Lives of the Circus Animals Read online

  The bulk of the play took place in the living room, which faced the dining room, which could seat an audience of twenty. Frank had come up with the gimmick of breaking the play with an interval where the audience would be herded down the hall for a peek at the characters in their rooms. They passed the bathroom, so why not put someone there? Toby was the only unaccounted body. They were brainstorming about what he could be doing.

  “Take it from me,” said Allegra. “I’m not the only one who’d like to see Toby’s ass. And not on the pot either. I think he should be taking a shower.”

  “Or shaving,” said Melissa. “I once had this boyfriend who always shaved in the nude. Made no sense to me. Doesn’t it get cold when it hits the sink?”

  A look of pain pinched Toby’s eyes as he understood they weren’t entirely joking.

  Allegra, Melissa, and Dwight were all somewhat gaga over Toby. Frank didn’t get it. All he saw was a tall blond pretty boy. Dwight once went into raptures with Frank over Toby’s body, how it spread at the waist in “a true bottom’s bottom,” which meant nothing to Frank. He could understand the appeal of masculine men like Brad Pitt, intellectually anyway, but a faintly androgynous boy was too much like a failed girl, so why not hold out for the real thing?

  He’d cast Toby partly because he was Jessie’s brother’s boyfriend—or was a month ago. Then they broke up, and Toby moved in here at West 104th Street. Dwight called Toby “Eve Harrington,” but Toby seemed too dull for brownnosing, too earnest. Climbers have more charm. Even Frank in his self-absorbed acting days had known how to create a sociable, public persona. Toby was not a bad actor. Once he got something, he was clear and focused. But it took him forever to get it. In the meantime he was lumpy, sluggish, and, well, earnest.

  “Ummmm,” went Toby. “Naked? Do I have to? I mean, good grief. Will people take me seriously after they see my—ass?”

  “Depends on your ass,” said Dwight.

  “I mean, I want people to see me as an actor. Not beefcake.”

  “But you’re not beefcake, love,” sang Chris, playing up her Jamaican accent. “You’re cupcake.”

  Everyone laughed—all except Toby.

  “And you’re not the only one,” said Allegra. “I’m naked in my bed scene.”

  “But you’re in bed,” argued Toby. “Covered by a sheet.”

  “And by me,” said Dwight with a laugh.

  “Please do not remind us,” grumbled Boaz. A short dark man with a handsomely squashed face, Boaz looked chronically angry, not over Allegra but over what was being done to his play. He said almost nothing during rehearsals yet continued to attend.

  “You all just hit on something,” said Frank. “If people see Toby naked, it takes away the surprise of seeing Allegra and Dwight.”

  “Yeah!” said Toby. “Right! It’s not like I’m shy. Good grief. It’s just I don’t want to spoil the ensemble.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure, sure,” said Allegra.

  “Cheep, cheep, cheep,” went Dwight.

  “All right,” said Frank. “Toby keeps his pants on. Why don’t you just stare in the mirror,” he told him. “For now. Your character is self-involved. Something else will come to us later.” They’d wasted enough time on Toby’s ass.

  “Do you notice how Toby always says ‘good grief’?” said Dwight. “I’ll bet he had the title role in college in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

  “Noooo!” said Toby indignantly. “I was Snoopy.”

  Frank slapped his hands together. “Guys! Come on. Let’s try a run-through. Please!”

  It was like herding cats. The insults might be smarter, but this crew was as unwieldy as the one down at P.S. 41. Frank wished he could bring Mrs. Anderson up here. She knew how to handle actors.

  They ran through the scenes. They did not do them at full throttle, but it was more than just a read-through.

  The apartment made a good performance space. A ramble of high-ceilinged rooms, once nice, now dingy, it was still owned by Allegra’s aunt Alicia, who had moved to Miami. Allegra rented rooms to her theater buddies. Frank had lived here himself until six months ago, when he decided he was too old for this mattress-on-the-floor, six-people-one-bathroom kind of life. The circle of friends straddled thirty, but in the name of art they still lived like college students.

