The Starbucks that Victor prefers is very small, and to get there you have to make several right turns in a row, in relatively rapid succession; even when you arrive, you walk in the front door and you have to turn a corner to the right before you even get to the front register. The seat Victor prefers is beyond that, around another corner to the right, tucked back into a little nook at the far back right corner of the room. You don't really see it when you walk in, because of the dark wood surrounding it. The way the room is shaped, you notice the hallway to the restrooms on the left, but not the dark nook tucked back away on the right. It's almost always empty, and when it's not, Victor is usually the sole occupant. He calls it his office, and getting there feels rather a bit like a journey to the center of the Labyrinth.
When I arrive, he gestures for me to sit down, an enthusiastic yet curt gesture which seems to imply that we are slightly behind schedule for the running of Planet Earth. It's immediately energizing. Sans preamble, Victor speaks:
Victor: A tearful phone call from Fat Sister after I left. You are, if I remember rightly, a Tyrant, a Neophyte, a Parasite, Judas Iscariot and Adolph Hitler rolled into one. Surprised?
Edward: No.
Victor: So. How'd it go?
Edward: She stomped out to the lobby after you left.
Victor (laughing): She had the courtesy to call me from the office phone.
Edward (a chuckle): A point in her favor.
Victor: I'm sure Charles will appreciate funding her rant.
Edward: There's got to be a discretionary Dissonant Diva fund in every theatre's budget.
Victor: Amen, my brother. Amen.
Edward: How was your first company meeting?
Victor picks up his coffee and sips it, tilting his head to the side and tasting it like wine. A thoughtful but brief pause.
Victor: Well, it's cold now. But when I arrived it was hot and dark and steaming.
Victor takes a second sip of his coffee.
Edward: Steaming like the Christmas Pudding you've ignited between Fat Sister's legs.
Victor spit-takes to his left, misting the wall perfectly with a fragrant spray of coffee. I'm telling you, his command of physical comedy is unparalleled. I'm laughing, possibly howling, at this; I take a look over my left shoulder to see if anyone else in the room is disturbed by our presence. The room is fairly full, nearing packed. The music, whatever it is, sounds like Louis Armstrong playing Saint-Saens' The Aquarium. Some of the other patrons are looking around, confused, trying to figure out who is laughing so loudly. It feels like we're invisible in the center of this labyrinth.
Victor: What are you going to do at the next rehearsal?
Edward: Run the show. Backwards.
Victor: Vagina my through poop I.
This slays me. I have this braying wounded-asthmatic-hyena laugh, sometimes. It can be a little off-putting. A lady two tables down slams her book of Feminist Thought Form Poetry closed, grabs her woven hemp bag and stomps her Birkenstocky feet right out of that Starbucks. Perhaps she is in search of a pumice stone and some toenail clippers. For the sake of the other riders on local public transport, let us pray.
Victor leads the way through an alarmed back exit that isn't terribly alarmed at all. We're on West 47th. I have no idea how. We walk over to 8th Avenue and down many several blocks until we reach the bar at which we had agreed to get a drink. Just as we cross the street, Victor's cell phone rings.
Victor: This is Victor. Yes. ... Yes. ... Yes. ... Yes. ... Yes. ... I see. ... No.
Victor ends the call.
Edward: Am I drinking alone?
Victor leads the way into the bar. Late afternoon light angles around buildings to flash from passing cars.
Victor: Heaven forfend. As I remember it, you are partial to Manhattans, no?
We are inside, heaving ourselves onto backed bar stools.
Edward: O indeed, Mighty Mister Maog.
Victor: You've penetrated my alliterative anus.
Edward: Mercy me.
Victor: ... Perplexed playwright purloins purpose.
Edward: Derelict director ditches duty.
Victor: Ha! Yes. ... effervescent Edward eases egress.
Edward: That was particularly well done.
Victor: Thank you.
Bartender: Order a drink, fancy fucks.
Slight pause.
Edward: Manhattan, up, Jack is fine.
Victor: Lemon Drop.
I turn to look at him, but he's regarding the bartender with calm, even eyes.
Bartender: You got it.
The bartender turns and makes our drinks in what feels like three seconds.
Edward: Lemon Drop?
Victor: I'll explain later.
Just as our drinks hit the bar, Charles appears next to us.
Charles: Scotch, cheap, neat.
Charles turns to us.
Charles: Fat Sister is crazier than a gay Republican.
Victor: Charles. What a coincidence. Tell us, we're all agog.
Charles: She is at a pay phone near my apartment, calling the office and calling my answering machine, waiting for me to get home.
Edward: How did you avoid her?
Charles: Iain saw her as he left to walk Stockard. He's sipping espresso at the cafe down the street --
Victor [sim.]: The one with the chocolate eclairs?
Charles [sim.]: The one with the chocolate eclairs -- pretending to read Proust.
Edward: Does anyone ever actually read Proust, anyway?
Charles turns to look at me, I can't tell if he's offended or thoughtful.
Victor: A gay man in a sidewalk cafe with espresso and a Pomeranian, pretending to read Proust. It would be better if he were eating madeleines.
Charles: They're baking a fresh batch. He's having the time of his life. Meanwhile, I'm being stalked by this crazy bitch -- all because of your little stunt, Victor.
Victor: Sadly, I think that the one most likely to be affected by this turn of events is Edward.
They are looking at me; I raise my glass to them. We clink, and the music in the background resolves itself into Louis Armstrong, A Kiss To Build A Dream On. We leave after one drink, scattering to three winds on the corner outside the bar.
When I get home, my girlfriend is complaining that she did the dishes. I try to make her laugh. It does not work. We have nothing to do, very little money to spend. Well, she has money: wealthy upstate family, a full-time job at Godiva on 5th Ave., but I don't make as much. So I don't propose what I would have back in Boston: rent a movie, see a film, do something fun. We live in Corona, Queens: there is nothing to do when the Lemon Ice King of Corona is closed. I retreat to my room, where, when I hear her footsteps outside and the door quietly open, I pretend to be asleep.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Down With Dogs, I: Very Small Theatres Part 3
A week later, we're gathered for rehearsal in the cozy little third-floor blackbox in which I was beginning to feel very comfortable. Victor has asked us to have a seat before rehearsal begins, we're running the show today and the late October crispness outside has everyone in a generally festive mood. We're sitting and Victor is standing on the stage, looking at us, making eye contact with all of us. It's an awesome technique, this silent eye contact thing. Like emotional Epsom salts, it draws to the surface whatever needs to be extracted. I've been meaning to use it for years, now. It goes on for about three minutes, and then he looks down at the floor. One wonders if one has done something wrong. Then there's a somewhat sheepish glance up at us, like he's got a secret or maybe he's going to tell us that the whole soulful eye-searching thing he just did was a joke (which it may have been). But no! He gives a little jump as his pocket makes a noise, takes out his cell phone (Victor always seemed to have a cell phone, even before they were easily-obtainable) and, glancing at the number, his eyes widen. He looks at all of us, uncertainty writ large in his expressive face, then makes a decision, saying, "Excuse me," before heading the eighteen feet or so to the lobby. We hear him say, "Hello?" as he reaches it, and his mellow voice working its magic as we breathe a collective sigh of release. Even though I know his tricks and techniques, I can attest to their power: Victor is like a master stage magician, one who explains the illusion even as he performs it -- and somehow never fails to amaze.
Fat Sister: The eyes on that man. I'm steaming like a Christmas Pudding.
[Momentary silence as the rest of us shudder inwardly.]
Ballerina: That phone call looked important.
Professor's Wife: Christ, I forgot to call my agent. Do you guys think there's time?
Ballerina: Time for ... ?
Professor: Probably not.
Victor [still on his phone in the lobby]: Hah! Really.
[Silence in the theatre.]
Victor (cont.): Oh. Well, no. I understand perfectly.
Fat Sister: Mmm-hmm, I'll bet you do.
[Sound of everyone's eyes widening in discomfort.]
