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6

Bud’s Good Eats

Randy and Norman double-checked the props, triple-checked the flash pots, and quadruple-checked the guillotine. If a head didn’t roll at showtime, heads were definitely going to roll afterwards. But that wasn’t the biggest thing Randy was worrying about. “Is she here?”

Norman nodded. “She’s coming, man.”

“That’s good,” said Randy. “That’s good.”

Randy had never been nervous about a show before. And even though this was his baby—he wrote the script, directed it and starred as Oryon—only one thing scared him. Cousin Jane.

I was scared, too, because I’d given Sarah two tickets. She was bringing her younger sister, Robyn, which wasn’t a thrill, but at least she didn’t invite a date. And she seemed to be into older guys—maybe she’d like the fake beard.

Kyle was scared because it was the biggest audience he’d ever performed for. And he wasn’t expecting the guillotine—or the show—to work.

Lisa was scared because her parents were showing up and she wasn’t sure how they would react to her costume. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t like it nearly as much as we did.

We got into our costumes, smeared on our makeup and Norman hit the preshow music, which kicked off with The Grand Illusion by Styx.

Our illusions may not have been grand, but for $2.50 a ticket for adults and $1.50 for students, they were damn good. The flash pots flashed. The fire-shooters fired. When it was time for the Metamorphosis, Marvin and I metamorphosized. The effect might not have rivalled Houdini’s, but it scored the same shocked gasps that make magic shows magical for audiences and performers. The audience was still oohing at Zephyr’s miraculous growth spurt when the helmet flew off and they realized he’d been transformed into Adoma. Me. Some people screamed. As I stood there in my trance, I saw Sarah in the third row and had to force myself not to smile.

Then Santar captured Oryon and I strapped him into the guillotine while Pink Floyd’s Careful with That Axe, Eugene blasted out of the auditorium’s tinny speakers. As the audience held their breath, so did everyone onstage. Randy’s Styrofoam head fell straight into the bucket and blood sprayed everywhere. The audience screamed again.

Kyle didn’t wear his helmet and Santar’s hair looked perfect.

We didn’t get a standing ovation, but we managed two curtain calls and some of the little kids stuck around to get Randy, Kyle and Lisa to sign their programs.

Marvin went straight home with his parents. Kyle’s girlfriend, Wendy, kissed him and then took off. Lisa’s parents complimented her on the show and didn’t even mention her costume—at least not until she got home. I went into the auditorium to find Sarah, but she wasn’t there. So I retreated backstage to take off my beard.

By the time I had cleaned up, changed and wandered back onstage, no one was in the auditorium except the cast, and everyone but Randy had changed back into their jeans and T-shirts. Randy was still in his white wizard robes when Norman opened the auditorium door and walked in with a woman so stunning she made Lisa look like Marvin. Lisa was gorgeous, but Lisa was seventeen and gorgeous. Cousin Jane was twenty-two and built like a Playboy centrefold minus the staples.

“I’m Jane,” said cousin Jane.

“Me Tarzan,” said Randy.

“You’re cute,” she said.

“I’m Kyle,” said Kyle, trying to look cuter than Randy.

“You were great,” said Jane. Then she took Kyle’s hand and he looked like he was going to melt.

“You too,” said Jane, as she flashed a smile at Randy. “Nice work.”

Then, while both of them stammered out thank yous, Jane looked at me—or maybe through me. “Norman says you’re a writer,” said Jane. “He says you’re really good.” I’d forgotten Norman was in my creative writing class. Now it was my turn to stammer. “I liked the beard,” she said. “Sexy.”

“Jane works with Rainbow,” said Randy.

Just as this was registering for me and Kyle and Lisa, Jane added, “I work with their new theatre division. I’m handling the Beatlemania tour.”

Beatlemania? The show was touring everywhere. It was a cross between a tribute band and a stage play and it was selling out around the world. None of us had seen it because none of us was old enough to remember Paul McCartney before he started Wings, but we all knew it was huge. “We’ve only done two stage shows in our history—Beatlemania and A Chorus Line. I think you should be our third.”

