Even the Orchestra is Beautiful
Title: Even the Orchestra is Beautiful
Author: lareinenoire
Play/Poem: Antony and Cleopatra
Recipient: likeadeuce
Rating: R
Summary: When Antony met Cleopatra, all hell broke loose. What else did you expect?
Warnings: Profanity, drunkenness, drug use, major character death, references to suicide, bad life choices, rampant musical theatre references, shameless backstage drama, backstabbing, an excess of eyeliner, itinerant conservatism, YouTube abuse, blackmail.
Author's Note: The fraternity depicted in this fic is my own creation, as are any political figures mentioned. Thanks to angevin2, gileonnen, and rosamund for beta-reading and encouragement.
Imagine, if you will, a stage.
Not a nice stage, just so you know. One of those black-painted dingy things with a scraggly curtain at the back and scuffs on the wood, the sort of stage a professional company wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole and then some.
A few lights that buzz if you leave them on too long and no sound booth to speak of. That's where I would be if it existed. Instead, I'm hanging out at the back of the audience with a flashlight between my teeth so I can see the lightboard. Good fucking times.
But, weirdly enough, that doesn't matter. Because this is something special. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the climax of the biggest political trainwreck since...well, you know all about it already. Pretend you don't. It's more fun that way.
It's a full house. Even the standing room is full. You wouldn't believe it for a dinky student production of Cabaret, but there it is. There are even reporters. Not to mention at least three separate private security details for the three honest-to-God members of Congress in the audience, crammed up against the teeming student population.
Bet they don't like that. Not that it's my problem. So long as the audience doesn't get in my way, I like to pretend they don't exist. Same with the actors, more or less.
There's a hush now, spreading across the audience. At the muttered command through my headphones, I bring down the house lights.
"It's showtime, fuckers."
I hear the orchestra's warm-up melting into the extended snare run that signals the opening number. Spotlight centre stage.
And there he is. He actually owned a tux before he took the part, which speaks volumes. Not that anyone on Capitol Hill would recognise Antony Markham now, the only staffer to survive the demise of Julian Kingston's Congressional career two years ago.
For one thing, he didn't wear eyeliner then.
***
I wasn't even supposed to be at auditions (as I've said before, I don't give a flying fuck about actors), but the director called in a favour, so there I was, sitting behind one of those plastic card tables, watching a bunch of people warble at me. It was pretty lame.
Then he walked in.
I knew who he was, obviously. Everybody did. Even in this age of short memories and fifteen seconds of YouTube fame, Antony Markham had transcended his sordid first encounter with the national press and become the unofficial poster boy for sexy, young would-be politicians. That wasn't the question. If we'd been auditioning for Hamlet, it might have made slightly more sense. Nobody who heard his speech at Kingston's Congressional hearing would have been surprised to see him standing on a stage and soliloquizing for four hours.
"Um." Beside me, Jeremy Mardian's eyes widened. "Is that...?"
"Yeah."
Leaning back in his chair, he surveyed Antony Markham through his fashionably thick-framed glasses. "You're probably the last person I'd have expected to see at a musical audition."
Antony Markham shrugged. He looked like a fucking Abercrombie model. If Abercrombie models believed in Saint Reagan and the free market. "I thought they were open to everyone."
"They are," said Jeremy warily. "It's just a surprise, that's all. Did you fill out the form?"
I leaned close to read it over his shoulder. No theatre experience to speak of after playing Drummond in his high school's production of Inherit the Wind (the irony made me snort), but if anyone knew how to hold an audience's attention, it was Antony fucking Markham.
"Right." Jeremy set down the paper. "I assume you have a song ready."
"Um." For the first time, he looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, I do. But I don't have any music."
"A capella, then."
I had to fight to keep from grinning. Surreptitiously, I flicked the 'record' button on my phone. This was going to be awesome.
In the end, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Jeremy was staring at him like he'd grown a second head.
"Wow. That...um." He scratched his head. "Right. We'll be sending out an e-mail tonight about callbacks. Thanks for auditioning, Antony."
