A Little Face Work Never Hurt

EASTER ISLAND POLICE SAY TOURIST BROKE OFF STATUE’S EAR

A Finnish tourist was detained after the police said he broke off a piece of rock from the ear lobe of one of the mysterious ancient giant statues…. A resident told authorities that she witnessed … the tourist fleeing with a piece of the statue in his hand.

New York Times, March 26, 2008

IT IS ROUTINELY spun by those who relish miracles that Harry Houdini took the stage one night at the Victoria, snapped his fingers, and caused six tons of African pachyderm to evanesce into the local ether. Not to be outdone by this high-end hocus-pocus, the Great Kellar stood nonchalantly on the Hippodrome stage while a rifle bullet was fired point-blank at him, the fatal slug caught deftly by the wizard between his front teeth with no visible insult to his system short of perhaps some scuffed enamel. And yet, spellbinding as these effects may be, for sheer astonishment nothing beats an uncanny bit of prestidigitation perpetuated by a neurasthenic homunculus with black-framed glasses, imposing crown baldness, and a romantic presence to rival the late Arnold Stang. Yes, folks, I alone amongst sorcerers can at will cause my telephone to ring. This tour de force of legerdemain required merely that I undress, step into the shower, adjust the water to a comfortable temperature, and lather my body. It is at that precise moment, with the inevitability of a harp solo in a Marx Brothers movie, my area code and number will be dialed by some human, be he or she known to me or as alien as the honey dripper calling from Mombasa who bled me with some Ponzi scheme. And so it came to pass, six weeks ago with the aforementioned prerequisites in conjunction, the old Ameche predictably tintinnabulated on cue, causing me to bound naked and dripping from my glass stall and slide headfirst like Pete Rose toward the hall phone lest some lush financial windfall or unique erotic offer go unclaimed.

“It’s Jay Butterfat,” the voice on the other end said. “Did I get you at a bad time?”

“Not at all,” I said, recognizing the deviated septum of the veteran Broadway huckster. “I was just sitting by the phone studying its remarkable contours.”

“Good. Lemme bring you up to speed. I’m in Boston with a scalding drama that looks to be the biggest thing to hit Broadway since Death of a Salesman. All it needs is some beveling—to smooth out a few rough edges. First-time playwright. One of those sensitive myopics who hollers infanticide every time you ask for a line change. Wound up having him committed. Not so easy to do without the person’s consent. Anyhow, the nitty-gritty is that I’m this close to a Megaball hit if I can just get in a fresh mind to do a little re-juxta.”

“How was the opening night reaction?” I queried, smelling burning sulfur despite the mileage between us.

“Basically, the press was positive.” Butterfat opined. “Naturally, there were some cavils. They took issue with the plot, dialogue, staging, some uncalled-for sarcasm over costumes and sets. I have to say, the critics were right about the performances being way over the top.”

Butterfat was an ex slip-and-fall lawyer who had produced everything from girlie shows to puppet plays. His Broadway output consisted mostly of black holes, yet despite transmogrifying countless wealthy angels into sharecroppers, he sporadically managed to fabricate quote ads with sufficient flimflam to keep his own professional lower lip a millimeter above sea level.

“Look,” I said, “I’m a facile man with comedy, but this sounds like Arthur Miller territory or even Eugene O’Neill.”

“I agree completely,” Butterfat said. “But for some reason the audience can’t stop laughing, and my gut tells me if we stay flexible and go broad rather than vainly try to butt heads with Aeschylus, there’s a beautiful dollar to be gleaned come eventide.”

Quickly computing my caloric needs against current financial prospects and amazingly coming up with a figure identical to the address of debtors’ prison, I found myself motoring up to Beantown. Sensing the show was in trouble and that I could write my own ticket, I held out for stiff terms and, while there was no actual front money, I was able to extract a percent of future profits, which Butterfat vowed would be pari passu with the contractor’s overage for Raj Jahan.

To an experienced play doctor like myself, the structural lapses of Memoirs of a Flounder were not difficult to pinpoint, although they seemed more abundant than the producer had soft-soaped me into believing. The curtain rose on a veritable typhoon of incoherence, the stage chockablock with meandering, unexplained characters, some carrying parasols, others with blowguns or in jockey silks. The early scenes were filled with irrational behavior, introducing no discernible protagonists or plot line, and sandbagged by domestics on phone call after phone call disgorging exposition with the sleep-inducing potency of phenobarbital. Apparently, there was some tsimus about a ruby bracelet that was cursed and some purloined moose antlers. Also, a band of gypsies at a leper colony. For some garbled reason, possibly the invention of forceps by Chamberlin, a convention of egg candlers become mysteriously stranded in Jixi, where there was much anxious reference to a talking mynah bird. While it was true that after the audience’s initial aphasia a certain muttering did occur, which Butterfat, in a state of denial, heard as laughter, it seemed premature to panic and redeploy as farce.

