Page 129 of Playworld
Fountain, after pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, continued:
Mr. Fountain’s lyrics occasionally steal fire from the gods. In between, the audience must suffer an eagle eating its liver.
I watched Dad. It was hard to tell if he was listening anymore. He’d struck the same pose as in his headshot, arms crossed and chin resting on his thumb while staring at his feet, brushing invisible sawdust from the carpet.
Is “Sam and Sara” Abe Fountain’s swan song? That remains unknown. But this production is unquestionably a turkey.
The cast stood motionless, heads downcast.
“But what does he really think?” one of the actors finally shouted.
Several couldn’t help it and cracked up. It freed some of the others to do the same, to put their arms around those who were crying and try to comfort them. Others looked to Fountain for direction.
“What he thinks,” Fountain said, “will not stop any of us…” And at this he paused. “…from getting good and drunk.”
I turned to Mom. “What does this mean?”
Mom was smiling as if she had just told herself a private joke or had made a final decision. She sat with her elbow on the table, chin to palm, her mouth hidden behind her bent fingers, her eyes flickering between anger and delight. What I was certain of was that when she turned to me to speak, when she let her arm fall in order to be heard, I understood, with total clarity, why my father needed her, trusted her, sometimes hated her, feared her, occasionally fled from her—and loved her.
“It means,” she said, “that soon this will all be over.”
—
The next day, Howard Kissel’sDaily Newsreview ofSam and Sarahit the stands, notably more positive than Eder’s. Ferrer, my father said, had heard that Walter Kerr—of New York’s critics the most reliably negative—was coming out with a long piece on the show at month’s end that would be “glowing.” CouldSam and Sarastay afloat until Kerr’s review published? Would the investors be willing to carry it for three weeks if ticket sales were poor? And then, as if by divine intervention—for the show’s success or its ultimate failure, I can’t say even now—Morales, who played Sam, took ill. His voice began to turn hoarse by the conclusion of Saturday’s matinee; by curtain Saturday night, he was rasping and running a high fever; he croaked almost inaudibly through his performance.
Dad was already preparing to take the role by Saturday afternoon. Early that morning, Mom had departed for Montauk to stay with Al for the weekend, so Dad returned to the apartment. He had, on his person, and at all times, a small tape recorder with the melodies of all his new songs. On a blue set of flash cards, his lyrics; on a yellow set of flash cards, his lines. Slowly but surely, these were shuffled into a multicolored deck, which he mumbled and hummed around the clock. He left for rehearsal Sunday evening, to go over the songs with Hershy Kay and Fountain. Oren and I were asleep long before Dad got home, although he was up well ahead of us, to cook us breakfast before school. At the table, he told us he’d be home well past our bedtime. His first performance was Tuesday night.
That week, Mom stayed at Al’s. In spite of Dad’s performance schedule, he made us breakfast every morning before school, and sat with us, in spite of his exhaustion, taking great pleasure in watching us eat. But because he was gone on weeknights, and because Mom wasn’t there to cook dinner, Dad left us cash and told us to fend for ourselves. Friday afternoon through Sunday night, Oren disappeared and didn’t come home until very late, if he came home at all. When I asked him where he’d been, he said, “None of yourb-i-bizness,” if he said anything.
I went to see Dad perform.
I knew then the show wasn’t going to make it. Eder’s review had decimated sales. If you’d been visiting New York, you could’ve sat front row center for pennies on the dollar, which I did not, even though the stagemanager gave me carte blanche. I was worried that doing so would distract Dad. I soon learned I didn’t need to worry about that at all.
The role was perfect for him; it freed him up. There was a built-in bigness to Sam’s character, something outsized and commanding that matched up perfectly with Dad’s statue-bust features, his Roman emperor’s profile, which suggested both authority and appetite. In the show, he is described as a brilliant architect, and there is a scene toward the middle of Act I in which he dresses down a classroom of graduate students; the relish with which Dad did this, torpedoing their half-baked observations with academic knowledge, was perfect. He wore a tweed jacket with elbow patches like the professor he’d never be, the empty frames of wire-rimmed eyeglasses giving him that extra dash of stodgy condescension. I often found my father’s put-on profundity pathetic in its transparency, but in this moment, in these performances, he seemed incontestable.
