The Mostly Unfabulous Homepage of Ethan Green

I was riding around with Tennessee Williams in Key West and he didn't want to fuck me. I said, "Tennessee, pull over.'" Someone named Robby was staring into the mirror putting gummy mascara on his upper lashes as he talked. Siegfried Ilquist was sitting next to Robby, studying his own face in the mirror. I had just come in. Siegfried looked at me in the mirror and said, "You're over there," gesturing with the back of his head at the long table on the other side of the room. My new pal Alfred was already there, looking at a jar of greasepaint with an unhappy look on his face. I had to admire Siegfried's take on makeup. He just had on light pancake and a line over and under his eyes. No Sophia Loren doe-eyes look for him. He stood up. He was just wearing a dance belt. Some ass.

I went over and sat down next to Alfred. "You don't have to put that stuff on," I said. "Where'd you get it? That drugstore in Times Square?" I picked it up. "Leichner's. It's too messy. I'll let you borrow my Max Factor No. 22, and you can get some tomorrow. It's a lot easier. That Leichner stuff gets all over everything. If you have to lift somebody, it's everywhere except on your face." I had learned about Max Factor in summer stock.

Robby said, "I make up for the first two rows. Fuck the rest of them."

A voice from somewhere said, "Well, you've certainly tried."

Robby swept out haughtily. Over his shoulder he said, "I never sleep down."

As he left, someone else said, "What a little cunt."

Siegfried said, "Oh, his heart is in the right place."

The voice in the back of the dressing room -- it was probably smart-aleck Tony Compostella -- said, "Yeah, but his cock isn't."

Everyone laughed.

We were doing Faust, and Mattiwilda Dobbs was singing. I could hear her on the intercom. Really nice voice. I was beginning to learn something about singing, too. We were in rehearsal for La Gioconda -- the Dance of the Hours. A real ballet. Zinka Milanov was singing the lead, with Leonard Warren. They called her the Queen of the Met. She was everything you think is ridiculous in an opera singer--big, old, and she never moved. But when she was having a good night, her voice was more beautiful than anyone else's. That's what we'd been doing today. Tonight was Faust, which was easy. More like folk-dancing. We wore knee britches, leaving the boys like Robby no chance to show off their ass.

Faust had already started downstairs. We weren't on until the second scene, so we had a longer break after our last class. Siegfried came over to our table and stood behind us. "What are you guys doing when we're done here?" he said. "Want to go to Tad's Steak House for something to eat?" He was already in his knee britches. We didn't have to experience those powerful thighs in the dressing-table mirror. Alfred and I looked at each other. "Why not?" I said. Alfred and I would have probably gone to the Bickford's cafeteria right behind the theater anyway. Alfred lived with his parents on the Lower East Side in a housing project, but they were used to his being out wandering around in Manhattan for half the night. Alfred had just graduated from the High School of the Performing Arts and he'd been out on the streets of the city for years. Elegant and slightly dazed, but knowledgeable. I think everyone thought he was a foreigner.

After the performance, neither of us said anything about Siegfried's invitation. Obviously, he was interested in one of us. Maybe both of us. Robby walked behind us towards the dressing-room door. In a very good imitation of Bette David, he said, "Tad's Steak House -- what a dump," and vanished out the door.

It wasn't that bad. It had linking light bulbs surrounding the name. It was right on Forty-second Street, in among all those sleazy movie houses with all the action in the balconies. (How does one know this stuff so fast? I don't know. But one does, like osmosis.)

Tad's looked like a bar, but they did have a steak and a large baked potato and salad for $3.98. Can't beat that. In the few weeks we'd been working, Alfred and I usually had Salisbury steak at the cafeteria. Sometimes we went to a White Castle for those little hamburgers, but usually that was even beneath us, and we didn't go there very often. Only sometimes on a Saturday, between shows, when we did two shows.

"I'm choreographing a modern-dance piece for the Ninety-Second Street Y and I thought maybe I could get you guys to be in it," Siegfried said after we got our steaks out of the way. We had all decided to spend another thirty-five cents on apple pie a la mode. Alfred actually wanted rice pudding, but that wasn't in the Tad's repertoire. Or his favorite, prune pockets. Tad's wasn't kosher.

"When would we rehearse?" I wanted to know.

