The Talent Show

by Dan Gutman

  There were few smiling faces, and no laughter. Old friends hugged one another, relieved to see that the other was still alive.

  Some people came to ask questions, to get advice, to see neighbors, or just to vent their anger. Some came for a Friday night out. It was something to do, and it didn’t cost anything.

  Reverend John Mercun, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church, greeted everyone as they lumbered up the steps.

  “Maybe God didn’t intend for people to live here, Pastor,” said Honest Dave.

  “God protected us, Dave,” Reverend John assured him. “Nobody died.”

  Usually, it was Mayor Rettino who ran the town meetings. But on this night, she sat quietly on the stage with the other local politicians. There were no prepared speeches. Nobody wanted to take ownership of a natural disaster. It was left to the chief of police, Officer Michael Selleck, to tell everyone to take a seat and call the meeting to order.

  A microphone had been set up in the front of the auditorium. People began lining up to wait their turn to speak. First in line was Bill Potash, the father of Don, the young Seinfeld fan.

  “I rebuilt my house three times,” he said before the microphone produced some squealing feedback. “Now it’s gone. There’s nothin’ left. My truck is wrecked. The insurance doesn’t cover tornadoes. We’re living with my sister’s family. And we’re lucky to have ’em. But why is it always us? How much am I supposed to take?”

  There were murmurs of sympathy through the auditorium.

  Bill Potash wasn’t expecting anyone to have a satisfying answer for him. He just wanted to say it out loud. Tears in his eyes, he went back and sat down next to his wife and son.

  Honest Dave was next in line.

  “I may have to shut down Hummer Heaven,” he announced. “Nobody’s buyin’ big cars anymore. How am I supposed to sell anything when everybody wants to go fifty miles on a gallon of gas, and all I can give them is sixteen? I didn’t see this coming. I guessed wrong, and now people are laughing at me.”

  “Nobody’s laughing at you, Dave,” somebody called from the audience.

  Mary Marotta, the PTA mom who was making sandwiches in her kitchen when the tornado hit, stepped up to the microphone.

  “If folks like you move out, we lose our tax base,” she said to Honest Dave. “Fewer businesses means we have fewer places to shop. People move away. Then the schools start shutting down because there aren’t enough kids. Then families don’t move here because the schools aren’t good. And then we become a ghost town. Don’t leave, Dave.”

  “That’s right,” somebody hollered.

  The crowd was mainly adults, but some kids came with their parents: Paul Crichton, Julia Maguire, Richard Ackoon, Elke Villa, and Don Potash, to name a few. Mostly, they sat quietly and listened. None of them knew anything about tax bases, insurance, or any of that financial mumbo jumbo. They just knew their parents were hurting.

  Don fantasized for a moment about getting up at the microphone and lightening the mood by telling a few Seinfeld jokes he had memorized. But he was shy about talking in front of people, and he was afraid it might be too soon after the tornado for humor. From studying comedy, he had learned that it took years before people could handle jokes about national tragedies, like assassinations and September 11.

  The next person in line at the mic was a short man who had come with just one simple question he wanted to ask.

  “I want to know what are we supposed to do now?”

  He was looking in the direction of Mayor Rettino. He wasn’t the only one.

  Lucille Rettino avoided making eye contact with the man. She fidgeted in her seat, wondering why the worst tornado in Cape Bluff history had to happen on her watch. She was at the end of her first term as mayor, and she was the first female mayor in the town.

  Born and raised in Cape Bluff, she knew everybody, and everybody liked her. Most people didn’t even know if she was a Republican or a Democrat. It didn’t matter. Mayor Rettino cared about everybody and seemed to be just about everywhere, cutting ribbons to open a new store, giving out trophies at the Little League banquet, and always stopping to say hello to people on the street. She was instantly recognizable because of her silver hair and red clothes. Always red. She thought that would make people remember her, and it did.

  But on this night, Mayor Rettino didn’t want people to look at her. She was out of ideas anyway. How do you get people to cheer up when they know there will always be another tornado, another recession, another company that decides to move its factory to China?

