Attack of the Theater People (17 page)

Twenty-five

Over the course of dinner
(delicious, although I learn the hard way not to bite into a hot chili), we bat around various ideas, with an emphasis on the heavily bearded. But neither Santa Claus nor a lumberjack seems a likely guest at a financial services party, and a Saudi prince feels beyond my capacities as an actor. We eventually decide to follow the Andy Warhol–will-go-to-an-opening-of-an-envelope model and have me crash the party as the famous French mixed-media artist you’ve never heard of, Etienne Zazou. We choose to make him French so I’ll have an accent to hide behind, as well as a cultural identity known for rudeness.

Meanwhile, Paula gets me a job. “Ah am still not on speaking terms with yew after the disgraceful way you treated us on the occasion of your birthday,” she says. “But ah feel it is my duty as a Christian woman to make you aware of a substantial moneymaking opportunity. All it requires is a willingness to use Mistuh Alexander Graham Bell’s fine invention, with which I trust you are familiar, despite the fact that you seldom use it to contact those who love yew best.”

I apologize again, thank her for the lead, and promise, promise, promise I won’t miss
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
. And a promise is a wingback chair.

The following night I show up at a dubiously downscale building in the mid-Thirties and report to a dingy room furnished only with banks of phones on tables. It’s the kind of operation you could easily envision disappearing in the night, like in a psychological thriller where everyone thinks the heroine is insane:
But I swear there was a whole roomful of phones here last night.

My task is to sell diet supplements.

“It’s so easy!” gushes the supervisor. Everyone gushes here. The room is full of would-be and wannabe actors whose enthusiasm derives not from a belief in the efficacy of the herbal product we are hawking, but from the gullibility of the stooges who’ve already bought it from an infomercial and to whom we’re trying to sell more. Starving artists preying on the overfed masses.

I’m led to a folding chair at a table, where I review my script, which has a flowchart of answers to “overcome objections.” Apparently, the key to sales is overcoming objections, although these objections seem entirely reasonable to me—specifically, why would someone buy additional quantities of a product that hasn’t even arrived yet? I’m told that we put the customer in a “yes” frame of mind by asking lots of questions to which the answer is yes:

“Aren’t you tired of carrying around that extra fat?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you want to look good for bathing suit season?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you worth at least a dollar a day?”

“Yes.”

“Will you go to the bank, withdraw all your money, and send a cashier’s check payable to Edward Zanni?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

It’s so easy!

While we telemarketers go with the flowcharts, our supervisors hover behind us, crouching and pumping their fists, saying, “Go! Go! Go! Go!” which is supposed to motivate us, but just makes me nervous. Every time one of us makes a sale (and by
us
I mean
them
), a supervisor dashes to the front of the room, rings a bell, and makes a check mark on a blackboard next to the salesperson’s name.

For three nights bells ring, fists pump, and fortunes are made, while I come up zero. I am the worst telemarketer in the room. People who’ve just started that night are already ahead of me.

You’d think that someone who could convince hundreds of truculent thirteen-year-olds to dance could convince a handful of gullible consumers to part with their money, but I can’t motivate that party motivator energy. It all feels so hollow and fake, so game-show-hosty. So jazz hands.

And I desperately need the money. Not only am I broke once I pay February’s rent, but I got a letter from the landlord saying that New York City rent-control laws clearly state that the only person authorized to write rent checks is the one whose name is on the lease. Namely, Eddie Sanders.

“C’mon,” Natie says. “This is New York. There’s gotta be squatters’ rights.” He says he’ll look into it.

It takes me three nights to finally make a sale. “Way to go, Edward!” my supervisor says, giving me an “attaboy” shoulder rub and holding up my arm in a victory gesture. The other telemarketers cheer supportively, as if I were the short bus kid who finally hit the ball in gym.

Thus encouraged, I return to my task with renewed vigor, picking up the phone and calling a buyer in Arkansas.

“Hulloh-oh?” a woman’s voice drawls. She sounds like the offspring of first cousins.

“Hi!” I say. “Is this (insert name here)?”

I introduce myself, ascertain that her shipment hasn’t arrived yet, and ask if she’d be interested in taking advantage of our special supplemental seven-week package for just $49.95.

“Ah don’t know,” she says.

“Aren’t you tired of carrying around that extra fat?”

“Well…yeah. I still ain’t lost the weight from mah baby.”

I instantly picture her at the stove in her double-wide, stirring a pot of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese while an infant mewls in her arms.

“Don’t you want to look good for bathing suit season?”

“Ah don’t know. Mah huhzband? He don’t laahk it when I get skinny. He gets jealous.”

