The Emerald Light in the Air Read Free Page B

best left in the classroom, having, out here in the field, as it were, more of a confusing than a clarifying effect. Billy looked despairing. Clearly I had been right, during that sex-scene rehearsal the week before, in supposing him to be the child of an unhappy home. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, in as fatherly a voice as I could concoct on short notice, “I know it’s a mighty big hole, Billy. We’ll all have to be careful not to fall in and break our legs. Sometimes in the theater, as in life, we do our best work when mainly concerned with not making fools of ourselves.”
    â€œThat’s typical for a man to say, isn’t it?” declared a woman’s voice. I became immediately tense. The speaker was Carol, who had snuck up from behind and was standing with her arms crossed before her chest, the posture expressing her confrontational mode, surely an indication that she had been drinking.
    â€œHello, Carol.”
    â€œDon’t bother being polite, Reg,” Carol said. “It doesn’t look good on you.” She was weaving slightly, actually swaying in place, much in the manner of an actor impersonating a drunk, I thought. Here was an example of a dramatic cliché’s analogue in reality.
    â€œWe’re about to begin rehearsal, Carol. I suppose you’ve come to take a few last-minute costume measurements?”
    â€œFuck you.”
    â€œLet’s not have one of our scenes, Carol, not out here in front of the boy, please?”
    â€œLook who’s talking. If it isn’t the protector of youth himself.” She addressed Billy, “I’ll bet you’re fond of your teacher, aren’t you?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œYou guess ?” She seemed very unsteady on her feet. Her voice sounded hysterical and mean. “It’s going to rain! Have you ever fucked in the rain? Your teacher likes to fuck in the rain!”
    â€œJesus, Carol.”
    â€œHe likes to fuck in the rain and he likes it on top of his desk and in cars and in other people’s houses!”
    By now people had accumulated, a circle of actors and actresses, a few passersby, no faculty or fellow academic deans, I hoped, everyone gathered to relish the spectacle of Carol crying, “I was going to have a baby! This man wouldn’t let me have our baby!”
    Billy, I noticed, wore a surprisingly composed (though somewhat glassed-over) expression, as if he were accustomed to violent exhibitionism in adults. He looked as though nothing could be more natural to him than a drunken woman’s fury.
    â€œI’m sorry, son,” I said to the boy when Carol eventually ceased yelling. I had the uneasy feeling that I was in some way giving an expert rendering of Billy’s real father, a man who must’ve been lacking—if our episode on the college lawn could be used as an indicator—backbone.
    â€œIt’s cool,” sighed Billy.
    Then the rain came. The first drops were followed by wind and a great, rolling thunderclap. Tree branches swayed, and faeries scampered down from their platforms; then forked lightning struck nearby and the sky was instantly, ghostly white. Cast and crew began racing off in different directions. It was one of those thoroughly drenching gales that mark the beginning of summer—there was no point trying to stay dry. I reached out and took Carol by the arm, to comfort her and steady her. Rainwater soaked her hair and matted it in clumps. “Let’s go indoors and get you wrapped in a warm towel,” I shouted over the thunder; and she tugged her arm away and staggered to the edge of Puck’s hole. She gave me one of her powerful, inimitable, disgusted looks, then leaned over, braced herself with her hands on her knees, and vomited into the pit. It happened quickly and was over before Billy or I could respond in a helpful way. A couple of heaves and Carol spat out the last. She looked terrible, like a