The Music of Your Life (25 page)

“Isn't there just so much beauty in the world?” I say, after a while, to the three of them—Perry, Duffy, and Thomas—who are also slouched in big Adirondacks but who suddenly seem to be facing me in a circle of … what? Is that Judgment? They're looking more like …
jurors
than equally inebriated drinking companions. “Isn't everything beautiful?” I say again, getting nervous. “Aren't
we?
Isn't the world beautiful? Isn't love beautiful? And friendship? Isn't friendship beautiful?”

And then my Ode to Beauty is silenced.

“You're drunk,” Thomas says, in a dry, measured tone, a tone of pronouncement, of finality, as if he were issuing a sentence. He's drinking club soda, since he performs tonight.

“No, I'm not, I'm just … beautiful!” I say, but already his tone of voice, the judgey edge of it, the sharply aimed sliver of criticism—
You're drunk
—these are enough to make me start losing my considerable buzz. After all these years, my neurons and synapses know instinctively how to respond when they hear that familiar Thomas tone. Thomas is deeply in touch with his inner schoolmarm.

“Yes, Precious, you are,” he says. “But more beautiful when sober.”

“Thank you. And fuck you.”

“Thomas seems to think you're an alcoholic, Jackson,” says Duffy, breezily. “Is that right, Tom-Tom? Is he?”

“Duffy,” Perry says. “That's rude.”

“Yes, don't put words in my mouth,” Thomas says. “I never said—”

“Oh, please,” I say. “Sticks and stones. Besides, you know I'm much too fond of drinking to ever let myself become an alcoholic.”

“Well, I'm drunk
and
high,” says Duffy. “And I
highly
recommend it.” He has changed his clothes once again, this time into spandex shorts, a muscle shirt, and Tevas. On his biceps, he has a caduceus tattoo, the international medical sign of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff, and on his ankle, a tiny red rose over which is painted a small “D.” He is puffing on a joint now, having traded in the evil potato for the evil weed.

Perry sips his usual martini—extra dry, two olives. It's his third since five-thirty, but who's counting? Thomas maybe, but not I. Besides, Perry never shows his drunkenness; he just chain smokes Marlboro Lights and grows progressively meaner. Me, I'm a cheerful inebriate. Perry throws a withering glance at Thomas's drink.

“Is that club soda?” he says. “Jeez, Thomas, aren't you the Good Baptist.”

“Yeah, what's up with that, Tom-Tom?” Duffy asks, narrowing his eyes while sucking the joint. He is sitting on the railing of the patio fence, swinging his tan muscular legs back and forth. “Are you, like, twelve-step or something?”

Thomas looks at him in the most condescending way possible; warmth and disgust flow in equal measure from his large brown eyes.

“I'm performing tonight,” he says, as evenly as he can muster. He exchanges a quick glance with me, which I return. Suddenly, we're like canasta partners; our exchanged glances make me feel we're in sync again. “I'm working at the Briar Hill Playhouse for the summer.”

“Duffy,” Perry says, clearly embarrassed. “We're going to see Thomas's show tonight. You know that. We
told
you that. Christ.” He lights up another cigarette, and drains the rest of his drink.

“Hey, I just met the guy, I can't remember everything I'm told, right? Right, Jacko?”

Duffy seems to be under the impression that I'm on his side.

“Right, Duffo.”

“Cool,” he says. “And what show is it?” he asks in Thomas's general direction.

“
1776
,” Thomas answers politely, but I can see his patience is on the wane: with Duffy's thoughtlessness, with Perry's smoking, with my intoxication. I try to mentally slap my cheeks to get unlooped, just to make him happier. As soon as Thomas announced to the beautiful Connecticut air that I was drunk, I surreptitiously dumped my vodka on the ground, feeling like a fourteen-year-old whose dad has caught him in the liquor cabinet.

Duffy continues: “And what is that show about, dude?”

Thomas starts to tell him, starts to talk about the Revolution and the Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence, but Duffy isn't really listening, and his attention is diverted by the neighbor's Jack Russell terrier that has just wandered into our circle, sniffing around. “Oh, looky this! Here, poochy,” he says. “Wanna try a martini?”

It's hard to ignore Duffy's combined ignorance and rudeness; I mean,
1776
is a good musical! And he's an actor; why wouldn't he be more interested? At his age, I gobbled up theatrical shoptalk like candy.

“I should get going,” Thomas says, giving up on Duffy's dramatic edification.

“I'll walk you to your car,” I say, pulling myself out of the low chair.

Perry is up, too. “So we'll see you tonight after the show, then,” he says.

“Yes. Come backstage, then we can head over to my house after that, for a nightcap.”

“Oh, nightcap. I love that word.” Perry moves to hug Thomas good-bye. “Break a leg,” he says, as they embrace. “Do theater people still say that? God, it's been so long since I was in a show, I don't even know the lingo anymore.”

“They still say it. Thank you.” They kiss good-bye, perfunctorily, and Thomas and I walk toward the driveway, rounding the corner of the house.

When we're out of earshot of Perry and Duffy, he says, “
Welllll
… Half-Pint's a piece of work.”

“Oh yes, he's a regular Dorothy Parker. The wit and intellect just flow out of him. Like juice from a blood orange.”

“So what's the attraction then?”

“Do you mean for Perry or for Duffy?”

“Either. Both.”

“Ah … well, that's easy. Duffy wants a father figure, or is it ‘needs'? I never know the difference. Anyway. A father figure, and preferably one with a little bit of money.
Ka-ching
. Perry needs—or is it ‘wants'?—a hunky young stud, preferably one who'll appreciate all the attention, and gifts, he lavishes on him, but appreciation, as we know, would always count as a bonus. So … Duffy gets to remain beautiful and well taken care of, but is obliged to put out; Perry has to do the taking care of, but gets to remain culturally and intellectually superior, not to mention one hundred percent sexually gratified. Duffy gets new clothes and CDs and Perry gets a beautiful little trophy boy to carry around all over Manhattan. And, on weekends, all over the wilds of Connecticut.”

