He stepped outside to West Tenth Street, happy to return to the real world. Chin’s office was in a burrow of therapists’ offices on the ground floor of an old West Village town house. It was early evening, the middle of May. Sunlight glowed in the soft green trees and rust-red brickwork. Kenneth walked this street regularly—he and his family lived just a few blocks over on Charles Street—but he felt strange here today, oddly undressed after his talk with Chin, as if he were walking down the sidewalk in nothing but a bathrobe.
He hurried toward Sixth Avenue, passing one man in a suit, then another, relieved that he wasn’t the only corporate type out in the open. Kenneth often regretted that they lived in the Village, where one occasionally saw actors—on the street, at the post office, in the supermarket. None ever spoke to him in these public places, yet they noticed him, as he noticed them, killer and prey off duty, cheetah and gazelle between meals.
But he did not feel guilty. No. He did not judge people, only their work. And he did not want people to love him, only that they respect his work. He wanted good theater, better plays, better audiences. He was an idealist—that’s what he should have told Chin. The world fell short of his ideals, suffocated by the age’s hunger for success at any cost. No wonder he was depressed.
He crossed Sixth Avenue in the shadow of the Jefferson Market Library, an enormous brick cuckoo clock with an absurd tower, and headed uptown, past the Soviet antique store and the good Chinese restaurant. He felt much too tall and conspicuous here—the sidewalk was very crowded. He turned left at the next corner, where a public school stood, P.S. 41, a big white box with a grid of windows and green panels in front, like an ugly office building from the 1950s. The first-story windows, however, were full of cheerful crayon pictures of stick-figure families. Live parents stood on the sidewalk under the sycamore trees, chatting to one another or on cell phones, a few sucking down cigarettes, one of the smokers Gretchen.
She’d come straight from the law office and wore her blue suit and plump running shoes. Kenneth was surprised by how glad he was to see her, his haven, his friend, his wife. He wanted to take her hand, but didn’t. They pecked each other hello. See, I’m not such a bad guy, he told himself.
She ground out her cigarette. “You’re stooping, dear.”
Gretchen had noticed it first, how he often slouched now when he walked alone, as if to make himself less visible.
“So how did it go?” she asked. “Have a good session?”
“My last session,” he declared. “The woman has no authority. No solid ideas. She talks like she just makes it up as she goes along.”
“Which sounds reasonable to me.”
“And she hates theater. Can you imagine? She’s not someone who’ll ever understand me.”
Gretchen frowned. “Kenneth, you’ve barely started. There’s always a period of adjustment. And it might be good for you to talk to someone with a different religion.”
Of course she’d say that, Gretchen, who hadn’t accompanied him to a play in ages. He could not help taking it personally. Gretchen was tired of theater, tired of the Times, tired of him.
“Give her a month. Please? Just two more visits,” she pleaded.
“Am I that difficult to live with?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.” She pointed at the doors and the people going in. “Speaking of religion, shall we join the congregation?”
“This has nothing to do with that,” he insisted. “Nothing at all.”
“I’m glad to hear it. So let’s go inside.”
Tonight was the opening night of P.S. 41’s seventh-grade production of Show Boat. Their daughter, Rosalind, was in the chorus.
Kenneth entered the school, and it was like stepping into childhood, not his daughter’s but his own. The front hall was all tiles and painted cinder block like the front hall of Birdville Elementary back in Pittsburgh, with a harsh, timeless stink of pencil shavings and sour milk. Kenneth had hated being a child.
The auditorium was full of ancient echoes and bolted rows of old plywood seats without cushions. He and Gretchen took two seats on the aisle. He opened his program.
“Show Boat,” he murmured. “Not my idea of children’s theater.”
“Nobody asked you,” grumbled Gretchen.
“You’re right. Absolutely. I’ll shut up.”
No, this isn’t about theater. It’s about being a good parent, a loving father, a warm human being.
The rows slowly filled with other parents, a motley mix of ages, races, clothes, and classes. Nobody noticed Kenneth. They probably didn’t know who the Buzzard was here. Or care. They’d come to watch their kids play make-believe.
There was no orchestra in the pit, only a piano, and not much pit either. The stage was small, with a shallow apron and shabby red curtain. A man popped out of the wings, presumably the director, a stocky fellow of indeterminate age and sexuality. His face was young, but he had a receding hairline. His plaid shirt was unbuttoned, the tail out, the sleeves rolled up. He came down to the pit and spoke to the piano player, a short, wiry, elderly black woman with a pearl necklace and busily articulate hands.
Finally, the principal got up onstage, a jolly lesbian in a tuxedo. Kenneth loved their neighborhood for such anomalies. See, he told himself, I’m not homophobic. She thanked the audience for coming, thanked the kids and their directors, Harriet Anderson and Frank Earp, for putting together such a fine show. Also the parents who raised money with bake sales. “Now sit back and enjoy: Show Boat.”
It was still light outside; no curtains hung over the high windows. Ms. Anderson clattered fiercely through the overture—her instrument needed tuning, but she didn’t seem to notice. Then a flock of kids in black jeans and black T-shirts, Rosalind among them, shuffled out onstage with lowered gazes and nervous smiles.
Kenneth’s heart swelled to see his daughter up there, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh. She was taller than the others, a happy, long-legged colt, her panicky grin bound in braces. Lately she’d seemed distant. Or maybe Kenneth had less love for everyone these days—Gretchen too. But his love for his daughter gushed instantly when he saw her onstage.
Then the children burst into song:
Niggers all work on the Mississippi.
Niggers all work while the white folks play.
Kenneth was startled that they used the original Hammerstein lyric. The entire audience, in fact, lurched backward. The word stung even in a multicultural context—the chorus included white and Asian as well as black faces. But the kids looked tickled to be able to sing out a word that none were allowed to use at home.
The show then stumbled into the familiar songs and scenes, everything stripped to essentials. The text was cut, there was no scenery, the costumes were minimal. The entire cast was dressed in black, with only hats and coats to indicate their characters, prop costumes that were too big for the performers. They looked like kids who’d been rummaging in an attic. Kenneth assumed it was just a happy accident, giving the production a sweet innocence, a primitive charm. It was such a relief to see theater for theater’s sake again, the joyful ritual of it, the raw pleasure.
Rosalind reappeared with a pack of girls carrying parasols for “Life Upon the Wicked Stage,” sung by a tiny Hispanic girl. The father in Kenneth was indignant that Rosalind didn’t get the solo, even as the Times critic recognized that her voice wasn’t strong enough.
But none of the children were great singers, except for the Joe—“Old Man River” had a new kind of hurt when sung in a choirboy alto. No, it wasn’t accidental. Someone involved in the production knew exactly what they were doing. At twelve and thirteen, the girls were already girls but the boys still had an unbaked childish androgyny, which gave a fresh twist to the book’s multiple story lines of tough women suffering for their weakling men.
A pretty young mother sat directly behind Kenneth. He first noticed her laugh, a loud, sharp squeal over the smarter bits of business. Later, when he turned to Gretchen, he noticed out of the corner of his eye the woman scowling at him. He assumed she was a mother. Her auburn hair was cut lesbian short, but so many mothers nowadays had a butch, practical look.
Whoever she was, during the applause after “Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine” she suddenly leaned forward to whisper, in a plummy put-on accent, “When you write about this one day, and you will, be kind.” And she sat back, happily cackling to herself.