The Music of Your Life

by John Rowell

  From inside the theater I hear the tinny sound of the orchestra striking up the entr’acte, and I can see the usher is about to close the main door. I realize now is my chance to go, my last chance, actually, so … theater or highway? Highway or theater?

  I make a run for it …

  … and before she shuts the door completely, I land inside the theater just as the house lights go all the way down.

  Oh well, why not? After all, how ironic it would be for me to miss, of all things, the signing of the Declaration of Fucking Independence.

  Thomas is playing Edward Rutledge, the delegate from South Carolina. He’s the bad guy who doesn’t want Thomas Jefferson’s abolition clause in the document; he will only vote for ratification if the no-slavery clause stays out. This, of course, is a huge blow to the good guys—Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin—but they realize they have to accept the terms if they are to win the debate on declaring independence.

  Thomas is in the midst of his big, dramatic number in which Rutledge makes his racist case to the Congress. He sings and acts it superbly, as he always does, but it’s obvious that Thomas is slumming somewhat here at the Briar Hill Playhouse since most of the other actors are college-aged performers, and Thomas is an accomplished, thirty-nine-year-old with Broadway credits. I want to stand up and say to the audience, “Hey, do you all realize how lucky you are to have this guy on this stage tonight?” and then I want to turn to Thomas and say, “Hey, Thomas, do you realize how deeply you’re slumming here, Precious?”

  But I only join in with everybody else on the solid applause when he finishes his number and then decide to follow the advice I gave to Duffy, to concentrate on the various actors onstage for reasons other than their acting skills. As if playing a parlor game for one, I try to determine which of these youthful thespians Thomas is excited about. It’s hard to tell behind some of the unfortunate old-age makeup just who is a young buck and who isn’t. Watching the show, I decide that Thomas is probably hottest for the guy playing Roger Sherman, gentleman delegate from Connecticut—Connecticut is short but compact and well-built, and by looking at his eyebrows I can tell his real hair is probably as dark as the wig he’s wearing; he actually reminds me of a couple of Thomas’s old boyfriends. A definite candidate. However Thomas could also be interested in the tall, sweet-faced redhead (eyebrows matching wig again) in the role of Joseph Hewes, representative from North Carolina. In the show, Mr. Hewes is kind of a wimp, and keeps deferring to Rutledge: “North Carolina yields to South Carolina.” I wonder if North Carolina is equally passive offstage; a control freak like Thomas could really go for an attitude like that. Obedient, docile … Oh, but Connecticut really is cute; maybe Thomas can have dark-haired Connecticut and leave redheaded North Carolina to me. In the show, Connecticut is always anxious to vote for independence: “Connecticut says ‘yea.’” Connecticut has a can-do attitude. Connecticut also has spectacularly broad shoulders.

  The one I like best is the hunky delegate from New York, Lewis Morris. I’m ashamed to be so attracted to musculature, but his calves bulging under his white tights are like grapefruits; I can only imagine what is hidden under his waistcoat. New York isn’t wearing a wig; he sports shoulder-length blond hair that is obviously his own. In the show, New York is undecided about the voting. When asked for his vote, he always says: “New York abstains—courteously,” which gets a big laugh from the audience, most of whom are from the Tri-State area. I can’t wait to find out which of these swains Thomas wants for himself, and which ones I might get the chance to meet—and charm. I believe it’s still possible. After all, I’ve been known to ratify a few constitutions myself in my day. My day—has it come and gone, and I missed it? In three months, I’ll turn forty; I should figure out if I’ve already had my day, or if I’ve still got one coming.

  The action is leading up to the big roll-call scene, where the clerk takes the final votes of the Congress. Duffy has behaved pretty well during this act, but all of a sudden he leans over to me and whispers: “Jackson, how does this turn out, do you think?”

  I glance at him sideways. “What do you mean, how does it turn out?”

  “I mean … like, they pass the thing, right?”

  I just smile at him, and pat his knee, which I notice Perry noticing from the other side.

