Anthologies
"Closing Night" a short story by David Ortmann
coming soon, still in negotiations.
I wake in a tangle of sheets. I hear Chris breathing quietly, asleep next to me. The bedding is spotless, a pristine curtain on a long run of passionless non-sex. In three short years we've gone from hot sex, to sex, to "just snuggling." A few months more and we'll be shaking hands.
I dreamt of cats again last night. I want a black cat, one that I name Magnolia, after the Grateful Dead song. I want a cottage in Tacoma Park. I want to buy my brown rice at an organic cooperative run by teenagers who wear dreadlocks, toe rings, and smell of sandalwood and forests. I want to wander funky art shops in my Birkenstocks with a bandanna tied around my head. Basically I want to be a lesbian. I want to live with Chris forever, with cats, a garden, and assorted herbal teas.
Chris hates cats. He may be allergic to them, but I can't say because he refuses to come within a city block of them. We've lived in this Washington D.C. apartment for almost a year now. I teach theater and English at private schools and take acting and modeling jobs where I can find them. Chris is working at a temp agency and beginning to carve his way into the D.C. theater scene. It's not easy. He's three years younger than I am. Last month we celebrated his college graduation. His parents were there with us and everything. We all went to dinner at a huge restaurant on the Potomac River. For some reason, this makes me feel like we're a real couple.
I hear him exhale and roll over.
"Breakfast." He yawns.
We cook in our crammed and ancient kitchen. Newly vegetarian, we create a tofu scramble that looks more like pumpkin soup. Barefoot on linoleum that was once white, we struggle to close cabinets that won't for the thousand coats of glossy white paint that have been applied to them since the building was erected. It's called a "garden apartment" and could be anywhere from twenty to fifty years old and no one would know, or maybe even care. It was our home.
Chris shuffles as he sits. He acts happy, but it's bad acting-like Joan Crawford in Straight Jacket.
"David, what do you think about seeing other people? You know, like having an open relationship?"
Choking back reactive comments, a lumpy orange forkful hovering before my open mouth, I listen. I listen more. Chris talks some and cries. I cry, too. We yell and talk more. There is blame and blame taken back and more blame to replace it. Chris cries. We talk more. I cry.
The tofu, untouched, chills and curdles before us.
I knew this was coming, I think to myself. Chris went out dancing last night. I stayed at home with a script to memorize. My mind blazes with the image of sweet, sexy, naïve Chris, out swilling bottom shelf booze and dancing with all those tedious ass pirates who claim to be our friends. My friends. Bastards! Who was it?
Kevin-gorgeous, talented, but brutally manipulative Kevin? Or Michael-cute, short, but benignly stupid and balding Michael? Was it Brett, that mediocre community theater choreographer who is easier to get into than a community college? Or was it Jerry? Jerry, that sticky sweet Southern queen with an ass the size of a supermarket.
Or was it someone I don't know?
But I know it's not them, nor is it some faceless other man. They're not the reason for Chris' need to be free. He is twenty-one. I am twenty-four. Not a huge age difference. In college our ages meant nothing. That gap widens after college, though, especially in queer boys perched on the edge of their twenties. Right now, I feel like I should be taking Geritol. There are other-more important-gaps, I know. I've had many lovers-male and female. I've taken drugs and lived in Europe. I've been on the cover of the Washington Post Theater Guide. Twice, thank you very much. Chris just graduated from college. I'm his first lover, his first in many things. He needs to go and I need to let him. I am ready for Magnolia and for buying grains in bulk. Chris isn't.
We will separate. We decide to go on living together because we are poor and don't know how long either of us will stay in Washington, and because we still love each other. More than anything, we know the three of us are misfits in D.C.-David, Chris, and our little apartment. We have to stick together.
Chris springs up to wash the dishes we haven't eaten off of. I fidget and squirm and try to focus on a feminist adaptation of Cinderella for my sixth grade acting class. Only the apartment is content. I can almost hear it exhale a long held sigh of relief with the knowledge that we're staying.
* * * *
I hardly sleep that night, obsessed with the sound of Chris' even, calm breathing and envious of his rest. By four am, I know it is too late to take a sleeping pill and make my rehearsal at nine, so I ride out the remainder of the night, cold and alone despite the toasty body beside me. I try not to touch Chris, or even brush against him accidentally, as I watch the shadows from the trees outside move across the ceiling and wait for the sky to lighten.
Morning comes too soon and not soon enough.
It is only thanks to an entire pot of coffee that I am even standing here onstage at the D.C. Arts Center at all, let alone standing in five inch emerald green pumps. In this play, I portray a drag queen Empress gone mad. There is no acting involved. Wearing a towering red wig and brandishing a butcher knife, I survey the carnage around me from beneath three sets of false eyelashes. Two black, one silver. The female tyrant of ancient Byzantium has just slaughtered her teenage lover, her five ladies in waiting, four court guards, the palace wise woman, and her own husband. She contemplates turning the knife on herself but decides, instead, to burst into song. Barbra Streisand to be precise. Stephen Sondheim's The Ladies Who Lunch to be exact. Were I swinging an amputated leg, the cannibalistic overtones of the number could not be more emphasized. The unhinged Empress lunges dramatically, wielding her knife like a Kabuki swordswoman, sinking glamorously into her psychotic demise, all the while belting Sondheim.
