Performance Art: Stories - Softcover

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THE STAND UP PHOBIC

Ethan's hair is an air-show and he's sweating. Every performance, lately, seems a conspiracy-theorist's nightmare. Any room he's booked into is slack-jawed and oversized and swallows him. Like a bad Jonah dream. Like having a three-day booking in The Whale. In The House of Ribs. Yeah! Put your hands together-won't you, please--for our own sackcloth and ashes! Ethan Fallon!

Or&;!....or the room's too small. How small--? Hey--! Where Ethan's booked is so small that, if you blow your nose, the EPA'll be there issuing a citation. It's--seriously--so small that the front and back doors are the same. And the threshold mat only says "Wel."

So, Mr. Fallon: do you think of what you do more as performing&;or, I don't know, kind of, like, taking your Tourettes out for the evening?--

&;So small that Ethan's nearest EXIT is himself.

And, Sir: hey-I mean it-I really appreciate the interview.

So, then: what-you-call-this-you-and-me back-and-forth-is&;.an interview?

I don't know; what else--?

Hey, no else. Seriously: No else. And--I mean it--don't pay attention to me; no-one does. Or&;how about&; What-we're-having-here--back and forth, you/me--we call a ring-tailed lemur. Or a mongoose. So: how many-is it veterinaries&;or veterinarians? Nevermind; call them vegetables. How many vegetables does it take to turn a lemur into a mongoose?

&;Listen: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you--

How many--?!

I don't know.

Guess! -Lemur into a mongoose.

&;Three?

Close! Four hundred and seven. Four-hundred-and-six for the change-operation, and one to carry the ring.

It's okay, Ethan thinks-the club, the booking, the interview-it's operable&;.stage two maybe; still, he'll get through. And okay: the crowd's hostile, but not all that hostile There's-true, only scattered-laughter. Still laughter-when you consider your modifiers-can be infectious. Or fractious Potentially an ear (kind of) nose and throat subversion. And subversions &;well, maybe not subversions; more, maybe, subdivisions could be-in the right light-like gold&; some of them; other's more like garlic.

You were brought up-? Your father owned a restaurant in--?

What do you call someone who's afraid of garlic?

I don't-

Seriously: what's our fear-of-garlic-guy suffering from? What do we call him--and don't say, "a cab."

I don't know.

An alliumphobic! Write that down. Log it. It's important. For me. For the interview. Fear of garlic: Alliumphobia. Type that onto your&;.whatever: iPad&; tape it over your eye socket-I don't care. Alliumphobia. Should I spell that?

No; I-

Actually: one--one i. A-l-l-i

So: How long have you been doing this? &;Stand-up?

Since my dog died.

Since your dog--?

"Frankie."

Dog Frankie--?

Yeah. As in "Johnnie."

Died?

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

He was my best--probably only--friend. He had no phobias.

But that was--?

When he died: Yeah.

When you started doing--?

Stand-up: Yeah. He was twelve. Going on eighty-five

I'm sorry.

He was like--I'm talking about, at the end, but--he was like a grandfather to me.

I'm sorry.

You have no idea.

How simple would it be, Ethan wonders, to smuggle an IED into the club? Sure; okay; far-fetched. But&;.hey; look around; far-fetched is where you have to be careful. Because far-fetched&;. is what carries the toxins. Always. This is not a world to entrust your knuckles to. Or your fingernails. Maybe especially your fingernails. Because you don't have to look far. Or fetched. For someone with a gun permit&;who's drinking Chopin, in a trattoria, to&;. It can be as innocent as wallpaper. As guilty as an anthrax-carrying puma.

"My dog died," Ethan announces to the club audience inappropriately.

"If I was your dog, I'd die," a drunk blurts.

"Frankie," Ethan says--naming his dog.

"Frankie &Johnnie," the drunk counters.

"He was my best friend," Ethan offers.

"Ten bucks says he was your only friend." The drunk's on a roll, he thinks.

"It's possible," Ethan says lamely.

"How close of a friend was he?" Now the drunk thinks he's the comedian.

"He was so close&;," Ethan begins. He clogs-salt phlegm. "So close&;." His ribcage ratchets. "So close&;.that&;.the two of us&;.." He can't finish the sentence.

For a split second, Ethan loses his thread. Are we in the past or present? He wonders. Tense. He can't remember his respiration-or the opening to the Declaration of Independence.

He feels he's forgotten how to breathe. Maybe it's the water-on the stage-table-maybe it's his lack of vigilance. Or virulence. Could be. Can be. Has it come-his lack--from&;.? Where?.... A Dasani bottle or just the tap-tiny sink in his dressing room?

Jesus, he needs to be more vigilant, visual, virtual, virtuous--more careful! Without knocking, a rogue word, any rogue word, can enter and-with no loyalty whatsoever-become systemic, begin touring the rooms of a person's brain. Furnished or unfurnished. Either. Both. Take, for instance, the word, Everglades- a word less than a hair's breadth away from&;.life & death, Troilus & Criseyde--so many other nouns and modifiers&;.specifically: being an anagram, almost-Everglades--for the word, reversible.

Okay; enough&;.enough, Ethan thinks&; I need to get rid of my head, out of it-back to the room, the interview. Still, he has the impulse to shout, shoot the word-Enough!-like ammunition, through his dressing-room window, because enough is never enough, when your mind shows up in sackcloth, like a beggar, pleading.

In a place with both mirrors and heating vents, there is sure to be desperation. Specialists measure this. Desperation and fear.

"Yeah; right; let's talk fear-okay? Order another beer, and talk fear. Let's have an adult one-on-one, heart-to-heart about-" Ethan marks and, again, re-marks his territory. "Let's have a no-holds-barred tete-a-tete confrontation with terror, spar a round or two with anxiety. Take on dispossession, insurrection, gluten-intolerance. Even agyrophobia: &;which is the fear of streets. Surgency and insurgency.

Do other people worry? Ethan wonders. Worry-worry, not just warehouse worry, that this country is being taken over? By underlings? &;From the Everglades? Probably it's a crock, or&;.possibly, an entire pestilence thereof. Still, these things happen. Yet--

Also-if the object, even objective, of the hour is facing-demons, Ethan's got to confess that he has worries about-no small thing-- sermons. Sermons make him...