CHATTING. SIGNING OFF NOW…FLYING BIRD
'A real sicko, huh,' Rodriguez said. 'Wish she had mentioned his handle. Which one you think-' 'Rod, that English prof, what's his name?'
'Prince, just like his handle.'
'You say he teaches theater?'
Rodriguez flipped open his file and read aloud. ''American and British Drama, 1930 to 1980.''
'Thought so.'
'That shit's from a play?'
I nodded. 'He's playing the disturbed boy. Trying to get Mary Rosedahl to be the psychiatrist, but she doesn't know the lines, has no idea what he's talking about.'
' I got no idea what you're talking about,' Rodriguez said. 'Galloping horses. Passion. Seeing in the dark.'
'Huh?'
'Welts cut into a boy's mind by flying manes.'
'Sounds like you're the one needs the psychiatrist,' he said.
'In due time,' I said. 'In due time.'
CHAPTER 13
I slid into an empty seat in the back row of the classroom and got my first look at the Prince of Passion. Gerald Prince had a fine thatch of silver hair swept over his ears, a florid complexion, and a face that had clearly been handsome in his youth. His shoulders were rounded and the brown sweater was threadbare at one elbow. A paunch hung over his belt, and the pants were baggy in the seat.
He was pacing in front of the class on an elevated stage, wagging a finger at a skinny young man near the front. About thirty students were scattered throughout the classroom in various stages of semi-somnolence. 'And what does the playwright tell us about truth versus illusion?' The voice surprised me. Strong, resonant, a hint of a British accent. An aging actor, a tired Jason Robards maybe.
The young man shook his head. 'No se, man.'
'Now, Mr. Dominguez,' Prince sang in soothing tones, 'did you read the play?'
Si, sort of.'
'And its theme? Its meaning? What did it say to you?'
'That bitch, man. Liz Taylor. What a ballbuster.'
A few laughs from around Dominguez. I saw him only from behind. Dark hair short on the sides, a tail in back.
The professor strutted across the bare stage, coming closer to his student. 'You're talking about Martha?'
' Si, Martha. I rented the video, man. I thought something was wrong with my Sony till I figured it was in black-and-white.'
Prince's theatrical sigh carried to the back row. He spread his arms, threw back his head, and wailed, ''Blinking your nights away in the nonstop drench of cathode-ray over your shriveling heads.''
'Huh?'
'Never mind. I suppose it's better to have seen a few fleeting images than not to have encountered the playwright's words at all.'
'I liked it okay.'
'Good. Edward Albee will be pleased. And its theme, Mr. Dominguez? Its message?'
Dominguez scratched his head with a pencil. ' No se, pero, si fuera mi esposa, I'd have popped her one, the way that bitch talked.'
The class mumbled its agreement. Prince shook his head and turned to another student, a young black man in the front row.
'Mr. Perry, your review of the play?'
'What it is,' Perry said, 'talking trash like that, putting him down. My old lady do that, she'd be seeing stars. That George character, no balls.'
' No cajones,' Dominguez agreed, and his classmates-at least those who were conscious-mumbled their agreement.
'Has it occurred to any of you,' Prince asked, quite certain that it had not, 'that the conflict between George and Martha, the humiliation Martha heaps on him, is essential to their relationship? That they relieve the tedium with it? That it is part of their game?'
The classroom was bathed in silence.
Prince went on; 'What does Martha say about her abuse of George in Act Two?'
A thin black woman next to me called out, 'That he can stand it, that he married her for it.'
'Yes!' Prince boomed.
For a moment his eyes seemed to catch the light, and his shoulders straightened. 'Thank you, dear girl. Then, in Act Three, 'George who is good to me, and whom I revile, who understands me, and whom I push off, who can make me laugh, and I choke it back in my throat, who can hold me at night, so that it's warm, and whom I will bite so there's blood.''
Prince paused, then asked, 'What does it all mean? What is the play about?'
'Conflict,' the woman suggested tentatively.
'Yes, yes, and more.' Prince moved from center stage and descended three steps toward his students, never looking down. He had been on stages before, I thought, had vaulted landings on rickety sets, and now had settled for a final run in front of a polyglot of nineteen-year-olds for whom high culture was MTV.
'Conflict is the purifying flame,' he nearly shouted, heading toward the young woman next to me. 'Conflict separates truth from illusion, fact from fantasy. Now, what are their illusions?'
'They pretended to have a child,' the woman said. 'And George had fantasies about all sorts of things. That he killed his parents, that he sailed the Mediterranean.'
'Yes, and when Martha says, 'Truth and illusion, George, you don't know the difference,' what does George respond?'
The class was silent, so I piped up, ''We must carry on as though we did.''
Prince whirled, scanned his audience, found me, wrinkled his forehead, and asked, 'Do they?'
'Yes, but only for a while,' I answered. 'Eventually they must confront the illusions, strip them away from their relationship. They have no son. George will never be a great writer or even a decent professor. Martha's early dreams are lost in fogs of booze. They must face life the way it is.'
The young woman next to me chimed in, 'No matter how painful, they must face the truth. In the end all is truth.'
Prince raised his arms in triumph. Two or three students nodded their heads vigorously. They understood. The rest had that empty stare of the young. It had been, after all, forty-five minutes without physical movement, roughly nine times the attention span of most adolescents.
Prince strutted back toward the stage, and Dominguez called out.
'I get it, man. But who the hell's this Virginia Woolf?'
Gerald Prince ordered Plymouth gin on the rocks and not for the first time. Up close, the florid complexion was crisscrossed with tiny, engorged veins. The eyes-if they had any color at all-were gray. The brown sweater smelled of tobacco, the fingernails were long and stained. He had snapped at the luncheon invitation, and I brought him to a bayfront restaurant downtown. Near us, bankers and lawyers feasted on expense-account lunches of rack of lamb with mint jelly.
'Even from the stage, I spotted you-the stranger-in back of the class,' he said with a sly grin. 'In my day, I
