Like People in History

by Felice Picano

  David J. looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead shrugged and went back up onstage.

  I took the discarded paper and checked my own horoscope for the day: "Disasters abound. Unpleasant news in the A.M. is followed by a P.M. disappointment. Later tonight, it's all you can do to keep body and soul together. No matter what happens, keep a cool head, and something will be salvaged."

  Wow! I thought these things were always Pollyanna-positive. This one was a complete downer.

  I scanned the other horoscopes, and several looked equally bad. As I read mine again, I felt a tiny twist inside my guts, as though something were alive in there. I recognized the sensation. I'd last felt it a few years back, swimming back to the Pines, suddenly discovering myself having to fight against a tide that seemed intent upon drawing me out to sea: fear, the beginning of unreasoning, unceasing fear.

  Was it my imagination? Or did everyone in the theater suddenly look as though they'd been suffering from food poisoning all last night? Slightly dazed, sour looks on all their faces. Even the love-struck Bernard and the normally giggly Henry looked dour.

  I watched them more closely for confirmation. Trudged up the aisle to the last rows to check Cynthia. She too looked subdued. The final proof.

  I knocked on the window to get her attention, then gestured that I was coming into the booth.

  "We've got to have a few more blue gels," Cynthia was saying through the microphone, into the headphones Henry and Bernard were wearing. Her voice had a querulous edge I'd never heard before. She remained at the board, barely acknowledging my presence. "Then try those two greens. Double them if you have to!" she insisted. She still hadn't turned to where I had perched on a stool. "I guess that'll have to do."

  From here, distant, yet within it all, I knew something was wrong. I waited another few minutes, then quietly said, "Tell me."

  When she did turn, it was clear she was trying to keep her Raggedy Ann face from squinching up, to keep her cornflower-blue eyes from tearing up. "Jeffries filed Chapter Eleven this morning."

  It hit like a punch to the solar plexus.

  "What... are you talking about?"

  "He's going bankrupt. The rent on the theater hasn't been paid yet this month. The company's going under."

  "And...," I was afraid to ask, "...the play?"

  Tears were freely coming down her cheeks. She shook her frizzy red head slowly left to right.

  "Why are they still rehearsing? Why are you still doing lights?"

  "Blasé said to keep working. Until we have to stop."

  "Everyone else knows?" I asked, already knowing the answer. Of course they knew: what else would explain the strange quiet? "Why are they still rehearsing?" I had to ask again.

  "Final paychecks arrive tomorrow afternoon. We're professionals. We work as long as we were hired to work."

  Unpleasant news in the A.M. Unpleasant? This was a... Disaster was the only word for it.

  "My play's not going to open?" I asked suddenly, and I distinctly heard the childlike quaver in my voice.

  "I'm sorry!" Cynthia smothered me in an arms-and-tits embrace.

  This couldn't happen. Not to me. It couldn't.

  I let her comfort me awhile, then pulled away.

  "I won't accept it. I don't accept it. If we keep our heads," I quoted the horoscope, "we can still salvage something. Get Blase in here!"

  Five minutes later, the actors had been given a break. I, Blaise, and Cynthia were in the lobby, Blaise on his third cigarette.

  "The play opens Friday! That's just three days from now. This is ridiculous!" I expostulated. "How much money do we need to open?"

  "What's the difference?" Blaise moaned.

  "How much?" I insisted.

  "The rent on the theater is the big cost." Cynthia quoted the amount. "A month past due. Worry about electric and phone bills when they're overdue."

  "Or, when Con Ed threatens to turn us off," Blaise said. "Okay, add to that a week's payment of salaries."

  "Defer mine," Cynthia said. "I don't need it."

  "Defer mine too," Blaise said. "Just the cast."

  "Henry will do without," she suggested.

  "What else?" I asked. "Advertisements? Flyers? Anything else?"

  The total came to three thousand two hundred dollars.

  "That much went up Jeffries's nose today!" Blaise was bitter.

  "Tell the landlord I'll have a check tomorrow," I said.

  "Since when does a teacher have that kind of money?" Cynthia asked.

  "I'll borrow on my credit cards." "You'll be in debt for years!"

  "The show must go on," I said, thinking with a sinking feeling of the interest I'd have to pay for the next few years.

