Random Acts Part 14

"You've made this speech before," Pris says, pulling angrily away.

I can't take it anymore. I let my head hang forward and begin to cry. I'd prefer the insane asylum to this. I'd rather be crazy.

"Look at you!" she shouts at me. "You're the one to cry! What about me?"

I'm suddenly angry. "What about you!" I yell. "What have I ever done to you? All I've done is loved you, that's it!"

"Me and half the women in San Francisco!" she shouts back. "You've got a lot of nerve! I'm sorry I've hurt you're ego, but that's just too bad."

I stare at her, unable to say a thing.

She turns away. "Go to someone else and cry," she says. "You've got plenty of others to comfort you."

"I only want you."

Something in her snaps. Pris lets out a yell and picks things up and starts throwing them at me. As the heavy base of a lamp narrowly misses my head, I decide it would be best if I run. Once outside the room, the barrage stops, but she follows with her little fists balled up and gives me a couple spiteful kicks in the s.h.i.+n. I yowl with pain and hop around, and she watches, satisfied.

"I'll get my stuff when you're gone," she says. She walks down the long hallway and out the front door.

Despite the pain I follow her, hobbling along and wincing. When I get outside I find she's got the garage door opened and is getting into a large black car. It looks like a cross between a Cadillac and an old Jaguar. The engine starts with a roar and before I can reach her, the tires squeal. The car shoots out of the garage and down the driveway like a missile, skidding onto the pavement and down the street. She's out of sight in seconds.

The garage is empty, no other cars within. I can't follow her. I can only wait for her to come back. I close the garage door and walk back around to the front door. Before I'm inside another car pulls up, a long white limousine, and the horn honks. A door opens, and the car sits there, waiting. I hesitate a moment, then walk over and poke my head in.

"h.e.l.lo sir," the driver says. "Ready to go?"

"Go?"

"Yes sir. The show is in an hour."

"Show?"

"Yes sir."

Show? I'm going to a show? "I can't go," I tell him. "My, uh, date can't make it."

The driver laughs, but sits and waits expectantly. He thinks I'm joking.

"I'll be right back," I tell him.

He nods.

I walk back to the front door of my house and close it, then stand there, staring at it with my eyes unfocused. I don't want to leave. If Pris comes back to get her belongings, I want to be here to talk her out of it. What am I going to do? What the h.e.l.l is this show? Its probably at a museum or zoo, a display of reptiles. G.o.d knows. It could be a rock concert for that matter. I go back to the limousine and get inside to talk it over with the driver, but the door shuts with an electric whine and he pulls out onto the street.

"Wait," I tell him. "Wait a minute."

He doesn't stop, but looks back at me in the rear view mirror. "Yes sir?"

"Where are we going?"

"Trust me, sir, this way is the fastest."

"No. I mean, where are we going?"

He gives me a strange look. "I'm taking you to the amphitheater, sir."

"What's there?"

"The show, sir." He's really looking perplexed, now. "Is there something wrong?"

"My girlfriend is leaving me. I mean, she's moving out. I don't know what to do, she won't listen to me."

He doesn't comment on this.

"I don't want to go to the show. I want you to take me back home."

"Sir, you have to go to the show!"

"I do?"

"Well . . . yes, of course you do! A lot of people are paying good money to see you tonight. You can't just leave them high and dry because you've got romantic problems."

"This isn't just romantic problems, I----" I break off. "What did you say?"

"Sir?"

"What did you just say?"

"I'm sorry if I spoke harshly, I know it's not my place----"

"You said people are paying to see me?"

"Well, of course they are."

"I'm in the show?"

"You are the show!"

"What?"

The driver stares at me with deep concern, but then suddenly smiles. Now he's started laughing. "You had me going there."

"I did?"

"You're trying out new material on me, aren't you?"

"Yeah," I told him, grasping at straws. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

The driver continues to laugh.

I look at the door for a handle, but can't find one. I don't care how fast he's going, I want to jump out. There's a big metal b.u.t.ton, and I push it, but it makes a buzzing sound and nothing else happens.

Apparently the door is electric and won't open while the car is going.

I'm trapped.

The driver is still laughing.

We head west on the back roads, going up and down steep hills, then at the top of one I see the ocean. It's still overcast, and it looks cold outside. There's still nothing taller than two stories in sight, except way down the road where it reaches the sh.o.r.e. There's a large rounded structure and a huge parking lot. Monorail skyway tracks lead right to it; there's a station adjacent to the parking lot.

As the limo reaches the amphitheater I break out into a cold sweat.

I'm waiting for him to stop so I can jump out the door, but he doesn't stop. We enter the parking lot and go though a gate at the rear of the structure, and then the car is surrounded by a crowd of people. Men in red police uniforms push the people back as my door opens itself.

There's cheering as I get out, people screaming my name. Girls are lifting their s.h.i.+rts and shaking their b.r.e.a.s.t.s at me. I stand there, gaping like an idiot.

Two of the men in red take me by the arms and lead me away from the car, away from the crowd, and though a rear stage door. Inside is another crowd, smaller and more self-controlled, but the women are still making kissey-faces at me and the men are shaking my numb hands. One woman, tall and broad-shouldered with short hair and a sharp nose, gives me a look of horror and says, "You can go on like that!"

"Like . . . ?" I look down at my clothes. It's brown corduroy, a rumpled pair of slacks and a sports coat. My s.h.i.+rt looks like a blue polo s.h.i.+rt. This woman leads me into what is apparently my dressing room, followed by a large, athletic-looking man with thinning red hair and a mustache.

"Tad, get him some real clothes," the woman says.

