by John Varley
"I would not for the world they saw thee here." Kissing him again. "I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight; and, but thou love me, let them find me here: my life were better ended by their hate than death prorogued wanting of thy love." And so, into the sex scene.
Yes, I hear you, all you purists out there. What can I say? Given my own druthers, I'd druther do it the traditional way, too. Passionate kisses, doe-eyed looks. But the public demands realism—especially in a backwater like Brementon—and that's what they get.
Or that's what they were supposed to get. A minute into the naked embrace, I began to wonder if Romeo had read the same script I had. His bud of love, which by summer's ripening breath should by then have proved a beauteous flower, had proved too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say, It lightens. In a word, impotency.
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, thy love has proved likewise variable.
When I had a chance to reflect on it later, the reason for his trouble was obvious. It's the obvious problems most people overlook. Romeo had an odd sexual quirk. He was a dedicated heterosexual.
I realize they're common enough in the general population, but they are rare in the thespian community. Hell, I'm practically one myself, except on the stage. Perhaps that's why no one really understood that when it came to the sticking point, as it were, his will would fail him. None of us really understood the serpentine logic of his particular perversion.
As a male hetero, he could only get aroused by a female. And though I now gave every evidence of that gender, he had known me as Mercutio, and that's what I stayed, in his mind.
I can laugh at it now. It's become one of those theatrical disaster stories we all love to tell each other, like the prop telephone that rings at the wrong time. (Solution? Pick it up, listen for a moment, then hold it out to your worst enemy and announce, "It's for you.")
There was nothing funny about it at the time.
You wouldn't have known it from the audience reaction, however. They were laughing. It's one of the worst sounds you can hear in my business: laughter when you haven't made a joke.
But if you're getting laughs, it's best to keep getting them until you figure out what else to do. Rising from the bed and stalking naked around the stage, I became Kate, shrew of Padua.
"Nay, then, I will not go today. No, nor tomorrow, nor till I please myself. The door is open, sir; there lies your way. You may be jogging while your boots are green; for me, I'll not be gone till I please myself. 'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom, that take it on you at the first so roundly." Suiting action to the word, a frustrated woman trying to please herself.
Romeo sat disconsolately on the edge of the bed, hunting The Taming of the Shrew for an appropriate comeback. He looked up at me. "Why does the world report that Juliet doth limp?" he said. "O slanderous world!"
We tossed lines back and forth for a while. The laughter gradually faded—not because they were taking us seriously, but because we could stretch this situation only so far. I had no idea how to salvage it.
Suddenly Romeo jumped from the bed. He embraced me with one arm, his free hand rubbing his buttocks. And I felt his interest begin to rise.
Dee had procured a drug banned on most worlds because of extreme hazard to the male recipient: they often hurt themselves attempting sexual congress with electric light sockets and household pets. She had crawled under the bed and jabbed a needle right through the foam rubber.
"Now, Juliet," he said, "I am a husband for your turn. For by this light, whereby I see thy beauty—thy beauty that doth make me like thee well—thou must be married to no man but me. We will have rings, and things, and fine array. And kiss me, Ka—Juliet, we will be married on Sunday."
And so, at long last, to bed. Where he performed like a trouper and, as if in an effort to make up, tried to jump me again while we were singing the second verse of "Tonight."
* * *
And at long last, a scene I wasn't in.
While Romeo poured out his heart to Friar Lawrence (and, this performance only, tried to hump the Friar's leg), I staggered back to my dressing room with a full ten minutes to change back to Mercutio. And who should I find there but Dahlia Smithson, by now neither rich jewel, fair sun, nor snowy dove. I'd say she was closer to an envious moon, sick and pale. That which we call a rose would smell of gin. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! See how her eyes, twinkling in their spheres, bulge from her head as she points to me and says, "What the fuck are you doing in here, in my costume?"
She bent over and threw up on the floor.
Well, it wasn't my problem, was it? I opened the door and yelled for Larry. Then I sat at the mirror and did what I'd have been doing with or without Dahlia's reappearance: I turned myself back into Mercutio.
