Attack of the Theater People

by Marc Acito

  “I’ve got an old one I can tape over.” Damn, it’s not stopping.

  “Did you change the batteries?”

  “I just put them in.” I’m going to look like I’ve had a tracheotomy.

  “Did you check to make sure the recorder’s working? ’Cuz sometimes you can put the batteries in upside down and—”

  “For God’s sake, leave me alone. I’m bleeding to death.”

  Natie hovers restlessly, tapping Morse code on the doorjamb.

  “I’ll just check,” he says.

  Hung lives in Chelsea, a neighborhood where the men make eye contact even after they’ve passed each other. I’m surprised more of them don’t get run over or fall down manholes. Hung’s building is a tatty walk-up like mine, with the word fuck graffitied on the front door, as if it were a business name.

  I climb the stairs to the fifth floor, ring the bell, and a small Asian woman answers the door. She has lustrous shoulder-length hair and wears a navy blue Chanel-type suit with red piping and white buttons. The kind of outfit you’d expect Anita Bryant to wear to a DAR luncheon.

  “Helloh,” she says.

  It’s Hung.

  I’m not sure how to respond, so I say hi and try to be culturally sensitive by asking if I should take off my shoes.

  “By all means,” he says, “and everything else.”

  I give a curt, no-teeth smile. Teeth only encourage people.

  “Seriously,” he says, “how else do you expect me to dress you?”

  I look around the apartment, which is possible to do from the doorway, as it’s only one room, as tall as it is wide, painted traffic-cone orange and decorated like it was ransacked by Cossacks. Everywhere you look there’s fabric, feathers, beads, hats, and shoes. The stifling atmosphere is exacerbated by the steam heat, which is so tropical the window is wide-open.

  “Don’t be shy,” he says. “At the Les Miz fittings they have to get naked because everyone wears this baggy nineteenth-century underwear. You should see those guys flopping around onstage. They should call it Les Missiles.”

  I take off my coat, draping it on the shoulders of a dresser’s dummy, and remove my sweater.

  “So?” Hung says, twirling. “Whaddya think of my outfit?”

  “You look very…pretty.”

  “And witty and gay. I know. Don’t you recognize the dress?”

  I smooth my hair, which is all staticky from the sweater. “Should I?”

  “Honestly, what kind of gay man are you?” He plops a wide-brimmed white hat on the back of his head. “Here’s a hint.” He sings:

  “Diamonds, daisies, snowflakes…”

  He pauses.

  “That Girl?” I say.

  “Yes!” he says, jumping up and down. “It’s an exact copy of the outfit Marlo Thomas wore in the opening credits. I made it myself.” He puts his arm around me and gestures with the other toward some unseen horizon, the way people do in musicals before a number about how we’re gonna do it, just you and me.

  “Scene: a lonely Gaysian boy arrives in Houston in the summer of 1975, knowing no English. He’s a resourceful lad, as clever as he is attractive. While his parents are at work, he engages in an English tutorial by watching syndicated reruns: Green Acres, I Love Lucy, The Flying Nun, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched. All burgeoning feminist mythologies about independent, misunderstood women thwarted by the confines of their surroundings. Women with dreams and ambition and false eyelashes. But of all the rerun heroines, only one manages to escape the stifling expectations of her bourgeois upbringing.” He pauses again.

  “That Girl?”

  Hung hugs himself. “From that summer on I wanted to move to New York, get completely overdressed, and fly a kite in Central Park.”

  I take off my jeans first, because my legs look better than my chest. “Is that what you’re doing today?”

  “Of course not, silly. I’m going with you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t pop the head, Cassie. You said you needed an assistant.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. At Ziba’s. You asked for my help.”

  “With a disguise.”

  He grabs my pants.

  “Fine. Go in your underwear.”

  “B-b-but…”

  He dashes across the room and dangles my jeans out the window.

  “No!” I cry.

  “Can I go?” he asks.

  “Hung, that’s not fair.”

  He drops them onto Eighth Avenue.

  Twenty-six

  The party is being held at the Limelight, a deconsecrated church turned disco, and one of the city’s hottest spots. I suppose it’s an odd choice for a brokerage house, but Sandra suggested it because of the video screens.