"Stop. Stop. Stop." I hear the oddly bellowing lisp of Tim, our esteemed director from the third row of the house. "Rewind the playback."
I lower the knife to my side and brace myself. I know that I will never be good enough for Tim because, deep down, he wants to be playing the Empress, not directing her.
"David, angel." He begins, lighting a cigarette. "Excellent work on the choreography. You've got it down, honey! But we need to think about the energy of the piece! The grandiosity." He continues, building momentum with a sweep of his hand. "You're giving me Mia Farrow. Now, I adore Mia Farrow-don't get me wrong! But not right now. I want Theda Bara. I want Faye Dunaway doing Joan Crawford doing Joan Crawford! I want Gloria-fucking-Swanson! I want a production number that threatens not only to chew up the scenery, but spit it right out in the audience's face!"
I smile and nod, trying desperately to hold it together. My threshold for criticism is low today, especially in present company. I see Michael skulking by the lobby doors: boyish, muscled, and bald! God, I hate him. What is he doing here anyway? He's the house manager. His duties don't begin until we open the show. I don't realize I am chewing at the inside of my cheek until I taste the blood there.
Jerry's here too, I notice, fisting Dunkin' Donuts into his face like a steam shovel, and posing as a production assistant or prop boy or some other such insipid nonsense.
All I need right now is Kevin and Brett to show up, tanned, smiling, and carrying their matching surfboards. Who the fuck surfs the Potomac anyway?
The actors stir beside me, tired of lying on the floor while their star gets directorial feedback. I feel a wave of resentment from them. I glance down to see my dear friend Lynn, who plays the now quite dead palace wise woman. She rolls her eyes in response to Tim's relentless monologue and for a moment I feel a spark of support and laugh inside, a person again and not just a piece of meat for hire in heels.
"Have you watched Sunset Boulevard like I asked you to?" Tim's voice jars me out of my thoughts. I almost forget how much of this show is riding on my performance and how, as the lead role, I am at turns both hated and envied by the rest of the cast and crew, two feelings I dislike as much as the inability to fall asleep.
And Tim knows full well that I've watched Gloria Swanson descending that staircase at least six times in the past week. "Yes, I have." I say quietly, determined to play the good boy until the curtain falls on this Byzantine abortion.
"Excellent! Give me Norma Desmond's descent into madness! But bigger! Much bigger! But let us not loose the crucial feminist angle we spoke about. The Empress is making a feminist statement long before it was in vogue. Yes! That's it! Give me Gloria Swanson and Gloria Steinem!" Tim stubs out his cigarette and cries, "Playback!"
I raise my knife and begin to sing.
I am determined to enjoy being the star, the diva, the focus of everyone's attention while it lasts because I know that tonight Chris will not be home. He told me at breakfast that he's going out for dinner with a friend. Mercifully, he didn't tell me the "friend" is Brett and that he will be spending the night in the slutty choreographer's sex pit. This I found out an hour ago via backstage gossip, whispered just loud enough for me to overhear. The thought of Brett-comfortable at home, slathering his hairy ass with Nair in preparation for the date-while I stand in a cold theater wearing only a flimsy sequined toga is enough to make me cry, but I don't. I can't. There are too many people watching, wanting, and waiting for me to.
After rehearsal, I casually mention to Tim that I am off to have dinner with the artistic director of the Studio Theater. People stop their conversations in mid-sentence to listen. Performing at the Studio is every D.C. actor's dream. I draw my coat about me and sweep out, amid the silence, wishing everyone a good night.
I buy a pack of Camels and a bottle of Lancer's wine at the corner store with my last ten bucks. Tonight I will smoke, and drink and listen to my Air Supply tapes. alone.
My Studio Theater lie is an innocent one, but a lie nonetheless and, walking home, even the downpour of rain does nothing to make me feel clean.
* * * *
Six weeks later we close the show after a fourteen-day extension fired by the overwhelming critical reviews. The repeated curtain calls are like music to me. Afterward actors, technicians, playwrights, and fans mill about in the lobby-turned-art-gallery of the D.C. Arts Center, smoking cigarettes, sipping wine, and trying to look jaded in their black Gucci-knockoff suits and jackets. We may be unknown outside of this city, but tonight we are stars-high on our own success. The show was the sleeper hit of the season and we know it.
Cast, crew, friends, and fans arrive at Perry's Café, our favorite post-show watering hole, and a good portion of the restaurant stands to applaud our entrance. By now, everyone in the neighborhood has seen the show. I wave and sign a napkin or two, pretending the applause is just for me. Everyone loves a good drag queen, even if she does kill off the entire cast! Chris is with us too, looking incredibly cute and fresh in his khakis, burgundy tee shirt, and wild print vest. This is his only dress-up outfit. I never tire of it.
"You were amazing tonight." He whispers.
