Emma Who Saved My Life (37 page)

Tucker, quiet through all this, burst in, “She's insulting me again, Malverne. She never lets up. I can't work with her!”

“Oh shut up, Tucker,” said Bonnie. “What are you complaining about? Afraid you'll have to show your dick?”

“I thought this was a professional company performing a drama, not
Oh, Calcutta!
when I signed on. I've got a career in family-oriented TV at stake, Malverne. And as for your suggestion, Miss McHenry, let me say that…” Blah blah blah.

Bonnie had to have the last word: “What are you going on about, Tucker? Two nights ago you got mad when I said you didn't have a dick, and now I'm giving you credit for having one—you're never satisfied.”

Brent: “Children, children—”

Once more I passionately insisted on not stripping onstage.

“Gilbert darling,” Brent pleaded, “think it over.”

Bonnie cackled, “Aw Brent, you just want to see Gilbert's ass night after night, don't you?” More cackling, as she thought about her (probably true) theory.

Brent: “What are you implying?”

“You see how abusive and insulting she is, Malverne,” Tucker said, scanning the situation for a pretext to abort the rehearsal and find a bar. “I can't take this amateurish display another minute!”

I continued to fight for my right to remain clothed; Bonnie kept cackling and firing off insults at Tucker and Brent; Brent took half an hour resenting the implications of Bonnie's statements, Tucker jumped ship for the barroom; and Smalley the playwright came back from supper to find things in an uproar and, mercifully, put his foot down at the nude scenes.

Two weeks until we opened.

Everyone was nervous—Bonnie mumbled about being able to sniff a bomb a month in advance, Tucker was understandably worried about being replaced, Gary (the producer who hired me) and Brent were at each other's throats. I, however, was just happy to be in a bomb—even THAT was so far beyond my expectations. Bombs away! What did I care?

I liked my routine. Leave the house by eleven or so, walk crosstown by way of 14th Street, a doughnut stand, the newspaper/magazine store (read the headlines, read the tabloids, peek at
Backstage,
the
Village Voice,
pay for nothing), then maybe to Rosalita's, where you could get a hearty Cuban breakfast (fruit salads, beans on the plate with runny egg … I'm getting hungry thinking about her ladling whatever she felt like making onto your plate, the breakfast special—and the Coffee That Would Wake the Dead …); and then onward to the theater, pop in and see who was there, duck out for a drink with a stagehand or actor, watch
All My Children
in the costume room, involve myself in violent discussions over who should do what and why so-and-so can't run her life, etc. The Village was right there so I could wander and browse through bookstores, record stores, hang out at old places (though many had changed ownership or gone bust, alas), old bars, old coffeehouses—a completely lazy existence. You could do all this when unemployed too, but you felt guilty about it: I should be out looking for work. But not when you'd been cast and were working every night—this was the life, this was the feeling, strolling about New York all day, goofing off, and waiting for that friend to run into you. What am I up to? Ah, the usual. Acting. Yeah I'm in a production in Chelsea—not bad, might go over, not getting my hopes up. Oh yes, definitely come see me, check it out—if it's no trouble. God, what happiness.

Answering machine: BEEP!
Gil, this is Lisa, remember me, your oldest friend in New York? Guess who I ran into. Jasmine Dahl, the girl who lived with Emma? She told me to tell you that her independent record is out this month and to look for it and buy it, and there's one of Emma's poems on the back cover, AND she also told me to tell you that Emma wants to get back with you and I wish you would, Gil, because
—CLICK. The message ran over the allotted time.

Next message: BEEP!
It's me, Lisa again. I want to say that God should personally damn this machine to hell, I
hate
these things. The playwright of your new play had this interview in the
Voice
and everyone in town is talking about this play you're in and Jim and I are coming for opening night, and we'll seeya there. I got gossip—you would never BELIEVE in a million years what Emma is doing for money now—and I have NEWS, Gil, big major all-star news but I gotta tell you in person
—CLICK.

