Schultz

by J. P. Donleavy

  Schultz tearing himself out of his solitary reverie. Went towards the lobby. Stood on the staircase, his hand on the gleaming brass rail. Looking back into the grey sad eyes of Rebecca. And her beautiful hands manipulating her chopsticks. Putting her fingers touching mine, when she said thanks for comforting me. We went back out on the London streets under the encouraging clearing skies. Our lonely taken Chinese meal in both our bellies. Her honesty, her shyness, her warmth. Now the perfumes of these fucking people. Who look like they don’t have a care in the world. Except bored curiosity to see if this is a smash hit or a dismal flop and whether tomorrow I should be smiled at or shown an ice cold shoulder. Fuck you, you cunts all of you, I’ll show you. Jesus, even some tiaras, and more than half of the audience are in evening dress. While I’m in physical and mental incarceration. Give a little bit of yourself to a woman, and they keep wanting more. Till they got all of you. Till they think you’re some fucking ornament they wear in their lives. Thank god a production shuts out the entire rest of the world. But tonight it lets them all back in again. Everybody, Jesus everybody down there in that lobby thinks they’re such hot shit. Not a trace of humility anywhere. Except that girl in a nice sombre black suit. No staggering beauty but what a serene nice face. Holy fuck, could that be Al’s new girl friend. Jesus, I know her from somewhere, that soft nice lovely brown hair. O god what new complication is this in my life. In the kind of recent erotic escapes I’m having, I could have maybe even fucked her in a blind hurry without even knowing it. On top of all the other crazy things that are happening to me recently in the dark. Still taste that god damn athlete’s foot paste, it’s going to be in my mouth for the rest of my life.

  Schultz sneaking along the wall across the jammed lobby. Stopping behind a pillar to drink in this delicious sight of people lined up at the box office and snaking all the way out into the street. If only business would be like this every night. The phones jangling. Wallets opening and peeling out the cash. My god, Lady Lullabyebaby. Over there. On her aristocratic treetop. With that big gawking guy who may be her husband. The marvellous imperious way she sweeps her head. And sticks that cigarette holder in her mouth. Not giving a fuck about anyone in sight. Blinding everybody with a necklace of diamonds and emeralds. What a doll. And Agnes. Wow look at her. She must think this is a bathing beauty contest. Tits popping out of the top of her dress. Some kind of chinless hawknosed stockbroker she’s got in tow flashing his teeth and eyes in all directions especially at Agnes’s gorgeous creamy cleavage. And shit and shinola, the fucking Ambassador turning up out of the woodwork. Stealing the show with that wild looking towering ebony absolutely bald beautiful creature he must have flown in fresh out of the steaming jungle and twice as black and tall as he is. God, his Lordship right next to them. Killing himself as usual to be inconspicuous while everyone is breaking their necks turning to look at him and the radiantly beautiful Countess. Christ I’m shaking. Jesus I’ve missed the real emotional boat in life. Why can’t I have someone unbiased out of the blue love and adore me like Rebecca loves and worships Binky.

  “Why won’t you sit with us.”

  “Because I can’t honey. I got to be ready to jump backstage for any catastrophe.”

  Pricilla stalking off. Schultz repairing alone back to his box. The buzzer going. Take your seats please my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. Safety curtain lifting. Lights going down. Strike up the band. Whoopsie doodle. This is it. Curtain up. The moment of Chinese torture. Come on now, you fucking overpaid clackers, clap clap. For the sets. Jesus at least we got over that one. Christ the fucking chorus is off key. And now latecomers. The smug cunts. For months you string your guts out and these fuckers come barging in right at a magic fucking time looking for their god damn seats. Christ Magillacurdy is shaking his fist at them. Jesus Magillacurdy don’t overdo it. Just let’s get through this number. Sometimes I ask myself are actors the lowest form of life on this earth with only actresses lower.

  Schultz wiping the sweat from his brow. As the clapping outlasted even the paid clackers at the interval. With two boos and a few whistles and someone slamming a door storming out of the theatre. Followed by the harassed theatre manager knocking with news of a problem in row E of the stalls. Schultz peering cautiously out from behind his screen down into the interval emptied seats. With one on the aisle still absolutely full. Of Pricilla’s mother. Who, with two usherettes tugging at her by the arms, could not be budged.

