The Home For Wayward Ladies (6 page)

I look at my watch; the house is already five minutes late to open, which means the audience is stranded out in the cold. As soon as the stage manager gives the thumbs up, the theater doors will open. Hundreds of unfamiliar faces will pour in carrying Christmas presents that will be too big to fit under their seats. And when I tell them to put their oversized bags in coat check, they’ll adamantly refuse. But I mustn’t let those assholes bring me down. With Jason on my mind, I have all the reason I need to be happy. All I’m asking for is a quiet matinee. If only that could happen, it might not be such a bad day after all. I mean, even if it is cold outside, well, “at least there isn’t snow.”

6

NICK

To add injury to insult, after I get booted from that audition, I’m back to freezing my tits off out in the cold. At least getting “typed out” puts me relatively on time for my survival job at the TKTS Booth in Times Square. (Don’t judge me; ever since my Ma found out that my Bar Mitzvah money went up my nose, the purse strings have been tight.) I’m not even at the end of the block when all three pairs of socks I’m wearing let the subzero temperatures seep through. The numbness in my toes are further proof that God’s not listening. Yet, still, I take a page from Hunter’s book and pray.

“Our God, King of all disappointment, Creator of the bacon cheeseburger, which Exodus says we’re not supposed to eat-- grant me patience today as I explain to foreign tourists that
The Lion King
has no discount and, quite simply, that
it never fucking will
.”

But as far as survival jobs go, I guess this one’s not so bad. I much prefer the shit I deal with on a daily basis than to what I hear the other Ladies must endure. Eli’s days are spent with his cellulite sewn into a monkey suit handing out Playbills, and while he may be capable of working with his nose stuck in the air, I think I’d go bananas if my place of employment had a rule against slapping my co-workers asses like they was bongo drums. And poor Hunter’s got it even worse. He’s doing every odd job except knob polishing in order to turn a buck. I can’t remember the last time he had the strength at the end of a day to muster a “hello” before collapsing on top of his always made bed.  

Meanwhile, at TKTS, I get the chance to talk about theater like somebody appointed me chief gardener of the Broadway landscape. From my vantage at the booth, I see which shows are running well and how soon the also-rans will be run out. Since management expects me to know what I’m talking about, they give me tickets to almost everything. And that’s not even the best part— no one seems to mind when I sneak away for a few minutes to steal a few drags off my one-hitter. Since no one doubts that weed is to me what spinach is to Popeye, they let it slide. It’s a good thing too, because on the pennies they pay me, I can’t exactly afford health insurance and getting stoned is my primary defense against the loss of faith I feel in humanity when I’m asked if
Cats
is still playing. 

The cold hasn’t seemed to deter any of the usual idiotic suspects. When I arrive, the throngs of people are already three queues deep on both sides of Duffy Square. The penguins huddle while they wait. Tickets don’t go on sale for another hour, so I’m supposed to kill time by wandering up and down the line looking capable of answering these simpleton’s questions. I grab a few stacks of flyers for the shows that I like most and limp sluggishly along to hand them out. It’s business as usual. Foreign tourist, foreign tourist, American pretending to be a foreign tourist so he doesn’t have to talk to me, foreign tourist, some bitch that takes a pamphlet before throwing it on the ground. But then one family gives me pause. 

The three of them look on me with the intent to disembowel. It’s as if someone forgot to lock the front door to the asylum and they mistakenly wandered into the heart of Times Square. To make matters worse, they’re hideous. Their ringleader is a revolting woman who has outgrown the confines of her tattered overcoat. Her skin is like a nonpareil, all bumps and blemishes, and her hair is worn in two rainbow tie-dyed puffs, one on each side of her bulbous head. Her brother, who’s looming to her left, wears a black trench coat that swoops down to his ankles and has a beard that rivals anyone in ZZ Top. His look is very, “Columbine Killers: Where Are They Now?” Their mother, and presumable dark overlord, stands to their right. Her choice of black lipstick makes her bear resemblance to Morticia Addams, that is to say, if Morticia Addams’ mother had mated with a goat.

It’s my general rule to not trust the ugly (although the ugly would do better off to not trust me). I cautiously move closer and remind myself that no one died and made me Estée Lauder. There is no longer a standard of beauty for the average theatergoer to uphold. Gone are the days when men wore hats and would take them off the moment they entered a theater, or even when women wore stockings and would take them off the moment they got home to thank the men for a night out at the theater. Nowadays, if you buy a ticket, you reserve the right to wear pajamas. It doesn’t matter if you look like fresh doo-doo pie. But how the hell the three of them decided to take in a Broadway show is miles beyond me. It’s safe to say they don’t seem the type. Their gothic mystique makes them appear better suited for a visit to Ripley’s Odditorium where they could inquire about posing for a new exhibit. 

My boss is watching (from a safe distance, mind you) so I try to make a show of doling out the ol’ Applebaum charm. I say to them through my chattering smile, “Do you folks have any thoughts on what you’d like to see today?”

The woman with the tie-dyed hair steps forward to speak on their behalf. When she does, her kinfolk are bemused. They look on me like they’ve discovered the last unicorn. Could it be? Am I their first ever encounter with a real-life homosexual? I remind myself to not reinforce stereotypes, which is a little difficult considering how often I choose to reduce myself to one.

“We’re visiting the city and we want to see a show,” she says.

“Then you’ve come to the right place!” I use this line as a barometer because it typically evokes a chuckle out of ignorami. Not this lady though. She looks back at me with the vacant expression of a horse whose salt lick contained trace amounts of LSD. “What kind of show do you want to see?” I ask, pressing on. Her indecision is expressed through a cough which she doesn’t even pretend to cover. I try another angle. “Were you thinking about a play or a musical?”

