Read Online The Night Listener and Others by Chet Williamson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Chet Williamson
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Guy Taylor had gotten on a few drinks. My own churning stomach reminded me of how many we had had sitting here for less than an hour, and my churning mind showed me Sheila Remarque’s drunk, drunk, perfectly drunk Blanche DuBois earlier that afternoon. “You’ve had…” I babbled, “…how many drinks have you had?”
He shrugged.
“But…you’re not…showing any signs …”
“Yes. That’s right,” he said in a clear, steady, sober voice. “That’s right.”
He crossed his forearms on the table, lowered his head onto them, and wept. The sobs were loud, prolonged, shaking his whole body.
He wept.
“There!” I cried, staggering to my feet. “There, see? See? You’re crying, you’re crying! See?”
He raised his head and looked at me, still weeping, still weeping, with not one tear to be seen.
When the call came offering me Mitch, I took the part. I didn’t even consider turning it down. Sheila Remarque had, as Kevin, Guy Taylor, and I had anticipated, been cast as Blanche DuBois, and she smiled warmly at me when I entered the studio for the first reading, as though she remembered our audition with fondness. I was pleasant, but somewhat aloof at first, not wanting the others to see, to suspect what I was going to do.
I thought it might be difficult to get her alone, but it wasn’t. She had already chosen me, I could tell, watching me through the readings, coming up to me and chatting at the breaks. By the end of the day she’d learned where I lived, that I was single, unattached, and straight, and that I’d been bucking for eight years to get a part this good. She told me that she lived only a block away from my building (a lie, I later found out), and, after the rehearsal, suggested we take a cab together and split the expense. I agreed, and the cab left us out on West 72nd next to the park.
It was dark and cold, and I saw her shiver under her down-filled jacket. I shivered too, for we were alone at last, somewhat hidden by the trees, and there were no passersby to be seen, only the taxis and buses and cars hurtling past.
I turned to her, the smile gone from my face. “I know what you’ve done,” I said. “I talked to Guy Taylor. He told me all about it. And warned me.”
Her face didn’t change. She just hung on to that soft half smile of hers, and watched me with those liquid eyes.
“He said…you’d be after me. He told me not to take the part. But I had to. I had to know if it’s true, all he said.”
Her smile faded, she looked down at the dirty, ice-covered sidewalk, and nodded, creases of sadness at the corners of her eyes. I reached out and did what I had planned, said what I had wanted to say to her ever since leaving Guy Taylor crying without tears at the table in Charlie’s.
“Teach me,” I said, taking her hand as gently as I knew how. “I’d be no threat to you, no competition for roles. In fact, you may need me, need a man who can equal you on stage. Because there aren’t any now. You can take what you want from me as long as you can teach me how to get it back again.
“Please. Teach me.”
When she looked up at me, her face was wet with tears. I kissed them away, neither knowing nor caring whose they were.
“Yore Skin’s Jes’s Soft ‘n Purty,” He Said (Page 243)
It was a land where a man could be himself, where none of the feebly voiced restrictions of society were to say him nay. The mountains, the winding trails, the arching blue sky alone were the only judges of a man’s mettle. Here in the West a man could be a man, and a woman a woman. She knew that now, knew it with all the implacable truth of nature and of the West.
He turned his face toward her as his horse galloped into the dawn.
Eustace P. Saunders shut The Desperado with a delighted shudder, sat for a moment, his languid eyes closed, then opened the book again and looked at his illustrations, finding the smooth plates easily, sweet oases of images between the chunks of text.
He shrugged.
“But…you’re not…showing any signs …”
“Yes. That’s right,” he said in a clear, steady, sober voice. “That’s right.”
He crossed his forearms on the table, lowered his head onto them, and wept. The sobs were loud, prolonged, shaking his whole body.
He wept.
“There!” I cried, staggering to my feet. “There, see? See? You’re crying, you’re crying! See?”
He raised his head and looked at me, still weeping, still weeping, with not one tear to be seen.
When the call came offering me Mitch, I took the part. I didn’t even consider turning it down. Sheila Remarque had, as Kevin, Guy Taylor, and I had anticipated, been cast as Blanche DuBois, and she smiled warmly at me when I entered the studio for the first reading, as though she remembered our audition with fondness. I was pleasant, but somewhat aloof at first, not wanting the others to see, to suspect what I was going to do.
I thought it might be difficult to get her alone, but it wasn’t. She had already chosen me, I could tell, watching me through the readings, coming up to me and chatting at the breaks. By the end of the day she’d learned where I lived, that I was single, unattached, and straight, and that I’d been bucking for eight years to get a part this good. She told me that she lived only a block away from my building (a lie, I later found out), and, after the rehearsal, suggested we take a cab together and split the expense. I agreed, and the cab left us out on West 72nd next to the park.
It was dark and cold, and I saw her shiver under her down-filled jacket. I shivered too, for we were alone at last, somewhat hidden by the trees, and there were no passersby to be seen, only the taxis and buses and cars hurtling past.
I turned to her, the smile gone from my face. “I know what you’ve done,” I said. “I talked to Guy Taylor. He told me all about it. And warned me.”
Her face didn’t change. She just hung on to that soft half smile of hers, and watched me with those liquid eyes.
“He said…you’d be after me. He told me not to take the part. But I had to. I had to know if it’s true, all he said.”
Her smile faded, she looked down at the dirty, ice-covered sidewalk, and nodded, creases of sadness at the corners of her eyes. I reached out and did what I had planned, said what I had wanted to say to her ever since leaving Guy Taylor crying without tears at the table in Charlie’s.
“Teach me,” I said, taking her hand as gently as I knew how. “I’d be no threat to you, no competition for roles. In fact, you may need me, need a man who can equal you on stage. Because there aren’t any now. You can take what you want from me as long as you can teach me how to get it back again.
“Please. Teach me.”
When she looked up at me, her face was wet with tears. I kissed them away, neither knowing nor caring whose they were.
“Yore Skin’s Jes’s Soft ‘n Purty,” He Said (Page 243)
It was a land where a man could be himself, where none of the feebly voiced restrictions of society were to say him nay. The mountains, the winding trails, the arching blue sky alone were the only judges of a man’s mettle. Here in the West a man could be a man, and a woman a woman. She knew that now, knew it with all the implacable truth of nature and of the West.
He turned his face toward her as his horse galloped into the dawn.
Eustace P. Saunders shut The Desperado with a delighted shudder, sat for a moment, his languid eyes closed, then opened the book again and looked at his illustrations, finding the smooth plates easily, sweet oases of images between the chunks of text.
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