corner.
The
friends turn out to be co-workers from Macy’s, where Carye heads up the
fragrance department. They all seem pretty comfortable with the surprise
celebrity, and it’s no wonder. I recall Joe telling me of a release party for
Danielle Steele’s new perfume that featured Sir Elton John playing piano in the
living room. Joe is much more excited about Maddie. He interrogates me in the
kitchen as we select from 27 different bottles of vodka. I choose one shaped
like a skull.
“How
does this happen?” asks Joe. “I thought you had to be a fellow celebrity. I
thought they had to give you a special card.”
“You
know? I’ve been asking myself that same question for three months now. I often
feel that I am the victim of some extended prank. Really extended.”
He
drops a twist of lemon into my martini. “How’s the sex? Do celebrities do it
differently than you or I?”
“Apparently,
they do it much better. We had some problems at first. I had to learn to stop
respecting her so much.”
Joe
takes a sip from his martini and smacks his lips. “Mmm! This one’s made from
apples.”
“I
thought vodka was a potato thing.”
“Nope.
It’s the process that makes it vodka. The vegetable matter doesn’t… matter. But
the respect thing! That makes a lot of sense. I have had the best sex ever” –
here he switches to sotto voce – “with women I didn’t even like. With Carye, it took a long time to get to that point. I liked
her too much. She had to sort of give me permission to mistreat her.”
“Talking
about me? Talking about me?” It’s Carye, her eyes glimmering with wine.
“About
how I do not deserve such a goddess!”
Carye
turns to me as witness. “True?”
“Absolutely.”
“Mickey,
do you play piano?”
“Not
a whit.”
“Good!
Get in here and play piano.”
“Absolutely!”
I
give Joe a look, enter the dining room and head for the upright. I really don’t
play piano, but I do play excellent fake
piano, which is an entirely different thing. I rumble my left hand over the low
keys, then chime some random chords with my right, spacing my fingers so it
looks like I have some clue as to what I’m doing. Then I twiddle some trills
over the black keys, which sounds very modern-art-hall, and smash a
seven-fingered amalgamation over the middle range. Carye chooses this moment to
jump onto a kitchen chair and broadcast a not-unpleasant shriek, something like
what might be produced by an impassioned seagull. I respond by taking several
cat-like pounces up and down the keys and she follows suit, sending out a
series of staccato yelps like a Wagnerian chihuahua. She finishes with an
extended so-called top note as I thread a cartoonish arpeggio all the way to
the high notes, rising and walking as I play. I stop for a split second, give
Carye a nod and bang down the final chord to her siren-like whoop. The Macy’s
girls let loose with a chorus of screams, but none is louder than Maddie’s
laughter. Once we settle down, it is up to Ms. Hart, of course, to provide a
critique.
“That was the most inspired,
enthusiastic, intense, whimsical – excuse me, I’m running out of adjectives –
sophomoric, antiquated, brilliant piece of crap I have ever witnessed.”
“You
heard her,” says Carye. “I’m brilliant!”
“Yo-Yo
Ma!” yells Joe, raising his appleish-tini.
An
hour later, the party is even drunker, and being taken over by Joe’s new Wii
gaming center. I’m at the back of the crowd, fascinated by the levels of
simulated reality. A familiar pair of lips descends upon my neck.
“I
hope to God that’s Maddie.”
“Oui,”
she whispers. “Follow me.”
She
leads me to the master bedroom, then heads back to the door.
“Please
lock, please lock – ah! It locks.”
She
wastes no time but kneels in front of me and takes down my pants.
“Well!
To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She
takes me deep into her mouth, gives me a long, slow suck and then smiles.
“You
used the word ‘girlfriend’ in a sentence. Women love it when you use girlfriend
in a sentence.”
“It’s
always a bit of a surprise, the first time. It just sort of pops out.”
“‘Boyfriend,’”
she recites, then gives me a lick. “I am sucking my boyfriend’s dick in his
friend’s bedroom.”
“Now
in French!”
“Je
suis sucer mon ami de dick dans son ami de chamber à coucher.”
