Attack of the Theater People (19 page)

One of the things
I learned in high school is that when you impersonate a priest you are rendered both conspicuous and invisible; whether I was buying beer or laundering money, all anyone ever saw was the collar. Following this crooked line of reasoning, a Hasidic rabbi in a hat with a beard and curls looks pretty much like any other.

So Saturday night, two Hasidic rabbis walk into a bar, which sounds like the setup for a joke. (
Two Hasidic rab
bis walk into a bar. And the bartender says, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”
)

The Orthodox disguise was my idea. Not only does it provide a way for me and Gavin to watch Chad and Dagmar without being recognized; it also ensures that we can do it without That Girl tagging along. With our black fedoras pulled down low, we look like kosher gangsters.

Unfortunately, my only contact with Hasidic Jews comes from the time Paula and I went to 47th Street Photo to buy a camera and discovered it’s run entirely by men with curls like telephone cords. When an announcement came over the PA with a call for Shlomo, three guys reached for the phone. With only the vaguest idea of how Hasidic Jews talk, I go for a generalized shtetl-speak, which I learned when I played the tailor Motel Kamzoil in
Fiddler on the Roof
in the eighth grade.

“Ve had a bris around the corner,” I tell the hostess at Caprice. “Now ve’re feeling a little peckish.”

“I’m sorry,” she says in a tone that indicates she isn’t. “We don’t have any tables until ten o’clock.”

“Oy,” I say. “Then ve’ll just sit at the bar and have a little glass tea.”

This is all part of my plan. Assuming Chad and Dagmar are seated in Chad’s regular spot, we can easily watch them from the bar without having to buy a meal I can’t afford. We go to the bar, which is full of malnourished women and the men who love them, and order wine served in glasses the size of fishbowls. I’m glad they’re so large, because we’re going to need to make them last. The only reason I can afford them is because my rent went down.

I look around the room, gauging the other patrons’ reactions to us. Some cast curious glances our way, but none of them has the smirk of someone suspecting a practical joke. They all seem to think we are who we appear to be, and I once again relish the power that comes from acting behind a mask, of truly convincing someone you are another person. It makes me feel ready to live in the scene. One of the biggest problems I had at Juilliard was “playing the outcome,” somehow telegraphing to the audience with body language that I knew how the scene was going to turn out, as opposed to seeming like a real person who has no idea what will happen. “Acting is like tennis,” Marian Seldes would say. “You show up with your technique, but you don’t know what the other actor is going to do.”

Here at Caprice, I truly have no idea what will happen, and, my apprehension aside, I feel giddy at the sensation. This is what acting is supposed to feel like. Maybe Juilliard should hold classes in public places instead of those gray, windowless rooms. I imagine a whole new curriculum in which actors are taught to act out in the world before bringing those skills into the classroom. They could call it the Zanni Method.

Suddenly the hostess is in our faces.

“Excuse me, Rabbis,” she says. “We can seat you now.”

“Vot?”

“We’ve had a cancellation.”

I suddenly wish I knew how the scene will end.

Twenty-eight

“Great,” Gavin says.
“I’m hungry.”

I can’t very well tell him I have no money in front of the hostess, so I find myself skulking through the dining room while I sift through the muck in my brain for a nugget of an idea.

We’re seated at an undesirable table in the middle of the room, the other diners wedging us in on all sides, as if we were performing Yiddish theater-in-the-round. As God’s chosen people, however, we’re blessed with an un-obstructed view of Chad’s regular table, which sits empty, awaiting his arrival.

I hope.

While I undo my napkin origami, Gavin scans the menu, his bulbous eyes widening to make him look even more like a koi.

“They must charge by the ingredient,” he says.

I open my menu and see that the entrées cost more than a pair of Reeboks.

I’ve got to tell him, but I’m worried the other diners might overhear me. Then I realize that I don’t need to make any sound for Gavin to understand me.

