Blackbird Page 8

“That’s okay,” she said. “I heard about what happened.”

  “I didn’t hit him.”

  She smiled, rolled her eyes. “I know that.” She dug the deck of cards out of her purse and gave them a quick shuffle. “You ready?” she asked.

  “I guess.”

  “There’s still an awful lot on your mind,” she observed, correctly, “but let’s give it a shot, anyway.” She placed the deck face down between us on the table. “Now, just clear your mind as best you can.

  Don’t try to concentrate or anything, just go with your first impulse.

  Just colors, black or red, that’s all.”

  I shrugged a here-goes-nothing.

  I got thirty-seven out of fifty-two.

  Crystal looked across the table at me and smiled as if to say, “I told you so.”

  Chapter Seven

  I assumed the auditions would be held in the theater, but when I got there the place was shut up tight as a drum; there was nobody at all around the theater building. It was about five o’clock – most of the day classes were over, and night school wouldn’t be starting for a couple of hours. Since our school doesn’t have a theater of its own, we always do our plays in the J.C.’s theater, which was the only building on the whole campus I was familiar with. I was beginning to wonder if this was the right day. I felt a little tremble starting in the middle of my stomach; I was starting to feel like a little kid who’s lost his mom somewhere in Disneyland.

  “Okay, Johnnie Ray,” I said to myself, sotto voce, “you can either start looking for the right room, or you can jump the next bus and go home.” I looked past the theater building toward the classrooms, building after building of them – a blind search didn’t look all that promising. But instead of just making a decision, any decision, and going with it, I stood there for a while, my arms wrapped halfway around myself, shifting weight from one foot to the other, stuck there in a holding pattern for a few minutes. After a while, the basic chicken-shit in me started rapping, telling me things like, “Hey, it wouldn’t be any fun anyway, and besides I probably wouldn’t even get cast,” and I had just about decided to forget the whole thing and go home, when a guy with hair down to his shoulders walked past me.

  I called out “Excuse me,” but the guy just kept walking. I said, “Hey,” and started after him. I was pretty sure it wasn’t somebody from my school, so I assumed he knew his way around better than I did. He was wearing old faded jeans, and his walk reminded me of Todd’s, except this guy was a little wider in the ass than Todd. He wasn’t walking all that fast, but he was taller than me and I had to make a real effort to catch up with him. Which I finally did.

  “Excuse me,” I said again, and the guy finally stopped.

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh.”

  Yes, that’s what I said. Uh.

  “Uh?” The guy sort of half-smiled, and one eyebrow went up.

  He had thick, dark Tyrone Power eyebrows that looked like they might be planning to merge into one big brow. He seemed to have too many teeth for the size of his mouth, and the teeth were fighting it out for space, doubling up in front of each other in the process.

  His hair was much longer than I usually like on a guy, parted just off center and tucked behind a big Clark Gable ear on one side.

  He was cute.

  Really cute. Cute enough to briefly render me a total mongoloid, which is my usual reaction when I’m really attracted to a guy, which I immediately was to this guy.

  Funny thing: he wasn’t even my type, which is blonds. And he wasn’t really handsome, not ridiculous movie-star handsome like Todd. But, I’ll tell you, there was something about the guy that really tied my tongue. The guy looked down at me (he was a full head taller) and cocked his head to one side.

  “Somethin’ I can help you with?” His voice was deep and husky; he’d be a bass if he sang.

  “Do you know where the auditions are being held?” I finally managed to spit it out. My voice came out strange, even higher pitched than normal. “For the student projects, I mean.”

  “Sure do. I’m headed there myself.” He started walking and gestured with his head for me to come along.

  Walking along the corridor, I found myself constantly gravitating toward the guy. Every now and then my arm would just touch his, and it was like wiping over an electrical outlet with a wet rag. When I got really close to the guy, I could smell him. Not like disgusting unwashed B.O. or anything, just his smell.

  “You must be from the high school,” he said after a moment.

  “Uh-huh.”

  A few more steps.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Johnnie Ray.”

  “Like the singer, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I was surprised. Not that many people close to my age have ever heard of Johnnie Ray, the singer, since most of his hits came out before we were born.

