by John Irving
It was as good a production as Nils Borkman had ever directed for the First Sister Players. I have to admit that Aunt Muriel was excellent as Alma; it was hard for me to imagine that Miss Frost could have matched Muriel in the repressed area of my aunt's agitated performance.
Beyond prompting the child actors in the prologue, my mom had nothing to do; no one muffed a line. It is fortunate that my mother had no further need to prompt anyone, because it was fairly early in the play when we both spotted Miss Frost in the front row of the audience. (That Nana Victoria found herself sitting in the same row as Miss Frost perhaps contributed to my grandmother's concussed appearance; in addition to suffering her husband's scathing portrayal of a shrewish wife and mother, Nana Victoria had to sit not more than two seats away from the transsexual wrestler!)
Upon seeing Miss Frost, my mom might have inadvertently prompted her mother to crap in a cat's litter box. Of course, Miss Frost had chosen her front-row seat wisely. She knew where the prompter had positioned herself backstage; she knew I always hung out with the prompter. If we could see her, my mother and I knew, Miss Frost could see us. In fact, for entire scenes of Summer and Smoke, Miss Frost paid no attention to the actors onstage; Miss Frost just kept smiling at me, while my mother increasingly took on the brained-by-a-two-by-four expressionlessness of Nana Victoria.
Whenever Muriel-as-Alma was onstage, Miss Frost removed a compact from her purse. While Alma repressed herself, Miss Frost admired her lipstick in the compact's small mirror, or she applied some powder to her nose and forehead.
At the closing curtain, when I'd run offstage, shouting for a taxi--leaving Muriel to find the gesture that implies (without words) both "wonder and finality"--I encountered my mother. She knew where I exited the stage, and she had left her prompter's chair to intercept me.
"You will not speak to that creature, Billy," my mom said.
I had anticipated such a showdown; I'd rehearsed so many things that I wanted to say to my mother, but I had not expected her to give me such a perfect opportunity to attack her. Richard Abbott, who'd played John, must have been in the men's room; he wasn't backstage to help her. Muriel was still onstage, for a few more seconds--to be followed by resounding and all-concealing applause.
"I will speak to her, Mom," I began, but Grandpa Harry wouldn't let me continue. Mrs. Winemiller's wig was askew, and her enormous falsies were crowded too closely together, but Mrs. Winemiller wasn't asking for ice cream now. She was nobody's cross to bear--not in this scene--and Grandpa Harry needed no prompting.
"Just stop it, Mary," Grandpa Harry told my mother. "Just forget about Franny. For once in your life, stop feelin' so sorry for yourself. A good man finally married you, for Christ's sake! What have you got to be so angry about?"
"I am speaking to my son, Daddy," my mom started to say, but her heart wasn't in it.
"Then treat him like your son," my grandfather said. "Respect Bill for who he is, Mary. What are you gonna do--change his genes, or somethin'?"
"That creature," my mother said again, meaning Miss Frost, but just then Muriel exited the stage. There was thunderous applause; Muriel's massive chest was heaving. Who knew whether the wonder or the finality had taken it out of her? "That creature is here--in the audience!" my mom cried to Muriel.
"I know, Mary. Do you think I didn't see him?" Muriel said.
"See her," I corrected my aunt Muriel.
"Her!" Muriel said scornfully.
"Don't you call her a creature," I said to my mother.
"She was doin' her best to look after Bill, Mary," Grandpa Harry (as Mrs. Winemiller) said. "She really was lookin' after him."
"Ladies, ladies . . ." Nils Borkman was saying. He was trying to ready Muriel and Grandpa Harry to go back onstage for their bows. Nils was a tyrant, but I appreciated how he allowed me to miss the all-cast curtain call; Nils knew I had a more important role to play backstage.
"Please don't speak to that . . . woman, Billy," my mom was pleading. Richard was with us, preparing to take his bows, and my mother threw herself into his arms. "Did you see who's here? She came here! Billy wants to speak to her! I can't bear it!"
"Let Bill speak to her, Jewel," Richard said, before running onstage.
The audience was treating the cast to more rousing applause when Miss Frost appeared backstage, just seconds after Richard had left.
"Kittredge lost," I said to Miss Frost. For months I had imagined speaking to her; now this was all I could say to her.
