SEVEN

I f he were prone to mysticism, Harry might have offered up a potpourri of inevitabilities about the events that cluttered his life in the next few months. They were meant to happen, in the scheme of things, part of a master plan. Inevitable.

Youthful as he was, he held no truck with destiny. One had to make one’s own way in the world. Lives, he would say to anyone who cared to listen, are what we make them, no more, no less. How facile to ascribe a happening to fate! In private moments he attributed his practical philosophy to the influence of his distant and un-affectionate parents.

The first aberration to the established order of things came a couple of weeks into the summer, when he read in the newspaper that a man named Cody Marsh, a convicted murderer, had escaped from prison. Juliet’s father, the itinerant musician and big-time loser, obviously had learned of his daughter’s successes, and was intent on also becoming a passenger, though a clandestine one, on her rocket-ride to fame and fortune. He may have sorely miscalculated his daughter’s family loyalty.

When a capital crime prisoner escapes, the entire, complicated police machinery is assembled to track him down. It is a blow to their function, a scar on the efficiency of the penal system, and a swift re-capture becomes the only way to restore order, to broadcast the futility of the event to other would-be escapees.

The authorities pored over computer data, uncovered the Juliet connection, contacted her at once, and admonished her to report any contact from her father. She hardly needed the prompt—on stage she never forgot her lines, in life she had a tenacious capacity to hold on to resentment. This father killed her mother; she would not be cajoled into being his ally.

Without her awareness, since it had been a federal penitentiary, the FBI, citing jurisdiction, set up an observation point near her apartment.

On his part, Cody Marsh presumed too much. His daughter, he had discovered, was prospering, and of course she would share the wealth. He would be cautious, having learned much about operating clandestinely in his months in prison, would try to contact her through a mutual friend, and would plead his case for a gift of enough bread to, “…help a poor musician get the hell out of the country.”

What her father being on the loose caused for Juliet was tension, not something she wanted at this jumping off point in her life. She despised him and she despised having to be on her guard.

“Think he’ll get in touch with you?” Harry asked over the phone.

“Sure. He’s an idiot. Sociopaths never linger on old trespasses.”

“So what will you do?”

“Call the cops. He belongs in jail.”

“You’re not afraid of him?”

“He’s afraid of me. What I remember from childhood was him always being gone somewhere, pursuing his musical career, a druggie, a self-centered sicko, an insecure dude who was scared of my mom and me because he couldn’t understand us.”

“Still, if he wants something badly enough…”

“We all want some-thing badly enough. We don’t all get it.”

“Just be careful. Remember, he’s desperate.”

She smiled, though Harry couldn’t see it, a grim smile spreading then fading, as she replied: “The one positive thing I got from my nomadic father was his passion for success. No way am I going to let his survival desperation squeeze that part out of me.”

Neither heard the slight, distant click at the end of their conversation.

The second occurrence was an accident that turned out to be a tragedy for Katy Bloom. Her intimacy coefficient was fragile, lacking in consistency, Harry’s fixation on Juliet thrashing any hope she might have entertained for an escalation of their closeness. She took from him what she could get: trust, support, a solid friendship, and the knowledge that she could count on him in time of need. The couple of girlfriends she hung out with had full lives of their own, would make time for Katy, but were only sporadically available.

Of course, she had Gus, the African grey parrot, and therein lies a baleful tale of pain and loss, a hit on her already thin support system.

After her success in subbing for Amanda Detmer in The Glass Menagerie, there was an inexplicable lull in her career. Ms. Florida Berry, her professor, several times had suggested that Katy do something about her appearance.

“Junk the glasses,” she had said. “Get contacts. Drop your hair down—you’re not a British lady—let it flow, let it blow.”

When she told Harry this, he replied, “Oh, well, she could have a point. But, after all, you’re not trying to be a Marilyn Monroe type. You’re an actor not an object.”

In line with his view of Katy, Harry told Brian De Genera at the Odyssey Theater about her, finishing with, “She’s perfect for our group, can do a variety of roles, is deeply skilled, and a lot prettier than she lets herself be.”

De Genera asked for her number, called her in, interviewed her, and sent her home with the words: “I think we can use you. Our next piece will likely be another revival, a woman’s play, the Heidi Chronicles, by Wendy Wasserstein.”

It was soon after Harry’s graduation, with its attending honors for him, and now Katy was exhilarated for herself. It meant waiting for a few weeks, but since no other role was on the horizon, nothing would be lost.

She went home, took a risk, called Harry, and asked if he’d come over so she could make him a delectable dinner—her specialty, chicken picatta, which she knew he liked—to show her appreciation. He had just finished his conversation with Juliet about her father, and was feeling curiously off balance, and to Katy’s delight, he readily agreed.

“What can I bring?”

“Yourself. Oh, if you want, a red wine.”

“You got it.”

Ten minutes after he arrived, Harry heard Gus squawk loudly and say, rather distinctly, “Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.”

