Shifting
in the hard uncomfortable wooden chair, Carol could kick herself for bringing
Helen here. Ever since she took a day
job she’d been bragging to her “civilian” co-workers about her performing life
and the shows she had done on the downtown scene. Over coffee in the break room she’d hold
court with her theatrical war stories.
“Oh yes, I was the Queen of Sheba in a Downtown Soap Opera that we did
every week in a warehouse.”
“A real warehouse? With boxes and stuff in it?” asked Helen
staring wide eyed at Carol over her cup, a bit of moist cookie at the corner of
her mouth.
“No,” Carol assured stretching her
arms out around her, “just a big open space.”
“Wow,” Helen sighed. “I’ve never seen anything like that in Queens
and not even at the mall.”
Helen was 37, a nice Italian
Catholic girl who grew up in Queens and lived with her parents until she
married David, a nice Jewish man. Every
Tuesday and Sunday she and her mother and her sister and her niece all go out
to eat and then shop at the mall. When
Helen’s husband made fun of the way she pronounced Pinot Grigio at the
restaurant they went to every Friday after work, Carol spelled it out for her
phonetically the following Monday and they grew closer.
So, when David had to go out of
town on business, Carol had insisted Helen be her guest at the theater where
she used to perform. It had been a
while, but she was sure Saturday was still Womedy Night, all female comedy. In the back of Carol’s mind was also the idea
that she might get to show off a little bit with some of her old comedy
buddies. She could all ready hear Helen
telling the office how cool and funny Carol was come Monday morning.
Instead they were smack dab in the
middle of a cutting edge morphing performance piece. It was one of those shows where no one
realizes the show has started because it just starts with no warning,
announcement or light change. It is only
when several duct tape clad people begin to swarm around on the stage that the
audience begins to get the idea.
A woman wearing a spray painted
plastic raincoat takes center stage and steps up onto a wooden box. She pulls a saxophone from under her coat and
begins blowing into it with all her might as the duct tape people continue to
swarm and now hum along with her discordant tones.
Suddenly she dropped the sax and
the raincoat at the same time revealing her stark naked body with the sax
dangling between her pendulous breasts from a cord around her neck.
“And now,” she begins solemnly, her
arms outstretched to the side with her palms facing the ceiling. “I would like to share my poem with you.”
The humming stops as she widens her
stance revealing what looks like an unlit candle wick. Reaching between her legs she grabs this
white tab and begins to pull her glistening poem from her vagina as if it were
a ticker tape. From the gleam of the
damp paper Carol had smiled to herself, “Well at least she’s obviously excited
about her work.” On the other hand,
Helen’s left foot had started vibrating from the time the gal got naked and it
hadn’t stopped since.
She looked at Carol incredulously, pointed
at the stage area said, “You did shows like this?”
“Not exactly,” Carol
hesitated. She could see how freaked out
Helen was and offered, “I’m sorry about this Helen. Let’s get out of here. I’m really sorry.”
As they began to rise from their
seats one of the female duct tape people ran over and pushed them back into
their chairs hissing, “You can’t go now! Portnoy is starting his piece!” The woman’s nipples, covered by black
electrical tape, had grazed Helen’s shoulders and now her entire body was
shaking uncontrollably.
Just then there was a cymbal crash
and a strobe light began to flash and flicker as a tall skinny man with an
arrogant nose walked slowly from behind them and through the audience, dropping
articles of clothing as he went. All of
the tee shirts he was discarding featured commercial logos on the front like
Nike and Got Milk? Next to Carol a
blonde dread-locked tattooed white girl leaned close and whispered, “He’s
making a brilliant comment about what living in a totally capitalistic
commercial society has done to us.”
Nodding, Carol murmured, “Right,”
and leaned away from the intense young lady grabbing Helen’s arm as if to
comfort her but it was more of an attempt to anchor herself.
By the time Portnoy reached his
circle of light onstage where an open can of purple paint awaited him, the duct
tape dancers had formed a semi-circle behind him and began to chant
incoherently while he continueed to disrobe and then went into a goofy dance.
Clutching at Carol’s hand on her
arm, the still vibrating Helen stammered, “He’s only the third naked man I’ve
ever seen in real life. I’m gonna hafta
do a lot of Hail Marys for this one.”
Patting her hand in return, Carol
insisted, “Just tell the Priest it was all my fault and he’ll clear it with
God.”
“Ya think?”
