“He was a real fambly man. So I thought. My mind about that was changed in a hurry. One Satiddy mo’nin’ I was working. I never will forget it. I was sweeping the flo’ and who should walk in but Mary Phegan. As fine a young woman as you want to meet.” (People in the audience begin to sob. A second spotlight focuses upon an actress in white ballerina outfit with bridal headdress who begins to spin out to the performance area to the accompaniment of weepy and sad strings.) “She had such a pretty face, that Mary Phegan, kind of looked like Jesus’ mother must have looked when she was a little girl. Pretty hair, blue eyes. She was like a sweet little bluebird. Everything about her was sweet.” Minsk turned to Rhodes and then to Watson. They were staring at him, angrily. A woman in the audience rose, lifted her hands and screamed, “For shame, how could he. How could he have done it?” and she fainted and two women dressed as nurses rushed down the aisle to her aid. Minsk looked over his shoulder. It appeared that the whole audience was alternately staring from him to the play. He began to sweat. As soon as the ballerina disappeared, a medium-sized man with big eyes, well-groomed hair, wearing pants with a sharp crease, white and brown shoes, and a striped shirt with arm band came across the stadium toward the lighted area. He was carrying the girl in his arms. Debris began to rain down on the field. People began to shout and scream. Jim Conley, the character that Steepes was playing, turned to the man who was approaching. A soft drink can hit Minsk on the head. Rhodes turned to him. “Sorry about that.” He began to laugh. (Steepes sees the man carrying the girl, drops his broom, and rotates his eyes.)
“Mr. Frank, where you going with…Mary Phegan?”
(With considerable agitation) “Look. It was an accident. You got to help me bury…”
“She dead, Mr. Frank? She dead?” The audience was now screaming, “Death to the Jews” and “Remember Mary Phegan.” Minsk decided that it was now or never. He shot up from his seat and leaped over the railing. He began to run toward the opposite end of the field, toward one of the tunnels leading out of the stadium. He ran through the set, knocking over Steepes, the actor playing Leo Frank, and the girl that he was carrying. Steepes gave chase. Before he entered the tunnel Jim looked over his shoulder. People were rushing down the aisles and leaping over the railings. Midway through the tunnel he heard angry voices coming from the other end. He ran back into the stadium, only to see the mob heading toward him. There was a noticeable absence of brunettes among them. They were heading at him from all directions. Minsk started punching. A few of them fell but the others kept coming. He felt their hard blows upon his body until things went black. Before passing out he could hear them screaming, shrieking terrible and ugly things.
10
Ball had been drunk since he heard of Jim’s death on the news. On the third day of his hangover he received a call from Becky that Jim’s mutilated body had been found on some deserted road. Ian wasn’t home and so she left a message on his answering service. She said that the voice on the service was “terribly annoying,” and that she wanted to meet with him to make a decision about the future of his play Reckless Eyeballing. He arrived at the Lord Mountbatten about five minutes before his appointment. Becky’s assistant Ickey, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and beige gabardine pants, his figure showing him to be losing his private Battle of the Bulge, told him to sit down and wait. Periodically, Ickey looked up at Ball and chuckled sarcastically. After Ball waited twenty minutes, Ickey finally said that Becky would see him. Ickey escorted him into the office. There were posters on the wall advertising Wrong-Headed Man, with a photo depicting the rogue at the top of the stairs, pounding his chest, grinning widely while his victim, the missionary, his wife, who lay at the bottom of the steps, sprawled and weeping. The caption underneath the photo read, “She Was His Slave in Love.”
Today, Becky wore a P.O.W. haircut, khaki-colored blouse, and baggy pants. She was wearing red high heels. He thought of himself relaxing against a bedroom wall, a smile on his face, and arms supporting his head while she raised and lowered herself on his Johnson, grunting and working hard as she tried to “earn” her orgasm, as Clarence Major would write. She wore some jewelry. Turquoise bracelets (fake). She had no lips, feline eyes. He sat down.
“Terrible about Jim,” she said, studying him to get his reaction to her words. “He showed such promise.” Promise, he thought. Jim was one of the best directors on the New York scene and here was this twat saying that he had “promise,” Ian thought.
“I’m going to miss him. We were buddies,” Ian said.
“We’re still trying to piece together the details of this tragedy. We tried to get in touch with the college, Mary Phegan, but the Georgia operator said that there was no such college. Would you like to have some coffee?”
“I need some,” he said. She went over to a table that stood in front of a window. Outside, old wavers, new wavers, and future wavers; writers, poets, playwrights, and tourists could be seen strolling down Avenue A.
She had her back to him. “Cream and sugar?” I’d like to cream you, Ball thought. He wanted to go up behind her, rub a stiff erection against her ass, and cup her breasts with his hands. He could imagine her closing her eyes and her tongue sliding over the part where her lips would ordinarily be, but he thought differently. She had a reputation for being difficult to bed. Some had even said that no man’s panzer division had ever crossed her tight Maginot Line. She poured the contents of a white thermos into a ceramic cup that had Lord Mountbatten’s heraldic shield on it. She gave him a professional smile as she handed him the coffee.
“We still plan to do your play, of course; Jim’s death won’t change that. I mean, we wouldn’t think of scratching a play that Jim had such interest in. We’d like to make one change.”
“Change?”
“Yes,” she said, sipping from her cup and lowering her eyelids. “We think that the play still has some rough edges, and so we’d like to move it from the Lord Mountbatten to the Queen Mother.” She studied him as he formed his response. The Queen Mother didn’t have good equipment. Lights were bad, the stage small, and the seats uncomfortable. There was a limited supply of dressing room space, and it seated only ninety-nine people. It didn’t have the Mountbatten’s prestige.
“We’re going to give it a workshop, and, well, if anything comes of it, we’ll perhaps — well, there might be some room at the Mountbatten next season.” He rose. He was angry.
“A workshop?” He looked down at her. He saw her finger move to the button that would summon Mr. Ickey. “But, but, Jim thought that it was a major play. Deserving of the Mountbatten. I don’t get it. A workshop!”
Becky’s assistant Ickey had gotten his mocking smile from her. She sighed. “Look, Jim’s dead. I also don’t mind telling you that I was against doing your play, originally. It read like a first draft. I was only complying with Jim’s request.” Yeah, I know all about it, Ball thought. He brought in all of the grants. He wished that the Flower Phantom would get this bitch, but reproached himself for even entertaining such a thought.
“Well, how do you feel about it? Take it or leave it.”
“I guess that the Queen Mother is better than nothing.” He thought of all of the fellas who weren’t even able to get that. You should be grateful, he heard his mother say.
“I’m glad that you see it our way,” she said, more relaxed now. “You know, Ian, you’re pretty good. You continue to write and maybe one day you’ll be as good as Tremonisha Smarts, and I might tell you that Tremonisha and I feel that you’ve come a long way from that misogynistic piece of drivel Suzanna that all of the male critics applauded.” She looked up. Her assistant was standing in the doorway. He wore a smirk. “Tremonisha is on the phone.”