Confessions of a Transylvanian (19 page)

Well, whatever nerve in the body that causes you to feel that way, someone ripped it out of Storme with a pliers. She had absolutely no qualms about walking up to a group of Rocky patrons and blatantly demanding cash from them. It was a gift. An innate talent. And she hardly ever failed in her task. On those rare occasions where someone was able to resist her pitch, they certainly walked away knowing that they had beaten a champion fundraiser.

The trouble with having a truth-teller around all the time, of course, is that it can sometimes get in the way of civil conversation. For example, I remember once seeing my buddy Steve chatting up Cheryl before the show and
I’
m sure he must have thought he was doing very well, as Cheryl was
n’
t, you know,
walking away
. Chances are that Steve might have tried to take it to the next level, but it was his bad luck that his overtures had caught Storm
e’
s eye as she was passing.

“Wow,” she remarked to Cheryl, eyeing Steve up and down, “he really wants to fuck you.”

And that was the end of that.

The great thing about Storme was, of course, that you always knew where you stood. She did
n’
t carry a grudge or talk behind your back. She spoke right up, told you to fuck off if you got her mad and never hesitated to speak her mind. She was
n’
t bitchy about it either. She just did
n’
t seem to understand why people bothered with subtext.

What was the point?

When we got down to the Orphanage that Friday night, the place was already hopping. The post-show cast meeting had been exceedingly brisk, seeing as how we all had somewhere we wanted to be. When the Deerfield cast poured through the front door of the Orphanage to join the party already in progress, the place practically exploded.

Everyone had chipped in for libations and hallucinogenic treats of all sorts, so there was no shortage of ways for people to get seriously messed up or, in my case, just mildly buzzed. Donn
y’
s Shotgun Booth opened up for a while and I paid my first visit. Having a 250-pound man who looked capable of scaring the crap out of a platoon of U.S. Marines hunker down and blow smoke directly into my lungs was, to say the least, an unusual experience, but the result was exactly as advertised. I was feeling
fine
.

Also adding to my good mood was the fact that I was hanging out a lot with Tracey that night. We had struck up a close friendship over the past few weeks and I had caught a ride with her down to Hollywood for the party. On the ride down, we talked about our families, how we each had gotten involved with the show and then, feeling that it was safe to confide in each other, we each confessed our secret, never-before-revealed desires to move up the ladder in the cast.

Tracey, unsurprisingly, expressed her aspiration to one day play Janet. I say “unsurprisingly” because she was in every way perfect for the role. She had the look, the attitude and, as far as I could see, the talent to be first-rate in the part.

Following her lead, I blurted out my hope that I would someday wear the Riff Raff tails. She did
n’
t seem any more surprised by my revelation than I was of hers. I was not a Brad-type, I looked nothing like Eddie or Rocky and playing Frank was definitely out of the question. Riff made perfect sense.

After we had made our confessions, we did each other the courtesy of expressing our unwavering belief that each of our respective dreams would come true. We would just have to be patient.

The two of us sort of clung to each other when we arrived at the party, mostly out of a desire not to be swallowed up by the madness swirling around. The music was deafening, the smoke hung in the air like a curtain, and the temperature—that lovely South Florida climate—made the place feel like the inside of a kiln. Lucky for most of the attendees, they were
n’
t wearing much in the way of clothing anyway.

If there was one negative thing I could say about the Orphanage, it would be this: The party
had
to stay indoors. You could open a window or two, sure, and there were a couple of pathetic air conditioners trying to cool the place off, but for the most part, when things got really sweltering, you had to lump it.

Being that close to Federal Highway—one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city—meant that a lot of traffic went by. Seeing as how the absolute last thing this party needed was a visit from a curious cop, we had to keep our heads down. And while no one would be necessarily interested in a house with loud music coming out of it, if a few scantily clad young ladies start standing around the back porch smoking joints, you were bound to attract the wrong element.

To combat the unpleasant conditions indoors, there was plenty of beer to cool everyone down. Indeed, half the folks in the place were so baked, the heat did
n’
t even seem to register.

At some point the music was turned down and an impromptu session of Dungeons and Dragons started up at the front table. Five players took their seats to play and the rest of us hovered around watching. I had never seen the game played before but had heard of it for years, so I was fascinated by the chance to finally see a game in action.

Now, le
t’
s pause for station identification for a moment. See, nowadays, D&D is held by many people in the same regard as stewed beets or boy bands. Much despised and highly ridiculed.

But back in the day, Dungeons and Dragons was still in its cult stage and the participants were rabidly enthusiastic about this new role-playing activity. Their games, their characters, their kingdoms, their whole
worlds
took years to create. Wha
t’
s more, the scenarios dreamt up by the Dungeon Master took weeks, even months, to play out to the end. Playing this game, to its true adherents, was a very serious and momentous undertaking.

It soon became clear that this group, the players gathered around this little table, had been at it forever.