  The line goes down the block, every man uniformed in a wool coat with his neck exposed. What is it about straight guys and scarves? It can be so cold your snot freezes, yet businessmen, politicians, and newscasters wear those useless felt handkerchiefs, if they wear scarves at all. Don’t they get cold? If so, it seems a silly thing to get macho about.

  Of course, I’m hardly in a position to criticize clothing choices, dressed as I am in a big, swoopy stole, a vast kimono-like jacket with bat-wing sleeves, and the kind of wide, stiff collar you put on dogs to keep them from biting themselves. My face is obscured by an enormous white fright wig, a huge pair of Elton John sunglasses, and a scrubby Vandyke, also white. I look like a character out of Dr. Seuss. The Zazou. (“Can you Zazou? Me, too!”)

  “Remember,” I say to Hung as we pull up in the taxi. “You’re my Japanese art dealer.” Who, for mysterious Asian reasons, feels compelled to dress as That Girl.

  “Sorry again about your jeans,” he says. “I forgot about that tree.”

  I open the door to the taxi, saying a silent prayer to Saint Jude. We step out into the frigid air and head straight to the door, if Hung can ever be said to head straight to anything. Ignoring the jeers of the waiting crowd, I walk right up to Hector and Javier, guarding the entrance.

  “I hev arrived,” I say, pronouncing the last word like I’m spitting up a hairball.

  Hector consults his list. “And you are…?”

  “I am Zazou!” I huff. “Ze artiste.”

  “You got a Zazou?” he says to Javier. “I don’t got a Zazou.”

  “Zees eez absurd,” I say, like I’m going to slap him across the face with a glove. “Do you not know ’oo I em?”

  He doesn’t have time to answer because there’s a whoosh of sound behind me. I turn and a man with a snowy white beard emerges from a limousine like Santa stepping out of his sleigh. The crowd erupts in delight.

  It’s Rich Whiteman.

  Whiteman smiles and waves just like he did when he landed on the deck of the Europa. Businessmen with exposed necks swarm toward him to bask in his reflected glory.

  Which gives me an idea.

  As Whiteman and his entourage approach I throw out my arms in welcome, crying, “Ree-shaaaaaahrt.” Whiteman flinches, not an unreasonable reaction when encountering a dandelion with attitude, then grasps my hand with the automatic friendliness of someone who meets too many people to remember them.

  “Nice to see you,” he says. (Translation: “Who the hell are you?”)

  “And you, as well,” I say, air-kissing each cheek.

  My credibility established, we sweep in the door as if on a wave.

  I can hardly see the interior of the club through my sunglasses, but it feels like a looted church filled with marauding pirates. Except these pirates are former frat boys in khakis and Gucci loafers.

  While we check our coats, Hung mutters, “Do you know who we just walked in with?”

  “Sure. Rich Whiteman.”

  “Don’t you realize who he is?”

  “Some banker from Texas.” Behind him, a large screen displaying a car commercial obscures a stained-glass window.

  “Rich Whiteman is one of the biggest backers of th
e Moral Majority,” Hung says, unpinning his hat. “He went on The 700 Club and said if God hadn’t invented AIDS, he would’ve.”

  “That’s awful,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Hung says. “I’m thinking trunk of the car, duct tape, cement shoes. You’re from Jersey. Surely it can be arranged.” He removes his white gloves and puts them in his purse.

  I peer around the room and reconsider whether my disguise was a good idea. With free booze, big-screen football, and Sandra’s best-looking female motivators, why would Chad be interested in the freak with the hay bale on his head?

  I peek over my glasses and see Chad working the room, gliding through the crowd like the best skater at Rockefeller Center. Even on a Sunday he’s starched and creased, as if his oxford and khakis had been constructed around him.

  He stops to say hello to Rich Whiteman, who may or may not know him, and I wish I’d brought Gavin along to read their lips. As Hung and I make my way across the floor, snippets of conversation waft past:

  “Nine and a half? That’s fuckin’ givin’ it away.”

  “You’re gonna pay a premium.”

  “Fuck video. The future is in laser discs.”

  “So I told that bagel over at Goldman to stick a dreidel up his ass.”

  “He’s very senior.”

  “You call that piece of shit a vacation home?”

  “That’s a statistical aberration.”

