Fifteen
Coming in from the Pacific, a Cessna pilot would have found
Fetzle Mansion a carnival box of black and gold, a thirty-foot banner declaring
WELCOME HOME, STEPHEN from the front balcony. The facade was speckled by a
dozen giant origami swans (or cranes, as Scootie had pointed out) constructed
from gold foil. The windows were covered by six-foot-tall blowups of the
Stephen Swan caricature, and high overhead flew a helium-filled blimp,
commandeered from a Suzuki dealership and outfitted with feathered wings, neck
and head.
The courtyard behind the mansion resembled a polka-dot
dress, its green expanse marked off by circular tables striped in black and
gold, and every five feet of the arborway sported a giant bow or bundle of
balloons.
Seated at the tables were some of the wealthiest citizens of
the Monterey and San Francisco bay areas, dressed in their finest rental
evening wear as they enjoyed a Mexican buffet and a twelve-piece mariachi band.
Jackie and Aggie stood in one of the Mansion’s rear balconies, spying on the festivities
as they enjoyed a rare five minutes of peace. Aggie was ostensibly there to
give Jackie a box-office update, but really she was looking for dirt on the
now-legendary Kross-Jones wrestling match.
“I’ll tell you, Jackie, I’ve never seen anything like this.
I was as cynical as everybody else when we still had a hundred tickets
yesterday, but that telephone has been shouting its blessed little head off
ever since.”
“Pretty sweet,” said Jackie. “Scootie was right on the
money.”
“Ah, yes,” said Aggie with a knowing wink. “But you know our
valued chairladies will take all of the credit, what with their brilliant
last-minute giveaways.”
“Yes, damn their overdressed bee-hinds. That giveaway made
about as much sense as an espresso stand in the middle of Death Valley. I’ll
bet it did more damage than good.”
“It certainly didn’t help staff-trustee relations,” said
Aggie, finally edging around to her real target.
“Yessirree. That was a nasty little set-to. I didn’t think
ol’ Juli Kross had prairie oysters of quite those proportions. I keep thinkin’
of the look on that poor boy’s face comin’ back outta that office. White as a
vanilla-flavored ghost. She musta given him one horrific tongue-lashin’. And
I’ll tell ya, I expected Scootie to go to the mat on this one. It’s not like
him to give up like that.”
Aggie let out a quiet laugh. “When it comes down to it,
Jacqueline, we are mere employees. And the colors of the monarchy are black and
gold.” She waved a pinky in the direction of the courtyard.
“What really grabs my gonads,” said Jackie, “is how much
energy them California sharks put out pretendin’ they’re vegetarians. Sometimes
I’d rather be a waitress in some greasy-spoon in Austin. At least I’d know
where I stood.”
Aggie released an affected sigh. “Yes, and I think about
retirement, and working in my garden. For now, however, I’d best get back to
the box office, before my assistants go crazy.”
“Why don’t I go with you? I’d like to check out the seating
chart so’s I can give the ushers a full report.”
They started down the back steps, slipping under the green
waves of wisteria, each of them carrying a private thought she didn’t dare
express. For Jackie, it was the sight of Juliana Kross, sitting at her table
without her husband. For Aggie, it was the first secret she had successfully
kept in years.
Juliana stumbled through the pine trees behind the theater
and found the dimly lit stage door. She wandered her way through various
autumnal backdrops from The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow and discovered Dave, the Center’s robust tech director,
talking into his headphones.
“Okay, Vijay. Are we set on the mike? Yeah, just for the
intro; Swan goes unplugged from there. Yeah, go to black, I’ll fetch the mic
stand, then I’ll give you an audio cue. Okay, whoops! Got my emcee here. Be
right back. Hi, Mrs. Kross, I’m Dave. I’ll be your host for the evening. Would
you like anything from the bar?”
“I’ll take one of each. I’m petrified.”
“Hey, those are your friends out there! Besides, I know your
type. Nervous as hell right up to stage time, then you go out there and come
back with a belt fulla scalps. Former actress, right?”
“Well, yes, I...”
“Dave knows all.” He put his hands together and performed a
swami bow.
“Well, as long as you do,” said Juliana. “Any special
instructions?”
“Yeah. I want you to enter from stage right. I’ll be here on
the com, and I’ll give you three distinct signals. First, I’ll hold up a
handful of fingers at five minutes. Next, I’ll hold up my index finger when
we’re down to a minute. Then I’ll give you this traditional theater signal” –
he circled his thumb and finger in the “okay” sign – when it’s time to hit the
stage. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Couple other things. The mike is live, so please, none of
the old comedy shtick.” He tapped an imaginary mike and said, “Is thing on? Is
this thing on? God, I hate that! Just speak in your natural voice, about three
to six inches from the mike, and my man Vijay will make the adjustments. Oh...
wait a minute.” Dave put on his headphones, exchanged a few phrases, then
returned to Juliana. “Hey! Good news. You can forget our first signal. We just
hit five minutes. Why don’t you head on over to stage right?”