  “How dare you sit up here laughing at my mother who could have a heart attack down there. I’ll kill you.”

  “Shit honey. Don’t make my life complex as usual. Please.”

  At the second interval, Al trying to direct the rescue operation. Pricilla ashen faced, her mother beet red huffing and puffing. With the assistant master carpenter and the chief engineer attempting unsuccessfully to dismantle the seat from around this mass of imprisoned flesh. And only succeeding in stabbing the fat occupant with a screwdriver. Her screams fortunately drowning out Schultz’s hysterical guffaw.

  “Holy Jesus christ, this really is one for the fucking books.”

  A photographer coining down the aisle to take pictures. Pricilla’s mother heaving a spare box of chocolates at him. Jesus this behemoth bitch while she’s making my laughing muscles sore is also stealing the whole show. I hope the fuck they never get the seat off and shift her with it still attached so she can sit in god damn exile somewhere.

  The salvage undertaking interrupted again by the returning audience. Who shushed the protesting prisoner. Lady Audrey and Lady Emeline and husbands sitting viewing just two rows back. And the concerned Ambassador two rows in front turning around to watch with his entire black party. Holy shit, what have I done to myself in the middle of my fast expiring youth to have a hippopotamus anchoring me in a sea of nightmares. With a wife demanding to be loved and then wrecking things all over the house. And speaking of nightmares there’s one from the past, my Doc, from Harley Street. Sour faced Herbie laughed for the first time when the engineer’s screwdriver dug deep into my mother in law. Sylvia going around now whispering insults under her breath. Expects me to leave my prick behind in her when I had to run out on stage to stop a murder. Got to accept people for what they are, dirty rats. While I’m busy in the thankless task of catapulting a gang of unknowns into celebrity orbit. That incredible hulk Magillacurdy going head first. Each potential massive disaster on stage he turns into a mini holocaust which flames up around him in all his burning glory. Only every five minutes now he bothers me to compare the length of pricks.

  “Ah now me boyo take out that yoke I know you’ve got there and show it to your regimental sergeant major again. Sure I served two years in the Irish Guards and never did I till now see an organ the likes of which at a stretch might compare with me own.”

  Magillacurdy’s finest moment came in the last act in an angry aria, wrecking a table set for tea. With a swipe from the back of his hand sending the china pot smashing into smithereens. And throwing a bottle across the stage at a mirror. The bottle missing and bouncing off the scenery. The mirror two long seconds later, breaking. At the same time a bag of flour plummeted from the flies landing bursting on Magillacurdy’s head. Smilingly he blew the white clouds off his face, bowed and brought the house down with laughter, cheers and applause.

  At the final curtain amid the bravos, and shaking fists, two fights broke out. Al flailing his arms in the aisle and creaming someone in his tracks who had punched him in the ear. And as he symbolically wiped his hands in victory, he stepped straight into his girl friend’s open box of chocolates knocked to the floor, tripped, fell and lay on the carpet both hands clutching at his weak heart.

  Pricilla’s mother’s dress ripped as she was lifted in her seat by six stage hands out into the aisle. Safely reclining on a couch in a dressing room, a seamstress sewing her up trying to stitch the fabric back together over the roll of fat bursting through. While Mrs. Prune polished off a box of dried figs.

  “I’m going to s
ue the theatre, the management and last but I’m telling you not least, I’m suing the producer.”

  After all the horror Schultz reenacting every dance and replaying every note of the show in his head and sneaking to the corner of the stall bar for a quick double scotch and soda. And just as he felt to see if his flies were undone there was a nudge on the elbow. The blond flowing haired bejeweled sparkling eyed Lady Lullabyebaby handing him his wallet.

  “Holy jeeze.”

  “I’m sorry to be so late in returning this. You lost it at the wedding along with your shoe.”

  “Hey wait you look gorgeous, don’t go, Jesus I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Sorry, I must I must.”

  Lady Lullabyebaby turned to look back from the door and gave a little smile over her shoulder. Schultz opening his wallet thumbing through the notes. Christ my four different currencies, still ready in case I got to leave at a moment’s notice for a foreign land. And everything else intact. Jesus how honest can somebody be. And a card. White and pristine. Holy cow it’s her phone number. Knightsbridge 1234. At last, something in my love life looks like it’s ready to go right for me.

