You Have To Kiss a Lot of Frogs. Laurie Graff

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СКАЧАТЬ He told me he was really a songwriter and began teaching me a song from the show.

      “What’s the piece about?” I asked.

      “Well,” he said. “I wrote ‘It’s No Party.’ Remember that song? ‘It’s No Party.’”

      “Sure, I remember,” I said.

      “This is a musical about that song,” he said. “It’s about all of those people.”

      “What do you know!” I was speechless.

      “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Remember Ditzy left with Donny? Well, they got married. Now it’s over thirty years later and they’re getting divorced.”

      “You don’t say!”

      “You’d be Ditzy’s daughter who moved back with her mother because she’s also getting divorced. She and her ex-husband-to-be have a great number together where they fight over who gets the furniture.”

      “Is it good furniture?”

      The songwriter took a moment to chuckle at this. He looked to me to respond.

      “Gee, what an interesting concept,” I told him. “When do you open?”

      “We are open. We’re running,” he said. “We play Monday nights. I’m double-casting the show. It’s a big hit, you see, a really big hit, and the guy who plays your ex just got picked up for a new show. He’s hot. They saw him in this show and everybody wants him. I can’t afford to lose any more actors. That’s why I’m double-casting. Everybody in this show is hot. Really hot.”

      “That’s, um…great!” I said. “Really great.”

      “Hey, you’ve got to take this call,” the big guy yelled across the casino. “It’s California. Important. Someone who might want to do the show.”

      “Well, thanks,” I said, gathering my music.

      “Please don’t go yet,” he said. “I like your voice. You have a good sound. This will just take a minute.” He walked over to the black dial phone that was mounted under the sign that read Things Go Better With Coke.

      I sat a few minutes and waited.

      “Hey, Timmy knows every song from the show,” said the big guy. “Listen to him sing. He’s terrific. Timmy, sing a couple of songs for the girl. You don’t mind?”

      “No,” I said. “No, not at all.”

      Timmy sang. And sang. And sang. Timmy wasn’t bad. Fifteen minutes later he pooped out. The songwriter was still on the phone. I bid Timmy adieu, wished him luck and headed for the door. I stopped by the phone and tapped the songwriter on the shoulder.

      “It’s getting late. I have to go,” I said. “Thanks.”

      He stopped talking and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “I like your voice,” he said. “You have a really good sound. I’ll invite you to see the show. You’ll get a call.”

      Out in the alley I could still hear him talking. Long-distance.

      “Send me your tapes. I need to hear your sound. Can you send them overnight express? We’re moving fast on this one. It’s a big show. I wrote it. Remember the song ‘It’s No Party’? You do? Well, I wrote that. Yeah, ‘It’s No Party.’ That’s my song.”

      I hoped for the songwriter all would go well. It was, after all, the darkest day of the year.

      6

      A Clue in Time Saves Nine

      Tisha B’av

      Greenwich Village, NYC 1990

      He was funny. At first, nothing special to look it. On a closer look—still nothing special to look at. But definitely funny. He had definite appeal.

      Fred, and his boyfriend, Larry, were having a picnic in the park. It was supposed to be a big group, but turned out to be the three of us and a couple and their baby from the next blanket who visited for a while. Just as we were finishing the Brie, a friend of Larry’s from his gym showed up. Some guy he recently met who decided to show Larry the proper way to use free weights.

      “You’re only two and half hours late,” said Larry. He started to pack up the small remains of what had been a feast. You come late, you don’t eat. He didn’t say it, but he said it. “Where were you?”

      The guy went into an elaborate explanation of not being able to find us.

      “The Turtle Pond, in front of the rocks in the middle, directly to the side of the Delacorte Theater,” said Larry. “How hard is that?” Larry was an accountant. Everything was black or white.

      “Did you know all the lampposts have the street numbers written on them? If you can decode it you can never get lost in Central Park. It took me hours till I could find someone to break the code. By then I was at 105th Street, looking at the gardens—which by the way are really beautiful—before I figured it out and came down here.”

      I looked at him with his balding head and life jumping out of his pores. He was out of his mind. He could not have been that lost as to not realize he was miles out of his way. Still, I was interested to know about the lampposts.

      “Come on,” he said, looking at the two guys lounging on the blanket with all the food obviously eaten. “Take a walk with me and I’ll show you.”

      We walked and talked. Andy told me a lot about himself. Too much in fact. He had just come back from Paris where a fortuneteller told him that he, Andrew Ackerman from Bayside, Queens, was a reincarnation of his former self. A French lieutenant. A hero.

      He was very excited about this. He was very excited about everything. If Andy got turned on to an author he’d read everything he could and then move on. The same about a food, a place and a profession, which he seemed to have many. It stood to reason he would be like that about a person too. But he was a trip to be with.

      Andy called the next day. After the park. The phone call was interrupted by six call-waiting beeps. He wouldn’t answer any of them, because he said he knew it was his ex-fiancée from eight years ago.

      “You know this?” I asked. “How do you know this?”

      “It’s a long story,” said Andy. “You don’t want to hear it.”

      “Okay.”

      “So let me tell you what happened. I wanted to go to Paris. I love to travel, you know, and I needed a place to stay. My ex-fiancée lives in Paris now, and she told me I could always call her and she’d put me up, so I did. Jesus, what a disaster. She was so crazy. She was furious with me because I didn’t desire her anymore. She was attacking me. Finally, by the third night, I had to move out to the couch. And you know what I overheard her tell her neighbor? ‘Stay away from him. He devours people.’ Can you believe it?”

      I think he had given me a clue to his personality. I was pretty certain he had given me a big, big clue.

      “So,” СКАЧАТЬ