The drums that had been heard from the beginning of the scene were suddenly still. Lightborn went to a brazier where he lit a coal fire. Zane watched impassively. An amber light was added to the stage. Then, approaching the king as he would a lover, Lightborn coaxed him to lie down on his cot and sleep. Zane resisted.
Pulling away, Zane turned to face Lightborn and again accused him of being sent as his murderer.
Lightborn touched his fingers to Zane’s filthy hair, picked out a bit of straw and repeated, “You have not slept. You’re tired, Sire. Lie down on the bed and rest a while.”
Zane turned to face the audience. Lightborn quietly approached him from behind and lifted his powerful arms which he wrapped around Zane’s chest as if intending to squeeze the life from him. Zane did not resist. Lightborn released his arms and once again urged the king to sleep.
Zane replied:
The rain was good. Not eating made me full. But
The darkness was the best…
Therefore let
The dark be dark and the unclean unclean.
Praise hunger, praise mistreatment, praise
The darkness.
Lightborn led Zane by the hand to a cot and Zane lay down. Looking at Lightborn he said, “There’s something buzzing in my ears. It whispers: If I sleep now, I’ll never wake. It’s anticipation that makes me tremble so.” He delivered these lines softly, as if speaking in a dream. I thought of Jim Pears. I glanced at Larry and wondered what he was thinking.
Lightborn kissed Zane on the lips. Then there was silence. Zane’s breath grew light and rapid as he slipped into sleep. The cot creaked as he turned on his stomach. Lightborn raised his hand into the air and caught a metal poker tossed down from where the ladder had come. He placed the tip of the poker in the brazier. The blue light flickered out, leaving only the amber which slowly changed to deep red.
Lightborn stood above Zane holding the poker a foot or two above Zane and aimed it directly between his legs, upward toward his anus. He flexed his powerful arms. The light went out.
Zane’s shriek rent the darkness.
It was only then that I remembered that the poker scene was not in Brecht’s play.
14
The actors took their bows and filed off the stage. Larry and I got up and made our way to the aisle. Sandy Blenheim, wearing pleated black leather pants and a voluminous white shirt, stopped us. He grabbed Larry’s hand and said, “You made it.”
“Hello, Sandy,” Larry replied, disengaging his hand. “You remember Henry Rios.”
“Hello,” I said.
Blenheim took me in with a reptilian flick of his eyes.
“You were that kid’s lawyer,” he said. “Too bad about him. It would have been a great movie.” To Larry he said, “Wasn’t T. Z. fabulous?”
“He got better toward the end,” Larry replied.
“The last scene,” Blenheim went on. “Perfect. You know it was his idea to do it with just the jock strap.”
“That last scene wasn’t in Brecht,” I said. “Brecht has Lightborn suffocate Edward.”
“T. Z., again,” Blenheim replied. “Someone told him that’s how the guy really died, so he wanted to do it that way.” He looked at me. “It’s kinda sexy, huh?”
“Yes,” I allowed. “It was.”
Blenheim smiled again as if confirming something about me. I could imagine what it was. I knew a tribesman when I saw one. So, it seemed, did he. He wagged a finger between Larry and me. “You two dating?”
Larry cut him off. “We’re friends, Sandy.”
“Well, why don’t you and your friend come over to Monet’s. Tom and Rennie are having a little party.”
“Henry?”
“Sure,” I replied, thinking that I might meet Irene Gentry there.
“That’s great,” Blenheim said. “Maybe you and me and Tom can get together about that contract, Larry.”
“Okay,” Larry replied without enthusiasm.
“See you there,” Blenheim said. He favored me with another narrow smile, and bounced off shouting the name of his next victim.
“Who’s Rennie?” I asked.
“Irene Gentry. The name Irene doesn’t really lend itself to abbreviation, but everyone calls her Rennie.”
“Rennie,” I repeated.
“Let’s go meet her.”
The sky was clear but starless. Only a trickle of water in the gutters gave any clue of the day’s rain. Santa Monica Boulevard was clogged with traffic — brake lights flared in the darkness, wheels squeaked to a halt — and the air was choked with exhaust fumes. Larry cadged a cigarette from a passerby and lit it.
“Monet’s isn’t far,” he said. “Let’s walk it.”
It was Friday night and the bars were doing brisk business. Country-western music blared from one in which, through smoked windows, male couples did the Texas two-step. Outside another bar a gaggle of street kids offered us coke. At a fast food shack, painted bright orange and lit up like a birthday cake, Larry stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes. A boy with stringy hair downed the house specialty, a pastrami burrito. I found the phone and called Josh Mandel. He answered on the second ring.
I explained that I was going to a party. “If you still want to get together,” I added, “I could meet you in about an hour.” I wanted him to say yes.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s fine.”
“Your place?”
“Where are you now?” he asked.
I stuck my head out of the booth and looked in vain for a street sign. “On Santa Monica,” I replied. “There’s a Mayfair market across the street.”
After a moment’s pause he said, “Oh, King’s Road. There’s a bar just east of Fairfax called the Hawk. South side of the boulevard. I could meet you there.”
“All right. In about an hour.”
“Mr. Rios?” he began, awkwardly.
“Yes, Josh?”
“It’s a gay bar.”
Larry came up and tapped on the phone booth.
“I’ve got to go now,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
I hung the phone up and stepped out of the booth.
“Josh Mandel is gay,” I told Larry as we resumed walking down the street.
“The guy who testified against Jim?”
“The star witness,” I replied.
Monet’s was a squat windowless building painted charcoal gray next to a porn shop. Marble steps led up from the filthy sidewalk to double wooden doors presided over by a man in a red jacket. He opened the door for us. Inside, at a plexiglass lectern, stood another red jacket. A huge Motherwell hung on the wall behind him. Two halls led off from the small foyer. The familiar sounds of a restaurant were absent. Instead, expensive silence reigned.
