Confessions of a Transylvanian (43 page)

“Jesus.”

“Tell me about it. Hell, I even thought about trying to get away from her. Just ditch the scene and take off, you know? But she had this iron grip on my underwear
and
my robe. What am I supposed to do, slip out of them and streak naked out of the theater? Like tha
t’
s an option?”

“A worm on a hook, huh?”

Ron stared at me. “You could
n’
t come up with a better way of putting that?”

“Sorry,” I said. “So what did you do?”

“What else? I did my job. I just...played Brad. She tells me to give myself over to pleasure and
I’
m thinking,
‘
Talk to the guy downstairs
,’
but I do
n’
t say it. I just continue with the regular lines, doing the scene. And it seems to be taking for fucking
ever
. I mean, the whole thing is like a minute long, but it just seemed to go on and on...”

“And wha
t’
s she doing?”

“Oh, God...sh
e’
s licking my stomach, nibbling my thighs...sh
e’
s having the time of her life. Then I say, as Brad,
‘
You promise you wo
n’
t tell
?’
and sh
e’
s supposed to say,
‘
On my mothe
r’
s grave
,’
and she goes down on me, right? But instead, she checks to see if ther
e’
s been any change in my condition since she started trying to get something going and she sees...zip. All quiet on the Western front, you know? And instead of her line, she just looks up at me and whispers,
‘
Awww
.’
Real quiet. Disappointed. Not like
I’
d let her down, exactly. More like
I’
d told her she could
n’
t play with a toy she really liked.

“And then tha
t’
s it. The scene is over. And just as the lights wink out, she kisses me.”

I gulped. “Upstairs or downstairs?”

“Downstairs. But do
n’
t get excited. It was
n’
t even sexy. It was more like yo
u’
d kiss a misbehaving kid who should know better. Then she released me, growled low in her throat and...took off.”

He was looking out the front window of the car, remembering. Then he shook his head again.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “
I’
m sorry, brother. I wish it could have worked out.”

Ron turned and looked at me in surprise. “Sorry for
what
?” He smiled and became animated again. “Listen to me: That could
n’
t have gone better, Jack. Honestly. That was exactly what I needed.”

It was my turn to look surprised. “What are you talking about? Did
n’
t she just humiliate you?”

“Hell no! You know what she did? She showed me
exactly
what I am.
I’
m not this fucking lady-killer, so great in the sack, so cool, so awesome that every chick should be drooling after me.
I’
m a kid, Jack. So are you. Sure,
I’
m a little troublemaker, a hell-raiser…all that shit. But
I’
m not a
man
. Not yet, anyway.”

I could
n’
t quite believe what I was hearing. His lack of performance had somehow morphed into an object lesson.

“Anyway, tha
t’
s what I took away from it. I thought she was going to go all Linda Lovelace on me. Right there. Live and on stage. And for the first time in my life, the prospect of getting blown actually scared the crap out of me. And I could
n’
t figure out why.”

He smiled. “Now I know. I was
n’
t anywhere near ready for what she had to offer and so...”

“You...failed.”

“Yeah. Hey, ther
e’
s a first time for everything.”

We sat in silence for almost a minute. Then he reached out and started up the car.

“You hungry?” he said.

“Starving.”

“Me, too. These performances always give you an appetite, do
n’
t they?”

I looked over at him. “Who are you to talk? As far as I can see, only one of us was able to actually
perform
tonight...”

“Touche,” he said, pulling out of the lot. Then he added: “Asshole.”

20

The Devil’s Eyes

H
alloween is to Rocky what Christmas is to Jesus.

Dressing up in silly costumes and running around like a moron for a few hours? That was our stock in trade down at the o
l’
Ultravision. So the holiday and the movie went hand in sequined glove.

Wha
t’
s better—if yo
u’
re running an RHPS show and the 31st of October happens to fall on a
weekend
(as it did in 1982), yo
u’
re going to see a huge boost in attendance, guaran-damn-teed. On this night-of-nights, a lot of folks like to go trick-or-treating with the kids, hit a Halloween party or two and then, feeling buzzed and bored around 11:00, they wander over to the Rocky show because...why the hell not?

Russ had prepared us for the coming onslaught. The plan was, we would open the doors a little early, have an extended pre-show and then really give the folks a performance to remember. We had even conjured up some prizes for a costume contest to be judged right before the virgin sacrifice. There were two categories: Best Rocky Costume and Best Costume Overall.

Primed and ready, we opened the doors just before 11:00 to accommodate the bigger-than-usual attendance. From the line outside, we looked to top 400, the biggest night of the year since the
y’
d opened the show in January. Not anything near the 600 available seats, mind you, but it was as close to a sell-out as w
e’
d ever seen.

I got the nod to get things started and jumped up on the front row of seats to greet the guests.