"No problem," replied Antony.
It seemed to take forever for him to leave. The moment the door closed, all my breath rushed out in a whistle. "Holy fuck. Did you hear that?"
Jeremy nodded. "It's not fair, man. This has to be some sort of hoax. You know how the Alpha Omegas are."
"Sure."
After a few moments of staring into space, he looked down at his notes and sighed. "Do you think he'd even show up to callbacks?"
"Only one way to find out. Bet you a beer he bails."
You'd think this was the point at which the game changed, but you'd be wrong. It was at callbacks, where Antony did show up (and I ended up out of pocket $10 because Jeremy doesn't believe in cheap beer, an unfortunate trait for a grad student in Classics).
For the first time in my years of working lights, I was interested enough in an audition that I actually asked if I could sit in on callbacks. Jeremy was clearly working under the assumption that Antony wouldn't show, and you could practically see a lightbulb switch on inside his head when Antony strolled through the dingy doorway into the student union.
To his credit, Jeremy didn't hesitate half a second. Antony was paired off with a freshman who looked like she was about to orgasm on the spot.
You could have knocked me down with a feather.
***
He's got an impeccable German accent, all harsh, growled consonants beneath an otherwise breathy tenor. That was how he'd come within a mile of being considered for the MC. Then we remembered he'd gone with Kingston to Germany because he was fluent in it.
Now, we're not idiots. We knew there was far more to the MC than a German accent and anyone with half a brain would have expected Antony to fail miserably at everything else. How could he not fail?
Well. I maintain it wouldn't have happened but for one of those absolutely perfect coincidences that only happen in comic books and those romantic comedies that depend on twenty people doing twenty independent things and yet somehow all connecting up to form a perfect ending.
We'd cast Sally already. There was just no question. But we had two or three girls we were considering for the cabaret dancers all sing a verse from one of her songs. All but one of them chose the title song. Her name was Cleo.
She seemed to glow golden beneath the stage lights, black curls tumbling across her shoulders. When she looked at you, it was if she was daring you to imagine her in lingerie. But you'd be an idiot to try. That way madness lies.
So, naturally, she picked 'Maybe This Time.'
The thing about Cleo is that she's an entire galaxy unto herself. Or maybe a supernova. You can't take your eyes off her but you're way happier if she's on the other side of the universe. Her voice purred out across that junky little room and it was as if the whole world had suddenly stopped to listen in. And Antony Markham closed his ears to everything else.
She's onstage now, in some inexplicable concoction of leather and garters. All she does is wave to the audience--"Ze toast of Mayfair, Fraulein Sally Bowles"--and already you can't take your eyes off her. Off them. A look passed between them hot enough to singe the eyes. Siren calling to sailor, and sailor leaping into the waves to chase the most glorious thing he's ever seen.
No, I totally get why Antony did what he did.
That doesn't make it any less of a fucking disaster.
***
So I haven't introduced the third member of our triumvirate yet. That would be Octavian. His parents had no sense of humour.
You know how some people walk around with a stick up their asses? Octavian had a fucking sequoia. He was Congressman Kingston's nephew and Antony's best friend. Well, as much as a reptile could be anybody's best friend. He and Antony were always seen together but you never got the impression they really liked each other. More like they were allied conveniently but that given even the slightest provocation someone would wake up with a mouthful of Iocane powder.
He wore suits to class. That says enough.
And he's in the audience tonight, square-rimmed glasses glinting as the occasional spotlight catches them. He doesn't have an expression but that's because Octavian doesn't believe in expressions. If the mask slips, we might have to see the soul-sucking Chthonian hiding underneath. And then, meine damen und herren, we'd really be fucked.
Not to mention the fact that it would take away from Antony Markham miming some of the filthiest things I could imagine and then some while surrounded by scantily clad dancers and being felt up by a man in a dress. And that would be a tragedy.
The fact was that Antony and Octavian had been the Great White Hope. Young, charismatic (well, one of them), and with a delicious soupçon of scandal, they'd captured the country's imagination after Congressman Kingston plunged from the firmament when rumours surfaced that he'd been having affairs with two of his young male staffers.