  “Me likey that Asian chick.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, that bitch’s lawyer has got my dick in a vise.”

  “And the sergeant says, ‘Actually, sir, they usually just ride the camel into town.’”

  I lose sight of Chad in the throng. I lower my glasses to get a better look when I hear a voice behind me that sounds like a chimp stapling its hand to the floor.

  “Hey! Hey!”

  I keep walking.

  “Hello-oh?”

  I feel a tap at my sleeve. I turn and there’s Sandra, looking at me as if I had a bomb strapped to my chest.

  “Who the fuck are you and why are you here?” she says. Actually, that’s what her expression says. Her mouth says, “Hi.” But it says it in a way that sounds like she’s going to ask us to leave or else she’s calling security.

  “I’m Sandra Pecorino, the party planner.”

  And I’m screwed.

  “I em Zazou. Ze artiste. But, of course, you know zat.”

  I glance around, looking for exit signs.

  “Oh! Of course,” she says, “I’m a huge fan.”

  She doesn’t recognize me.

  I gesture to Hung. “Zees eez my dealer from Japan.” Hung gives that intake of breath that precedes an ebullient homo hello. “Unfortunately, she speaks no English.”

  Hung’s mouth purses like he’s got something stuck in his teeth.

  “So,” Sandra says, “what brings you here today?”

  “Ze Concorde.”

  She laughs. I laugh. Hung continues to sulk, his face like a cat’s ass.

  “I em, how do you say in English, an investor. And I adore ze footbull américain.”

  Sandra laughs again. “Who doesn’t?”

  I know that sound. That’s the sound of sucking up. The laugh of flattery. I am two feet away from her and she believes I am who I say I am. What’s more, I believe it. It’s as if Etienne Zazou’s wig, sunglasses, and beard transfuse his essence into my system. I don’t need to push or show that I’m a famous mixed-media artist. I just am—or, in this case, em. Is this what was supposed to happen in mask class?

  We exchange pleasantries about Paris, which I’ve never visited, and I’m so in character that Sandra doesn’t seem to notice I don’t know what an arrondissement is. Finally she asks if she might take a picture.

  “Bien sûr,” I say, finally putting my high school French to good use.

  She lifts a walkie-talkie to her mouth. “Where’s the damn photographer? I’ve got a photo op here.” She turns back to us, giving a nervous laugh. “I’ll be right back.”

  The moment she’s gone Hung says, “You could’ve let me have a line, you know.”

  “Come on,” I mutter. “Let’s find Chad before she gets back.”

  “Don’t you want your picture in the paper?”

  “I’ve had enough publicity.”

  I can’t see shit with these sunglasses, so I suggest we head upstairs to the choir loft to do reconnaissance. As we emerge from the narrow stairs into the balcony, I see that someone else is already doing the same—with a camera.

  It’s Dagmar.

  Twenty-seven

  Naturally, my instinct upon seeing my ex-stepmonster is to run screaming in the opposite direction. Instead I plunge into the empty deejay booth, pulling Hung in with me.

  “Hallo?” Dagmar calls.

  We hold our breath. I can tell because Hung’s lying on top of me.

  Another voice answers, “I hope I’m not intruding.”

  It’s Chad. He must have come up the other side.

  “Not tat tall,” Dagmar says.

  Silence. I imagine them each giving smoldering film noir looks.

  “A beautiful woman like you ought to be in front of the camera, not behind it,” Chad says.

  “I vas, in tse past. But now I am too olt.”

  Hung sticks out his tongue like he’s gagging.

  “I prefer a woman with experience.”

  As the crowd below cheers the Giants, I imagine myself a sports announcer: There’s the pass….

  “Vat kind of experience do you like?”

  “What kind are you offering?”

  He’s running with it….

  “I didn’t say I vas.”

  “You didn’t say you weren’t.”

  Look at him go!

  “Chad Severson.”

  “Chat Severson? I am Dagmar Teufel. I used to verk at Brooks Brothers.”

  The TV in my mind suddenly goes black.

  “Oh, yeah,” he says. “We talked on the phone, right? About, uh”—he snaps his fingers—“what’s his name…?”

  “Edvard Tsanni.”

  “Right. I saw something about him in the paper, didn’t I?”