With my work clearly cut out, the first thing I did was set about paring the piece down to its dramatic essentials. Then, gradually imbuing each character with fresh psychological insight, I limned a suspenseful plot that virtually crackled with conflict. Trying always to remain faithful to the author’s original intent, I nevertheless obeyed my muse and changed the sous-chef to a mortician. This enabled me to meticulously and with lapidary craftsmanship separate the wheat from the chaff and bring the intellectual content’s searing indictment of force-feeding geese into taut focus. Yes, the play did have some laughs, but now the humor came from character, throwing climax after shattering climax into bold bas-relief. Butterfat and the cast did everything but lift me on a chair and carry me around the rehearsal hall. Even the stagehands at the Colonial, wizened Paddys who’d seen it all, marveled at my professional acumen. The leading lady, a blissfully articulated platinum blonde whose tectonic plates shifted torridly with every cross she made, let me know that should my typing muscles require rejuvenation after so strenuous a rewrite she was available in her hotel room to administer a Hollywood-style massage with all the passementeries.

In the end, I suppose the show was probably just too challenging for a gaggle of vindictive critics, because when we opened in Philadelphia there seemed to be no other rational explanation for their Hun-like appraisals. The usually mild-mannered Bulletin suggested everyone connected with the project be trussed up, executed gangland style, and cast into lime pits. The other papers were less favorable and suggested that instead of an opening night party there should be an auto-da-fé. Butterfat and I commiserated together in a dark bar, draining gimlets and scanning the notices for snippets that taken out of context might create a fraud of entertainment, but it was no use. We railed at the crassness of the provincial philistines and kept upping our analgesics from vodka to gin to scotch and finally Butterfat’s personal formula for boilermakers, a blending of valences so potent the bartender was terrified, should one fall, it would detonate. Suddenly, with a burst of vituperation that would cause a Parris Island drill instructor to blush, Butterfat decided his integrity demanded vengeance on the press and, dragging me from our blind pig, he sought out the offices of the Philadelphia Bulletin, pausing only to score a stray brick from some construction site. I stumbled along by his side, marinated by the rainbow coalition of grain and grape, seconding his lunatic objurgations.

“Hear! Hear!” I slurred. “Pretentious phonies. What do they know about tragedy—should be covering cargo arrivals.” To properly emphasize the point, I decided to pitch forward on my face and deliver the rest directly to the asphalt. Rising like a tagged pug, I soon found myself teetering before a large building which Butterfat took to be the offices of the Bulletin. Cocking his pitching arm and doing a windmill windup with the brick, he made ready to smash the window.

“Wait,” I gurgled, pivoting his delivery leeward. “That’s not the newspaper. The sign says Philadelphia Art Museum.” There was by then a clanging report as the errant brick smashed with major league velocity into a bronze statue that graced the museum’s green lawn, severing the masterpiece’s nose like a no-frills rhinoplasty.

“Hey,” I bellowed, surveying the damage. “Look what you did to Sylvester Stallone.”

The muscular monument, a generous gift from the great actor commemorating his Rocky movies in the town, now stood bereft of its majestic proboscis.

“What?” Butterfat said, rubbing his rotator cuff, which had made a funny ratcheting noise when he threw. “Izzat Benjamin Franklin? Where’s his bifocals?”

“Lookit this,” I gushed, retrieving the facial feature from the ground. “You busted off Rocky’s hooter.” Butterfat blinked in befuddlement and, rubbing his pitching arm, wobbled off into the night muttering something about needing two Advil. By now my heart was beating rapidly as I picked up the iconic artifact. What made me do it I’ll never know, although the alcohol level in my blood competed favorably with the plasma and platelets. Looking right and left to make sure I was fink free, I pocketed the detached bugle and bolted like an infidel in possession of an idol’s eye. I suppose my plan was to get my car and somehow negotiate the Turnpike back to Manhattan. There I’d fence the treasure at Sotheby’s, putting it up for auction and fetching seven figures in a bidding war between demented film crazies. I recalled locating my Honda, piling in with a mere forty-minute struggle, turning on the engine and hitting the gas, causing the car to execute a series of gymnastic flourishes that ended with a reverse half gainer and left the vehicle upside down, its wheels spinning. I dimly recall a rather heated exchange between myself and two uniformed denizens of the policeman’s ball that climaxed with the bouncing of a night stick off my IQ.

At the station house I emptied my pockets for the desk sergeant, submerging him in lint, old keys, Tic Tacs, and several yellowing photos of Lili St. Cyr, but he homed directly in on the weighty bronze beak, now exhibit A. “Oh, that,” I said, emulating a piccolo as I babbled feverishly. “That’s just a nose I carry for good luck. It’s an old Etruscan custom.” Aiming for grace under pressure, I tossed off a casual laugh that came out like the sound a cat makes when you run it through a paper shredder. By now, the two lawmen, frustrated by my cool reserve, had started to alternate playing bad cop–bad cop. I held firm till I heard the word “waterboarding,” when my resolve faltered and, with a bleat, I began to scream hysterically at the prospect of suffocating. More profound than St. Augustine’s and a lot more incriminating, my confession to merchandise Sly’s schnozz came tumbling out amidst a profusion of large pendant-shaped tears.

Fortunately, in Philadelphia capital punishment does not extend to illegal possession of a nose, but as far as the cost involved repairing a defaced public work, let’s just say I’m still paying through my own nasal membranes.