Attack of the Theater People (10 page)

I look at Irving, who doesn’t say anything, the maggot. “They think it may be from too much aspartame.”

He puts down his Fresca.

“I need to have…an operation.”

I feel myself pushing for an emotion. Why can’t I feel it? What’s wrong with me? I’m an uptight, airtight box, an empty space. I quiver my chin and hope for the best.

“So I’m sorry to say that I’m going to have to quit.”

Irving sinks back in his chair, momentarily at a loss for words. Then he bangs a fist on his desk, looks up at the ceiling, and addresses an unseen and fickle deity, crying, “Why, God?”

I’m shocked. And thrilled. This is more than I hoped for. Maybe I’m a better actor than I thought.

Irving continues to address the heavens, his palms outstretched, his voice rumbling like thunder. “Why does everything happen to ME?”

The rest of the office buys me a get-well card.

Once I am freed
of Irving, Manhattan instantly becomes a happier place for me, the autumn in New York that Sinatra sings about, the one that transforms the slums to Mayfair. Dappled light dances among the trees, shimmering in the cranberry-, saffron-, and pumpkin-colored leaves, and I feel more motivated than ever to motivate these partygoers to my advantage, to live a life of mystery and intrigue. I turn my full attention to my first corporate event, a party for Beautonics
^®
, Inc., a Midwest-based beauty-product company and the makers of the mousse that keeps my hair from looking like a tumbleweed.

“You’re really gonna need that acting training,” Sandra explains. “These executive types don’t wanna socialize with perky chorus boys, even if you’re dancing with their wives. There’s no shiny shirt or tight pants. You’ve gotta fit in.”

Apparently, some of us are too jazz hands for the corporate world.

Eager to get my beloved Chad the information he needs, I ask Sandra if she has any suggestions for talking to businesspeople.

“Just remembah,” she says, “they’re there to have fun. Tell ’em jokes. Talk about real estate or electronics. Oh! And sports. These guys love to talk about sports.”

Great. I’m as fond of sports as truck drivers are of knitting. If I’m going to converse about it, I’ll need help from the only jock I know.

Thirteen

The members of
Almost Bruce live in Jersey City in two skinny houses crammed against each other, as if the buildings were afraid of the neighborhood and decided it’s best to stick together. The walk from the PATH station could charitably be described as “life-threatening.”

Doug waves to me from the shared front porch, where he’s sprawled on a weathered couch strumming a guitar. He wears baggy army fatigues and a thermal shirt so tight it looks like he’s been vacuum-packed. “Hey, man,” he says, “just in time. I wantcha t’hear somethin’ I’m workin’ on.”

I welcome any opportunity to stare at him directly.

He sings:

Car lights, bar fights, a parasite suburbanite with gerbils in a Habitrail,

Got a rocket in my pocket and little Davy Crockett reads the telephone book in Braille.

A nighttime enzyme climbed into a pantomime and asked for a louvered grenade,

Then took a Persian excursion with an adolescent version of a terry-cloth masquerade.

“Whaddya think?” he says.

I hate it.

“Catchy,” I say. “What’s it mean?”

“It’s poetry,” he says. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“Well, then, you succeeded.”

“Cool.”

Not content with just being Almost Bruce, Doug then subjects me to a medley of songs that are Almost Original: rock anthems about cars, New Jersey, driving cars in New Jersey, and the plant closing in our hometown. When I point out that the only plants in Colonial Wallingford are ornamental, Doug says he’s “expressing the collective pain of the displaced American worker.”

What about the pain of those of us who have to listen?
I think.

Luckily, we’re interrupted when one of the doors on the porch creaks open and out tumble three musicians wiping their noses. Doug introduces them in quick succession, so I only catch the drummer’s name, which is Napalm. Apropos of nothing he sets the conversational tone by asking, “Have you ever taken a dump so big your pants felt looser?”

“No,” I say, far snippier than I intended, like I’m the prim schoolmarm newly arrived in Prairie Gulch; but he’s too high to notice. Doug and I follow them in the other door, where we’re going to watch game one of the National League Championship Series, which, apparently, is something that needs to happen before the World Series.

Inside I meet two more guys: Brian, the guitarist, and Vernon, the saxophonist, who are a study in contrasts. Whereas Brian is cadaverously pale and thin, as if he’s kept in some dark cupboard between shows, Vernon bursts with life, his brown, bull-sized body bulging against his muscle T-shirt and zebra-striped weight-lifting pants. I swear, the man has forearms the size of my calves. He offers me a beer and I settle on the floor to watch the game, although I’m more intrigued by the fish tank, which isn’t decorated with the usual fake plants and castles but with little green army guys, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, and a veiny black dildo the size of a peppermill.

I turn back to the Mets game, afraid someone will see me staring at it.

