Cyclorama, page 13
In New York, though, every person he saw out of his hotel room window seemed to represent a possible future. He could be that businessman in a gray pin-stripe suit crossing the street; that wisecracking car hiker standing in the loading zone in front of the hotel; that fucked-up-looking dude on the corner selling chestnuts out of a hand truck.
He had about an hour to himself before he had to meet Densmore downstairs to go to pre-show dinner, and Calvin spent that time luxuriating in the shower and singing whatever New York songs came to mind: “Across 110th Street”; “J’ai Rêvé New York”; “Walk on the Wild Side”—“And all the colored boys go doo-duh-doo-duh-doo-doo-da-da-doo-duh-doo-duh-doo.”
Calvin got out of the shower, then walked back into his room and stood buck naked, dripping onto the carpet: Meet Calvin Bumbry Dawes, a young man who at this very moment is shaking his hips, wagging his dick, and singing “New York State of Mind” at the passersby on Seventh Avenue . . . Consider Calvin Bumbry Dawes, an ordinary if somewhat beefy young man, smiling at the kids on the street pointing up to his window and laughing their asses off . . . This is Calvin Bumbry Dawes, giving those kids a big thumbs-up and laughing right along with them because no one knows who the fuck he is, he could be anybody, just some crazy naked-ass dude dancing in his hotel room, wishing he could live the rest of his life like this.
A sudden wave of darkness crashed over Calvin, the kind that made him feel as if someone had reached into his brain and violently twisted a dimmer. For a moment, he couldn’t help but think how cruel Densmore was, showing him a future he wanted but could never have. Ten years from now, if he lived that long, he’d be working the shake machine at Jack in the Box, boasting to the guy who worked the fries: “I know it’s hard to believe, but one time not that long ago I stood naked in a hotel room, imitating Rod Serling and flashing Seventh Avenue.”
Near the TV, there was a small refrigerator. Inside were candy bars, bags of nuts, cans of soda, and little bottles of scotch, vodka, and rum. He grabbed a fistful of bottles.
This is Calvin Bumbry Dawes, swigging rum on his hotel bed, he thought. Then: This is Calvin Bumbry Dawes, mixing that rum with a three-dollar Coke because straight Ronrico is some nasty-ass shit, and who gives a fuck—Mr. D is paying.
He downed the rest of his drink, put on a red-and-blue-checked sport coat and a pair of white slacks, took a swig of Listerine from the little plastic bottle in the bathroom, looked at the ingredients, confirmed there was alcohol in it, took another swig, then swallowed.
Calvin and Densmore had dinner at Raoul’s, a candlelit restaurant downtown where Densmore ordered for both of them: a bottle of wine, steak frites for two, a green salad to share.
“That’s the same thing I order at Ponderosa only you get your choice of salad—coleslaw or three-bean,” Calvin said.
“Actually, this was what Hemingway used to eat on the Boulevard Saint-Germain,” Densmore said. “And the wine”—he filled Calvin’s glass—“it’s from the same region as the first glass of wine I had when I moved to New York.”
“You lived here?”
“For a short time, yes.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
Densmore peered into his wine glass as if hoping to find an answer there. “It can be a hard life here,” he said, “the wrong place if you want things like a family and a house. I never really wanted to settle here—just to prove to myself I could make it. So, after I got cast in my first show, Teahouse of the August Moon, I left. All this pursuit of stardom and renown, it’s so”—he twirled a finger in the air describing a trail of smoke—“ephemeral.”
“Man,” Calvin said, “if I got cast in a show here, I’d never go back. I’d call my mom, tell her to ship out all my shit. Maybe I’d come back on Christmas, but that’d be it.”
Densmore poured more wine. The more he drank, the more philosophical he became; the more Calvin drank, the harder it was to focus, not only on what Densmore was saying but on anything around him. He didn’t know how he’d possibly stay awake through Othello. He understood Densmore was trying to get him drunk, but at the same time there didn’t seem to be any more logical way to deal with the fact that his teacher was trying to get him wasted than by drinking his ass off.