  "I'm going to tell the cast you're personally going into debt to float the show," Cynthia said.

  "Don't bother!" I said. "How much for the entire run?"

  We calculated it would cost another ten thousand dollars to keep the play running the initial six weeks planned, less whatever box-office was collected, of course.

  That toned down the bit of excitement we'd managed to generate.

  "We'll figure out something," I said. "We're not licked!"

  "At least it'll open!" Blaise said what we were all thinking. "I'll tell the kids. We continue rehearsal. Open Friday. Play the weekend."

  As we were leaving, Cynthia said, "I thought you hated it?"

  "I hate more having something dangled in front of me and then having it suddenly pulled back."

  "You must like it a little."

  "A little," I admitted. Then I told Cynthia the truth. "This has little to do with the show. It's just another skirmish in a long battle between me and... Fate."

  When I returned to the theater, the sounds from inside were almost boisterous. I didn't see Cynthia in the control booth, but inside the house the actors were standing around the stage, talking and laughing. As I appeared at the top of the aisle, David J. announced, "Our savior!" and began salaaming.

  The other actors joined in bowing to me.

  "Save it for opening night!" I was surrounded and being patted on the back and kissed on the cheek from all sides. "I'm not kidding! So far we've only got the place for the weekend."

  "No problema!" David M. insisted. "We'll sell out next week."

  "The next two weeks!" Sherman agreed.

  "Hell! The entire run!" Big Janet took up the cry.

  I let them gather around and all work at cheering me and one another up. Unsurprisingly, Sal, the only admitted heterosexual in the cast, took

  me aside with a well-muscled arm over my shoulder to say, "I'll never forget this! When I make it big... which no doubt I will do, if not during this run then soon after... I'll make sure that everyone knows of your commitment and personal sacrifice."

  "It's my play, Sal." I said the obvious.

  "I know. I know. But you don't need it, man! You've got a career. You've already got a rep. We need it. Me, I need it! In this part, you know I'm going to be noticed. You knew I'd be right to play the key roles. And I know you had a hand in that."

  "Blasé and I agreed, Sal. Even Cynthia had a—"

  "But it was you! I know it was you, man," Sal insisted. "Even though you've been like completely ethical and aboveboard about it—which, believe me, not every person of your persuasion, in your position, faced with the temptation I myself offer, would be—so I just want to let you know I appreciate it and someday I'm going to pay you back."

  I wasn't sure whether Sal had in those words just thanked me for not couch-casting him, blamed me for not couch-casting him, or made a covert invitation to couch-cast him after the fact. That, and the surprising weight of Sal's muscled arm on my shoulder, suggested discretion: "Just do well opening night, okay?"

  "You're a fucking saint, man!" A close hug, and a fuller whiff of the cologne—Drakkar Noir?—Sal used to complement his own virile odor.

  A short time later, rehearsal had started up again and Blaise leaned over. "Y
ou two planning to post banns next Sunday?"

  "I'm a fucking saint, man!" I used Sal's "Bay Ridge" tone.

  "How about the money?"

  "In my checking account, thanks to Miss MasterCard and Lady Visa."

  "The landlord's number. He's expecting to hear from you."

  "Didn't you tell him I'd have a certified check for him?"

  "He wants to hear it from your own pearly lips. Seems he trusts college teachers' words. He won't even take a theater person's check."

  "He must have had a positive experience with higher education," I said and loped up the aisle to the lobby.

  Jaime from the Pearl Theater Company up the street was shouting in Spanish into the receiver. When he spotted me, he toned down and said, "Ours is broken. You mind?"

  After a few minutes of Jaime's alternate wheedling and swearing into the receiver, I decided I would not stick around but instead use the other phone. Back through the house, past the stage, where some piece of action was being rehearsed, with Blaise, Cynthia, Bernard, and Henry all watching from different rows, behind the curtain.

  The theater's wall telephone was in use, its line wound into the smaller of the two dressing rooms, the door ajar. I didn't intend to overhear, but simply meant to look in and ask whoever was on the phone—who could it be? the entire cast was out front—if he or she would be long.