I imagine her husband—an unshaven do-nothing in a
KEEP ON TRUCKIN
’ tank top tossing empty Coors cans at the TV, which he pronounces by putting the emphasis on the first syllable. The fact that he gets jealous of his wife whenever she loses weight leads me to conclude that he has control and possible anger-management issues, the kind of guy who doesn’t let her have friends and has alienated her from her family. Probably a wife beater. I know about these things. I saw Farrah Fawcett in
The Burning Bed
.

“Aren’t you worth at least a dollar a day?” I say.

“Ah guess so. But I don’t got a job, see, on account of the baby. And, well, I’m still in high school.”

“Wait. You’re still in high school?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you ordered fifty bucks’ worth of diet products?”

“Well, it said on the TV it works real good.” She pronounces TV with the emphasis on the first syllable. Behind me, the supervisor chants, “Go, go, go!”

No, no, no.

This is not who I want to be. Sure, when I was in high school I engaged in embezzlement, blackmail, money laundering, identity theft, fraud, forgery, and (just a little) prostitution. And, okay, since then I’ve taken part in corporate espionage, insider trading, more identity theft, and rent-control fraud. But that doesn’t mean I have no morals.

“Listen to me,” I say into the phone. “When that package arrives, you send it right back, you understand?”

In each ear I hear my customer and supervisor say, “What?”

“Save your money,” I say, my voice rising. “You need to finish school. And take care of your baby. And—”

I’m about to tell a stranger she needs to get out of her abusive marriage when my supervisor reaches down and hangs up the phone. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I stand up. “I’m quitting.”

There are some things even I’m not willing to do.

Plus, I would’ve gotten fired anyway.

That said, I have no ethical dilemmas regarding entrapment. Come Super Bowl Sunday, my only concern is the feasibility of a scheme devised over too many Saigon Beers. I mean, Eddie Sanders and Zander are one thing, but Etienne Zazou, the famous French mixed-media artist?

“What are you so worried about?” Natie says while I shave. “You’re an actor.”

“Not according to Juilliard.”

“What do they know? Did De Niro go to Juilliard? Did Nicholson?” He leans on the door frame like a koala clinging to a tree. “It couldn’t be simpler: You crash the party…”

“That’s the first thing I’m worried about.”

“…then find Chad and start talking about stocks, casually mentioning you heard that Fuji is taking over Eastman Kodak.”

“How did I hear that?” I’ll never remember any of this.

“I dunno. Your Japanese dealer told you.”

“Got it.” This is a terrible idea.

“Now, listen closely; this is the important part: The only way to nail Chad is if he actually trades on that information, which he won’t, because the tip’s no good. So you have to lead the conversation around to how mad you are at your broker for missing out on the I. J. Sloan takeover of Hibbert and Howard and see if you can get him to brag about it.”

“Who’s—ow—my current broker?” I nick my Adam’s apple, which is why you should never shave and plan espionage at the same time.

“It doesn’t matter. Be evasive. You’re a famous artist. Act temperamental.”

“Shit, I’m bleeding.”

Natie hands me a piece of toilet paper. “Then, while he’s talking, you reach into your jacket pocket to pull out a cigarette, and simply press down on the tape recorder. Got it?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” I dab the toilet paper to my throat.

“Okay,” Natie says, “you bought a new tape?”

“I’ve got an old one I can tape over.” Damn, it’s not stopping.

“Did you change the batteries?”

“I just put them in.” I’m going to look like I’ve had a tracheotomy.

“Did you check to make sure the recorder’s working? ’Cuz sometimes you can put the batteries in upside down and—”

“For God’s sake, leave me alone. I’m bleeding to death.”

Natie hovers restlessly, tapping Morse code on the doorjamb.

“I’ll just check,” he says.

Hung lives in Chelsea,
a neighborhood where the men make eye contact even after they’ve passed each other. I’m surprised more of them don’t get run over or fall down manholes. Hung’s building is a tatty walk-up like mine, with the word
fuck
graffitied on the front door, as if it were a business name.

I climb the stairs to the fifth floor, ring the bell, and a small Asian woman answers the door. She has lustrous shoulder-length hair and wears a navy blue Chanel-type suit with red piping and white buttons. The kind of outfit you’d expect Anita Bryant to wear to a DAR luncheon.

“Hell
oh
,” she says.

It’s Hung.

I’m not sure how to respond, so I say hi and try to be culturally sensitive by asking if I should take off my shoes.

“By all means,” he says, “and everything else.”

I give a curt, no-teeth smile. Teeth only encourage people.

“Seriously,” he says, “how else do you expect me to dress you?”

I look around the apartment, which is possible to do from the doorway, as it’s only one room, as tall as it is wide, painted traffic-cone orange and decorated like it was ransacked by Cossacks. Everywhere you look there’s fabric, feathers, beads, hats, and shoes. The stifling atmosphere is exacerbated by the steam heat, which is so tropical the window is wide-open.