“One time,” Densmore said, “I came here to visit an old student of mine: Todd Merritt; you’ll meet him tonight. He was working for Joe Papp at the Public and he was begging, pleading with me to audition. They were doing Much Ado. ‘Audition for Joe,’ Todd said. ‘You can have any role you want.’ And I sat Todd down and I told him, ‘Never in a million years. I have a wife and a son and a life and a job I’m happy with.’ ”
“So you told him no?” Calvin asked.
“And, to this day, he doesn’t understand; to this day he thinks I was either a liar or a fool.” Densmore smiled. “Which do you think I am, Cal? Or are you too drunk to even answer?”
“It takes more than a half bottle of wine to get a man of my girth drunk,” Calvin said.
Mr. Densmore raised an eyebrow. “What sort of girth are you referring to?” he asked.
Calvin finished his third glass.
The New York trip seemed to be going exactly the way people always said it would—the absence of Densmore’s wife, the abundance of alcohol—and yet, it didn’t seem quite real. Of course it was happening, but at the same time it couldn’t be, not in a way that you could take totally seriously. He wondered if having told so many jokes in the Annex had actually been doing Densmore a favor. Whenever Calvin had made fun of Densmore, people laughed, then moved on to the next topic as if the fact that you could laugh about something took it out of the realm of reality. If you could make the worst things funny, they couldn’t be that bad. Densmore liked jokes too. Jokes were a good way to talk about something while acting like you weren’t really talking about it.
They didn’t have time for dessert. On Prince Street, Mr. Densmore put one arm around Calvin and hailed a taxi. “This can be the best city in America if you’re right for it,” he said. “You can be anyone you want here, Calvin, so there’s a place for people like you. Next time I bring one of my students, maybe you’ll be the one we’re visiting.”
From the back of the taxi, Calvin looked out at the blurry city—which, given all the booze he’d had, looked like a time-lapse photo of a cityscape, all streaks of colored light. “People like you,” Densmore had said. Which people were those? Everybody knew that Densmore liked taking fucked-up kids to New York. Was he as fucked-up as the others? He felt Mr. Densmore’s hand on his back, guiding him out of the cab toward the Winter Garden Theatre.
Othello proved to be one of the most blissful times Calvin had ever spent at a show. The seats were plush. It was dark. There was an empty seat to his left. Not only could he use the armrest, he could actually put his arm over it and loll his head on the back of that seat. The stentorian timbre of James Earl Jones’s voice offered a lulling sound bed, like the bass on a really good hi-fi. If not for the one “Shhh!” from a man sitting in front of him, Calvin might have snored the whole way through. He awoke seconds before the end, right when Jones thrust his sword between Christopher Plummer’s legs and smote his uncircumcis’d dong thus.
“What’d you think?” Densmore asked after it was over.
“I liked that part at the end where Darth Vader cut off Captain von Trapp’s nuts,” said Calvin.
They walked along Eighth Avenue. Calvin was just about sober now as he listened to Mr. Densmore criticizing Christopher Plummer, who, he said, played Iago “like a mincing queer,” and fending off Times Square prostitutes: “Sorry, sorry; no syphilis, please; we’re British”; “No, thank you; I’m married and he’s underage.” They turned a corner, and Densmore led the way into Joe Allen, where he stopped at the bar and flung open his arms. “Mr. Merritt!” he shouted and Todd Merritt jogged toward them, hair bouncing.
Todd Merritt was a flamer. No doubt there were more charitable words to describe the man, but that was the first one that came to Calvin’s mind. Despite the fact that Calvin had spent nearly four years in the Annex with other boys wearing makeup, tunics, and jazz pants stuffed with strategically placed socks, never mind that Calvin had once sucked off Trey Newson on Lighthouse Beach, leave aside the fact that when he’d had sex in the balcony of the Varsity Theater during Jabberwocky, Calvin had fantasized that his partner was Sugar Ray Leonard and not Amanda Wehner, Calvin could not say with certainty that he had ever encountered someone who was indisputably homosexual. Yes, some people seemed gay and many probably were, but there was always some disclaimer. People were described as “a little sweet” or “kind of funny but I don’t know.” Mr. Breechen, who taught sophomore English, assigned Women in Love and Deliverance, and asked his students to compare and contrast the nude wrestling and ass-raping scenes in the movie adaptations, always arrived at school events in the company of his “lady friend”; Mr. Densmore left copies of Hung Jury and Dong Patrol around his office, but he had a son, he was married, and he had just called Christopher Plummer “queer.” Even that time when Trey had asked Calvin for a blow job, he had insisted that Calvin pretend to be a girl. Sometimes Calvin had a hard time making sense of his own sexual proclivities. Whenever anyone asked, he’d say, “I’m an opportunist.”
