The Fame Game (47 page)

“Here, use some of my perfume,” Donna said. “Why do you have to wear all those sweaters? You look fat.”

“I do? Oh, then can I leave one at your house? You can bring it with the books.”

She did look better without the bulky sweater; she looked cute. Donna combed and teased her hair for her and sprayed it lightly because Barrie hated a lot of spray. They both observed the results in the mirror.

“You look older,” Donna said. “You should fix yourself up like that all the time.”

“For what?”

“For school, you ding-a-ling. Then you’d meet somebody.”

“There isn’t anybody in school I want to meet,” Barrie said. Donna walked her to the door and she went out into the street.

It was dark, but there were cars going along the block and she walked carefully near the curb, not close enough to the dark shadows between the houses so someone could jump out at her, and not close enough to the street so anyone in a car could get the idea she wanted to be picked up. A car honked at her and she heard the raucous laughter of boys. She felt cold. She hated those boys she didn’t know, who didn’t know her but made rude remarks, but she wasn’t really afraid of them. What she was really afraid of was some unknown grown man who might drag her into an alley. The sound of her boot heels clicking along the sidewalk sounded very loud and too feminine, too enticing. She tried not to walk too fast, so her footsteps would not sound afraid. She wondered if anyone lurking there could smell her perfume. She was sorry she’d let Donna put it on. She knew that in her purse was the little knife she’d bought to protect herself with, but she also knew that she’d never have the courage to use it. She looked straight ahead, and finally she saw the bus stop and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Some maids were waiting there—she could tell they were maids by the way they were dressed and the tired way they stood. She was glad to see them. Supper was over in all the houses, and the dishes were washed. Many lights were out, and she could see the blue light coming from all those TV sets. The telethon would start in half an hour. She climbed on the bus to Manhattan, feeling a great surge of joy. Mad Daddy! Oh, she loved him so!

The stage door to the television studio was at the end of a wide alley between two big buildings. The alley was crowded with people waiting to look at the stars who were coming in and going out. A few police held them back so there was a narrow place for the performers to enter the stage door. Limousines and cabs pulled up to the curb, and every time someone got out the crowd would make a rush to see who it was. If it was someone very famous they would ooh and ah, and if it was someone they didn’t recognize they would ask each other who it was until someone knew, and then they would rush forward again, but not so enthusiastically. There were kids with autograph books, but what surprised Barrie was that there were so many adults. Sleazy-looking adults with dead, stupid faces. Some of the fans seemed to know all the stars, and called out to them by their first names when they went by. She stationed herself at the edge of the crowd until she saw a little space to dart through so she could get closer, then waited again, then darted again. Because she was so small it was easy to get under people’s arms by ducking and weaving, and to squeeze by them before they could stop her. Most of the people seemed friendly and curious and just plain stupid, but she was surprised by the vicious ones, who didn’t seem to know what they were waiting for but were determined that no one should get anything they didn’t get first. She even saw some well-dressed middle-aged women in fur coats, who had probably been attracted by the fuss and had stayed when they saw what it was all about. She noticed with pleasure that there were no really pretty girls who Mad Daddy might single out to like. They were all standard kids, like her friends.

Barrie had no interest in any of the stars except Mad Daddy. She noticed idly that the King James Version, carrying instruments, were coming in, their hair as long as girls’ hair. Michelle would be thrilled: the lead singer was her new crush from afar, but her feeling for him was nothing like her feeling for Mad Daddy had been. Michelle just liked him and bought their records. The kids in the mob started to scream when the group pushed their way through, and the cop who was trying to hold back the crowd near the group had a mean look on his face. Barrie wondered idly if the cops would decide to start hitting people on the head with their nightsticks. She stood there very quietly, making no noise, tensing her muscles so no one could push her away from her good place. She was right in front of the opening for the stars, and no one who entered or left could get by without her seeing him.