  Mr. Long-Hair started singing “Walking My Baby Back Home” way off key and sort of on one note. He was no singer.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, just for conversation.

  “Well now,” he said, looking straight ahead, “they often call me Speedo.”

  Which, of course, is the first line of “Speedo” by the Cadillacs.

  Which I’m sure he thought I didn’t know, so I said, “And I suppose your real name is Mr. Earl?”

  He stopped dead in his tracks, smiling that funny half-smile again. I’d surprised him – I thought I might.

  “Yeah.” He put his hands on his hips and just stood there looking at me for a second with his head cocked off to one side again.

  “Yeah.” He started nodding and smiling, really smiling this time. You know how some people smile with just their lips or just their mouths? Well, this guy smiled with his entire face. I mean, he showed a whole smileful of cute crooked white teeth, and his cheeks came out and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and it was a smile and a half. He offered this big, tan hand to me, and after a second’s hesitation, I took it. His hand was very soft, but his grip was strong. I like the feel of it. He pumped my hand vigorously, still nodding and smiling.

  “Name’s Marshall,” he said. “Marshall MacNeill. What’d you say your name was?”

  “Johnnie Ray,” I said, a little disappointed that he’d forgotten my name so quickly. “Rousseau.”

  “Johnnie Ray Rousseau,” he repeated to himself. “Johnnie Ray Rousseau.” He nodded an equivocal little nod and said, “All right.” And off he walked, this time humming “Speedo.”

  “Marshall MacNeill,” I repeated softly to myself.

  I followed Marshall MacNeill halfway across the campus to a classroom with maybe fifteen people in it, and absolutely no furniture. Not a stick. What people there were (and I didn’t recognize any of them) were either standing or leaning or sitting on the floor, talking among themselves, most of them smoking cigarettes and either using the chalk trays beneath the one blackboard for an ashtray or just dropping their ashes onto the linoleum, the sight of which made me cringe. That’s one thing I really hate about smokers: the world is their ashtray.

  Marshall stopped me just as we entered the room, reaching around me and putting his hand on my shoulder, which sent a tremble through me I would have been surprised if he couldn’t feel.

  He called across the room, “Hey, Libby. Look what I found.”

  A fat woman sitting in a far corner of the room (talking to a longhaired bearded guy who looked like Jesus in jeans) turned around, spotted us at the door, and smiled so big she nearly hit the bearded the guy with her cheek.

  “Marsh!” she cried like she’d just sighted her long-lost lover walking up the road to home. She managed herself up from the floor with what I considered an amazing lack of difficulty for her size and did a kind of lumbering waddle over to Marshall and me. She was one of the fattest women I’d ever seen. She was wearing a humongous red paisley muu-muu sort of a dress and no shoes and about thirty-seven bracelets on each arm, and she was dragging a big dirty macramé purse
uglier than Crystal’s. She looked a lot like Mama Cass.

  “What’d ja bring me, Daddy?” she said, smiling that big, fat smile of hers and giving me an obvious once-over, then a twice-over.

  “He followed me home,” Marshall said, hooking his arm around my neck; I ended up with my head practically in his armpit. “Can I keep him?” My blood pressure shot up high enough to break the machine, and I could practically hear my dick revvin’ up for a boner.

  The fat lady laughed ha-HA up a full octave and quickly down the scale, and said, “Marshall, you crazy-fuck.” Which startled me – I’d never heard a woman say fuck before. “Hi, I’m Libby,” she said to me. “You here for the auditions?”

  “Of course he is,” Marshall said. “Don’t you think he’d be perfect for the boy?” He grabbed my face with one hand, pushing my cheeks together and making my lips pooch out, and said, “Just look at this face. Have you ever seen a more innocent face in your life?”

  Libby slapped at Marshall’s arm and said, “Marsh, would you let go of the child’s face. What’s your name, baby?”

  “Johnnie Ray.” It was a wonder I could talk at all: Marshall’s arm was still around me, his hand sort of dangling off my shoulder, and it was making me crazy. I’d never had a guy, let alone a guy this cute, be so physical with me before, and I was flattered that this good-looking college dude was being so palsie-walsie, but if he didn’t stop touching me, I was going to be in big trouble, erection-wise.

