Confessions of a Transylvanian (50 page)

Looking back at what we had accomplished during our tenure at the Ultravision, it was easy for us to refer to it as the end of an era, but this “era” had really only lasted about eighteen months from beginning to end. The first Ultravision Rocky show had occurred on New Yea
r’
s Day, 1982, and the run had concluded in June of the following year. In the long and storied history of Rocky, that is a drop in the bucket.

Still, when we looked back on all that had happened during our brief residency in that magnificent theater, it was difficult to believe that we had crammed so much into so short a period.

It had felt like years. A lifetime.

And now it was over.

Well, sorta.

Because as much as I would like to report that the Ultravision cast, once the final curtain came down, collectively graduated from Rocky Horror and preserved our legacy by leaving it all behind after that weekend, that is sadly not the case.

Like a junkie trying to make the high last as long as possible, we did whatever we could to get our Rocky fix.

When word came round in the following weeks that another Rocky cast was starting up at different theater, we jumped at it. It did
n’
t seem to matter much that it would be in Plantation, Florida, at the tiny, little Mercedes Cinema. We all signed up. Doing the show in a little venue, in our opinion, was certainly better than giving it up entirely.

That was the theory, anyway.

We soon found out, after arriving at the Mercedes, that the magic was almost entirely gone. We were trying to start a fire with wet timber and the show must have looked about as pathetic as it felt.

First off, the theater simply was
n’
t suited for the show. The Mercedes was a forerunner of the new trend in movie houses: the Megaplex. When we got there, we were asked to perform Rocky in a joint that sported no less than
six
miniature theaters, the largest of which could fit, at most, about 200 people. The “stage” was the narrow area between the front row and the screen, which loomed so high above us we could barely get a peripheral look at our own characters without snapping our necks.

I guesed that the Mercedes management negotiated a better rate from the studio than the Ultravision, given that the theater was so miniscule. Naturally, with very little overhead besides the cleaning bills, drawing only fifty people a night meant that they could keep it open forever if they wanted. And if they made money off the show, what did they care if the live performance was utter crap?

The Ultravision veterans, however...we knew better. We knew what this show could be, and had been, if the circumstances allowed it. As a result, we realized that doing the Mercedes show was like ordering up a cheeseburger after the gourmet restaurant had closed. Sure, we could still eat. But it was a
fucking cheeseburger
. We missed our filet mignon Ultravision
steaks
, goddamit.

But that item was no longer on the menu.

We stuck it out for as long as we could, a few weeks at most but, pretty soon, we just wandered away. An inglorious end to a glorious experience.

Rocky, for us, was no more.

My last night as a Floridian was in August of 1983. My flight to New York was scheduled for 10 a.m. and I had spent the previous few weeks making my long goodbye.

The previous weekend had been spent in the loving arms of my Rocky brothers and sisters. They had toasted my anticipated success as a college boy, promised to stay in touch during my absence and were convinced (though certainly not through my doing) that I would one day return. It appeared difficult for them to believe that anyone would prefer to live somewhere other than the Swamp. I tried not to argue the point.

That night, several of my Rocky cohorts presented me with certain tokens to carry with me on my travels. Russ gave me one of his bow ties, as a show of respect and admiration. Sunday gave me a Queen of Spades playing card, with a hand-printed admonition that I should always return as her Jack. Ron gave me his pair of Riff gloves and exacted a promise that I would never return to Florida without them. And Tracey, my loving bride, proudly presented me with one of her most prized Rocky possessions. As a result, before I left my house to head off to school, I packed Trace
y’
s one-and-only Janet bra in my bag.

I’
d like to say I was the only guy headed off to college with a bra in my suitcase, but we all know that is
n’
t true, do
n’
t we?

The night before I hopped my plane to New York, Alice drove over and, for the first time, spent the night with me at my place. My mother, of course, did
n’
t object. She knew what was what.

Alice and I made love that night for what turned out to be the last time. When we woke up and got dressed to leave, she insisted on wearing, and keeping, the shirt I had worn the previous day.

My mother thought it was best not to drive me to the airport. It would have been far too emotional a goodbye if she did. Alice would drive me, it was decided, and my brother would tag along, too.

I kissed my mother goodbye and waited to receive some words of wisdom upon my departure. She had none to offer besides this:

“Be happy, kid.”

To this day, i
t’
s the best advice
I’
ve ever received.

During the previous year and a half, my house had become a non-stop swirl of activity, thanks to my mother. People were always stopping by. I would sometimes come home on the days she was
n’
t working and find my mother deep in conversation with one of my friends from the show. Sometimes they were
n’
t even there to see me. They had come to talk with my Mom.

The attraction, I suppose, was that my mother did
n’
t judge. And she had a capacity to listen, the rarest quality possessed by human beings. Most of us do
n’
t know how to listen for two goddamn minutes. My mom just loved to hear people talk.

So they came. By the carload. And were received with open arms.

I left Florida missing almost nothing about the place itself. When I got on that plane, all I would miss would be a very select group of people.

Chief among them, though, would be my mother. There was no one else like her. At least, no one I had ever met.