“Don’t be shy,” he says. “At the
Les Miz
fittings they have to get naked because everyone wears this baggy nineteenth-century underwear. You should see those guys flopping around onstage. They should call it
Les Missiles
.”

I take off my coat, draping it on the shoulders of a dresser’s dummy, and remove my sweater.

“So?” Hung says, twirling. “Whaddya think of my outfit?”

“You look very…pretty.”

“And witty and gay. I know. Don’t you recognize the dress?”

I smooth my hair, which is all staticky from the sweater. “Should I?”

“Honestly, what kind of gay man are you?” He plops a wide-brimmed white hat on the back of his head. “Here’s a hint.” He sings:

“Diamonds, daisies, snowflakes…”

He pauses.

“
That Girl
?” I say.

“Yes!” he says, jumping up and down. “It’s an exact copy of the outfit Marlo Thomas wore in the opening credits. I made it myself.” He puts his arm around me and gestures with the other toward some unseen horizon, the way people do in musicals before a number about how we’re gonna do it, just you and me.

“Scene: a lonely Gaysian boy arrives in Houston in the summer of 1975, knowing no English. He’s a resourceful lad, as clever as he is attractive. While his parents are at work, he engages in an English tutorial by watching syndicated reruns:
Green Acres
,
I Love Lucy
,
The Flying Nun
,
I Dream of Jeannie
,
Bewitched
. All burgeoning feminist mythologies about independent, misunderstood women thwarted by the confines of their surroundings. Women with dreams and ambition and false eyelashes. But of all the rerun heroines, only one manages to escape the stifling expectations of her bourgeois upbringing.” He pauses again.

“
That Girl
?”

Hung hugs himself. “From that summer on I wanted to move to New York, get completely overdressed, and fly a kite in Central Park.”

I take off my jeans first, because my legs look better than my chest. “Is that what you’re doing today?”

“Of course not, silly. I’m going with you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t pop the head, Cassie. You said you needed an assistant.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. At Ziba’s. You asked for my help.”

“With a
disguise
.”

He grabs my pants.

“Fine. Go in your underwear.”

“B-b-but…”

He dashes across the room and dangles my jeans out the window.

“No!” I cry.

“Can I go?” he asks.

“Hung, that’s not fair.”

He drops them onto Eighth Avenue.

Twenty-six

The party is being held
at the Limelight, a deconsecrated church turned disco, and one of the city’s hottest spots. I suppose it’s an odd choice for a brokerage house, but Sandra suggested it because of the video screens.

The line goes down the block, every man uniformed in a wool coat with his neck exposed. What is it about straight guys and scarves? It can be so cold your snot freezes, yet businessmen, politicians, and newscasters wear those useless felt handkerchiefs, if they wear scarves at all. Don’t they get cold? If so, it seems a silly thing to get macho about.

Of course, I’m hardly in a position to criticize clothing choices, dressed as I am in a big, swoopy stole, a vast kimono-like jacket with bat-wing sleeves, and the kind of wide, stiff collar you put on dogs to keep them from biting themselves. My face is obscured by an enormous white fright wig, a huge pair of Elton John sunglasses, and a scrubby Vandyke, also white. I look like a character out of Dr. Seuss. The Zazou. (“Can you Zazou? Me, too!”)

“Remember,” I say to Hung as we pull up in the taxi. “You’re my Japanese art dealer.” Who, for mysterious Asian reasons, feels compelled to dress as That Girl.

“Sorry again about your jeans,” he says. “I forgot about that tree.”

I open the door to the taxi, saying a silent prayer to Saint Jude. We step out into the frigid air and head straight to the door, if Hung can ever be said to head straight to anything. Ignoring the jeers of the waiting crowd, I walk right up to Hector and Javier, guarding the entrance.

“I hev arrived,” I say, pronouncing the last word like I’m spitting up a hairball.

Hector consults his list. “And you are…?”

“I am Zazou!” I huff. “Ze
artiste
.”

“You got a Zazou?” he says to Javier. “I don’t got a Zazou.”

“Zees eez absurd,” I say, like I’m going to slap him across the face with a glove. “Do you not know ’oo I em?”

He doesn’t have time to answer because there’s a whoosh of sound behind me. I turn and a man with a snowy white beard emerges from a limousine like Santa stepping out of his sleigh. The crowd erupts in delight.

It’s Rich Whiteman.

Whiteman smiles and waves just like he did when he landed on the deck of the
Europa
. Businessmen with exposed necks swarm toward him to bask in his reflected glory.

Which gives me an idea.

As Whiteman and his entourage approach I throw out my arms in welcome, crying, “Ree-shaaaaaahrt.” Whiteman flinches, not an unreasonable reaction when encountering a dandelion with attitude, then grasps my hand with the automatic friendliness of someone who meets too many people to remember them.

