thirty-two

Lou was alone in the apartment when I arrived. There was broken glass and torn-up pages of books spread all over the floor. A small lamp looked like it had been thrown against a wall. Lou was sitting on the floor, a round space around him, clear of all debris. He was writing something in a notebook.

“Just the man I wanted to see.” He seemed happy I was there but was studying me like his vision wasn’t working so well. “You’re wet.”

Wet? No. That was too puny a word for what I was. I was Noah on the night of the fortieth day. Saturated to the bones.

“I got caught in the rain.”

“Go in my room and get yourself some dry clothes. I need you to come with me to see my friend’s show downtown. Rachel went to visit her mother. A girl and her mother . . . you know . . . you can’t separate ’em. Can’t get in the middle of that triangle. Go ’head. Go look inside. Get out of those wet clothes, you’ll catch your death.”

The bedroom was a much bigger mess than the living room. There were clothes thrown everywhere and the bed was almost upside down, leaning against a wall. Most of the dresser drawers had been removed and dumped on the floor.

“Sorry ’bout the mess! It’s that time of the month for milady, if you know what I mean!” Lou shouted from the living room.

I found a black T-shirt and some black jeans among the wreckage. They were clean enough for me. The freshest socks I could find were a bright purple pair that were a day or two away from holes opening up at the heels. At least I was dry.

I peered at myself in the bedroom mirror and thought I was looking at Lou for a split second. In an instant I was me again. The me who had fucked things up royally and would have to answer for a shitload of mistakes. Like I said, at least I was dry.

I went back into the living room and Lou was holding a white Fender bass guitar. “This is for you. I suck at bass.”

I held it in my hands. It was big and heavy and the strings looked thick and dangerous. They made me think of the Gestapo piano-string torture/execution. A death-by-strangulation that starts with choking a victim to the edge of consciousness with the thinnest string. This is repeated string by string, eighty-eight in all, each one a little thicker than the last until the fat and final string puts an end to the poor soul’s suffering.

My new bass had only four strings—a quick and merciful alternative to the Nazi baby grand. I thanked Lou for my gift.

“Don’t mention it. You can leave it here for now. We gotta get downtown. Mustn’t be late for the the-a-ter.”

I kept waiting for him to ask about the money or the amp but he never did. Ever. Technically I still owe him five hundred bucks to this day. Maybe on some level he sensed what had happened to me and was sympathetic. I don’t know . . . probably not. What I did know was that the shit would be hitting the fan very soon in my world and until it did I was more than happy to accompany him wherever he was going. Tonight it was 4th Street and Seventh Avenue.

* * *

Everyone at the little theater in the Village knew Lou. He kissed and hugged the ticket taker, the ushers, the guy selling chocolate bars, and a few other assorted people who worked there. This was all before the show began and it was all done in a hurry because the curtain was about to go up.

Only there was no curtain—the players were already onstage as the audience filed in and found seats. The actors were a man and a woman and they were in bed together. When the lights dimmed and the carnival music stopped, the couple started having loud sex under the covers. It was very physical and very funny. Naked from the waist up, they tried out a bunch of complicated positions. They were pretending to be passionate and giving it their best effort but found none of the positions satisfying. The woman eventually gave up in frustration. The man asked her what was the matter and she pointed to a corner of the room and said: “Him. He’s the matter!”

A spotlight landed on a chair upon which sat a ventriloquist’s dummy.

The man replied: “He’s just a dummy, honey. Ignore him.”

The dummy said, “Speak for yourself, buddy. Better yet, step aside and let me show you how it’s done.”

The audience roared and the lights went black. The actors left the stage and the stagehands moved some furniture. I glanced over at Lou and saw that he wasn’t laughing at all, not even smiling. He was just staring at the stage, angry and intense.

The play was an over-the-top farce, like something you’d see on The Carol Burnett Show. It was a simple story about Donald and Rose, a failed stand-up comedian and his devoted wife. Donald tries his hand at being a ventriloquist and turns out to be very good at it. His act is hilarious and he gets more and more successful as the play progresses. But as this happens, the dummy replaces the ventriloquist’s wife as the man’s constant companion and confidant. Finally, in an act of jealous desperation, Rose smashes the dummy’s head to bits with a hammer.

But she’s too late; Donald has now “become” the dummy and lost all of his compassionate and loving qualities. Insisting on being called “Wendell,” Donald is a cruel and heartless shell of who he once was and blames Rose for killing his best friend. The final scene takes place in a psychiatrist’s office where the wife pours her heart out to Dr. Ariel Marx, who claims to be the youngest Marx brother. The shrink is played by the same actor who played the ventriloquist and the audience is left wondering if Donald, who became Wendell, has now become Dr. Marx and perhaps was Dr. Marx all along. The finale of the play has Rose straddling Dr. Marx as she says: “I left my wallet at home. Is this an acceptable form of payment, doctor?”

The doctor replies, “Don’t ask me. Can’t you see I’m just a dummy?”

They begin making passionate love as the audience laughs hysterically, the lights go to black, and the play ends.

The crowd of about seventy-five people stood and applauded when the two actors took their bows. As I got to my feet to join the ovation, I looked over at Lou. Slumped in his seat, the man was devastated. Tears fell down his face and he was sobbing as quietly as he could. In between sobs he repeated to himself, “Oh . . . oh man . . .” until the applause subsided, the actors left the stage, and the house lights came back on.

I knew the show had been getting to him. Just before the scene with the shrink, Rose took her wedding and engagement rings off her fingers and threw them to the floor. When she did it, I heard Lou gasp as if someone had punched him in the gut. I had looked at him and he was staring at the stage with his mouth wide open and shaking his head in disbelief.

