Lives of the Circus Animals (31 page)

S
o
that's
Caleb Doyle, thought Henry as he followed Toby out to the terrace. Not quite what he'd expected. He was scrawnier, less American, more bookwormy than Henry had imagined—but he
was
a playwright. Nevertheless, there was something appealing about him, a mysterious familiarity, although that may simply have been the fact that Henry saw the man's sister every day. He'd been circling Doyle for the past week, ever since he brought him to orgasm over the telephone. And now they finally met. But there had been no spark, no electric recognition. They had gazed upon each other with as little mutual sympathy as a dog and a cat stranded on an ice floe.

“Damn him,” said Toby. “Did you see the way he looked at me? Like I wasn't even there. And then he told me to beat it. Get lost.”

“And how did you hope he would look?”

“Like he was sorry, like he still loved me.”

“Like he was jealous, you mean. Which was why you wanted
me
here.” Henry spoke matter-of-factly, without resentment.

They were standing beside a table loaded with food, neither of them taking a thing. Toby suddenly turned and walked away.

Henry hesitated, then followed. Toby stomped past knots of people, head down, shoulders hunched. He disappeared around a corner. Henry found him facing a stucco wall. He wondered if he were going to bang his head against it. But no, Toby planted a foot on a rung of ladder there and hoisted himself upward.

“Where are you going?” Henry grabbed the boy's belt.

Toby looked over his shoulder. “Up on the roof. To escape this stupid party.”

“May I come along?”

Toby produced a dull sigh. “I guess.”

Henry followed the heavy hams in khaki as they flexed and swung their way up the ladder. There was a roof above the roof, a tar-paper flatness over the terrace, somewhat shabby but startlingly dark as soon as you stepped back from the edge.

“This is my spot,” said Toby. “From when I stayed here and needed to be alone.” He crawled around the darkness and sat down.

Henry remained standing. The people below were too deep in the gargle of conversation to look up and see him. The terrace suggested the crowded rampart of a castle, a Ludwiggy thing perched on an improbable aerie in a ravine of taller buildings. The windowed mountains stood all around, most of the windows dark—it was after midnight—but a few flickered with telly lights. The ravine narrowed in front of the castle, closing over a pitch-dark garden, then opened wide again on a bright, noisy valley: a street corner full of tiny pedestrians.
VILLAGE CIGARS
, announced a big red sign. Over the sign were two billboards, one of them that jaunty ad for
Tom and Gerry.

“This party,” sneered Toby. “These people. Do you see any real artists down there? No. Just a bunch of jerks on the make.”

“My boy,” said Henry patiently. “We're all on the make. It's as natural as breathing. Frivolous to get righteous about it.”

But Toby didn't hear. He was talking about something else anyway. “He won't come see our show. He looked right through me. Like I meant nothing to him.”

Henry carefully folded his legs together and sat down beside Toby. They were not sitting on tar paper but on fibrous plastic mats, like floor mats from a car. “Yes, I imagine how that must hurt,” said Henry, still playing Mr. Nice Guy. “But at least you have me.”

He was surprised that he could enjoy being used by this young, self-centered romantic. He supposed he was in love with Toby, but it was an oddly platonic, amused kind of love. The boy was nice to look at. Henry didn't need to touch him. Or no. That wasn't entirely true. But looking was sweet as his eyes adjusted to the light.

“Why can't he love me anymore? He did once. I'm sure of it. But gay men are like that. Shallow. They can love for only so long. He couldn't even feel jealous. It's too deep an emotion for him.”

Henry was losing patience with Toby's single-mindedness. Here
was the boy, sitting on a roof with a man who was not just a major Shakespearean, or so the critics said, but soon to be a major movie star. And all he could talk about was that scrawny-arsed playwright down below.

“Here's an idea,” Henry proposed. “Do you know what'd make our friend truly jealous tonight?”

Toby thought a moment. Then he snorted and shook his head. “Forget it. And you don't really want to make him jealous. You just want us to have sex.”

“You are so wise, Toby. So perceptive.”

“I thought we were just going to be friends.”

“Nothing could be friendlier.”

“You just want to use me.”

“As you've been using me. Not that I mind,” he quickly added. “I'm amused. Even flattered. But I must confess”—he decided to say it all—“that I do find the spectacle of you getting up on your moral high horse
extraordinary.
I've been fair to you. I've always treated you as an equal. But it's been a one-way street. I mean, take the other night. I did everything I could for you, obeyed every request, touching you here, there, pumping away until I was blue in the face. But did you do anything for me? Not a damn thing!” But that wasn't the point, that was not what he needed to address here. “Oh but we love the young,” he explained. “They have energy, beauty, hope. They are all future tense. All light and air. But your sense of entitlement, Toby, your apparent belief that your youth and good looks put you
above
a successful veteran of the theater is
beginning
to annoy me.”