Ballerina: I wonder if it's the playwright.
Edward: Unlikely. His schedule has altered drastically. He is never available when this play is rehearsing, and if we tailored our rehearsal to his availability, we suspect he'd off himself just to avoid being here.
Fat Sister: Pshh. Wow.
[Weird little silence. Ballerina has turned to look at Fat Sister and keeps looking at her.]
Professor's Wife: Did he really change his schedule?
Edward: It's a mystery. But whenever we ask him to come in, he's got eye surgery or goiters or Dengue Fever --
Fat Sister (overlapping): Okay, am I the only one here who feels like you're the millstone dragging us all down?
Ballerina: Um ...
[Silence.]
Edward: I'm sorry -- was that for me, I didn't catch everything ...
Fat Sister: Jeezus. You're like a whirlpool of negativity.
Edward: I'm actually a portable Kenmore, but my rinse cycle is worth the price.
[Professor, Professor's Wife and Ballerina laugh. Which is very kind of them.]
Fat Sister: You're talking about a man's life's work. You're talking about his goals, his dreams.
Edward: I'm talking about his schedule.
Fat Sister: What the fuck is wrong with you --
Victor walks back in and Fat Sister's eyes are on him like worship on a Christ-y, all aglow with the stained-glass certainty that this man will finally see her talent and make her famous. Also, cock. I see all this in an instant and realize that Victor needs to carefully tailor his final chat with the cast tomorrow, perhaps even set aside some time for her personally. She's going to be heartbroken, even without three extra soliloquies, one diatribe and a Balcony Scene. I'm writing a note to myself (warn Victor) when he speaks:
"I have some news. I've just been hired as a last-minute replacement at Second Stage, and I need to go in today. Now, in fact -- I'm late, considering that the other guy flaked on a Company Meeting they've already started. I've spoken to Charles about it, and he agrees: a job at Second Stage is too good to pass up. So. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, let me introduce your director: Mr. Edward Hightower."
Ballerina (overlapping): Awesome!
Professor (overlapping): Nice!
Professor's Wife (overlapping): Oh, that's good. That's so good for you, Edward.
[Short silence.]
Fat Sister: Hm.
Victor is smiling his I-know-a-secret smile. For all his acting ability, he has a massive tell when he's being clever: he loves how clever he is. It's all over his face. But nobody would ever believe such an obvious tell is a tell, they read all sorts of other meaning into it. Again, a master magician. His face says, "I'm lying to you," his words say, "I'm sincere," and your mind automatically wraps these into a justified lumpia of alternate meaning, easily gobbled and satisfying because it fits your need and fills the space left open by that part of your mind which perceives truth. His lie is nourishing. Perhaps because he's not lying, or not trying not to lie. The kernel of honesty is better than loaves and fishes.
"I need to leave, right now, but I'll be back in a few days to see how things are going," Victor is saying, shouldering his bag -- his coat, somehow, already on. "Edward, they're all yours. What are you going to do first?"
"Run the show," I say, outwardly calm.
Fat Sister pshaws loudly. Victor's eyes narrow, he glances in her direction and then shakes his head as if to say, "No, that's kooky, I can't have heard what I think I just heard." He launches himself toward the door, smacking a folded scrap of paper into my hand as he goes.
"Excellent plan. See you all soon!" Victor is gone. The foyer door opens, closes. Distant NYC sounds fill a moment of deep silence and it's very cozy for that long moment. I don't want to move. Feels like the sounds from the courtyard in Rear Window. Then I breathe and catch a waft of the crisp air outside from the open windows in the two front offices. I sit up and say, "Well, then. Places for the top of the show, please."
All of the actors move to their spots. Except Fat Sister. She's reading her script.
Professor: Fat Sister? It's places.
Fat Sister continues to read her script. The intensity! As though her script was a donut.
Edward: That's places, everyone.
Fat Sister is deeper into that script than the wrighter will ever go.
Edward: And ... begin.
The actors pause a moment, glancing from her angry intensity to my pleasant, beaming face. I can tell that she wants to start a fight, and that this is the way she plans to do it: refuse to go on, get me angry, start yelling, get me off balance so that I yell things that might get me fired, and then Victor will come back and she'll have her mellifluous-voiced Daddy back. Truly, glancing at her, I see a deeply troubled eight year old girl whose father just walked out. My heart breaks a little. Am I right? Who knows? But why push it? I nod to the actors who are in places and they begin.
They're doing their stuff there, she's fuming and rocking over there, and I'm here pretending to be totally focused on them, pretending that this is all perfectly normal. I sip my coffee. Actually, at that time it would have been a Venti Quadruple-shot Peppermint Mocha, because I didn't know that those could make me fat, yet. So I sip it and yum yum yum it's delicious and -- whoops -- Fat Sister has just stormed stompy-like out to the lobby. Slight hesitation from the actors onstage, but I nod at them and waft-waft with my left hand as if to say, "Everything's all right. This is exactly as planned. Fat Sister is following my instructions to the letter."
Her first scene is coming up and everyone seems scared or uncertain at the prospect of whatever she will do next. I realize this, it hits me: she's so angry that we're all off-balance. This is not how it should be. I start to get a little riled up at this. One person is behaving badly, and this is negatively affecting the entire show. We've had so much to contend with in our little temporary family that to have this shit shoved in our faces when Victor has just left is an insult. I start to feel insulted. We're almost at her scene. I realize I should say something, take her to task, chastise her in some fashion. I take another sip of my mocha in preparation, crumpling the paper in my left hand as I do so. I gasp a little, remembering the forgotten note, snarfing the mocha and doing the best spit-take of my life to date. Mocha sprays all over the seats in front of me and I'm coughing like a poltergeist in the TB ward. I need to say something, my eyes are watering and I can't stop coughing. The actors are game -- I'm helping them prepare for an audience with all this coughing. They settle in, really starting to roll now that things are so natural. I make a mental note to try this next time I'm directing: cough constantly so they'll be prepared for the matinees.
One final big cough and I'm putting the mocha on the far side of my bag to my right as I'm turning to get up, but where to put the paper? We're on the last couple of lines of the scene, but I unfold the paper anyway, insatiable curiosity wrapping me in her siren song. It's a note, and it reads,
"Tag! You're it. Fake phone call. At Starbucks. Let's get a drink when you're done. At the bar. Ignore Fat Sister. Or read this poem:
Maybe she's angry
Because she poops
Through her vagina
Victor"
I laugh out loud, and there's a hiccup in the scene. It's not a moment where they expected a laugh. Actors in a poor comedy are starving for laughter and feel much better when they get it, but in this case there's nothing to justify my laugh. It's a repeated line, old information, nothing needed. And it's the last line of the scene. The actors shift to their next spots, and Fat Sister is supposed to enter from UR, ready to harangue her brother for writing yet another bestselling novel instead of putting his nose to the grindstone. Silence.
Silence.
I pick up my script and read her first line, "What?! You're writing another bestselling novel -- again?! Just because the last one was a bestseller?! What are you thinking?!"
Professor: It's my passion, I can't help it.
Fat Sister enters from the lobby, stepping into the scene and playing it like normal. She's full of smiles. The run-through is fine. The show is as good as it can get without a rewrite, and people are almost perfectly off book. We could open tomorrow, but we still have, what, two more weeks?
During my intentionally brief notes session afterwards, Fat Sister raises her hand and speaks before I point to her. "So do I enter from the Lobby now, are you changing Victor's blocking right away or something, or can we get a warning in the future if you're going to change the blocking like that without telling us?"
Edward: Um ... no, you're supposed to enter from Up Right. As Victor staged it.
Fat Sister: Then why did you have me enter from the Lobby?
Edward: I'm sorry, I must have not been clear. When I called places --
Fat Sister: I had a phone call to make.
Edward: Great! So, the blocking hasn't changed. Great work everyone, see you in a couple of days.
