Little Did I Know: A Novel (45 page)

“Sam, question. Would it be all right with you if I spent the day here working alongside Mike? Help out any way I can?”

Here was a man who had gone toe to toe with the Teamsters, stared down New York City unions, and prevented strikes that would have crippled a city. As a young attorney he had represented Robert Moses, who built Jones Beach and much of the New York City subway system. Mr. Kasen was the real thing, a man of substance and fire, and
he
wanted permission to work in our house.

“It would be an honor, Mr. Kasen,” I said with a small, respectful bow. “Let me get you a hammer.”

From that moment, Fred Kasen threw himself into everything. He built sets alongside his son. He commented throughout the day that the time he spent with us made him feel young. He flirted with the girls and offered praise to everyone on the premises. He ate breakfast in our dining hall on Sunday morning and even gave a toast to “youth and opportunity and fearlessness.” He hugged me when he said goodbye and promised to invest in my first New York venture. Then he shook his son’s hand and drove off in his white Lincoln Continental. Mr. Kasen was our lovely surprise.

Mr. Foster, the man in the limo wore a dark suit and a red tie with a matching pocket square. He had a jutting jaw and an almost military manner. He was gruff yet polite with everyone and asked at the box office for the best seat in the house. Informed there were no seats to be had, he got a bit in Diana’s face and insisted to talk to someone in charge. I saw the exchange and interceded immediately.

“Mr. Foster, sir, welcome. I’m so glad you made the trip.”

He looked at me with a distrustful and professional eye. “You are . . .?

“Sam August, sir. We spoke about Ellie over the phone. Let me get you a seat and then I’ll run and get her.”

“So, Sam, you were the pushy young man throwing around words like ‘damage.’”

“Sir, I used that word because I thought it was true that she could be hurt and you needed to hear it. I’d also like to believe I was caring and not pushy, but as you know in your work, whatever it takes to get the job done, right, sir?”

“I have to say that this is an impressive place you have here, much more than I would have expected. I guess congratulations are in order for you. Ellie writes that she has really prospered here and that she has enjoyed the dancing and wants to continue with it after the summer.”

“Yes, sir. She is a great person and she is so dedicated and so talented. I don’t know what we’d do without her.”

“Well, you’ll have to figure that out, son. I’m taking her home tonight. I’ll see your show and then we’ll be off.”

I countered with a quick jab. “No, that won’t be happening.” My eyes met his and held their own. “Ellie has a contract with me, and we’d suffer real damages if she breached that agreement. Also, Mr. Foster, I have no tickets to sell you. We’re completely sold out and I won’t be able to find you that seat I mentioned a minute ago. Sometimes it pays to plan ahead. Sorry, sir. It was nice to meet you. I’ll let Ellie know you’re here.”

As I started to leave and he took my arm and spun me around to face him.

“You listen to me, kid. That contract you’re throwing at me is for what, a hundred, two hundred dollars? I’ll buy it out for lunch money and this will all go away. I am taking my daughter home tonight. This whole situation is too dangerous for her to get vested in, she has other more important things to do with her life. So let’s not play games here, boy.”

“My name is Sam, sir. I don’t play games, but I do honor my commitments and I expect others to do the same. Ellie has friends here who are counting on her.”

“I don’t know her friends.”

“Perhaps you should. It might help you know your daughter a bit better.”

“I’ll buy out her contract for five thousand dollars. I am taking her home.”

“Neither her contract nor her soul are for sale! Neither am I, sir. Now, if you’d like to see our show, I can accommodate you. But if you’re here to cause a problem for me, then I’m respectfully ending this conversation.”

He was seething. His power tie and scowl weren’t working on me. I had no stock options in his corporate tower, nor was I vying for his approval.

“I’ll pass on the show,” he said briskly and waved for his driver to come around.

I dashed to the office and grabbed the PA mic. “Ellie Foster, please come to the compound immediately. Your father is here to visit. Your father is in attendance. Please come to the compound ASAP!”