She was this really cool lady.

Have I mentioned that?

Alice, David and I trooped through the airport in complete silence. We knew better than to try to speak.

After I had checked my bags, they both offered to walk me all the way to the gate, but I thought it was best to say goodbye before I headed through security. Sitting around for another half hour at the gate waiting to board the plane was
n’
t going to do any of us any good. Better to get it over with.

I hugged my brother. He cried. I cried. I told him to watch out for himself. He said I should do the same. Then I let him go.

I turned to Alice and she fell into my arms. I held her for as long as I could. Time, however, has an unfortunate tendency to fly whether yo
u’
re having a good time or not.

We parted. I kissed her goodbye for the last time. I walked to the escalator, started up and turned back to look at the two of them.

The last view I had of David and Alice was as I ascended, seeing my brothe
r’
s arm protectively draped around Alic
e’
s shoulder.

Finally, as I drifted up, I lost sight of them. Then I turned, looked up and began to make my way to my new home.

My life in the Swamp was over.

New horizons awaited.

Blue skies.

24

Time Warp

May 26, 2007

Pompano Beach, Florida

I
place my foot onto the armrest of the chair in the front row and haul myself up as I had done hundreds of times before. Not quite so easy as it used to be, but I can still do it, goddamn it.

I bestride the chair. I clear my throat. I gaze out at the huge crowd.

And then I yell at the top of my lungs:

“
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to
'
The Rocky Horror Picture Sho
w'
! Sit the fuck down, w
e’
ve got a lot to do and very little time to do it!
”

In response, the crowd roars its welcome.

It is certainly nice to be home again.

“
In case you have
n’
t heard
,” I continue, looking out at the hundreds of upturned faces, “y
o
u’
ve arrived on a rather...special night. This evening, for the first and last time, the one-and-only cast known as the Wild and Untamed Things, from the famous Ultravision Theatre in Deerfield Beach, is here to perform our 25th Anniversary Show. So get. Fucking. Ready
.”

I look around the room, and there they all are:

Ron. Tracey. Russ. Donny. Kenny. Felicia. Sunday. Andrea. Tony. Tom. Storme. Cheryl. Iris. Mark. Boyd.

Twenty-five years older. But as ready as ever.

It should never have been possible. Yet, i
t'
s happening.

But hold on. Before we continue with this particular event, i
t’
s probably best if we back up a second to explain exactly
how
it came to be.

Since the day I left for college, lo those many years before, I had somehow managed to live up to the promise I made to myself when I was a kid:

Once I got out of Florida, I was never going back.

Well, not to
live
anyway.

And I had gotten out. What’s more, I somehow managed to
stay
out. But that did
n’
t mean I could
n’
t visit every once in a while, did it? No rule against that.

So, over the years, I had managed to sneak back every year or so to revisit the place. (Well, not the
place
. I still could
n’
t stand the Swamp itself.) But I did, as you can imagine, have many, many reasons to make the trip down.

Sadly, my girlfriend was
n’
t one of them. Alice and I did
n’
t even last until Christmas break of
‘
83. I think she knew, deep down, that I was never coming back to Florida and, for my part, I knew that she was never going to come up north and join me in New York, so we inevitably drifted apart. It was emotional, heartbreaking, overly dramatic, complete with all those crippling, devastating feelings that accompany the end of your relationship with your first true love.

Those feelings, by the way, last for a long time. Right up until the moment when you meet your
second
true love and you say, “Hey, wait a minute...” Then, inexplicably, the
y’
re gone.

But while my relationship with Alice eventually went ka-flooey, I still had my mother, my brother and roughly twenty or thirty of my nearest and dearest down south who were exerting their irresistible gravitational pull on me. I certainly did
n’
t see the harm in zipping down every once in a while to visit.

Ultimately, though, when it came to the Rocky cast, I knew that attempting to keep that elusive connection alive was a pointless endeavor. Sure, we would stay in touch for a short time. A few months. A year maybe. But in the end, the tenuous hold we had on one another was destined to peter out.

What, did we think it was going to last forever? Impossible. And realistically, I knew that it would
n’
t. It could
n’
t. People start up careers, get married, have kids. They grow up.

Maintaining that bond would have taken a lot of work. It would require a level of commitment that this group of misfits could
n’
t possibly muster.

So eventually, as adults do, we would put away our childish things.

We would move on.

Well, to put it succinctly: Fuck that shit.

Despite the distance, despite the years and despite the divergent personal lives, we did it. We stayed together, we stayed in touch and we were as close, twenty-five years later, as we had ever been.

How did we do it? How did we possibly keep that spark from fizzling out?

Well, for one thing, we had Felicia. And thank the gods above for her. As mailing addresses and phone numbers led to e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers, it was Felicia who kept us all connected. She became Rocky News Central, our unofficial Den Mother, keeping everyone up to date on the happenings of the others. And when too much time passed between reunions, it was Felicia who would put out the word:

I
t’
s time. I
t’
s been too long. What should we do and when can we do it?