They hesitate. I nod at them, smiling, and they grab their bags and go. Fat Sister lingers like she wants a fight, but I go right up to her, smiling, with the intention of hugging her. Why? No idea. I think because I sensed that she would loathe it, and I was quietly seething. So I'm walking toward her, smiling, arms opening for a hug, and she turns and sprints out of the theatre, eyes wide in alarm. It's satisfying, so I sit down and chuckle for a minute.
Of course my first day directing a play in Manhattan is plagued with angry challenge from a difficult actor. What else did I expect? After Boston, this seems to be right on track. It hits me that I almost fell for her tactic: the stomp out to the lobby was her ace in the hole, and I managed to let it go. Anger spikes in me, followed by the suspicion that I should just ignore her behavior. This is the kind of thing I would have blown up at in Boston. I grab my stuff as the next cast is moving in to the space, confident that I've got Fat Sister all figured out and that nothing she can do will trip me up any further. In one sense, I was right.
In another sense, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Fat Sister: The eyes on that man. I'm steaming like a Christmas Pudding.
[Momentary silence as the rest of us shudder inwardly.]
Ballerina: That phone call looked important.
Professor's Wife: Christ, I forgot to call my agent. Do you guys think there's time?
Ballerina: Time for ... ?
Professor: Probably not.
Victor [still on his phone in the lobby]: Hah! Really.
[Silence in the theatre.]
Victor (cont.): Oh. Well, no. I understand perfectly.
Fat Sister: Mmm-hmm, I'll bet you do.
[Sound of everyone's eyes widening in discomfort.]
Ballerina: I wonder if it's the playwright.
Edward: Unlikely. His schedule has altered drastically. He is never available when this play is rehearsing, and if we tailored our rehearsal to his availability, we suspect he'd off himself just to avoid being here.
Fat Sister: Pshh. Wow.
[Weird little silence. Ballerina has turned to look at Fat Sister and keeps looking at her.]
Professor's Wife: Did he really change his schedule?
Edward: It's a mystery. But whenever we ask him to come in, he's got eye surgery or goiters or Dengue Fever --
Fat Sister (overlapping): Okay, am I the only one here who feels like you're the millstone dragging us all down?
Ballerina: Um ...
[Silence.]
Edward: I'm sorry -- was that for me, I didn't catch everything ...
Fat Sister: Jeezus. You're like a whirlpool of negativity.
Edward: I'm actually a portable Kenmore, but my rinse cycle is worth the price.
[Professor, Professor's Wife and Ballerina laugh. Which is very kind of them.]
Fat Sister: You're talking about a man's life's work. You're talking about his goals, his dreams.
Edward: I'm talking about his schedule.
Fat Sister: What the fuck is wrong with you --
Victor walks back in and Fat Sister's eyes are on him like worship on a Christ-y, all aglow with the stained-glass certainty that this man will finally see her talent and make her famous. Also, cock. I see all this in an instant and realize that Victor needs to carefully tailor his final chat with the cast tomorrow, perhaps even set aside some time for her personally. She's going to be heartbroken, even without three extra soliloquies, one diatribe and a Balcony Scene. I'm writing a note to myself (warn Victor) when he speaks:
"I have some news. I've just been hired as a last-minute replacement at Second Stage, and I need to go in today. Now, in fact -- I'm late, considering that the other guy flaked on a Company Meeting they've already started. I've spoken to Charles about it, and he agrees: a job at Second Stage is too good to pass up. So. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, let me introduce your director: Mr. Edward Hightower."
Ballerina (overlapping): Awesome!
Professor (overlapping): Nice!
Professor's Wife (overlapping): Oh, that's good. That's so good for you, Edward.
[Short silence.]
Fat Sister: Hm.
Victor is smiling his I-know-a-secret smile. For all his acting ability, he has a massive tell when he's being clever: he loves how clever he is. It's all over his face. But nobody would ever believe such an obvious tell is a tell, they read all sorts of other meaning into it. Again, a master magician. His face says, "I'm lying to you," his words say, "I'm sincere," and your mind automatically wraps these into a justified lumpia of alternate meaning, easily gobbled and satisfying because it fits your need and fills the space left open by that part of your mind which perceives truth. His lie is nourishing. Perhaps because he's not lying, or not trying not to lie. The kernel of honesty is better than loaves and fishes.
"I need to leave, right now, but I'll be back in a few days to see how things are going," Victor is saying, shouldering his bag -- his coat, somehow, already on. "Edward, they're all yours. What are you going to do first?"
"Run the show," I say, outwardly calm.
Fat Sister pshaws loudly. Victor's eyes narrow, he glances in her direction and then shakes his head as if to say, "No, that's kooky, I can't have heard what I think I just heard." He launches himself toward the door, smacking a folded scrap of paper into my hand as he goes.
"Excellent plan. See you all soon!" Victor is gone. The foyer door opens, closes. Distant NYC sounds fill a moment of deep silence and it's very cozy for that long moment. I don't want to move. Feels like the sounds from the courtyard in Rear Window. Then I breathe and catch a waft of the crisp air outside from the open windows in the two front offices. I sit up and say, "Well, then. Places for the top of the show, please."
All of the actors move to their spots. Except Fat Sister. She's reading her script.
Professor: Fat Sister? It's places.
Fat Sister continues to read her script. The intensity! As though her script was a donut.
Edward: That's places, everyone.
Fat Sister is deeper into that script than the wrighter will ever go.
Edward: And ... begin.
The actors pause a moment, glancing from her angry intensity to my pleasant, beaming face. I can tell that she wants to start a fight, and that this is the way she plans to do it: refuse to go on, get me angry, start yelling, get me off balance so that I yell things that might get me fired, and then Victor will come back and she'll have her mellifluous-voiced Daddy back. Truly, glancing at her, I see a deeply troubled eight year old girl whose father just walked out. My heart breaks a little. Am I right? Who knows? But why push it? I nod to the actors who are in places and they begin.
They're doing their stuff there, she's fuming and rocking over there, and I'm here pretending to be totally focused on them, pretending that this is all perfectly normal. I sip my coffee. Actually, at that time it would have been a Venti Quadruple-shot Peppermint Mocha, because I didn't know that those could make me fat, yet. So I sip it and yum yum yum it's delicious and -- whoops -- Fat Sister has just stormed stompy-like out to the lobby. Slight hesitation from the actors onstage, but I nod at them and waft-waft with my left hand as if to say, "Everything's all right. This is exactly as planned. Fat Sister is following my instructions to the letter."
Her first scene is coming up and everyone seems scared or uncertain at the prospect of whatever she will do next. I realize this, it hits me: she's so angry that we're all off-balance. This is not how it should be. I start to get a little riled up at this. One person is behaving badly, and this is negatively affecting the entire show. We've had so much to contend with in our little temporary family that to have this shit shoved in our faces when Victor has just left is an insult. I start to feel insulted. We're almost at her scene. I realize I should say something, take her to task, chastise her in some fashion. I take another sip of my mocha in preparation, crumpling the paper in my left hand as I do so. I gasp a little, remembering the forgotten note, snarfing the mocha and doing the best spit-take of my life to date. Mocha sprays all over the seats in front of me and I'm coughing like a poltergeist in the TB ward. I need to say something, my eyes are watering and I can't stop coughing. The actors are game -- I'm helping them prepare for an audience with all this coughing. They settle in, really starting to roll now that things are so natural. I make a mental note to try this next time I'm directing: cough constantly so they'll be prepared for the matinees.
One final big cough and I'm putting the mocha on the far side of my bag to my right as I'm turning to get up, but where to put the paper? We're on the last couple of lines of the scene, but I unfold the paper anyway, insatiable curiosity wrapping me in her siren song. It's a note, and it reads,
"Tag! You're it. Fake phone call. At Starbucks. Let's get a drink when you're done. At the bar. Ignore Fat Sister. Or read this poem:
Maybe she's angry
Because she poops
Through her vagina
Victor"
I laugh out loud, and there's a hiccup in the scene. It's not a moment where they expected a laugh. Actors in a poor comedy are starving for laughter and feel much better when they get it, but in this case there's nothing to justify my laugh. It's a repeated line, old information, nothing needed. And it's the last line of the scene. The actors shift to their next spots, and Fat Sister is supposed to enter from UR, ready to harangue her brother for writing yet another bestselling novel instead of putting his nose to the grindstone. Silence.