  “I’d tell you, Duff,” I say, “but I don’t want to ruin it for you. It’s so much better if you’re kept in suspense.”

  “No, tell me now! I like to know ahead of time.”

  “OK,” I sigh. And then I take a long, dramatic pause. “England wins,” I whisper.

  After the curtain call, Perry and Duffy and I wait outside on the patio, behind the theater, standing among piles of discarded flats, assorted bric-a-brac scenery, sawhorses, and an ancient upright piano. Duffy is still in a good mood—I think he was genuinely relieved to find out that the Declaration of Independence got signed after all—and Perry seems happy that Duffy is happy. Naturally, I’m happy that everybody is so happy. Ode to Happiness.

  One by one, the Congressional delegates begin to emerge from the stage door, a Parade of States, as it were. They’ve traded their three-cornered hats and powdered wigs for shorts, sandals, and tank tops; their young faces are scrubbed free of old-age makeup, and their muscular shoulders are toting what we used to call “dance bags.” I wonder if they still call them that. Needless to say, the real Continental Congress of 1776 would hardly recognize themselves coming out of the stage door, these young men who are whooping and hollering and kissing each other good night, some of them even belting out things like “See you tomorrow, girlfriend.”

  Duffy, of course, immediately recognizes himself reflected back in their living mirror. He is one of them, this is his milieu, and they are speaking his language. He is at Maximum Perk, and I notice he keeps positioning himself in what he must think are sexy “stances.” And this little vaudeville is not lost on most of the Continental Congress. They nearly all notice him; first, they glance at the three of us, as a group, and then their gazes settle—not surprisingly—on Duffy. They say it’s like that in the animal kingdom too; ultimately, you mate with your own kind.

  I wonder if any of them might be more interested in me if they knew that I write the “MAN-hattan” column in Downtown magazine. They must read it; I’m sure they do, it’s a very popular column in a widely-circulated publication. And my photo runs next to it, complete with state-of-the-art airbrushing. Surely they recognize me …

  Duffy finally pounces. “You were great!” he says to an athletic-looking blond who has been leaning absently against a pole. Clearly, they have made the proverbial eye contact.

  “Now who did you play?” Duffy says, batting his eyes.

  The guy laughs, impervious to the fact that he’s just been insulted. He’s probably all of nineteen years old. I was nineteen once.

  “I played Stephen Hopkins,” he says, straightening up and smiling, clearly happy to have been recognized, as it were, and exhibiting a sweet sense of pride, however misguided. When he speaks, he reveals an unmistakable Boston accent. “You know, the old one? From Rhode Island? You probably didn’t recognize me without the makeup. My real name’s Kevin.”

  “Ah, Kevin,” Perry says, jumping in, clearly smelling trouble where Duffy and Rhode Island are concerned. “Makeup. That means you’re a character actor.” Kevin nods his head, then appears momentarily confused. He looks back at Duffy, and smiles again. Duffy smiles back.

  Finally, Thomas emerges from the stage door, flanked on either side by dark-haired Connecticut and redheaded North Carolina. I was right—the wigs matched their own real hair color. If this were Let’s Make a Deal, I would now be the proud recipient of a new Amana Radarange.

  I’m waiting for Thomas outside the stage door. We’ve just gotten through our opening night of the last show of the summer—Damn Yankees. Thomas is playing the Devil, and I, Mr. All American Boy, am playing Joe Hardy, the star baseball player who sells his soul to … well, to Thomas
! The performance went great; the audience whooped and hollered and gave us a standing ovation. So I should be in a chipper mood, but late this afternoon, right after final dress rehearsal, Shelley broke up with me, without any warning. Of course, I don’t even really know how it could be considered a breakup, since we weren’t actually committed and we never did much more than mess around. A little. But I liked her. I liked her, and I definitely considered her my girlfriend, until she said, “Jackson, sweetie … I just don’t think you dig girls.” And then I called her a liar, and turned on my heel and walked away from her in a huff. I went out to the woods behind the theater to sit and think.