Schedules would be consulted. Dates agreed upon. Then a spot would be chosen, security deposits made and, in my case, flights would be reserved.

And so it would be, every two or three years. We would converge on some unsuspecting destination. Key West. Ft. Lauderdale. Hollywood. Orlando. The location mattered not one bit. All we needed was a place to go in order to take part in the Great Reversion.

Because for that weekend, we were no longer 25, 30, even 40 years old. Nope. Not us.

We were all 17. Eighteen, tops. At least tha
t’
s what we told ourselves.

The truth was, our masquerade was pretty convincing. Well, internally anyway. We probably looked like relics to the outsiders, but to us, we were as we were at the beginning. And it was only for the weekend, we bargained with ourselves. Tha
t’
s it. W
e’
d soon go back to our normal lives, our families, our jobs. All we asked was for seventy-two hours of uninterrupted
'
80s nostalgia and mild substance abuse. Tha
t’
s really all we needed. And then we were good for another two years.

All that was required was the itch. And before we knew it, we were there, ready to scratch.

Then, one year, the big one loomed in the distance. Twenty-five years. A quarter-century. We could hardly let this historic milestone pass without a get-together, right?

I got word early in the planning stages since I had the farthest to travel. May in Florida, Jack? Can you make it? My response:
I’
m there. But...what are we going to do to mark the occasion? Any special plans?

The wheels started turning. Soon, the accommodations were booked. Storme had set us up in a fantastic timeshare on the Hollywood Boardwalk. Four rooms. Plenty of space for us to spread out.

Tracey was the coordinator—assigning rooms, gathering deposits from everyone, arranging for whatever supplies were necessary. The two of them, Storme and Tracey, had to crack the whip sometimes to get us to pony up the necessary cash, but the word quickly spread and the message was: “W
e’
re not teenagers anymore. You want to play, you got to pay.” And so the money flowed in to cover all expenses, of the malted, distilled, fermented and herbal varieties.

And still the questioned loomed: Sure, w
e’
d see each other. But what would we
do
?

Russ, as usual, provided the answer. It would simply be up to us whether or not we took him up on the opportunity.

There was, he discovered, a Rocky show running in South Florida. Not at the Twin, of course. They had died even before the Ultravision show gave up the ghost. No, this show was in Pompano at a theater called “Flippers Cinema.”

It was hard to believe: After all these years, the RHPS phenomenon had managed to survive and attract cast members. Even now, almost 35 years after the movie first opened, teenagers still signed up, troweled on the makeup, and spent their weekends jumping to the left, stepping to the right and pelvic thrusting to their hear
t’
s content. Thus, the weekend we would gather together in Florida, a midnight showing of Rocky Horror would take place, complete with newspapers, rice, toilet paper...the works.

After conferring with the management of the Flippers Rocky show, the question Russ posed to us was this:

Were we willing to do a reunion show? We were being offered a 25th anniversary full-on Rocky Horror Picture Show performance. It was ours for the taking. Did we have it in us?

As befitted a group of people this wildly diverse, the responses to this inquiry were decidedly mixed.

Kenny, Mark, Andrea, Sunday...they were out. Dress up as Riff, Frank, Magenta, Columbia? No. Fucking. Way.

But see, for them, they had no reason to suit up again. Each of them had quit doing the show long before the Ultravision had pulled the plug on the rest of us. They had reached their personal limits and walked away by choice. On their own terms.

Some of us, however, had
n’
t been given the opportunity to quit. Some of us, in fact, had been thrown out on our asses. This meant that a small group of us still had a score to settle. Or, at the very least, we had one more show left inside of us.

I heard most of the discussions secondhand. Apparently, it went something like:

“Wanna do the show?”

“Jeez, I do
n’
t know. Wh
o’
s doing it?”

“Tracey is. And Ron says he is if Trace
y’
s in it.”

“Is Jack doing it?”

“He says he would.”

“What about Tony?”

“No way. H
e’
s done.”

“Mmmm. I dunno. You?”

“I dunno.”

And so on. Back and forth.

Finally, it was decided. We would do the show, but with a skeleton crew. The following people were slated to participate:

Ron would play Brad.

Tracey would return as Janet.

I would reprise Riff Raff.

Storme would take on Magenta.

Cheryl would suit up as Columbia.

And Russ would fill in as Floor Show Brad.

The rest of the cast would be rounded out by the Flipper
s’
regular cast.

It should be noted, by the way, that the first one to sign up had been Tracey. Our Janet Supreme for the last year of the Ultravision show, Tracey so loved Rocky that she had gone so far as to dress up her two pre-teen daughters as Columbia one Halloween. And no one called child services to have her arrested.

Trace
y’
s kids, when they became old enough to realize what their mother had been up to all those years ago (and having met a few of us in the meantime), made a few demands on their mother. Actually, it amounted to one simple request: Whenever a Rocky reunion seemed to be in the works, the two of them were to be informed as to when and where we were all getting together. Armed with this knowledge, the young girls could make every effort to be as far away from us as humanly possible and consequently be spared the embarrassment of having to watch all those old people do the Time Warp.