Spur of the Moment (5 page)

The five players on the stage knew each other well. Ana knew that with Marin and Ramiro, no matter what she said, no matter what ideas or plot twists she threw out, they would be sure to go with it. Chelsey, Scott, and Jason weren't quite as reliable. If Ana went on stage as a man, Scott and Jason were always turning her into a woman. Once she came on stage wearing a hardhat and flannel shirt. In her mind she was a male construction worker. Then Scott had called her mom, and she had to deal with that, though for a second it was very disconcerting. Improv works because you instantly become a new character. You know what to say next because you know your character and how he or she would respond in such a situation. But when you threw something out only to have it twisted by a fellow performer, it made you feel less safe on stage. Having to deal with a sex change in two seconds flat was unsettling indeed.

The next time Ana went on, it was with Ramiro again. Chelsey had asked the audience for a “thing,” and the suggestion she got was “can of spray paint.” Immediately Ana and Ramiro began feigning spray painting a wall. Ana was the first to start pretending to chew gum with extravagant gusto, but it only took Ramiro a split second to notice what she was doing and join in.

“Like, I don't know the big deal is. We should be able to, like, express ourselves. To decorate the world around us,” Ana said in an Hispanic accent.

On stage tonight, Ramiro said in a falsetto voice, “You said it, girlfriend. People act like graffiti is all illegal and bad and shit. It's art, man. I mean since the, like, ancient
Sumerians,
people have wanted to make their mark.”

What the hell was a Sumerian? Were they in Egypt? Was Sumeria a country? Shit, what was she supposed to say?

This was one problem with doing improv with a walking encyclopedia. Ana had graduated with honors, but it was because she was an awesome essay writer and test taker, not because she remembered everything she read like Ramiro did. Or actually remembered anything she'd read. Promptly after taking an exam, everything Ana had learned disappeared like a guy after a one-night stand. Every time she played Trivial Pursuit, Ana's ass would get thoroughly kicked. She could go for hours without picking up a single pie piece, all the while slapping her forehead saying, “I
know
I learned that in school! The name is on the tip of my tongue . . .” Three weeks later, while she was in the shower or doing the dishes, the answer would spring to mind when it could do her no good whatsoever.

Ana decided to try to steer the scene back around to something she knew about. “Yo, check it out, I'm doing something new with the
‘i'
in my name.”

“A cat's face. Dig it.”

“That'll show Margarita not to mess with Maria!” She rolled her
R's
extravagantly.

“Yo, right on. That cat looks like it'll scratch Margarita Dominguez's eyes out. You are an artiste, girlfriend.”

“That's what I'm saying, the police, the teachers, the parents, they want to be all,
arresting
us, punishing us, and we're just making the world a more beautiful place.”

“It's, like, a human urge to communicate, to create, to let the world know we were here. Do you think the Sumerians were arrested for their writing, their art?”

She had absolutely no idea whatsoever. “No way, muchacha!”

“Damn straight. They were celebrated. Their cuneiform changed the world.”

Cuneiform. It sounded familiar. Did it mean cave painting? Was it an alphabet? A kind of Indian rain dance?

Ramiro went on, working through the ancient Greeks, the Egyptians, the Mayans. He talked about how for all time, people have needed to express themselves. He would pause, making people think he was done, then he'd go on, explaining about the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians or whatever. “Those were the days! I wish I coulda been there. Then I wouldn't be all, like, worried about the cops, worried I'd get carted off to jail.” Pause. “And, like, think about the Anasazi. Man. Those were the days. I wish I coulda been there. Now people pay big money to see the designs the Indians painted and carved on cave walls. Those pictographs and petroglyphs, they helped to educate their ancestral Hopi tribes, to bring good luck to their caves, and to let the world know that the Anasazi, they were here!”

“Like a ‘you are here' on a map, except . . . different.” Ana played dumb to Ramiro's casual brilliance. She didn't have a choice to play it any other way.