This is so embarrassing
, I mouth,
but I only had enough money to pay for drinks.

Gavin smiles. “That’s okay. We can put it on my credit card.”

Are you sure? I’ll totally pay you back.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Why don’t we just do appetizers? Otherwise I’ll have to donate plasma.

“You can’t,” he says. “You’re gay.”

The weedy woman at the next table flinches, toppling her artfully constructed wigwam of food.

“You’re uh, talking a little loud,” I say.

While homosexuals and Hasidim are not uncommon on the island of Manhattan, you’d be hard-pressed to find them at the same table. Forget the commandments; the haircut alone is a deal breaker.

I’m about to ask why gay people can’t give blood when I realize the answer, which makes me feel like a leper. It’s only a matter of time before we have to wear bells around our necks.

“So,” I say, “how’s the show coming?”

He sighs. “Have you ever eaten one of those hot dogs they sell on the street?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s worse. Marcus is impossible. Now he’s in a big feud with Angelo.”

“Who?”

“Angelo. You know.”

“Oh, of course. It just sounds funny not calling him Father.”

“It would sound funny if I did.”

“Why?”

“It’s one thing to call your boyfriend daddy….”

“WHAT?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“No. You’re dating
a priest
?”

The man at the next table chokes on his bowl of wine.

“I don’t get it,” I say, lowering my voice. “Isn’t that breaking a commandment or something?”

“Why? He’s not coveting his neighbor’s wife.”

“But priests are supposed to be celibate.”

“Technically he is. Celibacy is the renunciation of marriage.”

“I thought it meant you couldn’t have sex.”

“Only by extension. Catholics aren’t supposed to have sex outside of marriage.”

I shouldn’t be surprised. Catholicism is the ultimate loophole religion (sin, confess, repeat), so it makes sense that a priest would know better than anyone how to work the angles. Still, when you go to confession and say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” you don’t expect him to say, “So, who hasn’t?”

Gavin goes on to explain, without a whiff of irony, that Angelo considers Marcus’s refusal to pay for the rights to
The Music Man
a violation of “Thou shalt not steal.” He’s interrupted, however, by the arrival of Dagmar and Chad.

“That’s him,” I say, pointing with my bearded chin.

Gavin cranes his slender neck to see. “He’s cheating on you with a woman?”

I must confess that I hadn’t thought how I was going to explain all this to Gavin, particularly if Dagmar starts ranting about my past misdeeds and Chad admits my current ones. Naturally Gavin will tell Angelo, who’ll tell Paula, who’ll be furious with me for breaking the law. Not to mention implicating her.

My vision of disaster is interrupted by the waiter, an animated actor type currently starring in a one-man extravaganza called
Our Specials Tonight
.

Polenta! The Musical.

“I’ll have the wood-fired shrimp in crab sauce,” Gavin says.

“Oh…kay,” Our Specials Tonight says. “And you, sir?”

“I’ll hev the Black Forest ham vit goat cheese.”

His eyebrows descend under the weight of heavy skepticism. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I say, giving him the evil eye. “You gotta problem vit that?”

“No, no,” he says. He backs away as if I might explode.

“Why do you think he looked at us like that?” Gavin asks.

I shrug Hebraically, like a Catskills comic.

I glance over my shoulder at Dagmar and Chad, who are scanning their menus. “So what are they saying?”

Gavin peers across the room. “He’s telling her the veal is excellent. She says she’s a vegetarian.”

“So was Hitler.”

He then relates a banal litany of Dagmar’s various food allergies and her boneheaded theories on food combining. Gavin narrates as they swap autobiographies, the way people do when they’re getting to know each other, the sun shining bright on Chad’s old Kentucky home, Dagmar blessing her Austrian homeland forever. Eventually, while we’re dismantling the sculpture of our appetizers, Gavin says, “Oh, wait. Chad’s saying how disappointed he was when you got in trouble, that he didn’t know you that well, but he thought of you as someone he could mentor. Just like a rich, wide man mentored him.”