Silence.
I pick up my script and read her first line, "What?! You're writing another bestselling novel -- again?! Just because the last one was a bestseller?! What are you thinking?!"
Professor: It's my passion, I can't help it.
Fat Sister enters from the lobby, stepping into the scene and playing it like normal. She's full of smiles. The run-through is fine. The show is as good as it can get without a rewrite, and people are almost perfectly off book. We could open tomorrow, but we still have, what, two more weeks?
During my intentionally brief notes session afterwards, Fat Sister raises her hand and speaks before I point to her. "So do I enter from the Lobby now, are you changing Victor's blocking right away or something, or can we get a warning in the future if you're going to change the blocking like that without telling us?"
Edward: Um ... no, you're supposed to enter from Up Right. As Victor staged it.
Fat Sister: Then why did you have me enter from the Lobby?
Edward: I'm sorry, I must have not been clear. When I called places --
Fat Sister: I had a phone call to make.
Edward: Great! So, the blocking hasn't changed. Great work everyone, see you in a couple of days.
They hesitate. I nod at them, smiling, and they grab their bags and go. Fat Sister lingers like she wants a fight, but I go right up to her, smiling, with the intention of hugging her. Why? No idea. I think because I sensed that she would loathe it, and I was quietly seething. So I'm walking toward her, smiling, arms opening for a hug, and she turns and sprints out of the theatre, eyes wide in alarm. It's satisfying, so I sit down and chuckle for a minute.
Of course my first day directing a play in Manhattan is plagued with angry challenge from a difficult actor. What else did I expect? After Boston, this seems to be right on track. It hits me that I almost fell for her tactic: the stomp out to the lobby was her ace in the hole, and I managed to let it go. Anger spikes in me, followed by the suspicion that I should just ignore her behavior. This is the kind of thing I would have blown up at in Boston. I grab my stuff as the next cast is moving in to the space, confident that I've got Fat Sister all figured out and that nothing she can do will trip me up any further. In one sense, I was right.
In another sense, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Max and the Rabbit, a short play
Max and the Rabbit
Scene 1
We are in the garage of an architecturally unremarkable house in Livermore. It is August of 2010. Two black Labrador Retrievers are sleeping in the cool half-light of the garage. One dog is older, quite a bit of white around the muzzle. The younger dog is a puppy, perhaps three months old, with a face that says more than Labrador waits within him. In a side yard through the open side door nearby, unseen, the engine of a Barracuda is being tinkered with.
Presently, a quiet skip-rasp, skip-rasp of smaller claws is heard.
Skip-rasp, skip-rasp, skip-rasp. Pause again.
Skip-rasp, skip rasp: in the doorway to the very hot side yard there appears a rabbit. White with dark grey spots, a Lop-eared bunny to delight the eye and heart of any eight-year-old.
The older dog opens an eye, pink sliding back from pupils turning milky.
Raider: You. Busfloss.
Two thumps of the tail.
Sigh.
Bucephalas: Raider. Hot outside, no water. Do you have water here?
Raider: Water cool.
One lick of chops.
Raider: You play? I play gentle. This one here, maybe not so gentle.
Three thumps of the tail.
Sneeze.
Puppy stirs.
Bucephalas: I need water. And cool sleeping. Too hot.
Skip-rasp, skip rasp, Bucephalas comes closer.
Thump-thump-thump-thump Raider's tail.
Rabbit and old dog regard one another. Neither knows it, but the music coming from the side yard is Desperado, by the Eagles.
Raider: Water here.
Raider stands, slow, and turns to a gravity-fed water bowl. Two laps. Two more laps.
The puppy stretches out, sighing, snoring little snores.
Bucephalas skip-rasp, skip-rasp, skip-rasp hops to water.
Raider: Water good. You have water now. I lie down. Play? Play? I lie down. Play soon. First lie down. Hot standing up.
Raider lies down on the cool concrete floor, near the puppy but adjusted now for the little one's stretching out cozy snoozing. Bucephalas regards the water bowl.
Bucephalas: No spout.
CLANG! of a wrench being dropped. Bucephalas: freezes! Raider: raises ears, sitting up. Muffled curse from side yard, sound of beer can tipped over on hot concrete, scrape of wrench being picked up. Puppy snores, feet twitching, a quiet yip here and there.
Bucephalas is still for a long time, large dark left eye fixed on the door to the side yard. Raider has lain back down a long while before Bucephalas moves. Outside, the barest breath of a breeze stirs one or two leaves on one or two trees. They are the only leaves that move in Livermore that day. We do not see this. Bucephalas hears it and understands. Raider hears it and thinks about biscuits. The puppy growls and yips and plays in his dreams. Bucephalas turns again to the water bowl.
Bucephalas: No spout.
Raider: Water is good.
Bucephalas: Too hot.
Raider farts.
Bucephalas: My work is not done. Where there is water, I must drink.
Bucephalas puts his front paws on the edge of the plastic gravity bowl (his claws are far too long, and some of them are bloody and infected) and lowers his head, pink rabbit tongue drink-drink-drinking water. For a long time, the only sound is the music outside -- Foo Fighters, a surprising choice -- and the twisting of a ratchet wrench and the drinking of a rabbit tongue. Then a screen door slams from the house beyond the fence, beyond the side yard, and it so loud so very loud like an explosion and Bucephalas
falls
twitching
into time
We see a scene in the future: the puppy, three years older, stands with his nose at the wire mesh of the Hutch of Bucephalas.
Puppy: You. I remember You.
Bucephalas: Would you devour your future before you know it?
Puppy: You run? You play?
Bucephalas: Not now. Our time is short. I have a message for Chauncey.
Puppy: Who? No. Play.
Bucephalas: Play soon. I promise. When you are alone on the mountain, I will come and let you chase me. But for now, Maxwell, please settle.
Puppy: Jax! Jax! I am Jax! Jax plays! JAX PLAYYYYYYYS!
Bucephalas: You are a born Maxwell. I know how to get chewy pigs' ears for you.
Puppy: Chewy Yum?!
Bucephalas: Sit still. Good. Now --
Bucephalas opens his eyes. The light coming through the door from the side yard is tinged with the late-afternoon red-gold of August, the temperature edging down toward tolerable. He is laying curled up with the puppy (Jax? Max.) and Raider. The puppy has his left paw resting on Bucephalas. Both dogs are snoring gently.
Bucephalas closes his eyes.
Scene 1
We are in the garage of an architecturally unremarkable house in Livermore. It is August of 2010. Two black Labrador Retrievers are sleeping in the cool half-light of the garage. One dog is older, quite a bit of white around the muzzle. The younger dog is a puppy, perhaps three months old, with a face that says more than Labrador waits within him. In a side yard through the open side door nearby, unseen, the engine of a Barracuda is being tinkered with.
Presently, a quiet skip-rasp, skip-rasp of smaller claws is heard.
Skip-rasp, skip-rasp, skip-rasp. Pause again.
Skip-rasp, skip rasp: in the doorway to the very hot side yard there appears a rabbit. White with dark grey spots, a Lop-eared bunny to delight the eye and heart of any eight-year-old.
The older dog opens an eye, pink sliding back from pupils turning milky.
Raider: You. Busfloss.
Two thumps of the tail.
Sigh.
Bucephalas: Raider. Hot outside, no water. Do you have water here?
Raider: Water cool.
One lick of chops.
Raider: You play? I play gentle. This one here, maybe not so gentle.
Three thumps of the tail.
Sneeze.
Puppy stirs.
Bucephalas: I need water. And cool sleeping. Too hot.
Skip-rasp, skip rasp, Bucephalas comes closer.
Thump-thump-thump-thump Raider's tail.