"He can wear my jacket, it would look okay with those pants."

"Well," she says, looking at me. "Yeah, yeah . . . he'd need your s.h.i.+rt too."

"Okay." Tad begins taking off his jacket and s.h.i.+rt. The woman pulls at the b.u.t.tons on my sports jacket. Then she seems to come to herself and says, "You're not a baby! Come on." She makes sure I'm taking it off, then looks around as if suddenly realizing something's wrong.

"Where's that makeup girl?" She leaves the room, searching.

"Material isn't everything," Tad says to me, holding his s.h.i.+rt and jacket. "You have an image to maintain."

I say nothing, my mind entirely blank.

"Gloria can be a bully sometimes," he says, "but look how far she's gotten you."

I finish removing my jacket and s.h.i.+rt, and start putting on Tad's.

The woman, who I guess is Gloria, walks back in with the makeup girl.

She's young, blond, and smiling. She's wearing black slacks and a white, frilly s.h.i.+rt with a thin, loose tie around her neck. She has a wooden makeup case in her hand. All three of them wait silently as I finish putting on Tad's s.h.i.+rt, then Tad grabs Gloria's arm and pulls her toward the door. "I'll give you the five minute warning," Gloria calls over her shoulder. The makeup girl follows them to the door and locks it when they're outside.

Walking back to me, she puts the case down and takes my chin in one of her thin, strong hands, twisting my head back and forth as she gives me a judgmental look. "Your skin is clear today."

I swallow. "Thank you."

"You're more tense than usual."

I say nothing.

She smiles and says, "You want your relaxation treatment, don't you?"

It takes me a moment to answer. "I'm definitely tense."

She undoes my pants and pulls them down, then pushes me over to a chair. For some reason I'm not at all surprised. I feel her warm breath on my p.e.n.i.s and I stare down at her blond hair as white noise fills my mind. My thoughts are jumbled mental static. Her mouth feels hot, smooth. I close my eyes and let the sensations take over. Being lost in an alternate reality is no reason to refuse a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b.

The relaxation treatment works very well. By the time she's done I feel like going to sleep. I sit there like a lump. When there's a knock on the door I jump, nearly flying off the chair. "Five minutes,"

Gloria's voice says. I stand and pull up my pants, fumbling with the b.u.t.ton and zipper.

"You look a lot better," says the makeup girl.

"Thanks."

She walks over and opens the door. "You'd better go."

"Uh, yeah." I walk out the door and nearly collide with Tad. He takes my arm and pulls me down a hall and up some stairs.

"You look a lot better," he says.

"Thanks."

We come to a stop next to a tall black curtain, surrounded by smiling people I don't know and Gloria. "There's a lot of college kids in the audience tonight," Gloria is telling me. "I think you should open with the 'What is reality?' routine and head on into your jokes about Einstein. Finish up with----"

"Jokes about Einstein?" I'm not looking at her, I'm looking past her and out onto the huge wooden floor of the stage. From back here I can't see the audience, but I can hear them.

"Gloria, leave him alone," Tad says. "He knows his audience."

"I know, I know, I just thought----"

"You're getting him all nervous again," Tad says, this time in a hushed voice. As if I couldn't hear him.

A bald man in a tuxedo approaches, shakes my hand, and says some things that I don't remember two seconds later. My whole body is starting to buzz with panic. He gives me a comrade-to-comrade smile then steps out onto the stage. A spotlight hits him and follows him out to the front where a microphone sits on a stand. "Ladies and gentlemen," he says, his voice amplified and reverberating across the amphitheater. "I present to you the man who defines the term 'existential humor,'..." and then he says my name. He calls it out, long and exaggerated. There's cheers and applause. I turn and try to run, but Tad and Gloria grab me, turn me back around, and shove me out onto the stage.

Another spotlight flares on and hits me in the face, blinding me. I walk out to the microphone, shake the hand of the M.C., then turn forward in a dizzy state of suspended terror. The cheers and applause from the audience are deafening, but I can't see them. I'm facing a black void, blinded by the spotlights. "Thank you," I say into the microphone. "Thank you very much." The cheers go on and on. I stand there and wait, staring into the black void, feeling some comfort in the fact that I can't see anyone.

The cheering subsides, and I clear my throat. I have no idea what to say, I don't know any jokes. Or at least, any that I might have known I just cannot remember. Not now, not here. This is absurd, but I have to say something. Anything. I open my mouth, and words magically come out.

I speak a sentence, my voice huge and loud, gus.h.i.+ng forth like a sonic tidal wave across the amphitheater. "Tonight we're here to study the mating cycle of the Pacific Leatherback turtle."

There's a silent moment between my last word and the audience's response. They respond with a wave of laughter. Encouraged, I continue.

"The Pacific Leatherback is the biggest living turtle on Earth. Some have been found that are as big as a car. They're also very old. One of the oldest is over two-thousand years old, which means it was born about the same time as Christ, and has lived all this time in the ocean, ignoring man's wars and man's progress, and . . ." I trail off. I've lost them, they're completely silent. I glance over at the side of the stage, seeing Gloria staring at me in horror, as if I'd lost my mind.

"I'm sorry, this is all a big mistake," I say into the microphone.

"I'm not really who you think I am." There's a small wave of laughter at this. They think I'm building up to a joke. "You see, I'm from another dimension." There's a good laugh at this. "Though I look and sound like the comedian you think I am, I'm not him. I'm an impostor. In my world, I'm a college professor that teaches about reptiles and amphibians."

There's a smaller wave of laughter, a bit unsure. I glance again at Gloria, and she is frantically mouthing the words, "What is reality?"