  Thus it happened that as I moved toward the slightly open door, I heard the words, even before I understood them or realized who was speaking:

  "...a ridiculous farrago supposedly linking various allegedly important moments of homosexual history of the past century. Period. Next paragraph. The playwright, comma, a history professor, comma, and author of the book upon which this absurd assemblage of purported theater is based, comma, hasn't a clue how to build drama throughout a single scene, comma, never mind an act, comma, never mind the evening. Period. An unqualified failure. Period. New paragraph. The cast is surprisingly adequate, comma, given the dearth of material they have. Period. But surely the author must have had a hand in ensuring that the strongest and most sensitive roles in his dramatic abortion are trounced by one Salvator Torelli, comma, a mesomorph of superficial attractions, comma, straight out of the Neanderthal school of masculinity and the early Tony Curtis school of acting. Period. Doubtless, there is more than meets the eye to Mr. Torelli, comma, although he manages to arrange his crotch often enough during the play to suggest exactly what that is. Period. And doubtless, comma, our author best knows precisely what that is. Period. Next paragraph. The direction by Blaise Bergenfeld is good, comma, the sets and lighting by Cynthia Lomax are exceptional. Colon. The only exceptional thing in this god-awful production. Period. Next paragraph..."

  From even this narrow a slit, I could see Sydelle Auslander alternately making flourishes with and puffing on a (forbidden) cigarette, while wildly swinging one crossed leg, and that she gave other kinds of physical evidence that she was thoroughly enjoying her dictation: smiling, chortling, fixing her hair in the mirror. Obviously that's what this was: a pre-review for the one magazine where she'd not managed to alienate every single member of the staff. And while the review wouldn't run for a week, still, it was a stunningly bad review—a hurtfully bad review.

  I felt a sort of hot knot in the pit of my stomach. Not the fear I'd experienced before, but some primal tearing apart from within. I tried to keep myself calm, tried to tell myself that no one of any importance read the magazine, or for that matter, read Sydelle Auslander, and that it couldn't affect the play's run, really. But even so, the knot began to unravel and with it a rage that had lain hidden for years.

  I had to get away from that voice, that smugly swinging leg...

  I turned to leave and faced Cynthia Lomax.

  She was holding onto a scrim lath, staring at me—no, beyond me, at the open doorway, through which both of us could clearly hear Sydelle dictating "...comma, suggest Bob Jeffries stick to the Mike Todd Room, comma, where he's far better known lately than in the theater, comma, and where his money is wasted to no better effect. Period."

  I didn't know what to make of the look on Cynthia's little-girl face; it was so very very blank.

  Unsure what to say, what to do, I stood there, might have stood there a good deal longer, but I heard a tiny gurgling sound in Cynthia's throat. And this, I told myself, is the sound of the rest of the body recognizing the fact that its heart has just been broken.

  I could have, possibly should have, raced past her, stumbling and catching myself on a lintel as I charged out of the backstage area and into the house, half falling across the stage steps and barreling up the aisle and out of the theater, unable to think anything—but I'd been ill-used already today, and I moved slowly.

  Cynthia sketched the air in peroration with one embarrassed hand. As I reached the curtain I heard Sydelle step out of the little room. Two beats followed, then I heard her say, "So you've both been spying on me."

  It was time to see Matt. Matt would listen, comprehend all the terror and beauty—and calm me down. He always did.

  The room was unoccupied. Joe Veselka had gone back into Intensive Care a few days before, and Raimundo had come in for a few days, then,

  surprisingly, had been released. The bed nearest the hallway was unmade, sheetless, coverless, the curtain tied back, the entire area ready for a new patient. But Matt wasn't in his bed either, although his section of the room was more evidently lived in, so brightly lighted the dirty gray afternoon didn't have a chance of creeping in over the plants atop the windowsill. A little disappointed, I sat down, straightening out the bed sheets. As I did, one of them seemed wet. I touched it. Sopping! I looked through the lower shelf of the bedside table and found clean sheets. I stripped the bed, as well as the pillowcase, feeling little stabs of anxiety. This was, after all, a strong indicator of night sweats, which were by no means a good sign. I wasn't aware that Matt had been getting night sweats here. It made me wonder even more where Matt had gone to. Or had he been taken somewhere?