Rabbit and old dog regard one another. Neither knows it, but the music coming from the side yard is Desperado, by the Eagles.
Raider: Water here.
Raider stands, slow, and turns to a gravity-fed water bowl. Two laps. Two more laps.
The puppy stretches out, sighing, snoring little snores.
Bucephalas skip-rasp, skip-rasp, skip-rasp hops to water.
Raider: Water good. You have water now. I lie down. Play? Play? I lie down. Play soon. First lie down. Hot standing up.
Raider lies down on the cool concrete floor, near the puppy but adjusted now for the little one's stretching out cozy snoozing. Bucephalas regards the water bowl.
Bucephalas: No spout.
CLANG! of a wrench being dropped. Bucephalas: freezes! Raider: raises ears, sitting up. Muffled curse from side yard, sound of beer can tipped over on hot concrete, scrape of wrench being picked up. Puppy snores, feet twitching, a quiet yip here and there.
Bucephalas is still for a long time, large dark left eye fixed on the door to the side yard. Raider has lain back down a long while before Bucephalas moves. Outside, the barest breath of a breeze stirs one or two leaves on one or two trees. They are the only leaves that move in Livermore that day. We do not see this. Bucephalas hears it and understands. Raider hears it and thinks about biscuits. The puppy growls and yips and plays in his dreams. Bucephalas turns again to the water bowl.
Bucephalas: No spout.
Raider: Water is good.
Bucephalas: Too hot.
Raider farts.
Bucephalas: My work is not done. Where there is water, I must drink.
Bucephalas puts his front paws on the edge of the plastic gravity bowl (his claws are far too long, and some of them are bloody and infected) and lowers his head, pink rabbit tongue drink-drink-drinking water. For a long time, the only sound is the music outside -- Foo Fighters, a surprising choice -- and the twisting of a ratchet wrench and the drinking of a rabbit tongue. Then a screen door slams from the house beyond the fence, beyond the side yard, and it so loud so very loud like an explosion and Bucephalas
falls
twitching
into time
We see a scene in the future: the puppy, three years older, stands with his nose at the wire mesh of the Hutch of Bucephalas.
Puppy: You. I remember You.
Bucephalas: Would you devour your future before you know it?
Puppy: You run? You play?
Bucephalas: Not now. Our time is short. I have a message for Chauncey.
Puppy: Who? No. Play.
Bucephalas: Play soon. I promise. When you are alone on the mountain, I will come and let you chase me. But for now, Maxwell, please settle.
Puppy: Jax! Jax! I am Jax! Jax plays! JAX PLAYYYYYYYS!
Bucephalas: You are a born Maxwell. I know how to get chewy pigs' ears for you.
Puppy: Chewy Yum?!
Bucephalas: Sit still. Good. Now --
Bucephalas opens his eyes. The light coming through the door from the side yard is tinged with the late-afternoon red-gold of August, the temperature edging down toward tolerable. He is laying curled up with the puppy (Jax? Max.) and Raider. The puppy has his left paw resting on Bucephalas. Both dogs are snoring gently.
Bucephalas closes his eyes.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Transitions
I should be a dad by now. I should have fathered several kids by now. I know I just said I'm thinking about the future, but, see: thoughts of the future are colored by my relatively immediate past. I want a large family, which means I need the income required to support them. Since I graduated from college a decade and change ago (late start), I have worked almost entirely in theatre: actor (non-AEA; for the muggles, this means I haven't joined the union yet but I'm this close), director, instructor, in no particular order and sometimes in complete disarray. With no savings to speak of and no guaranteed source of income (is there any such thing anymore?), I have had a hard time convincing Veronica to get preggo. I think she is unique among all women in that she has special enzymes that prevent pregnancy if I am not reliably gainfully employed. In this way we are polar opposites: I firmly believe that if you build it, they will come. Veronica believes that you shouldn't break ground until you've sold out your entire first season.
The crossroads at which I currently find myself is now quite clear: get a full-time job with benefits that will make it possible to raise a family with a (relatively) relaxed Veronica, or try to calm her down while I drive a series of increasingly broken down mid-80s Hondas from non-AEA job to non-AEA job, doing award-winning work that nobody mit der klout ever sees, getting tired more easily and -- just sometimes -- letting my mind wander to fantasies about working in Shipping and Receiving for REI. No joke, that. I have a peculiar obsession with correctly labeling boxes for shipping. So much so that I abandoned a job at a Staples in Boston back in 1999 because the manager kept putting me on the register instead of letting me do the job for which I'd ostensibly been hired: run shipping and receiving. Before you go all corporate on me and explain that it's the manager's prerogative to blah-blah-blah, I have two words for you: Retail Rage. Which is why I have put up, over the last decade and change, with some of the absolute worst working conditions ever encountered by a dashing non-AEA Baritenor with stage combat skills and remarkable facial hair.
Currently, I work at Solano Community College. I teach Theatre. At the moment, I am directing The Three Musketeers, which means that I have a job until June. It's possible that I have a second job lined up teaching a course in Sketch Comedy, Improv and Stand-Up this summer -- but that depends on things like enrollment, fate and prevailing political winds. There are rumors that the college will be hiring two full-time Theatre Faculty this Spring. I am aiming for the Acting-Directing job, but -- as George Maguire points out every time I see him -- it will be opened up to national applications and it could go to anybody. Apparently the school wants full-time faculty with Masters degrees. I have a lowly BFA. From the ultra-lowly Boston Conservatory. I get the feeling that my chances are nil.
Yet I find myself at a crossroads: settle down with reliable employment or continue the struggle to convince directors/producers of local semi-pro or indie theatres to pay me a living wage -- minimum wage, at the very least -- to do excellent work in their shows. There's a company in San Francisco for whom I've worked twice in the past several years, and every so often they offer me delicious work in a delicious show. But in the past they haven't been willing to pay me a living wage. It's very upsetting to have to explain to someone who does not earn their entire living in theatre just why I have to make enough money to pay my rent and pay for gas and such -- it feels as though I'm justifying my existence and the need for appropriate compensation for my work. How can I raise a family if I am accepting work in my chosen profession that pays less than minimum wage? This crossroads has multiple forks.
When I think of a crossroads, I think of a specific spot on the John Muir Trail. My first experience of that trail was in 1992. I was 19, and I went with my oldest brother, Rob, our friend Michael and my older brothers' first of two stepmothers, Kate. A superb group. Long story short: Kate had to hike out early over Bishop Pass with Rob as an escort, and Michael and I went on together for three days, planning to meet Rob in Vidette Meadows on the afternoon of the third day. It was as we came down from Glen Pass, having passed Charlotte Lake, that we came to a particular crossroads in the trail: lined with stones, in memory it sits in a wide, shallow, sandy bowl. There are trees around, but no foliage in the bowl itself. The crossroads is just off-center, to the right, I think. Turning right takes you to Charlotte Lake. Turning left takes you to Bullfrog Lake. Straight ahead continues the JMT to -- and through -- Vidette Meadows, with Glen Pass and Rae Lakes with their daily thunderous hailstorms behind. It is an epic and somewhat surreal spot, and when I was there in 1992, it was just as I have described -- though looking at it on Google Maps right now, it's hard to find. The crossroads is there, but it appears to be a fork instead of a cross. My memory says otherwise, so I'll go with that.
In 2009 I did the JMT again, solo. At almost every turn I was surprised at how much had changed. Looking forward to finding or at least seeing our old campsites was wasted effort: many have been returned to nature as Forest Service and National Parks' policies have evolved. Climate change, forest fires, floods, avalanches, rockslides, the Japanese Beetle: all have done their part to transform the landscape of the trail. For now, there are still glaciers on the East side of Banner and Ritter. We'll see what happens with that. Every step on my solo JMT was one of re-discovery and revelation; like following brittle twine through the labyrinth of memory, sometimes I had a fairly solid ball of rolled up recollection. Then I would round a bend and it would puff to dust and blow away in the wind as I stared with new eyes at a place I should have remembered.
