Little Did I Know: A Novel (28 page)

Filled with liquor and the high of the day I rambled on to anyone who entered my orbit.

“I am unique. Not one of many,” I said with all my might. “If I break or shatter on my ascent, or stumble in my pursuit, if I smash to the pavement on the way down, I would hit the concrete with a smile, for I had a cause, a mission. It does not matter how small, in the scheme of the world, it may be. Just look around the room. Every great cause started with one ‘yes.’ The difference between a fool and an optimist is just one yes. Because with the strength of one yes we can move the earth. Odets said it! Yeses for the hundreds of thousands of people who have to believe in something. The simplest journey is the most profound.”

I was talking to no one yet I was talking to everyone. Alcohol has a way. I said all this not in answer to a question, but because I was looking at Veronica’s lovely face and she just let me go on and on, agreeing with a gesture of her eyes as I continued from my barstool.

“It’s what we are all saying, what we are all longing for, what the little have-nots need to make them breathe and grow and soar. When we wake each morning, we should teach our kids that tomorrow is better than today. We’ll make the most of it.
We
make the most. A good day is when you open your eyes. We will work hard, endlessly in pursuit of our passions. When we say hello on gray Sunday mornings or when times are tough, we will still manage to smile and say ‘how are you?’ We are the best of the best of the best. Kings. We are the future. Be just, for if not, then when your world hangs in the balance, well then, who will be there to take your hand and lead you from the heart of darkness?”

Sidney walked over to our end of the bar. “Can I get you something, baby?” he asked Veronica. “A muzzle for your orator here?”

“You could call my honey here a taxi. I’m afraid he thinks he’s a prophet. A good one perhaps, but he’s a little all over the place. Maybe it was the heat of the day”

“Or the seven tequilas,” Sid replied. “Cab on the way, sweetheart.”

I had run out of batteries. Veronica poured me into a cab and put me to bed.

When I woke, there was a heavy rain cleansing the morning air. Veronica and I were entwined like vines in a jungle. As I had railed last night, I promised that today was gonna be a good one, because we’d opened our eyes. For that matter, my day was already excellent; I had woken up next to Veronica Chapman.

W
alt Frazier had swagger, as did Earl “the Pearl” Monroe. The ’72 Dolphins had it as well, and so did Cassius Clay as he stood over Sonny Liston. Swagger is not a given right but something earned, which makes it that much more special.

The parade gave us all swagger. It felt better than sex. Our feet didn’t touch the ground. The jokes that had gotten mere titters in the last performance would slay them tonight. Our reviews, which we’d thought good, were sensational now after a second reading. We were Yaz in ’67 and Jean-Claude Killy in ’68. We were the US Navy at Midway, and Churchill when he read the phone book. We were Seaver in ’69 and Willie Mays in ’54. We were unhittable. Unbreakable. Bigger than life. That allowed us to relax and get close to being as good as we were told we were.

Today, Saturday, we would close our first show,
Cabaret
. Our second production,
Anything Goes
, would premiere on Monday. The compound felt different. We went about our rehearsals with a desire to make each performance that much better. Yet the level of intensity had changed. It was no longer the regular season but the opening game of the World Series, where ordinary moments became extraordinary, and every one of us was Joe DiMaggio. The parking lot was backed up with cars and the stacks of tickets diminished like the pounds off a crash dieter. We had become the “It” event and wore that mantle with a sense of pride. Now we needed to sustain it.

Curtain time was at 8:30 p.m. We had never sold more than 107 seats for a performance since we had opened. Yet here it was closing in on 5 p.m. and we had a waiting list that exceeded a hundred people.

The early morning drizzle had given way to pure sunshine, and by eight o’clock Van Gogh might have painted the landscape. Our car boys were waving their flashlights like magic batons so that our patrons felt safe, and they tipped accordingly. Programs sold at the concession stand like memorabilia from the Tony awards. As the director, I knew that final performances always had a special something about them, like the first kiss of a relationship or the last day of summer. I sat at the red picnic table taking it all in, feeling quite the cock of the walk. It was ten minutes to showtime, and people lingered, hoping for a cancellation or even a standing room spot or partialview seat.