“When
you put it that way, it sounds dirty.”
She
takes me out and tickles my balls with her fingers. “We probably haven’t much
time, honey. When you feel like you’re getting close, I want you to pump this
thing into my mouth like you’re fucking me. I want every drop.”
I
look sideways to find us framed in a closet-door mirror, and it seems that much
filthier. A few minutes later, I hold my diva by the ears and stroke into her
like there’s no tomorrow. I hear a roar of applause from the living room and imagine
that it’s for me.
Eleven
Familia. You don’t ask questions. You do what familia tells you. When the old man says go north with your cousin,
you do it. And you end up in hell, with a gringo boss who learned his Spanish
in the wrong place and talks like a gay Castilian. And a hundred degrees of
heat, and these pinche hooked knives that tear your hands to ribbons. But you
shouldn’t have lied, you shouldn’t have said you had worked the vineyards. And
you shouldn’t have raised your hand when jefe Cathtilian asked for volunteers
to work on Sunday. But it’s time-and-a-half, and it’s la familia. It doesn’t
make it easier, but it does make it inevitable, and that’s something.
Esteban
worked his way down the rows, pulling his boxes alongside. A strange yellow
smoke had been drifting over the gold-grass hills all morning, making it hard
to breathe, and his baseball cap was soaked through with sweat. Still, at least
he was alone, and he didn’t have to listen to ranchero music, or that boom-boom
German nonsense. Give him norteño, Flaco Jimenez on the squeezebox, or that hot
Puerto Rican salsa. Esteban was a man of rhythm, a man of action; he would
dance with the Cuban bonitas on Miami Beach, to Celia Cruz and Poncho Sanchez.
He
looked up and discovered, much to his surprise, that he had only two rows left.
After that, he would sit down with his treasure: two Tecate cervezas, sealed in
a Zip-Lock bag filled with ice, and a spicy lingua burrito. Just the thought of
it quickened his hands.
An
hour later, Esteban held the last clump of pinot grapes and pretended he was a
caballero castrating a bull. As the testicles dropped into his box he let out a
joyous grito. He ran to a sprawling oak on the hilltop, opened the Zip-Lock and
nearly cried as the ice-cold fluid struck his throat.
After
he finished his burrito, Esteban felt the long hours of work pummeling him to
the ground. When he woke up, the yellow smoke was rolling over the hill like
smog. He stumbled to his feet and realized that he had to pee very badly. Without
the presence of the other workers, Esteban saw no reason to hide behind a tree,
so he raced into the golden grass, pulled down his shorts and released a great
yellow stream.
Someone
giggled. Esteban let out an “Ay!” and turned to see a lady on a horse. Then he
realized he was facing her with his pendejo hanging out, so he spun back
around. He thought of pulling up his shorts, but then he would wet himself, so
he waited anxiously for the stream to subside, all too aware that the caballera
was now looking at his brown buttocks, out there in God’s daylight. He shook
off the last few drops, pulled up his shorts and tried to adopt a casual
demeanor.
He
half expected the lady to be gone, but still she was there, wearing a strange
grin. Her mount was an enormous creature the color of straw, making him almost
disappear into the grass. The woman lifted herself up, dismounted and walked
his way. Esteban had an urge to bolt, but the woman was beautiful, like no one
he had ever seen, with blonde tresses that went from honey to straw to sand,
and white skin, and large green eyes. Her clothing was like something out of a
movie: a long white dress, a corset of chocolate brown with braided patterns in
gold. The corset was pulled tight by a web of laces that pushed her breasts
upward; half of their surface was laid bare to Esteban’s eyes. Her hair was
strewn with flowers and ribbons, the sleeves of her dress puffed out like the
shirt of a pirate, and around her head she wore a copper band, festooned with
etchings of oak leaves and birds. He had seen some of these things on the
folklorico dancers back home, but never in such perfect array, like the
clothing of an angel, like a dream. Is
that it? he thought. Am I still
asleep? Oh let it not be so!