With Todd, there was no such ambiguity. “Ahhh, the New York trip!” he shouted, and embraced Densmore, then Calvin. He wore a billowy lilac-colored shirt opened three buttons, a pair of roomy white Pirates of Penzance pants secured with a macramé belt, and clogs. He had a big Harpo head of blond curls, wore a slew of gaudy rings, and laughed loudly and throatily as if everything in the world were one long, lewd joke—huhuhuhuhuhuhuh!
They sat at the bar, where Todd ordered Pimm’s Cups for the three of them, and Todd and Densmore gossiped about shows and actors. Todd told a story of how he had once visited the set of the film Moment to Moment and walked into a trailer and found John Travolta standing there wearing only a towel—“And I said, ‘Mr. Travolta, do you mind if I take that?’ Huhuhuhuhuhuhuh!” Densmore described the Othello he and Calvin had just seen, exaggerating Christopher Plummer’s mannerisms while Todd cackled, clapped his hands, and said, “Oh my God, that sounds awful!”
“Are you an actor?” Calvin asked.
“I tried,” said Todd. “My first and only role was in the chorus of Applause. Even Lauren Bacall saw how bad I was. Could you imagine? The worst actress with the worst singing voice calling me out. Do you know what she told me? ‘You’re lucky you’re easy on the eyes, because you’re sure not easy on the ears, boy.’ ”
“So what do you do?”
“I produce,” said Todd. “It’s what you do when you can’t act but you want to be rich and hang out with actors.”
“Hot stud actors,” Densmore corrected.
“Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh!” Todd turned to Calvin. “And what will you be doing after you graduate, young man?”
“Oh, I dunno,” said Calvin. “Model for Bigsby & Kruthers’s big and tall store, maybe? Suck dicks for beer money? Get a sitcom where they pay you by the pound?”
“Where’re you going to college?”
“Haven’t quite figured that out yet.”
“Who’s your agent?”
“Haven’t figured that out yet either.”
“Do you even have a headshot?”
“I do not.”
Todd looked at Densmore, concerned. “Might I borrow Calvin tomorrow morning? Just for a few hours? I might be able to help him.”
Densmore took a long breath. “We were going to see the Rodin at the Met, but I suppose I can go myself and catch up with Calvin afterward.”
“I’ll send a car around to the hotel,” Todd told Calvin. “Where’re you staying? Statler Hilton?”
“Where else?” Densmore asked.
“Ahhh, memories,” said Todd. “So my driver will take you to my office. I’ll have a photographer waiting. After the photos, we’ll go through my agents list and make some calls.”
Calvin eyed the men suspiciously. “Why would you do that?” he asked. “We’ve never met. You’ve never seen me act in anything.”
“Because you’re on the New York trip,” said Todd. “Whoever Tyrus takes is sure to be an amazing talent. I’m the only exception, but now I make more money than the talented ones, so I guess it all worked out.”
Densmore got up to use the bathroom. “I’ll leave the two of you to make your little plans,” he said.
Todd sipped his drink, paused, then leaned in close to Calvin. “Is he gone?” he asked.
“What?”
“Is he gone?”
“Yeah,” Calvin said. “The dude’s in the john. What’s up?”
Todd spoke quickly and in a softer voice. “Listen: Don’t let him into your room tonight. If he knocks on the door anytime, don’t answer.”
“What?”
“When you go back to the hotel, don’t go up to the room at the same time he does. And when you get to your room, lock the door and put the chain on it.”
“Are you joking?” Calvin asked.
“I wish I was,” said Todd.
“What happens if I let Mr. D in my room?”