Where was Mad Daddy? Maybe he wasn’t coming after all. Maybe he’d come early, before she got there. Maybe he was going to come really late, near the end. It wasn’t cold any more because of the big crowd, all sending off heat from their bodies. Some of the people smelled bad. There was a smell she absolutely hated, of old cocktails drunk at dinner, and cigarettes smoked all day. She breathed into her glove.

Some of the people in the crowd left and new people squeezed in. It was like a dirty river, always moving, pushing its trash up against her. Her feet began to feel numb, but she couldn’t hop up and down because there wasn’t room. People really were disgusting, she decided. She could imagine all those stomachs digesting all that food, all those mouths with decaying teeth, all those female organs hidden under girdles and pants, dirty holes yearning for sex and never getting it because their owners were so old and ugly. Why didn’t those women go home to their ugly husbands? Maybe they had no one to go home to. Ugh … pigs.

Someone stuck a sharp elbow in her shoulder. She smelled dusty cloth from someone’s winter coat. Up high in the sky she could see the clean stars, twinkling far away. She held her head up and tried to breathe clean air from the heavens. She pushed her sleeve up and looked at her watch. It was midnight. She’d been there forever. Those stupid pig faces looked so happy, just because they could look at famous people who didn’t know or care that they were alive. Mad Daddy would be glad to see her. He would smile when he recognized her from the picture she’d sent him and remembered all those nice, sensitive letters she’d sent him and all those thoughtful presents she’d made.

“I’m Barrie,” she would say.

“Barrie!” And he would reach out to shake her hand and pull her from the crowd. “Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you ever come to see me before? Do you mean you’ve been standing out here in the cold all night just to see me? Oh, you must be cold and tired. Why don’t you come into my nice warm car and I’ll buy you a nice cup of hot chocolate? Unless, of course, you’d prefer a drink? You look old enough to drink. I thought you were just a little girl when you wrote me.”

“I was, then,” Barrie would say. “But I’ve grown up.”

Grown up? She’d aged ten years standing here in this icky mob. Where was he? Where was he? Where was he? One o’clock. She was so tired and aggravated she thought she would die.

Two o’clock. Her feet really were numb. But she’d stay here the rest of her life if she had to, just to meet Mad Daddy. He was everything that was good and beautiful and funny in this world. He made everything worthwhile—all the loneliness, the strange depressions she seemed to be falling into more and more, lately, the dreams, the nightmares she had at night. She felt more sense of purpose standing here waiting for him than she ever did at school or with her family and friends, doing what was supposed to be real life. Tonight was her destiny: she could feel it. After tonight everything would be different. Nothing would be boring again. Everything would be good.

Even though Gerry stayed right by him every minute, except of course when he was onstage, Mad Daddy felt himself being overcome by the same claustrophobic, paranoid feeling that always got him when he was subjected to a crowd. When he was on the stage for those five minutes before the cameras and the large live audience held back by darkness and propriety, he felt free, and he enjoyed himself as he always did, clowning around, doing silly things, not minding at all that he wasn’t getting paid for this, because performing really was something he would have done for free all the time if he had no other choice. Funny how an audience out front of a stage was a friend, but that same audience let loose in the street became an enemy. They had their role to play—audience; just as he did—performer. But when the show was over they took on their new role—hunters—and he became the hunted. As soon as he got offstage and Gerry kissed him and handed him his overcoat he began to sweat.

“Are you sure the car is right out front?”

“I checked. It’s right at the curb,” she said.

“I’m ready for a drink.”

“There’s something in the car,” she said, grinning. Gerry always knew how to plan ahead for emergencies.

“I wish I had something now.”

“Come on to the car. You’ll have something in two seconds.”

She didn’t really understand—no one could, except him. It was like those people who became uncontrollably paranoid when they had to go up in a plane. You could quote statistics to them, how a plane was safer than a car or even crossing the street, but their bodies wouldn’t listen; their legs became rubber, their guts turned to water, their hearts pounded—he could imagine what it was like because crowds affected him that way when the crowds knew who he was, and nothing could talk him out of it. He’d never dreamed, long ago, when he wanted to become somebody, that being somebody could be so terrifying.