“Obviously you've given this some thought,” he says dryly.

“It was a long ride from the city. I was able to observe quite a bit from the backseat.”

“Well, I'm not immune to the charms of youth, I just don't get this particular youth.”

“Oh, I don't know, Thomas. I think he's sweet, in a
Tiger Beat
kind of way.”

“Speaking of youth,” he says, “wait till you see some of the boys in our show tonight. I mean, I feel like their father sometimes, but oh Lord, are they beautiful.”

“Beauty is all around,” I say.

“Yes, you said that before. Odes to beauty.” He kisses me and hugs me good-bye before he gets into his car. He holds the hug for a few extra moments. “It's good to see you,” he whispers in my ear. “I've missed you.”

“Have you really? Well, thanks.”

“No, I mean it. Do you think I don't mean that, Jackson? I have missed you. It's hard to be gone all summer and never get into the city to see people.”

“Poor you, Thomas. All alone in your little house in the big woods, surrounded by flora and fauna, working in the theater, attended to by muscular, naked chorus boys running around the dressing room … I don't exactly feel sorry for you, Precious.”

He rolls his eyes, then reaches for his sunglasses from where they've been nestling in the forest of his curly hair and slides them on. Hopping into the front seat and starting the ignition, he says, “Well, I've missed you anyway, whether you choose to believe it or not. And just for the record, the chorus boys are not attending to me.”

“Then how will I know,” I say, leaning against his window, because I still need to steady myself, “which of tonight's young thespians are your personal favorites?”

“Oh, you've known me long enough; see if you can figure it out. God, Jack, they're so young. Twenty-one, twenty-two. What would I do with one even if I caught it?”

“I don't know, ask Perry.”

“Well, I don't want to catch one like that. I'd have to cruelly violate him and then throw him back. And that's so unfair.”

“Agreed. Perry can have him. I don't want him, either.”

He glances at his watch. “All right, Precious, I'm going. I'll see you tonight.”

“Break a leg.”

“Thanks. Do try to stay sober, at least for my big number. And try not to be too critical. It's just summer stock, you know.”

And I watch him back out of the beautiful sloping driveway—which he does … beautifully.

July 1981, Big Rock Mountain Theater,
Appalachians of North Carolina

Thomas and I are alone in our room in Mildew Manor, the boys' cast house. We're spending the summer of our eighteenth year doing summer stock, for twenty dollars a week plus meals. It's two o'clock in the morning; Thomas is trying to sleep, but I can't even think about it, since there's a humongous flying cockroach on the loose in our room.

“It must be destroyed!!” I say, using my stage voice. I've got my sneakers in my hands, ready to throw one or both of them at the invader as soon as he shows again.

“It's just a cockroach, Jackson,” Thomas groans from his bunk. “You've seen too many horror movies.”

“That's right!” I wail. “And horror movies have taught me how to use weapons of mass destruction to save the world!” I brandish my Chuck Taylor All-Stars and scan the room, whirling in all directions, making myself dizzy. I've had one too many Purple Jesuses tonight at our cast party for the closing of
Little Mary Sunshine
—my first-ever taste of a Purple Jesus, and my first taste of alcohol of any kind except for beer. “Oh my God, there it is!” I scream, spying the hideous creature and hurtling my sneaker at it. I miss, but it knows I'm after it, and—
shit!
—it flies up at me, sending me running and screaming into my bed and under the covers.

“Lord, let me kill this thing before you kill yourself,” Thomas says. He gets out of his bunk and, with what sounds like a couple of masterly swipes of a rolled-up magazine, ends the life of a summer stock flying cockroach.

“That's why they call it Mildew Manor,” he says.

“That thing
had
no manners,” I say, from under the blanket. “Did you get it?”

“Yes, Little Miss Muffett. You can come out of hiding now.”

He stands next to my bed, holding the dead cockroach in a wadded-up Kleenex. “Hey, Jackson, maybe you ought not to drink so much. I mean, at the next cast party.”

“Really? Why not? Didn't you drink too?” I say, in a deliberately challenging tone of voice. The window is open, and the night mountain air is blowing the threadbare red silk curtains across the peeling, crumbling window frame. The wind ushers in faint scents of honeysuckle and mountain laurel.

“Sure, I did. But only two. That's usually enough. And not that Purple Jesus stuff, either. Wine is much safer, just so you know for the future. Besides, we have rehearsal tomorrow, so …” He disposes of the cockroach out the open window: “Back to nature,” he whispers, almost like a blessing. Then he snaps off the overhead light, a globe with a huge black mass visible at its base—bug corpses from a hundred seasons of summer stock—and climbs back into his bed on the other side of the room.

I prop myself up, watching him. The moonlight shines in clear and silvery-white, illuminating everything. We're both in nothing but our white Hanes briefs; our legs are long and sinewy, deeply tanned from rehearsing musical numbers outside on the rehearsal deck in the noonday sun. I've only recently sprouted some chest hair—a late bloomer—but Thomas's torso is admirably furry with thick black ringlets. I've seen some of the girls in our company looking at him lustfully when he's walking around with his shirt off. Some of the boys, too.

“You're so wise … and grown-up,” I say.

He laughs. “Mama always says I have an old soul.”

“Really? My mother is always saying stuff like that, too. But not about me. I don't think I have an old soul.”

“No, you're definitely a little boy.”

“Really? Why do you think that? I mean, what about me makes you say that?”