Spider Kiss (22 page)
That was the first day of Stag's reign. He had eliminated all pretense to the throne by taking over the show completely. The audience — saturated with his teen-aged supplicants — burst into revolt at the merest suggestion that a secondary act might interfere with the glimpsing of their demigod. The revolution was quelled by the paying-off of the other talent and Stag's ascension to the stage, to the throne. A one-man show, starring a twenty-two-year-old teen-ager.
Two days later, as Shelly stood in the wings, watching his meal ticket, he felt a presence behind him. Stag was settling into a natural rhythm of performance, seemingly putting everything he had into each show; yet Shelly was able to discern a subliminal holding-back, a concealment. Stag had been that way ever since Freeport had gained controlling interest in the contract. It was as though the boy sensed his soul was not entirely his own any longer, and he must never give everything to a show, for he had to hang on to a bit for plotting … for getting revenge … for regaining his control of himself. It was a silent, soft war raging. Shelly was able to sense that the boy was holding back, not exhausting himself. The reviews had been fabulous, however, almost as enthusiastic as they had been for the film, now being held over at neighborhood theatres after a healthy run on Times Square. The crowds were so large at The Palace, in fact, that Stag was doing a "fire escape" performance after each show, to empty the theatre for new patrons.
But it was not peaceful, not a moment of it.
Stag had taken to eyeing the young girls in his audiences, and had even gone so far as to take one up to the suite in the Sheraton-Astor. Freeport had warned him to be careful. (Shelly dwelled bitterly on the fact that Freeport now had controlling interest and could afford to let Stag find solace in other directions. It spoke ill of the Colonel's ethics. Shelly found himself frequently nipping from a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. He considered putting an end to the chain smoking which had, in the time since he had met Stag Preston, progressed from one, through two and three, to four packs a day. He considered it, and dismissed the idea.
Everyone's entitled to go to hell his own way
, he reasoned, and lit up.)
His reveries were jaggedly broken as he realized someone was standing very close to him; someone he should turn around and see. He stayed where he was, watching Stag. The compulsion raged within him, but he continued to stare out toward the lone figure in the spotlight.
"Mr. Morgenstern?" someone said behind him.
He knew that voice. Knew it before it spoke.
He stared fixedly at Stag for another moment, wishing he had never met the boy, wishing he had become what his orthodox parents had wanted, wishing he was serving another miserable stretch in the Army. Anything but being here. He knew what Ruth Kemp would say; nothing else could bring her to New York. Shelly turned around.
She looked the same. Fat little women seldom alter too much. They only get fatter. Perhaps a few more character lines among the older residents, perhaps a bit more sag to the dark pouches beneath the eyes. But essentially, the same, physically.
And even so, Shelly knew she was alone.
Asa Kemp had died. It showed. She was no longer half or more than half of that entity that had been Ruth and Asa Kemp. She was alone now. A woman without a husband, a widow, one of God's most pitiable creatures.
"They told me who you were," she said. "I didn't remember you from that time I met you, until I saw your face." She was very humble. It went with the hideous black dress she wore, the white gloves, the little hat perched ridiculously on her bun-tied hair.
Shelly remembered her. He remembered an unrecognized slur she had thrown. But was he entitled to harbor that grudge now? Here? It seemed so petty. Even prejudice became asinine and childish in the face of death, loss, loneliness, emptiness.
"Hello, Mrs. Kemp."
She tried to frame a smile, but it came off jerkily, spastically. She pressed her lips together, bringing dimples, and lowered her eyelashes momentarily. It wasn't quite a smile but it bespoke understanding, sympathy for what he was not saying as sensed by her, and returned. It was an altogether winning expression.
"I've come to ask Luther something." Shelly said nothing; so she went on. "It was Asa's last wish almost. He wanted Luther to sing the hymns at the funeral. They're holding Asa at Refton's till I get back. D'you think he'll come, Mr. Morgenstern?"
Shelly felt a constriction in his throat.
"I don't know, Mrs. Kemp, I really don't."
He silently hoped her altogether winning expression could be dredged up on a moment's notice. He had a feeling she might need it. He turned back to the stage.
Stag went on singing.
