Little Did I Know: A Novel (2 page)

“Are you asking how many I kissed, or how many kissed me? I could give you the combined number if you like.”

“I guess the later would suffice.”

“If I tell you, you’ll hate me forever.” “

“
Come on.
I have some perverse need to know.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Remember, though, that this is simply kissing, and we all know that tonight is like going to a kissing booth without having to pay the dollar.”

“Yes, I recognize the unique nature of this evening.”

I waited a beat and then confessed, “More than ten and less than five hundred.”

She laughed. “You are absolutely disgusting.” She paused. “You never kissed me. Even after all these years.”

“I was saving the best for last.”

Caught up in the moment, I leaped from my chair into her arms and kissed her like I was off to war. She lay still in my embrace as if she was being ravaged. She then rolled over, took a deep, sated breath and said, “I need a cigarette.”

Only a handful of us remained now that the late hour had become early dawn. My best friend, Secunda, who had acted confidently, brilliantly in many of our shows lamented, “Now what do we do? This ride can’t just end. Figure something out, Sammy.”

“Yeah, we need to keep that torch burning,” Secunda’s younger brother James added. He had been part of the journey, building great sets, solving problems only he knew existed, and always remaining sane. He lit a killer joint and passed it around the group as if it were a peace pipe, a pact to hold on to the dreams that pulsed through our veins.

Elliot, another friend, pressed the point. “Sammy, it’s the bicentennial. Add something to the party.” He grinned as if he had said something profound.

“I have,” I said, smiling with drunken mischievousness.

“Well?” Elliot continued, shouting as much as gobs of bourbon and fatigue would allow. “What are you gonna do? Win a theater in a poker game? Make out with some heiress? We are done here in two months!”

I held a finger to my lips and gave a long, slurred, “Shush. Believing is part of figuring it all out. It’s part of the plan. If you don’t sign up for the plan, there is no plan.”

I gestured for the group to sit closer, and from my breast pocket took a small, folded piece of glossy paper that I had torn from
Variety
. As I opened it, my friends’ eyes widened as if I were revealing the map to a treasure. In bold print was a small but arresting advertisement. Saying nothing, I let them read what it said:

FOR RENT: AMERICA’S OLDEST SUMMER STOCK THEATER
.

IMMEDIATE OCCUPANCY AVAILABLE
.

LOCATED FORTY MILES FROM BOSTON AND LESS

THAN ONE HUNDRED YARDS FROM THE OCEAN
.

PROPERTY INCLUDES 480-SEAT BARN THEATER
,

EQUIPMENT, AND RESIDENCES FOR UPWARD

OF FIFTY PERSONS. FOR TERMS AND PARTICULARS

ON THIS HISTORIC VENUE CONTACT

DR. ANDERSON BARROWS: 617-242-12OO
.

The party continued around us. Our cast mates danced close, flirted, and made plans to play with each other naked before dawn. Our small group was quiet, however, stunned by the small black-and-white missive I had just revealed.

Secunda, always a cynic said, “You wrote this, right?”

“No, dickhead, I did not, but I
did
find it and this, as one might say, is the plan.”

Again it was quiet in the group. The music was sexy, bluesy late-night stuff, yet we were all focused.

“
This
is a good plan,” James said.

“This is a plan to believe in,” Secunda said, wearing a rare happy face.

“Yes indeed, this appears to be a great plan. Not that I know of plans, but if I did I would have to say this is a great plan,” chimed in Elliot.

“Say it then,” I said, “because to believe in the plan makes the plan.”

“Who are you—Gandhi?” asked Secunda.

“Say it,”
I implored.

In hushed, sacred tones my friends all declared, “This is a great plan.”

We sat back, content. We had a plan.

“I think this is a terrific plan, I really do,” JB spoke up a few moments later. “But what, exactly,
is
the plan?”

The group looked at her as if she had spoken heresy, then quickly looked at me for an answer. “No need to take notes.” I said. “I can repeat this anytime. I can say it backwards. First, I am going to call this guy Barrows and rent his fucking building. Before Elliot goes off to marry Madame Curie, he’ll come and teach music and lead the band. Hopefully along the way he’ll realize that Kat is never going to be good for him and he’ll find some sincere cutie to share his bed.”

“Is that really necessary?” Elliot asked.

Without hesitation, surrounded by nods of assent, James quickly replied, “Yes, unfortunately, it is. Quite.”

I continued. “James, well . . . he will be James. He will make things work that are broken. He’ll be our Spock, our man of logic and calm. He will roll us a joint in time of need. Secunda will act his ass off and sing his ass off and tell jokes and break a few hearts and help me find the money to pay the rent. We’ll kiss every frog that will ribbet, and raise this dough.”

Everyone was listening, barely breathing, not wanting to miss a moment.

I continued, “JB will tell everyone what to do. She will organize the business, hire the staff, figure out where everyone is going to live. She will listen to all the hopeless, brokenhearted beauties who believe that all boys want from them is their brains and insight into life. She will charm the press and motivate the entire town, and her acolytes will multiply.”

I raced on, gathering momentum and breathing life and true belief into the plan. Then I took a beat and closed my eyes for a moment to see the future. When I opened them, I looked hard into the soul and character of my dearest friends. “And me, I am going to direct the shows. I am going to learn how to be a man. I am going to give everyone who crosses my path a memory to cherish. Then I’m moving to New York to direct and produce plays on Broadway and become famous. When I win the Tony, I am going to thank my parents and all of you.” I was done.

JB said, “You really are going to make this happen? You really mean this?”

“Yes,” I answered with unwavering conviction. “And the last part I mean the most.”

