The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler? (10 page)

I decided that I had to go to New York during the summer and study acting there, in the hub where it was seemingly all happening albeit with a dose of danger on the streets.

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school was comparable to a debutante’s coming-out ball. I had been accepted to the summer session at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where I would hone my craft and meet a slew of theater people, the likes of which did not exist in St. Louis.

But the night before I was set to embark on my first plane trip across country, Martha and I made our yearly pilgrimage to the Muny, this time to see
West Side Story
with Anna Maria Alberghetti.

“Tonight, tonight won’t be just any night,” she sang to her Tony, played by a comely English actor named David Holiday. He had one of those voices that embraces and protects. “Tonight,” he sang powerfully but with an undercurrent of sweetness, “there will be no morning star.” It was as if he was singing directly to me. I was certain that no one else in the twelve-thousand-seat theater heard his heart beating as he sang those lyrics. By the conclusion of the first act, I’m certain Martha knew that I loved David as much as (or more than) Maria loved Tony. We both agreed that he was the best thing about the show.

In the final moments of the enduring musical, Tony runs across the massive stage, pursued by gang members. Shots are fired as David/Tony lands, splayed across a chain-link fence. Silence. And then he falls to his death as the gang members scramble. Inspired by Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet
, it is essentially the scene Shakespeare duplicated in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
between Pyramus and Thisbe. And even though I’d acted that scene with all my heart, I could not possibly fathom the loss of David/Tony.

“I have a love,” Maria/Anna Maria sang, “and it’s all that I have.” She wiped blood from his face (well, that’s how I remember it). Then the words that made me accept myself: “When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong.” By the time the show was over, I was a wet mess, but my overwrought state didn’t prevent us from hanging out by the stage door, waiting to see the stars up close.

He appeared almost immediately and the moment he looked at me with those pale blue eyes, I knew all my instincts were right. We would fall in love and, unlike in
West Side Story
or
Romeo and Juliet
, there would be a happy ending. It would be more like
The Fantasticks
, a show derived from the Shakespeare classic that Martha and I had fallen in love with when it played St. Louis.

He extended his hand and introduced himself. His hand seemed much larger than I had imagined it to be. Martha and I carried on about every nuance of his performance. I, of course, told him that I was an actor and would be spending the summer in New York, studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

“I wish I could chat longer,” he said in that clipped English accent, “but if we miss the bus back to the hotel, we are out of luck.”

Autograph! We needed him to sign our programs. Martha handed him hers first and then I managed to let my hand linger on his hand as I handed him my program.

Only as we were driving home did I look at the autograph, which also said, “Call me tonight at the Forest Park Hotel.”

CHAPTER 18
               

After Martha dropped me off, I ran into the house and found the Yellow Pages, searching for hotels. Careful not to wake my mom, I got as far away from her room as I could and made the call.

“I’d like to speak to David Holiday, please,” I said.

“One moment, sir,” the hotel operator said. Sir? I must have suddenly sounded sophisticated.

“Come visit,” he said. “I’ll pay for a taxi. I’m in Room 443.” It wasn’t a question; it was more like an assignment, and who was I to refuse a blond, blue-eyed English actor who sang like an angel?

I called the cab, speaking in hushed tones, and then did that thing you see teenage girls do in movies, making the bed look like you’re sleeping in it by rearranging the covers and strategically arranging pillows to look like a sleeping body.

I waited outside for the cab so I could signal him not to honk. It was now nearly midnight.
Tonight there will be no morning star.

My plane to New York would leave at approximately eight a.m. and I had to make it home before my mother woke up.

I arrived at the hotel close to one a.m. I felt so powerful walking up to the front desk and announcing my arrival.

“Mr. Kearns is here to see you,” the stone-faced operator said, surely aware that I wasn’t there to sell Boy Scout cookies.

For the next three or four hours, we made love. He had this incredibly perfect orchid that a fan had given him, which he used to tickle every inch of my pubescent body. He ran the feathery petals of the lavender flower on my toes, my thighs, my balls, my chest, under my arms, inside of my ear. Then he kissed me in all of those places, his rough beard creating the perfect contrast to the delicate flower.

