Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition

by Andrew Sutherland

  She led Al over to a little woman with a 1,000-watt smile. “You must be Sunny,” said Al, helpless to not return the good humor in her eyes.

  “And you must be Al. A pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard some good things about you from Gill. He said you used to be kinda an animal. We like that around here.”

  “I’ve mellowed with age.”

  “As you see,” Sunny indicated a large table with several chairs around it in the middle of the room. “I’ve set up for a read-through. Everyone’s been told to keep the ‘acting’ to a minimum for the read. As Marty will undoubtedly say, we’ll listen to the music of the language and the story. I’m sure you’ve done it before.” She looked at her watch. “Sit anywhere you like.” Then to the room, “I’ve got three minutes till start time. Quit your grinnin’ and drop your linen. Pee, pray, or finish your tofu scramble. Three means three.” She bustled off leaving him unattended.

  He was setting his bag down and getting out his script when he heard a voice behind him say, “I can look out for myself, and I don’t gotta fuck around behind somebody’s back, I don’t like the way you’re treating me…”

  “…or pray some brick safe falls and hits them on the head.” Al finished. He turned around and there stood little Gillan Murphy. He truly was a blast from the past. The line they had just shared had been from David Mamet’s American Buffalo. The two of them did the show together a million years ago. “Jee-sus kee-rist. They still letting you Irish fuckers in the theatre?”

  “If we didn’t, you fucking Scotsmen would have theatre reduced to carrying boulders and shagging sheep for entertainment.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way. I’d your da-a-a-a-a-a-a-d.” Al said this like a sheep’s bleat, and they both laughed then hugged like a couple of guys meeting at Ellis Island.

  “Fuck, man, long time. What’s it been? At least twenty years, right?”

  Al looked at Gill. He was a muscular and lean man who looked like he’d been plucked out of “the auld country” and thrown into this very room. He looked older, but not old. He had taken care of himself. “Twenty-two years, but who’s counting? We gotta read this, and I’m busy for lunch and dinner. I’m sure we can bullshit a little today, but tomorrow night, I take you out to a proper dinner. My treat, your choice. I’m flush; you won’t break the bank.”

  “Anywhere?”

  He looked at Gill. “Oh, Jesus. You never change. Make reservations for Gene and Georgetti’s. I haven’t been in more than ten years. You between gals? Should we bring dates?”

  “If you’re paying, I’m sure I can find a girl who’ll eat a fifty-dollar steak with me.”

  “Done. Now sit down and shut up. Marty’s coming, and he’s looking artistic”

  The introductions had gone around. It ended with Al saying, “Look, I’m still a little jet-lagged, so do me a favor; keep using each other’s first names a lot. That or what you like to be called. When I start calling you by name, you can knock it off. I hate resorting to calling people ‘dude,’ so just help me out. If you want to know my pedigree, we can get to that in our spare time. Right now, I want to read, if that’s OK with you, Marty.”

  “Absolutely. I’ve gone over concept, set up, and all the other shit with Al, so without further ado, let’s start.”

  They read through, and everyone did a pretty good job reading with meaning but not stinking up the hall with a bunch of horseshit table acting. Al thought of acting as a complex dance based on honesty and truth. If you were just sitting there being dramatic, objectively speaking, you seemed like a self-absorbed ass wipe. The person in the room that was most guilty of this was the woman who had been cast as Lady Macbeth. Al had known her in the bad old days. Sheila Horning? Shawnda Hanzel? He couldn’t remember exactly. Back then, she had been cute and spunky. He’d met her at a fight workshop, and they had both played small roles in a critically acclaimed production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. They hadn’t spoken much back then. As he recalled, she was humping the actor playing The Inquisitor and didn’t have time for lowly character actors like Al. During the read, Marty had to tell her repeatedly to just relax and read her lines. She’d go along for a little while, but then she’d be chewing on the fucking table again, and Marty would have to remind her to come back among the sane people. Shailey Hershey? It would come back to him.