So it was with the crossroads: I wanted more than anything to see it again, and though I'd been constantly surprised and often delighted at how much more there was to see when my eyes were not locked on my oldest brother's calves, I realized when I reached it that this was the one spot -- out of all others on the trail (and that's a lot of spots, Sparky) -- to which I had most looked forward. The clarity of this revelation was only surpassed by my disappointment at the spot itself: the rocks lining the trail were not as straight as I'd remembered, and the pumice (not sand) was turning green on the south side of the bowl, where trees and other foliage had begun to creep in. I have to assume that my memory of the spot is clear, and that nature is not going to sit idle for 17 years in order to fulfill my memory-based expectations.
I stood in the center of that crossroads for a few minutes, just drinking it in. Last time I was here, Michael Jordin and I were expecting to meet up with my brother somewhere in the immediate vicinity. I began looking for footprints which matched his, even convincing myself that I had found them and that he was somewhere right around the corner. Thinking back on it now, I remember that as I began my 2009 trek, I became quite annoyed with a set of footprints which appeared unique among all the other prints in the dust of the trail: a set of what I will call "waffle print" boots, ever ahead of me, always marking the trail and seeming to taunt me with my slowness. I became obsessed with finding and passing the owner of those boots, even going so far as to look at everyone else's footprints when I met people on passes or at other points along the trail when I would stop, starved for conversation, and inadvertently launch into 15 minutes of stand-up. It took meeting a waffle-print boot hiker heading North on the JMT for me to realize that there could have been any number of other people ahead of me on the trail with the same style of boots. It was not one person I followed, but hundreds -- possibly thousands. My older brothers were correct when they told me that the only person I would be in competition with on the trail was myself, and while I'd already realized that my drive to be the first one up and over a pass in the morning had more to do with my own personal yardstick than any other hikers, it was when I met the Northbound waffle-print hiker that I realized something rather surprising: I had fabricated a devious, speedy adversary who taunted me at every turn. It hit me in that moment that this waffle-print villain was me: I had been following a shadow of my 19-year-old self, constantly trying to catch up with a me who had already traveled this road over a decade ago.
As I stood in that crossroads again in 2009, I felt the last of my expectations evaporate. Accepting that nothing would ever be the same as it was, and that the intervening 17 years had changed me as much as they had changed the landscape of the JMT, I was able to see some parallels in my own life: areas of formerly lush, green expectation had been decimated by the drought of opportunity on one side of a pass, then utterly destroyed by the ravenous wildfire of wasted time on the other. A change in my own artistic climate had caused certain species of thought to flourish, while others faded to extinction. Finally, I realized that in the intervening years I had strayed from honest exploration of my inner landscape, becoming as unfamiliar to myself as this crossroads now appeared. For how many years had I been viewing the world through those same nineteen-year-old glasses? I knew on the first day of the trail that I was no longer the boy who had walked this path in 1992, but standing there at that wild, rugged intersection, I finally let go of all the foolishness I'd been lugging along with me ever since.
The most prevalent thought in my head as I trekked in 2009 -- after pain and the need to breathe -- was of Veronica. My pack was so stupidly heavy and my body so stupidly out of shape that the only thing that kept me going was the thought of seeing her again. Well, that and my vast backpacking competitiveness, of which I had been previously unaware. And the bragging rights, which are apparently inexhaustible, as I am writing about this adventure with utter abandon four years later. Standing at that crossroads, I realized that I was at a crossroads in my life, and that it was time to move forward.
I took a deep breath. Thunder rumbled in the pass behind me. I left that crossroads behind, determined to ask Veronica to marry me the moment I saw her again. (As it happens, I didn't get around to asking her until July 2, 2010, at 7:24 pm, on the Mellow Rock at Shadow Lake. She said yes. As of this writing, we have yet to get married; see above debate re., working for less than minimum wage -- but the certainty hit me in that moment.) Every step of the trail from that point forward -- and most of them were behind me by then -- was one of revelation and acceptance. I was determined to make the following changes:
1. Get a living wage for my theatrical work from that point forward (no easy feat for a non-AEA actor in the SF Bay Area).
2. Excel brilliantly in everything I do.
3. Write -- and publish -- all of the amazing stories in my head.
Ah, but I still had a long way to go before topping Mt. Whitney; I still had Trailcrest; I still had the long trek down to Whitney Portal. I still had Forrester Pass. I had many miles to go before ramen and miso and sleepy tea. I had this step and the next and the next after that.
So it was with life and my plans. Here I am, newly 40 and only slightly closer to everything I decided upon. But every step counts. Every step is progress. Momentum leads us to the momentous. What I know now is that life is nothing if not a state of transition, a dance of bending and flexing. Change is constant, it does not happen only at crossroads. Maybe we don't recognize the crossroads until we are miles beyond. Until we can look back via GoogleMaps to find that even the topography disagrees with our memory of a transformative place so transformed by time that it opens our eyes to who, what and why we want to be what we never expected to need to become.
I turn 40 today.
It doesn't feel like an epic crossroads.
It feels quiet, sleepy and a little bit sad. In a few miles, I'm sure I'll be able to see this moment more clearly. For now, I'll shoulder my pack and keep walking, one step after another, toward the unattainable mountain at the end of my quest. Toward my mythical spawning pool in the sky. Toward Valhalla, Avalon, Lavondyss and Middle-Earth. Toward all the things that logic and Atheists tell us can't possibly exist: Goddesses, Gods, love. Hope. Toward all of the other immeasurable things that make life bearable.
I will walk.
I do walk.
I walk.
Friday, February 1, 2013
NFTF: Journal of Brother Ambrose, Day 2, Part II
9:57 pm
My head feels like a hornets' nest, swarming with thoughts. I sit outside Father Michael's office, having been escorted here by Brother Paul and Domenico. They would not say why I've been summoned -- I suspect that Paul did not know, but Domenico had a certain tension around his eyes and would not meet my gaze for long.
Is it possible that Father Michael knows what I've been doing? Can I have somehow tipped my hand? On the way here I tried to gauge the nature of my summons, asking several questions. I tried to keep them light, but I have been described as dour and I know that levity would have left them more suspicious than they arrived. (Truly, I do not believe I am dour. I believe I am focused. If my neutral focused face appears dour to those unwilling to inquire, perhaps they should attempt a level of focus beyond snoozing in the chapel.)
That was uncharitable. I feel out of balance. Perhaps it is good that Father Michael is calling me before him, I could confess my recent ... sins? Do I believe them to be sins? Not really. Then what are they? I have no idea. But even now as I write this I hear Scarborough Faire in my mind's ear, clear as day. Or is someone playing it in the music room? Leaning in that direction doesn't change the sound ... and neither does getting up and peeking around that corner. Who would be playing Scarborough Faire here, anyway? At this hour? In this place? I suppose, technically, it's folk music. Simon and Garfunkel merely spread it about. They didn't write the damned song. Why do I hear it?! Who is playing it? Haunting, lovely, sad, bittersweet, longing ... how well I remember the first time I heard it. Before the dark days.
I hear him coming --
11:48 pm
The world is turned on its head and shaken. What falls out? Everything I had sought to leave behind. I have just spoken at length with Father Michael. Thus:
"Good evening, Brother Ambrose," the handshake and Fatherly hand clapping my right shoulder lightly, just enough to imply camaraderie without overstepping any boundaries. Clearly-defined roles.
"Father Michael," I begin, preemptive as ever when threatened; as he closes his office door behind us, locking it, he speaks over me:
"We've had word from Johannes and Oswald," he says, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk. I sit automatically, shocked; he is sitting in his chair behind the desk as I blurt:
"How -- where?"
"Before we go any further, Ambrose, I want you to know that I respect your reasons for wanting to leave your past behind you; I have made a point of leaving you to your business and keeping you out of certain activities in which I have asked a few of your Brothers to assist. I would never ask this of you, were it not a dire situation."