My recklessness had halted Mr. Foster before he climbed into his car and hid behind the tinted glass that shielded him from being human. Ellie appeared and dashed to his side, hugging him tentatively. He softened ever so slightly. Diana, knowing somehow that her girlfriend needed assistance, ran out from the box office waving a ticket as if it carried the winning numbers to the Irish Sweepstakes. She proffered to Mr. Foster and he had no choice but to take it. Unless he was Houdini, it looked like he’d be seeing Ellie’s work on stage tonight. After that it would be up to the two of them to figure it all out. I had my parents arriving and needed to prepare. One must, even for the best of invasions.

Mom and Dad arrived minutes before the final performance of
Funny Girl
on Saturday night. It was so good to see them both. My father was a very handsome man in his early fifties who carried himself with great confidence. My mom, Phyllis, was a beauty even as she approached the big five-oh. She had red, curly hair, an easy smile, and a figure and long legs that matched any of the girls working at PBT. My aunt and uncle were with them, and they all beamed as they raced to their seats just in time for the downbeat.

The show went extraordinarily well. It had that special magic closing nights always have, sparked by the company’s desire to hold on to something that will never come around again. True, there would be other shows, but it was the last time for this particular one.

I worked throughout the performance and needed to do so after curtain as well. Our next show was
Company
and, as I had feared, the heavy hydraulic scenery Duncan had designed was nearing the clusterfuck stage. We’d have to work through the night to strike the
Funny Girl
set and quickly mount the complicated machinery that was part of the modern design and character of
Company
. Additionally, we had a new light plot that needed a refocus and numerous costume quick changes to cover. Most important, because of the sophistication of and difficulty learning it, we had yet to stage the act 2 opening or rehearse Fitzgerald’s big eleventh-hour number. I’d have very little time to visit with my parents, if at all. I truly hoped they’d understand.

I joined everyone outside about twenty minutes after the applause ended. I had been working in the scene shop on the set problems, and as I walked across the compound I was delighted to see my folks chatting animatedly with my friends. They rose to greet me.

“Sammy, oh Sammy, it is so good to see you,” my mom said as she hugged me, smelling of Shalimar and gin. She proceeded to kiss me relentlessly, as if I was five and she was putting me to bed. My dad offered a more dignified hug. His scent for as long as I could remember was Canoe, warm and comforting.

“I am so proud of you, Sammy,” he said. No praise could have meant more.

I said hello to my aunt Rene, my father’s younger sister. Rene was a true beauty and would have been a big-time fashion model if life had dealt her a different hand. Her husband, Morris, was so happy with the evening he pranced like a puppy and shared his delight in a jumble of words. The kindest man I knew, he spoke as if his mouth were filled with marbles. Throughout the years, I’d responded to his energy rather than what he was actually saying because I could never really understand him.

My mother strolled over and began to dance with me as she sang a song from the show. She never could remember a lyric, but she could sing “Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah” with the best of them and make it her own. She was always sweet when she sang, and it reminded me that my mom was once a young girl.

Zach cut in and took over the song and dance, and for a moment I thought my mother was dancing with Clark Gable. I was uncertain whether to enjoy the moment or call for a gurney in anticipation of her passing out.

“Dad, Uncle Morris, we have things to do. We have to strike the set and ready the new one by morning. Pizza and beer are on the way. Come in and grab a hammer. Mom and Aunt Rene can visit with everyone while we work. It should be fun. Then on my break in the morning we can all have breakfast.”

“I’m eating here,” Morris said. “I’m told the food is very good.” Or at least I think that was what he said. “@#%@^&**@ Sammy, %@&*%, hammer, &&#^%, pizza,” he said and headed to the theater to go to help out with the strike.

My father stole his bride from our leading man, took her hand in his, and walked her across the compound. Rene stayed behind at the redwood table talking with her new best friend, a tall blond beauty who hung on every word.