“Rich Whiteman?”

“Yeah, he’s saying something about a role model, an inspiration. I don’t know; I can’t tell—he’s got bread in his mouth. Hang on. He’s swallowing; he’s leaning in to talk to her; he’s putting his hand on hers; he’s saying: ‘How would you like to be a spy?’”

The rest comes in a blur: “‘Call me at home, no matter how late…information is the currency of democracy…Thomas fucking Jefferson…filthy fucking rich…Ronald fucking Reagan.’”

There it all is, everything I need to turn Chad in to the feds, and I have no way to tape it. I’m a failure as a spy. I’m a failure as an actor. And, what’s worse—what’s far, far worse—I’m a failure as a human being. Because of my stupidity and greed, I helped Chad get information that made money for Rich Whiteman, the religious wing nut who would rather see people like me dead.

Suddenly I feel like I’m going to be sick, like there’s something gnawing at my gut, trying to devour me from the inside out. Gavin signals for the check, then just makes it worse by assuming the best, telling me it’s a good thing I got away from this creep before he tried to turn me into a spy.

Our Specials Tonight returns, handing Gavin his credit card. “I’m sorry, Rabbi O’Casey,” he says, “but your card has been rejected.”

Gavin’s face goes slack, like a marionette whose puppeteer suddenly had a stroke.

“That’s all right, vaiter,” I say. “Ve can use mine.” I pull my credit card out of my wallet and hand it to him.

“Thank you, Rabbi…Zanni.”

As soon as he’s left, Gavin says, “I thought you said you didn’t have any money.”

“I don’t. Let’s go.”

We rise and make our way to the door.

“Excuse me,” Our Specials Tonight calls across the room. “Excuse me!”

“Faster,” I say, but, being deaf, Gavin doesn’t hear me.

“Stop them!”

I push on Gavin’s back and two renegade rabbis tumble onto the sidewalk. We both seem to understand that this is the kind of neighborhood where the cops come right away, so we dash across Lexington Avenue, a taxi screeching to a halt and blaring its horn.

As we round the corner I start shedding clothes, pulling off my hat, coat, and prayer shawl, then yanking at the curls bobby-pinned to my head, pulling fistfuls of fake hair off my face. Seeing me, Gavin does the same. By the time we reach the subway, shivering in our shirtsleeves, we look like two sweaty waiters on their way home from work. Tomorrow morning, the residents of East Sixty-ninth Street are going to find a trail of Hasidic couture and wonder why two of God’s chosen people suddenly evaporated. A Rabbi Rapture.

The following day I call the credit card company and tell them I left my card at 47th Street Photo and, when I went back to get it, it wasn’t there.

“Sure,” Natie says, “blame the Jews. Everyone else does.”

In the weeks that follow,
I stake out Chad so I can “accidentally” run into him and record an incriminating conversation about his trading of Hibbert & Howard.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Every afternoon I go to the coffee shop in the lobby of his office building, getting jacked on refills while masses of humanity pour out, cascading down the steps and into the ground like a waterfall. I keep thinking of Sondheim’s “Another Hundred People”:

It’s a city of strangers….

And every one of them has a life, just like me. They leave and go home to friends or families or roommates. Even the most misanthropic must know at least ten people, and each of those ten knows ten more and ten more after that, multiplying onward and upward until thousands become millions and millions become billions. Coming and going every minute of every day. The enormity of it makes my head spin, although that could just be the coffee.

I thought when I got into Juilliard that I would become something special, that I would live a life set apart from and above the maddening throng. But as I sit here watching that throng I realize that I’m just one of billions of people, most of them with dreams that will never come true. One tiny ant in a colossal colony, an extra in a big cosmic picture show.

It sucks.

As the crowds go and come, my mind wanders and I keep forgetting to look for Chad. It takes over a week before I finally spot him striding out of the building like a lifeguard rushing into the water. I follow him, but he flies down the steps and into a waiting Town Car.

