In a green damask walled private drawing room over looking the tops of the trees and the tugs and barges on a rain swept Thames River, the wedding repast was had. Tail coated waiters deftly in attendance. Schultz his black hair framing his ashen face, eyes glazed staring at the table cloth. Pricilla wearing her Queen of Sheba smile. Then a grimace as Schultz dug out a piece of wedding cake which toppled off the knife to fall on the floor. While Big Al, his eyes glistening, his glass of champagne raised, stood at one end of the table, and reflected in the many mirrors, made his little speech and proposed a toast.
“It is sad that Sigmund’s own parents couldn’t be here to witness this, this wonderful moment, the marriage of their one and only child. But on such short notice they were caught busy opening up yet another of their large textile factories on the East Coast. And it is my own little unhappiness on this wonderful occasion that my own dearly beloved is not here. Being as she is so charmingly just too shy. But nevertheless Agnes is here. This beautiful flower we welcome from the Argentine. And together with the new bride’s beautiful mother we wish happiness for the both of you two good young kids. To Mr. and Mrs. Schultz.”
Big Al Duke the day previously having got investor’s contracts from Sigmund Franz Schultz now let this recently married impresario examine these four slips of certified variously coloured and water marked paper. Which were produced in the gleaming marble and polished wood panelling surrounds of the men’s room of the Savoy.
“Here you are Sigmund, mit mazel and broche.”
“Holy shit, Al. I don’t need that kind of sentimental yiddish shit just now.”
“Sentimental, like hell, since when can especially you do without luck and blessing.”
“O.K. Al, O.K. You win.”
Schultz in his pale faced daze did manage to be intrigued by the three legged emblem on a cheque drawn on the Isle of Man Bank, as he folded these amounts of twenty thousand from one investor, thirteen from another, twenty five from a third and two from Big Al himself. Putting them one into the other and shoving them into his side jacket pocket.
“Jesus, Sigmund, don’t just stuff away sixty thousand pounds like it was a hat check.”
“What do you want me to do.”
“Put them safe in your wallet.”
“I lost it.”
“Hey that’s what I’m saying. You could lose them. Don’t be careless. Sometimes I think I must be crazy the way I help you out of jams.”
“Out of jams. Into jams. What the fuck are you telling everybody my mother and father are opening big factories for. When all they opened is a back street cut price lingerie store. They already think I’m made of money. When all the fuck I’m made of is overheads. And it’s ruining me.”
“Sigmund, come on. I like to make you sound good. That something is backing you up. Like who doesn’t know the theatre is treacherous. But from now on, you’re going to zing mit der dick dick. Right. At the beginning of what is to be for you lifelong happiness. Right.”
“Al. Wrong. Stop. Just for a second. And I’ll tell you something. Holy shit I feel sick. Jesus, just for a second the whole room began to spin.”
“Here. My car’s not nearby. So puke in the basin.”
“Fuck you, I’m not going to puke Al. And you know what it is that I want to tell you.”
“No what.”
“I want to tell you Al. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for some things. But Jesus christ almighty.”
No thanks
For others
From the bottom
Of my soul
21
Schultz’s two day honeymoon was spent in Brighton. Deposited at a begrimed grim Victoria Station in Big Al’s limousine. And with his face buried in five different daily newspapers, reading in the train swaying through the Surrey and Sussex countryside. The sky clearing approaching the coast. The big massive hotel’s wind shivering windows overlooked the cold slate grey waters of the English Channel.
“You would wouldn’t you, book us into a morgue like this.”
“Honey, what the fuck’s wrong. Look it’s got palm plants all over the lobby.”
Taking a taxi through a night opened wide with stars, there was a candlelit dinner in a famed fish restaurant where Schultz sat over his plate of sole meunière staring into oblivion. As Pricilla glowered and waited for doors to be opened, her wine to be poured and for her momentarily culturally orientated questions to be answered.
