Lives of the Circus Animals Read Free Page A

kind.” And she sat back, happily cackling to herself.

3
    B ackstage in the wings, Frank Earp was all eyes and ears during the first act, as if the show were a mirage that would vanish if he even blinked. His entire body was engaged, a kinetic sympathy of muscles and nerves. When their Ravenal, as dumb and handsome as a Ravenal should be, jumped ahead several pages, he and Carmen, his student assistant—she stood at Frank’s side with the open prompt book—hissed and whispered him back to his cue. The Magnolia was a pro, however, and didn’t even flinch. Then Tony, their Joe, sang his reprise of “Old Man River” as sweetly as always. Frank quickly pulled the curtain closed, and the first act ended.
    Instantly, Magnolia, Joe, and the rest turned back into children. They all went a little crazy, giggling and jumping around, scuffing up the dust backstage and spilling out into the hall.
    â€œGuys!” cried Frank. “Chill! You did great, but we got one more act.” He refused to play dictator-schoolteacher. That was Mrs. Anderson’s job. She was a music teacher, while Frank wasn’t any kind of teacher, only a ringer hired to help stage a school show. He’d never worked with kids before. They weren’t so different from other actors, just shorter.
    The show was going well, however. Nobody froze, no cues were flubbed beyond repair. The audience was nicely slapped by niggers . Frank had been surprised Mrs. Anderson wanted to use the lyric, but the old lady wasn’t as old-fashioned as she liked to pretend. Tonight was opening night, tomorrow closing. It felt funny to work for six weeks on a show for just two performances, yet it gave the thing a kind of purity. Frank rode the same adrenaline roller coaster that had carried him through shows back when he was an actor himself.
    â€œI’m only in it for the long green,” he joked to friends. The P.T.A.actually was paying him two thousand dollars. In his darker, hour-of-the-wolf moments, however, Frank feared a show like this was a dirty trick to play on kids, giving them a taste for something they could never get in real life.
    Frank Earp had come to New York ten years ago, straight out of college in Tennessee, thinking he could have an acting career, a life in the theater. Well, he couldn’t. After a decade of showcases, road shows, regional theater gigs, and temp work, last year he had taken a full-time job as office manager for an investor. It was good to have a steady income. It was a joy to say good-bye to acting. Yet the job left him with mental space and time for projects like this one. He was also directing a play for his former roommates uptown, a set of skits to be performed in their apartment on West 104th Street—Frank had his own place now, in Hoboken. It was wild to be doing two shows simultaneously, one with kids, the other with grown-ups, so-called, especially after his decision to say “Fuck theater.” It never rained but it poured. This was only his hobby now, not his life. He preferred it that way. He had more time for life, meaning leisure, money, love.
    He had spotted Jessie Doyle out front tonight. First he heard her laugh—single, sharp, birdlike notes of delight—then he recognized her goofy, lopsided grin out in the shadows. Frank was overjoyed that she’d come. He was distracted too, but it was a good distraction, like looking forward to the next movie in a double feature. When a song or scene went well and Frank could relax, he felt this show was not the only good thing that could happen tonight.
    He stepped out into the hall to compare notes with Mrs. Anderson. He could call her Harriet to her face, but she radiated such old-lady authority that he still thought of her as Mrs. Anderson.
    He found her at the drinking fountain. “So what do you think, Harriet? Will we get through this in one piece?”
    She looked at him with her enormous, world-weary eyes.