The Home For Wayward Ladies (5 page)

The producer-slash-director has his trousers tucked under his nipples. As he waddles to the end of the line, I get the sense he’s skipped his morning dump. He stands in front of #31, that same blonde hussy that was chatting up my Aryan beau. I see the producer-slash-director lick his lips. Her purple leotard shows off her perky rack that matches her equally perky disposition. More than ever, I want to push her face in a blender. 

He eyes her up; he eyes her down. He eyes her left; he eyes her right. Then he eyes her diagonal a few times for good measure. I take note of the inordinate amount of attention the producer-slash-director pays this whore. In theater, any man who displays vulgar interest in anything what has lady parts is surely an anomaly. The producer-slash-director seems pleased. He nods her way, “Yes.” Her overbite works to contain a gleeful squeal.

#32 is a zaftig young woman with a kink to her hair that makes me think she should switch conditioners. Like perky #31, she also works to contain a squeal, however, her’s is not one of glee. Rather, she looks fearful of being led to slaughter.

It’s no surprise when she gets a “…No…” from p-s-d. It’s no one’s fault but her own genetics; looking like a burnt paella doesn’t put your face on any billboards in Times Square. She slinks back into line.
How sad for her
, I think,
to have become immune to the shame that will leave her cast in a lifetime of bit parts as a bridesmaid but never a bride. 

Up next, #33, is my seductive Aryan boyfriend with the blonde crew cut and Hitler Youth jaw. However beautiful he may be, it would be unthinkable that this goyim should find passage on the Trans-Siberian railroad anywhere near the village of Anatevka. I’ll hate to see him go, but I’ll remember him fondly as I fondle myself tonight. How I’d love him to cram his Fyedka inside my dirty little Chavela from sunrise to sunset. 

“Yes,” says the producer-slash-director to my faux boyfriend, handsome Mr. Number 33. 

Now it’s my turn to woo. The producer-slash-director approaches and I prepare for evaluation. I stick up my chin. I suck in my stomach. I puff out my chest. My ass is clenched so tight it makes my balls hurt. He looks down the length of me once and then doesn’t bother to look back up.

“No,” he says, as he walks away. That’s it, as if he hasn’t confirmed in one word that my entire identity is a sham.

Naturally, I am in disbelief. As it turns out, shitty non-equity dinner theaters in Wisconsin never got the memo that
Fiddler on the Roof
is about a bunch of Jews. For fucks’ sake, my Great Grandmother survived the pogroms on which the show is based. What was my rabbi going to think? Or, worse yet, my mother? I shake my head and stalk back to the holding room where I look no one in the eye and collect my things. Without uttering a single syllable of hate speak, I work to embrace the fact that I am, indeed, a Hebe who got the hoist.

5

ELI

I’m just happy to be out of the cold when I push through the stage door. While stamping my timecard is typically a silent affair, the warmth of a space heater gives me reason to make noise. The stage doorman, some poor chump in a Plexiglass box, is doomed to repeat the same innocuous chatter all day. “Cold enough for you?” the passersby with rosy cheeks will say. “At least there isn’t snow,” he’ll smile from behind the pompom on his Santa Claus hat. I’m well aware that acting approachable is a sign of Christmas cheer. Meanwhile, all I have to offer this season is my patented glower. I don’t find much reason to be jolly when I’m going to die alone. 

Thankfully, I’m anything but lonely when I head downstairs to the usher’s locker room. Several of the show’s cast members are signing in at their callboard. I notice them, but they see right through me. I find their courage to be admirable. The show they’re starring in is a total fucking flop. Frankly, I don’t know how they have the gumption to go on night after night. I suppose it’s because so many people fear the actor’s ego that no one’s had the nerve to give them the skinny. And in the case of this particular turkey, ignorance is most definitely bliss.

“What do the critics know?” they’d laughed into their sparkling wine on opening night. “It’s the audience that buys the tickets and they lap it up with a spoon. My agent says we’ll run for years.” 

As usual, the Times got the last laugh. Their review said, and I quote: “The only occasion upon which this show succeeds is when you think that it can’t get worse. Then, somehow, like pestilence begotten from a plague, it does.”  Within two weeks, we had enough empty rows to host a farmer’s market. It’s a shame the producers hadn’t though up that angle; tomatoes would sell better here than t-shirts because then at least the audience would have something to throw.

The worst thing that can happen to an usher, knee surgery aside, is getting stuck on some piece-of-shit show. The way it works is: you get assigned one specific theater and you don’t get to bounce around. Once you land a gig in a Broadway house, that’s your home base for life. If you get put on some drek like
The Phantom of the Opera
, you’re going to watch that deformed motherfucker rub his pus sores on that soprano eight times a week until the day you die.

I push my way into the locker room and dive into the digits of my combination lock. As I dial and scroll, I search the room for Jason. He must have come in early because he’s nowhere to be found. It’s a shame too, because his ass looks so good in BVDs that it’s enough to tempt my mind to wander away from Hunter Collier. But, unlike Hunter, Jason doesn’t mind my flirting. It doesn’t matter that he’s straight, at least not until his lips are around my cock.

I begin the process of donning our very gay apparel. The uniform is awful: black tunic, maroon cuffs, gold piping- the only thing missing are stones for my pockets for when I walk into a lake. But the absolute worst part is the fucking nametag. You’d be surprised; having your name emblazoned on your chest offers a level of anonymity previously reserved for lepers. The bellhop getup makes it impossible to look cute. So, if you ever worry about your slutty teenage daughter getting knocked up at a truck stop, get her a job here; I guarantee she’ll never feel sexy again. 