“What are you saying, Henry? You're pissed because I didn't—reciprocate the other night?” He couldn't even name it.

“No! It's not about blow jobs. It's more than blow jobs. It's what a blow job represents.”

Toby was silent for a moment. “I
can
be selfish,” he confessed. “I'm sorry, Henry. But that proves how much I love him, doesn't it? That it can make me mean to other people.”

Henry irritably crossed his arms together, so he wouldn't slap him. “It's not that you're mean. I'd just like to be appreciated more.”

“All right. I'll make it up to you. Why don't you lie back?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I want to appreciate you, Henry. I want to reciprocate.”

Before Henry could argue, before he could explain that he was not just talking about sex, Toby leaned forward on all fours and kissed him on the mouth.

It was a warm, slow, friendly kiss. It was a wonderful kiss, like a first kiss, no hands but lots of tongue, like when you're fifteen and you start snogging backstage with your best friend, the Artful Dodger, not knowing how far a kiss can go, where it will take you.

Toby broke off the kiss. “Yes? Okay? Please.” He was unzipping Henry's zipper. “It'll make
me
feel better.” He brought a plump prick out into the night air. “Lie down. Make yourself comfortable.”

Henry leaned back with his head toward the ladder. He could clearly hear the party below. He'd have to twist his neck around if he heard someone climbing the ladder. He propped himself on his elbows to watch Toby.

It did not look like an act of love. It looked more like penance. Henry was not fully aroused. And Toby was not very good. He did it timidly, as if it were unclean, keeping his mouth wide open. There were occasional ticklish snorts into Henry's fly. But it didn't have to be good sex. It was only symbolic sex.

Henry remembered the windows all around, where people may or may not be looking down on them. Not a very flattering picture of a beloved Broadway star, he thought.

W
hen Jessie came out to the terrace, she found Frank standing at the table under the beach umbrella, loading a plate with wedges of cheese, ham, and melon.

“I just realized,” he said, “I haven't eaten all day.”

“Me neither.” But she had no appetite. Just looking at the picked-over rainbow of food was enough to fill her.

“Your brother didn't seem very happy to see us.”

“Who knows what the fuck Caleb wants anymore?”

Frank gave her a forlorn, miffed, knowing look. “What did you hope to prove by bringing everyone down here?”

“I wasn't out to prove anything. I just wanted to have fun. I thought it'd be fun. Can't anybody have fun anymore? The rest of you people are so damned serious.”

“Uh, Jessica?” It was Kenneth Prager. “Have you seen Mr. Lewse? He told me to meet him out here to finish the interview.”

Jessie peered through the French doors, then up and down the terrace, looking for Henry, but also for her brother. Not that Caleb would be freaked to find Prager here. He'd probably find
that
funny. And if he didn't, screw him.

“Sorry, Kenneth. Don't know. Did you check the john?”

“I was just there myself.” He sounded indignant that she hadn't kept track of his whereabouts. “I'll check inside again,” he said with a grave sigh. “And then I'm going home.”

Frank watched him depart. “It wasn't just fun,” he told Jessie. “You brought us here to make a big ruckus and get attention.”

“That's a good one,” she said. “A real ripsnorter. Caleb says I did it to put him in
his
place. To prove his life is as shitty as mine.”

“But you have a good life. Both of you have good lives. Although that won't mean much coming from me, the loser.”

“You're never going to let me forget I said that, will you?”

“No. Because it hurts each time I remember it. But especially now when you're working for a big winner.”

“Look. Henry's the winner. I'm still a loser.”

He studied her a moment, then shook his head. “Excuse me. I got to go get something to drink. To wash down this crap.” He lifted his overloaded plate to show that he was being literal as well as metaphorical, and went back inside.

Jesus, thought Jessie. When did tonight suddenly become Shit on Jessica Night? And she hadn't even talked with Mom yet.

There was a commotion inside as more guests arrived, which was a surprise at this hour. But it was the
2B
cast—Allegra, Dwight, Chris, and Melissa—who had come downtown by subway. Allegra came out on the terrace with Dwight, still yammering about the play.

“Whatever happens was meant to happen,” she was saying. “I fell in love with Chris not because I'm queer but because I needed to fight with Boaz. Because once Boaz walked and Frank took over, the play began to work. Hey, Jess! Nice party. Where's Henry? I need to ask Henry if he could add just
one
more tiny thing to his quote.”

Caleb appeared behind Allegra, waiting to ask Jessie something.

Then a new disturbance indoors made everyone turn around and look.

