“Go to his shows. Get him to meet you. Be where he can’t ignore you. And get him the part of a lifetime.”
“You just said…!”
“I know, but there are ways he’d never find out. You have a ton of money now. Buy a theater, buy a play, pack it full of the best of the best, and just move the people in charge to hire him.”
Benson’s head spun with the possibilities. “He’d hate me, and he’d find out.”
“Because you don’t lie well, but maybe you place it in a friend’s hands and…”
Benson nodded and said, “You.”
“Hey, I get lots of time off, being a professor. I could put something together in a month. In fact, there is this beautiful Christmas play I’ve had my eye on for a couple years, but shopping it around hasn’t been fruitful. I need the backing of a gazillionaire.”
“Said gazillionaire will…think about it. Anything that would make him hate me later, it hurts my heart, and that is insane, but…”
“You like him, like him. Like…more than a lay.”
“I’ve never even spoken to the man.”
“Whatever, just know that I’d grab him for this play, regardless. He’s truly an excellent actor. And he’d be at the top of my list whether or not you wanted him.”
“Let’s eat, and you can tell me about this play.”
Chapter Three
Ragingthroughhisapartment,he stopped to stare out of the one small window in the kitchen to see the brick wall that was across the alley.
He’d messed up that night not once, not twice, but three times, and the other cast members saw it.
He hated the play. Not that he didn’t want to ace comedies, as they were as important or more so than drama, but the play, all of it, was not what he wanted to do.
The plays of the nineteenth century, when theaters filled with people who’d never watched a television or movie, that was what he wanted. Those faces, seeing a man acting a part that made them believe he was that person…
Luka sat in his tiny living room, on his ten-dollar sofa, hating his life, hating the fact that he wasn’t living better. If only the right play, the perfect role, would come along, and he could live better, do better, he’d finally find what he’d searched for since he was a little kid eating ramen for every meal.
After lamenting his surroundings, he got to work. One voice in the lonely place sang out the lines of the play, over, and over again until he had it right.
“The brutality of the day is not that you sang that song, but it’s that you were so off key.”
He said it in every way he could, and once he found the speech pattern that did it justice, he said it a few dozen more times.
When he got to work the following day, he read the line in rehearsal and nailed it. The other cast members went along with their own lines, and he continued to keep his mind on track until rehearsal was over, and he headed to an audition.
He’d gotten an email from his old professor, Monty Quail. Luka was sure that was a fake name, probably made for him to act, which he did occasionally. Luka had considered changing his too, but he didn’t. His mother would have called him screeching if he had.
They met at the tiny theater on a corner in Hell’s Kitchen. The place was well traveled, sure, and close to a few of the better gay bars, but it was still a tiny theater nowhere near Broadway.
“Luka! How nice to see you again!”
Monty hugged him, and he stiffened, but he hugged back, a little. “Professor, nice to see you too.”
“Come in, please. I have a part that is just for you. I knew it the second I read the script. The perks of seeing all the up and coming actors, I must say.”
He entered the old building, smelling the scent of old wallpaper and dust as soon as the door closed.
Antique sconces lined the walls, but didn’t put out much light, and the red carpeting was worn and tattered.
“Professor…”