  Which was the subject of 2B: life in the lower depths of showbiz, or, rather, the bargain basement. The project was Allegra’s brainchild, born when she learned her new boyfriend wanted to write plays. She needed an outlet for her frustrated talents and those of her friends. Allegra Alvarez was Cuban, but her family had been in this country long enough, and possessed enough money, for their daughter to develop the bohemian ambition of a good, spoiled WASP.

  The show was a trio of one-acts chopped up and shuffled together. In the first plot, Toby played a young actor who is rejected again and again at cattle calls and auditions—which was true for the real Toby too. It was true for them all. He delivers a series of whistling-in-the-dark monologues about how good his life is, addressed to Chris, who sits in front of a TV like a big, butch, Jamaican sphinx and says nothing.

  “Had a great audition today. And an excellent job interview. I am so on top of things. You wouldn’t believe how much they want me for the new Sondheim. And Salomon Brothers. I’m too multitalented for my own good. What would you do in my shoes? Business or theater? It’s a hard choice…”

  The monologues grow more absurd as Toby—or “Toby”—grows more desperate over rejection, failures the audience must figure out by reading between the lines. Toby had brought in these monologues himself, an ingenious acting exercise—Frank detected Caleb Doyle’s hand here—but he couldn’t make them work. Chris continued to steal their scenes with her deadpan silence.

  In the next plot, Dwight played a smart-ass who has a safe, brotherly friendship with his roommate, Allegra. One night, when they’re both in a panic over the mess of their lives, they jump on each other and end up in bed. This tale was fiction. Dwight was smart-ass, funny, and overweight—he tried to give his pear-shaped face a little definition with a fringe of beard—but thoroughly gay. No, it was Frank who had gone to bed with Allegra, two years ago. The sex had been unexpected, frantic, and so quick that neither was entirely naked by the time they finished. Weeks passed before they could overcome the mutual embarrassment of having stuffed their faces into each other’s crotch. But they did, and they became friends again, laughed at what had happened, then forgot it.

  So Frank was stunned when the situation appeared in Boaz’s first draft. Allegra took Frank aside and confessed she’d told Boaz the story but changed the identities of the culprits. Frank wanted to drop this plot. Allegra insisted it was good comedy, which was true. They discussed and worked on the scene as if it were fiction. Curiously, after the first week, it had happened to two entirely different people.

  In the third plot, Chris and Melissa were feuding roommates. “You are such a girl,” Chris angrily spits, which was true. A feminine fluff-bunny from Texas, the real Melissa seemed entirely out of place here. She and Chris bicker over trivia: the phone bill, who used whose hair conditioner, toothpaste, toilet paper. Finally, a carton of spoiled milk ignites a screaming match. Their antagonism is revealed to be not over their being hot for the same guy, which was how Boaz first wrote it, but because they both auditioned for a dubbing job on a Japanese cartoon show. It was the weakest of the three stories, yet the show needed the fight in the kitchen, with dishes being thrown and trash getting flung. When the rest of the cast join to clean up the mess, Chris and Melissa begin to laugh, the fight is resolved, and the evening achieves a kind of home chord.

  All right, it ain’t Long Day’s Journey, Frank told himself. But it was a good exercise, a smart way for actors to work on their craft and stay sane. He would’ve preferred something with less realism. This was beyond kitchen sink—it was bathroom sink. But seeing the pieces together today—they ran about an hour—Frank liked their liveliness, their
occasional moments. It was not entirely hopeless.

  When they finished, Toby cornered him. “My scene at the mirror, Frank? Should I be more upset? Or less? I was thinking thoughts about getting old, but I don’t want it to be maudlin.”

  “It’s fine, Toby. Just look at yourself. Let the audience read you, however. We need to work on your monologues. They’re not there yet. They need more feeling. Panic, pain, something.”

  “I thought they were supposed to be funny?”

  “Don’t worry about the effect. Concentrate on the reality. You know what it’s like to be rejected. Use that.”

  Toby looked horrified: his skin went gray, his eyes wide.