  Paul Crichton, the young guitarist who had been playing “Stairway to Heaven” in his basement when the tornado hit, stood up. He was a good-looking, confident boy and, unlike most kids, he had no problem with standing up to speak in front of a bunch of grown-ups. Paul made his way down to the front of the auditorium and got in line. After a few more grown-ups had their say, it was his turn.

  “My name is Paul,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m a fifth grader at Cape Bluff Elementary School. We’re studying American history right now, and if I learned one thing, it’s that when we get knocked down, we get up again. Chicago was burned down by a fire in 1871. San Francisco was destroyed by an earthquake in 1906. Both towns were rebuilt and they became great American cities. Shouldn’t it be the same here? We’ll rebuild. That’s what we do. Neighbors help neighbors. We all hang together, or we all hang separately. That’s what Benjamin Franklin said. That’s the American way, right?”

  “You tell ’em, Paul!” somebody shouted from the back.

  There was polite applause and a few “yeah”s as Paul went back to his seat. But there was no great enthusiasm. It wasn’t like in the movies, when the coach gives the stirring halftime pep talk and the team charges out of the locker room all pumped up.

  An old man took the microphone.

  “You got good intentions, and I like that,” he said to Paul. “But you’re a kid. I’ve lived in this town for more than fifty years, and I’ve seen it all. It’s easy to say let’s rebuild. Let’s start over. That’s fine for you. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. But I don’t want to start over. I’m tired of starting over every few years. It’s not like I got some magic fairy dust I can sprinkle around and make my barn come back. These things cost money.”

  His confidence gone, Paul shrank down in his seat and tried to look small. His mother put an arm around him and whispered that it took a lot of courage to get up and say what he did in front of so many people. She was proud of him.

  Nobody else was in line at the microphone. There was an awkward silence.

  “May I say a few words?”

  Everybody swiveled in their seats to see where the booming voice came from. Jon Anderson, the principal of Cape Bluff Elementary School, stood up. He didn’t need a microphone.

  Mr. Anderson didn’t look like a principal. Barely thirty years old, he had been a fifth-grade teacher for eight years in Pennsylvania, and then went to graduate school in Oklahoma to get a master’s degree. When the Cape Bluff principal died suddenly a year earlier, Anderson applied for the job and was surprised to get it.

  “Go for it, Jon,” somebody shouted.

  “I’m new around here, as you know,” Principal Anderson said. “I haven’t lived through what you folks have experienced. I mean no disrespect, and I don’t have a solution to your problems. I don’t even know that there is a solution. But I just had a crazy idea.”

  “This I gotta hear,” somebody muttered.

  “Why don’t we put on a talent show?” Principal Anderson said.

  For the first time, smiles appeared on faces. There was some laughter, too, and heads shaking in disbelief. A buzz of muffled conversation filled the room.

  “What?!”

  “Did he just say we should put on a talent show?”

  “… you kidding me?”

  “… lost his marbles.”

  “I’m serious,” Principal Anderson said.

  One of t
he older residents, a farmer, stood up.

  “This is no time to be putting on a show,” he said. “This town is flat on its back. Have some sense, boy.”

  A few heads nodded in agreement.

  “Actually,” Principal Anderson said, turning to face the old man, “I think this is the ideal time to put on a show. Paul is right. This town will rebuild, because that’s what people do. But I propose that we do something more. I think we need something to take our minds off what happened to us. We need something to give this town a lift. Get us excited about something. Have a little fun. They had a yearly talent show at my old school, and it was always a huge success.”

  Principal Anderson sat back down. His wife patted him on the back. The auditorium was filled with muted discussions.

  “I think a talent show is a great idea,” said Julia Maguire, the fourth grader who had been stuck at her ballet school when the tornado hit.

  “It could be like American Idol!” said Richard Ackoon, the young rapper.

  The energy level in the room kicked up a notch. People started shouting out ideas without bothering to line up at the microphone.