* * *
Dahlia Smithson was the only name with any star power in our motley cast. She was a fading star (you can't drink that much, miss that many shows, without entering a steady and inevitable decline), but her name above the titles of our little repertory was all that had drawn the working capital for this marathon mission to bring culture to the hinterlands. Did Larry have the nerve to fire her? Not a chance.
So I sang, "Farewell, ancient lady, farewell—lady, lady, lady," left the Nurse with Romeo, and hurried backstage with three or four minutes to perform my penultimate Capuletization—not knowing if it would be needed, half hoping it wouldn't.
At first it seemed the problem had solved itself. Dahlia was stretched out on the couch, limp as Romeo's willie. Larry, lavender with terror, and Dee, purple with rage, were both tiptoeing around the room.
And Dahlia demonstrated the true resilience of the longtime alcoholic by springing from her resting place and shrieking like something out of Act One of the Scottish play. She was getting her second wind.
"You can't do this to me, you pusillanimous toad," she cursed. "And you! You ridiculous old ham! How dare you stab me in the back like this? Can't get a starring role any other way but stealing it from your betters, is that it? You polymorphous, talentless, scenery-chewing, ass-kissing sorry excuse for a has-been actor! I'll get you. I'll show you, all of you." She stormed from the room, but her voice drifted back. "I'll get you all!"
"And your little dog, too!" I cackled. Dee laughed nervously, but not Larry. He sank into a chair, eyes staring blindly into the distance, where I don't doubt he saw his profits flying. Well, really. Has-been actor, indeed!
* * *
I stumbled through the end of Act Two, re-Mercutivated myself, and shambled out into the public square to meet my doom. By then I was a little delirious with the pain. I began to see an actual dusty street in Verona swimming in and out of view. I think it was the one from the Zeffirelli production. I frankly think I outdid myself in the swordplay that followed. I damn sure gave a hell of a performance after I was stabbed. I looked down at my wound—not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve—and realized that in the confusion I'd forgotten to have the target area numbed. In one side and out the back the sword had gone, and damn me but the sucker hurt!
"Help me, Benvolio," I said, "or I shall faint. A plague on both your houses! They have made worm's meat of me." And never, dear hearts, were those words uttered in a more heartfelt manner.
Some artists can only work when all is calm about them. I seem to thrive on disorder. The worse things get, the more strongly my craft asserts itself. By Act Four I was solidly in the role. I was Juliet. Cast members began to come up to me in the wings and whisper encouragement and congratulations. It meant very little to me; I was living the next scene already.
But at one point I did become aware of a tall, broad-shouldered man holding out a piece of paper to Dee, who was looking at it and shaking her head. He moved on to Friar Lawrence and Paris, who were awaiting their entrance. Paris frowned at the paper, shrugged and shook his head, and went on. The fellow drifted ov
er to me.
"Excuse me," he said, in a voice like sandpaper on a bass fiddle. "I'm looking for a man by the name of Kenneth C. Valentine."
"And who might you be?"
He produced a private detective's license which alleged his name was Manuel P. Garcia, and that he was authorized by the principality of Brementon—an autonomous region of the great Outland Free State—to issue bail bonds, apprehend fugitives, conduct investigations, carry a nonnuclear weapon, and in general skulk, lurk, pussyfoot, slink, creep, and lie in ambush. What it really meant was he'd been thrown off the Brementon police force and was eking out a living the only way he knew how.
"Is he in trouble again?" I asked.
"I just need to talk to him, lady. Do you know where he lives?"
"Right now, in the same hotel with the rest of us. Look, I'm sort of busy here. But I know who might be able to help you." I grabbed my makeup bag from its emergency perch in the wings and rummaged through it. "His name is Dowd. Elwood P. Dowd. Here, let me give you one of his cards." I handed it to him. "Now if you want to call him use that number, not this one. That number is the old one. Or you can hang around for the curtain. I'm sure Mr. Valentine will show up then."
