During the breaks at rehearsals, I engaged him in conversation on his method of acting, staying away from the manner of his deaths, lest he become wary of my interest.
On our days off, we would find ourselves at separate tables at the oyster bar. It wasn’t so unusual. The oyster bar was a few doors away from the theatre entrance. I didn’t care much for oysters. I was always waiting for a grain of sand to crunch between my teeth, sending a shiver down my spine. But I ate oysters, platefuls of them, just to be near my mentor.
Sometimes, we would meet by chance in the street. Then he might invite me for a pint and I would take my place at the bar next to him, soaking up his presence. We would part with a hearty handshake and go our separate ways.
Only my way was his way, though he never knew it. I would follow, unseen, behind him, down the streets of the town, marking his unending quest for the perfect death scene that would enhance his own.
We witnessed (separately, for he never knew I was there) several deaths during that time, but none out of the ordinary, everyday kind of expiration. A rather amusing tumble down a flight of steps by an old washerwoman, unmentionables flying out in all directions as she bounced and squealed to the bottom. Nothing that could be used. A straightforward heart failure at the entrance of the Mercantile Bank. It was over before it began. Disappointing, since the fellow looked to have some promise about him.
Once we stumbled onto a woman that was hemorrhaging on the stoop of a tenement building. MacCready stopped to watch. I wanted to run to him. Tell him not to waste his time on so paltry a dying. He should witness the death of great men of wealth and intelligence and make them his own. But before I could budge from my hiding place in a doorway across the street, MacCready had moved on.
Every night I followed MacCready through the streets, stopping when he stopped, taking up his pace again. And while MacCready searched for death, I was perfecting my own dying. Not that it was noticed. I was only one of many bodies, roiling about the stage beneath the clang of metal swords and the clop of horses’ hooves made by the beating of a spoon against a wooden barrel just off stage left.
I don’t remember when I first began to formulate my plan to aid MacCready in his search for the perfect death. Winter was coming on, and the nights were damp, with the wind cutting like a knife around the corners of buildings. I didn’t mind being uncomfortable, but I could see that MacCready did. His wanderings became shorter. The stops into pubs more frequent. The stay longer. I waited outside, stamping my feet and hugging my hands beneath my armpits to keep warm. Impossible for me to join him in the pub, and I was afraid that if I went into another, I would miss his exit.
And then one night, a Saturday I think it was (we had just finished Twelfth Night, a dreary play as it had no commendable death scene in it). MacCready wandered in the direction of a derelict section of town. Prostitutes huddled in doorways and opened their cloaks just long enough for a man to catch a glimpse of their wares, then wrapped up tight again. Drunks lay on pillows of hoarfrost, neither alive nor dead. Windows were shuttered tight, only an occasional wink of light escaping through the chinks. I couldn’t understand why MacCready had chosen this section of town to look for death.
I found myself wishing he would go home. There was no one here that was worthy of the great MacCready’s talent.
A carriage pulled to a stop ahead of MacCready. He slowed his pace. I slowed mine and watched. The carriage door opened and a man in evening dress virtually fell from the top step.
And suddenly I knew what MacCready was about. Clever MacCready. A gentleman might die comfortably, undramatically at home, eased into death by a scented handkerchief dabbed at his brow, his fluxes and vomitings carried discreetly away. But here in the streets, where no one knew him, he must enter death with the kicking and squirming of lesser men.
The man tossed coins toward the driver then wove toward a door in one of the nondescript brownstones that lined the street. After a moment, the door opened and light and noise spilled into the night air. The man entered and the door closed behind him leaving the street once again dark and silent.
I have to admit that I was a little irritated at my idol. I thought I knew what he was hoping for, but it would be a long cold winter before we might stumble across a robbery or murder if a man insisted on alighting from his carriage at the very door of his assignation.
The carriage pulled away and, like a great curtain, revealed a quartet of men coming our way. They were a gay bunch, drunk and singing and lumbering toward me like a giant multi-headed beast. MacCready was intent on the closed door of the brownstone and didn’t see when they knocked me into the gutter.
It was soon after that night that I began to carry a metal pipe beneath my coat as I followed MacCready through the murky streets.
Several weeks passed and winter was full upon us. Snow fell by the bucketfuls on the stage and in the streets, turning to frozen sheets at the least hint of thaw. The audiences were sparse and there was talk of closing the theater until the weather broke. Everyone was at sixes and sevens trying to prepare for unemployment. MacCready alone seemed to be unconcerned about the possible closing. He needn’t be. One week of his salary could pay the rest of us for a month.
I was already stretched as far as I could be stretched and could ill afford to lose even a week of work. I loathed the thought of giving up my cozy rooms, humble though they were. Not that I spent much time in them being in the theater all day and wandering the streets with MacCready at night. But what I feared most was the loss of MacCready if the theater were to close.
One evening as I lay dying during the second act of an undistinguished melodrama, I felt eyes upon me. Somehow I knew they were MacCready’s. I fought the urge to exalt in that supernumerary death, but I forced my attention inward and died with great subtlety. I was very pleased with how it went. As soon as the curtain rang down and the slain cleared the stage at a run, I made sure that I would pass by MacCready who was, indeed, standing in the wings.
The briefest tip of his chin as I passed sent me into raptures. I had been good, really good, and MacCready had acknowledged my performance. And in the glow of that euphoric mood, I determined to do something to show my gratitude.
The snow was drifting down as we left the theater that night. The sky was clear above the roofs of town; the stars twinkling like diamonds on a black velvet drop. Once again MacCready went to the lowest neighborhood. I stayed farther behind than usual, for I had a twofold purpose.
He led me to a dismal street, the lamps of the streetlights broken into jagged icicles, the gas turned off to prevent an explosion. But the moon was high, casting a magical light over the whole. The night wore on and I was suppressing a yawn when I saw my purpose weaving down the street toward the square. A fine, tall man, with top hat, walking stick, and an opera cloak that swirled about his ankles. A young nob out slumming, alone. It was perfect.
The man stopped and looked about him, then peered up and down the street as if looking for someone. I felt my stomach clench. God, that he should be meeting his friends on this corner. I wanted to shake my fist at the heavens, Lear-style. My blood raced with impatience; the metal pipe weighted down my chest. At last, he took up his perambulation again, and he drew slowly nearer.
MacCready was nearly a block ahead of me now. If this drunken sot didn’t hurry, it would be too late. I pressed into the shadows, my back feeling the impressions of a wrought iron gate that led into the square. I could hear the fellow muttering to himself.