Blackbird (11 page)

“Eighteen,” I said. Which was a lie. I was a full half-year short of eighteen, but something told me eighteen was a much better answer than seventeen-going-on, so I lied.

“Oh, good,” Libby said.

“Street-legal,” Marshall said.

“Street-legal?”

“Cut it out, Marsh,” said Libby. “Come sit down,” she said, gesturing me away from the door and plopping her great bulk down onto the floor. I sat cross-legged across from her, and Marshall sat down next to me.

Libby leaned forward to talk to me. The soles of her plump feet were black with dirt.

“Now, what we’re doing here are basically just class projects.

Nobody’s gonna see ’em except the class and the instructors. Not exactly a major career move for you as an actor. Anyway, what I’m doing is a one-act about prison. It’s called
Lockup
, and it’s a very realistic depiction of prison life. The situations are rough and the language is rough. Understand?”

“I guess.” I don’t use a lot of cusswords myself, but it’s not as if I’d never heard any.

“Also,” Libby continued, “because this is about prison, the subject of homosexuality is involved.”

A chill started at my toes, flew up the length of me, and shot out through the top of my head. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my hair had stood straight up.

“Does that bother you?” Libby stared me dead in the eyes.

“No,” I said, fighting a tremble.

“You sure?”

“Sure,” I said, hoping I sounded surer than I felt.

“Course it don’t bother little Johnnie Ray.” Marshall smiled and raised an eyebrow at me. “Does it?” And from the way he said that, I got the feeling it was a serious question, like he was trying to get me to admit something. And for some reason, I got kind of bold. I just looked Marshall square in the face and said, “Nope. Not a bit.”

“Good,” Libby said. “Either way, I’ve got to have your mom or dad sign a waiver that they understand you’ll be involved in a play with quote adult subject matter unquote. Think that’ll be a problem?” “No. My parents are cool.” Which was a half-lie. Mom and Dad were decidedly uncool about rough language, rough situations, etcetera. But there wouldn’t be a problem because I’d just sign Mom’s name myself. I used to do so many sick notes and absence notes to get out of P.E., I sign Mom’s name better than she does.

“Great.” Libby smiled. “Think you want to read for me?”

“Why not?” I shrugged, hoping I looked mature and nonchalant, which was nothing like what I felt.

“Now, there are only four characters in this play. I’ve already cast three of them with some friends of mine. Marshall’s one of them.” I looked at Marshall, who smiled mischievously in my direction. “All but the boy. Now he’s just a kid, and he’s been busted for pot and thrown into the klink with a bunch of hardened criminals. That’s the part you’d play.” She handed me a script, a bunch of ditto sheets stapled together at the upper left corner and folded open to a page somewhere near the middle.

“Okay,” Libby said, “this is your first day in jail. You’ve been busted on a pot rap, and you’ve been tossed into a cell with a convicted rapist, who has taken the first opportunity to come on like gangbusters, and you’re scared. Shitless.” Libby smiled at her own speech. “But as Ponch is coming on to you, you find, to your great fear and confusion, that while he’s scaring the living shit out of you, he’s also turning you on. Got that?”

“Uh-huh.” I must admit I was a bit surprised to find such goings-on at our local J.C. Maybe this town wasn’t so tight-assed after all.

“Great. Okay, top of page nine, starting with Ponch, that’s

Marsh, and Johnnie Ray, you read Billy; Marsh I want menacing, I want sex, and Johnnie Ray, I want fear, I want scared shitless. As the scene progresses, I want Marshall advancing, Johnnie Ray retreating, and by the end of the scene I want Johnnie Ray backed into a corner and Marsh practically breathing up the kid’s nose; and Johnnie Ray, by that time you’re so scared you’ve practically soiled your bloomers, and at the same time you’re so turned on you’d have this man’s baby. Get it?”

“Got it,” I said.

“Good. Let’s go, then.”

I took a quick glance at page nine, trying to get some idea of the lines – cold readings make me nervous, and this Marshall person wasn’t helping – when Libby says, “Ready. Aaaaaaand … go.”

And Marshall jumps into a crouch, and his face takes on this wild-eyed expression that I swear had “rapist” scribbled all over it, and he starts reading:

PONCH. This your first time inna joint?