  Schultz turning from the bar to go backstage. Pushing halfway through the smoky crowd. A figure blocking his way.

  “You’re Schultz.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You want to sell this show, kid. I’ll give you a good price right now tonight before the reviews come out in the morning and I’ll take it straight to Broadway.”

  “No deal.”

  “What’s the matter. I’ll give you more than the show’s worth. It could be worth nothing tomorrow.”

  “It’s worth a fortune tonight and it will be priceless in the morning.”

  “You know who I am don’t you.”

  “Yeah I know who you are. Joe Jewels.”

  “Well what’s the matter kid, you like taking risks or something.”

  “That’s right.”

  Schultz turning away and heading straight into the ever smiling resplendent Ambassador with his towering black lady looming behind him.

  “Ah my dear gladiator. A truly magnificent evening. I am so happy to see that all the hard work you do casting and auditioning at your house has produced such marvellous results.”

  “You’re too kind, Your Excellency.”

  “Ah let me introduce you to my friend.”

  “How do you do honey.”

  Schultz shaking hands with this long ebony armed amazon as she answered in an unfamiliar drum beat rhythmic tongue.

  “Zeek geek goo bug ding doo.”

  “And the same to you, honey you’ve said it all.”

  Like as if the pair of them had nothing whatever to do with the show, Binky and wife slipped silently away as did his Lordship and his Countess who were catching a train to the country.

  “Ah a splendid evening maestro which both I, my dear wife and his and her Royal Graces enjoyed thoroughly.”

  “Jesus, Binky you fuckers you’re completely abandoning me.”

  “Ah I wouldn’t put it quite as subtly as that Schultz. It’s simply that domesticity calls.”

  Al with four tables booked at the Savoy. And with marzipan and crushed rum truffles adhering to the soles of his shoes and his heart beating again as usual, he went backslapping and shepherding his party of show backers growing larger by the second out to his and their limousines.

  “Sigmund, put it there, a great show. See you at the Savoy.”

  “Thanks Al.”

  Schultz from dressing room to dressing room squeezing between the backstage visitors, his head popping in the doors. At least tonight unlike some other nights, it’s not like a morgue backstage. Maybe I stopped the curtain calls too soon. Fuck it. Four should be enough for anybody. Some people don’t know when to stop milking the adulation. It’s like I got to be a father to a bunch of children. Wiping noses. Shaking hands. Waving. Thumbs up.

  “You were great. Just great. Keep up the good work kids. I love you all.”

  At the Debutant’s dressing room. Schultz calling out over the heads of her bubbling bevy of admirers. The Debutant making her way through to Schultz. Between all these smart assed smoothie men about town.

  “O Mr. Schultz was I alright really.”

  “You were sensational, honey believe me. Sensational.”

  The Debutant kissing Schultz on the cheeks as his hand headed straight down to cup around her arse, one of the most magnificent ever to go waltzing spotlighted on a London stage. And she, dear girl, threw her pelvis forward to concuss this producer upon his now famous and instantly tingling cock. Schultz at this split second of appropriate moments urgently whispering in her musky aromatic ear.

  “Honey, maybe after the matinee on a pouring rainy afternoon we could together just have a little food sent in and talk about your future here in your dressing room.”

  “Maybe we could, Mr. Schultz.”

  “Jesus sweetie pie I could listen forever to your melodious voice.”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

  Declining all lifts and invitations in the direction of various parties, Schultz making his way back up the private stair past his box and along the shadowy passage towards the lobby. Stopping to look at a photograph of a fabled female previous star on the wall. Jesus nobody ever puts up a picture or a statue to a producer. Fuckers won’t even let me into Who’s Who.

  “How dare you be just standing here, hiding. Deserting us and my mother like that. After she’s had such a terrible shock and ordeal. We’ve been waiting out front of the theatre for seventeen minutes.”

  “Honey don’t you know I got to go backstage to congratulate the stars. What are you crazy or something, you don’t know about that.”

  “I’m hungry. My mother’s hungry. And we want to go and eat. Now.”

  “Eat. Go eat. Eat. Go get the fuck out now. Right out that way is the door. Go eat. With the hippo. I’ll order two tons of hay sent to the Savoy for her.”

  “I could scratch your face. You’re hysterical and rude.”

