I am not nothing. I am not nothing. I am not nothing.”
Toby Vogler sat alone in the locker room during his break, studying his monologues from 2B before he went back to work. His lines were written in pencil on one heavily creased sheet of paper.
“I am. Not nothing. I am not. Nothing.”
Frank had told him at rehearsal today that this single sentence was the key to his role. He delivered it only once, but he decided to use it as a kind of mantra, planting it deep in his subconscious where it would secretly color everything his character said or did.
“Not. Not. Not,” he went. “Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.”
It was almost midnight and he’d changed his clothes again—for the third time tonight—and was back in sailor whites: baggy blouse, loose black kerchief, bell-bottoms. He wore a white cap on his head and red flip-flops on white sock feet. Out front he could hear the spastic zap of hip-hop, Raoul’s music. He came after Raoul. He should be getting out there.
As soon as he stood up, his hands turned cold, his stomach filled with icy flutters. It was stupid to suffer stage fright here, but he did. Toby shook out his arms, trying to shake away his jitters.
There was no mirror backstage. There was not even a real backstage at the Gaiety Theatre, just a locker room like a walk-in closet. Toby went down the narrow hall littered with cigarette butts to a corner by the curtain where Tubes, the sumo-fat emcee, sat on a stool, just out of sight of the audience.
Raoul’s number ended in a light smatter of applause. Hands here were usually too busy doing other things.
Toby passed his home-burned CD to Tubes; he carried his music with him for fear that Tubes would lose it. Raoul came through, a boilersuit and jockstrap bundled in his hands, as indifferently nude as a horse. “All yours, schoolboy. It’s one big wrinkle room tonight.”
Tubes took his microphone. “Wasn’t that nice? Yes. Pride is a deeper love.” He spoke in a sleepy velvet monotone. “And with a tool like that, Raoul can love even deeper. But now, for something real nice, let’s take a sentimental journey with our boy in uniform, Bud.”
The music started, “Sentimental Journey,” a Big Band number from the 1940s. Completely different from the other music, the song always got the audience’s attention, which meant only that the quiet grew quieter. Nobody here ever talked much anyway.
Toby eased out onstage, strolling into the bright light. He didn’t look at the men, but he could feel their stares. It was like a roomful of laser pointers and his body was covered in a chicken pox of dots.
He was a drunk young sailor, full of beer and testosterone, all alone in the big city. He smiled, he turned, he wagged his butt. He shifted from foot to foot like a man who needs to relieve his bladder. With his back to the audience, he unbuttoned the thirteen-button fly, rocked on the balls of his feet, and pretended to take a leak.
He’d first done his sailor strip to “Sing, Sing, Sing.” He loved the music’s energy but could do that number only once a night. This slow routine could be repeated again and again.
Toby did not do this strictly for the money. He needed money, but the dancers here got only fifty dollars a dance. They made their real bucks out in the Apollo Room, the theater lounge, where they might pick up another fifty by stepping into a cubicle with a customer, or a few hundred by going home with one. Toby had gone whole hog only once. Sex with a stranger was just ticklish and annoying, like going to the doctor, and creepy afterward when the guy took out his wallet and showed photos of the wife and kids. No, Toby came to the Gaiety chiefly to dance. Dancing made him feel good about himself, cool and tough, handsome and wanted. He did it only once a week—he had a day job at Kinko’s—but once a week was enough. I am not nothing, I am not nothing, I am not nothing.
He faced the audience with his fly half buttoned. “Make them laugh, make them cry, and make them wait,” Mrs. West had told their drama class in Milwaukee. Now and then some young fag would shout out, “Fuck the tease, man. Show us your dick!” But not tonight.
He mimed entering a hotel and going upstairs to a bare closet like his room at the Y when he first came to New York. Real images, the teachers at HB Studio said, strong sensory memories. He wanted a bed or chair here, but Tubes said, “No props, kid. This ain’t Lincoln Center.” He undid the kerchief, he lifted the blouse up.
He wore no undershirt. The song did not last long enough for an undershirt. He wore flip-flops because shoes were too awkward to untie onstage. He would’ve looked good in boots, but he didn’t own any. He wore white socks so there’d be a place to put his tips. Flip-flops looked silly with socks, but the floors here were filthy.
He stroked his pecs and rubbed his abdominals, pulling the skin taut to show their definition.