It
wasn’t. She came near, speaking as she approached, but although Esteban knew un
poquito de Ingles he did not know this. The rhythm was formal, like a march,
and her words were marked with the lisping sounds of his boss’s Spanish. But
words were not really needed; the caballera placed her hands against Esteban’s
chest, giggled sweetly and brought her thick lips to his. He had kissed a chica
before, but never like this. She slipped her tongue into his mouth, and he
found his tongue pressing back. It was very odd and exciting. He felt his thing
growing in his shorts, and he worried that this would scare the woman away, the
way it scared Maria Sanchez. But when the caballera drew back, it was only to
undo the laces of her corset.
He
had never seen anything so white. The nipples were like the pink sugar cookies
his abuelita would make on Sundays. He took one of her breasts in his hand, and
when he nibbled on the tip the caballera let out a gasp of pleasure.
His
member was painfully stiff. When the lady knelt to unzip him and take him into
her mouth, it was too much for him and he burst. He expected her to be angry,
but instead she kept sucking, swallowing his seed and continuing until he was
hard again. She motioned for him to lie down, then she spread her skirts and
crouched over him, bringing his cock to her opening.
This,
then, was Esteban’s first time, and now he understood why the older muchachos
spoke so endlessly of the wonders of puta. It was like a liquid fire wrapped
around his cock. He wished he could see what it looked like, his staff
disappearing into the caballera’s white body, but there was something just as
stimulating about this mysterious force beneath the pile of skirts, the dreamy
look on the lady’s face as she rode him.
This
time he was able to last much longer. Soon the gringa was shaking, and moaning,
and letting out gritos of her own. He took her by the waist and exploded into
her. As his body subsided, he lay back, leaking into her depths as the yellow
clouds drifted across the sky. He fought the urge to sleep – he wanted so badly
to stay with this pleasure – but inevitably he fell back into slumber.
Esteban
woke to the sounds of a scuffle. When he saw white men in green uniforms he did
what his cousin had told him and immediately sought cover. He climbed into the
low branches of the oak and peered around the wide trunk to see the men leading
the caballera away. Another man led the horse by its reins.
Esteban
waited fifteen minutes, then walked carefully to the other side of the hill,
where he found a dirt road. He could see the fresh tracks of the horse, and the
bootmarks of the uniformed men. He followed them downhill until he came to a
small valley where everything had been burned to black. All that was left were
the charred trunks of trees and the smoldering remains of small structures. He
followed the track of the fire as it climbed the opposite hill and beyond,
where the burning grass sent up menacing plumes.
Esteban
decided that this was the most he would find out this day, so he turned back
uphill toward the vineyard. He stepped upon something that let out a tiny
whoop, and found a square of metal, scorched black. He turned it over and found
fancifully lettered words in English: Renaissance
Pleasure Faire. He had no idea what these words meant, so he tucked the
sign under his arm and kept walking. Perhaps he would ask his cousin.
Twelve
Running water. Have to pee.
Running water. I puncture the wall of sleep and come out the other side, a
newborn babe to September 21st, longing for the womb. I feel a dream
squirming in my back pocket; I try to pull it out and discover that I’m wearing
no pants. Damn. I’m almost certain that it was a good one.
Have
to pee. Running water? I hear low, off-key whistling, and I know she’s in the
bathroom. I’m not about to give her another free show, so I head for the front
door. Trey the Fish is off to the Caymans, and there’s only one other car in
the clearing, my old BMW. Doubtless she uses it so she can beat it senseless on
my dirt road.
I
trot down the steps, naked, head for the golden grass of the orchard and
release an arc of golden spray. The question in this rare position is, what do
you do with your hands? I opt for freestyle, placing a fist on either hip and
letting my dick fly solo. This provides a plentifully proud posture to my
pissing. Man! Shouldn’t have had that last Tecate. Ah well. Let’s go face the
beast.
I
pull on a pair of boxers and head for the bathroom. She’s rinsing the shampoo
from her hair.
“Greetings,
former wife! What the fuck do you
want?”
I
suppose this has become a pet greeting, because it fails to get the least rise
out of her.
She
pulls a wet strand from her face. “I already got what I wanted.”
“Nice
hot bath?”