  Did he think Frank was referring to Caleb Doyle? Frank didn’t mean to bring up real pain; he wasn’t that kind of director. He didn’t know exactly what had happened between Toby and Caleb.

  “You’ve just come back from a cattle call,” he added quickly. “Or you got snubbed at a job interview for a job you don’t even want—”

  Toby’s look grew colder, deader, like he hated having to think about any kind of rejection. Maybe that was the problem: he was feeling so rejected that he couldn’t play it.

  Then his eyes lit up. “I got it!” he said. “I’ll use my panic attack from last week. When I thought I’d have to go back to Wisconsin.”

  “All right,” said Frank uncertainly.

  “Because I was feeling all desperate inside and thought that I’d have to explain to my folks…”

  Frank heard him out, encouraging him with nods, even as he wished Toby would think these thoughts in silence. All actors worked like this, groping for connections. But the smart ones kept their mouths shut, for fear that they’d sound nuts.

  They ran through it two more times and took a break. Half the cast stepped out on the fire escape for cigarettes—Allegra allowed no smoking here. She followed Frank to the kitchen and hung in the doorway while he poured a glass of water.

  “Good good good,” she said. “Going well, don’t you think?”

  “It’s getting there,” said Frank.

  A black-leotarded foot appeared on the jamb beside her face. Allegra often did stretches when least expected. She barely noticed them herself. “So. How’re things going with you and Jessie Doyle?”

  “They’re going.” Frank was surprised that Allegra mentioned Jessie. He had decided to put Jessie out of his thoughts until the next time he saw her. A few words from Allegra, however, were all it took to open that door.

  Her foot spread its toes inside the black fabric. “Good. I like Jessica. I do. She’s so…eclectic. You two are a real good match.”

  Frank couldn’t stop himself from smiling. It began in his chest, and he tried to keep it out of his mouth, but his lips pulled against his teeth.

  “You know,” said Allegra, “you might ask her to bring her brother when she comes to our show. Maybe we could get him to say something to put on our flyers.”

  Of course, thought Frank. This wasn’t about Jessie, it was about Topic A. Allegra had absurdly high hopes for their pack of skits. She actually imagined some hotshot baby producer seeing it and taking it Off-Off-Broadway. She didn’t even care that Toby was now Caleb’s ex. Hope still sprang eternal for Allegra, while for Frank it had sprung a leak years ago.

  “I don’t know if Caleb Doyle is a money name right now.”

  “Then he should be flattered that we think otherwise.”

  “Real flattered, I’m sure. But okay. Why not? I’ll ask Jessie and she can ask him. I can’t promise anything.” Actually, he dreaded asking Jessie. She’d think he was interested in her only for her brother. But then he could never be sure how Jessie wanted to be wanted. She might prefer being used as a means to an end rather than an end in herself.

  “Ally, you’re a woman.” She was the wrong person to ask, but Frank needed to talk to someone. “I’m not sure how to read Jessie. If she wants to be pursued, or if I should take no to mean no.”

  The foot dropped to the floor. “Has she said no?”

  “No. But she makes herself only semiavailable.”

  “But not totally unavailable?”

  “Not totally, no.”

  “That’s a good sign. I know I like being pursued. But only by guys who I want to pursue me. Only I don’t know Doyle well enough to know if she’s looking for anything serious.”

  “Do I look serious?” he asked worriedly.

  “Duh? Mr. Sincerity?”

  “Hey, I can be insincere.”

  “You slept with her yet?”

  “Um, uh, yeah. Once.”

  “Oh.” The single syllable did not sound promising. “But she’s not completely avoiding you? That’s good. Go ahead then. Keep pushing. Let her know you’re available.” She laughed. “At least until her brother sees our play.”

  No, Allegra was not objective here, but she could be humorous about her self-interest. Forget Jessie, he told himself. Concentrate. Work. Fix this stupid-ass play.

  “Thanks, Ally,” he said and went back to the living room to talk with Boaz about the music.

