Tamburlaine: A Broadway Revival
Page 25
He turned and faced Jericho: “You’re some fucking savior now? You’ve saved the old queen? Is that it? Fine. You’ve fulfilled your mission.” He wiped the spittle from his lips.
“Chris. No.” Jericho pulled Chris to him.
Chris resisted, but felt himself softening, giving in, feeling those strong, lithe arms enfolding him, smelling Jericho: Ivory soap and sweat and cigarettes? No, smoke and char.
“You are here. You have survived,” said Jericho.
A rush of emotions, mixed with tears and snot and words flowed from him. He told Jericho everything in a flood, into his ear, while Jerry rubbed his back and squeezed him toward him. Ingram. Nancy Ann. Liz to Elmer to Liz. The Folgates. Eleonore Bull. His Son. The Paintings. The Stock. The Streetwalkers. The Insurance. The pain of Jericho walking out again. All the while, Jericho held him, hugged him, let him be until finally, after a moment of heaving silence, Jericho created a bit of distance between them. With a dishtowel, he wiped away the tears and snot and makeup. His face held a sympathetic smile.
“You have survived. All the details are just details. You are here. You have survived. You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
Chris turned away, took out mugs, poured coffee, and placed the mugs on the table. He sank into a chair, a long, lung-emptying sigh escaped his parted lips. “I have survived. For what?”
“No one ever knows the answer to that question.” Jericho sat, took a sip of hot coffee. “Some say they know, but no one knows. Not really.”
They drank coffee.
Nancy Ann came into the kitchen. “Oh, hello.”
“Hi,” said Jericho.
She filled a coffee cup and took a seat at the table. “You said I owned the place? Tamburlaine?”
“Yes,” said Chris.
“So, we rebuild. Are you in, Chris?”
After the briefest of hesitations, he answered, resigned: “Yes.”
“Jericho?” she asked.
“As you wish.”
Nancy Ann held up her mug to toast. “To Liz.”
Chris didn’t raise his mug. “No. If we do this, we do it for us. No promises to the dead. No commitments to the past. If we rebuild, we do it for the future.”
Jericho smiled. Nancy Ann raised her cup again. The three clinked their mugs. “To Tamburlaine.”
About Rusty Warren
Knockers Up!
Rusty Warren is lusty, gutsy, and r-r-r-r-r-Rusty!
Rusty graduated from high school in Milton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and went on to study classical piano and voice at the New England Conservatory of Music. As one of their outstanding students, Rusty performed under the baton of Arthur Fiedler. Rusty Warren started with “Moonlighting” gigs in small niteries in the Boston area and in the “Borscht Belt” hotels in the Catskill Mountains during the summer.
In 1954 in Chicago, Rusty got around to the raw and raucous. Her material came from the naught to naughty. It was hot and hilarious entertainment. Rusty opened her show with “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” and supplied some inside information on the saga of “Frankie and Johnny.” Rusty and her entire company of audience then marched and sang and rose their “Knockers Up!” A commentary ran right through the entire performance. No comment. Each song was done in a manner that can only be described as r-r-r-r-r-Rusty and she closed with “You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Loves You.”
“If you’re queasy or uneasy, if you like your comments breezy, Knockers Up! If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, if you’re winking or just blinking, Knockers Up! If you think this all will rock you, even socks you where it shocks you, you’re right!”
If you are anything like the cult that gathered to hear her every night, you’ll laugh and laugh and laugh. If you’ve heard “Songs for Sinners,” you know. If you haven’t, well then?
Basically, Rusty’s act was designed for the women in the audience. Her favorite targets were young, dating couples. “Look, sweetie, take my advice. Don’t give him any before you get married. Don’t give him any at all. Just give it to his friends and let them tell him how good it was.”
Inevitably, the men in the audience came in with their escorts for their share of her barbed one-liners. “A few nights ago, a fellow ran into the club and said to me, ‘Rusty, I want you in the worst way.’ The worst way I know is standing up in a hammock. Have you tried it?”
While she can call herself “a brazen broad with no boobs who likes to joke about sex and expound my theories on the floor of the house,” there is a serious side to Rusty, as well. “I like helping inhibited females enjoy themselves and I don’t say anything at night that people don’t do in the daytime. I’m not an intellectual or a ‘sickie.’ Maybe the thing that some people object to the most is that I’m too healthy. Well, it’s all in fun and usually I get as much of a kick out of it as the audience.”
The late Sophie Tucker advised the copper-haired Rusty many years ago: “Always have the courage to say what you want to say. Few women do.” It was a time when Tucker reigned as a singing queen of America’s nightclubs and Warren was just getting started. Rusty’s first album came in 1958, Songs for Sinners. Three years later she taped Knockers Up! and had a hit. “My purpose,” she said demurely, “is to get Mr. and Mrs. America rolling on the floor.” Some of the titles of Rusty’s 15 big-selling albums include Knockers Up!, Rusty Rides Again, Banned In Boston, SIN-Sational, In Orbit, Rusty Warren Bounces Back, Sexplosion, Bottoms Up!, Songs for Sinners, Knockers Up ‘76, and Sex-X-Ponent.
Rusty, now age 87, is retired and spends her time between sunny California and tropical Hawaii. She does interviews and comes out of retirement for special appearances. She personally autographs the items sold on her website and emails her fans through the website and her Facebook page. She is still known as the “Mother of the Sexual Revolution” because she was one of the brave women who spoke out at a time when woman were trying to break out of their stereotypical roles and demand equality with men. She was the voice for women encouraging them to stand up for equality. She used her humor to educate, illuminate, and make us laugh at ourselves. It was a time of sexual freedom and exploration and saying out loud that “women liked sex.” Today, Rusty can still be heard saying, “Everybody get your Knockers Up!!” and promotes love and laughter.
Learn even more (and shop!): http://rustywarren.com.
Acknowledgements
No man walks alone. So many have helped me pursue and improve my craft. Love and thanks to Todd Isbell, you make all things possible. Thanks go to my editor, Leslie Hoffman. You make everything I write look better. I appreciate the critiques received from members of the Henderson Writers’ Group. Further thanks for critique and feedback go to Paul Atriedes, Roger Storkamp, Bill Walles, Darlien C. Breeze, Tonya Todd, Nancy Sansone, Ellen Dugan, and Bonnie Apple. A very special thanks to Liz Rizzo (for all you do!) and Rusty Warren.
This project is funded, in part, by a grant from the Nevada Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
About the Author
Gay-Contemporary author, Gregory A. Kompes (MFA, MS Ed.) writes and teaches writing in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he lives with his husband. Learn more at Kompes.com.