The Brandywine Prophet

11.4 The Chorus Room

Monday: fourteen days to the National Championship

(Three days in. Dizziness. Headaches. Confusion. Brown urine inspected by candlelight in the private-most recess of the room. William’s conscious mind censored the naughty hypotheticals, but his “way-down-deep” relished the punishment’s possibilities. If he removed the two--maybe three--partial bottles of soda-pop from the chorus room before lock-down, the symptoms might have arrived sooner; four days without water would kill a man.)

Janie returned Monday evening with her usual stories of Uncle Rick’s cheesy magic tricks and the pull-out couch that squeaked when she tried to get comfortable. “The kids hate it when I practice,” she said. “The only wood floor is in the kitchen and it’s right above their room.”

“How was Kayla in class on Friday?” he asked.

“A mess. Did Hyde really leave?”

“I watched him load the car and drive off.”

“Couldn’t you do something? After everything we saw him say and do?”

“His time will come.”

“What happened to your cheek?”

“Got into a fight with the chorus-room door.”

“You need to watch yourself. Bend down.” She tugged his lapel and he obeyed. She kissed the bruise.

Several days ago, William and Janie used the laptop and microphone to record a temporary track of his new song on the busted piano. The beats and tempo were as they would be in the final version, but Will needed more time to perfect the details.

Janie used the new temp track to practice her championship routine for eight hours per day. Sometimes she practiced with her dad, sometimes with internet videos; sometimes she locked herself in her bedroom and William could hear his melody again and again and it never got old.

“Do you think I’ll win?” she asked.

“If you work hard,” he said.

“Even with all those dancers from all over the country?”

“You’re gifted. You’re determined. You’re a Carmel. That’s a deadly combination.”

(Four days in. William knew this was a different game... not like before when all eyes were on him as he constructed the ark, bringing the animals two by two. This was an internal game; a game of patience and daring where the prize was a jet engine in his chest, a self-important narcissism that boldly stated “look what I can do!” to no one but himself, lifting his ego to new heights and damning those who followed simplified morality. William Carmel was a creative being! This is what creative beings do! Writers, directors, singers, dancers, actors... they internalize darkness and output beauty. Hyde’s trip to the chorus room was inspired. Necessary. Empowering. If William had the mental and emotional capacity to hide a living man, ignoring the imagined pleas for food and drink, letting him rot in stinking silence like Sarah’s leftover beef in the fridge; if William could do that, he could do anything.)

Once again, it was the business end of theater-ownership that left him in the dumps. He spent hours at a real desk in his real house, squinting at the phonebook’s fine print under light from an ordinary lamp. He spoke with a dozen rental companies and nobody in a fifty-mile radius had enough pop-up tents to house eight-hundred costume-changing dancers. He still had to determine the spacing around the fence, split the massive order between the rental houses, budget the individual delivery fees...

And tents were only the beginning. Every changing room required an extension cord, power strip, work light and sandbags, as well as five body-length mirrors, twenty folding chairs and two tables.