* * *

We were the last people to leave the theater. Lou told me he needed to “get himself together” before he could go backstage and congratulate the actors. He told me to wait for him right outside of the bathroom and to not leave under any circumstances. He was in the men’s room for a very long time and I waited patiently. I was fine with waiting. I was fine with anything that kept me from confronting the inevitable.

I was in a heap of trouble. I knew I had to face up to everything soon. Ciro was going to go apeshit on me and I would be fired and have to pay for the van. Well, my mother would have to pay for the van and she’d be upset with me and Ciro would scream at me. And eventually I would have to come clean with Lou and pay him back the five hundred bucks. It was a disaster.

When he came out of the bathroom he looked more wrecked than when he went in.

“Let’s go backstage, Tim. I have to say hello. They all know I’m here. It would be very rude to not say hi.”

We went down a hallway and through a narrow door. We were in the wings and I could see the set from where I stood. The stage looked much smaller from this angle. It seemed so much wider and deeper from our seats and I wondered how the actors were able to move around so freely and with so much conviction and energy in such a tiny, claustrophobic space. It made me respect them even more than I already did.

A bald man with a bullet-shaped head appeared and screamed: “Well, look at what the strays dragged in!”

Lou was happy to see the man and hugged him hard. “So good to see you, Hal. So, so good to see you.” Lou was hanging onto him longer than was normal. Like a mourner at a funeral for a close relation.

Hal looked at me from over Lou’s shoulder and crossed his eyes as if to say, What’s his problem? Then he led us down a tight spiral staircase to the basement where the dressing rooms were.

As we wound our way down, we heard the voice of Wendell the dummy saying, “Is he really here! Has my long-lost friend the evil rock star graced us with his presence?”

“Yes, Donald, it is I. In what’s left of my flesh,” Lou said as he stepped onto the hard concrete floor of the moldy cellar.

“Donald left through the fire door, he didn’t want to see you. He told me he hates your guts,” said Donald, the actor, who was still in costume and makeup. He held the dummy on his arm and made the doll do all the talking.

“Tell him it’s mutual,” Lou replied as he tried to give the actor a hug. Donald sidestepped him and offered the dummy for Lou to embrace. Lou refused.

“I’ll tell him if you give me some sugar.” The dummy presented his cheek for Lou to kiss. Lou didn’t like this.

“The show’s over, Donald. So get off the fucking stage and show my friend and me some hospitality.”

But Donald wouldn’t break his character and the dummy kept talking: “The shows not over till I’m in my box for the night. Speaking of in my box, who’s the jailbait?” The dummy raised his eyebrows up and down and rolled his eyes at me.

“None of your fuckin’ business. Where’s Rose? Rose!”

Lou walked past Donald and knocked on a door that had a red glitter star on it. I followed him and ignored the dummy’s wolf whistles and catcalls.

“Rose!” Lou shouted with desperation as he knocked on the door.

“The dressing rooms are for performers only, bitchface.” The dummy was mad.

Lou spun toward Donald and said: “One more word and I will punch your fuckin’ lights out. Got it? You cheap fuckin’ whore. Get yourself to the West Coast. They know what to do with soulless hacks like you. They’ll put you right on The Hollywood Squares.”

Donald and his dummy retreated into the other dressing room and closed the door behind them. Almost at the same time the actress opened her door. She was wearing a white bathrobe and her hair was wet. Out of her stage makeup she looked smaller, younger, and kinder. She was thrilled to see Lou and lunged into his arms.

“I heard you were here but I didn’t believe it.” She grabbed Lou tight and he squeezed her even harder. It released something in him and brought the tears and sobs once again.

“Oh, Rose. You were so brilliant, so good. It wrecked me, it really wrecked me. Just hit me so hard.”

Rose was surprised at Lou’s emotion. And he wouldn’t let her go.

“When you took the rings off, I just . . . you have no idea. You are a genius. I am . . . like shattered . . .”

“Thank you, Lou” was all she could say. He pulled away and introduced me as his secretary. She extended her hand and shook mine firmly.

Lou just kept staring at her. “What a fuckin’ performance. Just . . . just . . . I wanted to ask . . . you know . . . because you’re an actress and you experience pain in imaginary ways . . . does it . . . does it . . . does it mitigate the suffering you feel in real life? . . . I would think because you’re so consciously used to it and you have a perspective, an objectivity, you know? . . . There’s a distance, right? . . . Does it help you in real life when everything starts to fall apart?”

Rose kissed him on his forehead. “It doesn’t hurt any less, Lou.”

“No, but tonight, when you took the rings off, you had to know, right?”

“Had to know what?”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I write songs about . . . you know . . . but you . . . I’m like an actor but I’m not . . . I’m just . . . I’m sorry . . . I gotta go. Great work, my friend.”

“Do you want to get a drink? We can talk if you like.”

“No. I have to go, Rose. Thank you . . . Call me, please.”

“I will. Thanks for coming tonight.”

“Of course. It’s my privilege.”

On the street I felt some drizzle falling. Lou was walking up Seventh Avenue and stayed five steps ahead of me, mumbling to himself. He stepped off the curb and stuck his hand up. A cab swerved toward him. I ran to catch up and hopped in the cab after him. He wouldn’t slide over in the seat and I had to climb over him. He closed the door and told the driver to take us to Washington Street.

“I need to make a stop, Tim.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll have to wait in the cab.”

“Okay.”

We got to Washington Street way downtown and it started pouring again. Lou went into a building and I sat in the cab for almost an hour as the meter slowly ticked away, dime after dime after dime. I had no problem waiting.