BILLY. Uh-huh.
[My first line
–
one word, and my voice
cracks on it. And believe you me, it isn’t acting – this dude is
scaring me to death. “Good fear, Johnnie Ray,” Libby says.]

PONCH. Hey, baby, no problem. No problem. Ponch’ll take care of you, baby. Ponch’ll take care of you real good.
[At which point Marshall puts his hand on
my leg and starts stroking it – just a bit of improv. Libby
says, “Good business.” And naturally, my dick pops up like
toast, and with me in that crouched position, it’s all revved
up with no place to go. Which means Marshall and Libby
probably can’t tell that I’ve just popped a raging bone-on,
and also means that I am experiencing some serious discomfort.]

BILLY. Leave me alone!
[I slap wildly at Marshall’s hand,
and he takes it away.]
Guard!

PONCH. Hey, baby. Hey, beautiful.
[Marshall reaches
up and strokes my face. My heart starts pounding until my
whole body feels like one big pulse.]
Don’t be like that. You gonna need somebody to take care of you in a place like this, pretty young thing like you. Got nobody to take care of you, you get hurt, get hurt real bad. You wouldn’t want that, would you?

BILLY. No.
[My voice is all but inaudible. Libby says,
“Good, Johnnie Ray.”]

PONCH. Course not.
[Marshall leans forward. I immediately
move back. And we slowly start moving, steadily
– Marshall forward, me backward, half crouch, half crawl
on all threes with the script in one hand.]

PONCH. Yeah, you be my punk, I’ll take care of you.
[Marshall’s hand leaves my face and slowly strokes its way
down my neck, to my chest.]

BILLY. Guard!
[A cry of pure animal panic, let me tell
you.]

PONCH. Yeah, take good care of you, my little punk, my sweet little punk.
[Marshall has me backed all the way
into a corner by now, and his hand is at my waist.]

BILLY. Guard!

PONCH. That’s right, baby, you and me we gonna be jam up and jelly tight.

BILLY. Guard! Guard!! Guard!!!

I screamed those “guards” so loud and with such fervor that everybody in the room stopped talking. Suddenly you could hear the crickets outside the building. Because when Marshall hit the word “tight” in “jam up and jelly tight,” he clamped his left hand directly on my crotch. Which was, of course, rock hard and throbbing like a sore.

Marshall looked deep into me with those little brown eyes of his and smiled a smile that I thought might have been ridicule, or maybe something else, I couldn’t tell, when (it seemed like weeks had gone by) Libby said, “Shit-dang, you guys! That was great.”

Which was when Marshall finally removed that big, hot hand of his from my groin. Which was when I finally started breathing again. I said “The Lord is my shepherd” to myself faster and with more feeling than I think it’s ever been said before or since, and my dick slowly co-operated to the point where it probably wasn’t too too obvious that I was about to burst the buttons of my Levi’s.

“Well, Johnnie Ray,” Libby said, “needless to say, you’ve got the part if you want it. Please say you want it.”

“I – uh – ” I was alternating more hot and cold flashes than a roomful of menopausal matrons, I could still feel Marshall’s hand on me, and I was hardly at my most articulate.

“Course he wants it,” Marshall said, and he hooked his arm around my shoulders again. I fought the urge to turn and bury my face in his armpit and said okay.

“Awrite.” Marshall shook me by the shoulder. I wriggled out from under his arm (another erection was announcing its arrival), and said to Libby, “That’s it then?”

“That’s it. We’ll rehearse Thursday and Friday nights, seven till about ten, starting next week for the next four weeks. That’s not a whole lotta time, so you’re gonna hafta learn your lines pretty much on your own. We’ll rehearse at my place. I’ll give you the address and the form for your Mommy to sign so she knows you’re gonna get raped onstage.”

“And
I
get to do it,” Marshall said through a smile and a slow, insinuating eyebrow-raise. I blushed, albeit invisibly, and my ears sizzled. The thought of getting raped by Marshall MacNeill, on or offstage, really made my toes curl.

“Well, I better go.” I started for the door. “I gotta get a bus or it’s kind of a long walk.”

“You’re gonna
walk
home?” By Libby’s tone, you’d have thought I was planning to push a peanut all the way home with my nose.

“Where do you live?”

“Just off J Street, near Tenth.”

“Marsh” – she slapped Marshall on the shoulder with a chubby bracelet-rattling hand – “take the kid home.”