  “That’s right. Fucking right I am. After I’ve been sweating my balls off for months to see this night happen. All you and that whale can think of is to fucking eat. Then go and fucking eat.”

  “I will scratch your face.”

  “Like fuck you will honey.”

  Pricilla lunging out. Schultz side stepping back as the claws whistled down past his cheeks. And the open palm of his left hand hooked upwards in a resounding slap on Pricilla’s face. She stands glaring. Groans. And as usual topples. And lays in a heap at my feet. Christ while there’s a distant sound of happy voices and glasses clinking in the bar. Holy shit. Blood. Trickling out of her nose. I did it now. Killed her. What the fuck did I have to go and do this for. Jesus to last in this business you got to speak with a languid voice. If somebody sees us. It will end me up again in exactly the wrong kind of publicity for the show.

  Schultz dragging Pricilla by the arms along the carpet and into his private box and closing the door. This is just like a murder. How do you dispose of a body in such a blazing red dress.

  “Honey if you can hear me, don’t move while I get a bucket of fresh water to throw on you.”

  Schultz rushing backstage down his own little empty cul de sac corridor to his cubbyhole dressing room. Filling a fire bucket with a glass ladling water out of the basin. Stopping to examine his face in front of the mirror. In this silence. His Lordship says he has aunts living quietly in the country who have the art of slowing their lives down till they are just ticking over so that nothing ever distresses them. And me with the fuses blown in Arabesque Street, pissing and missing the toilet bowl. Drenched my box of paper handkerchiefs on the floor. That I later go to blow my nose with. And get a face full of urine. Holy christ when is there going to be a trace of contentment in my life. When this could be my moment of triumph. Of dancing on the waves. A big deal for two seconds before I’m swallowed up in the deep. Sometimes
you wonder why you do it all. You know it’s because people want to always reach out and touch something that seems glamourously beyond their own lives. When they turn and maybe see you. Debonair, calm as a glacier. Gee that guy in the expensive sunglasses, he did all this. Gave us a real glittering alive magic. Yeah that’s right you fuckers. I did. Against all god damn odds let me tell you. While everybody else was just twiddling their thumbs wondering if they should fart or belch or something. I’ve been playing sudden death roulette dialling telephones. Every moment ten seconds away from disaster. Funny now how finally you don’t care if people want to come touch you on the arm for your magic. Not until they stop wanting to. Then, Jesus, all over again you want them to. Especially beautiful women. Sure, touch me. Go ahead. But unless you’re gorgeous don’t smudge the fabric. Of Sigmund Franz Schultz. Impresario par excellence. Major fucking domo of the West End. Holy jeeze I’m going loco. Looking like this at myself in the mirror. Shaking a fist and talking to myself. With a pregnant wife laid out on her arse.

  Schultz abandoning his bucket and rushing back to his box with a glass of water. Cleaners now picking up the cellophane wrapping and paper cups in the empty theatre. Pricilla’s mother’s dismantled seat still sitting out in the middle of the aisle. Sound of people still drinking in the bars. Jesus, who’s this in the passage way ahead. Might have already discovered the corpse. It’s the fireman on duty.

  “Well Mr. Schultz. It’s going to be a hit. I can al ways tell. By the quality of the clapping.”

  “You really think so.”

  “No doubt about it.”

  The box deserted. Schultz drinking his glass of water. Where’s that bitch gone. Probably screaming to her mother I murdered her. O Jesus I was just beginning to feel a glow of hope. In this great theatre. The luxurious brocaded fabric on the walls. Where I could be ensconced for years doing nothing but screwing the Debutant and counting the gross. The nice embellished figures decorating the ceiling. The last of the perfume smell left by an applauding audience. The fireman says the quality of the clapping indicates a smasheroo. When Jesus I nearly hired half of it. Uncle Werb used to say, what’s cheaper than doing it yourself. Getting somebody else to do it for less. Binky and his Lordship without a single emotion just come and go. Like they’re disowning me. Before we hardly said hello. As if it were their duty to vanish. Al at least saved me from the lawyers again. While at the same time trying to dump on my doorstep the whale who nearly stopped the show. The libeled member of the cast now is with a brand new Jewish girl friend with her brand new Jewish family flurrying about them. In this world it doesn’t take people two seconds to replace each other. There always comes a time in everybody’s life when you sit on the street curb weeping because of what someone recently indecently did to you.