The Home For Wayward Ladies (7 page)

The son sighs a toxic cloud and palms me a wad of tickets that are damp with perspiration. Sure, it’s fucking disgusting, but it’s an all too common abhorrence when you’re working this beat (although how he managed to break a sweat in December is a mystery me). I notice that their tickets are stamped 50% off. Even at a discount, they overpaid. Some asshole at TKTS must have tricked them with a pretty good song and dance, far better than any other they were going to see today.

“Right this way,” I tell them as I march down the aisle. Their seats are in the fourth row, smack dab in the middle of my section. As soon as I get them seated, I’ll never have to talk to them again, so time is truly of the essence. The words, “Watch your step,” have only just left my mouth when the brother’s Jack Daniels kicks in. His balance wavers. The insert from his Playbill announcing the understudy slips free. It falls to the floor with far more grace then he does.

I try to stay calm. “Sir, are you okay?” I don’t want to offer him a hand, but I have to; everyone in the Dress Circle watching. He looks at me like he wouldn’t reach for me if he were falling off a cliff.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” he says, throttling the back of some old woman’s chair in an effort to set his massive frame upright. She is startled by the affront before she’s even glimpsed the offender. After she takes all of him in, it seems her delicate flower has permanently gone full-wilt.

I tell him, “Sir, I need to know that you’re okay. Procedure says I’ll have to file an incident report.” He’s not the first person I’ve seen bust their ass, but this does mark the first time I’ve recognized the importance of documentation after. He looks like the type that might sue later on the grounds of paralysis, although I can attest that whatever condition he suffers from has existed since the womb.

“You’re not gonna do shit, pretty boy.”

“Well, thank you for noticing,” I reply, smoothing my hair down with my palm, “but if you refuse to let me do my job, then the least you can do is get out of the aisle so we can start the show.”

I point my flashlight to where they’re supposed to go. Even with the other patrons in the row pulling in their knees, they trample whatever’s in their way like a herd of wild buffalo. Coats, canes, someone’s leftover cheesecake in a styrofoam box; a little girl’s brand new American Doll almost falls victim to the melee. The family is anything but apologetic. 

“Enjoy the show,” I say, and trudge off humming “Bless the Beasts and the Children.” When I take my position in the back of the house, I hide in the shadows watching. If I was half as old as my soul feels, it would be authentic Jessica Fletcher realness, honey.      

Within moments, the show is underway. The understudy’s singing is half as good as the real deal but she looks twice as pretty. She’s tentative on some of the blocking and there is an embarrassing moment after her big opening number when she forgets to leave the stage. Thankfully, the leading man is kind enough to drag her to the wings before the ensemble comes in. But aside from that, it’s going on (and on) without a hitch. The audience’s heads bob and weave in and out of consciousness just like every other day. And then, like when you find out what the fuck is really going on in
Next to Normal
, things take a wild turn.  

The show is nearing intermission when I notice my section growing more restless than usual. I watch closely as the movements of the family’s three silhouettes begin to resemble the whack-a-mole at a carnival’s arcade. Limbs are crossing limbs and two pompoms of hair bob from side to side. The sister’s shadow climbs over that of her mother’s. She makes a futile attempt to restrain her brother, but he overcomes her with ease. Her wrists are clasped in his hands until she manages to break free.

The cast is singing a muted ballad onstage. This Rainbow Brite disaster, however, is in such a state of panic that she’s incapable of matching pianissimo as she rushes towards me. I can tell from her shallow breathing that this is the first time she’s broken into a jog that wasn’t for the purpose of catching a Good Humor truck.  

“Get security. Now. My brother is drunk and he’s trying to punch my mother in the face.”  Great, I think.  Just. Fucking. Great.

His shadow rises, towering over his mother’s wiry frame. She ducks and weaves like a creature out of something narrated by David Attenborough. I don’t think before I spring to action. When I do, I feel my cape billow behind me. If you think for a second that I try to break them up, then you need to have your medication adjusted. No, I’m running away. I need to find an adult. 

Something you should know about me should it ever come up in a game of Trivial Pursuit: I’m a fucking pussy. I have spent my entire life preaching about how the “pen is mightier than the sword.” That’s because the truth of the matter is I wouldn’t know how to take a punch unless it was served to me in cut crystal with sherbet floating on the top. And seeing that the gay community would never refer to what’s under my tunic as a ‘good body,’ my face is all I’ve got. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I’m going to sacrifice my best and only asset to the ogre sitting in D-113.

When I throw open the doors to the central atrium, I see Tino, my shift supervisor. He’s a beautiful black man with a waxy complexion that makes me believe he bribed Ponce de Leon for a map to the Fountain of Youth. There he is, standing on the tiled mosaic below, positioned between the masks of Comedy and Tragedy but ironically listing toward the latter. I hold the balcony rail and scream, “SECURITY!”

“What’s your problem?” he smiles up to me like the damsel that I am— distressed. His aura of calm and cool gives me the impression that this job what he does to kill time in between getting laid and then getting laid again. 

“Tino,” I call, “some guy’s trying to punch his mother in the face. Get him the fuck out of here. Hurry.” 

His eyes bug out a bit as he mumbles into his walkie-talkie. He’s practically chewing on the thing as he dashes up the central staircase. I’ve never seen him move faster than a swagger before. He’s been working at this theater since Aeschylus cut the ribbon; I can’t imagine how much longer he’ll be willing to put up with this shit.