He ended with "Sister Boo-Boo," an upbeat number Ross Bagdasarian had written for him. Bagdasarian, under his
nom de plume
of David Seville, had done an instrumental version of it, recorded with The Chipmunks, and converted it for Stag. Stag had recorded it, but it had not yet been released; it was being tested at The Palace. Now, as he came off, paying no heed to those waiting to praise him, he grabbed the towel from an outstretched hand and buried his perspiring face in it. "You can call 'em and tell 'em they can go ahead and let 'Sister Boo-Boo' loose, Shelly. They eat it up every time."
He rubbed briskly at his auburn hair, mussing it out of all semblance to the posters outside. Still his face was buried in the towel, and he continued speaking. "It ought to go real good; they got it echo chambered with Costa leading the —"
His face emerged from the towel, bright and pink and the dark, penetrating eyes staring directly at Ruth Kemp. Shelly tried to say something, to bridge the momentary gap, but nothing came. Stag looked at her, fiercely for an instant as the remainder of his triumphant mood washed away, then with self-consciousness as he knew who she was, why she was here. It stood out on her like her sorrow. He needed no perceptivity to see it.
"Hello, Luther. How are you; I saw you; you were real fine … how are you?" She tried to get it all in, the months he had been gone, her feelings, a rapport, something that would morally intimidate him before she asked, insure success for her mission.
He tried to be jocular. He gave a wry grin and a sidewise bobble of the head, the way two buddies who had had a schoolyard fight might embarrassingly grin as they are forced to shake hands and make up. It didn't take. He handed the towel back to the shadow who had proffered it. "Hi. Uh, how's Asa?" He needn't have asked. It showed in every dark line of her face. His words came with too much hipness, too much flip nonchalance, as though it was small talk. How do you like the weather? Are you having a good time your first trip to New York? Did you like my latest record? Is your husband dead yet?
She answered him with her eyes.
Shelly saw mist in her eyes. He was sure she would not cry. That wasn't Ruth Kemp, however else she might debase herself before the boy her husband had befriended.
But she answered him with her eyes.
"Well, uh, you gotta excuse me." He tried brushing past her, while the group watched, sensing something between the boy and the woman. "I — uh —, I've got this, uh, show to do off the fire 'scape, I said I, uh, told them I'd be — goddammit! Shelly, get her outta here!"
He tried to get past.
She did not move.
Shelly felt a hand on his sleeve and caught sight of Jean Friedel with a briefcase under her arm. She leaned toward him, whispering, "I came over with some papers for you to sign from the Colonel. What's, what's going on?"
Shelly nudged her quiet, and turned his attention back to Stag and Ruth Kemp.
She had not moved. The boy had backed up when she would not let him pass. Now he stood uncertainly, nervously, trying to gauge the texture of the situation, inherently aware he had to get away, but also aware of the emotional charge in the air.
"Luther, Asa passed on two days ago. He didn't know what was going on too well toward the end, but he asked for you. He was all … all doped up by the doctors, Luther … but he asked me to come see you, to get you to … to …"
She turned away. He was staring at her as though she was speaking some incomprehensible dialect; he was not going to help her say it. She almost gave up. At the turning-instant, that quarter-beat in which decisions are made, she turned back.
"He died, Luther. He died, the kindest man I ever knew." She was not hysterical, not even pleading; it was a deep pulling at each word to get the full meaning across. "My husband, Luther. He died of a broken heart, do you know that? He died of what everyone did to him; he was a good man and he never wanted to let people down, and that's all anyone ever did to him. Let him down, don't you see?"
Stag stared around the wings impatiently. "So what's that got to do with me?"
"He asked me to come see you, Luther. He wanted you to sing the hymns at his service. He didn't know what was going on most of the time — he was in so much pain they had him all doped up — but he said that to me when I saw him the — the last time … before …"
"Stag." Shelly cut in firmly. "We can catch a late plane after the last show; I'll talk to the Colonel, he'll arrange with the theatre to fill in for a day, we can be back in time to —"
Stag waved him to silence. The Lord of the Manor waved his serf to silence. "We aren't goin' anywhere." He looked straight at Ruth Kemp, and there was no more nervousness now. Up till this moment it had been inconvenience and an awkward situation. Now his position in life was being threatened, however momentarily. "Sorry, I've got a show to do. I've got a cont —"
"It was Asa's last wish, Luther, that you sing."