Overwhelmed with a 50/50, she looks again to her family for assistance. They are nowhere to be found. Some time during the last sixty seconds, they must have ducked out of line, disappeared like gorillas in the mist. I didn’t see them go; I was transfixed by their sister’s unibrow. Looking over her shoulder, I spot them by the Olive Garden across the way. They’ve joined a swarm of people gathered around some illegal alien dressed as Cookie Monster who’s screaming racial slurs at children. As that wise old bag of bones Liz Smith would say, “Only in New York…” But with no jockey there to hold her reigns, the sister demurs, “I’m not quite sure. We’ve never been to a theater.”

You don’t say. “First timers!” I proclaim. “Then I have just the show for you.” 

Something you may not know about the queens who work at the TKTS booth is that we are, in fact, naught but carnival barkers. And if you think for one second that we genuinely consider your taste before we offer a recommendation, then you’re naught but a rube. The bottom line of the operation is this: we’re only paid to promote a handful of offerings that appear on the board. Ultimately, it’s our goal to steer your dollars toward one of the shows that’s kicking us a check, your taste be damned (as if you had any in the first place). 

“You folks’ll love this one.” I hand her a flyer that has a pictures of woman whose face is formed inside the crest of a crashing wave. “It’s a love story with costumes and music that are just to die for.” 

In reality, nothing about that show is worth dying for, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t deadly. They’ve got plenty of seats to sell and it’s my job to sell them. Sorry-not-sorry, even a skunk would hold his nose at this stinker. Back in its early days of previews, Eli and I wasted hours debating its few merits. Naturally, I tore it limb from limb. Compared to that steaming pile, trying to give myself a blowjob while wearing a neck brace would have been more rewarding. Ever the contrarian, Eli pontificated too generously on the show’s behalf. He thinks he knows better than best because that’s the theater where he works. I think it’s just that he put in too much time at the landfill and got used to the smell. He told me that the creative team was doing a lot of work to try to save the show. I nodded at him while I nodded off. Arguments with him are never worth the aggravation; you can talk until you’re blue in the nuts, but it’s not over until that fat lady sings . When the critics ran it through with their poison pens, Mr. Opinion was only slightly more willing to admit the show should have been admitted to creative ICU. To date, that sap has stood through that gobbler thirty-six times. Today is matinee day, which marks performances thirty-seven and thirty-eight. Lucky him.

The woman with the tie-dyed puffs appears to be bewildered if not bothered and bewitched. She scans the crowd to find her family as her hooves clop closer to the ticket window. “Um, then I guess we’ll see that one,” she says. “Thanks?”

By the time she’s got an envelope of tickets in her hand, the crowd across the street erupts in cheers. Tie-dyed Poofs is startled by the noise. Times Square stops to watch as Cookie Monster is led away in cuffs, his big blue head of matted fur rests lifelessly on the hood of the attending police cruiser.

When the family’s reunited, I watch as Brother ZZ relays all the details to Sis like he’s walking her through the plot of
Indiana Jones
. His animated gestures wag about wildly. He speaks with a genuine false authority as if he’s solved the eternal mystery of what’s wrong with New York City and all the rotten people in it. I am truly loathe to think that, when they return to their remote village, he’s going to recount this tale to every customer that his taxidermy shop brings in. It makes me feel so sorry for Manhattan. Sure, this city hasn’t always been kind to me, but my Ma always squawked about the importance of making a good first impression. 

It’s not Manhattan’s fault that everyone in her is busy. The people here have places to go and people to see. There are cocktails to be had and handjobs to be given. I’m not going to bother discussing the hustle and bustle of it all like it’s a bad thing because, in reality, it’s fucking magic. Creativity collects in fetid pools on subway tracks and dreams are as common as cockroaches in your silverware drawer. If you’ve lived here, you know; if you haven’t, then that’s your own goddamn fault.

My head is still reeling when I watch the family disappear into the bar across the way. I hope it’s part of their plan to get wasted before their first encounter with the legitimate stage. I don’t care what Eli says, knowing the show that they’re about to see, the more booze, the merrier.

7

ELI

“Good afternoon,” I chirp.  “Tickets, please.”

The three people glaring back at me are practically Cro-Magnon. These missing links must be on a family outing: son, daughter, and dear old mom. The tallest of the three is the son whose black trench coat and straggly facial hair make him look as dastardly as any Bill Sykes in
Oliver!
I’ve ever seen. The widest by a mile is the daughter, whose hair is worn in two rainbow pompoms that work to accentuate her sloping brow. Their mother, the poor dear, looks like a half-melted wax figure of Yvonne DeCarlo. Cumulatively, their smell is overwhelming. I had no idea ditch diggers were given days off to slurp Jack Daniels and see a Broadway show. Honestly, if I hadn’t teamed up with Chiquita years ago to deactivate my gag reflex, I’d be spraying pea soup farther than Linda Blair could dream imaginable.

The son leers at me like he wants to make a lampshade out of my skin. “We’ll find our own seats,” he says, trying to push past. 

I stop him. “But then what would they pay me for?” I ask through gritted teeth. There’s no way I’m going to let these creeps seat themselves. I’d made that mistake once during our first week of previews when some other motherfuckers didn’t want anything to do with me. They’d parked their fat asses in whichever seats had the best view. Then, a few minutes into the show, I was doing late-seating for some assholes who couldn’t be bothered to show up on time. I led them down the aisle but their seats were already taken. The show was going on at full blast and there I was standing in full view of sixteen-hundred people playing Musical Chairs like a fucking ninja with a flashlight. Even the actors were watching me from the stage. It was mortifying. 

“Tickets. Please,” I persist, and thrust my hand out so hard that my upper arm jiggles.