His years of experience don’t prepare him for what’s on the other side of the Dress Circle doors. I swing them open. Light from the lobby illuminates the crowd. They’re in pandemonium. Bystanders have risen from their seats and left a clearing at the center for the battle royale. The son’s fists are raised above his mother who recoils below. She draws back her hand and slaps him with all her might. This only makes him stronger. The sister stands panting with me at the back of the auditorium. She’s crushing my hand like it’s a mango and she’s trying to make a smoothie. Together, we helplessly watch as her brother hurdles himself over a row of seats and grasps for his mother’s long hair. That’s when security walks in. 

Well, not “security” exactly. The men that answered Tino’s call are two hulking Latino porters. Their job is to lug around heavy bundles of Playbills in the theater. I trust them implicitly; after all, it’s their professional responsibility to pick things up and throw them, so I know they’re capable of rousting this motherfucker out.   

By now, having lost the grip on his mother’s hair, the son has got hold of the strap on her purse. When he pulls, she lurches dangerously close to the rail that drops two stories to the orchestra seating below. Where Jason is. The porters corner the son just before he throws her over. One of them grabs his arms and the other sits on his legs. Together, they struggle to hold the beast still.

The show happening onstage is about to reach its Act I climax, which is (I shit you not) an epic sea battle replete with the cannon’s roar. Even if the show is terrible, it is on Broadway so we’re not using some lame sound effect. When the show was still in previews, the director made the producer buy two real cannons to be fired from each side of the proscenium. I’ve experienced their detonation thirty-six times; it still makes me soil my manties. The audience, unprepared for the explosion, typically seizes like popcorn in a backdraft. Today is no exception. 

“BOOM! BOOM!” the cannons roar. The man clutches at his chest to see if he’s been shot. His hands search his body for the gurgling of warm wetness. When he realizes that he has survived, he squirms away from the porters’ grip and groans a primal howl. When he runs up the aisle past me and his sis, his legs are spinning like he’s starring in a Road Runner cartoon.

His sister releases my hand. I feel the blood throb back to my fingernails. She rushes to her mother’s aide who, thankfully, appears more shaken than stirred. Intermission has arrived but this show is over. The sister and mother shamefully walk toward the exit door. Everyone stares. Their embarrassment is deservedly palpable.

When they’ve gone, I feel the air dampen in Dress Circle Right as my audience collectively breathes a sigh of relief. My breathing, on the other hand, is still quite shallow. The adrenaline’s worn off and my mangled hand feels like it’s been slammed in a door. All I see is a swirl of cannons and catastrophe while I eavesdrop on eyewitness accounts. An old woman with a crooked chin swears up and down that the man had a knife, which even her husband with cataracts could see was not true. 

I try to hold myself steady. It takes a bit of effort to piece together the details of what the fuck just happened, and— worse— why the fuck it had to happen to me. I moved here five months ago with the intention of becoming a director. Meanwhile, the only directing I’ve done is to tell people to form a single file line while they wait to take a piss in the restroom. I’m starting to feel that if I supplied my own white gloves, this city wouldn’t let me direct traffic.

Jason got word about what had happened and left his position to make sure I’m okay. His appearance makes the trembling start anew. I look down at my watch; it’s 9:43. “I hear punches were thrown,” he says. “You look like you survived, but why are you so sweaty?”

I use my tunic’s sleeve to quickly mat my brow. “I’ll be fine, thanks. I suppose this was just another love letter from New York.”

“Speaking of which,” he says, “I’ve got something for you.” He pulls a scrap of folded paper from his pocket. “Don’t tell Tino I snuck in a pencil. You can read it when I’m gone.” He puts his hand on my chin to say goodbye. The sweat returns.

On the way to my smoke break, I feel the note burning a hole in my palm. I huddle myself in the corner where the payphones used to be and read.

Their’s alot on my mind and your the

only one I want to share it with. 

You busy tonite after the evening show? 

Xx, Jason

I ignore his third-grade education and look toward the gold-leaf ceiling as I let a chuckle slip out like a fart. Funny— I ask for a career and fate sends me a boy, and a “straight” one at that. Suddenly I feel unseasonably warm. At least when Christmas comes and goes, there’s the promise of a new year. When it arrives, I must be certain that I live it.

8

NICK

Between not being handsome enough to sing for the role I was literally born to play and then doing my best impression of the Little Match Girl at TKTS, what’s left of my evening is dedicated to wallowing in self-pity. I take to my chambers where I sedate himself with a near-lethal dose of weed from Jamaica and fries from McDonald’s. To bury my face in the sand might give me the traction I need to resist the undertow of depression that threatens to carry me out to sea. Today was a failure and I was a failure in it. I lay motionless on my bed wondering what kind of disaster it would take for the ceiling to collapse on me in my sleep.

“And if I die before I wake, then what?” As always, He doesn’t reply. I’m probably better for it anyway; I’m in such a state that I’m not likely to accept anything less than a burning bush. To get through to me, the Big Man is going to have to come up with something far more personal. Perhaps that’s why He sends Bette Midler.

I’ll never forget the first words The Divine One spoke unto me: “I say this to you with love, compassion and the spirit of true sisterhood: you are full of shit.” 

I am catatonic. A lifetime of flagrant homosexuality has left me unprepared me for this moment. Naturally, I committed the entirety of
The First Wives Club
to memory within weeks of its original VHS release, yet I never expected to be confronted in person by any of its grade-A zingers.

“Do you see a mermaid tail on my tooches or are you feeling too sorry for yourself to ask a real Lady to sit down?