tedwords

I felt as if I my life had become a Gloria Gaynor record.

Skipper Venturini looked as pitiful as I had that day, years ago, when he had taken his leave. Back then, he had been the master, I the pupil, and I had been a quivering overemotional lump of jello. Now, out of the blue, here he was, with that old look upon his face.

I hadn’t seen him in almost two decades. To say the passing of time had taken its toll would be giving far too much credit to the toll booth.

He had thinning blond hair that had once been a gorgeous forest and blue eyes that now contained more baggage under them than a bad Jackie Collins novel. His once-slender frame had grown heavy around the middle. Oh, why can’t the good just die young? When they get older, they always end up looking sad and ugly. Or at least, they become a faded photograph of what they once had been.

He had been my first love, back in college. Or at least, the first fruit plucked from the love that dare not speak its name. And we hadn’t spoken of it, not a word, to anyone during our time together.

Since we had been theater majors, you wouldn’t think it really would have been that big a deal. But keep in mind, this was the eighties, an altogether different time and place. We had been trapped in a universe far, far away from where we’ve ended up today, my dears. So much so that, even though we attended a liberal arts college in the Northeast and nobody would frankly have given a rat’s ass, we kept silent about the whole thing and humped like bunnies under cover of darkness.

I had been a nervous freshman who was shy and 200 pounds lighter than I am now, and about as unsure of my sexuality as a Ken doll. Skipper had been a junior, and when I first met him, he was stage managing the first production I had been granted a speaking role in on the college stage—keep in mind, this was well before I made that theater program my bitch, thank you very much. I was playing the purser in the Hal Linden revival of Anything Goes, and Skipper was sporting a head of hair that resembled nothing so much as George Michael from his Wham! days.

He said he had taken up stage management because musicals bored him. Truth be told, unlike George Michael, Skipper wasn’t going to Wake You Up Before You Go Go with his singing. The boy couldn’t hold a note to save his life! However, he could take control of the back of a stage like a son of a bitch, and I’ve always liked a boy in power.

Before I knew it, I was following him everywhere. I was absolute putty in his older, more experienced hands.

By my sophomore year we were living together off campus, and everyone knew us as the very best of friends. Those who suspected more kept their big mouths shut. And of course, we were far more than that. Every night, Skipper would give me a little Wham! in a rickety queen sized bed that creaked ferociously as he went down on me, again and again. It’s a wonder we never broke it in half, the way he broke me in half.

I was madly in love, but much to my dismay, he was slowly slipping from my fingers as each and every day went by. As the school year went on, we started seeing less and less of each other, which was a little hard to do, because the theater department wasn’t that big. That should have been my first sign something was up.

Little did I know what he was really up to.

That day of discovery has been among the blackest of my life. And now, here he was...back, from outer space.

Ah, memories. Curse you, memories! As much as I had relived those years and that day in my head, here it was, 20 years later, and my natural curiosity regarding what he had been doing and why he had returned, at this time, in this place, out of the blue, totally unexpected, not to be believed, absolutely a surprise, my God what a shock, was naturally getting the better of me. Which is why, instead of invoking the spirit of my favorite deceased disco diva and singing out “Go, Now, Go,” I instead placed my oversized martini glass onto the antique Wentworth table by the door, placed my hands on my hip, looked at him with my best Bette Davis and said,

“Why Skipper Venturini, what a pleasant surprise.”

And he smiled, and in just that one moment, it was as if a 20-year popsicle had suddenly melted into a puddle. “It’s been a long time, Dante.” He stopped, unsure of where to go next. “You’re, um...looking well.”

“Well fed is what you mean. I am certainly not the skinny little twink you abandoned all those years ago.”

That felt good, getting that out. I could feel myself seizing the advantage. The pupil overcoming the master. Confidently, I grabbed at my martini glass and ushered him into the apartment. “Come on in, come on in. However did you find me, after all these years?”

“Your college profile describes you as a successful marketing executive in the Boston area, possessing a breathtaking apartment in the smart South End.” Skipper looked at me a bit sardonically. “It was a fairly easy task to locate the only Dante Giagrande in the area that fits that description.