Oh Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. Do you think I haven't figured out that you and Jim-at-the-advertising-agency are getting married? I have nothing in common with you any longer, darling. I said this aloud in a room all by myself.

Next message: BEEP!
Uh, hi Gil, remember me? Betsy at the … you know, our group. You don't come much anymore and I don't either really. But I enjoyed our talk, you know? You wanna get together maybe for coffee, talk some more? I thought I could talk to you real well, I mean … God, I hate these machines. Please call me back
 … And then she gave her phone number.

I stood there for a minute. Betsy. Who was Betsy? Which one was she? Some of the women in that support group—she was correct, I never went to those meetings anymore—weren't half-bad-looking. Was she one of them? Why not call her? Go ahead. You don't have to commit yourself to anything. Coffee between rehearsals—when she finds out you're in a play she'll understand your saying “Gee, Betsy I'm so busy right now…” and if she's pretty and nice and you can deal with her, you can go out with her.

Betsy and I met at the Village Herpes Victims Support Group which met on Wednesdays in the Public Health Center, where several groups, fifty or more, met during the week helping people like myself cope with the trauma of herpes. You're probably wondering: Why hasn't he mentioned his herpes before now? and now mentioning it, why isn't he his usual neurotic self? Well. I didn't mention it right off because herpes is not my life—I am not a virus. And I'm not neurotic about it and in a sense … well, you may not believe this, but the thought of getting herpes, the suspense was worse in a way than finally getting it. Well, I thought, don't have to worry about
that
anymore. Also, what a drag, the whole New York singles scene: the dating, the pantomime of openness and sexual revolution and modernity, the phone number game and follow-ups, the back-at-my-place-for-coffees, the whole routine of getting to know everything about the other person in a night so you could sleep with them and not feel sleazy, which led to so much performance, so much pretense and lies and CHARADES. I'm an actor, I can spot bad acting—take my word for it.

With herpes, it was obvious to me: MY SEX LIFE WAS OVER. I was finished sexually. No sense even trying because you'll have to break the news one of these days, or lie, and having been lied to I would not lie to anyone else. I was celibate and single for life and I was capable of wearing that mantle, really. I had my work. I had the theater. If I got famous by throwing myself into my work, I would be desirable to thousands (like rock stars, movie stars) and no one would give a damn if they caught bubonic plague from me. I had my craft, my art, my
oeuvre,
my artistry. I had masturbation.

“So glad, Gil, you called me—I mean
so
glad,” said Betsy, as she swept into our arranged meeting place, a diner on Seventh Avenue and Christopher.

Looking forward to it, I said. I looked at Betsy up and down: one of the pretty ones—one of the very pretty ones. Perhaps today I wouldn't think so—Betsy was one of those early-'80s emaciated, always-on-a-diet women, skinny to the detriment of her breasts and behind, two areas guys generally don't mind encountering flesh. Women got convinced in the late '70s that the more they looked like guys, the better—how slender could they be? Yuck. I mean, I'll take anything, but given my choice I'd like some
meat on the bones,
you know? Women never believe this, I think. Well anyway, back to Betsy: she could wear those outfits models could wear, very chic, fashionable, Madison Avenue-ish. Not my type at all. Maybe, MAYBE we could get along.

“My friends call me Bitsy,” she laughed.

Maybe not.

“You know,” she said, slipping her coat off after having sat down in the booth, “I found that group was stifling too, you know? Why did you leave it?”

Tired of dwelling on herpes herpes herpes all the time, I said. I look at the whole thing as like a bad case of the flu, you have to warn people you have it before getting too far—in fact, you have to get callous about it, bored with telling people. The worst rejection in the world would be: You degenerate filth, get out of here, I never want to see you again! And that was highly unlikely, whereas: You creep! Why didn't you tell me, you bastard! would be far worse, wouldn't it? With those thoughts in mind, I could proceed with my life.

“Oh that's so reasonable, that really is,” she said, as the waitress set down big slick menus in front of us. “That is so reasonable and smart—I wish I could think like that but I can't. I just think about herpes
all
the time, you know?”