“Never, never will I ever go out and sit with you in a restaurant again with you behaving like that. And people thinking that we have nothing to talk to each other about.”
“We don’t honey, we don’t.”
Schultz taking a lonely midnight stroll on the shore. Ships out to sea. A liner, her decks aflood with light. Binky says good fortune makes one belch and fart and misfortune makes one think and worry. And holy shit, I’ve just wet my only pair of shoes and filled them with sand. With this fucking wave washing in.
“What a foolish childish thing to do. Imagine at your age getting your feet wet.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Schultz shoving his feet down deep between cold sheets. The sounds of a wife climbing in her own bed two feet away. A night of nightmare. Dreaming of living in a doss house. Full of apprenticing whores. A dingy smoky bar. Drunken lurching figures. Where the inmates were hoping to hatch a revolution. Then a slap on the face. Pricilla in her flimsy negligee looming over him.
“How dare you fall asleep without making love to me.”
“Honey, I’m exhausted. Not only in mind and body but in spirit.”
“At least my father was a man. You’re a mouse.”
“Jesus what are you saying that for.”
“Because it’s true.”
Early morning Schultz walking on the promenade. Hands dug in pockets. Cold in a rumpled flannel suit. A sour gnawing in an empty stomach. Passing by pasty faced oldsters. Thin hollow cheeked husbands and fat wives. Some who sat hunched up in deck chairs reading newspapers in the momentary sun. And Schultz took a taxi up to the high cliff tops overlooking the sea. Swooping dive bombing seagulls. Waves pounding down below on the rocky shore. Jesus, if the show didn’t have to go on, maybe I should jump like Pricilla’s father. Only my mind’s full of Roxana. And heaven would never have such an incredible cunt without a thousand angels’ pricks trying to get in it all at once. Her unforgettable wares. Jesus the way she exhibited them. Greta and I even fighting to take turns with her. Safely behind the changed locks on the front and basement doors of Four Arabesque Street. Jesus what narrow escapes I was having. Till I got trapped in this big trap. Pricilla twice turns up trying to turn her own keys and ends up kicking and banging. With the Ambassador’s Third Secretary and Financial Attaché coming over. The three of them standing on my front stoop. In a confab I could hear up in the bedroom. All of them thinking that’s where I was. Inside. Which I was. Teetering on the edge of an orgasm.
His Lordship was rumoured to have left a considerable fortune at the gaming tables during his honeymoon in Monte Carlo. And upon his return to England went directly to deer stalk at one of his northerly castles on a bereft windswept western peninsula in Scotland. From where he took a helicopter to be best man at Binky’s wedding held in the Duke’s private chapel in a rhododendron shrouded corner of their walled garden. His Lordship now repairing with the new Countess to his favourite Castle Nectarine. And on the way spending a day or two at his highly confidential and secretive town house in London to attend the first night opening of the show and to let the new Lady Nectarine consult decorators concerning her extensive plans to refurbish the southerly situated of his Lordship’s residences.
“Holy jeeze your Lordship you already got paint and wall paper on your walls.”
And now in the surprisingly calm splendour of the chairman’s office of Sperm Productions where Binky made a point of keeping all fev
erish activity to a minimum, his Amazing Angry Grace accosted Schultz.
“Don’t lie to me Schultz.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are.”
“I’m a married fucking man now.”
“You weren’t when Roxana disappeared.”
“The girl dropped in innocently for tea I’m telling you. I don’t know where she was after that. Christ there were fresh scones, I had delivered by taxi from Fortnum’s, all that kind of thing.”
“You’ll have sledgehammers and all that kind of thing delivered by hand on your head Schultz.”
“Hey your Lordship I mean, Jesus, you want to keep tabs on a free human being like that.”
“No Schultz I do not. But her father, her three brothers and two of her irate uncles, all of whom are stone masons and possess arms which could break you in two, want to keep tabs on her.”