“Yeah, kind of the like that. Do you think they got carted off to jail? No way.” He paused, then launched in about the art of the art of the Bobo tribe of Burkina Faso, whatever that was. The crowd thought it was hilarious. Ana just “uh-huhed” and “you-go-girl”-ed. When he talked about Egypt, she mentioned that her cat
I
in her name was like her kohl-penciled Egyptian foresisters. Sixteen years of education, and all she remembered about Egypt was that they mummified their dead, built pyramids, outlined their eyes with kohl, and liked cats. Nice to see all those years of writing essays and cramming for exams turned out to be so useful.

The scene ended a few minutes later when Jason came in wearing a cop hat and thwapping a billy club against his open palm and attempting to arrest them. Both Ramiro and Ana covered him with spray paint and ran off.

They performed well that night. In a couple of scenes, they really killed. A couple weren't quite as good as Ana might have hoped, but nothing that would make the audience fidgety with embarrassment or anything. That was how Ana gauged the success of a show: If they didn't make the audience cringe, the show was a hit.

After the show, the actors went to the bar in the back of the theater to have a few drinks as they always did. Each and every one of them had vowed at one time or another to go straight home to bed after a performance. They vowed to drink less alcohol, get more sleep, cut down on their caffeine intake, and lead wholesome, healthy lives. No one, however, had actually ever done any of this. For one thing, they knew that if they went straight home after a show, they'd miss something hilarious that would be an inside joke to the other actors until the end of time. For another thing, performers got drinks for a dollar. (A dollar!) It was such a good deal that to forsake a few beers after the show was downright fiscally irresponsible.

Before Ana joined her friends, she went to talk with Guy from Qwest. He said he liked their work and he'd like them to perform at the company holiday party in December.

“How about corporate retreats, team-building sessions, things like that?” Ana asked.

“I'm sure you've read in the news that things are difficult in the telecom industry. We don't have much of a budget for those things these days, though we hope things will pick up soon.”

“Well, I really appreciate you coming by. We'd love to perform at your holiday party and any other events that come up. Steve Cuddy is the one to call to schedule everything. Do you have his card?”

“Yep, he gave it to me earlier. Thanks for your time.”

“No, thank you.”

She shook his hand and smiled at him, but as soon as he walked away, her disappointment showed clearly in her expression. Why did he have to go and get her hopes up if he knew he didn't have much of a budget? One lousy holiday party? They might make enough money to buy a few Christmas presents, but they'd hardly be able to quit their day jobs with one stinking holiday gig. Ana went to the table in the back where the other actors were sitting.

“Hey, look you guys!” It was Scott, who rode up to the table on a unicycle. With his long, gangly limbs and curly hair springing out all over the place, Ana thought he looked so cute and boyish, which made sense because he really was just a kid in a twenty-seven-year-old man's body.

“Hey, give me a shot at that,” Ramiro said. As he, Scott, Jason, and Marin gathered around it with glee, Ana and Chelsey went to the bar to order a beer from Tony, the long-haired bartender. Ana had made out with him in the coatroom a few times before. Marin and Chelsey had both slept with him at one point or another, on and off when the alcohol-to-lust ratio tipped the scales. He was nobody's idea of a good boyfriend, or, God forbid, husband, but his exquisite build and sexy smile made the occasional romp with him pretty much unavoidable.

The two women took their beers and sat down at a table near the back of the theater. “How are things going at the gym? Any new crazy characters to tell me about?” Ana asked.

“Can't think of any. I guess the good news at work is that, what with this being America, there are always fat people who need to work their fat asses off.”

Ana nodded, agreeing that this was indeed good fortune.

“Do you ever think that someday we're going to wake up and say to ourselves that we're not actors with day jobs, we're personal trainers and marketing managers and admin assistants who do comedy as a hobby?” Ana asked.

“No, no, of course not.”

“We have to go to New York. We're never going to be able to make it big in Denver.”

“I know, I know.”