“Oh, um, yes,” said Juliana, turning to go.
“Oh, and Juli,” said Dave. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,
but Stephen wants an indirect intro. He’ll come out a few minutes after you
leave the stage. Kind of a theatrical thing.”
“Gotcha.”
“Oh, and one other thing.”
“Mm-hmm?”
Dave put a hand to the side of his mouth. “Kick some ass,
wouldja?”
Juliana laughed and headed across the stage. The stage-right
entrance afforded a gap of three feet between the proscenium and the curtain.
Juliana lifted her index cards to the narrow band of light and reviewed her
notes: sponsors, committee chairs, a brief bio of Stephen. And her real worry,
the young man who would be there when she finished, helping prepare Stephen for
his performance. How could she possibly face him? If it had been merely a
matter of drink and spousal vengeance, it might have been easy enough to set
aside, but the visions... Two nights of spotty sleep, a waist-high view of a
lanky, dark-haired man, eyes closed tight, body rumbling as he surrendered, the
ripening fruit in her mouth spitting out fluid that tasted of mozzarella cheese
with a snap of sage...
For Christ’s sake, Juliana – introduction? You’ve got a job
to do, girl. Dave leaned in from the other side of the curtain to lift an index
finger, and now her inner argument was blotted out by the pounding of her
heart. For a second she though she heard Scootis’ voice, lambasting her
viciously, but now Dave was giving the okay sign, and everything else cleared
out. She glanced in the stageside mirror, nudging a stray hair back into place,
then split the gap, whispering Dave’s instructions to “kick some ass.”
It came out exactly as he had said: a bright, fluid moment,
over before she knew it, the words escaping her mouth as easily as breath. The
spotlight seemed to calm her, bring her back to that 18-year-old Tracy Lord, endowed
with all the sureness of Hepburn. Only one thing struck her as odd: the place
was packed. And there seemed to be people in the back, standing.
She returned to her spot at stage right, the applause
lending a sonic backrub, but she had little chance to cherish it. Beyond the
break of the proscenium sat a wretch of a man, charcoal stains spotting his
face, his hair a tangled mop strewn with stalks of wild grass. The actor eyed
her distractedly, as though he were facing the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Juliana
was about to say something when Scootie rushed in with a Styrofoam cup.
“Hi Juliana,” he whispered. “Could you stand over there?
Thanks.” He turned to the ragman. “Here’s your espresso. Lukewarm. Hardly worth
my time.”
Stephen drank it down with a steady swallow. Scootie,
meanwhile, was just cranking up.
“Listen, you counterfiet Englishman. You may be a big
fucking star in New York, but here you’re nothing! Nada! Zilch! These people
knew you when you were shitting your diapers, and they don’t give a good
goddamn about your gold statuettes and all those directors you slept with to
get to the top.
“You haven’t even bothered coming back for forty years, and
believe me, the locals are pretty hacked off about it. They only bought tickets
to this freak show to watch the old man crash and burn. Washed up! Ove the
hill, baby. Now get your sorry ass out there and try not to fall into the
orchestra pit!”
Stephen looked up with a sick, determined smile and said,
“I’ll show you! I’ll show you!” And then he was gone straggling into the
spotlight. He stopped to take in the audience, as if he were meeting a stranger
on the road, then rolled out Shakespeare in dulcet, rumbling tones.
“No, they cannot touch me for coining. I am the king
himself... Nature’s above art in that respect. There’s your press-money. That
fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper. Draw me a clothier’s yard. Look,
look, a mouse!...”
Scootie stood in the shadow of the wall, letting the
signature fray of Stephen’s voice fill his ears like chocolate milk. Then he
remembered where his new hearing came from, and turned to find Juliana next to
a baffle, looking lost.
“The mad scene from King
Lear,” he said. “He took out Gloucester’s and Edgar’s parts, but it seems
to work.”
“He’s a... method actor?” Juliana guessed.
“Yeah, sort of,” Scootie chuckled. “Stephen’s
eccentricities? The ones you were warned about?”
“Yes?”
“He likes to be thoroughly debased before he takes the
stage.” Scootie retreated from the curtain and joined Juliana. “When Stephen
first went to New York, his career went absolutely nowhere, for three or four
years. He was about to pack it in and return to California when he met Matt
Sodgkin, a pitcher for the Yankees. When Stephen asked Sodgkin what motivated
him on the mound, he said, ‘Fear. A terrifying fear of failure.’ Sodgkin’s
pitching coach would psyche him up before each start by denigrating him for a
full fifteen minutes, calling him a no-account meat-thrower who never shoulda
made it past Little League, that he was one or two losses from going back to
Double-A. Made Sodgkin absolutely desperate to succeed, and to prove his coach
wrong.