Kyle laughed. “So you think we’re the next Beatlemania?”

Jane didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile, just looked at us like we were money. “I think you’ve got something here, something fresh.” She gestured to the stage that was still drenched in fake blood. “I think this could be big.”

Big? Someone from Rainbow thought we could be big?

“Wanna go for a drink?” Jane asked.

Drinking age in BC was nineteen.

Randy and Norman were nineteen. Lisa looked nineteen. Kyle had a fake ID. Even though I was a few months away from eighteen I wasn’t going to be fooling anyone. So when we went to celebrate at Bud’s Good Eats, a converted garage-turned-cowboy-diner that served Tex-Mex nachos and cheap beer, I was about to order a Coke when Jane told the waiter she was buying and ordered a round of Coronas for her friends.

The waiter, who looked like a heftier, unhealthier version of John Belushi in his Saturday Night Live cheeseburger sketch, glared at me and started to say something when Jane flashed her playmate smile. Belushi responded with what looked like an attempt at a grin, surrendered, grunted and turned.

There were nuts on the table. Kyle passed them to me. “I’m allergic,” I said. Before Kyle could put the nuts down, Jane had already ordered a large nachos—“extra salsa, extra peppers.”

Belushi was back before the next hurtin’ song was over and didn’t hesitate for a moment before depositing bottles in front of everyone including me. Each had a little slice of lime sticking out of the top. I watched as Kyle smoothly popped his lime into his bottle and I tried to poke mine in the same way. Naturally, my wedge stuck, so I discreetly pushed my finger right into the bottle hoping Jane wouldn’t notice.

I’d tried wine a few times—if you could call the Manischewitz red my family served at Seder and Friday night dinners wine—and once, when I was on vacation in Honolulu and went to a party with some friends, had a pina colada and some brown cows because they tasted like liquid desserts. That was it for me and alcohol. But I was definitely having beer tonight, because Jane was buying beer.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Jane said. “You need to take this on the road. Tour Canada. Then, after that kicks ass, we tour the States.”

Randy looked like he was choking on a nacho. “The United States?”

“Unless there are other states you’d like to tour,” said Jane. “I think Australia has states.”

Kyle was trying to picture himself onstage—in America. On Broadway. Then on screen. Robert Redford’s career flashed before his eyes. “What do we have to do?”

Jane answered like she’d been plotting this for months, maybe years. “Make sure the show is portable. I like the music you used, but you’ll need original tunes. That way we won’t have any hassle over rights. And when we sell the soundtrack, we’ll make all the money. And, obviously, we’re looking at big illusions. Really big. Think you can do that?”

Norman nodded like this was his idea, then repeated the words with what almost passed for authority, “Original tunes.”

“No problem,” said Randy. “So we get a live band? That’ll rock.”

“No, better off with recorded music. Cheaper than having to pay a band every night. At least at first. I mean you do wanna make money off this, right?” She didn’t have to wait for an answer—the dollar signs were already dancing in everyone’s eyes like we were the cartoon nephews of Scrooge McDuck. “A band’s expensive. So what you need’s a soundtrack. You put together the show, I’ll put together the tour. I was thinking we premiere here in August and start touring in September—you know, hit the campuses, build a following.”

August?

August was only four months away.

A following?

“Groupies,” said Randy.

Jane smiled. “Sure.”

“So, you’ll be our promoter?”

“Oh yeah,” said cousin Jane.

Then, without warning, Randy produced a flower from the sleeve of his jacket, at least I was pretty sure it was from his sleeve. Jane laughed and clapped her hands lightly so just the table could hear her before Randy asked, “Can we share a trailer?”

Jane picked up her bottle but much to my surprise, not to hit him with it. “To The Black Metal Fantasy.”

We all clinked Coronas. I took my first sip of beer which tasted like flat, stale 7 Up, but it went down well with the jalapenos and the hurtin’ tunes. I already felt drunk.

Original music. A tour. It wasn’t exactly my fantasy life, but throw in a kiss from Sarah and it was darn close.