"Twice," Miss Frost said. "Herm told me."
"I thought you'd gone to New Hampshire," my mom said to her. "You shouldn't be here."
"I never should have been here, Mary--I shouldn't have been born here," Miss Frost told her.
Richard and the rest of the cast had come offstage. "We should go, Jewel--we should leave these two alone for a minute," Richard Abbott was saying to my mother. Miss Frost and I would never be "alone" together again--that much was obvious.
To everyone's surprise, it was Muriel Miss Frost spoke to. "Good job," Miss Frost told my haughty aunt. "Is Bob here? I need a word with the Racquet Man."
"I'm right here, Al," Uncle Bob said uncomfortably.
"You have the keys to everything, Bob," Miss Frost told him. "There's something I would like to show William, before I leave First Sister," Miss Frost said; there was no theatricality in her delivery. "I need to show him something in the wrestling room," Miss Frost said. "I could have asked Herm to let us in, but I didn't want to get Herm in any trouble."
"In the wrestling room!" Muriel exclaimed.
"You and Billy, in the wrestling room," Uncle Bob said slowly to Miss Frost, as if he had trouble picturing it.
"You can stay with us, Bob," Miss Frost said, but she was looking at my mom. "You and Muriel can come, too, Mary--if you think William and I need more than one chaperone."
I thought my whole fucking family might die on the spot--merely to hear the chaperone word--but Grandpa Harry once more distinguished himself. "Just give me the keys, Bob--I'll be the chaperone."
"You?" Nana Victoria cried. (No one had noticed her arrival backstage.) "Just look at you, Harold! You're a sexual clown! You're in no condition to be anyone's chaperone!"
"Ah, well . . ." Grandpa Harry started to say, but he couldn't continue. He was scratching under one of his falsies; he was fanning his bald head with his wig. It was hot backstage.
This was exactly how it unfolded--the last time I would see Miss Frost. Bob went to the Admissions Office to get his keys to the gym; he would have to come with us, my uncle explained, because only he and Herm Hoyt knew where the lights were in the new gym. (You had to enter the new gym, and cross to the old gym on the cement catwalk; there was no getting into the wrestling room any other way.)
"There was no new gym in my day, William," Miss Frost was saying, as we traipsed across the dark Favorite River campus with Uncle Bob and Grandpa Harry--not with Mrs. Winemiller, alas, because Harry was once more wearing his lumberman's regalia. Nils Borkman had decided to come along, too.
"I'm interested in seeing gives-what with the wrestling!" the eager Norwegian said.
"In seein' what gives with the wrestlin'," Grandpa Harry repeated.
"You're going out in the world, William," Miss Frost said matter-of-factly. "There are homo-hating assholes everywhere."
"Homo-assholes?" Nils asked her.
"Homo-hating assholes," Grandpa Harry corrected his old friend.
"I've never let anyone into the gym at night," Uncle Bob was telling us, apropos of nothing. Someone was running to catch up to us in the darkness. It was Richard Abbott.
"Increasin' popular interest in seein' what gives with the wrestlin', Bill," Grandpa Harry said to me.
"I wasn't planning on a coaching clinic, William--please try to pay attention. We don't have much time," Miss Frost added--just as Uncle Bob found the light switch, and I could see that Miss Frost was smiling at me. It was our story--not to have much time together.
Having Uncle Bob, Grandpa Harry, Richard Abbott, and Nils Borkman for an audience didn't necessarily make what Miss Frost had to show me a spectator sport. The lighting in the old gym was spotty, and no one had cleaned the wrestling mats since the end of the '61 season; there was dust and grit on the mats, and some dirty towels on the gym floor in the area of the team benches. Bob, Harry, Richard, and Nils sat on the home-team bench; it was where Miss Frost had told them to sit, and the men did as they were directed. (In their own ways, and for their own reasons, these four men were genuine fans of Miss Frost.)
"Take your shoes off, William," Miss Frost began; I could see that she'd taken off hers. Miss Frost had painted her toenails a turquoise color--or maybe it was an aqua color, a kind of greenish blue.
It being a warm June night, Miss Frost was wearing a white tank top and Capri pants; the latter, in a blue-green color that matched her toenail polish, were a little tight for wrestling. I was wearing some baggy Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt.