“Nice
hot screw. Jesus, pal, take a look at your own dick once in a while.”
I
peek inside my boxers and yegods she’s right. St. Peter is sporting those pink
and purple splotches along his helmet, a sure sign of female chemicals.
“I
don’t know how you do it, honey, but when I arrived last night you were sound
asleep with a raging boner. I managed to administer a blow job and a
chick-on-top without waking you. What was really
hot was, you kept crying out in Spanish: ‘Dios mio!’ ‘Chingada muchacha!’ I
think you even said ‘Ay caramba!’”
She
starts snorting, which finally sets me off.
“Shit!
You can’t… You can’t fucking do that!
I’m… I’m…”
“In
love? Whipped?”
“Taken!
Spoken for! Closed for business! Jesus. I’m not even safe in my fucking sleep.
What the fuck is your problem?”
I’m
getting pretty loud, but Allison is the coolest evil bitch in North America.
She runs a fingernail along her knee as she gives my question serious
consideration.
“My
problem… is that I dumped you and married John for the express purpose of
playing high-society monopoly. It turns out that John has all the money, but
none of the personality. And you! You
go out there with your little piece of pseudo-intellectual Internet crap and
bag yourself a diva, effectively leapfrogging me by four or five levels. You
won’t even let me have this, you
shit!”
She
snaps her mouth shut and stares forward. It may just be a trick of light and
steam, but I could swear I see a tear rolling down her cheek. For this I should send out press releases,
for this I should run up the road
seeking witnesses. My ex-wife, the
Typhoid Mary of childbirth, crying.
“I
didn’t try. That is apparently why it worked. I found something I liked and
told everyone why I liked it. Pretty goddamn simple.”
“Thanks
bunches, Dear Fucking Abby.”
That’s
better. “Fine. But really, I can’t fuck you anymore. So please behave and I’ll
make you some breakfast. You like huevos rancheros?"
She
gives me a witchy smile. “I’ve already had
your huevos.”
I
can’t help laughing, and I immediately feel guilty. But dammit, it’s funny.
Despite my best efforts, I sometimes like my ex-wife.
I
manage to toss together some eggs, thin-sliced taters, refried beans and green
peppers and dare to call it Mexican. I leave Allison on the couch with that and
a Mimosa. She looks as hot as ever, god damn her, but I really have to see
about changing the combination on the gate.
I
head in for my toilette and reappear a half-hour later as a pirate: tri-corner
hat with plume, necklace of shark’s teeth, black satin sash, billowy shirt,
cheesy fake cutlass, black leather boots halfway up my calves. I am one fuccan
buccaneer.
“Shiver
me timbers!” says Allison.
“Thank
you, I think. I have some top-level access to the SFO wardrobe department.”
“‘Pirates
of Penzance’?”
“No,
but excellent guess! ‘Il Pirata,’ by Bellini. A rather groundbreaking little
opera, actually.”
“Tell
someone who cares. I’d better get going. Thanks for the loan of the penis.”
“Apparently,
that’s the reason I’m here.”
She
stands to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Poor pirate. Everybody wants his dick.”
And
she is gone, into her/my Beamer and up the road. That was way too easy. I take a scan of my desktop, pocket the keys and
wallet, and take the radical move of forsaking my cell phone. Nothing more
annoying than anachronistic pirates.
We
meet at the Coffee Society in Cupertino and leave the Lexus at streetside. She
waves a hand along her costume. “So what do you think?”
“Luscious
as always. Especially the copper band. Kinda surprises me, though. I expected
something regal and operatic. Maybe Queen Elizabeth herself. Is there an
Elizabethan opera?”
“Rossini
wrote one. In fact, he took the overture and used it for The Barber of Seville. But darlin’, I get enough of those one-ton
dresses. I thought something in the merchant class would be more comfortable.”
“So
you’re slumming.”
“You
got it, baby.”
“Shakespearean,
please?”
“Thou
speakest true.”
“Splendid!”
