The Man Who Sold Mars (5 page)

“Sorry, I’ve seen it a million times
today.

Selena smiled, “That’s OK.”

And Patricia, “De nada.”

I turned on the radio,
The Rainbow
Connection
played,

“Why are there so
many songs about rainbows

And what's on the
other side?”

Patricia’s eyes lit up magically.  “I
love that song.”

I thought of the magical message in it
and smiled, “Me too.”

Ecstatic, Patricia sang along with the
radio.

“Rainbows are
visions, but only illusions,

And rainbows have
nothing to hide.

So we’ve been told
and some choose to believe it

I know they’re
wrong wait and see.

Someday we’ll
find it, the rainbow connection,

The lovers, the
dreamers and me.”

While the song played, I watched Patricia
with great joy.  Seeing how personal the song was to her, I grinned with a deep
secret.  She noticed, instantly knowing the secret we shared and wanting me to
ask her about it and I did.

“So, have you?”

“Yes.  You?”

“Yes.”

Selena had been studying us and unable to
decipher the message asked, “What are you talking about?”

I glanced at Patricia, “She hasn’t.  Has
she?”

“No.”

“Haven’t what.  What are you two up to?”

The limo pulled in front of Juilliard and
the Lincoln Center For The Performing Arts.

I announced our arrival.  “We’re here.”

Patricia, abuzz with anticipation, nearly
bounced for joy.

The driver opened the door and she
bounded from it.  Stately, Selena followed and I joined them.

From above a flock of pigeons strafed the
ground just in front of them.  Everyone nearby looked up.

# # #

Except Stephen, straining, he kept his
vision Earthbound, refusing to look toward the stars.  I’d noticed this before
and puzzled over something that I’d wondered about him for quite some time.

Inside, with great excitement, Patricia
led me and Stephen to our seats and we sat just as the lights dimmed and in
love, Stephen took my hand and I blushed.

The curtain opened on to the stage, a
wild, eerily lit forest with low fog.

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as
three haggish witches entered in their own unique way from various places
throughout the audience to converge on stage.

The First witch gazed at the others,

“When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning or in rain?”

The Second answered,

“When the hurly-burly’s done?

When the battle’s lost and won”

And the Third,

“That will be ere the set of sun.”

Together they chanted,

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair,

Hover through the fog and filthy air”

And so the enthralling production of
William Shakespeare’s
The Tragedy of Macbeth
began, continuing on it
flowed to a courtyard of Inverness — Macbeth’s castle.  Banquo’s teenage son
Fleance stood with caution in the distance watching, while Banquo and Macbeth
spoke in conspiratorial whispers.

Macbeth asked Banquo to help him in a
coupe to become king,

“If you shall cleave to my consent, when
tis,

It shall make honor for you.”

But Banquo torn, said he would consider
it.

“So, I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchised and my allegiance
clear,

I shall be counseled.”

Macbeth, pleased with the answer, bid him
good night.

“Good repose the while.”

Banquo bid him good night as well.

“Thanks, sir.  The like to you.”

Banquo and Fleance exited and the
lighting of the scene brightened with supernatural colors and auroras; distant
thunder rolled with increasing volume as it neared, until it was on top of
Macbeth.  And, the audience leaned slightly forward involuntarily with
increasing interest.

Our intensity burning, we took everything
in as a gobo emblazed the set with the darkened form of a dagger before
Macbeth, turning and moving as he approached, beckoning and calling, but always
remaining just out of his reach.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The Handle toward my hand?

Come let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee
still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight?  Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation

Proceeding from the heart oppressed
brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw”

He draws his dagger resigned to his fate.

“Thou marshal’st me the way I was going,

And such an instrument I was to use.”

On stage, Lady Macbeth, my little sister,
Catherine, who’d just turned 21, stood in the royal bedroom as Macbeth, bloody
and emotionally drained entered.  The bloody daggers he used to kill King
Duncan still in his hands.  At once, she takes charge of the situation.

“Go get some water

And wash this filthy witness from your
hand.—

Why did you bring these daggers from the
place?

They must lie there.  Go, carry them and
smear

The sleepy grooms with blood.”

Macbeth beyond distraught at himself and
at his act of murdering a man and kinsman and friend, who only a few days
earlier he’d fought like a demon to defend his throne, refuses.

“I’ll go no more.

I am afraid to think what I have done

Look on ‘t again I dare not.”

Lady Macbeth tries to sooth and comfort him,
but to no avail.

“Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers.  The sleeping and
the dead

Are but pictures.  ‘Tis the eye of
childhood

That fears a painted devil.  If he do
bleed,

I’ll guild the faces of the grooms
withal,

For it must seem their guilt.”

Lady Macbeth exited with the bloody
daggers and the play continued its tale of supernatural, treachery, deceit and
their consequences, until barefoot, disheveled, nearly exposed in her night
clothes, Lady Macbeth walked in a guilt ridden trance, while a doctor and a
gentlewoman observed her with great concern.

