“Jeremy,” said Michael. He spoke quietly, reverently. “The Lucas needs you.”
“How’s that?” said Jeremy.
Michael gripped Jeremy’s arm. “You’ve got to be Fourth Angry Mouse.”
“Like hell I do.”
Michael’s face was grave. “We have no understudy. The show opens Friday.”
“Call Equity,” said Jeremy.
Michael frowned. “Whenever it’s possible, the Lucas does things in-house.”
“Whenever it’s possible,” said Jeremy, “I don’t play rodents.”
“Don’t be flip, Jeremy.” Michael punched a calculator. “I’ll give you one hundred and fifty dollars a night till we can train a professional in the role, if that’s necessary. It’s virtually a nonspeaking part, it’s only a two-month run, and you know the show cold. Plus… ”
“Plus what?”
“Plus, I suspect you understand Fourth Angry’s sensibility.”
“He doesn’t have a sensibility, Michael. He’s a fucking mouse.”
Michael snapped his fingers. “That. Right there. The way you just spoke to me. That’s Fourth Angry’s tone. His Weltanschauung.”
“Forget it,” said Jeremy.
“Three hundred a night,” said Michael.
“Done,” said Jeremy.
Rehearsals began twenty minutes later. Jeremy suited up in a giant mouse outfit and took the stage. The other mice gathered around.
“Who’s this guy?” they asked.
“It’s me,” said Jeremy. His breath felt warm and close inside the mouse head, which was held to the costume’s body by hinges. Jeremy’s eyes peeked out through a grille in the costume’s mouth.
“I’m Jeremy Jax,” said Jeremy.
Third Kindly Mouse put his paws on his hips. “Michael. This is absurd.”
“Yeah,” said First Angry Mouse. “We’re professionals. You can’t just stick some random employee into-”
“The kid knows the part,” said Michael Hye. “Besides, Fourth Angry only has one line.”
Fourth Kindly Mouse patted Jeremy’s back. “Let’s give him a chance.”
“What’s his background?” said Third Angry Mouse.
“He’s Robby Jax’s grandson,” said Michael.
The mice all nodded, impressed.
“Let’s hear him,” said First Angry. “Let’s hear him try his one line.”
Michael urged Jeremy onto the roof, which was a giant promontory piece of the set. It was from this roof that Fourth Angry Mouse proclaimed his line.
“Go on, Jax,” said Michael.
Jeremy climbed the roof, looked out at the empty seats of the Lucas. A spotlight came on in the ceiling, singled him out.
Three hundred a night, Jeremy told himself.
“Do it up, kid,” yelled Fourth Kindly Mouse.
Jeremy took a breath.
“‘I have arrived!’” he shouted.
~
Within two weeks, an extraordinary thing happened. New York City fell in love with Of Mice and Mice.
There was no rational accounting for it. Manhattan’s theater tastes had ranged over the preceding decade from men drenched in blue paint to maniacs thumping garbage cans, so the popularity of eight giant mice was perhaps only a matter of savvy timing. On the other hand, Of Mice and Mice’s playwright was furious. He’d intended Of Mice and Mice as a somber allegory about the divisiveness of the human heart, and audiences were finding the play outrageously funny. Children and adults loved the show with equal ardor, the way they might a classic Looney Tunes. Susan March, who wrote the editorial column March Madness for the New York Times, claimed that “these eight mice show us, with their tongues in their divine little cheeks, how laughable are all our attempts at serious human contention. Who would’ve expected such charm from the Lucas?”
Receiving particular laud was the character of Fourth Angry Mouse. He wore unassuming blue trousers and had only one line, but there was something about his befuddled manner, his confused scampering to and fro among his fellow mice that endeared him to audiences and won him standing ovations.
“Fourth Angry Mouse,” wrote Susan March, “is petulant, skittish, bent on private designs. But he is so convincingly lost in his own antics that we can’t help but laugh at the little guy. He could be any one of us, plucked off the street, tossed into public scrutiny. Would any of us seem less goofy, less hysterically at sea?”
Compounding the intrigue around Fourth Angry Mouse was the fact that the program listed the actor’s name as Anonymous. This was unheard of. Benny Demarco, the character actor of film and stage fame, was carrying the role of First Kindly Mouse and garnering good reviews. Trisha Vera, as First Angry Mouse, had some brilliant moments, including a Velcro routine on the walls. But it was the unknown man behind Fourth Angry Mouse that Manhattan wanted to meet most. Some critics speculated that it was Christian Frick, reprising his Tony-Award-winning role as The Familiar in Coven. Most reviewers, though, suspected that a newcomer lurked behind Fourth Angry Mouse, a dark-horse tyro with few credentials beyond instinct.
As for Jeremy Jax, he was flabbergasted. He tried in each performance to implement the critical notes he’d been given by Michael Hye and Of Mice and Mice’s livid playwright. However, Jeremy was no actor. He had no knack for detail, no timing, no sense of his body as perceived by others, and so no clear motives for how to move when dressed as a seven-foot mouse. He got upset at the laughter he aroused-he didn’t want his fellow mice to think him a showboat-but the more upset he got, the harder people laughed and the more money the Lucas made.
Relax, Jeremy told himself. Relax.
But Jeremy couldn’t relax. His fame was a farce to him. He wanted no one to acknowledge it until he decided if it was shameful. If he’d been a praying man, Jeremy might’ve consulted the spirit of his dead grandfather directly for some assurance that he was authentically comic. Instead, he got drunk at Cherrywood’s with Patrick Rigg.
“You no longer suck,” said Patrick. “Why not spill your name?”
“Because,” hissed Jeremy. “Because I’m a fucking mouse, that’s why.”
Patrick shrugged. Outside of Michael Hye and the other cast members-whom Michael had contracted into secrecy-only Patrick knew Jeremy’s alter ego.
“You might be a mouse,” said Patrick, “but you’re definitely the man. Everybody loves you.”
Jeremy scowled. If I were a man, he thought, I’d be drinking vodka in Siberia. I’d be living on tundra, with a beefy wife.
To cheer his buddy up, Patrick dragged Jeremy to Minotaur’s, a basement nightclub in the meatpacking district. Minotaur’s was a labyrinth of halls and dark corners. There were doors off the halls, some of which led to rooms of bliss. Other doors led nowhere. If you got separated from someone at Minotaur’s, you might not see him or her till morning or ever again. The idea, though, was to dabble in as many corners as you could, then follow the maze to its center, a wide clearing called the Forum. In this room were several bars, a high ceiling, a dance floor, and a stage that had revolving entertainment: house on Mondays, blues on Tuesdays, swing on Thursdays, ska on Fridays. Patrick brought Jeremy to the Forum on a Wednesday. Wednesday was Anything-Can-Happen Night.
Jeremy groaned again. “Why am I here?”
Patrick whinnied a high, eerie laugh. He pointed at the stage.
“Watch,” he said.
Jeremy watched. A person named Harold read erotica. A girl named Tsunami danced.
“They suck,” said Jeremy.
“Watch,” insisted Patrick.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the MC, “please welcome back to Minotaur’s The Great Unwashed.”
A whoop went up. The lights dimmed. Three young women took the stage, one at the drums, two on guitar. The girl on lead guitar had long black hair combed over one eye in a sickle that hid most of her face. Seconds later, she and her band were at it. They played simple, throbbing music, but what got Jeremy’s ear was the singer, the lead guitarist. Her face was hidden by her sickle, and her voice was awful but arresting, like Lou Reed’s. She told lyrics in a simple monotone, then her words rose and cracked and broke your heart. Jeremy felt the hairs on his neck ripple. He turned to Patrick.