The Home For Wayward Ladies (20 page)

I bite my lip so I don’t shout when I throw on the parking break even though I’m not the one who’s driving. I can see Lorna smiling at us through the diner’s front window. Sheepishly, I wave. The edifice of her greasy spoon will have to serve as the backdrop where Hunter and I settle this matter once and for all.

“Hunter, for the first time in your goddamn life, stop running your mouth and listen. I’ve heard you prattle on for days and it is time for the adults to have their say. Read my lips: I’m not going home. If you look in my suitcase, you will find two notebooks that are filled with preparations for
I’ll Take Manhattan
. Nothing that The Pocono Chronicle has insinuated about Mr. Vallenzino will talk me out of this gig. Too much time has been wasted by dreaming and not enough time has been spent making those dreams come true. This is it, Hunter. This is our time. If you can’t find a way to pull your shit together, Tina Louise and I are driving the rest of the way to the Pocono Show Barn and your fucking car can choreograph the show.”

Hunter drums his fingers on the steering wheel. His head shifts to peer at the dashboard clock. I can tell by the color of his knuckles that it’s taking a lot of restraint for him to not flip me the bird. “When we agreed to be partners,” he says, ”I thought at least you’d give the courtesy of an audition before giving yourself the starring role as Adolf Hitler.”

“Achtung, mein lieber herr,” I smirk. “There vill be no more qvestions. Tina Lovise und her cargo vill now take za right onto PA-611. Mach schnell!” 

I haven’t stopped humming the chorus of “
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles“
when the facade of the Pocono Show Barn appears on the jagged horizon. Hunter’s mouth gapes open. I do not hear him breathe. Perhaps if this theatre had a website, Google could have prepared us for the monstrosity we see dilapidating away.

The large wooden barn is buckling under the weight of its own marquee. Its paint has faded from years of exposure to the brusque Pocono sun. The concrete foundation on which it is settled has a split deep enough to swallow the building whole, which it might have a mind to do if it’s half as hungry as the surrounding trees that are withering from rot.

Hunter shuts his mouth before a fly lands on his uvula. “Why bother staging
I’ll Take Manhattan
when we can stay in the parking lot for an atmospheric production of
Waiting for Godot
?”


With no shade, I feel the full weight of the summer sun as I emerge from Tina Louise. I close her door with kid gloves. She is the only car in the theater’s parking lot. Other than us, this place is deserted. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to say the least, especially when the box office appears to be open. Hunter’s eyes burrow a hole in the back of my skull as I approach the ticket window. No one is inside working, which is all too well considering there’s no one outside trying to buy a ticket.

“Eli, the box office isn’t open. Look at that window again.” I see the remnants of glass poking out in shards from the corners of a weather-beaten frame. “It looks like someone shattered it with a rock.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Miss Ginny herself,” I reply. “It must get old sitting in your pine rot box and spinning in your own shit for all eternity. She probably pushed off the lid and dragged her chains over here so she could enact some vigilante justice.”

I lean through the frame, doing my best to avoid the piercing shards. I want to see if I might find a brochure or a contact sheet- anything that has our names written on it so I can prove to Hunter that this is real. My arms are barely long enough to pull open the top drawer of a vacant desk on the other side of the wall. I find nothing other than rusted paperclips and dried out rubber bands.

“Did you just hear something?” Hunter asks.

“Coming from New York City, I hear nothing but peace and quiet,” I reply.

“Shut your sass-hole and listen. You don’t hear that? It’s, like, a buzzing.”

I am hanging halfway inside the window frame when Hunter pulls me out by my shirt collar. It all happens so quickly that I’m nearly sliced open by the glass. He clutches at his proverbial pearls and screams, “Sweet Mary, Mother of God— Bees!”

In an instant, the swarm has us surrounded. Hundreds of the little fuckers fly out from beneath the desk where my face was mere seconds before. About a dozen of them whizz past my ear. I turn into Tippi Hedren in
The Birds
, swiping at my hair like a maniac. My mind is racing but my feet don’t move. There’s no time to plan an escape. Even so, that’s no excuse for Hunter to be running in circles in the parking lot making guttural screams that bring to mind the discography of Yoko Ono.

There are bees everywhere. Well, everywhere except the spot next to the front door where Lorna said Miss Ginny used to stand. The nasty critters seem to avoid it, as if even they know that spot is hallowed ground. I stop my arms from flailing so I can shield my eyes. The distance between us and Tina Louise is too far. We will be much safer to force our way inside.

“We have to get inside,” I scream, over the humming sound of horror.

With no one around, I expect the front door to be locked. I tug on it so hard that I pull it from its side jamb (terminology courtesy of Mackinaw’s requisite study of Scenic Carpentry). Being so close to where the bees refuse to fly allows me to make out their pattern. Hunter watches them, stupefied, like in
Carnival
when Lili finds out the puppets are not real.

“Eli, look,” he says, squinting his face and pointing. At the tip of his finger, I distinctly see a nose formed of black and yellow abdomens. Wings make up eyelashes that flutter as if to say hello. What looks to be the formation of a disembodied hand shows us inside the open door.

“Ladies first,” I say, grabbing Hunter by the armpits and tossing him inside.

I swear on my Aunt Sophie’s grave that, as soon as the door is closed, the bees disperse. Hunter and I share a pane of glass in the door to watch them flit away.  

“Hunter, what the fuck was that?”

“If I learned anything from
The Prince of Egypt
, I’d say that was a plague that has been sent to warn the Pharaoh. What happens if they come back as soon as we try to leave?”

