Oryon had his own henchman, but since Oryon was a good guy, his henchman was cute and tiny and named “Zephyr.” Zephyr was played by a grade eight kid whose voice hadn’t changed yet, Marvin Hollander.
It was never clear if anyone else lived in either of these dimensions, or what exactly Oryon and Santar were fighting about beyond the nature of good and evil, but chasing after Lisa Jorgensen in low-cut bondage-wear made at least as much sense as sending an army of flying monkeys after a used pair of shoes.
If Randy had worked out more of the mythology of Medemptia he hadn’t told anyone, but it really didn’t matter. The story was just an excuse for him to perform every illusion he owned, Jacko’s sold, or he and Norman could build. There were escapes, vanishes, transformations and lots of flashy flash pots that Randy and Norman had strategically placed all over the stage. Kyle and Randy were even equipped with fire-shooters—little hand-held gizmos that looked like Spider-Man’s original web-shooters, except these things spewed flash paper about a half-dozen feet across the stage before they burst into balls of flame. The shooters cost about ten bucks apiece and the flames they launched were so impressive that years later Andrew Lloyd Webber put pretty much the same trick in The Phantom of the Opera, using the Phantom’s cane to shoot the flames. That ten-buck trick scored the biggest oohs and ahs of the show outside of the falling chandelier.
Kyle and Randy loved practising with the fireshooters. Norman loved setting off flash pots. Lisa loved going outside to smoke.
In the script, Santar was always wearing a helmet. This was in the midst of Star Wars mania—and that meant every proper villain wore a helmet like Darth Vader. But Randy hadn’t modelled Santar after Vader—the inspiration was the original man in the iron mask … Dr. Victor von Doom, arch-nemesis of Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four, and the hereditary king of Latveria.
Kyle had read Randy’s script and loved the idea of playing the villain. He loved the idea of learning magic. And he loved the idea of acting in a show for a real audience—and getting a cut of the ticket sales. But he wasn’t remotely keen on wearing a plastic helmet. “I can’t see through it,” he announced at the first rehearsal. So Norman carved the plastic again and made wider eyeholes.
“It’s not comfortable,” said Kyle. “What if I only wear it for battle?” Kyle suggested.
“But your face is supposed to be mutilated,” said Randy.
“If I wear makeup under this it’ll smear all over the place when I take off the helmet,” said Kyle. “Maybe if we had a designer helmet …”
“It’d cost like,” Norman pulled a number out of thin air, “a hundred bucks to do a designer helmet.”
“We can’t afford a hundred dollars,” said Randy.
So Randy agreed that Kyle would just wear the helmet for battles.
Then, during a rehearsal, Kyle pulled off the helmet after a battle scene and Lisa, Randy, Norman and especially Barry laughed. Kyle had a terminal case of helmet head. Kyle was not amused. “I’m an actor,” he said, as if this explained everything. “I’m not wearing this.” Kyle eventually calmed himself and his hair down and everyone stopped laughing—except Barry.
Kyle wasn’t amused. “Barry!”
“We have to do it again,” said Randy.
“Sorry,” said Barry. And he went back to laughing.
Kyle tossed his helmet off the stage. “I can’t do this.” Then Kyle followed the helmet and Randy followed Kyle. As Randy chased Kyle offstage, Barry’s laughter grew into snorts.
“He’s stoned,” said Kyle.
“He’ll be fine.”
“He’ll laugh during the show. I thought you wanted to do something professional. If you don’t want this to be good …”
Randy couldn’t believe it. Was Kyle threatening to quit? It sounded like he was threatening to quit. “It’s gonna be good.”
Kyle looked back at the stage. Barry was doubled over now. Howling. “Not with him.”
That’s when the laughter stopped and they realized Barry had been sort of, almost, kind of listening. “This is bullshit,” said Barry. Then he yanked off a clump of his fake beard. “Total bullshit.”
“You’ve got to wear it,” said Randy.
“I don’t got to do anything.”
Randy only hesitated a moment. “You do if you want to be in the show.”
Barry couldn’t believe it. He didn’t care, but he still couldn’t believe it. “You firing me?” Before Randy could respond, Barry started laughing again.
And even though he’d never seen her, the image of Norman’s cousin Jane the promoter flashed before Randy’s eyes as he answered, “Yeah.”
“Cool,” said Barry. He started laughing again as he shuffled out the back door and changed my life.
5
The Naja Haje
I hated the JCC. It was where I discovered I couldn’t swim—at least not without glasses. And since I wasn’t allowed to wear glasses in the water, I couldn’t swim. It was where I joined the Cub Scouts and was forced to wear khaki shorts and a green Cub Scout cap that made me look like a lost Christmas elf. My only memory of Scouts, before I went home vowing I’d never go back, was running away from Lenny Levitt, who had caught me, punched me and stolen my only merit badge. I think my badge was for something seriously macho like … comic collecting.
Then there was a very non-Jewish Halloween festival where my younger brother, David, and I were blindfolded and led through a section of the varnish-scented auditorium where people howled and moaned and we had to stick our hands into bowls of cold pasta and peeled grapes that some older kid told us were entrails and eyeballs. David was scared. I might have been too—but I was pretty sure no one was going to let high school kids get their hands on entrails and eyeballs.
So I’d never been fond of the JCC—or the auditorium—which was a shame since it was only a dozen doors down the alley from my house. But Sarah was taking a Hebrew class after school at the JCC and since she knew I lived nearby we walked there together. She went to her class and I walked by the auditorium to get to the exit closest to home. That’s when I heard Randy shout, “The blood bag didn’t break. Again.”
“Sorry, man,” said Norman.
“This is a joke,” said Kyle. “We don’t even have an Adoma anymore and we open in a week.”
And that’s when I poked my head in the auditorium door and saw Lisa in her demon-spawn harem outfit. Princess Leia was still a few months away from appearing on screen in her chain-mail bikini. The most risqué thing anyone had ever seen in pop culture was a photo of Farrah Fawcett in a one-piece red bathing suit where you could see how cold it was when the photo was taken. This was definitely a more innocent age. “Hey,” I said.
Lisa nodded in my direction and kept walking.
“Hey,” said Kyle.
“Mark, right?” asked Randy.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Randy. “We’re doing a show.”
“Maybe,” said Kyle.
Randy flinched, then recovered. “We’re doing a magic show.”
“I don’t remember Kendini teaching us about guillotines.”