The Brandywine Prophet

7.1 Marionette Strings

CHAPTER SEVEN

MARRIONETTE STRINGS

August

The last profitable show of summer ended the second week of August. The singer was some local guy that Will never heard of, but his appearance on American Idol made him a Michigan hero and filled every seat in the theater. The artist was known for his combined singing, writing, and piano-playing talent, and the show exhibited his abilities exquisitely.

For the first time since opening night, Will hired outside help to oversee the event’s preparations. He stayed home during the piano-man’s performances and blocked out every insulting note with the hard plastic of Janie’s earphones.

Will had nightmares about his theater in the profitless months that followed. He dreamt the stage was like his left hand; a healthy extension of his body with performance-art as its lifeblood. When children danced and women sang, the stage thrived. But when the curtains were closed for extended periods of time, blood circulation slowed and the hardwood floor became like stagnant living tissue deprived of oxygen; blue and purple splotches with webs of visible veins. Arteries reopened in the form of church services and movie nights, but the relief was temporary and, when the events were over, the flecked purple dots turned grey. A thunderstorm at the end of July cancelled one service and stopping the blood supply for a full week. Will imagined veins of wrinkled death creeping up the green curtain and turning it black. Sepsis set in when the theater’s dried skin spawned living bacteria and the wood warped and swelled in an attempt to rid itself of the infection. Gangrene would take over completely, infecting not just the theater’s flesh, but the inside mechanisms required for production. The plastic seats grew bubbles of red infected puss and popped black. Swarming bacteria fed on the catwalk, spotlights, and fly system like piranhas on a bathing zebra.

It was fear of the smell that kept Will home in those stagnant months. In the hour before his surgery, his hand reeked of burning human waste. He stretched his bubbling fingers as far from his face as the gurney straps allowed and twisted his head and nose in disgust, but the smell was inescapable. Now he gagged at the thought of that oozing stage. 

If the theater was truly as putrid as he imagined, there would be no saving it. The sharp edge of a scalpel would cut the infection out (it worked on his fingers!) but surgery had to be done soon; if the bacteria escaped and descended the hill, the whole city would be at risk.

The wet gangrene put an end to Will’s Week of Creative Freedom and put a halt to his plan to win back his wife. He tried to resume work after his recuperation, and even asked Sarah to keep his writing setup in the living room. But as much as he danced between the piano and typewriter and cork-board and notes, the magic never returned. A week ago, Sarah pulled down all thirty-six completed pages from the window and dropped the stack on Will’s nightstand. If she scanned any portion of the script, she didn’t expound.

The infection that ate Will’s hand did not devour his theater. In late August, he finally braved the trek up the hill and prepared to shield his eyes from the horror, but there was no decay. In fact, nothing had changed since the last time he visited. The building just seemed... lonely.

Will ran the remaining third of his palm along the front of the stage, then patted the wood like one might pet a horse. “You’re holdin’ up better than me, old friend,” he said.

The circuit breaker for the chorus room was kept off to save electricity, so Will grabbed a flashlight from the storage closet and moved in. The defined beam of light cut through the sawdust atmosphere like deep-sea footage of the Titanic.

The chorus room was the belly of the theater now; eating and digesting remnants from the shows. Will’s light traced the scattered objects: a box of Sparkle Motion programs, a single tap shoe, shattered glass from a vanity bulb. A headless mannequin displayed a forgotten dress from the production of Madame Butterfly and church programs tiled the floor and caught themselves between mirrors. Posters from every concert and play were signed “To Will” by the performers and leaned in banded rolls against the brick.