Compulsive, Lady Macbeth rubs her hands
in her sleep trying to remove the last of the blood she imagines is still there
from the assassination of King Duncan, but the last of the spots, stubborn,
refuse to be removed.

“Out, damned spot, out, I say!  One. 
Two.

Why then, ‘tis time to do’t.  Hell is
murky.  Fi, my

Lord, fie, a soldier and afeared?  What
need we fear

Who knows it, when none can call our
power to

Account?  Yet who would have thought the
old man

To have had so much blood in him?”

Shocked and in disbelief at the
realization that the Macbeths assassinated King Duncan, the doctor turns to the
gentlewoman, “Do you mark that?”

And in her guilty trance, Lady Macbeth
continues rubbing the phantom spots of blood on her hands.

“The Thane of Fife had a wife.  Where is

She now?  What, will these hands ne’er be
clean? 

Here’s the smell of the blood still.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not

sweeten this little hand.  O, O, O!”

Later, on stage, Macbeth sat on his
throne, mad, ferocious, manic, and prepared for battle.  In the distance, Women
screamed in mournful dirges and Seyton entered.

Macbeth demands of him, “Wherefore was
that cry?”

Seyton answers, “The Queen, my lord, is
dead.”

Macbeth is crushed and lost with the news
of the loss of his love.

“She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time for such a
word.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief
candle.”

Enraged, he drew his sword to engage the
approaching armies.  And in time, two combatants, as prophesized engaged one
another.  Swords raised Macbeth and Macduff charged.  Macbeth filled with a
hellish fury determined not to yield to boy King Malcom, the rightful heir to
the king of Scotland, leading a British army to retake his throne.  And Macduff,
the Thane of Fife, filled with vengeance to take the life of the man
responsible for the murder of his wife and children.

Tired from the battle and the toll
Macbeth’s coup had taken on him, his family, and nation, Macduff holding
Macbeth’s severed head advanced to the forces lead by boy King Malcom.  Drawing
his sword, Macduff planted it in the ground, before the king, placed Macbeth’s
head on top its handle, and kneeled in reverence and loyalty to King Malcom.

The fantastic performance over, on stage,
to thunderous applause, the cast of Macbeth presented itself before the
audience for its curtain call with regal grace and style.

Behind the stage, in the green room, Stephen,
Patricia, and I walked towards Lady Macbeth, the play over, The Lady was now
Catherine again.

Surprised to see us, Catherine smiled
with great joy and then exchanged hugs with all of us.

Patricia bouncing with joy glanced up at
her aunt, “You were awesome!”

I grinned, “Yes you were.”

# # #

I grinned broader at Selena’s sister, and
I too offered my kudos, “That really was a fantastic performance.”

Feigning she was a grand diva Catherine
said, “Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  It’s the adoration of all you little
people that makes it so . . . rewarding.”

We all laughed at her joke.

Catherine took my hand, “Stephen, I’m
glad you could come.  It’s been a long time.”

“It has been.”

“So, my sister was able to pry you away
at least for a moment from your mad dream.”

“Mad?”

Selena glowing and in love beamed, “All
dreams are mad.”

Catherine nodded, “Yes.  Even when you
get them.  Mr. Young, you can learn a thing from Misters Macbeth and
Shakespeare.”

“You must be the reincarnation of my
mom.”

We all laughed.

Patricia pulled on her mom’s hand with
great excitement, pointing to Macbeth.  “I want to meet him.  Please.  Please.”

Catherine turned to Macbeth and in her
regal persona called to him.  “My Lord, my niece seeks a moment of your
counsel.”

Just as regal he replied, “Anything for
My Lady.”

Patricia ran to Macbeth and Selena
followed.

“Stephen, this world is rich with worlds
of treasures.  Like my sister.  Why aren’t you two dating?”

“Ahhhh . . . .”

“Afraid of that great unknown . . .
commitment.”

“I’m a man.  It’s genetic.”

We laughed.

“I’m committed to lots of things.”

“Things not people.”

“People too.  She knows I would do
anything for her.”

“She loves you.”

“I know.”

“You love her.”

“I know.”

“Then my dear sir why don’t you?”

“I know her.  I know me.  I make women
unhappy.  I could make her intensely unhappy or just unhappy.  I’ve chosen the
latter.”

“Do you think she would mourn you any
less, if you never returned from Mars?  Or is it, you would never go if you had
her?”

I thought on the insight to my psyche
Catherine had exposed and then started to speak.  But, Catherine saw Selena and
Patricia returning and warned me.  She glanced at Selena, “I see Macbeth
autographed your program.”

“Yes.  May I have yours?”

“Certainly.”

Playfully suspicious, but knowing, Selena
asked, “So, what did you and my little sister discuss.”

I smiled.

“Dreams that end

And sad brave men

And worlds I’ve never known.”