They all knew this. They'd had this exact same conversation approximately four million times. “But moving to New York would mean planning and saving money,” Ana said. “I mean you, me, and Jason could do that, but could you imagine Marin, Scott, and Ramiro? Planning? Saving money?”

Chelsey laughed. The planning and saving was one reason they hadn't made the move yet, but it wasn't the only one. The reason wasn't something anybody discussed out loud. But the truth was that in Denver, they were big fish. Colorful, pretty fish that other people oohed and aahed over. In New York, they would be tadpoles. Not even tadpoles, plankton is what they'd be, food for tadpoles.

“I need to get a comedy routine together,” Ana said. “Doing the comedy circuits means you can rub elbows with a much larger group of comedians than the incestuous little pool of talent here at Spur. That's how Eddie Murphy, Jimmy Fallon, Jerry Seinfeld—God, it's how loads of people got their start.”

“So why don't you?”

“ 'Cuz I'm terrified.”

“Why? You get up on stage every night without a script.”

“Yeah, but if a scene bombs in improv, there could be a ton of reasons—the mood wasn't quite right or the players didn't quite click or whatever. But if you bomb in stand-up, it's because they don't like
you.”

“Chelsey?” It was Rob, the man Chelsey had spent the night with.

“Rob! Oh my god! It's good to see you. Have a seat.”

“I hope you don't think I'm a stalker, but I didn't want to have to wait until Sunday to see you again, and I thought that since you had to perform tonight . . .”

“I'm glad to see you again. Very glad. This is my good friend Ana Jacobs. Ana, this is Rob . . .”

“Night. Nice to meet you.”

“Night as in night and day or as in my knight in shining armor?” Chelsey asked.

“As in I want to make love to you all night long.”

“Hmm, somehow I think we've already done that.”

“Okay then, I'm beginning to feel just a wee bit extraneous,” Ana said. “I'll just go and slink off to a corner and talk to myself like a homeless person.” She waited for a moment, waiting for one of them to argue with her. No one did. She took her beer and went over to where Marin was taking her turn on the unicycle.

“My last name is McGuiness,” Chelsey told Rob.

“I know,” he said, fanning the program that had the bios of all the performers. “I'm hoping you'll sign this so I can sell it for thousands of dollars someday when you're rich and famous.”

“Absolutely.”

As she wrote, he said, “So will you go on a proper date with me on Sunday? With food and cocktails and all that?”

“Definitely. I'd like that.”

She handed him the program, and he read over what she'd written.

“It's not
that
huge,” he said, with exaggerated false modesty.

“I know, but I've found that men like you more if you tell them it is. This has been my secret to success with guys all these years.”

“Oh nice. I see how it's going to be. I'm just another in a long line of poor saps who have fallen for your many charms.”

“Consider yourself warned. So, Rob, tell me about yourself. How do you spend your days and nights when not giving women you've just met multiple orgasms? How old are you? How many siblings do you have? Tell me every last detail.”

“Okay, let's see. I'm twenty-seven—”

“Ooh, a younger man.”

“Why, how old are you?”

“Twenty-seven and a half, but I turn twenty-eight next month. Okay, finish answering the questions.”

“I have two younger sisters. I'm about twenty semester hours shy of a degree in computer animation from the Art Institute of Denver—at the current rate I'm going, it'll be about fifteen more years before I finish my degree—and I work as a firefighter in Denver. I work twenty-four-hour shifts, then have twenty-four hours off, and I do that two more times and then have four days off. I'm just finishing up with my four-day-off rotation, so I'll have to show up to work at seven tomorrow morning, but if you want a repeat of last night, complete with depriving me of sleep, I'm more than happy to make that sacrifice.”

“That's a
very
generous offer.” Chelsey bit her lip to suppress her smile. She didn't want him to know how happy she was that he was here. She didn't want to scare him off. “So you're a firefighter, huh? I wonder if last night counts as some kind of Oedipal experience even though I didn't know you were a firefighter at the time I slept with you.”