Stag Preston's face lost its theatrical comfort. The naturally cruel set of the mouth reappeared, the hollows in the cheeks deepened. "
Pack it in.
I've got a show to do. I don't owe you a goddam thing; you and Asa had it from me, all you wanted when I was snot-poor. Now I'm out of all that. I ain't, I'm
not
going back to it; not even for a day. So g'wan, blow! Beat it, split and let me work, will you?"
No one spoke. Jean Friedel's hand tightened spasmodically on Shelly's arm. Even the sound of The Palace, emptying and re-filling, faded back to surface noise, as though the scene itself was waiting, listening.
Ruth Kemp began speaking. It was a great boulder rumbling down a hill, beginning far off softly and louder and louder till it became an avalanche. It was a dynamo hurling itself to life, spinning sibilantly at first then whining at top-point efficiency till the sound mounted up and up and glass shattered.
"Look at you. Look at what you are. You aren't anything to be proud of. You think you've gotten away from being poor, because you wear silk clothes. But you're lower than ever. You have no heart, no soul. Look around you, see these people? They're as foul as you. They don't care what you do as long as they can make the money. But we
know
you back home. We hear what you do.
"You're an animal, Luther. You were always an animal, but we needed something to love, we wanted to be hurt, and you were always ready to hurt us. But you're not human … you're too selfish for that. You won't live long … you
can't
live long.
"God won't allow it. He'll find you out soon enough."
She said more, but it wasn't necessary. She belabored her point as those who live outside one-line put-down New York always do. But she had made her point.
She named him for all to see.
An abomination in the eyes of God and Man.
She stripped him of all the sham and glitter-pretense he wore onstage. He was, undeniably, an animal.
Ruth Kemp left, finally, without tears.
Tears in the dust of drained emotions.
Jean Friedel wanted to say something, now that they had left the theatre and were in the dim rear of the cocktail lounge. She wanted to say something pertinent, now that the steam-bath heat of backstage was gone and the air-conditioned stillness of the lounge surrounded them. She felt the need to declare herself in regard to what she had witnessed, now that Stag was somewhere else and her hand was wrapped around a martini. She wanted desperately to remove the sight of pain and loathing in Shelly's eyes but she could not. With that peculiar insight women possess, she knew she should be still. Not a word. Not a sound. No confusion; no inserting herself as another factor in his thinking. It would only annoy him, infuriate him, muddle his thoughts. So she sat very quietly, smoking and sipping from her glass, realizing that for the first time Sheldon Morgenstern meant a very small something to her; he looked good to her; she wanted to
do
for him … something, anything that might clarify this attraction she felt. It was not love, she had no doubts about that — her declaration so long ago about their relationship still held — but there was a bond between them. The bond of two people who have glimpsed degradation and Hell together and who can reminisce about it. Not love, but something a lifetime deeper. Recognition. Empathy. The honest emotion of need and the unsullied desire to help. Jean Friedel felt more like a woman, less like a pornographically-oriented machine, than she had in a great while.
But she sat very still and watched, waiting for a flicker of light in Shelly's face. A flicker that would signal his emergence from thoughts that even
looked
dark and swirling from where she sat, outside his mind. Cut off, but so aware of what he was doing inside himself that it was painful to her.
She sucked in her underlip and reached out with her mind for him. He was nowhere to be found. Out of touch, out of sight, out of mind, deep within himself.
What can do this to a man like him?
she thought.
He's not the kind who breaks up; he's too much the laugher, too flip. But perhaps that's the kind who hurt worst. What has he been going through with Stag to get this way … such hurt? Such very much hurt. What is he thinking?
Thoughts:
Dear God, what have I done? What have we all done? I'm as bad as he is. I've lied for him; I've covered all his tracks … and for what, for what? So he could get bigger, too big to destroy. She was right, he isn't human. No one with a heart could have turned her down, no matter how she's bigoted. But she never hurt him … the both of them, she and Asa Kemp, all they ever gave him was affection and help. What sort of mentality has he got? What kind of mind turns down a request like that? Nothing can write it off; I can't say he's afraid to go back to poverty, because he's beaten that already. It doesn't figure. It's like trying to figure the thought-processes of an infant, or a cat. It's alien, terrible — what have I done?