He’s virtually untouchable. Every day he leaves his apartment in a taxi, gets driven to Wall Street, then reverses the process. There’s no bumping into him as he walks to the subway, while I pretend I’m on the Upper East Side visiting Ziba, or on Wall Street, where I have no business being.

I have even less luck on the weekends. Sutton Place is not like my neighborhood, where Lizzie could wait on my stoop for hours. Sutton Place has doormen who brush you away like dirty snow and threaten to call the cops. I manage to get in some surveillance from a pay phone on the corner of First Avenue, but can’t linger there long enough to be effective.

The Friday-the-thirteenth deadline from the SEC is less than a week away, and I’ve got nothing. Literally. I have $139 in my bank account, $133 for my share of rent, which is due on the fifteenth, and $6 for the rest of my living expenses. I trudge home in the cold, my head congested with impending doom and a burning sinus infection.

I’m just passing the Nowhere subway station when I notice one of the many mad vagrants who wander New York’s streets every day. Grizzled and prematurely old, he wears a baggy overcoat and a woolly hat.

“Will you help me?” he cries. “Won’t someone help me?”

Pedestrians circle around him, immune to beggars, lost in their Walkman worlds. Unlike everyone else, I make eye contact with him. There’s something different about this guy.

He holds up a bank deposit envelope, the kind you use at ATMs. “Can you help me? I-I-I found this and I don’t know what to do.” His face is tanned with a layer of city grime.

I look inside the envelope and see half a dozen antique coins. While the only thing I know about numismatics is the definition of the word (courtesy of Natie’s coin collection, such a Nudelman thing to collect), the largest coin does say 1864 and has a portrait of someone with the regal profile of Marian Seldes. I close the envelope, noticing that there’s a phone number on the outside.

“Someone probably dropped these on the way to the bank,” I say. “You should call this—”

The guy presses his hands to his head, like he’s trying to silence the people who live there. “No! No! No! No! No!”

“Okay,” I say in the most therapeutic tone I can muster on short notice. “It’s okay. How about if I call for you?” He gives a hesitant nod and follows me to a nearby pay phone. I dial.

“Sterling residence. This is Clark speaking.”

“Uh, hi, my name is Edward Zanni and this…um…gentleman on the street handed me a bank envelope—”

“You found our coins!”

Clark Sterling immediately launches into a monologue about how relieved he is, that his wife will be so pleased, and if the person who found them would just come right over to the East Side, there’s a $100 reward.

I relay the good news to the guy, who responds in the same disoriented fashion as before:

“I’m not goin’…I just wanna…” He covers his eyes and, for reasons known only to him, starts singing “Camptown Races”:

Camptown ladies sing this song,

Doo-dah, doo-dah.

I speak into the phone. “He’s kind of freaking out.”

“Listen,” Clark Sterling says, “I hate to ask you this, but I have to get those coins back. Is it possible for you to get to an ATM and give him the $100 yourself? I’ll pay you back, of course. And just to make it worth your time, I’ll pay you an extra $100, as well.”

A hundred bucks for doing a good deed? It’s a sign from the gods. I must be owed from some self-sacrificing past life as a goat-snuggling serf.

I explain the situation to the crazy guy between doodahs, then get the Upper East Side address from Clark, who tells me he’ll reimburse me for a taxi, as well.

I go to the ATM, sneering at the lady who sneers at me for bringing a smelly street person into the bank lobby. I give him the money, tell him not to buy booze, then hail a cab. I love hailing cabs. It matches my vision of the life I’m supposed to lead. As we sail through the park, New York suddenly feels sunnier and prettier to me, the Manhattan of Gershwin songs or Woody Allen movies.

I arrive at the Park Avenue address and tip the driver generously—I’m being reimbursed, after all—then hop out of the cab with the exuberance of a movie star exiting a limo at a premiere. I approach a mustached doorman clapping his hands together to stay warm.