I know I certainly don’t when I make my way onto the lobby floor. This place looks like a funeral parlor had the bastard child of a parking garage. The atrium’s ceiling is spackled in a mural of naked cherubs slurping sunshine from a lake. Large columns with faux marble finish keep it afloat. The floor is a sprawling mosaic of Comedy and Tragedy that sparkles in the light of drooping crystal chandeliers. Seriously, if you’d put a cake in an oven and left it baking for a week, it would come out less overdone.

I report to the house manager’s podium to check in. She looks up from her clipboard and asks me the usual, “Cold enough for you?”

I give the only acceptable response, “Well, at least there isn’t snow…” I shine my flashlight at the wall so she knows I’m fully locked and loaded. She checks that my godawful name tag is prominently displayed before I get two checkmarks on her list. After the all clear, I aim to continue my search for Jason. I don’t make it far from the podium before my manager calls me back.

“There’s inserts today. Take a stack. Our leading lady is out sick. Something awful is going around so I’m telling everyone to wash their hands in boiling water.”

“When is she back on?”

“Hard to say,” she replies. “My guess is she’ll be out at least all weekend.”

“Sorry to hear,” I offer vaguely, even though I’m not sorry in the least. In a roundabout way, that actress being stuck on the toilet and peeing out of her ass is good news for me. It’s against the rules of Actors’ Equity for an understudy to go on without an insert formally announcing their substitution in the program. The responsibility of putting all those little scraps of paper in your Playbills falls upon the epauletted shoulders of us ushers. Because our union puffed up its chest a few decades ago, we earn an extra six bucks every week to perform the mindless task. I can stretch those six bucks into three separate meals. So, while our leading lady’s on a strictly liquid diet, I can afford to introduce solid food back to my own. 

I see Jason across the lobby and the whole world goes slippery slow motion. He pats the spot next to him on the floor where he wants me to park. When I do, I sit close, almost on his lap but not quite. I press my knee deliberately against his. My pulse beats in my groin. Jason doesn’t flinch. He runs his hands through his wavy hair and hides a smile behind his fist. He doesn’t let on whether he’s happy that I’m there, or if he merely doesn’t mind that I refuse to go away.

“You look well rested,” I whisper in his ear.

“I guess I had sweet dreams,” he replies. 

The hook on his tunic is undone and my fingers fumble when I try to latch it for him. “Dreams of what?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he says, and grabs my hand to hold it steady. I can smell the Altoid under his tongue when he looks me over like I’m the apple to his Sir Isaac Newton, as if our experiments with gravity will happen in a matter of time. I never know with him. Every time I think I’ve crossed the line, he inches it farther away. I’m just glad my hands are busy stuffing all those Playbills. With his warm body next to mine, I don’t care who’s watching; there are a number of other things my hands would rather stuff.   

The moment is officially ruined when he spooks because he’s convinced every other usher is watching. I remember why I’m going to die alone when he pulls away. I don’t know why he gives a shit about what other people think. Especially these people. For a lot of ushers, this job is the only reason they have to shower every other day. Those people are the lifers. They’ve spent years mastering the fine art of pointing at a chair and smiling. For the rest of us with bigger dreams (like Jason and me, thank-you-very-much), this job is a means to an end. All that matters to us is that someday it’ll be our names in those Playbills and some other SOB will have to show old ladies where they can take a leak. For the most part, both sects get along. It’s not as if the younger staff is trying to find a way to revolutionize how to tell people to take their goddamn coats off the balcony rail.

As for myself, I’ve never been ashamed of who I am. Every day is an exercise in not apologizing to anyone, even if they’ve earned it. Knowing that, it’s hard for me to respectfully lust after someone like Jason who’s trapped in a translucent closet. I know that Jason wants me. The hard-on that’s visible through his trousers says plainly that he knows he wants me too. I don’t know what he’s so concerned about. After all, there’s an understudy going on. Everyone else is preoccupied by prophesying how she’s going to do.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jason says. “I don’t want to see her fail. But wouldn’t it be fun if she did?”

“Why, Jason, I had no idea you possessed such a delightful little mean streak.” My eyes dart back and forth to make sure important ears aren’t listening in. “I don’t think she’s even had rehearsal. Just when you thought expectations couldn’t get any lower… But, look on the bright side: if the understudy sucks, there will have been at least one performance of this trash that people will remember.”

We are called to the grand staircase for our staff meeting. Jason’s hand brushes against mine as we make our way. I nearly die. For this bloated operation to run smoothly, each of us is randomly assigned one of twenty-six positions. Predominantly, you can plan to spend your evening or afternoon showing people to their seats. Every now and then, though, your childhood dreams come home to roost when they hand you a laser gun so you can scan tickets at the front door. The rotation is the only thing that helps stave off monotony, especially when I get put near Jason. Our manager reads off the list and I listen for his name before I think to hear my own. This afternoon, I’ve been forsaken. The fickle finger of fate points him Mid-Orchestra Left and me Dress Circle Right, an entire floor away.

“That’s a real pisser,” he says, before he reluctantly leaves my side. “Catch you after the show, handsome.”

Fucking swoon.

The only reason I don’t mind being put in the Dress Circle is because it seats so few. Since I’m not expected to pay the rent on this theater, for me it’s: the fewer, the better. I give my section a once-over like I’m supposed to. It’s clean. Well, it’s clean enough. Yesterday’s audience didn’t leave much mess behind - some errant ticket stubs and one crusty tissue that I kick under a chair. I’d get in trouble if anyone knew I didn’t pick it up but this job is torture enough without catching the norovirus that’s obviously going around.

The stage manager is pacing near the orchestra pit carrying a binder full of blocking. The understudy is being rushed through the staging for the final moments of Act Two.  She affects a quiet calm as she’s hurried from point A to point Z. From the looks of it, she’ll do just fine. Still, I can’t help but think that, if I were in her strappy La Duca shoes, I don’t know which I’d need more: Valium or Imodium.