Archive for September, 2007

Despite all the sad good-byes and the childish things you thought you’d put away, you are a student of the drama once again, and having some trouble in movement class—with a dance routine, to be specific, a tricky series of slides and hops. Your teacher, Miss Vicky, a tough old trouper, is getting a little impatient.

“How old are you?”
“Fifty.”
“Well, I’m fifty-seven, and I can do it. Why can’t you?”

On to the next challenge, the stage vomit. Here you are a pro. Your barfing technique is organic, not merely indicated, and entirely convincing, with the added touch of a little saliva dribbling down your chin.

Then it’s time to get naked and lose yourself in the pile of sleeping bodies on the floor. It’s uncomfortable, bony knees and elbows poking everywhere, yet somehow edifying in the dark and quiet

Later you get ready for the costume parade. You pull a white suit off the rack in a second-hand store, and as you try it on, it changes color and shape, becoming a dark blue uniform of a Civil War union general—a double row of brass buttons down your chest, plus a big pot belly that bulges out below, very much like a codpiece.

Finally the inevitable party scene, attended by a famous poet, an old friend who shows up in the Emperor of Ice Cream outfit you originally had in mind, only more ornate, with green and pink pastel piping on the collar and cuffs. He smiles sheepishly and says, “Get back to the plays.”

Here’s something new: it’s the last day of school. Usually, you know, it’s the first day and you’re lost in the hallway, looking for the registrar or your math professor and hoping nobody will remember that you haven’t been to class in, well, quite awhile. But here you are, packing up your stuff in your dorm room, and since it’s the end of drama school, all the girls are hugging each other and crying, and you and blonde Mary Jo, your old crush, are singing show tunes and choking back sobs, trying to remember the words to “Where Is Love?” from Oliver.

Does it fall from skies above?
Is it underneath the willow tree
That I’ve been dreaming of?

Um, not bloody likely. Despite all the emoting, you’re eager to get the hell out of there. The histrionics are rather funny, since you know you’re moving on to more rewarding adventures, however vague they may be.

From under your bed you pull out an old guitar case
Filled with fragments of toys and souvenirs.
Jesus, you say to the kids you’re leaving behind,
I brought my whole life here.

Your old baseball glove,
A long gash in the thumb,
(Your dad said they could fix it in Cuba.)
A homemade pawn shop guitar,
Shaped like a Fender Strat,
That you never learned to how to play.
A silvery wind-up motor, a red devil puppet head,
An unstrung harp.

You feel so new
After the laps in the pool,
The warriors one and two.
You bicycle home in hope
Of a message on the phone,
An answer to all your calls,
But you’re still alone.

Well, except for the curly-haired excavation engineer who’s carefully unearthing a baby grand piano buried in the basement. Just as he’s about to lift it out, whoosh! It disappears! Nefarious thieves had tunneled in from the street to grab the ol’ Joanna just when it was loosened from the concrete. Enraged, you nearly throttle Curly and run for the door, but it’s been sealed shut. So you climb out the window and see nobody but a boy in a bird costume, wandering in the neighbor’s driveway.

It could be a bad sign when a squadron of small silvery robot planes, like the insides of an old radio, chrome plated and mounted on swept-back aluminum wings, come gliding in tight formation through midtown Manhattan, low enough that, from a balcony, you can pluck one from the air and tuck it under your arm. It might be ominous that nobody else seems to notice the little furry animals—are they miniature mongooses?—that furtively pop out of the elevator carpet, stand up to sniff around, and scurry away. Or when a singularly unfriendly former colleague warmly shoots the breeze with you. Signs, however, are where you look for them. And none of those things make you nervous at all. Nope, not at all.

You’re having a friendly chat about baseball history with Ronald Reagan at a relatively modest home in an upscale California suburb. The curtains in the den are drawn against the afternoon light and he’s across the table, wearing a silk dressing gown and a light scarf around his neck. You’re thinking, wow, he really must have been a handsome man in his movie days, since his face is growing younger, the wrinkles and pouches disappearing as he speaks. Remember, though, that your father’s name is also Ronald (not that he went by it), so the grandfatherly president could just be your dad in disguise. The conversation is soon interrupted by the arrival of your very own grandfather, unshaven, with grizzled white whiskers shaded by the brim of a black hat that matches a black suit. He looks like a country undertaker—think The Real McCoys-era Walter Brennan. His default dour expression (which is also your father’s and your own) betrays no deference to the former leader of the free world. Grampa is there to drive you to your piano lesson. The housekeeper, played by the Mary Ann character from Gilligan’s Island (Mary Ann being your mother’s name) is a little upset that you’re leaving Ronnie alone, but you assure everyone that, no worries, you’ll be back for dinner.

You and Grampa get to his green ’58 Thunderbird, parked over some kind of sophisticated steel storm drain (ev’rything’s up to date in Californy) just at the moment a tow truck is about to snag the rear bumper and take it away. Grampa, however, is damn quick at the wheel for an old ghost, and the two of you blast out of there and head off to your music lesson somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. Nice to see you again, Grampa.

Hey, where have you been?
Nevermind, you’re ba-a-a-a-ack …

You are playing a bishop, in full ecclesiastical garb, gold embroidered white chasuble and mitre, on a stage in what used to be called Off-Off Broadway or Downtown, but now might be simply be labeled Not Disney. In your big scene you struggle mightily as you are engulfed by a big blob of bright blue goo that oozes in from stage right. Later in the dressing room you wipe off and congratulate yourself on being a working actor.

You and your dad go to a restaurant with his pet dinosaur or dragon. The creature is scaly and snarling but apparently harmless. Still your waiter is understandably nervous. You are a little embarrassed, but your father hardly ever dines out, and so you hope you can just eat fast and get it over with.

In order to become a better roller-blade skater, a very large man has a small man embedded inside one of his legs. At least you think skating has something to do with it. The whole thing is completely preposterous, not to say disturbing. How does the guy inside the leg even breathe? You imagine his face popping out of a thigh. And then you quickly take your imagination elsewhere. Even a restaurant with your dad’s dinosaur would be easier to take.