“No, that’s – ”

“Libby, give a guy a chance to volunteer, why doncha. Sure, cutie, I’ll take ya home.”

“No, thanks, really. I don’t mind the walk.” Which I really didn’t.

I was used to walking. I did a lot of it, since I’d only had a driver’s license for about a month before I accidentally totaled my father’s V-W Beetle and Dad took away my license. Besides which, the thought of being alone in a car with Marshall MacNeill gave me a chill that I couldn’t entirely chalk up to the cold breeze coming through the wide-open door.

This dude was messing with my mind. I mean, was he gay? Was he just teasing me because he could somehow tell I was gay? Was he hustling me, or was he like this with everybody? And was it my imagination, or did he just call me “cutie”?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Libby. “You will not walk home.”

“Yeah, don’t be ridiculous,” and Marshall, his hand at the small of my back, maneuvered me out the door. I could hear Libby’s “See you next Thursday” as we started down the hall.

Chapter Eight

It was the ugliest car I think I have ever seen. Even in the uneven light of the parking lot, I could tell this was one filthy beige beast Marshall MacNeill intended to drive me home in. It was shaped rather like a potato bug; I could see the rust freckles all over the body of it, a thousand dark specks in the yellowish lamplight. There was a thick sweater of dirt all over the car. Some thoughtful person, maybe Marshall, had taken a finger and printed
WASH ME PLEASE
across the back of the vehicle; that same person, or maybe somebody else, had written
BOB
across the front.

“Door’s open,” Marshall said, opening the driver’s-side door. The passenger door fought me as if locked as I tried to open it. “Just give it a good swift yank,” Marshall advised. Which I did, and the door opened with a sound that reminded me of the guitar feedback on “My Generation” by the Who.

There was a pile of debris on the seat that included one, maybe two complete changes of clothing, half a ham-on-rye, a copy of
Another
Roadside Attraction
by Tom Robbins, and one mateless rubber-tire-soled sandal somewhat worse for wear.

“Just throw that shit in the back.”

The seat squealed a protest as I settled in and wrestled the door shut (its hinges did another short Pete Townshend imitation). After a brief difference of opinion with the ignition, Marshall started the car’s engine, which sounded like it had eaten too much Mexican dinner.

“What sort of car is this?” I asked over the sputtery sounds of the engine.

“It’s a Saab. That’s his name on the hood there. Bob Saab.” He slapped the radio on, and Lou Reed was singing. And we sputtered our way out of the parking lot and onto L Street.

Marshall didn’t say anything for what seemed a long while; every now and then he’d sing along with Lou Reed for a few bars, off-key, “Hey, babe, take a walk onna wiiiiild siiiide.” The lack of conversation was making me pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly, and I was just about to ask Marshall how he liked the old J.C., or something equally scintillating, when he suddenly said, “You wanna go over to El Taco, get something to eat?”

“No thanks. I’m not hungry.” Which wasn’t true; I’m almost always hungry. The fact was that I was broke – I was only carrying bus fare.

“Well, then, would you mind keepin’ me some company while I have something to eat?”

“No, I suppose not.” I was obviously going to end up getting home later than I’d planned to be, and Mom was sure to have something to say about it. But this Marshall person really had me going. I wasn’t sure if I liked him or not, but he sure had me interested in finding out. Besides, he was driving.

El Taco had recently become a favorite hangout for some of the school’s less study-oriented students, the sort of people I know only by sight and whom I tend to avoid at all costs. Through the glass front of the building I could see several such people sitting, standing, leaning, and sprawling around, some really redneck-looking guys and a group of black kids from the other side of town, with a wary aisle’s distance between the two groups. There was nobody in there that I knew or cared to know, and it was a toss-up as to which bunch made me more nervous. I was sincerely glad when Marshall pulled old Bob Saab up to the drive-thru window, ordered quickly, and pulled the car into a parking space way off in a corner, just outside the glow of the tall streetlamps that illuminated the lot.

The spicy food fragrances coming off the greasy white paper bag in Marshall’s lap made me drool like one of Pavlov’s puppies. I was wondering how I was going to be able to stand it, sitting in this funky little car watching Marshall eat, when Marshall pulled a small white-paper-wrapped bundle out of the bag, and handed it to me (along with six or seven paper napkins).