K
enneth stayed in the bathroom longer than he intended, sitting on the lowered toilet lid with the tape recorder pressed to his ear, listening to what he had and trying to come up with one last good question for Henry Lewse. He'd hoped to beat Bick by turning his punitive assignment into a nice little article, but circumstance and Lewse himself worked together to reduce the night to a wild Lewse goose chase. The show uptown had been a nice surprise, but Kenneth needed to focus now. He would try one more question—Is there a single actor or actress you hope to work with before you die?—and then he could go home.

He came out of the bathroom and looked for Lewse. A swell party, he thought. He wondered whose party. A swell apartment too. He and Gretchen could never afford such a place.

He found the assistant out on the terrace, but she hadn't seen Lewse and did not seem terribly interested in finding him. He went back inside and checked the kitchen, then an office full of the strangest assortment of books: artist biographies and books about math. He tried the bedroom next, lightly knocking on the door, which was already open, so he pushed it. A fan of light spread over a bed with an old lady stretched out on the covers.

“Excuse me! Sorry!” he exclaimed and pulled the door shut.

He hurried back out to the living room. He asked the bartender if he'd seen Henry Lewse depart.

“Henry Lewse? The actor? He's here? Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I arrived with him.”

The bartender excitedly looked around the room. “Wow. Hey, I'll keep my eyes peeled.”

Kenneth went back out to the terrace.

“No luck?” said the assistant.

He shook his head and hurried past her, wondering if she were hoaxing him. Were they
all
hoaxing him? They would soon claim that Lewse was never here and Kenneth must be crazy. It would be their revenge for all the awful things the
Times
had done to actors.

Kenneth headed toward the far corner of the terrace, which was darker. All he could see were the silhouettes of guests standing in front of the orange-tinted cityscape.

“Henry?” he said. “Henry? Has anyone here seen Henry?”

“Not me,” said a young man. “Unless your name is Henry?” he asked his companion.

“No. Is
your
name Henry?”

“I don't think so,” the first man replied. “My brother used to call me Thomasina. But it's not the same thing, is it?” He turned back to Kenneth. “Sorry. No Henrys here.”

Kenneth came up beside the pair of the silhouettes. They were two skinny young men in jeans and black T-shirts leaning against the parapet. He sensed that they were gay, maybe even a couple.

“Hen-reeee! Henry Aldrich!” cried out the first man. Or maybe it was the second. They were like an East Village Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

“Hey,” said his friend, closing one eye and studying Kenneth with the other. He was slightly drunk. “You're Kenneth Prager.”

This often happened at public gatherings. There was nothing to do but accept it. “Guilty,” he joked. “Glad to meet you.” He held out his hand, which was all most people needed.

But neither of them took his hand.

“I wouldn't stand too close to the edge if I were you,” said the second man. “Not while you're talking to us.”

And Kenneth laughed, as if it were a joke, although he suspected it wasn't. “I'm sorry. Do I know you?”

“No. You don't know us at all,” said the first man.

“You might think you know our alter egos,” said the second. “But you don't know them either.”

“Does the name Leopold ring a bell?” said the first man.

“Does the name Lois?” said the other.

“Oh?”
said Kenneth, squinting, trying to see two shabby nightclub
performers in the scrubbed blandness of these two boys, even as he took a healthy step back from the parapet.

“Murderers?” said the first man.

“More in need of therapy than a review?” said the second.

Actors took their notices much too seriously. Directors and writers could be grown-ups about criticism, but actors were children. A bad review was like telling them there was no Santa Claus.

Kenneth drew himself up to his full height. “Sorry. I call them as I see them. Your audience seemed to enjoy you well enough.”

“And that's why you hated us, old man?” said the first one.

“Damn but you're old,” said the other. “Couldn't they have sent someone our age? Someone who was alive enough to get it!”

Being called “old” didn't hurt. Of course these brats would see him as old. But their desire to hurt him?
That
hurt.

“You're upset,” he told them. “Which is natural. But you did your job, and I did mine—”

“Our job is to make art and yours is to destroy it?”

“I'm sorry we can't be more mature about this. But it was nice meeting you. Good night.” He nodded to each, then turned and walked away, very calmly, he thought, very adultly.

His heart was pounding like a drum. He remained in control of his body even as it braced itself for a blow to the back of the head or kick in the seat of his pants. But nothing happened. Leopold and Lois didn't even shout a last insult.

He went straight to the bartender inside. “Gin and tonic.” That's all he needed, a quick drink before he took a last look for Lewse, and then he'd go home. He wouldn't be fleeing. It was late. “Thank you,” he told the bartender and gripped the cold glass. The first sip brought him back to himself. He decided to take his time with the drink and enjoy it.

Glancing around the room, he saw a middle-aged lady perched alone on a sofa. She sat with a purse in her lap, drinking something clear, looking faintly lost. With a suburban hairdo and old-fashioned lipstick and earrings, she did not look like a theater person, but like somebody's mother: safe and sane. Kenneth wanted to sit down anyway, and she looked like good, grown-up company.