I went out on the stage, fuming. God alone knew what Sparky Valentine had been up to this time. He was always in trouble of one sort or another. Having him hauled off into court would cause the production a lot of trouble.
* * *
"Yea, noise?" I whispered. I felt a steely resolve building within me. I could barely see for the tears streaming down my face. "Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger! This is thy sheath." I plunged it into my breast. "There rest, and let me die." I collapsed across Romeo's prostrate body and felt the total relaxation of death steal over me. God, was I good.
I could actually hear sobs from the audience, that group of tough, semiliterate Outlanders. Well, it may be the saddest story ever told. It's been making people weep for six hundred years.
Could real death be any more peaceful than this? Could an actor get so far into a role as to actually die onstage? I'm not saying I felt death, but I had been so deep in Juliet that some reasonable imitation had taken me. I did not want to open my eyes. I did not wish to get up. When the curtain came down they had to lift me off of Romeo and carry me into the wings.
I was alive enough to take my bows. They'll have to screw me into a real coffin before I miss that. The applause was deafening.
* * *
Unfortunately I wasn't able to stick around for the second curtain call. I hurried up the stairs to the dressing room, where Elwood had my trunk already packed. We wrestled it into the elevator and rode up to the weightless, centrifugal hub, took a moving beltway to a taxi dock, and a taxi to the spaceport, where a high-gee was boosting for Pluto in one hour.
It was a nervous hour, but soon I could see Brementon dwindling on the ship's rear screen, and relaxed for the first time since the curtain rose.
For you see, I am K. C. Valentine. But call me Sparky; all my friends do.
* * *
Judy was hollering something about Brick and Skipper, so Punch shouted back.
"You shut up or I'm gonna hit you with this crutch!"
But Judy never shuts up. So Punch started whaling away.
That's not the way it's written, but sometimes you have to punch up a play here and there if it lacks action. For a long time I'd stuck faithfully to the classical Punch and Judy repertoire, putting on everything from The Brigand Chief to Vendetta, or The Corsican's Revenge. After you've spent three or four weeks staring up Judy's skirt at her wide, flat butt, you get a little desperate to try some new material.
Now Maggie was shouting something about no-neck monsters, which didn't sit well with Dixie. They began to tussle back and forth across the stage. Judy got the upper hand and flung Dixie out into the audience. (I could see fifteen people through the peephole in the curtain; it was the best I'd done all day.)
Even if I could have held my hands above my head for three hours, no one but vagrants was going to stick around that long. Street theater is meant to be performed for people with a little time to kill while going from one place to another. Thirty minutes is about tops. Fifteen is a lot better. So Henry VI parts one, two, and three was right out. A Midsummer Night's Dream had gone over fairly well, as had King Lear. The critics had been cool to Cyrano, for some reason; with all the swordplay, I'd thought it a natural. All the above had needed a little pruning here and there, of course. But my last performance had left me a little cool to the Bard. I moved on to musical comedy. It turned out Punch and Judy were naturals at it. The children loved the songs, and the adults liked the jokes. I began alternating My Fair Lady with Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and managed to keep myself diverted for two weeks.
"I'm not dyin' of cancer, Gooper. It's nothing but a spastic colon."
"Of course not, Big Daddy. Have you made out your will yet?"
That's right. It was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with Punch and Judy as Brick and Maggie, the Devil as Big Daddy, the Crocodile as Big Mama, Toby the Dog as Gooper, and Hector the Horse as Sister Woman. And featuring Tennessee Williams as Man Spinning in Grave. Don't cry for me, Mississippi.
* * *
I don't know how many times Punch and Judy have saved my bacon. For an itinerant thespian, the skills of the Punchman can be a heaven-sent alternative to a life of crime, or worse, honest work.