She seemed almost frightened by my intensity, then asked, “How many girls are you going to sleep with?”

“Maybe none. I’m done being a rabbit. I’m looking to find something of substance . . .”

My friends’ faces creased with expressions of disbelief. “No, really,” I cried, and then added, “Besides, JB, I love you and my heart is in your hands.”

A rotgut bottle of whiskey had been delivered to our group while I talked. We passed it around and the mood went from jovial to solemn. After a moment I said, “But you had all better be on board. I don’t want to be in Pilgrimtown with my dick in the wind looking for backup.”

“Promise,” they all said in unison. That was enough for me.

Now my promises of weeks ago, the pledges made on that inebriated celebratory night, needed to happen, to take flight, to live. So as my silly tasseled hat hit the ground, it exploded in a burst of fire, color, and endless pyrotechnics of promise and winning.

Despite these burdens, or because of them, I carried no fear. This was the day my life was to begin, a time when challenges would arise and I would slay them. I yearned for all of it, good and bad. To taste, to feel, to love, to hurt. I was youth and hope; the best my generation had to offer. My time was now—today and then the next and the one after that. Remember my name, read about me in the papers, or see it all through a cloud of dust. I was about to hit a hundred miles per hour on the glorious road on which I intended to navigate my life. Little did I know that youth is not a road map, and sometimes you get lost along the way. The secret is finding your way home.

I
headed south on Route 3, my destination Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Pilgrims had landed there in 1620 to start anew. I was arriving some three and a half centuries later. They sailed a cruel, relentless ocean to find a home. My trip was easier: forty miles of superhighway in my 1969 Mustang that still had lots of life in it. We were linked, however, by courage, tenacity, and an innate refusal to fail.

I turned off the main highway and onto the service road that offered access to America’s first hometown. The midday early-summer sun gave the place an MGM shine to it. This Plymouth would have been unrecognizable to the Pilgrims. It had become a beachfront tourist center with all the trappings. There was a replica of the
Mayflower
, such a tiny vessel that I remain incredulous that it actually made the voyage. There were souvenir shops that sold saltwater taffy, postcards, and pictures of the “Rock” itself, which surprisingly was no bigger than a medium-sized watermelon.

There were lobster pots and fried clam huts, families checked into modest beachside motels, sunburns, and poison ivy. Young, pretty coeds waited tables scurrying about with fresh faces and tight, crisp ponytails. Rolling Rock beer was plentiful as were homemade ice cream, whale watches, and rental charters for deep-sea fishing. Plymouth was like so many other tourist havens across the country, ones that slept through the winter then raced at breakneck speed from Memorial Day till early September, when Labor Day would shut it all down until the next season when the cycle would begin again.

Plymouth also had the Bay, which was as blue as Paul Newman’s eyes, and Cape Cod sunsets that filled the dusk with a prism of color. Robust, white, happy clouds weaved their way into a spider web that danced in pungent pastels across the sky; there were cool, icy blues, soft, languid tangerines, calming sea-foam greens, neon-yellow and wild-pink orchid. As I looked above, the question “How can I compete with that?” naturally came to mind. My answer: “Well, we all have to start somewhere.”

The night sky was a soundstage with stars so bright and so close you couldn’t actually believe they were real. The surf would pound against the jagged rocks on shore, either lulling you to sleep at night or invigorating you in the morning as if you had just downed a triple espresso.

Plymouth was girls in sundresses and young guys on the prowl. It was beach cottages where rent was divisible by twelve in a shack that slept six. Fun was a bargain at any price and the local taverns served perfectly cold beer in frosted mugs, keeping the whole town cool and happy during the blistering summer heat. It was also a town of hardworking, decent families who took pride in pleasing their summer visitors. When you ate a lobster or a bowl of steamers with fresh-drawn butter at a food stop in town, it was a thing of beauty so succulently delicious that you would take the memory to your grave.

Plymouth was an America where young men and women came of age under an August moon that hung in the night as if held up by invisible string. It was America in all its glory. It was the summer of 1976, and while the entire country celebrated the bicentennial, I danced through those days as if each one was the Fourth of July, complete with fireworks every night. I often thought that, as it was for the Pilgrims, Plymouth was where I would truly begin my life. Although I might not become part of history, I was certain that everyone I met that summer and beyond would always remember my name.

As I drove through town, I noticed it could just as well have been called Barrowsville. The Barrows name was ubiquitous. This was intimidating to say the least, as seeing Dr. Barrows was the first step in “the plan.”

Dr. Anderson Barrows (a doctor of humanities) was the direct descendant of a Pilgrim. He was a member of the Lucky Sperm Club, which meant he was rich beyond imagination. He owned Plymouth County, and my research showed that he relished his position of powerbroker playing a Neroesque puppeteer to his minions. He’d make you ante up and then arbitrarily decide whether to deal you in. The local library was filled with tales of his mood swings. He was irascible, cruel, and snarling, a dog whose bark was matched by its bite. He must have been generous, however; his name was attached to the hospital, the nature reserve, the playgrounds, and more. Perhaps you just needed to get him on the right day.

I had attempted to set a meeting with the doctor for several weeks now. His secretary had been courteous and had penciled me in more than once. Yet it had become routine for him to cancel at the last moment or, worse, stand me up on the three occasions I had driven down from Boston at the appointed time. Frankly, it pissed me off.

The Barrows Building was set high atop Plymouth Harbor (from which on a clear day it was likely you could see England). Its architecture was stoic and ornate. The redbrick building was adorned with bright, white shutters that might have been painted that morning. Although only three stories tall, it cast a long, menacing shadow over the street and denizens of the town. Void of warmth or invitation, the structure spoke only of power and old money.