Turning Idolater (26 page)

Philip had just come away from a Tea Dance — a
thumpa-thumpa
fine time that had set him in a good mood.
Now, with a testy Thomas, he sat watching a drama about mismatched
love, angry old men, flea bitten brothers and a whole cast that
periodically lifted their eyes to the sky and said
Purty
.
They also had this annoying way of pronouncing California as
Californayeah
.

“Ayeh. Mebbe a year from now we’ll be in
Califonayeah,” Peter Cabot said.

Philip was thankful that Peter Cabot didn’t gaze
toward the Golden State and say:
God! Purty!
Then, something
happened, between the Intermission and Abbie’s having Eben’s baby,
she having told Ephraim that it was his. It was upon his first
entrance in Act Two that Lars Hamilton . . . forgot his lines.

“Thunder ‘n’ lightenin’, Abbie,” he said. “I hain’t
slept this late in fifty year.”

Then his mouth opened like a carp swallowing swamp
water. Lars gazed up and then out. Philip supposed another actor
could have
saved
him. He had heard that’s what was generally
done in these instances, but the only other person on the stage was
Abbie, and she peered at Lars like a broomstick.

“Um. Fifty year . . . I say. Hain’t slept — thunder
‘n’ lightnin’.”

Philip heard whispering, and then Lars came back to
life. He looked out toward the audience. “Look’s like the sun full
riz a’most. Must’ve been the dancin’ and likker.”

There was a collective sigh from the audience and
Lars, that is Ephraim Cabot, continued his ramble, even to the
cradle to look at his infant son and deliver a
Purty’s a
picter
line. Philip however sensed a change in the actor. He
wasn’t acting anymore. His remorse was real.
Well, wasn’t that
acting?
However, there was a difference.

This whole play was annoying Philip. He wanted a
young hero and instead he was watching Eben Cabot, the biggest
prick on this man’s earth, who knocked up his father’s wife and
moon-cowed for two acts. Then, when Abbie kills the baby, a
particularly O’Neill touch, which disturbed Philip, this young buck
doesn’t even come to Abbie’s aid. No. Does he take her in his arms
and run off to
Californayeah
? No. He spouts off about how
the world is a bucket of shit and turns the lady over to the
sheriff for proper New England justice.
A witch trial
came
to Philip’s mind.

When Abbie answers her cad lover’s
I love ye,
Abbie
, with a rootin’, tootin’
A-yeh
and is taken away,
Eben looks toward the audience and says:
Sun’s a-rizen. Purty,
hain’t it?
Philip closed his eyes and was thankful it was over.
The audience burst into resounding applause, Thomas the loudest of
them all. Philip tried his best to touch fingers to fingers.

“Brilliant,” Tee said. “Perfect, was it not?”

“I have nothing to compare it to,” Philip said. “I
mean, this is my first O’Neill experience.”

“I think this is your first theater experience.”

Philip shrugged. “So?”

“Do you remember? I said I wanted to be with you
when you first experienced a play.”

Philip
did
remember that. He wished the play
was
Young Frankenstein
or
Hairspray
, but he didn’t
have the gall to spoil Tee’s romantic notion.

“Yes, Tee. I remember. This was fine, although it
was a gloomy play.”

“O’Neill. If you want comedy, you see Neil
Simon.”

Where?
Philip thought.

The actors were taking their bows. Lars Hamilton was
acclaimed the most. However, Philip thought that the towering actor
in his deep bows and broad grin was acting now more than when he
spouted
Ephraim
. Lars’ smile was forced. Perhaps the blown
line constituted imperfection in the actor’s mind, despite Thomas’
assessment.

“He had trouble,” Philip noted.

“Happens all the time.” Tee lowered his voice. “Lars
sometimes drops a whole scene — starts acting a different act or
even . . . a different play. He shall recover. We should pop
backstage and egg him on. Cabot is a difficult role. He really did
quite well.”

Philip kept silent. This was a part of Tee’s world
that passed him by, like a comet rounding the sun. Philip had come
to love the sound of words and the images they conjured, but
Desire Under the Elms
was a parable that cut him too deeply.
He thought of the young Abbie abandoning the old Ephraim, and for
what — a roll in the hay and a false promise.

“Shall we?” Thomas said, standing.

Philip rolled up his
Playbill
, and then
followed the clamoring mob out into the darkness.