  “Well, it sure is good to see you,” Libby said. “The turnout from the high school has not been what we’d hoped for.”

  “How many kids have been in?” I looked around the room again; there was nobody there from school.

  “Baby, so far you are it,” Libby said, ever smiling. Her head moved from side to side when she talked. I took an immediate like to this big dame. “Have you ever done any acting before?”

  “Sure, I’ve been in – ”

  “Shit,” she said, “I’m desperate. I’ll take you if you can read. If you can repeat what you hear, like a parrot. I need a boy.” Suddenly, she looked askance at me, as if trying to read my fine print. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” I said. Which was a lie. I was a full half-year short of eighteen, but something told me eighteen was a much better answer than seventeen-going-on, so I lied.

  “Oh, good,” Libby said.

  “Street-legal,” Marshall said.

  “Street-legal?”

  “Cut it out, Marsh,” said Libby. “Come sit down,” she said, gesturing me away from the door and plopping her great bulk down onto the floor. I sat cross-legged across from her, and Marshall sat down next to me.

  Libby leaned forward to talk to me. The soles of her plump feet were black with dirt.

  “Now, what we’re doing here are basically just class projects.

  Nobody’s gonna see ’em except the class and the instructors. Not exactly a major career move for you as an actor. Anyway, what I’m doing is a one-act about prison. It’s called Lockup, and it’s a very realistic depiction of prison life. The situations are rough and the language is rough. Understand?”

  “I guess.” I don’t use a lot of cusswords myself, but it’s not as if I’d never heard any.

  “Also,” Libby continued, “because this is about prison, the subject of homosexuality is involved.”

  A chill started at my toes, flew up the length of me, and shot out through the top of my head. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my hair had stood straight up.

  “Does that bother you?” Libby stared me dead in the eyes.

  “No,” I said, fighting a tremble.

  “You sure?”

  “Sure,” I said, hoping I sounded surer than I felt.

  “Course it don’t bother little Johnnie Ray.” Marshall smiled and raised an eyebrow at me. “Does it?” And from the way he said that, I got the feeling it was a serious question, like he was trying to get me to admit something. And for some reason, I got kind of bold. I just looked Marshall square in the face and said, “Nope. Not a bit.”

  “Good,” Libby said. “Either way, I’ve got to have your mom or dad sign a waiver that they understand you’ll be involved in a play with quote adult subject matter unquote. Think that’ll be a problem?” “No. My parents are cool.” Which was a half-lie. Mom and Dad were decidedly uncool about rough language, rough situations, etcetera. But there wouldn’t be a problem because I’d just sign Mom’s name myself. I used to do so many sick notes and absence notes to get out of P.E., I sign Mom’s name better than she does.

  “Great.” Libby smiled. “Think you want to read for me?”

  “Why not?” I shrugged, hoping I looked mature and nonchalant, which was nothing like what I felt.

  “Now, there are only four characters in this play. I’ve already cast three of them with some friends of mine. Marshall’s one of them.” I looked at Marshall, who smiled mischievously in my direction. “All but the boy. Now he’s just a kid, and he’s been busted for pot and thrown into the klink with a bunch of hardened criminals. That’s the part you’d play.” She handed me a script, a bunch of ditto sheets stapled together at the upper left corner and folded open to a page somewhere near the middle.

  “Okay,” Libby said, “this is your first day in jail. You’ve been busted on a pot rap, and you’ve been tossed into a cell with a convicted rapist, who has taken the first opportunity to come on like gangbusters, and you’re scared. Shitless.” Libby smiled at her own speech. “But as Ponch is coming on to you, you find, to your great fear and confusion, that while he’s scaring the living shit out of you, he’s also turning you on. Got that?”

  “Uh-huh.” I must admit I was a bit surprised to find such goings-on at our local J.C. Maybe this town wasn’t so tight-assed after all.