“Hunter, you’re projecting. You can’t assign cognitive reasoning abilities to a bug that lives in a house made of its own puke.” With no one there to greet us, it’s my first instinct to call Danny. I look at my cell phone to see if I have service. Of course, I’ve got zero bars. “And since it looks like we can’t call for Dominos, which ever one of us survives the longest gets to eat the other’s corpse.”

“That only seems fair,” Hunter sighs. “At least if you go first, there’s enough meat on you for me to make it a few months. Come winter, I can make a blanket from your skin.”

He takes my hand as we let our eyes adjust. Neither of us have been stung; just startled. I have to admit, though, that his touch makes me mind the darkness a little less, the way that kind of thing’s supposed to. “Eli, it doesn’t look like we’re alone.” He’s referring to the dozens of pictures that plaster the lobby walls. The smiles of the long-forgotten decay in rows of headshots. We see the twinkling in their eyes that have forever longed to blink. “Let’s get out of here,” he says. “They look hungry.”

“Hold on a minute,” I say, snatching my hand away from his as I try to get a better look. “I recognize some of these faces. These are the people in the movies my old man made me watch on Sunday afternoons in Baltimore when I was a kid. Hunter, look, that’s Farley Granger!” He shrugs. “From
Strangers on a Train
.” Still nothing. His expression is as blank as a dry erase board at a community college. “Seriously? Needless to say, you should bow down; that man smoked pole like a true Lady.”

I can barely contain my excitement for the next face that I see. “My mother’s going to shit when I tell her that Barbara Eden played here. Come get a look at this. I wonder what show Ginny cast her in where she thought it was appropriate to leave behind a publicity still of her dressed up as Jeannie.”

Hunter is pointing to a face in the far corner of the room. It’s hung above an upright piano that has a prop candelabra sitting on top of lace. “This one I know,” he says, smiling as he taps the frame that has no glass. “It’s Glinda from
The Wizard of Oz
.”

“Billie Burke,” I reply cheerfully, happy to see he can recognize a good witch when he sees one. “I remember reading that she played this circuit when the money that Flo Ziegfeld left behind ran out.”

I turn back over my shoulder to the wall and am at eye-level with the picture of a sexy vamp draped in a sequined gown. Her thigh is exposed through the slit that’s cut all the way to her peppermint patty. This picture shall serve as the only proof I need that everything happens for a reason. “Hunter,” I beckon. When he doesn’t budge, I grab him by the elbow and push his face toward the wall. “Tell me who that is.” He bites down on his knuckle so he doesn’t have to say. “I seem to remember you saying something about looking for an omen. Well, que sera, sera, this omen has found you. Here she is, boys. Here she is, world. Here’s Tina Louise.”

Hunter stands in perfect fourth position, gawking like a teenage girl. I won’t let this moment pass without the recognition it deserves. More than I need a shower, I would be best served by a laugh with my best friend where we let all of our frustrations go. Hunter suppresses his beautiful smile, so I wrap my arms around him and pick him up off the floor. We jump like we’re on a trampoline that has caught fire. He beats on my chest as if he’s forgotten how glad he is to know me. When we land, his face is close enough for me to feel his breath. He pulls away, but I know best; the hurried screams of laughter tell me just how much he loves me too.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he says, grabbing my hand. “Let’s go explore.”

“Sounds like a plan, Stan. If this haunted house is to be our home for the next six weeks, we should at least figure out where the shitter is.”

25

NICK

The weight of the case from the top of the Eli’s closet tugs at my shoulder when I wrestle it to the floor. I am overcome by an attack of the shpilkes as my hands fumble to unlatch its buckle straps. The lid creaks when I pitch it open. Inside, there are far more questions than answers. Photographs, letters, programs, ticket stubs; dear God- I never pegged Eli to be the type of sentimental faggot that would keep a memory box. But, then again, here it is, proving how the people you know the best are the ones who most often surprise you.

Sitting on top of the pile, I find a picture taken at the Halloween party during our senior year. It all floods back to me in a flash. The Ladies’ costumes are a sensation. I talk Hunter and Eli into dressing up as the Darling children from Peter Pan. Eli is, at the time, still taking ballet, so he is thin enough to make an ideal John. Hunter has looked seven since he was, well, seven- so I throw him in a pair of footy pajamas I steal from the costume shop so he can play Michael. As for myself, it’s my belief that if a woman can play Peter Pan, a man has the same right to play Wendy. I’ve never been one for drag, but Halloween is the only socially acceptable excuse. I must admit- I look superb in that blue nightgown with a ringlet-curl wig wearing ribbons down my back.

Most of what I remember from that night is not being able to remember that night. Looking at this picture helps me piece the bits together. I remember how a group of us got drunk enough to hide inside the bathtub. We climb in, turn the lights off, and close the shower curtain around us. When someone unsuspecting comes in to pee, we throw back the curtain and scream, “Tinkle surprise!” Our first few attempts don’t fly; it is impossible for some (aka Hunter) to not snicker as soon as a victim pulls out their dick and starts spraying. Yes, I remember it well- Eli is getting mad that we aren’t committing with a professional approach. Ever the director, he’s taken to coaching us in between attempts. For him, it’s not fun until someone gets a lecture.

When we make some dumb freshman girl fall off the toilet and piss all over her cheerleader skirt, we know we’ll never top ourselves. We make her take this picture of us in the tub before we let her rinse out her underwear in the sink.

I hadn’t realized it at the time, but there we are, all squeezed into that bathtub, and Hunter’s ass is pressed up against Eli like he’s begging for the kosher dill. In return, Eli’s hand is hooked around Hunter’s waist in what I can assure you is a death grip.