Carol nodded reassuringly as the
intense girl elbowed her in her other side and then glared at her when she
turned to face her. “Sorry – sorry,”
Carol whispered then looked back at the stage just in time to see the wiry
fellow take a brush and paint his dick purple which he then began to beat on a
blank canvas that had been brought on by the humming duct tape people.
Intense girl is completely bowled over
by this and gushed loudly as she began clapping, “Portnoy is genius! He painted his dick PURPLE!” Then, folded over and almost sobbing, she
added, “He is SO brave!”
“That’s brave?” Carol questioned
without realizing she’d spoken out loud.
Another glare from intense girl,
who drew herself up with a snort at Carol’s comment and then intoned
condescendingly, “I’ll bet you’re one of those 80s comedy types who thinks
everything is supposed to be entertaining.
But that’s not life baby! That’s
not ART!”
Torn between being defensive or
flattered that she could tell she was a performer, Carol just stared at the
angry girl. Before any more exchanges
between the two could take place however the lights began to dim and Carol saw
a chance for a possible escape.
Grabbing Helen’s arm firmly, she
practically lifted her in the air as if she were a toddler, and running
interference, she ably dodged the duct tape boy who was coming at them. Swinging Helen out from behind her like a
demented Roller Derby queen she managed to get her almost to the door. Hot on her heels, they were practically in
the hallway with the graffiti mural, the hallway that led to sweet freedom,
when they ran smack into Thor, the giant bouncer who filled the doorway.
He looked like he could be Mr.
Clean’s evil twin all dressed in black with his bulging muscles covered in
tattoos. A yellow-eyed ugly serpent
wrapped around his right arm and wiggled its forked tongue when Thor flexed his
bicep just right. There was a collection
of skulls, skeletons and knives scattered over his left arm, “Psycho” was
written across his Adam’s apple and a nasty looking tarantula spider adorned
his bald head. He was just a tad
intimidating.
“Where do you think you’re
going? Tempest Chylde hasn’t been on
yet!”
As she looked up at this giant,
Helen meekly offered, “Home. I want to
go home.”
“You can’t go home,” Thor insisted
as he stepped forward and then added with surprising gentleness, “Faulkner said
you can’t go home and so did the girl group, the Shangri-Las,” and he burst
into song, “You can NEVER go home any more – MAMA!” He held the last note until a drum began to
pound on the other side of the theater and he smiled.
Carol stepped toward him. “Look I
used to do shows here and-“
But before she could continue, Thor’s
ham-like hand went up and silenced her as he stared at the stage like a
lovesick pup. He turned back to the two
women and cautioned them sternly, “You can’t leave now – out of respect for
Tempest Chylde. She’s an artist. She’s also my girlfriend.”
When they all turned their
attention back toward the stage they saw a very fat naked woman covered in
tattoos holding an axe in her hands.
Some kind of Gregorian chants were playing and she appeared to be in
some sort of a trance when she grabbed a sphere from a basket that contained
what looked to be water balloons. She
nicked the balloon with a corner of the sharp axe and it began to drip red
blood-like paint on her body. Soon she
was covered in the sticky red liquid and was writhing in it on the floor.
Still pressed against the wall
where Thor had placed them, Carol noticed that he was so enthralled with the
performance that he had moved from the door to be closer to the stage and his
lady love. Fingers to her lips, she
motioned to Helen to make a run for it.
Quietly and quickly they crept along the wall behind Thor and when they
made it past the doorway into the hall, they both bolted for the exit. Outside they continued to run for three
blocks up Allen Street to Houston, until they finally stopped on the corner by
the donut shop, completely out of breath and still praying that Thor wasn’t
right behind them.
When they caught their breath they
just stared at each other, speechless for a few seconds, then they both began
to laugh and laugh and laugh.
Linking her arm through Helen’s,
Carol said, “C’mon I’ll walk you to the subway.
What is David going to say when you tell him about tonight?”
She looked at Carol in stunned
disbelief, then with a hand gesture Helen gasped, “Whaddyou crazy?! I can’t tell David about tonight. You must be crazy!” They walked on for a while in silence as
Helen continued to shake her head until she suddenly stopped fully and turned
to face Carol as she held her tightly by the elbow.
“If you ever meet David-if you
should ever meet David and he asked you about tonight – we just went to Red
Lobster and had the all-you-can-eat shrimp.
Promise me!” Helen demanded as she waved her index finger at Carol as if
to underline how important this demand was.
Carol grabbed at Helen’s pointing finger and promised.
They walked along again arm in arm
both lost in their own thoughts when Helen piped up with, “I don’t understand
why a purple dick is so brave?”
“Neither do I girl – neither do I.”
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