Adam Adamsky stepped off the
bus. Jostled by the throng getting on the bus and counterjostled by the throng
getting off, Adam's arm and briefcase became entwined with the arm and shopping
bag of an elderly lady. Adam and the lady danced the minuet for a minute after
the bus riding crowds had left them. Adam feared the old woman would mistake the
inadvertent connection as the clutches of a mugging, so he laughed his nicest
laugh. His partner laughed the mezo-soprano part of the joke, and so they parted
smiling.
Adam made his way then
to the Paradise Theatre. Even at his rapid pace, he was adoring the high May
hour. It was such a glorious spring day that only the dead and dying and deathly
ill could avoid tasting of youth. Not walls nor air conditioning nor the
deepest, drizzly depression could keep out every tendril of this spring day. And
Adam thought tiny poems of thanks and welcome to the beauty of the season as he
hurried along. The truth is that Adam would have been happy even if the city was
besieged by a February freeze. The high spring day was a climatic recapitulation
of his own internal weather.
When
he reached the Paradise, he was stopped by a splendid sight. Felix had
advertised for and bought back most of the antique tiles that had graced the
sidewalk under the marquee. Now here they were, set and beautiful.
A shadowy creature stepped
between Adam and what he was glorying in. A pamphleteer was accosting him,
saying, "The coming is nigh! The coming is coming! Are you ready?"
Distractedly, Adam put down his
briefcase and said, "What? Ready for what? I'm ready for anything within
reason." As soon as he had spoken, he realized that it was a mistake to be
responding at all to this person. But as long as he had begun, he thought he'd
play it out a few steps anyway.
"Are you ready for the second coming? For going? For the end? For paradise on
earth?" said the sidewalk zealot, handing Adam a pamphlet.
Giving back the glanced over
brochure, Adam said, "Oh, no. Thanks. It isn't all it's cracked up to be, you
know. Paradise is just a metaphor. It's a story, see? A little fairy tale that
God dictated to Moses, see? It's a mega emotional equation. It's just the story
of how opposites get together. You know... um... good and evil, love and hate,
life and death, truth and lies. It's just a story. It makes you feel. It doesn't
make you live." Adam didn't know why he was sharing all this, other than that he
was giddy with springtime and giddy with having finished his play and starting
on several more all at once. But this encounter wasn't a play.
He had managed to upset the
pamphleteer. "You want to die eternally burning like fetid meat in hell? You
don't want to go to heaven?"
"Oh,
not today," Adam said. He picked up his briefcase, stepped across the Italian
tiles, and knocked on the doors to the Paradise Theatre. "Besides, for the
moment I am in heaven--though this too shall pass." And then Adam
laughed. "Look! This is Paradise! You've read the brochure? Read the
book? Dreamed the dream? Nurtured the hallucination? Now a theater in your
neighborhood is Paradise!" And with that he banged again on the doors.
The pamphleteer stared after Adam
and then jumped beneath the marquee, screaming, "You! You're the one! It's
assholes like you who won't work for Paradise that'll postpone it. You're the
sort that ought to die so the rest of us can live forever. There's evil on this
street today and most of it is coming from you. I've got a rocket ship at home.
I could take the dynamite I've got and blow your fucking head off. You're the
one from the government, aren't you? The one who won't let me buy the parts I
need so I can go to Eden and bring Jesus back..."
Adam was thinking he was indeed
the one; the big fool. He shuddered. Yvonne Yvette was getting out of a cab in
front of the Paradise just in time to see the shudder. While paying the cab
driver, she apprehended the scene, and so she kept a bill in her hand. This bill
she gave to the pamphleteer in exchange for his stack of literature. He took the
money, shut up, and ambled away. "Frisson metaphysique?" she asked Adam.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," she said.
"No," he said. "More like awe of
psychosis. I owe you ten dollars." Yvonne laughed. Oh, god, he thought,
windchimes!
"Oh no! You owe me a
play, I've heard. And I've also heard you're ready to pay up."
"Here it is," he said, swinging
his briefcase. "But first Felix has to read it... You know..." He was worrying
she'd misunderstand his priorities.
"Oh, of course! Sure. Are you
going in?" she asked, pointing to the doors.
"I've been knocking," he said.
"Have you tried just going in?"
she asked as she pulled a door open. Adam laughed and opened the other door and
they went into the Paradise Theatre.
The lobby was finished. Its
mirrored and silver papered walls threw Adams and Yvonnes all around like
paperdoll confetti. the kaleidoscopic splendor struck them breathless for a few
moments, and then they gathered themselves to walk across the lobby to the
theater proper. Yvonne dropped the madman's brochures in a trash can near the
doors that held scraps of the lobby's new blue carpet.
They saw Felix Lord sitting on
the lip of the stage, reading Variety. As he and Yvonne walked down the
aisle, Adam noted that the Angelini brothers had moved their scaffolding and
were toiling at their work of inlaying gold along the frieze. Adam scanned the
edge of the ceiling as he walked toward the stage, measuring that the gold work
was about half done. He felt a twinge in his chest worrying if the job would be
done in time for the opening of his play. But then he laughed at himself
silently; laughed at himself and his distorted sense of time; laughed at himself
who wanted everything now, though he had delayed everything until now.
After the couple greeted Felix,
and Felix had introduced them to each other, Adam in his best
thirteen-year-old's blurting style said, "Here's the play. You've got to read
it. Now." But he was still bumbling with the clasp on his briefcase when he said
this.
"Now, Adam? Right now?"
Felix laughed, his eyes twinkling as he shared looks with Yvonne.
"This minute," Adam said, handing
the pages to Felix. "I've got to know if it's good."
Disregarding Adam's solemnity,
Felix smiled at Yvonne like a galaxy. "He doesn't write a play for fifteen
years, and now he wants it read instantly."
"But, Felix," he laughed, "I've
been waiting fifteen years, too."
"Do read it, Felix. Right now," Yvonne pleaded, every bit as anxious as Adam.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Adam said. "I
didn't think. Do you two have business?" He was encompassing Yvonne and Felix in
a wide gesture, looking back and forth between them.
"I asked Yvonne to come so that
you two could meet. Do you mind?" said Felix, who already had the play opened.
"Mind? No, no."
"Well, why don't you two go
somewhere while I read this?"
"Lunch?" Yvonne asked Adam.
"Great! I know a terrific place around the corner. Felix, come and get us there
when you finish, ok?" Adam said, beginning to lead Yvonne back up the aisle.
Felix nodded.
As they walked
through the theater, Adam talked about his work. Yvonne could all but fly,
lofted by his excitement. She felt about fifteen, or maybe fourteen, and as if
she were hearing some of the great ideas of the world for the first time. She
saw things. She noticed his darling hairline; the way his arms moved at the
elbow and shoulders as he walked--just like a real person! What she thought was
really sweet was the way he was studying every little detail about her on the
way up the aisle. He as unflawed, she decided. Even his flaws were perfect. She
decided this as they moved into the lobby. But before they had even gotten that
far, Adam had decided that he would take care of her for the rest of his life.
He had to find out everything she wanted and he would get it or make it for her.
And she couldn't resist him. She even let him open the door to the Paradise for
her as he chattered about plot and theme.
Out on the sidewalk, he held out
his hand and took hers. She was in heaven. She had never walked hand in hand
with anyone before. Neither had he. It was simple in the end.
At that moment, Felix sat on the
edge of the stage in the Paradise, looking at a tear he held in his fingertips.
So much for Tuesday afternoons, he thought. He sighed, smiled, then shuddered;
then read Adam's brilliant play.
THE END