That’s when reality sank in.

I was only a bit player here. Randy and Kyle and Lisa were the stars. Norman was the technician. And this was his cousin. I was just the hired help. The evil henchman.

Then Cousin Jane popped everyone else’s balloons. “We need to do a showcase first. I need Brad to see what you can do.” Brad. Brad Bowen. The man who ran Rainbow—the company that brought in acts like the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Bay City Rollers. And Randy thought performing for Cousin Jane was scary.

“So you want us to do the show again?” he asked.

Jane shook her head. “No.” Her intensity surprised everyone.

“But you loved it,” said Randy. “Won’t Mr. Rainbow, Mr. Bowen, I mean Brad …”

“No,” she said before he could finish stammering his question. “I can see the potential here. But it’s rough. Brad won’t see how well you did that switch, he’ll just see you’re using bedsheets. He won’t think about how you only need a bit of money to make a better guillotine. He’ll just see this one’s made out of wood. He’ll eat you alive. You have to prove you can do something as good as …” She fished for a moment, then landed the great white shark. “… Henning. So you need illusions like Henning’s.” She’d squished our dreams like they were a handful of Jacko’s sponge balls.

None of us said anything, but nobody had to. There was no way we could make a show that looked like Henning’s appear out of thin air. We were doomed. The only person who didn’t look concerned was Jane.

“It’s easy,” she said.

Easy? “There’s no way,” said Randy.

Jane flashed that smile of hers again and this time it shone directly at Randy. “You don’t have to do big illusions. Just do your best small ones. He doesn’t need to see a full show. It’s a showcase. Twenty minutes. You’ve got twenty minutes worth of good tricks, right?”

“No problem,” said Randy.

“Great,” said Jane. “Now that we’re working together, I want to know what you’re all about.”

As another round of Coronas appeared, Jane stared at Randy, maybe through him. “So what are your ambitions?”

Randy didn’t miss a beat. “Getting to know you better.”

Jane was definitely looking through him. “You wanna be a star.” It wasn’t a question.

“Oh yeah,” said Randy. Some things are too sacred to joke about.

She tilted her head and stared at Kyle. “And I know you wanna be a star.”

Kyle smiled. I looked at the exit.

There was no way I was going to be part of a twenty-minute showcase.

Jane put her hand on mine. It was warm, I was warm—everywhere. “And what do you want?” I wanted to be smooth enough to give the same answer Randy just had.

“I don’t bite,” she smiled. It was definitely getting hotter at Bud’s.

Somewhere, in some small part of my brain that she hadn’t melted yet, I found the words. “I wanna be a writer.”

Now she was looking through me.

“And what are you going to write?”

Before I could think about it, the words slipped out. “Something epic.” I felt like an idiot.

Jane smiled, like she collected dreams the way I collected Batman comics and I’d given her a new one to slip into a protective plastic cover and hide away in the box in her closet. “So you should write the showcase.”

Now Kyle chimed in. “That’s a great idea.”

Randy looked like his male ego had just been booted in the testicles.

“Yeah,” said Lisa. “Mark’s a real writer.”

Suddenly, I had a bigger crush on Lisa than Randy did. I loved the way she said, “real writer.”

Jane took her hand off mine and put it on Randy’s. “You know, Randy, if Mark writes, you can focus on the magic.”

“Yeah,” he said, picking up Jane’s thread. Then he turned to me. “You should write the script. But we’ll work together on it. And you should direct, too. That way I don’t have to worry about anything but the magic.”

Wow. Suddenly I wasn’t just involved, I was writing and directing a showcase for Rainbow Productions, a show that could tour the world. I definitely needed another beer. If I could only finish the first one. Even with the lime it tasted pretty gross.

“Can you have it ready in a month?”

This time Randy and I answered together. “No problem.”

She lifted her bottle to toast. “Just remember to build this to tour. Because if it works, it’s going everywhere.” Then she repeated the last word so we’d hear it echoing in our dreams for years, maybe forever. “Everywhere.”