Nominally, I’m a Yankees fan. I say
nominally
because at some point in elementary school every boy must name his team whether he cares or not. I chose the Yankees because they’re the only baseball team to inspire a Broadway musical. As a New Yorker, naturally I’d prefer the Mets beat the Houston Astros, but, frankly, I’m not rooting for either to win. When I look at the screen all I see are the kind of guys who beat me up in elementary school. And junior high. And high school. If there were a sport in which both teams lose, I could root for that. Or maybe a game in which they threw stones at each other. Massive Head Trauma Ball. Whoever gets the most concussions wins.

I’m not that much more impressed with the company in the room. These guys may not be jocks, but they’re still guy-guys, and, consequently, they yell a lot, either at the TV or each other.

NAPALM:
“A strike? That ain’t no fuckin’ strike. Is that a fuckin’ strike?”

GUY WHOSE NAME I DON’T KNOW:
“That ain’t no fuckin’ strike.”

NAPALM:
“That’s what I’m fuckin’ sayin’. I mean, that first one…”

GWNIDK:
“Sure.”

NAPALM:
“But that one…”

GWNIDK:
“No fuckin’ way.”

NAPALM:
“That’s what I’m fuckin’ sayin’.”

It’s like a David Mamet play. But, unlike Mamet, where the inane vulgarities are weighted with subtext, these guys are just idiots. And I’m disappointed that this is what Doug aspires to. Frankly, I don’t know how he can stand these cheeseheads.

The answer to my question comes rushing into the room.

She’s the kind of woman you might describe later in life as handsome. Slender, leggy, with flinty cheekbones and a tomahawk nose, a young Marian Seldes, though I can’t picture the grande dame of the Juilliard drama division in a denim vest with a Mets cap and ponytail.

She tousles Doug’s hair, which always looks like he just had sex, even if he hasn’t. “Outta my chair, junior.”

Doug is at least four years younger than the others and is the second Bruce they’ve had, having lost the first to a competing tribute band from Princeton called Tramps Not Unlike Ourselves. He grins at her, smitten, and I wonder if his attraction to slender, boyish women signals repressed homosexual desires.

The woman plops herself in the chair with the confident air of someone who’s one of the guys. She places a Styrofoam wig head between her thighs and starts brushing out a lustrous red mane. “Who are
you
?” she asks, the Jersey equivalent of “Charmed to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m Edward.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard of you.”

She has? That means Doug’s talked about me. I refrain from doing a little happy dance.

“This is Theresa,” Doug says. “She sings backup.”

“And duets.”

He smiles. “And duets.”

I point to the wig. “I didn’t recognize you, y’know, without the…”

“Yeah, when I get famous I want it to be as myself, not Patti Scialfa.”

“You will, baby,” Vernon says. “You will.”

A commercial comes on, demonstrating how drinking beer will make you desirable to bikini-clad women.

“Doug says you’re some kinda dancer,” Theresa says.

“Sort of. I get thirteen-year-olds to boogie at bar mitzvahs.”

“He’s being modest,” Doug says. “He’s totally the life of the party. Those kids love him.”

I swat the compliment away. “They love Eddie Sanders.”

The name catches Vernon’s attention. “The football player?”

“No, that’s Eddie Zander,” Brian says.

“Who’s Eddie Zander?” I say.

The superlatives come tumbling out faster than I can make sense of them: College Football Hall of All-American Most Valuable Heisman blah blah blah. As I understand it, in the mid-1950s Eddie Zander led the University of Oklahoma to the longest winning streak in Division I history. What’s more, he somehow managed to be more offensive and more defensive for more minutes than anyone else, which apparently is a good thing. There wasn’t anything this guy couldn’t do with a football, short of frying it up in a pan and eating it. Unfortunately, his football career came to an abrupt end when he suffered a tragic buttock injury.

“Y’know, my old man met him once,” Napalm says, reaching for what appears to be a clarinet but turns out to be a bong.

“Get out,” Vernon says. “What’s he doing now?”

“He’s home watchin’ the game with my mom.”

“No, you tool, Eddie Zander.”

“Oh, he sells fake limbs.”

“Fuck you, he does not.”

Napalm pulls a bag of weed out of his pocket.

“He does so. I read it in
Sports Illustrated
. He’s got a big warehouse in one of those O-wa states.”

“O-wa states?”

“Y’know, in the Midwest: Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Omaha.”

“Omaha ain’t a state, you dipshit.”

“I meant Idaho.”

We stay ahead beers and bong hits to innings until the Mets finally lose. Everyone seems to drift away after that, but it could just be the beer and the bong hits. The room keeps going all cubist on me, and I inform Doug that I’m going to have to crash on the couch. He responds by turning off the lights so we can mellow out in front of the fish tank, because that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re stoned.

We sit on the couch in the dark, mesmerized by the phosphorescent glow of the tank, the fish proving to be surprisingly good entertainment. Some are Vegas showgirls, with sparkling iridescent gowns and fins like feather boas; others are flamenco dancers, with slender bodies and wide, fanlike tails. The rest come straight out of Central Casting circa 1940: a google-eyed Peter Lorre, a fat-lipped Edward G. Robinson, and a spotted catfish with a Fu Manchu mustache.