  Thomas knew I was upset before the show, but I didn’t tell him why, and he told me to wait for him and we’d talk afterward. So I’m standing outside, waiting for him—his old-age makeup takes longer to get off than my regular makeup does. I’m sitting on the stone fence with my head in my hands when a couple of older guys—probably about forty—pass by me on their way to the parking lot.

  I look up and see them whispering to each other. About me?

  I pretend not to notice them and look elsewhere, but soon they come over my way. Oh God.

  “Excuse me,” says the first one. “We just wanted to say that you were simply great in the show tonight. We really enjoyed it.”

  “Oh, yes,” says the other one, equally excited. “You were fabulous. You’re very talented.” They both have pronounced southern accents, and similar-sounding voices, almost as if they grew up in the same family, though they look nothing alike. One wears thick black-framed glasses and is dressed in a blazer with tan pants and white shoes. The other one, a little younger but not young, has on Wrangler jeans and a flannel checked shirt, with a red bandanna tied around his neck. He sports a thin, sad little mustache that looks like a caterpillar crawled onto his upper lip and went to sleep.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “We just love coming to the playhouse every summer,” the one with the glasses says. “I’m Roger, by the way.”

  “And I’m Terry,” the other one says. “We always stay down in the square at the Crest View Inn. Do you know it? It’s just fabulous.”

  “Yes, and you’re Joe Hardy,” says Roger, smiling a big smile and moving in a little closer.

  “Well, I was,” I say, and look away. It’s clear Roger and Terry aren’t hint-takers.

  “Listen, Joe,” Roger continues, “if you’re not doing anything, why don’t you come down to the inn and have a drink with us?”

  “We’ll buy,” says Terry. “We know how pitiful summer stock salaries are.”

  “Oh yes, it’s on us.” Then they both begin to titter, though I have no idea why. Neither of them has said anything remotely funny, as far as I can tell.

  “Well, thanks a lot,” I say. “But I can’t. We’re pretty busy rehearsing and performing and all.”

  “Oh,” says Roger. “Well, come on down later, if you change your mind.”

  And they don’t say much more after that, except good night. I don’t watch them walk off, since I’m afraid they’ll keep looking back to see if I’m looking. Where the hell is Thomas?

  I wait for a few minutes longer, and finally Thomas appears at the stage door. He’s with Lee, which really burns me up; Lee is the last person I want to have hanging around tonight.

  “Hey, Jackson,” says Lee. “Good work tonight, kiddo. You were terrific.”

  “Thanks.”

  Thomas and Lee exchange a little look. I can’t believe they don’t know that I see it. “Listen, Jackson … ,” says Thomas. “Are you gonna be up for a little while? Lee and I need to go over some of the choreography in ‘Good Old Days.’ I guess I didn’t get it quite right tonight.”

  Ah. A sudden reversal of plans, I see. However, the rehearsal sounds bogus; he did the number perfectly tonight, as he always does everything.

  “Sure, no problem,” I tell him.

  “So I’ll see you later in the room, then,” he says. I look up into his eyes, but he looks away. I look at Lee, and he looks away, too. Of course they look away. I gather up my dance bag and start to walk off.

  Lee calls out after me: “Get some rest, Jackson! Good show, kiddo, good show.”

  There’s a trail that leads up along the edge of the woods from the back of the theater to the back of the cast houses—I’ve gotten to know it pretty well this summer. It’s easy to walk along it and stay in sight of the outlines of the houses; through the branches of the pine trees, you can see the lights coming through the windows and hear the sounds of people partying and rehearsing in their rooms. I always stay just inside the edge of the woods as I walk; it’s like being onstage in front of forest scenery. And even though the woods are a little scary in the dark, even in this shallow, open part, tonight I don’t care. Tonight I don’t give a shit. And that’s exactly what I yell out to the woods, spinning around with my dance bag still on my shoulder: “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT! I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANYTHING!” Bears be damned. Come and eat me, for all I care. I wish I had a Purple Jesus.