And when he sang, he soared through his seemingly endless range, and I was reminded of the times I dropped Sam’s Ferrari into fifth gear. Oh, to be flooded with my father’s full-throated sound! To hear, as he hit his highest note and held it, how much he had to give if he’d ever had the chance. I was not the only one to notice this. The musical did twelve performances before closing, and on the final Saturday night, watching from the wings, I spotted Mom in the audience. She was as rapt as I was. She laughed as if we were all four at dinner in the apartment; she whistled, to my shock, with her two fingers pressed to the underside of her tongue, at curtain; it was clear to me that she was having the best time. And her love for my father, I realized, exceeded mine, exceeded her love even for Oren and me. Was that a love, in marriage, to aspire to? I remember watching Mom watch him, shaking her head at times and squinting when he hit certain notes; how during other moments, she turned her head away ever so slightly, as if she were averting her eyes from the sun. Or holding her prayer-clasped fingers pressed to her lips and nodding in joy.Talent,I thought. That great leveler. Smasher of gates and all-access pass. Velvet-rope opener and the penthouse view.Follow me please,says the maître d’ to talent,I have our best table waiting.That uniquely and unfairly bestowed gift America had figured out how to tap more efficiently and mercilessly than any other country in history. It should be written on the goddamn Statue of Liberty:Give meyour talented, your gifted, your huddled geniuses, yearning to breathe free.Thatwas our country’s exceptionalism—her thrown-wide-open doors she might just as suddenly slam shut. Rob my father of his money, like that insurance agent did; call himBurgerorhebeorkike,but youstillcould not wrest from him his talent. I said I was not the only one to notice how perfect Dad was as the lead, how—I truly believe this—the fortunes of that show might have been otherwise if he’d been properly cast, if they’d given him his one shot. That night, during Dad’s last performance of “Getting Away with It,” I felt someone touch my shoulder. Then I noticed Fountain’s white-gloved hand there, the cotton fabric dotted with tiny sequins. His touch, which had startled me, briefly turning my body to ice. He gave me a warm squeeze. “Finally,” he whispered, “I can hear my lyrics.”
And then the curtain fell.
That Sunday was the final matinee. I met Dad at the stage door and hugged him and told him he was great, and I meant it. It was one of those September afternoons in New York when the passenger plane banking west—a white crucifix against that endless lapis lazuli—leaves no contrail. Weather so perfect you believe certain states of being, like happiness, might be eternal. It was a healthy walk home from the theater, and Dad was quiet. Just as Lincoln Center came into view, its plaza full of people, its fountains susurrating, he said, “How about something to eat,” which was not a question, and then he led me to O’Neals’ on the corner.
Dad asked for a booth; I wasn’t hungry and told him so. “A bowl of pickles,” Dad said to the waitress, “and a cream soda, please.” When she returned, he said, “Eat something with me, even if it’s just anosh,” and so I scanned the enormous menu, which hid Dad from my view, and when I lowered it, Katie was sitting next to him.
She smiled at me, we exchanged pleasantries, and I, intentionally this time, concealed my face behind the menu’s screen. When the waitress returned, I ordered the surf and turf with a milkshake.
“I thought you weren’t hungry,” Dad said.
“I changed my mind,” I replied.
He and Katie began discussing the show’s failure—a conversation that did not include me but did allow me to study her closely for a time. She wore high-heeled black leather boots. Black slacks. A collared blackbutton-down blouse. A thin black leather jacket. Several gold necklaces with pendants that measured the slope of her substantial cleavage. Hooped earrings, also gold. Black thick-rimmed eyeglasses; heavy mascara and eyeliner. A glossy maroon lipstick. She wore her black hair up. Everything about her said street tough, said street smart—said New York. Saiddon’t fuck with me. Her laugh was husky and commanding. She was used to being stared at, I could tell, and occasionally I caught Dad complying, admiringly, as when she took a moment to make small talk with me, to ask me how the new school year was going, what classes I was taking. Her brother had been a wrestler, she said, a play for quick connection between us. When I asked her where, she replied, “Oklahoma,” and plucked a pickle from its basket. “That sport saved his life like the theater saved mine.” As she chewed, I noticed that her hair was dyed, that the lipstick was crumbling at the corners of her mouth. She was—long had been—in flight from something, and if she were to excuse herself to the bathroom and remove her makeup, I might not recognize her when she rejoined us.
The waitress arrived with my food. Dad said he needed to hit the john. Katie and I sat facing each other while I pondered my steak and lobster tail. Then she leaned toward me, fingers laced together, palms to the table, and stared at me, while I stared back, unimpressed.
“I thought it was lovely how often you came to your father’s performances,” she said. When I didn’t respond she asked, “Can I have a French fry?”
She took one and bit the end. Its white meat smoked.
“You have a big fall coming up,” she said, and then dipped into my ketchup.