It was 8:22 p.m. Suddenly everything went black.

The compound, the streetlamps, the lights that offered a path from the parking lot to the theater were dark. The office, the houses, the box office, the exit lights, the houses surrounding the compound were ink. Black night. A sea squall had covered the sun, the sea swells were eight feet high, and we were sunk. We of course had emergency lights to guard against any real jeopardy, but within an instant festivity had been replaced by doom and concern.

“Fuck,” I said several times with escalating levels of discontent.

I ran to the office and called the electric company. A young perky voice answered on the first ring. “Hello, this is Emily. May I help you?”

“Light, Emily, we need light. I’m Mr. August and—”

“What a great parade,” she interjected. “I’m planning to come to see a show next weekend with my boyfriend and my mom and dad. Roy, my boyfriend, has never seen a musical.”

“That’s so great,” I said. “I’ll look for you when you arrive. Emily, what’s up with the lights?” I asked this as if my leg were on fire.

“Oh, sir,” she answered so calmly that I wanted to smash her face against a cement wall, “it’s a downed wire. A driver hit a pole on Rocky Hill Road.” She giggled. “But we will have it fixed in a jiff.”

I held my breath. I looked across at the deck packed with a sell-out crowd. My fate rested on the definition of “jiff.” Hesitantly, and with an anvil resting on my chest, I asked Emily, “How long is a ‘jiff’?”

She mused for a moment then said two words that stabbed me in the heart and twisted it with glee. “An hour.”

I ran across the compound and told Jojo what was up. “We have an hour to kill until the lights come back on. Keep the company ready and on their toes.”

“An hour?” she exclaimed. “No one will wait an hour.”

“No choice,” I said. “I’m going to lie and then lie again. I’m not letting four hundred-plus people leave here tonight pissed off that all they got was a warm Coke.”

I ran to the balcony where Duncan and Kasen ran the two spotlights and told them to put them on auxiliary power so we could get some light in the building. Kasen reminded me that “the emergency spotlights were working but the spots made everyone look like a cadaver.”

“Do what I say,” I commanded, then raced toward the orchestra pit and Dr. Rosenstein.

He listened, and Louis Rosenberg, his first chair, said at least twenty times, “Cool, my brother.” I guess that was good.

I raced to the front of the theater and asked for the audience’s attention. The house quieted instantly. “Hello, everyone. I am Sam August and I want to thank you—”

Rousing applause, some whistles, and audible comments all filled with goodwill and a spirit of unbridled joy cut off my introduction. This too was good.

“Thank you so very much. Thank you for being here tonight. In the spirit of the theater, the show will go on!”

Then I explained how a car had hit a pole and cut off the electricity, but that the electric company said the power would be back on in fifteen minutes. It was a beautiful night. We opened the concession stand for free drinks, and the band played. I encouraged the audience to get up and dance under the stars.

I watched the clock. Every minute was a lifetime, and the crowd could turn ugly if someone had a babysitter waiting or if they were looking to get laid and their schedule was tight. It was now close to 9:10 and long past the promise of “fixed in a jiff.” Smiles began to turn into impatience and people inquired about refunds. I thought briefly about torching the entire place.

At 9:15 I stood in front of the crowd with the hope of defusing the growing discontent. “Ladies and gentlemen, I understand that General Washington’s lights went out during his post-holiday dinner and that the Continental Congress had problems with their air conditioning right after they signed the Declaration of Independence.”

None of that was close to funny, but I did get a few chuckles and realized there was some goodwill left in the tank.

“I have just spoken to the electric company and they have informed me that the lights will be back on in
less
than five minutes.” My nose grew and my sphincter tightened, but the crowd responded with a round of hearty applause. “I thank you for your patience tonight. Everyone here this evening can take his or her stub down to the Full Sail after the show and Doobie will buy you all a cocktail.”