"Father, I will do anything you ask if it means getting them back here, whole. Johannes and Oswald --" I'm stumbling over my words.
"As to that," he says, holding up a hand in, what, warning? Caution? "I do not know that we can bring them back whole, if at all."
"What happened? Where are they? Were they able to find why the fires are burning unchecked? Where is the National Guard? Where is the Red Cross? Why do we just sit here when people all around us need our help?! I have been waiting and praying --" I see his eyes widen, his eyebrows raise, and I'm aware that this is more than I've said in months, perhaps years. I start to speak again, then stop.
For a long moment, there is only silence.
"I knew when you joined us that you needed more than just retreat or retirement, Ambrose. I hesitate because I think I understand your pain, but because I do not -- can not -- know what it is like for you. If I show you what we've found, I want you to understand clearly that I am not asking you to do anything about it. I am asking you for your advice only. Anything beyond that is entirely voluntary. Am I clear?"
"Yes," I say, certainty settling into my bones like a comfortable old coat. I know what my answer will be before he turns his computer monitor around and clicks play.
At first I see only people -- the backs of men in plaid flannel shirts with heavy suspenders and tough denim pants, the women in what look like a mix of American pilgrim and Hollie Hobby garb, though every one of them seems to wear some kind of bonnet or ... nurse hat?
Then one of the men turns and looks at the camera. I can hear feet shuffling on gravel and wind and some birds chirping, plus another sound -- a kind of keening shriek; like a boar in agony. There are oak trees, clearly this is local, this is East Bay chaparral, but the man who turns and looks at the camera is Brother Oswald.
"What -- ?" I start, then fall silent as Brother Oswald shifts to the left and the camera moves forward a step to two -- Brother Johannes must be recording this -- picking up the scene beyond.
A filthy, half-naked homeless man is screeching at the crowd, flinging gestures at a man on a stationary hospital gurney, tubes trailing from under the bloodstained sheets; if I couldn't see his face, I would wonder if it were a pregnant woman: he has a large belly.
I recognize this.
Not the place and people. The situation. I sit upright, all my old training clicking back into place.
The rocking, the rolling of the eyes, the moaning from the crowd. This is a cult. A cult in the beginning throes of mob ecstasy. The filthy man must be the leader, people flinch at his shrieking. His words become clear:
"...Somewhere among you he may yet lurk! This man's twin in all things, even the broken leg! This man with stolen Godspeak come to deceive you with his dark magic! She questions my power because she thinks she can! Yet you all know I hold the power of Life and Death in my hands! See! Ezekiel, bring me the White Sheet! So saith the Prophet!"
"So saith the Lord," someone behind and to the left of the camera shouts; it's echoed by a few others..
A man dressed like the rest comes running up with a clean white sheet.
"Behold! I place the sheet and he will die at my command! So saith the Prophet!"
"So saith the Lord," more people repeat. They sound unhappy.
The filthy cult leader unfurls the sheet like a sideshow charlatan over the unconscious man on the gurney, grinning and leering at the crowd. I am always surprised at what people will put their faith in. The cult leader continues to shriek:
"Lo and behold, the Prophet did see that the man and woman were Of The Devil, and he did ask Almighty God for his thundrous hand to smite them down. And God did as the Prophet asked, so saith the Prophet?!"
Then a voice comes from somewhere, loud and clear but slightly muffled:
"So saith your Mom!"
A woman's voice cries out, "Tad!"
The cult leader is derailed, turning with a start to the gurney as the man I'd thought unconscious and possibly dying whips the fresh sheet down from his face, a big grin lighting his face. Like this is all a joke, or ... more like it's performance. An act.
The crowd, though -- all of them take a step back, some of them fall to the gravel beneath their feet. A few try to leap forward, rage burning in their faces, but are restrained by others behind them. I think I catch a glimpse of Brother Louis restraining a short, balding man, but I can't be sure.
Brother Louis, I had been told, was visiting family. I turn to Father Michael as the camera turns to Brother Oswald, who scowls and gestures back toward the gurney with a jerk of his head. I save my question for later as the camera turns back and the man on the gurney ("Tad"?) calls to the cult leader:
"Hey there, fucko!" At this the leader whirls to him, like a bad little boy caught setting something on fire. The man on the gurney smiles like a celebrity and calls out, all bonhomie, "Feeling rapey?"
The leader is pointing immediately, screeching,"Tell me now how you did it and I may allow your Whore to live! Tell me how you created your double!"
Still smiling, and including the crowd in his words, the gurney man doesn't miss a beat: "Well, I can't exactly tell you that, Torvald Walter Mayberry. But I can show you, you false prophet and fucker of corpses! Would you like that, Mr. Twistydick?"
Torvald Walter Mayberry?
I stop breathing, but feel like I need to gasp.
A woman has laughed and the gurney man turns to his left, waggling his eyebrows at her, I imagine; there are people in the way, we can't see clearly who is over there.
The leader looks like he's trying to flag down an airplane, waving his arms, pointing at the man on the gurney, then keeping one arm up and turning to him.
"Yes, yes, do show us all, Foul Deceiver! Show us your Hellbane and Hemlock!"
"No hellbane and hemlock here, Torvald," says the man on the gurney.
That name again. I breathe. Can't be coincidence.
"Just good, old-fashioned know-how," the man on the gurney continues, then looks at his right arm; blood has continued to soak the sheet. He turns to his left, speaking perhaps to the same person who laughed earlier; definitely someone specific. "Do I need a tourniquet for this?"
"Yes," two women, in unison. He seems to gasp a little, or laugh quickly. I see panic under that smile. But he's putting on a good show. Ah, I see: he's being brave. He loves one of those women. Both? Is this a polygamist cult?
"Done, ladies. Honey, I love you. Hold on to that amulet."
He throws her a kiss. At least three of the women near the camera sigh. Sounds like the crowd is swayed. This feels final. I sit forward.
He whips the sheet back up over his head, he's completely covered and there's a brief shifting under the sheet.
Gunshot. Mannlicher Carcano, from the sound of it, and a bullet tears through the sheet into the man on the gurney and the woman screams but someone steps in front of Brother Johannes just as I want a clearer look at that gurney.
"Move your ass," I mutter, and am shocked when Father Michael says, "Amen."
Brother Johannes wants to see the gurney as well. He steps around the woman in front of him just as the cult leader pulls the sheet from the gurney to reveal ...
A fat, healthy rabbit. Sitting on a pile of pillows.
The cult leader is shrieking as he falls to the gravel, "Aaauuyyuuughhhhh, no bunnies no bunnies no bunnies NO! BUNNIES!"
We hear Brother Johannes gasp and half-chuckle, but a woman's voice calls out:
"Bearded Ezekiels! Nurse Rachels! NOW!"
My head feels like a hornets' nest, swarming with thoughts. I sit outside Father Michael's office, having been escorted here by Brother Paul and Domenico. They would not say why I've been summoned -- I suspect that Paul did not know, but Domenico had a certain tension around his eyes and would not meet my gaze for long.
Is it possible that Father Michael knows what I've been doing? Can I have somehow tipped my hand? On the way here I tried to gauge the nature of my summons, asking several questions. I tried to keep them light, but I have been described as dour and I know that levity would have left them more suspicious than they arrived. (Truly, I do not believe I am dour. I believe I am focused. If my neutral focused face appears dour to those unwilling to inquire, perhaps they should attempt a level of focus beyond snoozing in the chapel.)
That was uncharitable. I feel out of balance. Perhaps it is good that Father Michael is calling me before him, I could confess my recent ... sins? Do I believe them to be sins? Not really. Then what are they? I have no idea. But even now as I write this I hear Scarborough Faire in my mind's ear, clear as day. Or is someone playing it in the music room? Leaning in that direction doesn't change the sound ... and neither does getting up and peeking around that corner. Who would be playing Scarborough Faire here, anyway? At this hour? In this place? I suppose, technically, it's folk music. Simon and Garfunkel merely spread it about. They didn't write the damned song. Why do I hear it?! Who is playing it? Haunting, lovely, sad, bittersweet, longing ... how well I remember the first time I heard it. Before the dark days.