"Hi," Elaine suddenly said. I hadn't noticed her in the theater. She'd followed us to the old gym--at a discreet distance behind us, no doubt--and now sat watching us from the wooden running track above the wrestling room.
"More wrestling," was all I said to Elaine, but I was happy my dear friend was there.
"You will one day be bullied, William," Miss Frost said. She clamped what Delacorte had called a collar-tie on the back of my neck. "You're going to get pushed around, sooner or later."
"I suppose so," I said.
"The bigger and more aggressive he is, the more you want to crowd him--the closer you want to get to him," Miss Frost told me. I could smell her; I could feel her breath on the side of my face. "You want to make him lean on you--you want him cheek-to-cheek, like this. Then you jam one of his arms into his throat. Like this," she said; the inside of my own elbow was constricting my breathing. "You want to make him push back--you want to make him lift that arm," Miss Frost said.
When I pushed back against her--when I lifted my arm, to take my elbow away from my throat--Miss Frost slipped under my armpit. In a split second, she was at once behind me and to one side of me. Her hand, on the back of my neck, pulled my head down; with all her weight, she drove me shoulder-first into the warm, soft mat. I felt a tweak in my neck. I landed at an awkward angle; how I fell put a lot of strain on that shoulder, and in the area of my collarbone.
"Imagine the mat is a cement sidewalk, or just a plain old wood floor," she said. "That wouldn't feel so good, would it?"
"No," I answered her. I was seeing stars; I'd never seen them before.
"Again," Miss Frost said. "Let me do it to you a few more times, William--then you do it to me."
"Okay," I said. We did it again and again.
"It's called a duck-under," Miss Frost explained. "You can do it to anyone--he just has to be pushing you. You can do it to anyone who's being aggressive."
"I get it," I told her.
"No, William--you're beginning to get it," Miss Frost told me.
We were in the wrestling room for over an hour, just drilling the duck-under. "It's easier to do to someone who's taller than you are," Miss Frost explained. "The bigger he is, and the more he's leaning on you, the harder his head hits the mat--or the pavement, or the floor, or the ground. You get it?"
"I'm beginning to," I told her.
I will remember the contact of our bodies, as I learned the duck-under; as with most things, there is a rhythm to it when you start to do it correctly. We were sweating, and Miss Frost was saying, "When you hit it ten more times, without a glitch, you can go home, William."
"I don't want to go home--I want to keep doing this," I whispered to her.
"I wouldn't have missed making your acquaintance, William--not for all the world!" Miss Frost whispered back.
"I love you!" I told her.
"Not now, William," she said. "If you can't stick the guy's elbow in his throat, stick it in his mouth," she told me.
"In his mouth," I repeated.
"Don't kill each other!" Grandpa Harry was shouting.
"What's goin' on here?" I heard Coach Hoyt ask. Herm had noticed all the lights; the old gym and that wrestling room were sacred to him.
"Al's showing Billy a duck-under, Herm," Uncle Bob told the old coach.
"Well, I showed it to Al," Herm said. "I guess Al oughta know how it goes." Coach Hoyt sat down on the home-team bench--as close as he could get to the scorers' table.
"I'll never forget you!" I was whispering to Miss Frost.
"I guess we're done, William--if you can't concentrate on the duck-under," Miss Frost said.
"Okay, I'll concentrate--ten more duck-unders!" I told her; she just smiled at me, and she ruffled my sweat-soaked hair. I don't believe she'd ruffled my hair since I was thirteen or fifteen--not for a long time, anyway.
"No, we're done now, William--Herm is here. Coach Hoyt can take over the duck-unders," Miss Frost said. I suddenly saw that she looked tired--I'd never seen her look tired before.
"Give me a hug, but don't kiss me, William--let's just play by the rules and make everyone happy," Miss Frost told me.
I hugged her as hard as I could, but she didn't hug me back--not nearly as hard as she could have.
"Safe travels, Al," Uncle Bob said.
"Thanks, Bob," Miss Frost said.
"I gotta get home, before Muriel sends out the police and the firemen to find me," Uncle Bob said.
"I can lock up the place, Bob," Coach Hoyt told my uncle. "Billy and I will just hit a few more duck-unders."
"A few more," I repeated.
