Bermuda Shorts - James Patterson [63]
A litter of protean forms, sheltered by the darkness. Hungry sentient carnivores, an unruly lot of boors and bourgeois who would, when emboldened by their numbers and presumed solidarity given their common investment of an evening and a theater ticket, react en masse to my trained and ready utterances.
“Yes folks, my mother was good to me. She always told me, son, never take candy from strangers…unless they offer you a ride. You can see I’ve been around the block a few times.”
They were easily tamed. The advantage was mine. I had a secret weapon. I introduced them to Eva. She turned them into a gelatinous goo. They hadn’t a chance. Their poor fragile undeveloped libidos lay helpless before her like plump ripe poppy blossoms before the scythe. God, there were times when I envied the poor bastards. She could give them a look and with the turn of a shapely leg and the raising of an eyebrow set them to squirming audibly in their seats, or smile a smile that none of them had seen since their mothers welcomed them home from their first day of school.
Eva was trained for the ballet but was too small and voluptuous, too adventurous for the respectable stage. A tragic blend of sex, talent, and wisdom, what a timid person might call worldly. Adrienne Lecouvreur was her hero. “Oh to be poisoned by love and to die in the arms of my sweet savant!” Once Eva was on stage, the rest of the company could relax.
Out front, the theater was always clean and orderly. There was paper in the bathrooms, the ticket-takers and ushers were polite and efficiently courteous. Backstage everything was broken, dirty, and chaotic. Nothing worked and no one cared. No one cared about you because you didn’t care about them. Neither party could afford an emotional investment of that kind. When the show is over, we’re going to push on and with any luck we’ll never see the joint again. Everyone carries a heart broken in two places. One by love, and the other by the stage. Everyone has that in common. A cynical smile covered a knowing eye that in turn covered the last burning ember of hope one would never admit to but would protect with all the strength and guile that could be summoned. And one can summon vast reserves of cunning and guile. A strange bond formed. It was temporary and forever. Well, nothing is forever, I suppose.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Eva would trill as she waltzed off on the arm of some wealthy patron after a show. I wonder if she’s sleeping now.
I booked the gigs and wrote the routines. I always left something extra in her envelope. She was terrible with money and couldn’t hang onto men either. She would fall asleep with her head in my lap in the back of the bus and I would fan her with an old program. Her mouth, so sensuous when animated was, when at rest, a wound, a painful-looking flaw in the otherwise elegant perfection of her small, delicate face. She never loved me, I know, though she loved nearly everyone else. My flaws were too well hidden. She found self-confident and self-contented men a bore.
She did give me a chance one time. It was in some small town somewhere I’ve now forgotten. Far away. We had a rare night off between shows. The others all had colds and so took advantage of the layoff to stay in at the hotel. Eva had the idea that it would be a gas to dress up like normal people and go out to dinner like a normal couple and have normal conversation and eat normal food. I found a business suit in a costume trunk, and she put on a soft cotton dress and a string of cheap fake pearls with matching earrings. She arranged a curl in front of each ear and parted her hair on the side, like a boy. All night long she pretended to hang upon my every word. Her usual ceaseless babble about art and theater and who’s this and who’s that, which never