“Explain this to me,” I say. “Eddie Zander wuz a hunch-back….”

“Halfback.”

“And tha’ means…What does tha’ mean?”

“Here, I’ll show ya’.” Doug arranges some Cheetos in a line on the coffee table. “Here’za line of scrimmage, right?”

“Whassa scrimmage?”

“It’s…Don’t ask me that.”

“Okay. Where am I?”

“You’re right here,” he says, patting my knee. “Next to me.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

He moves a Cheeto, then another. “So the fullback is here, behind the quarterback. And the halfback is behind him.”

I stare at the Cheetos. Such a strange word, Cheeto. Cheeeeee-tooooooh.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I say. “It should be quarterback, halfback, fullback. Y’know, like two quarterbacks make a halfback and two halfbacks make a fullback.”

“And four fullbacks make a gallon,” Doug says.

“Yeah. But only God can make a tree.”

We laugh for a long time. Or maybe a short time. I’m not sure. Then we sit back and watch the tank. A reptilian, eel-like thing scales the bottom. I think it’s an eel.

“What were we just talking about?” I say.

Doug squints to remember. “Something.”

“Yeah,” I say, shaking a Cheeto. “It was definitely something. What was it?”

“What was what?”

“The something we were talking about.”

“I dunno,” he says. “I don’t even know what I’m talking about right now.”

I stare at the tank. The dildo is like a baseball bat. “Sports. We were talking about sports.”

He nods like I’ve said something profound, his head bobbing on an unseen ocean. “Riiiiight.” Nod, nod.

“I mean, whas the point?” I say. “In the end, somebody loses, somebody wins. It doesn’t teach you anything about life.”

Doug scooches around to look at me. “No, no, no, man, you’re missin’ the point. When you play a game, it’s like you’re a part of somethin’, somethin’ bigger than you.”

Looking into his blue eyes is like finding two tiny robin’s eggs.

“It’s like when I’m singin’,” he says. “And the band is wailin’ and the crowd is jumpin’ up and down. There’s like this…wave. Y’know? Sometimes Theresa comes up to sing a duet and we lean in real close…”

He leans in real close.

“…and it’s like we’re fucking. Except we’re not, ’cuz she’s fucking Vernon. Fuckin’ Vernon. But when we’re
singing
, it’s just the two of us in this other world together. Like I’m Bruce and she’s Patti. And nobody can touch us. Ya’ know what I mean?”

My mind is Teflon. I watch his mouth move but all I see are lips, tongue, teeth.

He leans back and gazes at the tank again. “Do you think they mind?”

“Who?”

“The fish. They just swim back and forth in there. It’s like a fuckin’ fish prison.” He rises. “C’mon. Let’s give ’em some exercise.”

What follows is the kind of thing that only makes sense when you’re using recreational drugs. Doug fills a bucket with tap water, into which we transfer the squirming fish with one of those little nets. Then we slosh down the hall to the bathroom, fill the tub, and pour the fish in. We both kneel next to the tub and watch them. The fish don’t seem to know the difference, still swimming the length of the tank, rather than the tub.

“They don’t look happier,” I say.

“They need waves,” Doug says, then swooshes the water around, sending the fish twirling, an aquatic kaleidoscope.

“Cooooool.”

He does it again, this time splashing me.

I splash him back. And he me. Then him again. Back and forth until we’re both soaked to the skin. Doug leans against the wall, his shirt clinging to the contours of his chest, his nipples nippling through the fabric. He reaches up and pulls down the towel hanging over his head, pats himself, then peels off his shirt.

He’s grown hairier, but you can still see the striations in his muscles, as if he’d been woven together in a very sexy arts-and-crafts class. My whole body aches with
I want you
. Doug is like an addiction: The more I get of him, the more I need.

He hands me the towel. I take off my shirt and rub myself dry, sucking in my stomach, ashamed of my softness. I pull my knees up to my chest, wishing I had a body like his. It’s like they say about sculptors: Michelangelo looks at a block of marble and carves away everything that isn’t David. If I were a statue, I’d be unfinished.

We sit in silence, the only sound coming from our breathing.

Doug leans his head against the tub. “I gotta go to bed.”

I look at the fish. “What about them?”

Doug lifts himself up, the muscles in his chest flexing. “Tomorrow,” he mutters. He shuffles to the door, then turns to look at me. “You got everything you need?”

No, I don’t have what I need at all.

“Yeah.”

Wuss.

I stagger back into the living room and reach for the nubby blanket that looks like someone’s grandmother crocheted it when I’m suddenly aware of the disembodied redhead sitting on an amp that doubles as an end table.

“Hello,” I say. “You’ve got no body.” A wave of sadness pours over me. “Me, neither.” I take the wig head in hand, fascinated by it. I am Salome with the head of John the Baptist. I pull the wig off. I am Hamlet with the skull of Yorick. I sing to him.