  Before I could become crazy with worry, I sat down. That was when I noticed the bathroom door shut. I heard sounds behind the door. Odd sounds. So odd that...

  Matt was shirtless, barely standing up, in fact supporting himself on the bathroom sink. His head was bent over, his face contorted, throat visibly moving up and down, his skin both wet and dry: marbleized.

  "Didn't hear you come..."

  He dribbled liquid, turned, spasmodically retched into the basin.

  I held him by a shoulder, the skin burning, the fleshless joint almost pure anatomy. In the toilet were Matt's previous attempts.

  "Lunch?" I asked.

  "Could... n't eat... lunch."

  It must have been breakfast. The tall, unsteady body lurched against me, until I held it still. "You done?"

  "'Kay."

  Terror scrimmaged across the skin on my face and hands. Matt was so out of control. In my hands now. "Let's get you to bed."

  And once his body had been managed into the room near the bed and flung against the new sheets: "Thanks." Matt took a few seconds, then touched the sheets, realized they were fresh. "Thanks."

  "Forget it!" I said wise-guy to hide my total, extreme fear now of dealing with a suddenly very sick Matt. I'd never seen Matt, never seen anyone, like this. I had to find a nurse, a doctor—someone who knew what to do. "You're burning up! What's your temperature? Has anyone been here recently?"

  "It's high. They're all busy."

  "I don't care if they're busy. You're too hot. I'm going to find a resident."

  "No, wait! Don't go!" Matt held me in a surprisingly tight grip. After a minute, he again said, "Thanks."

  "Okay, I'll stay a minute. But only if you use a thermometer and if..." I managed to extract four cubes from the pitcher of ice water, knotted them loosely in a cloth napkin to go on Matt's forehead. I got out four more and began rubbing Matt's face and neck and chest with them. "When's the last time anyone saw you today?"

  "Before
lunch. That's nice. They've been busy... emergencies and..." Matt half sat up, and his neck and face twitched spasmodically in his attempt to vomit. Despite the wad of tissues I instantly held up to his mouth, nothing came out. Not even a dribble. "Everyone... had an emergency today," Matt managed to continue.

  "You're not so great yourself. Don't talk. As soon as we cool you down..."

  The ice cubes against Matt's skin melted as though against an August sidewalk. I reached for more.

  "Where's your little oxygen tube? There it is."

  His temperature was 103.4.

  "It's been a hundred three all day," Matt confirmed.

  "That's not good. We've got to get you cooled down. An ice pack and some kind of antibiotic." I looked around for an IV rack, for a nurse passing by—for anyone, anything! And as Matt tugged at me: "Don't worry. I'll stay and cool you down. I said I would!"

  A few minutes later, that ice was gone too. I switched to an alcohol rub. That seemed to work a bit, as Matt began to cool down and his body to relax, until it almost seemed as though he would fall asleep again. Was that good or not? I wasn't sure. The body did need rest. What if he began to sweat again? I needed to find someone to tell me what to do.

  An orderly blundered a few feet into the room with a wheeled gurney. Saw his error, withdrew.

  "Wait!" I was up instantly. "My friend has fever. He needs a nurse."

  Just then the hospital paged, "Dr. Heart. Dr. Heart. Fourth floor!" I knew the code—someone was having a heart attack.

  The orderly looked up at the source of the voice. "All day, man! No nurses anywhere!"

  "Can you help me? Find an ice pack? A blanket with coolant inside?"

  It took a few more sentences to explain, but the guy seemed to understand and took off.

  Matt's eyes were closed.

  I'd take the chance. Unfortunately, both Matt and the orderly had been right. The nurses station was empty. Not a doctor, not a nurse.

  The ice cubes on Matt's head were melting now. Matt's arms were reaching out for me. I eluded them, then easily held them down at Matt's side, rubbing more alcohol over his entire body.

  When that was gone and Matt was still not much cooler or relaxed into sleep, I hit the hallway again. Still no one at the nurses station. Where the hell did they keep ice packs? I began throwing open closet doors, anything not locked. A woman went past using a walker, almost incurious. Where was the orderly? I looked back in the room. Matt had turned on one side, knocking off the ice pack. I charged back to the nurses station. Someone was there: that young resident, shuffling through papers.