"Till I see how you're gettin' it," Coach Hoyt said. "How 'bout all of you goin' home?" the old coach asked. "You, too, Richard--you, too, Harry," Herm was saying; the coach probably didn't recognize Nils Borkman, and if Coach Hoyt recognized Elaine Hadley, he would have known her only as the unfortunate faculty daughter who'd been knocked up by Kittredge.
"I'll see you later, Richard--I love you, Elaine!" I called, as they were leaving.
"I love you, Billy!" I heard Elaine say.
"I'll see you at home--I'll leave some lights on, Bill," I heard Richard say.
"Take care of yourself, Al," Grandpa Harry said to Miss Frost.
"I'm going to miss you, Harry," Miss Frost told him.
"I'm gonna miss you, too!" I heard Grandpa Harry say.
I understood that I shouldn't watch Miss Frost leave, and I didn't. Occasionally, you know when you won't see someone again.
"The thing about a duck-under, Billy, is to make the guy kinda do it to himself--that's the key," Coach Hoyt was saying. When we locked up with the growingly familiar collar-ties, I had the feeling that grabbing hold of Herm Hoyt was like grabbing hold of a tree trunk--he had such a thick neck that you couldn't get much of a grip on him.
"The place to stick the guy's elbow is anywhere it makes him uncomfortable, Billy," Herm was saying. "In his throat, in his mouth--stick it up his nose, if you can find a way to fit it up there. You're only stickin' his elbow in his face to get him to react. What you want him to do is overreact, Billy--that's all you're doin'."
The old coach did about twenty duck-unders on me; they were very fluid, but my neck was killing me.
"Okay--your turn. Let's see you do it," Herm Hoyt told me.
"Twenty times?" I asked him. (He could see that I was crying.)
"We'll start countin' the times as soon as you stop cryin', Billy. I'm guessin' you'll be cryin' for the first forty times, or so--then we'll start countin'," Coach Hoyt said.
We were there in the old gym for at least another two hours--maybe three. I had stopped counting the duck-unders, but I was beginning to get the feeling that I could do a duck-under in my sleep, or drunk, which was a funny thing for me to think because I'd not yet been drunk. (There was a first time for everything, and I had a lot of first times ahead of me.)
At some point, I made the mistake of saying to the old coach: "I think I could do a duck-under blindfolded."
/>
"Is that so, Billy?" Herm asked me. "Stay right here--don't leave the mat." He went off somewhere; I could hear him on the catwalk, but I couldn't see him. Then the lights went out, and the wrestling room was in total darkness.
"Don't worry--just stay where you are!" the coach called to me. "I can find you, Billy."
It wasn't long before I felt his presence; his strong hand clamped me in a collar-tie and we were locked up in the surrounding blackness.
"If you can feel me, you don't need to see me," Herm said. "If you've got hold of my neck, you kinda know where my arms and legs are gonna be, don'tcha?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"You better do your duck-under on me before I do mine on you, Billy," Herm told me. But I wasn't quick enough. Coach Hoyt hit his duck-under first; it was a real head-banger. "I guess it's your turn, Billy--just don't make me wait all night," the old coach said.
"Do you know where she's going?" I asked him later. It was pitch-dark in the old gym, and we were lying on the mat--both of us were resting.
"Al told me not to tell you, Billy," Herm said.
"I understand," I told him.
"I always knew Al wanted to be a girl." The old coach's voice came out of the darkness. "I just didn't know he had the balls to go through with it, Billy."
"Oh, he has the balls, all right," I said.
"She--she has the balls, Billy!" Herm Hoyt said, laughing crazily.
There were some windows surrounding the wooden track above us; an early-dawn light gave them a dull glow.
"Listen up, Billy," the old coach said. "You've got one move. It's a pretty good duck-under, but it's just one move. You can take a guy down with it--maybe hurt him a little. But a tough guy is gonna get up and keep comin' after you. One move won't make you a wrestler, Billy."
"I see," I said.
"When you hit your duck-under, you get the hell out of there--wherever you are, Billy. Do you get what I'm sayin'?" Coach Hoyt asked me.
"It's just one move--I hit it and run. Is that what you're telling me?" I asked him.
"You hit it and run--you know how to run, don'tcha?" the old coach said.
"What will happen to her?" I asked him suddenly.
"I can't tell you that, Billy," Herm said, sighing.