When
I was younger, the Renaissance Pleasure Faire resided in Marin County. The
setting was an oak forest spiced with bay laurel, and it felt about as British
as California gets. A decade later they moved it to Casa de Fruta, a weird sort
of rest area/agricultural fun park 40 miles south of San Jose, and I had no
faith that it would have the same atmosphere. It sits in a cradle of hills
covered with that golden grass that evokes vineyards and Steinbeck, but
certainly not Jolly Old England.
I
was entirely wrong. Once you enter the main gate into the merchants, alehouses,
jousting matches, strolling musicians and period-talking geeks, the grass hills
and the dry heat fade from your attention. They also managed to find the same
potpourri of oak and bay laurel to satisfy my scented memories.
Maddie,
of course, is a massive hit. Having learned her acting by performing
Shakespeare, she interacts with the vendors and barkers on their own
time-machine level. Having no such talent, I have found a cheesy dodge. When in
doubt, I recall every bad pirate movie ever created and channel the dialogue.
One
of our merrier encounters comes at the dunk-tank, where a foole sits upon a
board, awaiting a soggy fate should a patron strike the bullseye with a
“cannonball” (a softball wrapped in duct tape). The foole incentivizes his
clients by hurling insults. A pirate and a gorgeous lady make an irresistible
mark.
“What
hempen homespun have we swaggering here? ‘Tis Johnny Depp’s homely
stepbrother!”
I
enlist for five balls. Sir Don Rickles ups the ante with each toss, a strange
blend of Elizabethan and Hollywood.
“Thou
lump of foul deformity! Try thy inconsequent skills.”
“I’ll
be sendin’ ya to Davey Jones’s Locker, y’scurvy dog.”
Ball
one. Inside.
“He
speaks, yet he says nothing! Do ya feel lucky punk? Well do ya?”
“Ahr,
ya landlubbin’ scalawag, to the plank with ye!”
Ball
two. Outside.
“Aw-hahaha!
You whoreson cullionly barbermonger – your purpled hands do reek and smoke.
Hasta la vista, baby!”
“I’ll
be puttin’ the black spot on ye, ya lily-livered sprog!”
Ball
three. An inch too high.
“Methink
thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee. You can’t handle the truth!”
“I’ll
have ya keelhauled, ya traiterous squiffy.”
Ball
four. One inch low.
The
foole is about to release another volley when he breaks character. “What the
hell is a squiffy?”
“A
buffoon,” I reply.
“Aye,
that’s good.”
“Thanks.
Did a little research.”
“Do
you mind if I use that? I’ve got this… pirate thing tomorrow.”
“Oh,
by all means.”
“Hold!”
says Maddie. “Enough of these… futuristic mutterings. And thou, thou
rapscallious varlet, thou has picked thy every joust from the pocket of the
Bard. Thus far, I spy thee A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard the Third, Romeo
and Juliet, Sir Clint of the East Woods, King Lear, Julius Caesar, All’s Well
that Ends Well and Jack Nicholson. Thou hast not one unplagiarized thought in
thy puny little melon.”
The
foole gives Maddie a cold stare and says, “How foul and loathsome is thine
image.”
“Taming
of the Shrew.”
“Avast!”
I shout. “Now ye be talkin’ to me wench.”
“Oh-hoh!”
he says. “Verily, good sir. Better to insult the man who now doth possess only
one ball!” He takes a deep breath and launches into a stream of invective from
(I am told) Henry IV, Part One. “Why, thou clay brained guts, thou knotty pated
fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow catch!”
“Ahr!”
I rejoinder, and release a blazing fastball.
Strike
one. The board collapses and sends my rival into the drink.
“Down
to th’depths with ye. May the sharks dine on yer cockles and muscles.”
The
foole stands in his tank, squeezing the water from his hat. “I desire that we
be better strangers! Let’s meet as little as we can.”
Maddie
plucks a five-dollar bill from her cleavage and drops it into his hands.
“As
You Like It.”
The
front man hands her our prize – a bracelet of dried flowers – and she slips it
on. As we walk away, the foole is already working on his next target.
“Ho,
look on that fellow! All that is within him does condemn itself for being
there.”
“Macbeth,”
says milady.