"Sundays. Joy said she'd work in it. There'd just be the four of us. It's a Young Choreographer's Night in December. I figure we can get it together in about eight rehearsals. Long ones. I know exactly what I want to do. I'm just going to do it to the sound of falling rain."

"Do you have the sound of falling rain recorded?" Alfred inquired politely. I think his mother must have been reading Virginia Woolf when she was pregnant with him. He always looked and talked like a Sitwell at a tea party somewhere. "Perhaps you should use Chopin. You know, many people think that George Sand fucked Chopin to death. He weighed hardly a hundred pounds, even in good health." We didn't know that. Alfred went on, "Do you ever have the impression that life is something like climbing a mountain in the fog? You know, one of those days when the sun is shining through the fog so it's all bright and white and you can see where you're going right around you, but no further? Something like a Caspar David Friedrich painting." Siegfried and I looked at each other. Neither of us had ever heard of Caspar David Friedrich. I admired Alfred for striking out so boldly without considering whether Siegfried would be interested in his sudden riff on life.

Siegfried was a real professional. How old was he? Twenty-two? Twenty-four? Older. Very glamorous, very sure of himself, and very sexy. He was all that. Blonds aren't usually very sexy, but he was sort of a bigger, stronger, Erik Bruhn who looked like he might really like to fuck. That's not so common among Scandinavians, you know.

"You're climbing with other people and you just assume they know where they're going," Alfred continued. "But maybe they don't. Maybe you're walking along the edge of a precipice. Maybe they'll disappear into the fog and leave you alone."

"That's a good idea for my piece," Siegfried said. "I think that's what I'll do. By the end I'll be all alone. My idea is that Joy and I will be lovers and you two will be aspects of myself."

Which aspects, was what I wanted to know.

"Harry will sort of be my happy, eager, childlike side. And you will be my doubting, depressed side," he said to Alfred.

Alfred said, "I love my role already. Did I get the depressed side because I'm brunet? And Harry got the happy side because he's blond?"

"No," Siegfried said. "Because you're taller. Besides, how could Harry play the depressed person?"

"Oh, you should see him when he can't get his pirouettes to the left," Alfred said. "He can be suicidal."

"You guys are fun," Siegfried said. "Let's get out of here." I wondered what was so fun about me. I hadn't said ten words all evening. "Where do you go?" Siegfried wanted to know.

"Alfred goes downtown on the Broadway local. I take the Seventh Avenue down to Eighteenth Street," I said.

"Oh, good, I'll go along with you." Underground, Alfred scuttled off towards his platform and Siegfried and I walked over to the Seventh Avenue local track.

Siegfried got off with me at the Eighteenth Street station. "Do you live around here?" I asked him. "No, actually I live in Queens, but I thought I'd walk you home. Maybe come up and talk for a little while." Home run, Siegfried. Your plans for your modern-dance piece got me completely off guard. I was very excited. Was I going to be in bed with that great Scandinavian body yet tonight? Feeling those smooth chest muscles? Running my hands down over that flat, flat stomach? Maybe being kissed with those curved lips, just like a statue's?

Siegfried didn't like to kiss, it turned out.

Siegfried walked into my cold-water flat, looked around, and said, "I think I'll stay overnight. You don't mind, do you? It's a long way out to Queens. You've got two beds." I guess I mumbled something. Siegfried didn't want to have a cup of coffee. He asked for a glass of water. And started undressing in the little bedroom where Belle-Mere used to sleep. I went into the kitchen and brushed my teeth and when I came back Siegfried was in the double bed. He didn't have anything on. I could see his underpants on the chair -- Jockey shorts. I undressed, trying to be nonchalant. As nonchalant as you can be with a hard-on.

Siegfried didn't say anything. He was just lying there with his eyes closed and a smile on his face. He had that kind of Attic smile -- turned up a little bit on the corners, like the smile you see on the faces of those early Greek statues. They're amused, but you don't know what about. Probably at how easy I was. At least he wasn't looking at my hard-on.

Sounds good? Now read some excerpts:

• The Sex Squad: The sexy, tempestuous life of a young ballet dancer.
• "How I Became a Dancer": Dance calls Harry and his mother all the way to New York City.
• "Sixteenth Street": Harry's disgusting first apartment in New York, and the whole disgusting neighborhood.
• "Neighbors": Harry learns about life at exotic parties.

Copyright © 1998 David Leddick.

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