I, for one, think Antony was telling the truth at that hearing. It's not a popular viewpoint in my circles, but he had always seemed genuinely torn up about the whole thing. But from the ashes of Congressman Kingston rose Antony, the young man who had told the entire news media that it was an inside job and got the two staffers who had brought up the charges thrown out of Washington pretty much for the rest of their lives. And with him, Octavian.
There was also the part where Antony was dating Octavian's sister.
Not that she stood a chance. She was one of those girls who wore perfectly matched twinsets to high school and wouldn't be caught dead without a string of pearls. She looked like Betty Fucking Draper. Which, if you follow the analogy, might actually just about describe what happened.
Because he cheated. No, he didn't just cheat. He defected.
***
You haven't lived until you've seen Octavian Kingston singing 'Livin' on a Prayer' at the top of his lungs while balancing a beer can on his head. Just think about it for a moment. See? You're already sad you missed it.
Antony had managed to tear himself away from the vortex of Cleo for Homecoming Week because that was what you did when you were one of the three guys in charge of Alpha Omega Psi and you didn't want them to tie you to a flagpole for being whipped. He even brought me along. That, I can't understand. Even though Antony himself told me it was because Cleo would inevitably end up slapping someone and Jeremy was too...well, not for this crowd.
"What, you think the pasted-on jeans and velvet jacket would give him away?"
He grimaced. "Pretty much. Trust me, you don't want to do that around these guys unless you're spoiling for a fight."
"And you brought me?" I was sort of wounded; I put a fair amount of effort into my caustic persona and it's disappointing when people don't notice it.
"I also brought Erin to keep you under control," he replied, and actually winked at me. I could have hit him but Erin was standing right there. She's been working sound almost as long as I've been working lights and we can practically communicate with our minds.
"What are we supposed to be doing?" I hissed at her. "Why are we even here?"
"Spying on the enemy." Erin had been raised Socialist. "Don't you realise we could totally ruin the career of every guy in this room?"
"Yes," I said. "And then they'd send the Secret Service after us and we'd never be seen again."
"But wouldn't it be kind of worth it?" I gave her a look that, I thought, spoke volumes but she didn't even do me the courtesy of responding, reaching surreptitiously for her phone in case anything incriminating presented itself.
We'd lost Antony within about thirty seconds of walking in and I decided the best use of my time was trying to find the secret stash of expensive booze that I knew had to be somewhere in this place. This was a frat way too full of legacies to subsist entirely on Natural Light.
One good thing about frat boys is that they're totally predictable. I walked into a room that flattered itself it was a library, filled with dust-covered books that hadn't been touched in years. They probably came with the house and some sort of proviso written into the lease and I recognised it as the place where they always held interviews. Douchebags.
But there, in a cabinet in the far corner, I found a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label. I kissed it, thanked God for the stupidity of frat boys, and was about to find a nice place for some alone time with Mr Walker when I heard the two voices outside the library door.
"This is your chance, you know. How often do you get all three of Alpha Omega's golden boys under the same roof, completely wasted?"
It took me a moment to recognise Melanie, one of Erin's friends from the student newspaper. Beside her was the student editor, Sam, who hated Octavian Kingston and his crowd with the same passion he reserved for people who did not use the Oxford comma or didn't watch their homophones, but was also the sort of person who preferred to keep his head down whenever possible. Still, he had far too much of a sense of self-preservation to openly offend the Alpha Omegas and their powerful alumni friends.
It was kind of a shame. Even I had to admit it. But I'm also very fond of my own skin and prefer to keep it attached to the rest of me.
"Mel, we're not the New York Times. If they can't take down the Unholy Trinity, who can?"
"Emil Leonard's downstairs with a lampshade on his head and Octavian Kingston's singing Bon Jovi. The only thing missing is Antony being whipped by that dominatrix he's got on the side. It's like they're asking for YouTube videos. I saw a girl downstairs doing just that. This could be big."