Guys told him he had a nice body, but Toby wished it had more muscle, extra meat to hide his kidness. Yet he loved feeling the static electricity of eyes brushing over his skin. There were only a dozen pairs of eyes tonight, the late show on a Sunday. Nevertheless, these eyes too wanted his body, ached for it. And they couldn’t have it, no matter how badly they begged or how much money they offered. It almost made up for all the times they refused him—at cattle calls, auditions, and tryouts. “You’re too old for the part. You’re too young. You’re too tall, too short, too blond, too bad, thank you.” Nobody ever gave him a second look. He dreamed that one day, one night, one of those directors or casting assistants would come to the Gaiety and hit on him in the lounge. And he could look them up and down and say, “You’re too old, too fat, too ugly. Sorry.”
I am not nothing, I am not nothing, I am not nothing.
He fumbled at his belt like a drunk; the slide buckle popped undone. He let gravity do the rest. The bell-bottoms fell to the floor, bringing the boxer shorts down an inch before they caught on his hip-bone. He stumbled out of the white puddle. He stretched, he scratched, he sniffed his armpit. He picked his blouse off the stage and flung it over his shoulder like a towel—Tubes wouldn’t even toss him a prop towel for his act. He ambled down the runway, as if heading down the hall to the showers, walking into the stares.
The vocal part of the song kicked in, a woman singing wistfully about leaving for heaven at seven.
He already felt naked, swinging and thickening inside his shorts. He wore boxers only here—elsewhere he wore briefs—so the novelty of their looseness was like a secret, extra nudity.
Only now did he glance down at the audience, idly checking out the upturned faces. A few crumpled dollar bills were set on the runway by men who hoped “Bud” would stop and perform just for them. Toby kept going. He’d collect the money on the way back.
Suddenly, despite himself, he wondered if he’d see Caleb here. Which was stupid. Caleb didn’t know about his hobby. Toby had given it up after they met and didn’t resume it until after Caleb dumped him. Of course there was no Caleb by the runway tonight, just gray heads and bald heads, beady eyes, shiny glasses, and one big grin. Not a cruel grin, but a careless, friendly grin—as out of place here as a grin in church.
He came to the end of the runway. He mimed turning on a faucet, testing the water. He let the tension build. He could feel the stares harden from a ticklish cloud into something wiry like cat whiskers. He tossed the towel/blouse on the floor. He stuck his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts—there was a soft growl at his feet. But “Bud” remembered that he still wore his cap. He stopped, pulled off his cap, drunkenly smiled at it, and shook his head. And all at once, still clutching the cap, he bent forward, pulled down his shorts, and stepped into the “shower.”
He was naked so quickly that the whole room went “Huh?” A mix of sighs and murmurs followed, and the audible creak of erections—no, only chairs. He slowly turned, “soaping” himself, luxuriating in imaginary water and real stares, a warm bath of cat whiskers. It got him harder; he helped it with his hand. His dick felt as big as a two-by-four. He could hide behind it. The song was almost over. He stroked himself, he flexed his ass—once, twice—and waited for the blackout.
And waited. And the song ended. And the lights stayed on.
Good grief. Tubes had missed his damn cue again.
Toby tried to stay in character, but silence wrecked it. Everything disappeared: shower, hotel, drunk sailor. There was no fiction to hide in anymore. Toby stood absolutely naked in front of a pack of old men, a gawky, bony kid with a boner. He counted to ten, but the lights still did not go out. Without music, the fourth wall vanished too. “Hey, Bud?” someone cried out. “You need help finishing that?”
But his erection was dying. He didn’t even have his dick to hide in anymore. Toby had no choice but to become Toby again.
He declared his act over by releasing his dick. He stood there a moment, hands at his sides, his right foot tapping. Then he leaned over and grabbed his clothes.
He stomped up the runway with his red flip-flops snapping at the crowd. He did not forget to pick up the dollar bills left wadded on the runway like candy wrappers. When he reached the stage, he kicked his trousers up into his hand and plunged through the curtain.
Tubes stood beside the CD console, all three hundred pounds of him quaking with wheezy, stifled laughter.
“You jerk!” said Toby. “You did that on purpose. Why? What did I ever do to you?”
“Sorry, Bud. I couldn’t resist. You take this shit so seriously. And you’re cute when you’re naked. Not just make-believe naked, but naked naked.”