I clapped my hands a few times and asked if everyone was comfortable, and nobody threw anything at me. I took that as a good sign. I ventured forth. “I thought it would be fun if we offered you something special tonight, something that only live theater can offer. As you know, you are here tonight to see the closing performance
Cabaret
. It’s not your classic musical comedy, but it’s a great show that I’m sure you will enjoy immensely. Our next show, which opens Monday night—don’t ask when we sleep—will feature the music and lyrics of Cole Porter.”

The spotlights were in my eyes and I couldn’t see anything. But I could hear the crowd rustling, and it appeared to be interested in what I was saying. I looked stage left, and Bobby was giving me the hand signal for “hurry it up or we give you the hook and then beat you to death.” I quickly moved on. “So we thought it would be a nice gesture, to thank you for your patience, to give you a preview of
Anything Goes
, then go right into
Cabaret.”
The response was spirited and sincere.

I thought of Emily at the electric company; it was now more than an hour since we had spoken. I made a mental note that when she came to see the show next week I’d make sure she sat behind a pole.

“Great,” I said. “Now remember you are seeing a number from
Anything Goes
, which is rousing and fun. The lead character is played by Katherine Fitzgerald. Kat, take a bow.” Katherine stepped forward in her Nazi prostitute outfit and took a bow. “Katherine’s character is imploring Gabriel in heaven to shine down goodwill on the characters of
Anything Goes
, none of whom are Nazis.”

Oh boy.

“So with Dr. Rosenstein conducting the orchestra and the PBT company in their thirties Berlin garb, we offer you a rather unusual sneak peak of
Anything Goes
. Please note that, until the lights go on, this number will be performed with the auxiliary spots that offer no color or theatricality. We need your imagination right now. If this bombs, my mother’s going to make me go to medical school!”

The theater filled with chuckles. “Ladies and gentlemen, PBT presents
Anything Goes
via Berlin, 1932. Let your imagination take flight. Enjoy, and thanks.”

The curtain rose. The company took their positions in white-hot cadaver light. They looked surreal wearing Berlin outfits when the song they were about to perform was meant to be sung from the deck of an expensive frivolous ocean liner. I walked stage right and Veronica gave me a shot of JD and a huge kiss. The cast was ready for the downbeat. And the rest of us were ready to run.

Dr. Rosenstein shouted, “One, two, three, four,” and waved his baton.

Berlin vanished. Everyone began to sing about Gabriel and his horn, and how he played it with a vengeance. The dancers danced and the chorus sang their asses off. Danny Davis hit each trumpet riff. Fitzgerald sang “Blow Gabriel” like a star, followed by the chorus, followed by Danny blowing Gabriel’s horn, and then again and again, and the audience was clapping and cheering and they were glad they had stayed.

At the apex of the number, when all twenty-four cast members and twelve in the band were singing their tits off for Gabriel to blow that fucking horn . . .
the lights went on!
The blacks and grays and shadows that had cloaked the stage suddenly became Oz, and the stage was alive in a rainbow of color. The cast took it a notch higher and the band blew the roof off the building; the audience leapt from their seats as if propelled. It was unlike anything you could ever have imagined, because you couldn’t make this stuff up.

Bobby Stevens cried in the wings. First the parade, and now this. Applause cascaded over the stage in wave after wave, and with each bow the company took the crescendo grew louder. Finally, after six bows Jojo kept the curtain down and announced that
Cabaret
would start in ten minutes and asked that everyone remain seated. Of course, at that point no one was seated.

Light had come upon us, and with the release of tension and the curtain down for a ten-minute break, the cast went into some crazy dance, a hybrid of an American Indian ritual, a twenties Charleston, a sixties twist, V-J and V-E Days, and Times Square on every New Year’s Eve since Adam kissed Eve.