  After the read, they shared a few thoughts, guided expertly by Marty. Al was realizing the guy had gotten good at this. Maybe he was always good, but Al thought time in the saddle had made him profoundly aware of the right thing to say at the right time in order to get the best outcome from a particular actor. At 12:00 sharp, Sunny called lunch. At 12:01, Frieda came in and said, “There’s a guy I want you to meet. He broke for lunch at noon also and I think you’ll like him.”

  “Lead the way, lady”

  “Oh, here.” She handed him a large box that was full of spicy hot Hunan chicken, beef, and pork. There were about seven slices of green onion and a pound and a half of meat. “Had that made up special for you. I’ll give you a receipt at the end of the week. The Keurig will be in and set up for the rest of rehearsal. If it gets to be a distraction, I’ll just bring in a big urn and people can drink burnt coffee.”

  They were walking around through a labyrinth of doors. “You, ma’am, are a cruel taskmaster.”

  “I like to think so. Here we are.” She opened a door and the smells hit him like a hammer. It was the scene shop. Whoever was in charge of this place still used wood, and it smelled divine.

  Frieda yelled to an intern who was washing out paint brushes, “Where’s Shrek?”

  “On stage. Fucking patch in the stage didn’t hold. Miss Lydia Languish got her heel stuck in the stage floor last night. It ended up funny as hell, but Shrek is noodling out a better solution.”

  “Thanks, Megs!” They walked toward the large loading door between the shop and the stage. “That was Megs, one of the interns. Don’t even try to remember all of their names. They’re thick as locusts around this place.”

  “Shrek?”

  “Michael Martin, the TD. Everyone calls him Shrek…you’ll see.”

  They walked up a few stairs to a door in the backstage side of the set. They opened it and saw a large, broad-featured man looking at a hole in the stage floor. He was sitting on a dainty little chair and eating what looked like the world’s largest smoked turkey leg.

  “Shrek!” The guy looked up, blue eyes twinkling in the work lights.

  “Hey, little sister. This the new guy?” He stood as he asked this.

  “Al McNair. Pleased to meet you. I went to school with a fella from Wisconsin who said he worked at American Player’s Theatre with the Norse God of Stage Carpentry who went by the name Mikey Martin. Would that be you?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Bernie Sheffield.”

  Shrek burst out laughing gleefully. Al knew from experience that anyone who really knew Bernie always burst out laughing when his name was mentioned. He was arguably the nicest actor on the planet, maybe in the galaxy.

  “Haven’t seen him in a month of Sundays, but yeah I know him, and I reckon he was talking about me. Pleased to meet you, Al.” Al gladly shook the slightly greasy hand.

  “I’m retired as an actor. Just came out to fill in after Dirk…you know.”

  “Do I ever. I mean, what happened to him was the pits and the shits, but he left a hell of a mess.” He gestured with his head at the hole in the stage floor. “I gotta patch this and make it purdy by tonight. It’s gonna take a while, and I’m short two carpenters.”

  “I have an idea.” Said Al. “You mind if I give it a shot?”

  “Tool room’s open and I’m on my lunch break. Just don’t cut yourself. I don’t need any more paperwork.”

  Al went to the tool cage and grabbed a hole saw. It was a circular attachment that went into the end of a drill. It had teeth like a saw and cut a round hole. Al went to the stage floor and cut a hole around the little hole that had
been punched in the stage by the pommel of Dirk’s broadsword. The stage floor was made of three-quarter-inch plywood. After he had cut the hole, he went back into the shop and cut a hole in a scrap of three-quarter-inch plywood. He took the circle of wood and attached it to a square of more three-quarter plywood scrap. He grabbed a handful of screws and handed them to Shrek. He told Shrek he’d stick the plug in from underneath and when the circle was plugged, Shrek could just sink some screws around the hole. Al went backstage and crawled under the stage until he was below the hole in question. The job was done in less than three minutes and would never cause another problem.

  When Al was back on stage Shrek said, “You know, if I wasn’t so goddamn tired from all of this other bullshit, I’d have thought of that. Easy is best. I’ll get Megs to putty and paint it and that’ll be that. I guess I owe you one, Al.”