I
smile. “Thou art a lady of extravagant wit.”
“I
thank thee.”
“And
one sexy bitch.”
“Ahrr!”
A
little bit later, we arrive at the mead counter, where a lady of enormous
endowment is one sneeze away from falling out of her cups. The man in front of
me, a duke in a stylish black waistcoat, receives his drink and takes much
leisure slipping his tip between her jugs. This is a long Ren-Faire custom, and
the ladies seem to welcome it so long as it fattens their purses. I order up
two meads; the lady sets them on the counter, along with her mammaries. I turn
to Maddie and ask, “May I?”
“Certainly.”
I
deliver my gratuity and am about to pocket the remaining dollar when Maddie
snatches it away.
“My
good man!” she calls. Her target is a strapping college kid with a floppy
peasant-hat.
“Yes
mum.”
“I
wonder if thou wouldst sit upon thy counter.”
“Beg
pardon, mum?”
“Thy
bum, sir, upon thy counter!”
He
raises his hands in surrender, turns around and hikes himself up, presenting a
pair of slim buttocks in black pantaloons. Maddie tugs at his waistband, slips
her dollar inside, then sends him off with a spank.
“I
thank thee, sir.”
She
takes her mead and walks away. The womenfolk deliver a rousing applause. But
then, applause and Maddie just seem to go together.
An
hour later, we’re sitting on a bale of hay, watching a troupe of theatrical
combat artists. They’re quite good, and also loud. They’re finishing up the
show with a sword dance, blades interlocked as they pace in a circle. I feel
bad for the thickness of their costumes, and the heat, and the exertion. They
are clearly suffering for their art. But I feel just as bad for myself, and
these militant yellowjackets, who refuse to leave my turkey leg.
“Damn
these wretches!”
“Dost
thou… oh! Permission to forego Elizabethan?”
“Certainly.”
“Thanks!
My tongue is worn out. Are you familiar with the bee-and-switch?”
“Amazingly
enough, no.”
“Take
a hunk of turkey – don’t be stingy – and place it on that bale in front of us.”
I
do as she says. Sure enough, the yellowjackets gather for a convention over my
discard.
“Given
the choice between being swatted at or not being swatted at, the bees prefer to
take their lunch outside the war zone.”
“Thou
art a wonder, and a gift to all mankind. Zounds! Thy magic crystal doth emanate
with strange… emanations.”
“God!
Who writes this stuff?” She pulls her cell phone from its leather holster and
flips it open. “Well! What witchcraft be this?
It’s from you.”
She
hands me the phone, which reads, Hi
Maddie. Are you having fun?
“Odd!
But I left my, um, magic crystal at home.”
At
home. I see Allison driving to the vista point at the top of Highway 9,
watching me drive past, then returning to my cabin. She spots the cell phone
atop my desk and sees the potential for large quantities of mischief. She may
be an evil fucking bitch, but she’s consistent. All that talk of high-society
jealousy must have re-invigorated her instincts.
“Hmm…
My ex-wife.”
The
phone goes off again. I am so screwed. I have to show it to her; it’s her
phone.
Isn’t it odd that some other woman has
Mickey’s phone? And that she’s sitting on his couch, across from a love note addressed
to Don Jose?
“Your ex-wife has access to your cabin?”
“Yes.
I left the gate open one night. I think she saw the combination. If I hadn’t
mentioned it, she’s a psycho.”
“Yes,
you had. Oh! Another one. This is quite a little show.”
I see from Don Jose’s calendar that he went
to see you in Seattle at the end of June. How odd that he was still fucking me
on July 7.
“Well!”
says Maddie. “Isn’t that lovely? And so
specific!”
Maddie’s
amused tone is reassuring. I might even get out of this unscathed. Allison’s
previous crimes have given her a complete lack of credibility. The phone shakes
again.
But why should you believe me?
“Precisely,”
says Maddie. “God, Mickey, I think you need to get a restraining order.”