“Mr. Hamilton isn’t seeing anyone,” said a husky
woman, who had been one of the visiting neighbors in the
dancin’
and likker
scene. “I’ll send your regards in, if you want.”

Thomas appeared crestfallen. “Sorry to hear that.
Has he taken ill?”

“No,” the woman said. “He’s just needing a rest.
Long play, that one. Longer still if you just sit around for the
whole thing waiting for your one minute in the lights. Too many
like that.”

Philip and Thomas were standing in a crowded hallway
that chained a suite of small cubbies together, each curtained for
privacy. The woman was waiting her turn before a community
stall.

“Well,” Thomas said. “Tell Lars that his friend
Thomas . . . Thomas Dye and Philip . . .”

The curtain slid open, Lars Hamilton’s forlorn face
emerging into the hallway. “Thomas,” he croaked. “Do come in.
Madeleine. I’ll see no one else. Old friends. Old friends.”

Lars pulled Thomas and Philip into the dressing
room. It was cramped, smelt of flowery perfume and was hotter than
hell. A portable wardrobe hung Lars’ street clothes and nothing
more. He still wore his Ephraim garb, but his makeup was partially
smeared. Philip saw Lars now as a mad man. Halloween ball.

“Did you enjoy the play?” Lars asked.

“Immensely,” Thomas said. He gazed at Philip for
comment.

“What can I say?” Philip gushed. “O’Neill is
O’Neill.”

Thomas gave him the fish eye. However, Lars didn’t
seem to give the reviews a second thought.

“I had trouble tonight.”

“One line,” Thomas said. “What is one line?”

Lars turned on his company — insanely. With the
dressing mirror bulbs dancing in a halo around his head, Lars
Hamilton appeared satanic.

“I am a jinx, Dye. A veritable jinx. I saw him
tonight.”

“You saw who?”

“The Gold boy. He was on stage.”

Philip trembled. While Thomas perused the dressing
table for perhaps a liquor bottle, Philip stared into Lars’ eyes.
He didn’t doubt the man, because he had seen Max Gold also.

“I had cast him as Eben, you know. He was to be
Eben, but he . . .” Lars brought his hands across his face. “This
is the third one, Dye. The third one.”

“What are talking about?” Philip asked. He pushed
Thomas aside and grabbed Lars’ hands, pushing them down into his
lap. “What do you mean, the third one?”

“I cast a young man named Gordon . . . Gordon Waters
— a real attractive man, who had a golden voice and golden hair. I
cast him as
Joe
in
All God’s Children Got Wings
. He
was perfect for the role, that Gordon Waters.”

Gordon Waters?
Philip knew that name —
vaguely. Had there been a
Gordon Waters
at
manluv.
Or
had he seen him on a marquee on Broadway, or in the porn queue?

“What about Gordon Waters?”

Thomas muttered something that Philip didn’t hear,
but before he could prompt him, Lars began to weep.

“He was a live wire. I took him dancing at
The
Monster
. I seemed to have blacked out at some point in the
evening. All that noise and thrumming. It always gets to me. I
might have been drinking. Maybe, too much. I do tend to drink
heavy. It’s the art, you know. Well, Gordon . . . well, he was
found the next morning in a dumpster behind the club. He had been
shot, cut to ribbons and stuffed into a plastic bag.”

“Shit,” Philip said. “But what had that to do with
you?” Then, he made the connection. “Oh, I see.”

“But Lars,” Thomas said, “the night Max Gold died,
you were passed-out at the bar. Florian saw you. You don’t think
that your lapse of consciousness constitutes anything more than
coincidence.”

Lars gnashed his teeth. “I didn’t kill them. The
angel of death took them, but I marked them. I was with them just
before they were taken. I’m a jinx.”

Philip patted Lars’ shoulder. “Coincidence, Mr.
Hamilton.”

“Not so. Allow me my clarity. Twice is a
coincidence. Three times is fate.”

“We should leave you be,” Thomas said.

“Wait, Tee. Will he be all right?”

“Three times is fate,” Lars moaned.

“He will find a bottle and sleep in the corner,”
Thomas said. He ushered Philip through the curtain.

“Gordon,” Lars moaned. “Max, and poor Jemmy.”

“Jemmy?” Philip returned, Thomas on his heels. “Did
you say, Jemmy? Were you with Jemmy the night he was . . .”

“Three times is fate,” Lars said. He closed his
eyes.

“Come away, Philip. These memories are painful.”

