Confessions of a Transylvanian (29 page)

Perhaps, eventually, a police car would have driven by and, like Storme before me, I would have been scooped up by the local fuzz. Or maybe I would have come to my senses and realized where I was all on my own. W
e’
ll never know.

Because what did happen was this: Sitting in my roadside diner chair, I somehow caught the eye of a truck driver piloting his rig out of the Winn-Dixie parking lot next door. A curious sight I must have been. Slumped in the chair, I must have looked either drunk, dead or a combination of both. Curious to know which of these was true, the driver paused momentarily before pulling out of the lot and conducted a test to determine if I was still among the living.

He reached up, grasped the handle of the truc
k’
s air horn and
pulled
.

From what I was told later, there was some debate among the viewers in the restaurant over what they found the most hilarious about what followed. For some, the terrified expression on my face when the sound hit me was the hands-down, piss-your-pants moment. But for others, it was the fact that I jumped approximately ten feet into the air and landed in the grass with a hilarious, arms-and-legs-akimbo
splat
that caused them—patrons, waiters and Rockettes alike— to positively lose their minds.

Do
n’
t ask me. All I knew was, as I shook the cobwebs out of my brain and realized what had happened, I swore never to eat a late-night meal with these motherfuckers again without ordering some goddamn
coffee
first…

The following Friday, Tracey made her debut as Janet. I checked in with her before the show and she was understandably petrified, but I could tell she would
n’
t have traded places with anyone in the world. Besides, she was at last working directly with Ron. That meant getting closer to him and that, in turn, meant...well, God help her after that.

To prepare for her Janet debut, Tracey had been studying Iris (and, of course, Susan Sarandon) the way some people cram for their SATs. Her work paid off spectacularly during that evenin
g’
s performance. She was simply terrific in the role and her adorableness off stage translated perfectly to her on-stage Janet persona. I was expecting Ron to have to occasionally lead her this way or that, correcting her movements when she veered off course, but she instead sailed through the blocking with a confidence you would have expected from a multi-year veteran. The girl knew her shit.

Naturally her reception, post-performance, was ecstatic. Everyone thought she had risen wonderfully to the occasion and their relief was palpable. After all, we were now the No.1 Rocky show in all of South Florida. We could hardly keep the title with a sub-par female lead.

No worries there. Tracey was aces.

The following weekend, however, Trace
y’
s amazing performance would cease to be the main topic of conversation.

Because Kenny, of all people, was going to teach us all a lesson in stubbornness. And it was going to turn the Ultravision show completely upside down.

The night of Trace
y’
s triumph, Russ saw that spirits were high and took it as an opportunity to announce that he had chosen the understudies for all the major roles and that the current principal performers were supposed to cooperate with their backups as much as possible.

Russ had braced himself for the worst (the worst being, presumably, an explosive diatribe from Andrea or Sunday). But the worst never arrived. The worst, in fact, did
n’
t even phone to say it was coming. It just stayed away entirely. We were worst-free.

Instead, things got
frosty
. No one became angry or incensed by the news. No one screamed or yelled or made derisive comments. Nothing like that. But the temperature in the restaurant dipped about 20 degrees in the moments following Rus
s’
s pronouncement and it did
n’
t look like spring was arriving any time soon.

No one could deny that Russ was right. There was no question that we needed full-time coverage for each principal character. That was a fact.

But the Clique, by their silence, made something else clear: They did
n’
t have to like it.

Tha
t’
s when Kenny decided to make his move.

Up until this moment, Kenny had never figured big in all of the political nonsense, the personal rivalries, the sexual escapades and the ridiculous (sometimes childish) craziness that was a hallmark of the cast. He made it clear that he found all of the backstage intrigue to be just so much bullshit. Generally speaking, he rose above it.

So when Kenny picked up on his fellow cast member
s’
reaction to the news about their understudies, their cool, snobbish attitude toward people who, in Kenn
y’
s opinion, were guilty of nothing more than offering to back them up, he formulated a plan.

And the following Friday night, only minutes before the show was set to begin:

He quit.

He picked up his shit, flipped the cast the finger and told them all to figure it out for themselves.

And the girls. Went. Bananas.

I got wind of this during the pre-show. Steve came flying up the aisle toward me and pulled me off the front row of seats where I had been whipping up the crowd.

“Yo
u’
d better get back there,” he said, dragging me toward the lobby of the theater. “The shit is hitting the fan.”

“Wha
t’
s going on?”

He gave me a dark look and shook his head. “Yo
u’
ll see.”