Donny, unsurprisingly, served as the D.M. Clockwise around the table from Donn
y’
s left were Tony, Tom, Andrea and Kenny. To go into great detail about their game would only confuse matters, but what really struck me about how they played was how perfectly their personalities suited their characters.

Tony played two characters at once: a wizard with astonishing powers to punish or rescue (depending on his mood), who went through life projecting a sage, thoughtful demeanor; and a bad-tempered dwarf fighter with an itchy sword and a razor-sharp tongue. These two characters perfectly mirrored both sides of Tony’s mercurial personality.

Tom was a fighter as well, but he did
n’
t seem to do all that much fighting. The other players got on his case because of the number of times To
m’
s character, faced with danger, would offer to “guard the horses.” He could be a little touchy about it but, like Tom himself, there was no doubting his characte
r’
s loyalty.

Andrea was a no-nonsense elven bitch-thief. Nimble, sharp-witted and crafty. She was usually the second person through the door during a battle, right behind the lead fighter. Death with a bow and arrow. Jesus, even her D&D character was sexy.

Kenny was the best of them all, though. His character was a fighter too but…he was conflicted. Torn between his desire to amass a fantastic treasure with his companions and his compulsion to do the right thing, the poor fellow was a tortured soul. He regretted the sometimes-unavoidable innocent deaths that resulted from his adventures, but still he soldiered on. Because he
had no other choice, dammit
.

I’
m here to tell you, they really got into this shit.

And if you think D&D is a messed-up game to begin with, just try watching this sort of thing when yo
u’
re a little stoned. I
t’
ll blow your mind. You find yourself rooting for the characters as if they were real flesh-and-blood beings. It was powerful stuff. I had to get away.

After wandering around a bit, I soon lost steam. I still was
n’
t used to these all-nighters, and I finally found myself curled up on one of the couches in the main room. I was exhausted and barely awake.

The party swirled around me, fueled by its own momentum, and I imagined myself as being at its epicenter. In my heightened state, I could feel my energy radiating out to the rest of the guests. Every one them was individually connected to me by an invisible silken thread that kept braiding and weaving in and out as people moved from room to room. The music would swell and fade, laughter would rise up in a roar and then subside. The building itself began to seem like a creature and each of us inside of it was an organ of that creature, serving our own essential part in keeping the creature alive. We breathed for it. We hungered on its behalf. We swayed with it and spoke in its voice.

Me? I was its eyes.

I drank it all in. Every movement, every secret glance. The hurt expressions, the gazes of longing, the silly grins of the blissfully content. Nothing escaped my notice until, at last...I was the one who escaped.

By the time I finally faded away and dropped off to sleep on the sofa, the eyes of the party finally closing, no power on earth could have roused me.

I was
gone
.

When I woke up, hours and hours later, I was staring at Ro
n’
s dick.

As you can well imagine, this is no way to greet the day.
I’
m sure my reaction must have been wonderfully comical (at least judging from the others in the room who saw me lurch into consciousness), but it was hardly hilarious from my perspective. See,
I’
m not at all used to being face to, ahem, face with male genitalia first thing in the morning so it was...a jolt.

“And another one is up!” was Ro
n’
s greeting. He grinned wickedly. “
I’
ve been
up
for hours...”

I did
n’
t doubt it. Thankfully, Ron was
n’
t at
attention
, so to speak, but he was indeed pantless and that was disturbing enough. I hardly knew what to say or if, in fact, this display required any comment at all.

And let there be no doubt: I had joined the Rocky cast for many reasons, chief among them being the opportunity to be among people who were not uptight or bound by strict religious codes that stifled their creative energies. So I hardly expected these people to be a gang of prudish schoolmarms who turned up their noses at the first sign of prurience. Far from it.

Still, a gu
y’
s dick in your face before coffee was taking things a bit far.

Ron was in his glory. He was intoxicated on his own bravado, gleefully hopping around the place, enjoying himself immensely and taking any and all suggestions that were lobbed his way.

There was, for example, a hole in the wall that was the result of someone having backed the corner of a table into it months earlier. Was Ron, perhaps, interested in fucking the wall?

He was. He did. The crowd went wild.

Some shaving cream was produced. Would Ron be willing to apply it to his member and make it chat with us like some deranged, foam-bearded Muppet?

He would. He obliged. And somewhere out there in the world, Grover shuddered and wondered why.

Ron was working the room, refusing absolutely no request and almost daring the crowd to dream up something too over-the-top for him to comply. He was drunk on his own daring and there was no one who could stop him (nor particularly inclined to do so). The consensus seemed to be that it was best to let him run his course and see where things went. Why kick the wasp
s'
nest? Who would do such a thing?

A voice suddenly sounded from the kitchen doorway:

“Jesus Christ, Ron. What the fuck makes you think anyone wants to look at
that
?”

The room went deadly quiet as Ron slowly turned to face his accuser. Storme stood framed in the doorway, a disapproving scowl upon her face.