  “No way. My dad was a TD for 35 years. Solidarity, brother. I did want to ask you a few questions about the Dirk incident.”

  Frieda broke in. “Al here is a private investigator in real life. Evidently, he doesn’t know how to do one thing at a time.”

  Al shot Frieda a look. He looked back to Shrek. “I’m sure the detectives asked you some questions, but as a theatre guy, was there anything strange about the death? I mean, it’s weird as hell, but anything from a theatre perspective that was weird?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes. I didn’t talk to the city dick about it, cuz I figured it didn’t matter, and he wouldn’t understand what I was talking about anyway. The stage door was standing wide open. I know that sounds small…”

  “No, that actually sounds significant. Was it cold that night?”

  “Fuck, yeah! The stage door that was open faces the lake. It woulda been colder than a witch’s tit in here. He was wearing one of those gauzy pirate shirts, and he’d have been cold. He moved slowly when he worked alone.”

  “Yeah, get cold while you work you’re likely to pull muscles… especially when you’re a mature actor.” Al grinned a little when he said this. He was, after all, a mature actor.

  “He was also a pussy about being cold. Was always bitching about the rehearsal studio being too cold. I dunno. Maybe nothing.”

  There was a long pause as they all looked idly at the patched hole in the stage floor. Al said suddenly, “How the fuck do you impale yourself on a fucking broadsword?”

  “No shit. I mean, really? Seriously? The guy had been slinging steel for twenty-plus years and he impales himself on a sword when he is just monkeying through the choreography by himself.” Shrek was wildly punctuating his comments with swings and jabs from the drumstick. Al was making short work of the Hunan Carnivore’s Delight as they talked.

  “I had one of my broadswords out today in my hotel room and was trying to get a bounce that wound get the weapon to flip and end up with the handle wedged against the floor and the blade poking me at chest level. I managed it once, but I don’t know if there is a sword move that would cause that to happen. I was trying to make it happen and I only succeeded once. Bad luck, right?”

  Shrek looked at him. “Yup. Lotta that going around these days.”

  “What do you mean, Shrek?” Frieda had been silent so long, her interjection slightly startled Al.

  “Oh, just that gal about a month ago getting her neck popped.”

  “The police ruled that a suicide.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up a step or two for the new guy. Which girl got her neck, what? Popped?”

  Shrek began, “There was a local actress, Mary St. Claire. She was one of the ‘original twelve.’ That’s the twelve people who did the first production with Wildhorse, before everyone moved away to get their MFA degrees. Anyway, she was working on a performance art piece that involved a woman engaging in auto erotic asphyxiation…you know what that is?”

  “I am familiar with the practice, yes.” He had a recent case in Sacramento where a woman wanted to know why her seventeen-year-old daughter kept coming home with bruises on her neck. Al had followed the girl and her boyfriend to his house. He climbed a tree adjacent to the house and took some high-powered magnification shots of the bedroom while the two were “at it.” She, apparently, liked to have pressure put on her neck, to either side of her Adam’s apple during coitus. It cut off the blood flow to the brain but not the breathing. It was a dangerous practice, but so was climbing trees, spying on people, and occasionally getting shot at.

  “Well, she was writing this piece with another gal. They found her naked in her apartment. She had a climbing silk, the ones they use for acrobatics, and had tied it to one of the ceiling joists in her loft. She had a chair underneath her, but it got kicked out of the way somehow. The play script was open on the ground in front of her.”

  “Hmm. Well, Shrek, that sucks. Sorry to hear about it. If something else pops into your mind about the Dirk thing, give me a holler.”

  “Sure thing Al. And thanks for the patch job. I need to get some sleep. My IQ is dropping five points a day.”

  Frieda leaned over and kissed the big man’s brow. “That means in two weeks, they might have to kick you out of MENSA. I sent you an e-mail about a production check in for Mackers. Everything on schedule?”

  Shrek bent over and knocked on the stage floor, “Ahead of schedule, if you can believe that. I know costumes and make up want Al as soon as they can have him.”

  “We’re breaking early today so Al can get measured. Oh, and Al?”

  “Yup.”

  “Are you claustrophobic?”

