David Gates - A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me

“Don’t you have to do what the director tells you?” he said.

“There’s always some leeway,” I said. “Your daughter’s got good instincts.”

“Well, I’m sure you know more about it than I do. I thought you were both excellent. You need to go a little easy, Punkin’. Don’t forget you’ve got tennis in the morning.” He turned away to hug Viola. “Louise, you were terrific. And how about our girl?”

“Is he pissed,” she whispered in my ear. “He hates that I’m twenty-one.” She finished her drink. “I’m getting more. Come with?”

Malvolio was speaking into the mic. “Is this on? Okay, Marty and I worked up a little number for the occasion…”

“Oh, fuck,” Julia said. “Let’s get away from this.”

She took my hand, and as we moved to the back door I heard them singing in unison: “They’re gonna put me in the theater…”

We made it into the kitchen, where she shut the screen door behind us, then the wooden door, then leaned her back against it and raised her face.

“Now that you’ve got me,” I said, “what do you plan to do with me?” I went in for the kiss, and she turned her head.

“Make you wait,” she said. “Like you’ve been doing.” She flicked her middle finger off her thumb and hit my fly. “I have to get something. Meet me out front, okay?”

“You know, people saw us leave.”

She was already starting down the hall that led to the foyer, which had a fanlight above the front door. “We’re both adults,” she said. “Especially you.”

She went upstairs, and I found a bathroom off the hall. I hooked the door behind me and washed my face with cold water. You need to get out of this, I said to the mirror. Just the obligatory drunken line: it was as good as done. I waited for her out on the wide stone doorstep and traced the date on the plaque with my index finger, that song from childhood in my head: “Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.” She opened the door, still in the dress, thrust a pipe into my mouth and held a lighter over the bowl. Anybody could have seen us from the sidewalk, over the white picket fence. When I exhaled, she kissed me lightly on the lips and said, “Now one more.”

“You are crazy,” I said.

This time the smoke hit my lungs so sharply I had to cough it out. “Good,” she said. “That should do it.” We kissed full on: so wide and hard I felt I was biting through into the back of her head. She pulled away, breasts rising and falling. “You’re a bastard, you know that? Come.”

I followed her to a Lincoln Navigator parked at the curb. “Where are you taking me?”

“I want to see the famous henhouse. I’ll let you pretend I’m one of Kenny’s boys. I bet that’s what you’re really into.”

“You have a most inventive mind.” My voice sounded far away, and I couldn’t remember who Colonel Jackson was. “This is some strong shit,” I said.

“Door’s unlocked,” she said. “You need me to open it for you?”

“I’m fine.” This was a car door. It was not beyond me to open it.

I settled into the leather seat, thoughts coming too fast to focus on. She turned on air-conditioning, then music—some kind of music I didn’t know how to go about recognizing, except I knew the speakers must be amazing because you could hear all the way to the bottom. “What is this?” I said.

“Bob Dylan?” she said. And sure enough, it rearranged itself into—what was it? The one about threw the bums a dime, didn’t you , the famous one. “Isn’t that your age group? My dad had it in.”

“I thought it was an oratorio,” I said. A word I didn’t know how I knew.

“Wow,” she said. “Okay, I want to be where you are.”

She pulled over—or had we been moving?—and took her pipe out of the, whatever you call the thing between the seats.

Then we were on some road and the whole inside of the car was flashing blue. “Shit,” she said, and the music was gone: big silence. “Just don’t say anything, okay?”

Her window was down and a cop was standing there, shining a flashlight. “License, registration?”

“For real?” she said. “We were just out for a drive.”

“Yeah, your dad called.” He sniffed. “Been smoking that good shit tonight?” He shined the light between the seats. “What’s that? Give it here.”

She handed him the pipe.

“What else? Am I going to have to search the car?”

“It’s not hers,” I said. “I had it.”

“Aren’t you the gentleman. And you’re who?”

“He’s in the play,” Julia said. “He’s a friend of Kenny’s.”

“I bet he is. See some ID?”

I got my wallet out. “I don’t know what you need,” I said. “I have this.”

He shined his light on my Equity card. “The hell is this, insurance?”

“You can get insurance,” I said.

“ ‘Performing for You.’ Beautiful. How about a license.”

“He lives in New York, for Christ’s sake,” Julia said. “Nobody drives in New York.”

“I wouldn’t know. So, Julia. Do you have any idea why I stopped you tonight?”

“You said. My father called.”

“I guess you didn’t notice the stop sign back there. How many moving violations have you had in the last year?”

I looked around. We were out in the middle of the country somewhere. Blue flashes kept lighting up a collapsing barn. “Listen,” I said. “There’s nobody here. Can it be that I was driving?”

“What are you, simple? How did you think it was gonna be?” he said. “Get out of the car.”

“You’re not going to hurt him?” Julia said.

He shook his head. “Everything’s a drama, right? You got your cell? Why don’t you call your folks to come out here, get their car and drive you home.”

—

“See, that’s your problem, you never look on the bright side,” Kenny said as he drove me to the train. “You were getting too old to be a matinee idol anyway. Now, if they ever bring back Golden Boy …Are you hurting? I have some Percocet.”

“I fucked up your show,” I said. They’d broken my nose when they handcuffed me behind my back and shoved my face into the side of the cop car. Kenny came to get me in the morning and told me they were dropping all charges—possession, grand theft auto, resisting arrest—in return for my getting out of Vermont. Just a hundred-dollar fine for failure to carry a license. Apparently he was a big man in this town.

“Don’t give yourself airs,” he said. “Rick’s coming up. He’s going to take over Feste. We’ll miss Wednesday and Friday, and then he thinks we’ll be ready to roll.”

“How did this come about?”

“Pleading? Contrition? I’m an actor too, don’t forget. Actually, I think he was missing me.”

“Will he be able to do it?”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

“Shit. Maybe I did you a favor.”

“One more favor like that and they will run me out of town. You need a keeper.”

“Listen, if you know of any.”

“Not of your persuasion,” he said. “I don’t know, I guess not of my persuasion either.” He looked at his watch. “We’re early. I’m still mad at you, by the way. You want to grab a drink?”

—

You’d think my Vermont adventure would have put me off the country life, but all this summer I’ve been renting a small house overlooking a lake in Dutchess County, where you can go out on the deck at night and sit and look up at the Milky Way. Which, yes, you can only do for so long. It was this or get the Profile restored, and I thought I might as well spend the money on myself, if you see what I mean. The trees have already begun to turn; tomorrow I have to give this place up and go back to the city.