  “We can give a prize to the winner… .”

  “We can use it as a fund-raiser to help repair the school library.”

  “How are ya gonna make money on a talent show?”

  “We’ll sell tickets.”

  “… shoot a video and sell it.”

  “… put it on YouTube …”

  “… sell refreshments.”

  “I’ll bake a cake.”

  “… print a program and sell ads in it.”

  Mayor Rettino had been silent up until this time. She liked what she was seeing—people getting involved. The spark of enthusiasm. She could ride that. Finally she stood up and went over to the microphone.

  “It’s an interesting idea, Mr. Anderson,” she said, “but what are the costs? Have you thought about the budget to put on a show? If you give away a decent prize to the winner, that costs money. If you want to do a show right, you’re going to want to have professional quality sound and lighting. That would set us back around three thousand dollars right there. Then you’ve got to print programs, and tickets. It all costs money.”

  Principal Anderson nodded his head. He hadn’t really thought the idea through.

  A man in the back of the room stood up.

  “Mayor,” he said, “My name is Laurent Linn. I own Infinity Sound & Lighting Company on Montague Street. I just wanted to say that if you folks put on a talent show, I’ll donate my equipment and services for the night. I want to see Cape Bluff get back on its feet, like everybody else.”

  Mr. Linn got a nice round of applause, and took a bow.

  “Heck,” he added. “I don’t have any business anyway, since the tornado.”

  Honest Dave stood up. Nobody was going to out-donate him.

  “Tell you what I’m gonna do, Mayor,” he said. “For the grand prize, Honest Dave’s Hummer Heaven is gonna donate a brand spanking new Hummer!”

  “Oooooooooooooooh!”

  “How do you like them apples?” Honest Dave added.

  “Uh, I hate to break it to you, Dave,” Mayor Rettino said, “but children are not legally allowed to drive. What good is a car to a kid?”

  “Hey, I sell cars,” Honest Dave said, throwing his hands in the air. “That’s what I do. Give me a break. If you don’t want the Hummer—”

  “We’ll take the Hummer!” Principal Anderson shouted quickly. “We’ll take the Hummer!”

  After that, some other local businesspeople jumped up. The owner of CopyCat Copy Shop offered to print the programs and tickets for free. A local photographer said she would shoot and edit a video of the show. Several moms volunteered to bake brownies, cookies, and cupcakes to be sold in the lobby. Just about every cost could be covered by somebody willing to make a donation. There was a sense of excitement in the auditorium.

  Chief of Police Selleck felt the crowd was getting a little out of hand. He went to the front and took the microphone.

  “Excuse me,” he said, commanding the room’s attention instantly. “There’s just one problem with this idea of putting on a talent show. No offense, but where are you gonna get the talent? You can’t have a talent show without talent.”

  There was a murmur of conversation, and Officer Selleck continued.

  “I mean, let’s face it, folks, this town hasn’t had any real talent since Justin Chanda left.”

  Everyone in Cape Bluff knew about Justin Chanda, even if they never met him. A local kid, he started a teeny-bopper boy band named Pendulum Dune while he was still in high school. The group played its first gig right in the auditorium where they were sitting. After their debut album sold ten million copies, Justin left the group and became a hugely successful solo rhythm and blues artist. He hadn’t been back to Cape Bluff since high school. That was ten years ago. He moved his parents to Los Angeles so they would be closer.

  Principal Anderson stood up again.

  “I beg to differ, Chief Selleck,” he said. “I know of at least one young lady at Cape Bluff Elementary School who’s got a voice like an angel. Her name is Elke Villa. I’ve heard her sing. She’s remarkable.”

  Principal Anderson didn’t realize that Elke was sitting right there, in the fourteenth row, next to her mother. Mrs. Villa beamed. Elke, who had been singing in the shower when the tornado hit, tried to be invisible. She knew she had a good voice. She could tell because whenever she opened her mouth to sing, people would stop what they were doing and stare at her with angelic looks on their faces. She kind of liked the attention, and at the same time, it was a little embarrassing. Her face flushed red. Elke wasn’t even sure if she would enter a school talent show.

