“Look at me,” said the director, grasping Father’s shoulders. “Take a deep breath. Come on now. Exhale the bad…” He blew out. “And inhale the good.”
Ignoring him, Father dug into his shorts and pulled out a handful of hay from his codpiece. “God, my balls itch. I think there’s fleas in this shit!”
“Come on… breathe the good in… and the bad goes away… ”
Pushing open the door, I stepped out.
Father jerked backward, as if frightened. “What do you want?”
“In…” continued the director, “… and the bad goes out…”
Before we were both dead, I wanted to tell him what I knew. “You stole Maricell’s jawbone.”
“Who?”
“In good… out bad.” The director smiled and glanced back and forth, as though trying to get both of us on his breathing schedule.
“She’s part of Tanoshi No Wah!”
“Tanoshi no shit!” Father’s face went lax. “Who cares?” He spread his pumpkin arms and shouted, “You just missed it, but RiverGroup has died a glorious, lousy, stinking, miserable, rotten death!”
“You stole bones and organs from my brothers and sisters!” I said.
“Yeah?” he asked, waving his handful of codpiece stuffing about. “So?”
“It’s illegal, wrong, and awful. You did it because you wanted me to be some perfect Ultra dancer, like you could never be!”
“What rancid lard are you talking about?”
“Mother told me you did it to make me perfect.”
“That’s your mom again. A trillion percent wrong!”
“Then why did you do it?”
For a second, he stared at me. Then whipping the hay in the direction the clients had gone, he shrieked, “Because of those stupid assholes!”
His skin was blotchy, and his eyes, wild. I glanced where Jun, the LETTT brothers, and the rest had gone. “Because of them? What’s that mean?”
As though imitating a cockatoo, he said, “Hiro, we want you to have a son who can take over in case you fall over dead, you stupid bastard!” Glaring at me, he snarled, “You were supposed to be the succession plan! But a fat log of good you did me!”
I wasn’t even supposed to be a dancer. Instead, I was like the buildings, furniture, or machinery that made RiverGroup work. I told him, “I’m sorry I didn’t make you all the profits you wanted. But why did you
“Maim!” he sneered. “All aboard the exaggeration train!”
“It was worse than that! Why did you do it?” I demanded.
“You want to know?” He stepped closer. “You really want to know?” Just as he seemed about to bellow, his lips trembled. His eyes watered. He turned away, and seemed to be struggling not to melt into a full-out sob.
This had happened before at the club in Kobehaba and the time I had fallen from the Loop. I couldn’t recall what had triggered it then, but this time, he looked like he was truly on the edge of collapse. Not sure I wanted to know, I asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing!” he snapped. “You’re so ignorant, you probably don’t even know about the war with those pharmaceutical slubber bastards! But I fought them.”
“I do, and congratulations,” I said flatly. Half the family members had been affected by the biological toxins released in the cities, although now no one admitted it. “What does that have to do with me and my half brothers and sisters?”
“I was this close to death.” He squished his index and thumb together. “Yeah, you can tell all your friends! They turned your dad’s balls into mutant raisins.” Around us a dozen of the leotard-wearing stage workers had stopped to watch. I thought he was going to yell at them, but then as if he were pretending to be thrilled, he said, “You heard me! I’m a genetically poisoned freak from the war! I’m not a real man anymore. Go on and stare your hearts out.” To me he added, “This isn’t something you tell your clients.” He spoke as if it was a joke, but clearly he knew it wasn’t funny. “They don’t want to invest if you can’t reproduce. And they wanted someone handsome to take over. At least not the freaks I could make.”
I always thought of Father as a beast for what he did and said, but this was the source of his anger and craziness—he was broken inside. It made so much sense I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before.
“Very tragic, indeed,” agreed the director, grasping our hands like two children, “but please follow me. The show must continue!”
“I don’t want to!” growled Father, pulling away.
“Ratings!” said the director, as if that were the holy word. “We’re having a hell of a show! They love it.”
Father let out a big sigh. “It’s a disaster. Like everything I ever made.”
“No! The crowd is sucking it down faster then greased slut cakes! They love you, Hiro. This is your real audience, not those stuffed hams who just left.”
“They were the whole reason for this,” said Father.
“Forget them! You are a performer. I’ve been filming your life for years, and I know. That’s what you are—a performer. A real star.”
Father looked up at him with a glimmer of hope.
“The director’s right,” I said. “We have to finish the show!” If he didn’t go back on stage, my plan was done, but letting Nora and the world see how I felt was part of it.
“Well,” said Father, flipping one of his hands over as one might turn a burger “… I do like acting…”
“Of course you do! You were born to be before the camera. The eye loves your face. The ear cherishes your words. The heart suffers your feelings!”
“I guess so,” he said, like a dry sponge absorbing a last drop of water. Then smiling, he looked the director in the eye. “I’ll do it for you.”
“That’s it! Now you’re going! And they do love you! I know they do. Come on.” Assistants opened the door in the sound baffles, and we stepped onto the strangely ornate glacier of a stage. A smoky, jet-fuel haze filled the air. The director led us to the front where the shiny blue floor was covered with a craze of cracks, scorch marks, and bits of paper and trash. The huge curtains were closed, but I heard strings, a dreary rhythm, and several voices chanting something about palpitations, kitty cakes, and pussy willows. It was the same group I’d heard at my promotion date with Elle.
“It’s illegal,” I said, picking up where we had left off, “to cut and paste people.”
“It is,” he agreed. While he had been near collapse a minute ago, the director’s words had lifted him, and he held his head up as if filled with a form of pride. Not the real stuff perhaps, but a pride for the sake of pride. “But real parts are so much better than the grown ones. And we had
“Stay with me!” said the director, eying us with concern. “Concentrate. This is an important section of the show.” He nudged me toward a small, white-taped x on the floor. “It’s a little showmanship! Some razzle dazzle.” He placed Father four feet away. “In thirty seconds, the curtain will open. At first, the house voice thinks it’s the wedding, but it’s the CEO crowning. Xavid will come down that set of stairs.”
“I thought this was the wedding!” I said.
“That’s next.”
“But this is just Father and me?”
“Yes,” he said. “The Beavers will be singing on either side, but it’s a simple quiet moment… an ebb to the flow. It’s just the two of you… then Xavid comes down.”
It wasn’t what I planned, but I couldn’t wait any longer.
The director gazed at me as if horrified.
“What?” I asked, afraid he had read my thoughts.
“Where’s your makeup? You didn’t get makeup!” He called over a man who began dabbing my face with a huge sponge. “Look into the cameras. Smile. Be calm. If you get stuck, look for me stage right. I’ll help you.” The makeup man powdered my nose three more times. Before he ran off, Father asked him for all the sponges he had. After he handed them over, Father stuffed them down his codpiece.
As the curtains parted, I saw a hundred rows of tables and chairs on the old dance floor and all the seated