With someone like Antony, it's inevitable that everything he did would eventually go public. All it took was one photo, one person who recognised him from the side. And Cleo--what self-respecting tabloid editor would turn down a story that practically wrote itself?
But in the end it was Antony who blew his own cover. Aided and abetted by none other than yours truly.
***
I'd like to begin with a proviso: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Of course, when you're high as the driver of Willie Nelson's tour bus and drank your way through half a bottle of absinthe, all of a sudden making a music video sounds like a fucking brilliant idea.
When you wake up the next morning and find several thousand YouTube notifications in your inbox and the mother of all hangovers, you suddenly realise you've just pressed the giant red self-destruct button that you never in a thousand years thought you'd be stupid enough to press.
It was only as I watched the video unfold across my computer screen, Antony's face, lips red as those unnatural apples in grocery ads, making eyes at the camera, that I realised exactly what I'd committed myself to without even thinking about it. If you happen to be rich and alone and you need a companion, you can ring--ding a ling!--for the maid. It wasn't just the song. I mean, everyone had embarrassing nights out. It was the fact that everything was illustrated.
I don't know where Antony managed to find all the material he had, but it was epic. Doctored expense reports, bank statements, e-mails, complete with names--this wasn't so much a whistle-blowing as a fucking foghorn. All edited flawlessly into the song without a single thing redacted.
By the time we woke up, the video had gone viral. Antony watched what remained of his future go up in flames through a haze of weed and bourbon and Cleo. And I hid in Erin's mother's basement, completely convinced there would be armed CIA agents waiting for me in my apartment.
Unfortunately, I couldn't avoid the apartment forever. In fact, two days was about the limit since there's no reason my cat should suffer for my own stupidity. And maybe I just wanted to take some charge of my life for once.
I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that Octavian was waiting for me.
"Let's cut the bullshit. I could make your life a living hell without lifting a finger. Do you know how long it takes to settle a lawsuit for slander? I can guarantee your entire family will be bankrupt before the plaintiff feels even a slight squeeze." He smiled, hands shoved into the pockets of his suit, looking every inch the stereotypical comic book villain he aspired to be. "But I'm willing to lift a finger for you."
"If I take Antony down." It was so painfully obvious. Antony was their toxic asset and the sooner they were rid of him, the better. "You're a fucking reptile. Do you know that?"
The grin he gave me negated any need for an actual response.
"What do you want?" There wasn't anything wrong with listening to what he had in mind. It wasn't as though I owed Antony anything. Everyone knew tragedy had a kind of fucked-up gravity about it that made you watch in spite of yourself. "And why the hell do you think I can get it for you?"
"I want the killing blow."
I would love to say I threw him and his offer out on their asses. But I'm no hero and I don't even mean that in the eventually ironic way that Rick Blaine does. Some of us just aren't meant to become legends.
***
And that brings us to opening night.
We have no troubles here. Here, life is beautiful. The girls are beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful.
And you can go home at the end of the night, to your own life. And you can see the newspaper headlines the next morning--Grad student dies of drug overdose in dressing room after brilliant opening night performance; Boy wunderkind Anthony Markham arrested after drunk-driving accident. It's all so grand and over-the-top, but you can't look away.
Cleo brought down the house. And Antony carved himself up as a dish fit for the gods in the way you can only do if you've got nothing left to lose and think you might as well tell the world to go fuck itself.
And as for me? I watched. Because that is what you do when you're faced with an exploding star and you're just far enough to be safe. You watch and you wonder and you thank every minute speck of good sense that kept you out of the eye of that storm.
They found Cleo's cellphone beside her body in that dressing room. On it was a message from a week ago, one of those exuberant drunk-dials that you can only make to your significant other or your best friend. Oh, baby, you have no idea how badly the shit is about to hit the fan. And my own voice in the background, giggling like a maniac. Viva la revolucion!
The worst part is that I remember everything that happened that night, including the elation. The kind of high no drug can reproduce when you're standing on the edge of something that could rip you to shreds and you realise you just don't care.