  “Great. Okay, top of page nine, starting with Ponch, that’s

  Marsh, and Johnnie Ray, you read Billy; Marsh I want menacing, I want sex, and Johnnie Ray, I want fear, I want scared shitless. As the scene progresses, I want Marshall advancing, Johnnie Ray retreating, and by the end of the scene I want Johnnie Ray backed into a corner and Marsh practically breathing up the kid’s nose; and Johnnie Ray, by that time you’re so scared you’ve practically soiled your bloomers, and at the same time you’re so turned on you’d have this man’s baby. Get it?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Good. Let’s go, then.”

  I took a quick glance at page nine, trying to get some idea of the lines – cold readings make me nervous, and this Marshall person wasn’t helping – when Libby says, “Ready. Aaaaaaand … go.”

  And Marshall jumps into a crouch, and his face takes on this wild-eyed expression that I swear had “rapist” scribbled all over it, and he starts reading:

  PONCH. This your first time inna joint?

  BILLY. Uh-huh. [My first line – one word, and my voice cracks on it. And believe you me, it isn’t acting – this dude is scaring me to death. “Good fear, Johnnie Ray,” Libby says.]

  PONCH. Hey, baby, no problem. No problem. Ponch’ll take care of you, baby. Ponch’ll take care of you real good. [At which point Marshall puts his hand on my leg and starts stroking it – just a bit of improv. Libby says, “Good business.” And naturally, my dick pops up like toast, and with me in that crouched position, it’s all revved up with no place to go. Which means Marshall and Libby probably can’t tell that I’ve just popped a raging bone-on, and also means that I am experiencing some serious discomfort.]

  BILLY. Leave me alone! [I slap wildly at Marshall’s hand, and he takes it away.] Guard!

  PONCH. Hey, baby. Hey, beautiful. [Marshall reaches up and strokes my face. My heart starts pounding until my whole body feels like one big pulse.] Don’t be like that. You gonna need somebody to take care of you in a place like this, pretty young thing like you. Got nobody to take care of you, you get hurt, get hurt real bad. You wouldn’t want that, would you?

  BILLY. No. [My voice is all but inaudible. Libby says, �
��Good, Johnnie Ray.”]

  PONCH. Course not. [Marshall leans forward. I immediately move back. And we slowly start moving, steadily – Marshall forward, me backward, half crouch, half crawl on all threes with the script in one hand.]

  PONCH. Yeah, you be my punk, I’ll take care of you. [Marshall’s hand leaves my face and slowly strokes its way down my neck, to my chest.]

  BILLY. Guard! [A cry of pure animal panic, let me tell you.]

  PONCH. Yeah, take good care of you, my little punk, my sweet little punk. [Marshall has me backed all the way into a corner by now, and his hand is at my waist.]

  BILLY. Guard!

  PONCH. That’s right, baby, you and me we gonna be jam up and jelly tight.

  BILLY. Guard! Guard!! Guard!!!

  I screamed those “guards” so loud and with such fervor that everybody in the room stopped talking. Suddenly you could hear the crickets outside the building. Because when Marshall hit the word “tight” in “jam up and jelly tight,” he clamped his left hand directly on my crotch. Which was, of course, rock hard and throbbing like a sore.

  Marshall looked deep into me with those little brown eyes of his and smiled a smile that I thought might have been ridicule, or maybe something else, I couldn’t tell, when (it seemed like weeks had gone by) Libby said, “Shit-dang, you guys! That was great.”

  Which was when Marshall finally removed that big, hot hand of his from my groin. Which was when I finally started breathing again. I said “The Lord is my shepherd” to myself faster and with more feeling than I think it’s ever been said before or since, and my dick slowly co-operated to the point where it probably wasn’t too too obvious that I was about to burst the buttons of my Levi’s.

  “Well, Johnnie Ray,” Libby said, “needless to say, you’ve got the part if you want it. Please say you want it.”

  “I – uh – ” I was alternating more hot and cold flashes than a roomful of menopausal matrons, I could still feel Marshall’s hand on me, and I was hardly at my most articulate.

  “Course he wants it,” Marshall said, and he hooked his arm around my shoulders again. I fought the urge to turn and bury my face in his armpit and said okay.