His palms were wet and he felt dizzy. His skin had become so sensitive in these last few moments that a mere touch felt as if he was being scraped raw. There were cannibals out there, and they were going to rip off his extremities and gnaw on them. The cop at the door opened it and Gerry went out first, Mad Daddy clinging to a piece of her coat like a four-year-old. The crowd started to squeal and it sounded like the roar of an insane animal. He thought he was going to throw up from fright. In a moment they were separated, and although he could see her right in front of him he could no longer touch her, and his panic and loneliness overwhelmed him.

Dimly he saw all those nymphets, those girls he used to be so attracted to, and his panic combined with a sense of guilt and revulsion. Now that he loved Gerry and belonged to her, and she to him, those little girls seemed nauseating, obscene.
He
was obscene. How could he have mauled those delicate little limbs, kissed those children’s mouths? He must have been crazy! They seemed completely sexless to him now, and those sexless, horny children were jumping up and down, trying to touch him, actually trying to touch him in the most embarrassing places,
wanting it!
They were assaulting him. He wanted to scream at all of them to go home.

They
were screaming at
him
, screaming his name, all those maddened little foxes. He walked on doggedly, making for the sanctuary of his limousine, and prayed, prayed, prayed …

A squeal came from the direction of the stage door, then more squeals. “M
AD
D
ADD-EEE
!” It was him! He was coming out!

Barrie strained on tiptoe to get her first glimpse of him as the mob pushed against her back. The cops pushed at the crowd, the crowd pushed back; they were like the rocking waves of a river. She saw him then, walking quickly toward her. The reality of him was a shock. She had never seen him in color before. His face, ruddy with the television make-up, seemed to glow. He was solid flesh, a person, a real person, her love. “Mad Daddy!”

The edge of the crowd had broken through now, raggedly, and Barrie ducked and weaved through the people until she was right in front of Mad Daddy. She was so close she could reach right out and touch him.

“Mad Daddy!” she cried.

He looked right at her … no, right through her. His eyes were flat and scared and full of hate, like a snake’s eyes. She knew he didn’t know in the chaos who it was so close calling to him.

“Mad Daddy!” Barrie said. “It’s Barrie.
Barrie!
”

She needed something to hold him there a moment so he would remember. An autograph … she reached into her purse for her pen and pad.

He hit at her with the side of his arm and his elbow. He shoved her away from him. His look said so completely that he didn’t want her, he didn’t know her, that she meant less than nothing to him, that it hurt more than his shove. He smashed at her as if she were a bug; his unseeing eyes were draining all the life juices out of her. “Don’t you touch me!” he snarled.

Her hand, searching for her pen, closed on her little knife.

There was a great sigh from the crowd, like the sigh of a dying monster. Barrie tried to focus her eyes and saw that Mad Daddy was lying on the ground right there in front of her with blood coming out of his chest. A red-haired girl was kneeling beside him, holding his head and looking terrified. Some girls in the crowd had begun to cry. People pushed at her, shoved her, impersonally, not caring, just trying to see. “What happened?” people were asking. “What happened?”

Barrie turned to someone next to her. “What happened?” No one bothered to answer. “What
happened?
”

Mad Daddy’s eyes were closed and he looked gray under the ruddy make-up. The red-haired girl on the ground started to cry without making any noise. The cops had their hands on their guns, and then one of them walked slowly over to where Mad Daddy was lying on the ground and put a coat over him, over his face and head, so he didn’t look like Mad Daddy any more, he just looked like a lump on the ground that could have been anybody.

The crowd let out another great sigh, and some of the women and girls started to cry. Barrie realized she had something clutched in her hand, hidden there in the folds of her coat, and she let her numb fingers open and the knife fell to the ground. There was blood on her coat and on her glove. She didn’t know how it had gotten there.

People were crowding around, defying the cops, trying to see that lifeless lump on the ground under the coat, and in the confusion Barrie managed to squeeze closer to the stage door. She would just stand here and wait until her own darling Mad Daddy came out.