Ah, perhaps the master still had a few tricks to play! Skipper always did have a way of putting me in my place. “You’ve could have just sent me a message on Facebook, you know,” I said, smiling impishly.

“And spared you the discomfort of having to deal with me face to face, eh?” I turned away from him, so he wouldn’t see me grimace. That was not what I had meant, at all. Skipper always did manage to twist things around into dark places.

“From the way you answered the door, I suppose this isn’t the sort of thing you want put in a post,” I conceded, after a moment of soul searching, and after realizing that with my back to him, he had a clear view of my backside.

Would that really matter, these days? Not that I cared much, because he had certainly changed for the worst. Or was I just fooling myself? Maybe a 20-year-later fuck would be just what the doctor ordered, especially today.

Best to switch gears. “Before we discuss anything urgent, would you care for a drink?”

As I turned to ask him this, I noticed with delight that he was indeed checking out my golden orbs. Skipper smiled sheepishly. “Some seltzer water, if you have it. I’ve been on the wagon for quite some time.”

“A seltzer it is! You know, I really should hop right on that wagon, myself. Trouble is, whenever that wagon comes around, I’m usually too sloshed to hop on, haha. Oh, do make yourself comfortable on the patio. I’ll be right out.”

With Skipper heading off to enjoy the view—and I could only hope that Sylvia Mastadore was out there to spread some torture—I quickly rushed in to my bedroom to change into a pair of shorts. Really, darling, had I wished to show this much of my body in one afternoon, I would have gone into burlesque.

“Enjoying the view?” I asked, after I had slipped into a pair of bright red wooshy shorts, circled back into the kitchen, poured Skipper a glass of seltzer, and refreshed my rapidly warming martini with a clutch of ice cubes.

Skipper allowed a look of disappointment to touch his droopy hangdog face. “I enjoyed it better a few minutes ago.”

“Ha!” I couldn’t help it, I barked out my patented Giagrande laugh. And was it possible, could I feel myself blushing? “Flattery will get you everywhere, my good man. Or it would have, had we a time machine. But what’s this about an emergency?”

Skipper’s eyes twinkled in amazement at my linguistic ability. There again, he always did like the way I used my tongue. When I reminded of the task at hand, however, his baby blue orbs immediately became deadly serious. “It is an emergency, Dante. It’s about Doc.”

Doc? “You mean, Bill Cobb?”

Skipper nodded, serious as a sheer heart attack. “As if you needed to ask.”

Skipper was right. Bill Cobb had been one of several professors of theater at Youngstown University, but as far as I was concerned—and I know that Skipper shared these feelings along with so many others—he was really the only theater professor that mattered. That man taught me everything I knew about the art of greasepaint. He had been kind, he had been gentle, he had completely taken me under his wing, and he was—my God, was the man still alive? He must be at least 80, by now.

Skipper leaned forward to make his point. “He’s dying, Dante. Or at least, he is if he doesn’t get out of the state he’s in.”

I took a deep sip from my resuscitated martini to withstand the force of that blow. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean, I went to visit him a few weeks ago. Remember that picturesque farm he used to live in with his wife, and those summers, long ago, down in Hope, Rhode Island? On a whim, I went to visit him.”

“On a whim?”

Skipper jerked his head back, surprised at the perceptive nature of my question. “Okay. Maybe it was more than a whim.” He turned to glance out at the Boston skyline, and I could discern a look of longing on his face. “I was looking to make amends for some of the things I’ve done. Like, the reason I was expelled. I know I hurt a lot of people when that happened. Perhaps Doc, most of all.”

Tartly, ever so tartly. “I’m not precisely sure that’s true.”

“I meant, all the faith he put into me, all the...God, I need a cigarette. Do you mind?” I waved my hand away, and he reached into his pockets to light up. A light, a blow. He was finally able to face the truth. “I wasn’t speaking of affairs of the heart, Dante.”

“You never are, Skipper.”