I hear him coming --
11:48 pm
The world is turned on its head and shaken. What falls out? Everything I had sought to leave behind. I have just spoken at length with Father Michael. Thus:
"Good evening, Brother Ambrose," the handshake and Fatherly hand clapping my right shoulder lightly, just enough to imply camaraderie without overstepping any boundaries. Clearly-defined roles.
"Father Michael," I begin, preemptive as ever when threatened; as he closes his office door behind us, locking it, he speaks over me:
"We've had word from Johannes and Oswald," he says, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk. I sit automatically, shocked; he is sitting in his chair behind the desk as I blurt:
"How -- where?"
"Before we go any further, Ambrose, I want you to know that I respect your reasons for wanting to leave your past behind you; I have made a point of leaving you to your business and keeping you out of certain activities in which I have asked a few of your Brothers to assist. I would never ask this of you, were it not a dire situation."
"Father, I will do anything you ask if it means getting them back here, whole. Johannes and Oswald --" I'm stumbling over my words.
"As to that," he says, holding up a hand in, what, warning? Caution? "I do not know that we can bring them back whole, if at all."
"What happened? Where are they? Were they able to find why the fires are burning unchecked? Where is the National Guard? Where is the Red Cross? Why do we just sit here when people all around us need our help?! I have been waiting and praying --" I see his eyes widen, his eyebrows raise, and I'm aware that this is more than I've said in months, perhaps years. I start to speak again, then stop.
For a long moment, there is only silence.
"I knew when you joined us that you needed more than just retreat or retirement, Ambrose. I hesitate because I think I understand your pain, but because I do not -- can not -- know what it is like for you. If I show you what we've found, I want you to understand clearly that I am not asking you to do anything about it. I am asking you for your advice only. Anything beyond that is entirely voluntary. Am I clear?"
"Yes," I say, certainty settling into my bones like a comfortable old coat. I know what my answer will be before he turns his computer monitor around and clicks play.
At first I see only people -- the backs of men in plaid flannel shirts with heavy suspenders and tough denim pants, the women in what look like a mix of American pilgrim and Hollie Hobby garb, though every one of them seems to wear some kind of bonnet or ... nurse hat?
Then one of the men turns and looks at the camera. I can hear feet shuffling on gravel and wind and some birds chirping, plus another sound -- a kind of keening shriek; like a boar in agony. There are oak trees, clearly this is local, this is East Bay chaparral, but the man who turns and looks at the camera is Brother Oswald.
"What -- ?" I start, then fall silent as Brother Oswald shifts to the left and the camera moves forward a step to two -- Brother Johannes must be recording this -- picking up the scene beyond.
A filthy, half-naked homeless man is screeching at the crowd, flinging gestures at a man on a stationary hospital gurney, tubes trailing from under the bloodstained sheets; if I couldn't see his face, I would wonder if it were a pregnant woman: he has a large belly.
I recognize this.
Not the place and people. The situation. I sit upright, all my old training clicking back into place.
The rocking, the rolling of the eyes, the moaning from the crowd. This is a cult. A cult in the beginning throes of mob ecstasy. The filthy man must be the leader, people flinch at his shrieking. His words become clear:
"...Somewhere among you he may yet lurk! This man's twin in all things, even the broken leg! This man with stolen Godspeak come to deceive you with his dark magic! She questions my power because she thinks she can! Yet you all know I hold the power of Life and Death in my hands! See! Ezekiel, bring me the White Sheet! So saith the Prophet!"
"So saith the Lord," someone behind and to the left of the camera shouts; it's echoed by a few others..
A man dressed like the rest comes running up with a clean white sheet.
"Behold! I place the sheet and he will die at my command! So saith the Prophet!"
"So saith the Lord," more people repeat. They sound unhappy.
The filthy cult leader unfurls the sheet like a sideshow charlatan over the unconscious man on the gurney, grinning and leering at the crowd. I am always surprised at what people will put their faith in. The cult leader continues to shriek:
"Lo and behold, the Prophet did see that the man and woman were Of The Devil, and he did ask Almighty God for his thundrous hand to smite them down. And God did as the Prophet asked, so saith the Prophet?!"
Then a voice comes from somewhere, loud and clear but slightly muffled:
"So saith your Mom!"
A woman's voice cries out, "Tad!"
The cult leader is derailed, turning with a start to the gurney as the man I'd thought unconscious and possibly dying whips the fresh sheet down from his face, a big grin lighting his face. Like this is all a joke, or ... more like it's performance. An act.
The crowd, though -- all of them take a step back, some of them fall to the gravel beneath their feet. A few try to leap forward, rage burning in their faces, but are restrained by others behind them. I think I catch a glimpse of Brother Louis restraining a short, balding man, but I can't be sure.
Brother Louis, I had been told, was visiting family. I turn to Father Michael as the camera turns to Brother Oswald, who scowls and gestures back toward the gurney with a jerk of his head. I save my question for later as the camera turns back and the man on the gurney ("Tad"?) calls to the cult leader:
"Hey there, fucko!" At this the leader whirls to him, like a bad little boy caught setting something on fire. The man on the gurney smiles like a celebrity and calls out, all bonhomie, "Feeling rapey?"
The leader is pointing immediately, screeching,"Tell me now how you did it and I may allow your Whore to live! Tell me how you created your double!"
Still smiling, and including the crowd in his words, the gurney man doesn't miss a beat: "Well, I can't exactly tell you that, Torvald Walter Mayberry. But I can show you, you false prophet and fucker of corpses! Would you like that, Mr. Twistydick?"
Torvald Walter Mayberry?
I stop breathing, but feel like I need to gasp.
A woman has laughed and the gurney man turns to his left, waggling his eyebrows at her, I imagine; there are people in the way, we can't see clearly who is over there.
"Yes, yes, do show us all, Foul Deceiver! Show us your Hellbane and Hemlock!"
"No hellbane and hemlock here, Torvald," says the man on the gurney.
That name again. I breathe. Can't be coincidence.
"Just good, old-fashioned know-how," the man on the gurney continues, then looks at his right arm; blood has continued to soak the sheet. He turns to his left, speaking perhaps to the same person who laughed earlier; definitely someone specific. "Do I need a tourniquet for this?"
"Yes," two women, in unison. He seems to gasp a little, or laugh quickly. I see panic under that smile. But he's putting on a good show. Ah, I see: he's being brave. He loves one of those women. Both? Is this a polygamist cult?
"Done, ladies. Honey, I love you. Hold on to that amulet."
He throws her a kiss. At least three of the women near the camera sigh. Sounds like the crowd is swayed. This feels final. I sit forward.
He whips the sheet back up over his head, he's completely covered and there's a brief shifting under the sheet.
Gunshot. Mannlicher Carcano, from the sound of it, and a bullet tears through the sheet into the man on the gurney and the woman screams but someone steps in front of Brother Johannes just as I want a clearer look at that gurney.
"Move your ass," I mutter, and am shocked when Father Michael says, "Amen."
Brother Johannes wants to see the gurney as well. He steps around the woman in front of him just as the cult leader pulls the sheet from the gurney to reveal ...
A fat, healthy rabbit. Sitting on a pile of pillows.
The cult leader is shrieking as he falls to the gravel, "Aaauuyyuuughhhhh, no bunnies no bunnies no bunnies NO! BUNNIES!"
We hear Brother Johannes gasp and half-chuckle, but a woman's voice calls out:
"Bearded Ezekiels! Nurse Rachels! NOW!"
Sudden jumbled action, fumbling of the camera (must be a smartphone).
The video ends.
I know immediately what I must do.
"Torvald Walter Mayberry," I say.
"Yes?" Father Michael is alert.
"I have his journal."
The video ends.
I know immediately what I must do.
"Torvald Walter Mayberry," I say.
"Yes?" Father Michael is alert.
"I have his journal."
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