Philip frowned.
Painful? To whom?
He suddenly
had a question or two for Thomas, but Tee departed through the
curtain. Philip pondered the dirty curtain sheet for a full moment
before he shuffled through it, but not before hearing one last
Three times is fate
. He tried to decide between coincidence
and fate. He thought of Max Gold and his tuna fish sandwich. He
thought of the apparition on the stage. He pictured Jemmy in his
mind — that troubled soul, who mainlined and went with anyone who
offered him a fix. Philip also wondered where he had heard the name
Gordon Waters
before. It was confusing and combustible.

“Coming?”

Thomas was at the end of the hall, the bustle having
subsided.

Coming?
Philip wondered.

Philip tagged behind Thomas silently. He wanted Tee
to stop and wait for him. Philip had some questions and stoked the
flames to ask them. First in queue was why Tee and all his
acquaintances seemed to know the
manluv
crew, yet
categorically denied surfing such sites routinely. It was all
happenstance. However, Philip was doubting coincidence.
Three
times is fate
sounded just right to him. The sight of Lars
Hamilton — disheveled and crazed, reminiscing on the lost boys and
how he was their jinx, caused Philip to consider the current actor
who spilled
Purty
across the boards as Eben Cabot. To think,
Philip even auditioned for the part, unwittingly, at the party.
What irked Philip most now was Thomas’ reaction to Lars’
lamentation. Callous. Dismissive.
Next subject, please.
Philip knew that Tee had an interest in Jemmy. He remembered the
clipping on the desk in his office. Perhaps Sprakie was right.
Perhaps Thomas was a mid-life crisis hopping from twink to
twink.

Philip halted expecting Thomas to turn and
backtrack, but he didn’t backtrack. He kept on walking as if he had
an appointment in the darkness. Uncharacteristic. Philip began to
run after him, but stopped.

“Tee,” he called.

“Don’t be too late,” came Thomas’ voice from the
shadowy path.

They had been strolling down the hill toward
Commercial Street. The cottages, B&B’s and year-rounds were
quiet and scarcely lit. The hosts of lesbian-fostered cats were
pawing the margins for the last bits in tins. The night wind
rustled the grasses. Philip could hear the hum of night activity in
the cottages — T.V. echoes, companionable laughter and an
occasional grunt. By the time he took an accounting of his desolate
surroundings, Thomas had descended the hill. He was a mere shadow
nearing
The Pink Swallow
. Philip, abandoned, at first,
fretted and then he began to mumble to himself — a soliloquy
unnatural and unexpected.

“What the fuck’s with him?” Philip mused as he
shuffled down the hill. He kept as much an eye on the cats as they
did on him. “Something stirred up his shit. Something, and I bet it
was thoughts of Jemmy. I bet. Well, if he thinks I’m just going to
walk behind him like a Japanese woman and creep up the stairs to
bed, he’s got another thing coming.”

But Tee had said, Don’t be late. Why would he say
that?

“He wants to be alone.”

Philip marched down the hill to Commercial Street.
Evening consumed the East End, but Philip knew that after midnight,
the world was either in bed and frolicking or out shopping for a
mattress mate. There was only one place at this hour to do that —
the gauntlet at
The Spiritus
.

The Spiritus
was an after-hours Provincetown
tradition. Pizza and sex. The Pizza was famous, the cheese thick,
the sauce hot and the pepperoni spicy. The daily pie trade was
brisk, the line out the door. However, at midnight, the slices
dwindled as the patrons arrayed the stoops and bistros. They
spilled east and west of the doorway, and across the street, in
clusters, bunched together like herds for the busting. By midnight,
Commercial Street was lined with men on the make — posturing to
snag or be snagged. No vehicle dared obstruct this ritual, the
pavement cleared as a runway for the most available mates for the
evening. Many a hussy paraded these three blocks to the sound of
wolf calls and whistles. Many a nervous newbie was dressed to kill
by his friends and set off for the flight through the bulrushes to
be snapped from the cradle and presented to some Pharaoh’s
daughter. Many desperate fools trickled through this midnight meat
market praying (if the devil heard prayers) that someone was as
desperate as they were. The gauntlet at
The Spiritus
was
night’s last stand — the terminal for the gregarious and the
lonely. For many, it would be a noisy memory. For others, it meant
a one-night stand and loneliness’ triumph. For Philip Flaxen, it
was a combination of curiosity and spite. He resolved not to sleep
alone tonight, for even with Thomas beside him, he thought the bed
would be empty.