He laughed. “Katy my girl, you’ve been talking to yourself. No secrets in this house.”

“It’s my mantra lately. Miss Berry’s been on me to loosen up my appearance, my hair, my whole attitude.”

“And you seem to have gotten the message, along with your parrot.”

“She’s a dear, brightens up the place. I tell friends I don’t live alone. I have a roommate.”

He lifted his glass. “To Gus.” It was the second toast he had made in the past few months, the other saluting Juliet’s professional theatrical debut.

As if he were the third member of the dinner party, Gus echoed, “To Gus!”

“And,” Harry added, “I suspect we’ll be toasting a part for you at the Odyssey before long.”

“Thanks to you.” She placed her hand on his.

He would have denied that the thought ever crossed his mind, but any show of affection would be a clear challenge to his love for Juliet, and he extracted his hand, saying, “Let’s be thankful you don’t have an escaped convict father to harass you, like Juliet. It’s driving her crazy.”

“I’m sorry,” Katy said softly, her face, completely missed by Harry, a mask of disappointment, her private moment with him once again detoured by his obsession with Juliet.

The chicken picatta, capered and salty, along with angel-hair pasta, was a success, one of the few semi-gourmet foods Katy ventured to cook. Her living situation did not lend itself to culinary experimentation; on the run, she often ate standing up, despite intermittent stomach upsets and occasional acid reflux symptoms. Harry was complimentary.

“Great food. Another of your talents.”

“Hardly. Ask for anything else and I’ll plead ignorance. Not that I couldn’t learn.”

“When people ask me if I can cook,” Harry said with an impish smile, “I tell them, ‘I can read, so I can cook.’”

“But the most exalted cooks are creative and go beyond the written recipes, blending novel flavors and spices.”

“Okay, I agree. So I can cook standard fare. I’ll leave the exotic stuff to the master creators.”

They had been entertained, off and on during the dinner, by Gus mouthing back the end words of their sentences, but now she was subdued.

“Look,” Harry said, pointing toward the peg Katy had installed outside the cage. “I think she’s asleep.”

“She does that. Scares me. Her previous owners had clipped her wings so she can’t fly. I keep thinking when she goes to sleep she might tumble off her peg, but I’m told birds have remarkable balance.”

Indeed, her eyes were closed and she perched still as a statue, claws wrapped around the wooden rod, which spanned the area between the cage and a tall bookshelf.

They watched her for a moment, and Harry said, “No teetering, no imbalance, and anyway, if she fell she probably would flutter to the floor, not like a stone but like a feather.”

“I guess you’re right. So far, she seems to make out okay. No slips, no falls.”

“You’re a good mommy.”

“More like a sister.”

“All right, a good sister.”

When he left her apartment an hour later, closing with a knees-to-knees hug and Katy holding on extra long, all was well, the celebration gratifying for both.

Gus slept soundly on her wood perch.

As he entered his own apartment, Harry’s phone was squealing, to him more than a ring, rather, since it was so late, like the whine of emergency. He answered with some trepidation.

“Oh Harry,” Katy was sobbing. “The earthquake…”

“What earthquake? I was in my car.”

“It wasn’t huge,” she halted, caught her breath, and poured out her words in palpable agony, “but enough to shake Gus off her peg. She tumbled backwards, hit her head on the bookshelf, fell like—what you said—a stone. Harry, she’s dead. Gus is dead. It broke her neck. She’s dead.”

**********

It is said that troublesome news comes in threes; certainly in the influences on Harry’s life—and the lives of his theater companions—what occurred next was a nettlesome confirmation, and by far the worst.

It is a complex scenario that takes some tunneling. It begins with Galen Thurston and his father-discovery.

When he first saw the pictures, disappointment washed through him like a diuretic. He blurted out his pain to Juliet, but she was at a loss to help him with the information. He began to stifle his emotions, bottle them up, act as if things were as usual—but they were not. His sleep suffered. When he looked at his mother, he was in agony. It was not fair to her. He wished there were something he could do about that. When he looked at his father, his stomach tightened, a clawing ache doubled him over. His world, as he had known it for over twenty years, was topsy-turvy. Fear of his father, awe of the man, a semblance of respect: gone, all of them. In their place was disdain, revulsion.

He hardly would have owned up to the label of homophobic, may not even have known what it meant. It was his father, after all, but even if he was a homosexual, the way he went about it was indecent.

Most pertinent, and a dangerous assimilation, was Galen’s flirtation with hopelessness. How useful could he be? What was the meaning in his own life?

Earlier, he had been guiltless, reckless as a baby, focused on good times, appetizing food, beautiful women, a routine that might have been the envy of gods and despots. Now he was obsessed with absurdity, incongruity. His daily activities, from morning ablutions to midday meals, from dressing appealingly to trying hard at anything, made no sense at all. In a word, he felt defeated, a numbing humor for a young Adonis of a man.