It costs nothing. I have carefully preserved in my trunk six character heads made for me many years ago by a fan. But I make new ones regularly from papier-mache, the ingredients for which can be mined from garbage bins behind any large food store. For paints, go to a flea market, engage an artist in conversation, and soon you will have the use of a palette and brushes. Costumes can be made from scraps begged from a dressmaker, or scrounged from dustbins, if you're handy with a needle and thread. Any actor who is not handy with a needle and thread needs to get out and see the real world more often.
There is a standard plastic packing crate you will locate easily if you haunt the delivery ways backing a mall. Sticks or stiff wire will make a frame to support the box above your head. Cut a hole in front, paint the proscenium with gay finials, arabesques, and dadoes. Now attach the curtain to the bottom edges of the box. If you can't find enough scraps, use your bedroll. Presto! You've just made a castelli, or swazzle-box, which, if you didn't know, is a curtained enclosure the size of a shower stall, with the Punch and Judy stage above it.
As my father used to say, "If you've got some ham, play Hamlet."
And I'd reply, "If you lay an egg, scramble it."
Thus we dined on many a meal of ham and eggs. And in the process, I learned how to make something out of nothing.
* * *
"I do love you, Brick. I do!" said Judy.
"Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?"
I pressed on the pedal with one foot, causing the music to swell to a climax, and as Brick went into Maggie's arms I bit the cork dangling at my left and yanked the stage curtain closed.
There was applause, so I pulled the cord on the other side and opened the curtain again, slapping Punch and Judy down into the character rack in front of me, jamming my hands into Hector and the black glove I use to handle Toby, holding them up to take their bows. Toby yapped excitedly, dangling from his harness, six kilos of French ham. He's the only dog I ever knew who preferred plaudits to provender. I dropped him to the floor along with his bucket. He picked it up and ducked under the curtain to work the crowd.
The Crocodile, the Devil, then Punch and Judy. If a Punchman ever figured how to let the whole cast take bows at once, I never heard of it. I'll continue to bring them on in pairs until I grow another arm. I put my eye to the judas and saw the crowd had grown to perhaps two dozen. Toby trotted from one to another in his ruffled collar and pointed hat, holding out the bucket, barking if he didn't think enough was dropped into it, walking on his hind legs for the really hard cases, doing a back flip for the big spenders. Nobody can turn
a tip like Toby.
I pulled the curtain closed and waited awhile. Lots of puppeteers reveal themselves at the end, take a bow of their own. I don't approve of it. My hands have done the performing. No need to break the spell. Let them go their separate ways with visions of brightly painted imps dancing in their sugarplum heads.
While I waited I reached into my mouth and popped out the silver swazzle. I always get a warm feeling when I handle it. It's nearly three hundred years old, and was given to me by my father. Families used to pass along expensive pocket watches, father to son. In my family, it was the swazzle.
It's a simple device. This one had been hammered from two coins, shaped to fit into the roof of the mouth. The two pieces were wired together, and between them was... well, I'm not going to tell you. Swazzle-making was a closely guarded secret among Punchmen for centuries, and though I'm sure no one cares today, it just wouldn't feel right to spill the beans. But I can say it works something like a kazoo. With the swazzle in your mouth (and with a lot of practice) you can make that distinctive Punch twang/buzz/screech, like no other sound I've ever heard.
Everybody swallows the swazzle at least once while learning the trade. Getting it back is one of the prices you pay. Nobody ever told me art would be painless.
Toby stuck his nose under the curtain and set his pail at my feet. I lifted the castelli from its sockets in my belt, shrugged the curtain over my shoulders, and set the box on the floor, inverted. All the puppets fit neatly inside, and the curtain folded over it. (The curtain was also my sleeping bag, but since the bag is edged with gold braid and patterned in a comedy/tragedy mask motif, few ever suspected.) As I was doing this Toby nipped at my sleeve. When I frowned at him he looked off to his left, where my following gaze discovered a uniformed policeman leaning against a wall and twirling his nightstick at the end of a leather thong.
"Box, Toby," I said, and the dog leaped in on top of the curtain. I lifted it and walked past the flatfoot.