He took a staccato drag on his cancer stick. “Anyway. I located the old address in a trunkload of old correspondence I keep at my stepfather’s house. Even if I already had a pretty good idea of where the house was located.” Another puff. “Do you remember the summer vacation we took to Hope? He knew nothing of our situation, and yet he had us holed up in that tiny bedroom with that one bed.”

I shook my head, amused beyond belief. “He knew everything of our situation, and the room choice was deliberate.”

“We made good use of that room.” Skipper was looking positively misty. One more second of this, and he’d need yet another cigarette, just to recover from the aphrodisiacal effect of the one he was currently smoking. Or was it just the smoky haze of memory?

“When we weren’t busy fighting all the time,” I reminded him.

Curses, I had jerked him back into the moment. “We were both going through an awful lot.” A pause. “Me, especially.”

Ah, the soft sloppy stench of self-pity. This was getting sappier than Barbara Streisand’s Wet album, all covered in pancakes and maple syrup. “Anyway, what happened when you made this journey to Hope?”

“I arrived there and honestly thought I had the wrong place. Remember how well maintained and nicely trimmed everything was? Remember the daisies? Remember that divine ocean of yellow daisies? That’s what Doc used to do during his time off, I remember him telling me...it was his way of fulfilling his dream of becoming a set designer—only, his set used his home as a backdrop.”

I found myself strangely moved by all this. “Yes, I remember.”

“That’s not how it is any more. You know, I actually had to double check the mailbox to make sure I was at the right place? Oh, excuse me...” Skipper lifted up his cigarette and flicked the ashes over the edge of my balcony. “It was his place, though, and not one of those cases where things from your past seem so much brighter, either. The place looked like it had been abandoned, Dante. Then I knocked on the door, and I learned it wasn’t just the place that was abandoned. Doc has been, too.”

“What do you mean by—“

“He’s still there. Just, all alone. His wife passed away three years ago and his kids...well, I don’t know where they are. He’s all alone, and not taking good care of himself. He’s practically a recluse. I mean, he seems like the same guy, when you can get through to him. Maybe a bit more forgetful. It just felt as though he’s been...passed over, I guess. And I immediately thought of you, and all he did for us. So I was wondering...”

Here comes the pitch. Batter up—

“Would you come pay a visit to his place? It doesn’t even have to be with me, if you don’t want. It could be with anyone, but I really think it would do him a world of good.”

“Poor Doc,” I intoned sadly. “Fallen on hard times.”

“But it doesn’t have to be that,” Skipper quickly interjected. “If we put a little effort into it, we can get him to stand on his own two pins again and get those daisies to shine just as brightly as they once did. We could do him a world of good, Dante.” Another drag on the cigarette. “I think it would do me a world of good, too.”

“You never did say...” Oh, how does one approach this sort of thing? “What happened to you, Skipper? Where have you been all this time?”

His eyes grew wistful; his shoulders, which had only seconds ago been broad and expansive, just like in the old days, suddenly hunched forward. In a matter of seconds, he transformed into a sad pathetic creature once again. A stray cat I had allowed into my apartment.

“That’s a story for another day,” he replied. “But I promise, Dante, if you help me with Doc, I will tell all, from start to finish.” With that, his cigarette was done. A quick flick, over the balcony. “Let’s just say it had something to do with...Camille.”

“Camille Gerstilach?” Curiouser and curiouser. A mutual friend. My former dance coach. She had had more than a thing for Skipper, but what did she have to do with the shadow of the man who stood before me today?

And then, a sudden memory, of that last day I had seen Skipper in college. I was in the apartment in which we had lived. He had been packing up his things, and I was begging him to stay, begging him to let me run away with him. He refused, refused it all, declined to hold me, refused to let me leave. I was going crazy, I was begging and pleading, humiliating myself in front of him. Finally, in anger, he had—

A wince. And it still hurt.

Finally, in anger, he said one of the most hateful things anyone has ever said to me in my life. It still haunts me, in some ways, worse than the ghost of MacBeth in a dressing room. Even now, with so much distance between us, and Skipper looking the way he did.

“Okay,” I said, finishing off my Cosmo. “I’ll do it, on one condition. You promise me that we will have that discussion before this is over, Skipper. As God is my witness, I’ll never go wondering again.”