  “So we put on a talent show for just one kid?” Officer Selleck asked, as if Elke wasn’t sitting there. “We might as well just hand her the keys to that Hummer right now.”

  “That’s right!” somebody agreed.

  Paul Crichton, his confidence surging again, hustled down the aisle to grab the microphone.

  “If you ask me, this town has plenty of talent,” he said. “Nothing against Elke, but I think my band The BluffTones would give her a run for the money in a talent show.”

  “Ooooooh!” rumbled the crowd. Everybody loves a challenge.

  Elke turned around in her seat to look at Paul. He was one grade below her at school. They had talked a few times, but barely knew each other. She didn’t like the idea of a younger kid suggesting he was better than her.

  “There are a lot of other talented kids in this town too,” Paul said. “And by the way, I’m twelve, and that Hummer can sit in our driveway for four years until I’m old enough to drive it. No problem.”

  Mayor Rettino banged the gavel a few times to restore order in the auditorium.

  “Before we decide any course of action,” she said, “does anybody have any other ideas they would like to propose at this time?”

  Silence. And then a man wearing a cowboy hat stood up.

  “How about we turn Cape Bluff into a sorta living tornado museum?” he suggested. “We can charge folks to come in and see the damage. Like, five bucks a head.”

  More silence. You could almost hear crickets chirping.

  “So,” Mayor Rettino said, “if I understand you correctly, sir, you suggest that instead of rebuilding Cape Bluff, we just live amongst the rubble indefinitely so people can look at it?”

  “Yeah, somethin’ like that,” the man said. “Tourists are comin’ here now to see the devastation, right? Over the long term, we make money off ’em. And it’ll be educational, too. Folks will learn about the destructive force of nature.”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Officer Selleck said, “ that’s just about the dumbest idea I ever heard.”

  “I say we put it to a vote!” shouted Honest Dave Gale.

  “I second that,” said Bill Potash.

  Slips of paper were passed across the auditorium from
row to row. People fumbled in their pockets and purses looking for pens and pencils.

  “Mark down a T if you think we should put on a talent show,” Police Chief Selleck announced, “and mark down an R if you want to charge people to come look at our rubble.”

  It took about twenty minutes to gather up all the slips of paper and tally the results. Mayor Rettino stepped up to the microphone to make the announcement.

  “Okay, we have six hundred and seventy-nine votes for a talent show,” she said, “and one hundred twenty-one votes for a rubble museum.”

  The audience erupted in applause and cheering.

  “Well,” said Officer Selleck, “it looks like we’re putting on a show.”

  Chapter 4

  Get Your Act Together

  “People try to put us d-d-d-d-down …”

  Paul Crichton came charging two steps at a time up to the front entrance of Cape Bluff Elementary School the next Monday morning. He had his iPod turned up way too loud. But when you’re listening to “My Generation” by The Who, you have to play it full blast.

  Before he yanked open the door, Paul saw this flyer taped to it …

  GET READY TO BOOGIE!!!

  Do you think you’ve got talent?

  PROVE IT!

  Think you don’t?

  THINK AGAIN!

  Mark your calendar for

  the Cape Bluff Elementary School

  Talent Show to be held on

  FRIDAY, MARCH 29 at 7 p.m.

  right here in the

  multipurpose room.

  The Talent Show will feature

  acts of all kinds by our very own

  grade 3–6 students. The grand

  prize is a brand-new Hummer H3T

  pickup (thanks to Honest Dave’s

  Hummer Heaven). The theme of

  the talent show is “The Beach,

  ” but you do not HAVE to perform

  to the theme.

  Auditions will be held this Friday

  after school in the multipurpose

  room. Be there or be square! GET

  YOUR ACT TOGETHER! We will

  also need people to work on the

  stage crew.

  Paul pumped his fist and made a mental note to call a band meeting after school.