“Before his next audition, Stephen asked Sodgkin to do the
same for him. Sodgkin spent twenty minutes in the alley outside the theater,
pasting Stephen with every insult he could think of. The stage manager thought
they were about to come to blows, and almost called the cops. Stephen got so
worked up he proceeded to go in and blow the place down. That was Songs for Scotland, the one that got him
his first Tony.”
Juliana was beginning to get the idea, and smiled. “So
tonight, you’re Matt Sodgkin.”
“I got a mean fastball.”
Applause poured in as Stephen wrapped up King Lear. He spoke
in his regular voice about “the incredible siren call of the stage” as he
cleaned himself up – picking grass from his hair, using a towel to wipe the
smears from his face. He headed cross-stage to a makeup table, putting on his
next face as he recalled that first legendary Lear at the Fetzle Center.
“No matter where I have gone, I have always felt the sand of
Hallis Beach between my toes. I realize, however, that this is really only my
second run in this town, so I would ask you critics out there to please, be
easy on me.” Laughter, then applause. “I would like to continue with something
from my first success, a Broadway play penned by the great Ella Masterson and
titled Songs for Scotland. I dedicate
this to my very best friend, a former pitcher for the New York Yankees name of
Matthew Sodgkin.” Stephen donned a tam o’shanter and was off to his next scene.
“Whatever happened to Sodgkin?” Juliana asked.
“Carl Yazstremski hit a line drive up the middle and hit him
on the head. He couldn’t quite see straight after that, and he lost his nerve.”
“I guess failure is not the thing he should have been afraid
of,” said Juliana, snickering.
Scootie grinned and held Juliana’s eyes in his. She was
overcome by shame and turned, shuffling into the darkness backstage. Scootie
followed, and found her in front of the dressing room, her eyes fixed firmly on
the gold star below Stephen’s name. Scootie stopped short of reaching out to
her.
“Juliana? Are you okay?”
“Scootie, I’m so... what I did to you the other night, it
was disgraceful, attacking you like that just to get you to give away tickets.
I don’t...”
“Juliana, I didn’t give away any tickets.”
“...blame you if you never want to speak to me again. It was
an unspeakable use of power, and I...”
“I didn’t give away any tickets.”
This time she heard him.
“You... what?”
“I didn’t give away tickets. I knew you’d be busy, and,
well, possibly too disturbed to notice, so I simply refrained from doing
anything, in the hopes that no one would...”
“You cur!” Juliana punched Scootie on the shoulder. “You
pig! How dare you not...”
She went to push him, but he grabbed her hands and grinned
devilishly.
“How dare I not respond to fellatio?”
Juliana looked at her hands, limp rags in Scootie’s grip,
and was overcome by laughter. Scootie put a finger to his lips but succeeded
only in cracking himself up. When Juliana slipped a hand around the doorknob,
they stumbled into the dressing room, landing in a tangle on the carpeting.
Scootie tapped the door closed with his foot, then covered her with kisses, roaming
freely over her neck and cheekbones. He was undoing the straps of her gown when
she formed a “halt” sign and planted it against his chest.
“Scootie... as much as I am enjoying this, there are too
many people here, and besides, I think Mr. Swan will be returning for a fresh
round of abuse.”
Scootie laughed and assented with his eyes.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” she said. “Take some tissues and
clean yourself up in the stageside mirror – you’ve got some lipstick on your
right cheek. I will clean up in here, sneak out the back, and take my assigned
seat in the audience.” She stopped to consider what came next. How does one
properly initiate an affair?
“Do you live alone?”
He nodded.
“Good. I want you to slip out to the employee parking lot
during the second act and find my car. Green Volvo, remember? It’s got one of
those gas caps that’s hidden under the rear license plate. I want you to write
down the directions to your place – only the directions, no names, no personal
references – and leave it there for me. I will stay here for about an hour
after the show, and then I will drive directly – or perhaps, indirectly – to
your place. Okay?”
“Check,” said Scootie. He rose to his feet and pulled her
up. He took a box of tissue, and was ready to go, but felt the need to say
something in parting. “Juliana?”
“Yes?” she answered, out of breath.
Scootie held her chin and kissed her. “I give you license to
attack me anytime you like.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, and he was gone. She walked
carefully to the mirror, flipped on the light and went about straightening the
pleasantly jumbled features of her face.
Photo by MJV
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