Even before I saw them, I could hear the intermixed sounds of both Andrea and Sunday losing their minds and the low voice of Russ attempting to calm them down. When I finally stepped through the lobby door, I could see the group of them spread out before me like chess pieces. Kenny was standing near the exit door wearing his regular clothes. His costume and all the rest of his Riff stuff was stuffed into a bag. He looked ready to leave.

I froze. The show was going to start in just a few minutes. He should have been ready a half an hour earlier. What the hell was going on?

In front of him stood Andrea and Sunday, who were cursing and shouting at both Kenny and Russ. They alternated back and forth, not seeming to care who caught most of the shrapnel. They were in their full costumes, Andrea in her Magenta outfit and Sunday decked out as Columbia. Something about the fact that they were dressed in character and screaming at a clearly unmoved and dispassionate Kenny in civilian garb made the scene all that much more disconcerting.

For his part, Russ was standing opposite Kenny, on the other side of the shrieking women, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. The gesture, I should mention, was placating diddly-squat.

Beyond this group, and just to Rus
s’
s right, Donny stood with his back against the red velvet wall of the lobby, his Eddie costume making him look like a warrior from some future, dystopian nightmare world. A cigarette dangled from his lips and he seemed not the least bit interested in the drama playing out before him. He simply watched and smoked, betraying not a hint of emotion.

What had happened to lead up to this scene, I later discovered, was this:

Kenny arrived early at the theater and waited for the girls in the ladies room, knowing that Sunday and Andrea were always among the first to arrive. Their makeup (especially Sunda
y’
s) took forever and they were too particular to ever arrive late and have to rush the creative process. Everything had to look perfect.

Knowing their habits, Kenny rolled in at about 11
o’
clock, propped his long legs up upon the makeup table, opened up a Sci-Fi magazine and waited. Sure enough, the girls arrived right on cue.

Kenny ignored them for a bit, waiting for them to get settled in, start on their makeup and engage in their usual pre-show babble. Finally, during a lull in their conversation, he sensed his moment arrived, closed his magazine and tossed the first bit of red meat to the two tigresses.

“Hey, how about Russ last week, huh?”

The girl
s’
eyes narrowed as they turned to him.

“You mean that understudy bullshit?” said Sunday, carefully dabbing some rouge on her whitened cheek. “He can do what he wants. But i
t’
ll be a cold day in hell before they get anywhere near that stage, I can tell you that.”

Andrea nodded in agreement. “I
t’
s the message that pisses me off. Like w
e’
re gonna miss a fucki
n’
show. Please.”

“
I’
d have to be missing an
arm
, I swear to God,” said Sunday. “Seriously, a truck would have to come by and rip my goddamn
arm off
before
I’
d miss a show. But Russ, h
e’
s got to have these people waiting in the wings, breathing down our necks, just dying to get on stage. I
t’
s all such a load of crap.”

This continued for a while, both of the girls sneering at Rus
s’
s attempts to shoehorn them out of the way and immensely enjoying the fact that they, in actuality, held all the cards. Kenny did
n’
t say anything, just bobbed his head up and down agreeably.

“I
t’
s unfair to
them
, if you think about it,” Andrea continued. “To make them think that the
y’
re ready, that they can just jump up there at any time and do what w
e’
re doing. Shit,
I’
ve been doing this for two years. It is
n’
t as easy as it looks.”

“Fuck no,” said Sunday, putting the final touches on her eyes. “But whatever. Let the baby have his bottle, tha
t’
s what I say. Russ wants to pretend h
e’
s in charge, let him.”

Andrea, by this time, must have noticed that while Kenny had been drinking all of this in he had not, during the entire time the
y’
d been talking, made a single move to get ready for the show himself. And the top of the show was rapidly approaching.

“Hey,” she said, appraising him. “Should
n’
t you be getting dressed?”

Smiling amiably at the two of them, Kenny stood up.

“Nah. I do
n’
t think so.” He picked up his bag full of stuff and headed for the exit, pausing in the doorway. “I think you should do the show without me for once. Have fun.”

And he walked out.

The girls took one look at each other and came flying off their chairs, screaming after Kenny. H
e’
d only gotten a few steps into the lobby before they were in his face, demanding an explanation.

Kenny demurred. “I do
n’
t have to explain a thing. I do
n’
t want to do the show,
I’
m not doing it.” He tried to walk past the girls but they were
n’
t having it.

“You ca
n’
t just walk out of here, goddamn it!” Sunday blared as she blocked his path. “The show starts in like two
minutes
!”