  11

  Hello, Jessica? Sorry to disturb you on your day off, but—oh, sorry. Henry here. I’m still a troglodyte on these things. But I just wanted to know if you took care of my quarterly payment on the tax stuff last week? That is due now, isn’t it? Or do I not need to worry about it till year’s end? Now that I’ve said all this, I see it’s nothing that can’t wait until Monday. Oh, also, did I understand you right, your brother is Caleb Doyle, the playwright? One of my colleagues was praising his work the other day. What can you tell me about him? He’s into maths, right? I was wondering: could you ask him for an explanation of algorithms? It’s something I’ve never understood, but he sounds like the kind of man who could explain it to a bear of little brain like myself. Is there any possibility that you could introduce us? This message does not entirely make sense, does it? Sorry. No need to get back to me today. We can take care of all this Monday. But you know me. I might forget everything by then.”

  SUNDAY

  12

  The Hudson River raced outside their window, a soft mirror of quicksilver on a bright, windless morning. The high steel gate of the Tappan Zee Bridge swung forward on the left, slowly at first, then more quickly. Then the span of girders shot overhead and the train plunged into greenery: clouds and sprays of fresh new foliage. They had left the sanctuary of the city for the wilderness of suburbs.

  “Sometimes he talks to me like I’m his only friend in the world,” said Jessie. “Other times he forgets I’m even there. He takes me for granted. Which is a kind of compliment. I guess.” She laughed. “He’s such a mess. He makes me feel practical.”

  It was Sunday morning, and she and Caleb had a Metro-North car almost entirely to themselves. They were going home for Caleb’s birthday. His party was Friday, but their mother refused to come to the city. So they went up to Beacon for the day.

  Caleb sat by the window with several sections of the Times in his lap. Jessie didn’t understand how he could still read the paper that had made his life so miserable. The Sunday edition was the worst. He didn’t read the Times now but listened to her with a mild, patient, vague expression.

  “And spoiled?” she said. “Jesus. Before the show opened, he was sure it would be a turkey. Gloom and doom, gloom and doom. Then the rave reviews came, but did they make him feel better? No way. Now he complains about how obvious it all was.”

  Jessie was telling her latest Henry stories. She had begun back at Grand Central with the declaration, “You’ll never guess what Henry wanted me to do the other night. Buy him a little pot. And I don’t mean ceramics.” Which was a pretty good joke, she thought, although Caleb gave it only a faint smile.

  “He can’t do life, only art. But he’s narrow even there. It didn’t hit me until the other day: he doesn’t do anything except act. He doesn’t direct. He doesn’t write. He doesn’t even teach. It’s a wonder he’s no crazier than he is. A spacey, sp
oiled, self-absorbed mess. His life in New York would be a total disaster without me to look after him. Seriously. And not just doing his accounts or buying him dope.”

  “Are you bragging or complaining?”

  Caleb’s tone was dry and neutral, but she felt scolded.

  “A little of both,” she admitted. “But it is interesting. A chore and a privilege—to work so close to a real genius. See what makes it tick. Clay feet and all.”

  Caleb frowned.

  “I don’t mean that you’re not one, Cal. A genius.”

  “Who said I was?” He lowered his face, crushing his tuft of beard into his neck. “Genius is such a crock word. There’s no such thing, especially in theater.”

  She hated his new beard. It was supposed to be cool, but the little strip looked forced and artificial. The style was already five years old, if not older. But Caleb was even less of their age than she was. With his goony black-framed glasses, a goatee only made him look like a goat in a library.

  “Acting is a kind of genius,” she argued. “A freakish ability to think with your whole body. Instantly. Not in slow motion the way that writers or painters do.”

  His eyes lost focus, turned distant and preoccupied.

  Jessie charged on. “I’ve come to the conclusion that actors, the best actors anyway, are idiot savants. From one minute to the next with Henry, I never know if I’ll get the idiot or the savant.”

  She often did all the talking with her brother. Sometimes she blamed him—he was so miserly with his thoughts, so anal retentive—but other times she blamed herself, fearing she chattered away only to prove to herself that she really existed.