But that was their story. I'm just the one who lived to tell it.
Author: lareinenoire
Play/Poem: Antony and Cleopatra
Recipient: likeadeuce
Rating: R
Summary: When Antony met Cleopatra, all hell broke loose. What else did you expect?
Warnings: Profanity, drunkenness, drug use, major character death, references to suicide, bad life choices, rampant musical theatre references, shameless backstage drama, backstabbing, an excess of eyeliner, itinerant conservatism, YouTube abuse, blackmail.
Author's Note: The fraternity depicted in this fic is my own creation, as are any political figures mentioned. Thanks to angevin2, gileonnen, and rosamund for beta-reading and encouragement.
Imagine, if you will, a stage.
Not a nice stage, just so you know. One of those black-painted dingy things with a scraggly curtain at the back and scuffs on the wood, the sort of stage a professional company wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole and then some.
A few lights that buzz if you leave them on too long and no sound booth to speak of. That's where I would be if it existed. Instead, I'm hanging out at the back of the audience with a flashlight between my teeth so I can see the lightboard. Good fucking times.
But, weirdly enough, that doesn't matter. Because this is something special. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the climax of the biggest political trainwreck since...well, you know all about it already. Pretend you don't. It's more fun that way.
It's a full house. Even the standing room is full. You wouldn't believe it for a dinky student production of Cabaret, but there it is. There are even reporters. Not to mention at least three separate private security details for the three honest-to-God members of Congress in the audience, crammed up against the teeming student population.
Bet they don't like that. Not that it's my problem. So long as the audience doesn't get in my way, I like to pretend they don't exist. Same with the actors, more or less.
There's a hush now, spreading across the audience. At the muttered command through my headphones, I bring down the house lights.
"It's showtime, fuckers."
I hear the orchestra's warm-up melting into the extended snare run that signals the opening number. Spotlight centre stage.
And there he is. He actually owned a tux before he took the part, which speaks volumes. Not that anyone on Capitol Hill would recognise Antony Markham now, the only staffer to survive the demise of Julian Kingston's Congressional career two years ago.
For one thing, he didn't wear eyeliner then.
***
I wasn't even supposed to be at auditions (as I've said before, I don't give a flying fuck about actors), but the director called in a favour, so there I was, sitting behind one of those plastic card tables, watching a bunch of people warble at me. It was pretty lame.
Then he walked in.
I knew who he was, obviously. Everybody did. Even in this age of short memories and fifteen seconds of YouTube fame, Antony Markham had transcended his sordid first encounter with the national press and become the unofficial poster boy for sexy, young would-be politicians. That wasn't the question. If we'd been auditioning for Hamlet, it might have made slightly more sense. Nobody who heard his speech at Kingston's Congressional hearing would have been surprised to see him standing on a stage and soliloquizing for four hours.
"Um." Beside me, Jeremy Mardian's eyes widened. "Is that...?"
"Yeah."
Leaning back in his chair, he surveyed Antony Markham through his fashionably thick-framed glasses. "You're probably the last person I'd have expected to see at a musical audition."
Antony Markham shrugged. He looked like a fucking Abercrombie model. If Abercrombie models believed in Saint Reagan and the free market. "I thought they were open to everyone."
"They are," said Jeremy warily. "It's just a surprise, that's all. Did you fill out the form?"
I leaned close to read it over his shoulder. No theatre experience to speak of after playing Drummond in his high school's production of Inherit the Wind (the irony made me snort), but if anyone knew how to hold an audience's attention, it was Antony fucking Markham.
"Right." Jeremy set down the paper. "I assume you have a song ready."
"Um." For the first time, he looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, I do. But I don't have any music."
"A capella, then."
I had to fight to keep from grinning. Surreptitiously, I flicked the 'record' button on my phone. This was going to be awesome.
In the end, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Jeremy was staring at him like he'd grown a second head.
"Wow. That...um." He scratched his head. "Right. We'll be sending out an e-mail tonight about callbacks. Thanks for auditioning, Antony."
"No problem," replied Antony.