“
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to
‘
The Rocky Horror Picture Sho
w’
!
”

The crowd roared back. It was gloriously loud.

About 11:30, word passed through the cast (and eventually up to where I was running the pre-show activities) that Ron had not yet shown up. This was extremely unusual, as he could generally be counted on to be among the first to arrive.

Tonight? Nothing. No phone call. No warning. Just...nothing.

Before we had much time to worry about him, the news broke that Ron had been seen earlier that evening at a Halloween party in Ft. Lauderdale and that it looked as if he was having a grand o
l’
time. Hearing this, we all relaxed. Clearly, he had been unable to tear himself away from the party but he would, we presumed, be along any minute.

Ten minutes later, no Ron.

Ten minutes after that, with showtime rapidly approaching,
still
no Ron. Russ, his understudy, got into his Brad outfit and prepared to go on in case Ron was a complete no-show.

Back on the stage, we never let on that anything was amiss. We held our costume contest, handed out the prizes, deflowered our virgins. Just another day at the office.

Then we hit midnight, the chanting for lips began and Ron was still nowhere to be seen. We had no choice. We motioned for the show to start, Russ became Brad for the evening and we were off and running.

It was a terrific house: enthusiastic, energetic and
loud
. We were
n’
t used to a house this size and everyone in the cast caught a contact high off the audience. Scene after scene, we were getting huge reactions to things that had gotten only smatterings of applause for months. We were
loving
this.

But through it all, Ro
n’
s continued absence made us more and more uneasy. We were all thinking the same thing: Sure, he might have been late to the pre-show. We might even have understood his showing up late to the actual performance. But for him not to show up at
all
? This was completely unheard of.

Finally, the film wound down and we got a healthy round of applause from the assembled guests. The audience filed out and we headed off to Denn
y’
s. The moment we arrived at the restaurant, we noticed that Russ had zipped off to a pay phone, presumably to try to dig up some news.

The waiters came around. We all ordered some grub, chatted about the show and how cool the whole evening had been, but it was a hollow joviality. We were all on edge, waiting for Russ to come back with good news about Ron and start the meeting.

Ten minutes later, the food had been delivered and Russ was still on the phone.

Twenty minutes after that, we had all finished up our meals, grown increasingly nervous, paid our checks and...still we waited.

It was getting really late, well past 3
o’
clock. We should all have been long gone by then. Conversation had died completely. Nobody stirred or made a move toward the door. We simply had to know what had happened and we were
n’
t going anywhere until we did.

Russ remained at his post at the front of the restaurant, the phone pressed against his ear and a stricken look upon his face.

Finally, he hung up. He paused, looking absolutely drained of all emotion, and then he looked up and saw everyone at our table, necks craning to get a look at him and glean from his demeanor some hint of what to expect.

Obviously, we were in for something bad.

Russ made his way back to the table, his hands pushed into his jacket and his head hanging low. Before he could even say a word, Tracey burst into tears.

“No,” Russ said immediately. “No, i
t’
s not that. Ro
n’
s not dead. Okay?”

The cast exploded into a cacophony of relief. Holding our collective breath for the last hour had
n’
t been easy. We had been expecting the absolute worst but, miraculously, the worst had not occurred.

But Russ was
n’
t finished. After letting us celebrate for a second or two, he again called for our attention.

“Hold on, hold on,” he yelled out. “I
t’
s not all good news.” Again, the room went completely silent.

Russ again looked down as if he was having difficulty finding the words. This was very odd, as words were, generally speaking, his primary currency.

“He was in a car accident,” he finally said. “No big surprise there, right? And, yes, h
e’
s in the hospital.”

There was a sharp, collective intake of breath from all of us. Okay, so he was
n’
t dead. But that left a lot of options on the table. Maybe he was paralyzed? In intensive care? Had slipped into a coma? Anything was possible.

Sensing our anxiety, Russ pressed ahead. “Her
e’
s what I know: He was at this party, right? A costume party, I guess. And Ron was all dressed up, goofing around, having fun. Lost track of the time and did
n’
t get on the road until late. He was hauling ass to get here and would probably have made the pre-show, but at Sample Road and Dixie Highway...he got hit. I guess it was pretty bad.

“This other guy, the guy who hit him, he was just wasted from what I hear. Flying along Dixie in a big Plymouth or something. Blew through a red light and T-boned Ro
n’
s car. Sent it flipping across Sample and into the gravel next to the train tracks. Ro
n’
s car was totaled. All the windows just blown out of the thing. A complete wreck.

“The drunk, the guy in the other car...” Russ looked around at us. “H
e’
s dead. Was
n’
t wearing a seat belt. Flew right out of the car. The paramedics did
n’
t even bother trying to revive him. I guess...it was pretty obvious that there would
n’
t be any point. And from what I heard, when they got a look at Ro
n’
s car lying in the median, they were
n’
t all that hopeful about finding
him
in one piece either.”