Well at first that's natural.

“It's been eight months. What are you going to have?”

Breakfast.

She laughed at this; crazy me! Breakfast at 3 p.m. “Oh, you're an actor, right? Late-night rehearsals and all. I have a friend in the theater. Let's see if you know her…”

I didn't.

“Where does it get you?”

What?

“The herpes. I get it so bad around my bottom. Like when I have an interview or am nervous or anything. Oh it's awful.”

Let's not talk sores and bottoms, okay?

“Sure, sure. I'll have breakfast too.”

Two breakfast specials. What else did we talk about? Small things, jobs, bosses, my opening (which I underplayed). Betsy was in publishing, book publishing at Marcus & Windom. They published good things and they also published at lot of trash best-sellers. She hoped to be a book editor one day. Publishing pays no salaries—starting salaries of $11,000, can you believe it? With a masters in English no less.

You oughta check out theater salaries, I said.

“Yes, but think how much more exciting the theater is than publishing.”

Not if you do it for a while, I said.

“Yeah, things get boring,” she said, sighing.

A pause in the conversation. We really had nothing to talk about. She came up with the other conversation ploy, before reverting to the only subject I ever remember her talking about:

“I don't feel I can be sexual anymore. I can't imagine being free in bed. You know, my boyfriend and I, Roger, broke up over this.”

I thought Roger gave her herpes.

“Well he did,” she said, looking into her plate, twirling her hair nervously, “but after I got it I couldn't sleep with him anymore. I mean, yes, we did sleep together, but I wasn't, I don't know, interested. I need to start afresh, you know?”

Hmmm, did this mean me? How many people in that group has she called and gone out with? Let's get to the heart of the issue: Are you, Gil, going to sleep with this woman? Yeah I think I'd like that. She's neurotic, nervous about everything, barely picked at her food—I generally don't get along with people who can't drink when they drink, eat when they eat, and she's as good as told you she doesn't make love when she makes love these days. Pre-herpes this is a bad move; post-herpes we're not so choosy.

“What you thinking about?” She looked up as if she feared I was going to reject her in astounding new ways.

Did she want to meet me after the theater for a drink?

There I did it. And having once done it, I felt all right about it. What do you know, I said to myself all through the night's rehearsal, there may indeed be sex after herpes …

“Gilbert darling,” yelled Brent, in a particularly absent period of my performance. “Are you awake? You're dropping your cues—you should be hanging on Bonnie's every word; your mother is accusing you of wrecking her marriage. Attention must be paid, darling—now get with it.”

“Isn't it time to go home?” mumbled Tucker, checking his watch.

“There'll still be a place at Butner's Bar and Grill, Tucker, no need to rush,” said Bonnie, suppressing that cackle.

“I swear, Miss McHenry—”

Brent cut this short: “That's enough kiddies. We're all tired and the play is tired—”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Smalley, sitting in the back row.

“I mean the performances are tired tonight; we're sick of the material and it's dragging. Why do you have to be so goddam sensitive, Christopher, about everything?”

Smalley bristled. “Who's being sensitive? You just said my play was tired.”

Brent exhaled and put his hand on his hip. “What I
said
and what you knew I meant was that we were all tired of the play—”

“No what you
said
was…”

The Sensitivity Wars raged for another ten minutes.

“I don't care what either of you said,” snapped Bonnie, “this shit is a waste of time. We've got the play down pat and we need an audience at this point.”

“I think Bonnie is right,” said Tucker, stepping forward into an upstage table, knocking over a vase—he fumbled trying to catch it, he grasped, almost, no … SMASH.

“Oh just
fine!
” said Brent, committing his ultimate assertive act, hurling his clipboard to the floor. “I oughta make you pay for that out of your own pocket, Tucker. That's the third time you've done that. What are you going to do opening night? Move around like a rhinoceros?”

“I don't think I have to take this!” Tucker yelled.

And there we went again, Tucker storming off. Our all-night rehearsal over at 9:30.

“Brent,” called Bonnie.