“Nice to see you,” he says. (Translation: “Who the hell are you?”)

“And you, as well,” I say, air-kissing each cheek.

My credibility established, we sweep in the door as if on a wave.

I can hardly see the interior of the club through my sunglasses, but it feels like a looted church filled with marauding pirates. Except these pirates are former frat boys in khakis and Gucci loafers.

While we check our coats, Hung mutters, “Do you know who we just walked in with?”

“Sure. Rich Whiteman.”

“Don’t you realize who he is?”

“Some banker from Texas.” Behind him, a large screen displaying a car commercial obscures a stained-glass window.

“Rich Whiteman is one of the biggest backers of the Moral Majority,” Hung says, unpinning his hat. “He went on
The 700 Club
and said if God hadn’t invented AIDS, he would’ve.”

“That’s awful,” I say.

“Yeah,” Hung says. “I’m thinking trunk of the car, duct tape, cement shoes. You’re from Jersey. Surely it can be arranged.” He removes his white gloves and puts them in his purse.

I peer around the room and reconsider whether my disguise was a good idea. With free booze, big-screen football, and Sandra’s best-looking female motivators, why would Chad be interested in the freak with the hay bale on his head?

I peek over my glasses and see Chad working the room, gliding through the crowd like the best skater at Rockefeller Center. Even on a Sunday he’s starched and creased, as if his oxford and khakis had been constructed around him.

He stops to say hello to Rich Whiteman, who may or may not know him, and I wish I’d brought Gavin along to read their lips. As Hung and I make my way across the floor, snippets of conversation waft past:

“Nine and a half? That’s fuckin’ givin’ it away.”

“You’re gonna pay a premium.”

“Fuck video. The future is in laser discs.”

“So I told that bagel over at Goldman to stick a dreidel up his ass.”

“He’s very senior.”

“You call that piece of shit a vacation home?”

“That’s a statistical aberration.”

“Me likey that Asian chick.”

“I’m tellin’ ya, that bitch’s lawyer has got my dick in a vise.”

“And the sergeant says, ‘Actually, sir, they usually just ride the camel into town.’”

I lose sight of Chad in the throng. I lower my glasses to get a better look when I hear a voice behind me that sounds like a chimp stapling its hand to the floor.

“Hey! Hey!”

I keep walking.

“Hello-oh?”

I feel a tap at my sleeve. I turn and there’s Sandra, looking at me as if I had a bomb strapped to my chest.

“Who the fuck are you and why are you here?” she says. Actually, that’s what her expression says. Her mouth says, “Hi.” But it says it in a way that sounds like she’s going to ask us to leave or else she’s calling security.

“I’m Sandra Pecorino, the party planner.”

And I’m screwed.

“I em Zazou. Ze
artiste
. But, of course, you know zat.”

I glance around, looking for exit signs.

“Oh! Of course,” she says, “I’m a huge fan.”

She doesn’t recognize me.

I gesture to Hung. “Zees eez my dealer from Japan.” Hung gives that intake of breath that precedes an ebullient homo hello. “Unfortunately, she speaks no English.”

Hung’s mouth purses like he’s got something stuck in his teeth.

“So,” Sandra says, “what brings you here today?”

“Ze Concorde.”

She laughs. I laugh. Hung continues to sulk, his face like a cat’s ass.

“I em, how do you say in English, an investor. And I adore ze footbull
américain
.”

Sandra laughs again. “Who doesn’t?”

I know that sound. That’s the sound of sucking up. The laugh of flattery. I am two feet away from her and she believes I am who I say I am. What’s more, I believe it. It’s as if Etienne Zazou’s wig, sunglasses, and beard transfuse his essence into my system. I don’t need to push or show that I’m a famous mixed-media artist. I just am—or, in this case, em. Is this what was supposed to happen in mask class?

We exchange pleasantries about Paris, which I’ve never visited, and I’m so in character that Sandra doesn’t seem to notice I don’t know what an
arrondissement
is. Finally she asks if she might take a picture.

“
Bien sûr
,” I say, finally putting my high school French to good use.

She lifts a walkie-talkie to her mouth. “Where’s the damn photographer? I’ve got a photo op here.” She turns back to us, giving a nervous laugh. “I’ll be right back.”

The moment she’s gone Hung says, “You could’ve let me have a line, you know.”

“Come on,” I mutter. “Let’s find Chad before she gets back.”

“Don’t you want your picture in the paper?”

“I’ve had enough publicity.”

I can’t see shit with these sunglasses, so I suggest we head upstairs to the choir loft to do reconnaissance. As we emerge from the narrow stairs into the balcony, I see that someone else is already doing the same—with a camera.

It’s Dagmar.