Again, Russ paused, pulled out a cigarette and lit it before speaking. No one else moved.

“Her
e’
s the thing, though,” Rus
s’
s brow crinkled. “Does anyone here happen to know what Ron decided to be for Halloween this year?”

He looked around the table, seeing if Ron had shared his costume choice with anyone. We all returned his gaze with blank stares.

He nodded, as if he expected that we would
n’
t have a clue. Then he said:

“Well, I guess Ron got a big kick out of the
‘
Excalibu
r’
movie last year. You all saw it, right?” Most of us nodded. Where was this going? “Well, Ron decided that for Halloween this year, he wanted to be a knight. A Medieval knight. Had a big sword. A mace. A shield with a crest in the trunk. The works. Must have been a hell of a costume.”

He took a drag, blew it out and continued: “So when the paramedics went to pull him out of the car, you know what they found sitting in the front seat?”

We all tried to conjure up a picture, and all at once it hit us.

Russ nodded. “Yeah. Tha
t’
s right. They looked in this car wedged sideways on the side of the road, glass everywhere, just a hunk of twisted metal...and they found a guy perched behind the steering wheel wearing a
full suit of fucking armor
. Breastplate, chain mail, everything.

“He actually said
‘
H
i’
to them when they arrived. Asked if they could let him out. He was having trouble with the door, he said. So they pried it open and this motherfucker
walked out
. Stepped out of the goddamn car and walked around the scene of the accident like he was just a curious friggi
n’
bystander. They practically had to wrestle him into an ambulance so they could look him over. He did
n’
t want to be examined. He wanted to come
here
. He told them he wanted to go to the Ultravision and
do the show
after that. But they insisted, so...”

Russ could
n’
t help it. He laughed.

“So h
e’
s in the hospital. They did a bunch of tests. Nothing. Zip. Nada. H
e’
s the picture of health. The
y’
re releasing him tonight.”

Russ looked dazed, but immensely relieved. He grinned at us.

“The car is fucked, of course. But I mean, seriously, can you believe that shit?”

That November saw a lot of changes in the Deerfield cast.

For one, Tracey finally moved out on her own. Fed up with her tyrannical mother and ready to breathe the fresh air of life as a single girl, Tracey stormed out of her house one day and, looking around, found herself in need of someone to share an apartment with. Fortunately for her, this event took place at almost the exact moment that Kenny began looking for a roommate of his own.

The stars must have been in perfect alignment that month, because it turned out that Felici
a’
s mother had lost the tenants who rented the second half of the duplex she owned in West Lauderdale and the place was sitting empty.

Within a week, it was agreed: Tracy and Kenny would move into the apartment next door to Felicia. And when the Orphanage finally shut its doors later that month, Kenny and Trace
y’
s place became the new Party Central.

Yes, the Orphanage was finally going the way of the dodo and while the cast was
n’
t particularly happy about this news, it had been a long time coming. When Russ finally announced shuttering the place, no one bothered to act surprised.

For one thing, the revolving door of roommates had been spinning a little too quickly for even Russ to handle. Troubled teenagers had blown in and blown out. Rent money was harder to rely upon than ever before. And, frankly, we had completely trashed the place.

Russ had gone through four cleaning services over the years and each one of them, having cleaned it once, had refused to return. The money did
n’
t matter. This joint was beyond redemption. How bad was it? Listen, when you get members of the Rocky cast—whose tolerance level for just about anything raunchy and disgusting is as high as you can get—showing up to your house and becoming horrified by the state of your domestic hygiene...i
t’
s time to
move
.

Personally, if I had been Russ, I would have evicted all my roommates, tossed all my personal stuff in the trunk of my car and doused the place with gasoline. Flicking a match over his shoulder as he strolled out the door seemed to us a perfectly appropriate ending to the Orphanag
e’
s illustrious history.

Russ, however, kept a level head. He did
n’
t burn the place to the ground but...he did
n’
t exactly ask for his security deposit back either.

He established himself in a little two-bedroom place in Pompano and started rotating roommates in and out of his new apartment at about the same pace he had with the Orphanage. We still went to Rus
s’
s after the show every few weeks, but it was only to play poker. The place was way too tiny to substitute for the spacious confines of the Orphanage.

[Side note: The building formerly known as the Orphanage no longer stands. The owners leveled the place soon after Russ turned in his keys and there is now, directly across the street from the infamous Hollywood Bread Building parking structure...an empty lot. I like to think the landlord walked into the place after Russ was done with it and decided that the only thing to do was to knock it down, salt the earth and walk away. Another pet theory is that, after we abandoned it, the place got really depressed and committed suicide. I
t’
s possible.]