“Hey come on, your Lordship, it’s nearly opening night, I’m crushed already with problems. Everything gets blamed on me like I’m some kind of sex maniac. Can’t you tell them what I’m telling you. She must have stayed at a hotel somewhere wanting to see London in private. I never touched a hair on her body.”
Ten minutes later, his Lordship waving an envelope sailed back into the chairman’s office and for once tripped over his own shotgun cases.
“Schultz I found this on my desk.”
“Yeah what is it.”
“It’s addressed to me. The Earl of Eel Brook Common, secretary to Mr. Sigmund Franz Schultz.”
“Holy shit, why do you have to find such things right this very minute.”
“Because this very minute it was staring me in the face on top of my mail on my desk.”
“Your Lordship I need to see what that letter says. I was just having to look good to somebody for a second. Don’t you understand, you English are ga ga over titles.”
“It would seem Schultz that you are ga ga over titles. And do this once more and you will be ga ga ga forever.”
Magillacurdy was signed. Exactly as he absolutely insisted. Standing in the central avenue of Brompton Cemetery near the mausoleum where he’d recently slept. His signature on the contracts held under an umbrella while surrounded by Al, Schultz, the Agent, plus two lawyers.
“It’s done me boyos. It’s done. I can tell by all your astonished faces you thought I’d be gone to the big money in Hollywood.”
Magillacurdy departing in his own limousine back to Claridge’s Hotel. To later that afternoon arrive in the street below Sperm Productions’ windows, attired in a sandwich board advertising the show and with a street band in tow to sing aria after aria. Binky throwing rose petals out the window to him. Magillacurdy catching each one and eating it and throwing back a kiss. Till the police came to remove the obstruction.
The broken collar boned director was replaced. Instantly giving a press conference to slander the show. His picture in the evening newspapers with his arm in a sling. And suing to have his name removed overnight from all posters and advertising all over town. Schultz on the phone to Al.
“Be thankful Sigmund, his name wasn’t up in lights. At this last minute don’t worry. You could be director of the show.”
“Al I hate directors. I wouldn’t be one of those creeps for all the gross on Broadway. Better make that off Broadway. Yeah.”
“O.K. Sigmund give me a couple of hours.”
Schultz on the pavement outside the theatre overseeing the repainting of signs. And now handed a note by the ever endlessly helpful efficient Rebecca, recently so subdued and saddened by the weddings of Binky and Basil.
At Home
Sylvia and Herbie
Two p.m., Dressing Room Five
Schultz just on the verge of heading back stage. When Al produced out of his limousine a new director. Black leather jacketed, balding in glasses and beard who sported similar suede chukka booted feet to the old one. And smoothly maintained that he had the nerve, courage and sheer insane guts to give Magillacurdy some last minute pointing up of his performance. As even Al warned him to duck deeply when Magillacurdy’s fist whistled over his head. As it invariably would when any director made what the massive Irishman considered a slander. Instead of the suggestion that was meant.
“O.K. fine. O.K. get in there in the ring. I got to rush to an urgent meeting backstage where I don’t want to be disturbed.”
Half an hour later with the second director shaking like jelly, Magillacurdy was equally shaking with rage. The chorus line and Debutant co star cowering behind the scenery through which Magillacurdy’s Welsh mining boot had twice been sent on the end of his foot. And he was now just on the verge of busting the director in the kisser.
“Begorra I’ll kill the ignorant pretentious fucker.”
Schultz in dressing room five on top of Sylvia, having to constantly look over his shoulder at Herbie who was still not averse to attempt a mounting of Schultz by the rear. The drama unfolding on the stage came blaring over the sound monitor. And Sylvia shouting.
“I want all of it, Sigmund, all of it. Shoot. Shoot.”