E
very person who worked at PBT was busy inside the building. The mood was festive, but it was not a party. Kasen barked orders and things happened with alacrity and purpose. Scenery flew in from the loft and was rigged and sent away to await its next appearance. James, ASK, and Doobie held positions on top of tall A-frame ladders and turned white-hot Fresnels, Lycos, and beam projectors until their lamp hit the correct spot and Duncan approved their moving on to setting the next instrument. Dr. Rosenstein and Louis Rosenberg reset the orchestra’s amplification and played short riffs from
Company
so that the new sound levels were ready for tomorrow’s tech run. Racks of costumes left the stage and new inventions rolled in to take their place, a swoosh of color flying across the crowded stage. Jojo spoke to everyone on headset. Feston and Secunda kept the mood light by improvising a play by play of events and accomplishments as late night turned into early morning.

In the middle of all this Feston says, “Eighty-year-old Jewish guy walks into a confessional at church and says to the priest, ‘Fathder, Fathder, I am shutpping a sixteen-year-old girl.’ ‘That’s disgraceful,’ says the priest. ‘Anyway why are you telling me? You’re a Jew and I’m a priest.’ ‘Why am I telling you?’ the old man asks?
‘I am telling everyone!’”

Secunda: “A hamburger and a French fry walk into a bar, the bartender says ‘sorry we don’t serve food here.’”

Feston: “A potato walks into a bar and all eyes were on him.”

Secunda. “E-flat walks into a bar. Bartender says, ‘We don’t serve minors.’”

The good doctor hit a “ba-dump-dum” from the orchestra pit.

Feston: “Skunk walks into a bar and says, ‘Hey, where did everybody go?’”

Secunda: “A woman and a duck walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘Where did you get the pig?’ The woman says, ‘That’s not a pig, that’s a duck.’ The bartenders says, ‘I was talking to the duck.’”

The work continued despite the insanities. They played dueling bad jokes, matching one another for twenty, twenty-five times, never missing a beat. Finally to institutional relief, Secunda ended it all with, “Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will be here all week. Two shows on Saturday.”

Then everyone booed and hissed. There were cries of “get the hook!”

Feston stepped forward and did a dead-on imitation of Secunda’s Nixon. Hunched over and with his hands in a V he said, “I am not a crook.” The work continued.

I always thought of the set turnover as a melancholy time. Endings are hard, yet without them beginnings never happen. The energy and the busy worker bees reminded me of the Lilliputians all working together to keep Gulliver tied down, or a group of Santa’s elves chugging along on the way to Christmas. The scenery often dwarfed the workers and the disparity in size was amusing to watch, easy to enjoy. You could sit quietly in the back of the theater and observe as one environment was replaced by a whole new world, all in minutes like real life in flash-forward photography.

Veronica made her presence known. She was clearly working the room, making sure that at tomorrow’s breakfast she’d be one of the specials. Tall blonde over easy. Every few minutes she would take someone’s elbow and ask them to take a break from their chores, then bring them into the house to say hello to Herb and Phyllis. Rene and Morris were like supporting characters as each scene developed, and before long act 1 was finished.

The hydraulic was a disaster. It simply did not work. Hydraulics are meant to move things fluidly up and down. Ours was inert. Duncan continued to beat on it the way a doctor insists on endless defib paddles to revive a long-dead patient. No one was angry, just freaked out about our limited options. Duncan had designed a truly imaginative set and Kasen had built it correctly under great duress. But it simply didn’t work. And it was essential to the whole design.

Company
took place in the upscale environs of a frantic, breathless New York City. The set had to be fluid, continual effortless motion of the high-tech, chrome, and metal buildings that were the essence of “the Apple.” We were faced with a tech rehearsal scheduled to start at 10 a.m., with less than five hours to find a solution. The motors on the hydraulic elevator were as dead as being 0 – 2 against Seaver in afternoon shadows. We were going down.

We drank endless cups of coffee; light, sweet, strong joe laced with Jim Beam. The buzz was nice, but the answers were nowhere in the building. Just as we reached the nadir of our despair, James walked in with a big smile on his face. No doubt he was stoned. He was followed by an equally jolly Doobie and a group of six guys I had never met, huge mountain men whose muscles were topped with muscles and whose necks were the circumference of thirty-gallon trashcans. Two of the behemoths carried large workout benches, and the other four barbells of great size. James sent the fellows down under the stage telling them he’d be with them in a moment.