This was technically my second lovemaking adventure and I was certain now what distinguished lovemaking and having sex. There was a certain tenderness about sex with David, performed with real affection. I didn’t feel any sense of shame; instead, I felt respected.

At about five a.m. he put me into a cab headed for home. Parting is such sweet sorrow. He also gave me his number in New York where he’d wind up at summer’s end.

I instructed the cabby to drop me off a few doors down from my house, terrified the sound of brakes would wake up my mother. Ever so quietly, I opened the door and tiptoed past her bedroom, with her door still closed, thank God, and slid under the covers. About five minutes later, I heard her getting ready as I tried to remove my clothes without removing the covers.

“Honey,” she said. “Today is your big day. New York, New York!”

“I’m getting up,” I said, trying to sound groggy. Little did she know my “big day” had already begun.

I headed for the bathroom to pee and stopped to check the mirror to see if I looked like I hadn’t slept all night.

Oh, my God. My face!

It looked like I had poison ivy or something. All red and splotchy, a reminder that I had been making love to a man with stubble all night. What was I going to say?

Before I could close the bathroom door, she spotted my reflection in the mirror.

“Your face!” she said.

Thank God she had an immediate explanation, because I didn’t. “It’s nerves,” she said. “It’s a big trip, going across country by yourself. That’s all. It will go away. Put some lotion on to soothe it. Perfectly understandable.”

I was nervous, but I made it from the airport in New York to the McBurney YMCA without a hitch. Before I’d even begun unpacking my suitcase, a man appeared in my room, almost like magic. He was just suddenly there, shutting the door behind him. He was about thirty, I think, with light colored hair, and he had on sunglasses.

Without saying a word, he began removing his shirt. I took off my spanking-new blue-and-white-checkered sport coat. He pulled down his pants and underpants without taking off his shoes. I stripped completely. He did not remove his sunglasses. We had a quickie (we did not make love), which lasted about two or three minutes.

I never heard him speak and I never looked into his eyes. After he left, I saw a five-dollar bill sticking out of the pocket of my jacket. I didn’t put that there. Then a lightbulb went off: I’d just turned my first trick!

Since tickets to standing room in Broadway houses cost four dollars, this was perfect. I headed for the theater section, on foot, and made it in time to catch Angela Lansbury in
Mame
, my first Broadway show.

Training at the American Academy was rigorous. I immediately bonded with Caroline Ocwieja, an unconventional girl from Chicago, and we forged a friendship that remains secure to this day. She and I were probably the most vivid students in a class of some very over-the-top kids.

Caroline and I were inseparable the entire summer—going to see shows together, having breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and witnessing Judy Garland at the Palace almost every night during her monthlong stint.

“How did we afford it?” you ask.

We paid only once, on opening night, and nearly every night for the next four weeks or so we managed to sneak in to revere our tragic idol. This was Garland’s last stand in New York City and she was in peak form, every tremor and gesture executed with ferocious theatricality to the unadulterated ecstasy of her devotees, most of whom were gay men over forty.

Caroline and I “second acted” for several nights after the opening, a process whereby one waits until intermission and then nonchalantly mingles with the crowd as they return for act two.

Problem was that Judy’s first act consisted of a delightful black vaudevillian and a few less-than-thrilling numbers from daughter Lorna, who probably should have been at home doing some schoolwork. Since Judy’s entrance, jauntily prancing down the center aisle as if on her way to Oz, occurred at the top of the second act, very few audience members departed, leaving virtually no vacant seats for these two rabid Garland fans.

On one night, daughter Liza attended with new hubby Peter Allen. Judy insisted she come onstage to join her in what was clearly an improvised mother-daughter teaming. I can’t remember the song (was it “Chicago”?), but I do remember Garland moving to one side of the stage as Liza, in a purple sleeveless minidress, did an exuberant impromptu dance as mama belted. The queens went berserk.