  “Not particularly. Why?” He was eyeing her suspiciously.

  “We want to build a fake head for the end of the play when your head gets chopped off. Ever had a life mask made?” A life mask was a three dimensional casting of your face so that prosthetic make up could be custom made for your face.

  “I actually have one at home. Still monkey around with make up a bit. You’ll want the negative so you can make a realistic looking head out of latex or whatever.”

  “That’s about the size of it. We should get going. We can relax in my office, Al. You should take it easy for at least twenty minutes. The next three hours are going to be jam-packed, I’m afraid.”

  “Lead the way. Nice meeting you, Shrek. If I can be of service, you know where to find me.”

  “Same here.”

  Frieda and Al walked out the side door and Shrek walked into the shop to ask Megs to putty and paint the little circle on the stage. High up in the catwalks a lone shadow moved from stage left and across the lighting positions toward stage right. He’d taken several pictures of this new actor. He’d have to look him up. You could find anything on line if you just put in the time.

  He had time. He’d learned during his fifteen years in Joliet that time was a resource. When used wisely, it was one of the most powerful resources. The only sin in life, in his humble opinion, was wasting time.

  He finished snapping some cover pictures from the safety of the fly grid--the floor sixty feet above the stage floor for getting scenery in and out of the audience’s sight. He worked his way through a series of small half-doors to a straight ladder, or ship’s ladder, that dropped down into a maintenance room. From there, he would make his way across seven feet of carpet and go do some research. He’d prefer not to be seen, but if he was, no one would think twice about it. After all, he looked the part.

  8

  He made it back to his small apartment in the northeastern part of Chicago. He’d found an efficiency there that was only $365 a month. It was one room that served as living, cooking, eating, and sleeping space. There was a tiny bathroom with a tiny shower. The refrigerator was small in stature and cubic feet. The stove was a two-burner job. He had a small table with two chairs, a frameless single bed. He had no television. He had three pots, two plates, two bowls, two glasses, two coffee mugs, and two of every kind of flatware. He had a cutting board and three kitchen knives. They were German-made and suicidally sharp.

  He also had shelves. Lot
s and lots of shelves. He needed room for all of his equipment. He had work to do here in Chicago, and to get that work done, he needed tools. He needed clothes. He needed skin and hair, glasses and colored contacts, tight clothes, and big clothes to accommodate his fake belly.

  He went to a shelf and got out a small blue tackle box and a concave make-up mirror. He pulled a white terrycloth towel off of a stack of towels and spread it on his table. He then set the box and mirror on the table. He looked for a long time at his face. The receding hairline. The scar through one eye that was covered with a patch. His short beard stubble--five o’clock shadow at 2:17 pm.

  He took off the eyepatch, revealing an opaque white eye and a large scar traveling diagonally across his face from the middle of his forehead to his left cheek. It stopped on either side of his eye, but you could clearly see what had happened. At some point, the poor man had been cut across the face, and his left eye was useless. He pulled up his left eyelid and pulled out the 22mm white sclera contact lens, revealing his own light blue eye underneath. He then pulled the brown contact out of the other eye. He peeled the “scar” from his forehead to his eye off, followed by the one that went to his cheek. He had made it with a makeup called “rigid collodion.” You painted on a layer of it then let it dry; he used a hair dryer to speed the process. If you stretched the skin slightly while applying it, when you let go of the skin, it puckered and sucked in, making the scar three dimensional and fairly horrible to look at. He used a box of baby butt wipes to get rid of his beard shadow. He took off the receding hairline wig and placed it on a manikin head.

  He put the small blue tackle box on the shelf underneath the wig. The box and the manikin head wearing the wig were both labeled with masking tape, and “Lenny Tolbert” was written on both.

  “Lenny Tolbert” was one of the many carefully designed personas that were going to help him exact his revenge on the fucks that set him up to die. Lenny worked at a janitorial company that specialized in cleaning theatres in town. He had contracts with several of the theatres. He needed access to the theatre folks he’d come to deal with. He’d become a murderer all because he was so excited about theatre and wanted to be part of the scene in Chicago.