  Liar. Phony. Jerk.

  “I thought he verked for you,” Dagmar says.

  It suddenly occurs to me that he might say something worth taping. I try to reach my recorder, but I’m trapped underneath That Girl.

  The tape, I mouth to Hung.

  What? he mouths back.

  I flick my eyes at my chest. The. Tape.

  Meanwhile Chad says, “I tried to help him out. He’s a troubled kid.”

  Prick. Slimeball. Sleaze.

  “Tsat boy belongs in chail. Ach, tse tings I could tell you about him.”

  Hung slips his hand inside my jacket…

  “Really?” Chad says. “Why don’t you—over dinner?”…he grasps the tape player…

  “There’s this sweet place on Seventieth and Lexington. I know the chef. How about this Saturday?”

  …he presses the button…

  “I vould like tsat.”

  …and my chest suddenly screeches…

  I’VE GOT TO BE WHERE MY SPIRIT CAN RUN FREE, GOT TO FIND MY CORNER…OF THE SKY.

  Hung and I both make a mad scramble to turn it off. Outside the booth I hear Chad say, “What the hell is that?”

  With lightning speed, Hung hikes up his skirt and starts bucking his hips like he’s riding me, shouting:

  “FREE ME, ETIENNE, FREE ME!”

  Chad and Dagmar appear and I freeze, a deer in the headlights. A strange, French deer with troll-doll hair. Hung, on the other hand, doesn’t waste a second. Leaning over, he thrusts his face in mine and gives me a thorough dental exam with his tongue.

  “Oh! Zo zorry,” Dagmar says.

  Hung whirls around. “Well, you ought to be,” he says, or something approximating that, because he has a mouthful of white facial hair in his teeth.

  Chad scowls. “What the fuck?”

 
I push Hung off of me and struggle to my feet, my sunglasses falling to the floor. “Excusez-moi,” I say. Then, grabbing Hung by the hand, I dash for the stairs.

  The last thing I hear is Dagmar saying, “Who vuz Tsat Girl?”

  I lie awake that night, obsessing about Chad and Dagmar and what she could tell him about me. What if Natie’s wrong? What if she finds a way to nail me for embezzling that ten grand I stole from her in high school? Or, worse, goes to Lizzie and Judith and starts stirring up trouble? It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. She’s capable of anything, particularly when she’s hopped up on steroids for her allergies. By morning I’ve convinced myself that she’s doing everything in her malevolent power to ensure that I spend my life picking up trash on the side of the highway. I won’t rest until I know what they talk about on their date. Actually, I won’t rest until I can produce some evidence for the SEC by Friday the thirteenth. No, I won’t really rest until I’m completely in the clear, have found a way to pay for Juilliard, and convinced the faculty to let me come back.

  Then I’ll relax.

  In the meantime, I turn to the only person who can help me. Tuesday night I go to the box office of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre and ask to speak to Gavin O’Casey.

  The box office woman sighs, clearly annoyed. Broadway box office people never seem happy about anything. They’re like the tollbooth attendants of the theater world. Without leaving her perch, she leans over and opens a little Hobbit door, muttering instructions.

  While I wait, I scan the cast list of Big River to see if there’s anyone I know, a little game I play to torture myself. Either I feel shitty because I don’t know anyone in the cast, which means I’m obviously a nobody; or I feel shitty because I do know someone, which means I’m obviously a nobody. I have enough self-awareness to know how destructive I’m being, but I can’t help myself. I’m a hostage to my feelings.

  Eventually Gavin pops his head through the gold metal doors, his tangled seaweed curls flopping over his wide, amphibious eyes. “Ouch,” he says, referring to my black eye.

  “You should see the other guy,” I say. “Not a scratch.”

  Not to get metaphysical about it, but there’s a particular energy to an empty theater. How could there not be? Audiences at the Eugene O’Neill have laughed at eight Neil Simon comedies, wept at the original production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, and jeered at one of the most notorious flops in recent memory, Moose Murders, a play so bad Frank Rich said its dialogue was only improved by its inaudibility. All of those experiences get trapped in the dusty theater air, which I inhale as if my life depended on it, breathing in as many magic moments as human biology will allow, then exhaling, leaving an invisible part of myself for future audiences.