  I come up on the back of Mildew Manor, which I can easily see framed through the spindly pines. Most of the windows in the house are dark—a few of the guys have hooked up with a few of the girls, and they spend most nights with them in their house, which is a nicer place—so the Manor has gotten progressively emptier and quieter as the summer has gone along. There’s only one true light blazing in the whole house, on the third floor. I can’t help but be drawn to it, especially when I see the silhouette of two men embracing in the open window. They are held together in the window frame, as if in an oil painting, two men, or, more correctly, a man and a boy, surrounded by the light of a yellow overhead bulb.

  I watch as Lee holds Thomas close—they look like they might be slow dancing, and Lee runs his hands through Thomas’s dark, curly hair. He then pulls him close, and they kiss, and break, and then kiss again, this time holding it longer. Finally, their bodies disappear from the frame of the window, and one of them turns out the light.

  I sit down on a tree stump and stare at the windows of Mildew Manor through the wispy branches, which are swaying and rustling in the night breeze. I can’t concentrate on anything, and I don’t want to think about stuff anyway, so I start singing to myself. I figure it will calm me down. Since the songs from Damn Yankees are still in my head, I start with my favorite one, a love duet in the first act—I know both parts—and I sing it quietly until I’ve gone through every verse. Then I stand up and give myself a round of applause, shouting out “Bravo! Encore!” I bow to the trees. So then, encouraged, I start in on one of the Devil’s—Thomas’s—songs, until I’ve performed every verse of that, too …

  I don’t applaud myself this time, however.

  I notice that every window in the Manor has gone dark now; everything around me is pitch black, and deeply silent. If the woods were a stage set, this would be the moment where a lone stagehand carries out the solitary worklight from the wings and places it center stage, leaving it to burn in the empty theater throughout the night. He would be ready to lock up and go home.

  That feels like a cue. I lift my dance bag over my shoulder and exit the woods, trudging slowly up to the dark, quiet house, not singing, and stepping cautiously inside, so as not to disturb anyone.

  “You were great, as usual,” I say to Thomas, as he works his way across the patio from the back of the theater to our little group of Stage Door Johnnies: me, Perry, Duffy, and … Stephen Hopkins, delegate from Rhode Island.

  “Thank you, Precious,” he says. He leans over to kiss me, and as he does, he whispers in my ear: “Does the show suck?”

  “We’ll talk,” I whisper back.

  “I see you guys have already met Kevin,” he says, referring to Rhode Island.

  “Yeah, totally,” says Duffy, beaming; this elicits a nervous glance from Perry and an aw, shucks grin from Kevin.

  Thomas introduces us to Jake, the compact, dark-haired “gentleman” from Connecticut,
and Wynn, the tall, redheaded “gentleman” from North Carolina, who, in their youthful, postshow excitement, appear eager to be complimented—they don’t seem like gentlemen at all now, actually, they seem like frolicsome puppies. I tell them I enjoyed their work, but all Perry can manage is the even more slippery, “You know, I’d forgotten what a good musical 1776 really is.” Duffy, for his part, chimes in with, “You guys kicked ass. You rock!” causing three of the thirteen original colonies to suddenly light up in his presence. They immediately high-five him: he has spoken their language.

  “Drinks at my house,” Thomas says, perhaps sensing the need to change scenery. “I can take four in my car. Perry, if you and Duffy can bring Kevin, that’d be great.”

  “Sure we can,” says Duffy.

  As we walk toward the parking lot, Wynn and Jake end up ahead of Thomas and me; the two of them are talking loudly to each other, and with great enthusiasm. Every now and then one of them belts out a line of a show tune, and then they have more discussion. Thomas just looks at me and rolls his eyes.

  “Hey, we were like that once, if you remember,” I say.

  “Yes, but we improved.”

  As we round the corner of the theater, I see my own personal favorite Continental Congressman, Mr. Morris, gentleman from New York, walking alone, dance bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Oh, there’s New York,” I whisper to Thomas. “Can we invite him over too? I think he’s hot.”

  “Oh … Garrett,” he says, and I can tell by his tone that Garrett does not come recommended.