The seriousness of life, concepts of cultural fairness and ethical correctness, thoughts of inequities, children starving, global warming, the scarcity of potable water, torture and terror—none of these issues had ever disturbed the tranquility of his real-life performance. He had been a struggling actor-wanna-be, in perpetual rehearsal. Now, all of it, the sordid under-belly of living, came crushing in on him, rattling his routine, eradicating his carefree style.

As he had done once before, he decided to consult with Harry, a contemporary who, as he saw it, was more grounded than he, capable of keen insight, talented but without the baggage of conceit. Harry, despite his favor from Juliet, was Galen’s never-stated and reluctantly acknowledged mentor.

They agreed to meet where Harry was performing, at the Odyssey Theater, a couple of hours prior to an evening production. It felt homey for Harry to invite Galen to have a seat in that same comfortable room where he had first been interviewed by Brian De Genera and his pals.

“So what’s up?” Harry asked, aware of more than Galen realized.

“I’m a fucking failure.”

“Hey, Galen, you’re only twenty-three or so. How could you be a failure?”

“Everything’s turned to shit.”

“Tell me about it.”

It took a moment for Galen to work up the energy to get into his tale. How does one tell a friend about his own father’s corruption?

“My old man. I saw some pics of him. He’s queer. I mean, you know, a fag.”

“Your father is gay.”

“I guess you can put it that way.”

“So, is he out? Is he openly gay? Does your mother know? Do his business associates know?”

“Nobody knows. Some guy was blackmailing him. Wanted money. I’m not sure if they did the exchange or not. I don’t even want to know.”

“But, you started out by saying you felt like a failure.”

“Yeah. I do. How can a son be okay if his father’s life is a goddamned hoax?”

Harry thought of his own father, of the cutthroat deals he had to make as a power-broker attorney. Was he proud of his father? Would his father’s sordid side cause him to think of himself as a failure?

“I can see where it would be a blow, where you’d be disappointed as hell, but I can also see how you aren’t your father. You have to make your own way, figure out your own direction.”

“That’s just it, Harry, I don’t have a direction. I’m shit as an actor, my old man pushed me into this movie part, which I think is going to peter out, and I don’t have any other prospects. Women come on to me, but nothing lasts. It’s superficial. I…I’m shallow.”

Harry tried to remember in his psychology classes, the concept of self-talk, how what we tell ourselves is the key to our actions. It was clear that Galen was catastrophising, trashing himself in his thoughts.

“What if I told you, you’re not? What if I said you’re starting to mature? You’re beginning to look at yourself with grown-up values, and it’s painful. It involves escape. You have to escape from your parents. In your case, especially from your father.”

“I don’t know.” He stopped, looking miserable. “I had thoughts that it’s the ultimate insult to my mother. She deserves better.” He stopped again, and said softly, “I even had thoughts of killing my fucking old man.”

“That will get you a jail sentence.”

“I know, but I can’t stand to look at him.”

“There’s got to be another way. Maybe you could write to him, tell him what you know.”

“Then what? He’ll want to talk, to explain it all. He’ll want to squirm out of it, tell me I’m full of crap.”

“You know you’re not.”

“But it sickens me to be in the same room with him.”

To Harry, the impasse seemed suddenly enormous, a wall that Galen had erected which he did not care to scale. If he looked at it through Galen’s lenses, he could feel the hopelessness his friend was describing. What does one do when an upsurge of problems overwhelm, when troubles appear to have no solution?

“Stay for our show tonight. Get lost for a couple of hours in Clarence Darrow battling it out with William Jennings Bryant. It’s a classic play, and it makes you think about cosmic issues. Maybe get you out of your own stuff for a while.”

“I can do that, but it won’t chase away the image I have of my putrid father.”

“For a time it might get it out of your head.”

“The bastard needs to pay for his ugly behavior.”

Harry stared hard at Galen, aware of the time, of the theater beginning to stir, the box office opening outside the lounge, cognizant of his own pre-curtain responsibilities.

“Look, Galen, your father’s trespasses will be addressed. Life has a way of catching up with frauds. It’s not something you have to do directly.”

Galen stared back at Harry, his look eerie, contemptuous. In a voice oozing with venom, he replied, “Maybe, maybe not.”

It was four in the morning in windy pre-dawn darkness. The night custodian in the Bing Theater at the university, an amiable black man known to the students as Keyshawn, after his favorite football player, had just finished sweeping the auditorium and gone into his closet for a smoke. The way he described it later was that he heard a sharp sound, like a pop, but it was muffled, and he dismissed it as weather-related, or perhaps a car backfiring, certainly nothing to worry about.

After a time, he returned to the auditorium for his standard inspection tour, languidly climbed the side stairs to the proscenium, looked about and saw, center stage, in reflected light from the naked platform-bulb, an amorphous lump of something lying on the parquet, a dark liquid spreading around it like a slow tide.

Next day, in the mail, Harry received a hand-scrawled note: “I can’t do it. I’m not a murderer.”