I smile honestly at him. "Thanks."
The smile he gives in return makes my heart ache. I still miss him. I still love him. I know that it frustrates the hell out of our circle of friends that we are still such close friends after our breakup and maybe even closer than before it.
Almost twenty of us commandeer our usual table in the corner where the floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Avenue below. The table is low and flanked by antique sofas. Out the windows, the bustle of an Adams Morgan Saturday night is a living mural of urban life. I sign another napkin, sushi is served, and the aluminum barrels of Japanese beer begin to arrive. We drink with the vigor and sophistication of the young, fierce, bohemians we want so much to be. Lighters flick and cigarettes blaze all around. Everyone smokes because we know we look good doing it.
I lower my eyelids and exhale, like Dietrich, trying to catch the eye of Ryan Anderson, the gorgeous young actor who plays one of the palace guards. Last week, after a night like this, Ryan and I shared a drunken kiss outside my apartment door. I've thought of that kiss all week, thirsty for another. Either my Dietrich needs work or Ryan's not interested. I fail to catch his eye, grind out my Marlboro, fire up another, and call the waiter back for a second round of beer barrels. When people insist on giving me money, I decline, subtlety mentioning that my agent booked me for a local television commercial this afternoon. This gets Ryan's attention, but I choose to ignore him.
We close down Perry's as we have every Saturday night for the past three months. The manager escorts us to the door and congratulates me again. I flash him my high voltage smile, shake his hand, and give him a stack of flyers promoting my next production, which he will place on the bar as soon as we leave. We stumble laughing onto Columbia Avenue with the drunken coordination and late-night exuberance reserved exclusively for the very young.
* * * *
Through a driving glitch, we somehow end up on a hill downtown, the one where the Washington Monument rises out of the ground reverently surrounded by tiny spotlights. It reminds me of a large, hideous penis. I sometimes wish ACT UP or Queer Nation would just slip a huge condom over the thing and be done with it.
The weather is uncharacteristically warm. I pull off my blazer and unbutton my linen shirt seductively, feeling a breeze scurry down my chest. I try again to catch Ryan's eye, but without luck. Not twenty feet from me, he paws and sniffs at Chris like some lost mongrel. I try to smile it off as Lynn offers to light my fiftieth cigarette of the night. Lynn is dressed as though she were going to the Academy Awards. Only she could be negotiating this marsh in five-inch spike heels and still manage to walk as though she were delivering a briefing on the Senate floor.
Someone was savvy enough to snatch one of those Ernest and Julio Gallo wine-in-a-boxes from the theater, and I throw back a thirsty belt. If grapes had ever been involved in the life of this wine, they are now a distant memory. It tastes like what's left in the bottom of a Sno-Cone once the ice has melted.
Chris and Ryan wander off looking very much in love. They hold hands while I hold court. I'd rather have a hand. I drag on my cigarette, crack jokes, and play the role my friends have come to expect me to play. Confident, talented, witty, beautiful and envied. The young man who has it all. I'm grateful there are no spotlights on me to illuminate the insecurity, the loneliness, and the loss percolating just beneath my well-manicured surface.
Tim demonstrates his rare talent for being able to magnify an uncomfortable situation to the point of suicidal farce by throwing a fleshy arm around me. He smells like those awful generic cigarettes and Paco Rabane aftershave. "Hon, are you okay with Chris and Ryan? Because if you aren't it's okay."
"I'm okay. You're okay. We're all okay. Where the fuck are you from, California?" I want to say.
"I am fine. Really." I say instead.
Slack, an actor with the rare talent of diffusing Tim, bums a Marlboro from me and suggests a walk up the hill. I give him the cigarette, and thank him for rescuing me.
We begin the short hike and I curse the whole idea of coming down here at all. My new Kenneth Coles, still unpaid for, are caked with mud and grass. The cuffs of my silk trousers, equally unpaid for, are filthy and soaking wet. How the hell does Lynn still manage to look like Alexis from Dynasty ready any moment to step into that white Rolls Royce I spent my teenage years fantasizing about owning?
Slack and I climb to the top of the hill, arms around each other with the fraternal warmth common in theater people. The Washington Monument does look quite impressive, so white and tapered against the skyline. So permanent. I feel a glimmer of patriotism, but just a glimmer and it fades quickly.
Suddenly the base of the monument begins to move, slowly at first and then in a dizzying swirl. I gasp, silently regretting every one of the hundred-something tabs of acid I sucked on in the late 1980s. But, no. I notice something really is moving. The base of the Washington Monument is crawling with rats. They're the size of fat neighborhood cats. They scurry around, shrieking at one another and nibbling ferociously on blood-clotted Band-Aids, fake fingernails dropped by hairspray-helmeted tourists, and the snotty Kleenex of drippy children from Idaho or Iowa or somewhere flat. The shrieking increases as they fight over a mustard encrusted hot dog bun. I wonder how much cash that hot dog must have fetched in its prime?
I look at Slack and back at the monument wondering with a sense of finality if my life, like the monument itself, will always look better from a safe and well-lit distance?