It seemed to take forever for him to leave. The moment the door closed, all my breath rushed out in a whistle. "Holy fuck. Did you hear that?"
Jeremy nodded. "It's not fair, man. This has to be some sort of hoax. You know how the Alpha Omegas are."
"Sure."
After a few moments of staring into space, he looked down at his notes and sighed. "Do you think he'd even show up to callbacks?"
"Only one way to find out. Bet you a beer he bails."
You'd think this was the point at which the game changed, but you'd be wrong. It was at callbacks, where Antony did show up (and I ended up out of pocket $10 because Jeremy doesn't believe in cheap beer, an unfortunate trait for a grad student in Classics).
For the first time in my years of working lights, I was interested enough in an audition that I actually asked if I could sit in on callbacks. Jeremy was clearly working under the assumption that Antony wouldn't show, and you could practically see a lightbulb switch on inside his head when Antony strolled through the dingy doorway into the student union.
To his credit, Jeremy didn't hesitate half a second. Antony was paired off with a freshman who looked like she was about to orgasm on the spot.
You could have knocked me down with a feather.
***
He's got an impeccable German accent, all harsh, growled consonants beneath an otherwise breathy tenor. That was how he'd come within a mile of being considered for the MC. Then we remembered he'd gone with Kingston to Germany because he was fluent in it.
Now, we're not idiots. We knew there was far more to the MC than a German accent and anyone with half a brain would have expected Antony to fail miserably at everything else. How could he not fail?
Well. I maintain it wouldn't have happened but for one of those absolutely perfect coincidences that only happen in comic books and those romantic comedies that depend on twenty people doing twenty independent things and yet somehow all connecting up to form a perfect ending.
We'd cast Sally already. There was just no question. But we had two or three girls we were considering for the cabaret dancers all sing a verse from one of her songs. All but one of them chose the title song. Her name was Cleo.
She seemed to glow golden beneath the stage lights, black curls tumbling across her shoulders. When she looked at you, it was if she was daring you to imagine her in lingerie. But you'd be an idiot to try. That way madness lies.
So, naturally, she picked 'Maybe This Time.'
The thing about Cleo is that she's an entire galaxy unto herself. Or maybe a supernova. You can't take your eyes off her but you're way happier if she's on the other side of the universe. Her voice purred out across that junky little room and it was as if the whole world had suddenly stopped to listen in. And Antony Markham closed his ears to everything else.
She's onstage now, in some inexplicable concoction of leather and garters. All she does is wave to the audience--"Ze toast of Mayfair, Fraulein Sally Bowles"--and already you can't take your eyes off her. Off them. A look passed between them hot enough to singe the eyes. Siren calling to sailor, and sailor leaping into the waves to chase the most glorious thing he's ever seen.
No, I totally get why Antony did what he did.
That doesn't make it any less of a fucking disaster.
***
So I haven't introduced the third member of our triumvirate yet. That would be Octavian. His parents had no sense of humour.
You know how some people walk around with a stick up their asses? Octavian had a fucking sequoia. He was Congressman Kingston's nephew and Antony's best friend. Well, as much as a reptile could be anybody's best friend. He and Antony were always seen together but you never got the impression they really liked each other. More like they were allied conveniently but that given even the slightest provocation someone would wake up with a mouthful of Iocane powder.
He wore suits to class. That says enough.
And he's in the audience tonight, square-rimmed glasses glinting as the occasional spotlight catches them. He doesn't have an expression but that's because Octavian doesn't believe in expressions. If the mask slips, we might have to see the soul-sucking Chthonian hiding underneath. And then, meine damen und herren, we'd really be fucked.
Not to mention the fact that it would take away from Antony Markham miming some of the filthiest things I could imagine and then some while surrounded by scantily clad dancers and being felt up by a man in a dress. And that would be a tragedy.
The fact was that Antony and Octavian had been the Great White Hope. Young, charismatic (well, one of them), and with a delicious soupçon of scandal, they'd captured the country's imagination after Congressman Kingston plunged from the firmament when rumours surfaced that he'd been having affairs with two of his young male staffers.