Another
buzz. Maddie hits the button, begins to read, then peers closer, squinting. Her
face bunches up, like someone who has just bitten into a lemon, and she looks
at the screen again. She clamps a hand over her mouth, looks at me with wide
eyes, then drops the phone on a hay-bale and walks away. The sword-dancers
finish. The audience applauds. Maddie disappears into the swirling crowd.
Katie
and I were involved in our parting session, face-to-face on the living room
rug, our limbs bundled together like a tangle of yarn. I noticed our reflection
in an old mirror that I kept stowed against the wall. I saw my phone on the
coffee table. I knew this was our last time. I flipped open the phone, and
motioned for Katie to look into the mirror. I pressed the button. It was such a
beautiful shot that I never had the heart to erase it. The line of digits above
the phone reads 0707. I can assume
that Maddie knows what this means. The photo disappears as another message
flashes in.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my little
presentation.
I
am dying to respond, my thumbs are itching with curse words, but at this point
I’d only be feeding the fire. I pocket the phone and head off into the
Renaissance Pleasure Faire, feeling like I’d like to take a match to the whole
fucking thing.
I
spend the next hour in a desperate wander, all the worse because I am not
certain if Maddie wants to be found. I recall passing a bellydancing
performance, a leathermaster’s shop, an African import booth with hand drums
and marimbas. Meanwhile, I’m conducting a mental review of the haybale fiasco,
like a football coach reviewing game footage. I think I actually gave a decent
performance, but I never stood a chance. You can’t deny a photograph.
I
am standing behind a crowd, watching a man juggle large wooden blocks while
standing on a loose tightrope. He looks a lot like me. The village drunk
staggers by with a quintet of sexy bitch pirate girls who look like they could
toss you into a stew and eat you for Thanksgiving. He looks a lot like me. I
continue along the dirt thoroughfare as a maker of toy catapults takes aim with
a tiny water balloon.
The
jousting arena is bright and dusty, the shaded bleachers packed with onlookers.
The knights have finished their battles and made way for long-haired equestrian
maidens, clad in sexy leather dresses dotted with jewels and weaponry. One of
them floats past on an enormous creature the color of straw. The rider is slim,
with long, dark hair, an olive complexion, a brilliant flash of smile biting
down on a ruby-crested dagger. She looks a lot like Allison.
I
find Maddie at a nearby pen, stroking the muzzle of a black horse. She seems to
be talking to it, likely recounting all of my sins. I approach with cautious
steps and think it best not to speak. She raises a pair of eyes gone red with
crying and gives me a listless nod. This is so
not the woman I came with. She folds her hands together and lowers her gaze to
my shoetops.
“I
am stranded, Mickey. I have tried to think of ways I could just be gone from
here, but I can’t. So here’s the thing: you and I are over. Some women give
second chances. I do not. This… fierceness surprises people, but it’s a
tradeoff. I trust people completely, until they betray that trust. And then I
leave.”
She
sniffles, and takes a breath.
“So
here’s how we get home. I have an IPod in my purse. I’m going to sit in the
back seat of your car, and listen to music, and you are not going to talk to me.”
“But
I…”
She
slaps me on the arm, hard. “Not a word! You cannot possibly explain away…. You
have no chance of forgiveness. I can only appeal to your sense of decency and…
and your love of opera. I have to open in two days, and I am under enough
stress already. Consider it your duty to get me to my car, so I can get home,
so I can get myself onto that stage. Now go. Walk. I’ll walk behind you.”
I
march to my car, not daring to look back. I open the door for her, and I drive
for an hour and a half without speaking. She’s right. I do this as an opera
fan, because the rest of me is dying. I pull in past the Coffee Society, and I
park next to her Lexus. I look at her. She gathers her things, takes off the
IPod, and looks at me. I pull her cell phone from my pocket and hand it to her.
She snaps it into her holster.
“Goodbye,”
she says. And she’s gone, into her car, backing up, off down the road.
For
a long time, I stare at my dashboard. Then I look up and see dancers, a whole
room of teenage girls in tights, running through ballet moves with their
instructor. The logical thing is to go get a cup of coffee. But then I notice
the flare of white fabric at my wrist, and I realize that I’m a pirate.
