“Laugh, hun?”
“I kid you not,” Barry said. “That’s all we do. You find a woman who keeps you laughing, and you’ve found a precious thing. More precious than life itself.”
“Yeah,” Mick asked, “but can she fuck?”
At first Barry laughed, assuming it was a joke. But Mick wasn’t joining in. He used women for sex, not for any emotional attachment, and they used him the same way. There were times when he slipped up, and got himself involved in a longer term situation, but not one of those slipups worked out. He was beyond cautious now.
Barry knew it too. And his smile left. “There’s more to life,” he said, “than bed action. Bed action women are a dime a dozen, my friend. And I should know. I have my share. What am I stone? I fuck around, same as any man. But a good woman, a wife, isn’t for bed action. She’s for representation. She represents you.”
“Oh yeah?” Mick was obviously uninterested.
“I’m serious here, Mick.” Then Barry frowned. “I don’t get you. Don’t you want that love that only a good, God fearing woman can give to you? Aren’t you tired of being alone? Every man wants to be loved.”
Mick wanted it too. Perhaps more desperately than most. But he’d resigned himself to a harsh truth: it wasn’t going to happen for him.
“You can have that perfect lady, Mick. It can happen.”
“But it won’t. Not for me.”
Barry looked at him. “Why the hell not?”
“To be loved you have to be lovable,” Mick said bluntly. “I am not lovable. I do not wish to be lovable. I am not a man put on this earth to be loved.”
“You’re a warrior, not a lover?”
Mick smiled. “That’s right.”
“That’s bullshit,” Barry said bluntly.
Very few men alive would speak to Mick Sinatra that way. Even Mick was, at first, taken aback. He sat there with that broodiness, that sense of inward rage that sometimes scared Barry. And he had a right to be scared. Mick was at that very moment contemplating if he should take Barry’s face and rearrange it. Who the fuck was he to talk to him that way? But it was Barry. He was older than Mick, wiser than Mick, his insult came from a good place. Mick let it slide. “Okay.”
“You can get yourself a bed action woman any day of the week,” Barry went on. “Right now, behind those very curtains on that stage, are nothing but bed action females who’ll give their right arms to be with you. You know them. That’s all you date. But a real lady that can make you laugh?”
“Priceless?”
“Priceless, Micky! Priceless!” Then Barry exhaled. “Come to dinner tomorrow night. We worry about you.”
Mick shook his head. “I can’t tomorrow night.”
“Then when? If not now, when?”
Mick thought about this. He knew he needed a break. He sometimes felt as if his body, his very soul, was breaking down. All he did was work and worry. “I’ll be back in town by the end of the month. We’ll get together then,” he said.
Barry smiled. “You promise?”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Mick said with a smile of his own. “I’ll show you promise,” he added. “My word is my promise.”
“I’ll tell Agnes,” Barry said.
“And tell her I will not stay if she even thinks about setting me up.”
Barry smiled. “Deal.”
Enough of that, Mick thought. “So what’s shaking? What kind of play is this supposed to be?”
“A musical. A rip off of West Side Story. It’s called South Side Story.”
Mick laughed.
“I know,” Barry said. “We had ideas in the old days. Now we have revivals and rip offs.”
“Have I walked into the casting call?”
“You have.”
“For?”
“The chorus line. An all-female chorus line. But they have got to be top notch. They’re the backbone of this play. I’ve got the leads already cast, thank God. The male and female.”
“Anybody I would know?”
“They aren’t slouches in the business, that’s for sure. But I doubt if you would know’em.”
The stage manager came over and sat beside Barry and Mick.
“How many?” Barry asked him.
“Fifty-two.”
“Circuit crew?”
“Most of them, yeah.”
“Damn,” Barry said. “I wanted some fresh faces.”
“What’s a circuit crew?” Mick asked.
“Known bit players around town,” Barry answered. “They show up for most auditions. Some get a part here and there. Just enough to keep them hungry for more. The proverbial struggling actress.”
“Ah.”
“What most people don’t know, however,” Barry said, “is that the bit players are the life blood of our profession. It’s a hardship for them, but they keep the theater district humming. They’ll never be stars, but when you need a pro, somebody who knows her way around a stage, they’re the ones to call.” Barry looked at his manager. “They’re ready?” he asked.
“They’re ready.”
Barry rubbed his hands together. “Then let’s get this show on the road.”