I, for one, think Antony was telling the truth at that hearing. It's not a popular viewpoint in my circles, but he had always seemed genuinely torn up about the whole thing. But from the ashes of Congressman Kingston rose Antony, the young man who had told the entire news media that it was an inside job and got the two staffers who had brought up the charges thrown out of Washington pretty much for the rest of their lives. And with him, Octavian.
There was also the part where Antony was dating Octavian's sister.
Not that she stood a chance. She was one of those girls who wore perfectly matched twinsets to high school and wouldn't be caught dead without a string of pearls. She looked like Betty Fucking Draper. Which, if you follow the analogy, might actually just about describe what happened.
Because he cheated. No, he didn't just cheat. He defected.
***
You haven't lived until you've seen Octavian Kingston singing 'Livin' on a Prayer' at the top of his lungs while balancing a beer can on his head. Just think about it for a moment. See? You're already sad you missed it.
Antony had managed to tear himself away from the vortex of Cleo for Homecoming Week because that was what you did when you were one of the three guys in charge of Alpha Omega Psi and you didn't want them to tie you to a flagpole for being whipped. He even brought me along. That, I can't understand. Even though Antony himself told me it was because Cleo would inevitably end up slapping someone and Jeremy was too...well, not for this crowd.
"What, you think the pasted-on jeans and velvet jacket would give him away?"
He grimaced. "Pretty much. Trust me, you don't want to do that around these guys unless you're spoiling for a fight."
"And you brought me?" I was sort of wounded; I put a fair amount of effort into my caustic persona and it's disappointing when people don't notice it.
"I also brought Erin to keep you under control," he replied, and actually winked at me. I could have hit him but Erin was standing right there. She's been working sound almost as long as I've been working lights and we can practically communicate with our minds.
"What are we supposed to be doing?" I hissed at her. "Why are we even here?"
"Spying on the enemy." Erin had been raised Socialist. "Don't you realise we could totally ruin the career of every guy in this room?"
"Yes," I said. "And then they'd send the Secret Service after us and we'd never be seen again."
"But wouldn't it be kind of worth it?" I gave her a look that, I thought, spoke volumes but she didn't even do me the courtesy of responding, reaching surreptitiously for her phone in case anything incriminating presented itself.
We'd lost Antony within about thirty seconds of walking in and I decided the best use of my time was trying to find the secret stash of expensive booze that I knew had to be somewhere in this place. This was a frat way too full of legacies to subsist entirely on Natural Light.
One good thing about frat boys is that they're totally predictable. I walked into a room that flattered itself it was a library, filled with dust-covered books that hadn't been touched in years. They probably came with the house and some sort of proviso written into the lease and I recognised it as the place where they always held interviews. Douchebags.
But there, in a cabinet in the far corner, I found a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label. I kissed it, thanked God for the stupidity of frat boys, and was about to find a nice place for some alone time with Mr Walker when I heard the two voices outside the library door.
"This is your chance, you know. How often do you get all three of Alpha Omega's golden boys under the same roof, completely wasted?"
It took me a moment to recognise Melanie, one of Erin's friends from the student newspaper. Beside her was the student editor, Sam, who hated Octavian Kingston and his crowd with the same passion he reserved for people who did not use the Oxford comma or didn't watch their homophones, but was also the sort of person who preferred to keep his head down whenever possible. Still, he had far too much of a sense of self-preservation to openly offend the Alpha Omegas and their powerful alumni friends.
It was kind of a shame. Even I had to admit it. But I'm also very fond of my own skin and prefer to keep it attached to the rest of me.
"Mel, we're not the New York Times. If they can't take down the Unholy Trinity, who can?"
"Emil Leonard's downstairs with a lampshade on his head and Octavian Kingston's singing Bon Jovi. The only thing missing is Antony being whipped by that dominatrix he's got on the side. It's like they're asking for YouTube videos. I saw a girl downstairs doing just that. This could be big."