Schultz listening a second in the blaze of noise. A bloodcurdling scream over the monitor. Letting go of Sylvia. Pulling up his trousers. Jumping in his shoes. Falling over a chair. Getting up and jacket flying rushing out on stage. Fists knotted at his sides as Schultz threw himself between the stagemanager and Magillacurdy who held the stagemanager’s throat in one hand as he shook his other in a fist across the footlights at the director rearranging his misplaced long strands of hair over his bald spot as he stood atop the grand piano in the orchestra pit having leaped there off the stage in his hasty retreat.
“For christ’s sake easy Terence, easy. Before you kill somebody.”
The cast and stage hands slowly showing themselves again from behind the scenery and props. To watch this latest director trembling on the piano.
“Mr. Schultz I absolutely refuse to work with Mr. Magillacurdy unless he takes my direction.”
“Your direction is wrong sonny boy, I got fucking ears. I was listening in on the monitor. I know how that bar should be sung. Just like Magillacurdy is already singing it and my composers want it sung.”
“Mr. Schultz I admire you as a producer but certainly not as a human being who knows anything about musical comedy.”
“Who says it’s musical comedy.”
“Well if it isn’t then you can be sure it’s a musical tragedy. And I refuse to conduct my profession in this violent and grossly obscene environment and I resign.”
“So resign and get the fuck out of this theatre.”
The director stepping down on the keyboard, striking a discordant chord with his foot as Magillacurdy advanced on Schultz his hand held out.
“Ah me old son, you’re a man of principle like meself, to hell with the mediocre.”
Magillacurdy suddenly stopping pointing at Schultz with a finger wagging at the end of his outstretched muscular arm.
“Now that me boyo I’m telling you is by no means mediocre.”
Schultz looking down. His prick hanging loose full length flapping out between the flies of his trouser. Which as he quickly handled it back in, brought an ovation from the entire cast, chorus, musicians and stage hands and a cheer roaring from Magillacurdy.
Begorra
I’ve seen
The origin
Of the
Species
22
Just as Big Al was at two o’clock that day, forever the patcher up of production problems and the begetter of new ones, he was at four o’clock also forever the doting marriage broker eager to learn how his handiwork was proceeding. Ringing Schultz again at Sperm Productions where he’d retreated for a breather from his recent exposure and new popularity at the theatre. Binky placidly sitting puffing a cheroot his foot up on his gout stool, and handing the phone to Schultz.
“Hi Al.”
“Sigmund. I just heard about the director. That he resigned. That you came rushing out on stage at h
im with your prick out.”
“Jesus christ Al. That director was a creep. And who told you that load of shit.”
“O yeah, there are people saw you. And their agents, including their lawyers are ringing me. Was your prick out or not.”
“It was out Al. I was taking a pee when I heard a scream on the monitor. How could I remember my prick in such a panic.”
“Reliable witnesses said it was engorged.”
“Holy shit Al, haven’t you heard, I just happen to have through no fucking fault of mine, inherited from my Prague grandfather, a big prick.”
“And you’re not circumcised.”
“Holy shit Al. What are you anyway a kosher fucking Hebrew medical inspector on my trail.”
“It’s sacrilegious you’re not circumcised.”
“Look Al I’m going in two minutes to rush out right now and get circumcised. If it will make you feel any better.”
“Sigmund I just rang case I don’t see you before curtain time. That’s all. To wish you lots of luck for tonight.”
“Thanks Al, we’re going to need it.”
“But Sigmund. Don’t let the constant crisis of show business blind you to the rest of your responsibilities. I’m getting messages from your beautiful wife’s mother. She is unhappy that her daughter seems to need her now and she wants to be near her.”
“Al. Never. Never is she, that two ton bitch going to move into my house. It’s final.”
“She loves her daughter Sigmund.”
“Shit. Stop. Not now. Enough. Al. No more. Don’t meddle in my life. Please.”
“Sigmund I’m trying to help.”
“You’re not helping. That two ton whale is never going to crush her weight down on one of my dining room chairs and fill her face with my groceries. Especially while I’m sex starved by her daughter already.”
“That’s the first decent thing that I’ve heard happen to you in years.”