“The sickest thing? I don’t even know,” Todd said. “All I know is what happened to me when I went with him to New York. In a way, it was the most important trip of my life. Not the best, just the most important. I was really messed up back then; you don’t even want to know the shit I was into. I can only remember half of it, and that half’s enough. I was so sick—like, seriously sick, like big C–cancer sick. Just imagine being seventeen and thinking you might die any day. And Tyrus—I thought he was great; I really did. He took me to restaurants, we saw shows, we hit the bars, we had cocktails—banana daiquiris, which were uh-mazing. But the thing is, and I’m sure you’ve seen this already, there are two Tyruses. He can have a true generosity of spirit; I’ve seen him do lovely things for people. But there’s a darkness in his soul, and it comes out after he’s been drinking. Is he back yet?”
“All clear.”
“Anyway,” Todd said, “we’d been at the theater, and afterward we went to Sardi’s. We were having a great time, but when we got back to the hotel, everything changed.”
“What happened?”
“We go upstairs, and I’m thinking, ‘Okay, that’s it for the night.’ I open the door to my room; he walks in right after me. He takes off his coat, his jacket, his shoes. He gets into my bed. I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ But I’m already so drunk. And he’s like, ‘What? Do you think I’m trying to have my way with you?’ The last thing I remember is him laughing and the room spinning. And when I get up—worst hangover of my life—Tyrus, he’s all dressed. I’m like, ‘I can’t remember anything. What happened?’ And he goes, ‘What happened? What do you think happened? I ravished you.’ Then he laughed.”
“Jesus, what’d you do?”
“I laughed too. I pretended it was all a joke. And to this day, even after getting healthy, even after a decade of therapy, even after one shitty relationship after another, I can’t figure it out. I blacked out, and whatever happened, it’s just one dark space. And, you know, I think that’s what Tyrus really wants. I’m sure he wants sex, but the thing he’s really after is control. That’s half the reason I came out to meet you tonight: when I went on the New York trip, we met all these people, but no one offered to help.”
“What’s the other half reason?” Calvin asked.
“Because Tyrus knows talent. Whoever he likes is someone worth watching. But that’s his tragedy too: Recognizing talent is the only talent he has. I remember Joe Papp was casting Much Ado. Tyrus called me, pleaded with me to get him an audition. He was so bored: his wife was a nag, his kid was out of control. He was like, ‘I’d do anything to get out.’ So I get him an audition and, oh, God, it was embarrassing. His accent was bad, his line readings were pretentious, he was so mannered. A minute in, Joe Papp walks out; he’s like, ‘Why are you wasting my time on some amateur reading Benedick like he’s got a broomstick up his ass?’ ”
“So,” Calvin asked, “then you weren’t serious about the car picking me up in the morning?”
“Oh, I was dead serious,” said Todd. “We New York trippers have to stick together.” Calvin looked past Todd; he saw Densmore approaching.
“Is he coming?” Todd asked.
Calvin nodded.
“Say something to me and I’ll pretend it’s really funny.”
Calvin assayed an impersonation of Densmore auditioning for Much Ado: “I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted,” he said. “Now, wilt thou help me get this broomstick out of my ass, motherfucker?”
“Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh.”
“Talking about me again?” asked Densmore.
“And what else is there to talk about?” Todd asked.
“What has he been saying?”
“He said you’re white on the outside, but inside you’ve got a black soul,” said Calvin. They all laughed at that, but when Densmore said he’d buy the next round of drinks, Calvin said he’d just have a Coke. Densmore looked at him, then Todd, as if he suspected they were conspiring against him, but he didn’t ask.
After they left, Densmore seemed in a hurry to get back to the hotel. He crossed streets against the light. “Come on, keep up,” he said. “Chop-chop.”
Outside the hotel was a pay phone. Calvin stopped in front of it while Densmore looked at Calvin with an impatient scowl; he hunched his shoulders and turned up his hands in a What the fuck’re you doing? gesture.
“I just remembered I haven’t called my ma yet,” said Calvin.
“I believe our hotel is equipped with telephones,” Densmore said.
“I know that. But something about being outside in New York at night, it’s such a cool feeling. My ma, she’s never been here; I want her to hear what it sounds like.” He picked up the phone. “I’d like to make a collect call,” he told the operator. “Calvin Dawes.”