With someone like Antony, it's inevitable that everything he did would eventually go public. All it took was one photo, one person who recognised him from the side. And Cleo--what self-respecting tabloid editor would turn down a story that practically wrote itself?
But in the end it was Antony who blew his own cover. Aided and abetted by none other than yours truly.
***
I'd like to begin with a proviso: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Of course, when you're high as the driver of Willie Nelson's tour bus and drank your way through half a bottle of absinthe, all of a sudden making a music video sounds like a fucking brilliant idea.
When you wake up the next morning and find several thousand YouTube notifications in your inbox and the mother of all hangovers, you suddenly realise you've just pressed the giant red self-destruct button that you never in a thousand years thought you'd be stupid enough to press.
It was only as I watched the video unfold across my computer screen, Antony's face, lips red as those unnatural apples in grocery ads, making eyes at the camera, that I realised exactly what I'd committed myself to without even thinking about it. If you happen to be rich and alone and you need a companion, you can ring--ding a ling!--for the maid. It wasn't just the song. I mean, everyone had embarrassing nights out. It was the fact that everything was illustrated.
I don't know where Antony managed to find all the material he had, but it was epic. Doctored expense reports, bank statements, e-mails, complete with names--this wasn't so much a whistle-blowing as a fucking foghorn. All edited flawlessly into the song without a single thing redacted.
By the time we woke up, the video had gone viral. Antony watched what remained of his future go up in flames through a haze of weed and bourbon and Cleo. And I hid in Erin's mother's basement, completely convinced there would be armed CIA agents waiting for me in my apartment.
Unfortunately, I couldn't avoid the apartment forever. In fact, two days was about the limit since there's no reason my cat should suffer for my own stupidity. And maybe I just wanted to take some charge of my life for once.
I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that Octavian was waiting for me.
"Let's cut the bullshit. I could make your life a living hell without lifting a finger. Do you know how long it takes to settle a lawsuit for slander? I can guarantee your entire family will be bankrupt before the plaintiff feels even a slight squeeze." He smiled, hands shoved into the pockets of his suit, looking every inch the stereotypical comic book villain he aspired to be. "But I'm willing to lift a finger for you."
"If I take Antony down." It was so painfully obvious. Antony was their toxic asset and the sooner they were rid of him, the better. "You're a fucking reptile. Do you know that?"
The grin he gave me negated any need for an actual response.
"What do you want?" There wasn't anything wrong with listening to what he had in mind. It wasn't as though I owed Antony anything. Everyone knew tragedy had a kind of fucked-up gravity about it that made you watch in spite of yourself. "And why the hell do you think I can get it for you?"
"I want the killing blow."
I would love to say I threw him and his offer out on their asses. But I'm no hero and I don't even mean that in the eventually ironic way that Rick Blaine does. Some of us just aren't meant to become legends.
***
And that brings us to opening night.
We have no troubles here. Here, life is beautiful. The girls are beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful.
And you can go home at the end of the night, to your own life. And you can see the newspaper headlines the next morning--Grad student dies of drug overdose in dressing room after brilliant opening night performance; Boy wunderkind Anthony Markham arrested after drunk-driving accident. It's all so grand and over-the-top, but you can't look away.
Cleo brought down the house. And Antony carved himself up as a dish fit for the gods in the way you can only do if you've got nothing left to lose and think you might as well tell the world to go fuck itself.
And as for me? I watched. Because that is what you do when you're faced with an exploding star and you're just far enough to be safe. You watch and you wonder and you thank every minute speck of good sense that kept you out of the eye of that storm.
They found Cleo's cellphone beside her body in that dressing room. On it was a message from a week ago, one of those exuberant drunk-dials that you can only make to your significant other or your best friend. Oh, baby, you have no idea how badly the shit is about to hit the fan. And my own voice in the background, giggling like a maniac. Viva la revolucion!
The worst part is that I remember everything that happened that night, including the elation. The kind of high no drug can reproduce when you're standing on the edge of something that could rip you to shreds and you realise you just don't care.
But that was their story. I'm just the one who lived to tell it.