After we’d hovered for four or five nights in the standing-room area, the usher caught on to Caroline and me and suggested we quit sneaking in at intermission. Did that stop us? Think again. Limber of body and mind from our regime at the academy during the day, we scoped out the possibilities like only Garland fanatics could. In an alley adjacent to the Palace, there was a fire escape, and with unbridled energy, we hoisted ourselves up and grabbed onto the grilled stairway, managing to climb up to an unlocked door that conveniently led to the balcony. To avoid suspicion, we hid in the restrooms and waited for the opening strains of the overture before finding a place to hide as surreptitiously as possible.

After learning Judy’s postshow routine—usually she didn’t emerge from the theater until nearly every autograph-book-clutching fan had given up—we camped out at the Howard Johnson’s across the street, sitting in a booth with a window directly across from the theater, drinking coffee to stay awake. Her limo, parked in front of the theater, waited with us. The minute we sensed her departure was imminent, we’d frantically pay the bill and run across the street.

Sometimes it was an hour after the tumultuous curtain calls and other times it was nearly dawn when she emerged. Judy would be in varying degrees of coherence and sometimes actually dressed for bed in pajamas that Dorothy Gale might have worn.

On nights that weren’t too late, after Caroline and I fawned over the doomed genius, I had a third act of drama to engage in. I’d walk Caroline to the Barbizon and as quickly as I could I’d get to the Village, where a life existed that extended the high-voltage histrionics that began with Judy. There was romance and passion and sadness and humor, all of it heart-poundingly intense. There were even some of the same characters, many of whom had changed from their conventional theater duds into something a bit more provocative, like skintight jeans and colorful Lacoste short-sleeved shirts.

I had initially walked into the doors of this establishment almost by accident, following an exotic-looking creature who possessed a perky round ass poured into white sheer pants, leading me like a compass to nirvana. With my eyes on his bulging buttocks, after a quick turn and a few steps down, I found myself at the Stonewall Inn.

CHAPTER 19
               

“Pardon the way that I stare,” Frankie Valli sang, blaring from the jukebox, “there’s nothing else to compare.”

There was nothing else to compare. A dance floor teeming with men, entangled in each other, slow dancing. “You’d be like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much.”

I must have frozen, but my unnamed leader zoomed across the dance floor, ordered a drink, and joined what appeared to be a clique of his
compadres
.

Seeing him from the front, I was all at once attracted and repelled. Even at a distance, I could see his meticulously applied pancake makeup and enough mascara for a chorus of batting eyelashes. Completing the contradictory picture was a protrusion in the front of his virtually see-through slacks that was the size of a beer bottle. “Pardon the way that I stare,” Frankie sang, “there’s nothing else to compare.”

Before I could order a beer (I was seventeen but tall and confident), I realized that the bombshell was motioning me to join him on the dance floor.

I was slow dancing with a man (“Alex,” he whispered in my ear, in a thick Spanish accent) who smelled like cheap perfume, a contrast to the feel of his massive hard-on grinding into my stiffening dick. “At long last love has arrived,” sang Frankie.

Later that night, Alex removed his silken shirt and soft pants along with any vestiges of femininity. He rammed his
riata
into me with the machismo of a bullfighter after a shot of tequila. Or testosterone.

Traversing between the Palace and the Stonewall became my nightly ritual. There were highlights at both locations. When Joan Crawford appeared one night near the end of the run, bedlam nearly erupted in the theater. Judy, of course, had been tipped off that the imperious Crawford was in the house. A symphony of conspicuous hot pink—hat, gloves, tailored suit and shoes—Crawford looked like an advertisement for Bazooka bubble gum.

Near what was obviously the end of the performance (“Chicago” followed by “Swanee” followed by “San Francisco”), there was a definite transfer of energy from the stage of the Palace to the audience area where Miss “Think Pink” Crawford had begun her exodus.

By the time the orchestra began to play the opening strains of “Over the Rainbow,” Crawford was poised in the center aisle at the rear of the theater. “My dear,” her voice boomed grandiosely above the strains of Judy’s signature number, as all eyes shifted to Miss C. “You are the greatest talent in the world.”