Another Ordinary Guy - 9. Chapter 9

When the new album was released, Ricky was all over the map promoting it. He desperately missed not being on a stage, in front of live people, all cheering for him. He could have planned another concert tour, but things were much different than when he went on his last tour. He had Joey in his life now, and he couldn’t bear the separation. This short, intense promotional tour was hard enough on both of them. A concert tour would mean a long separation. It’s not like Joey could go with him. He was grinding away in law school, and Ricky respected his right to a career also.

Ricky determined to go back on the New York theater stage so he could stay home for a while. The idea hit him like a thunderbolt. He would compose a Broadway Musical that he could star in. He got so excited, he couldn’t wait to call Joey that evening to tell him about his plans.

“What’s the plot?” Joey asked.

“You’re way ahead of me. I haven’t even thought about it.”

“It will be a love story, won’t it?”

“I suppose. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl…the old formula tried and true.”

“How about boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy finds boy,” Joey said jokingly.

“Fat chance,” Ricky laughed, but when he hung up, and thought long and hard about it, he concluded that maybe the world was ready for a gay love story. There had been other gay love stories, but always as a sub-plot. This would be the main story line. The lovers would sing love songs to each other, and even have a dance number or two. It wouldn’t be a farce like La Cage, Ricky thought. He would make it genuine, real, tender and touching. The more he thought about it, the more excited he got.

He called Red to bounce the idea off of him. Good old steady Red, his first real gay friend, the guy who took his cherry, his mentor; he was always there to offer sage advice.

“I think Broadway might be ready,” Red mused. “Gay love is getting to be more and more open. I’ve even been thinking of staging Virginia Woolf as two gay couples, just to see how it goes. Think of it this way. There have been many musical flops, but if the music is good enough, the score survives, so it could be a win-win situation for you.”

Ricky considered Red’s comments to be semi-encouraging, and his excitement grew. He had trouble sleeping the next few evenings and that was a good thing. The plot came to him, not like a shot in the head, but as a slowly developing love story.

Scene I: A young man comes to the big apple to seek a career in the theater. He takes a room in a boarding house (do they still have those?) where he meets an older (better make that slightly older) man, who teaches drama at a local school. The mentor gives the young man acting lessons, hoping to seduce him. Seduction is successful. The young man is tired of being a virgin. Blackout.

The lessons would be accompanied by a pitter patter like duet and some easy choreography. The seduction would be sung by the mentor, along the lines of ‘Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets.’

Scene II: The young man is in a coffee shop. He is alone at the counter. He has a script in his hand and is studying it intently. He has an audition the next morning. The handsome young waiter lets him know that he needs to close the shop, and tells the young man that he must leave. He looks up and notices the waiter for the first time. He is smitten. The stage darkens, except for a spotlight on the young man. He sings a song about the awakening of love, along the lines of ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’ When the song is done, the stage is lit again. All the tables are cleaned off and the chairs are turned upside down on the tables. The waiter urges the young actor to please leave.

They have a conversation concerning where each lives. The waiter lives on campus. He is a law student.

I’ll see you tomorrow, the actor says.

I’d like that.

They leave the shop and go in separate directions. The young man reprieves his song of awakening. Blackout.

Scene III: The audition. The young man reads lines from the play, and impresses the director. The director is bored and blasé, but the actor arouses his interest. After, the young man reads his lines, the director asks him to read something else he hands him. It’s a passage from Virginia Woolf. As the actor reads the lines, his voice fades and the director sings a song to the same melody as the mentor’s seduction song, but with entirely different words, not nearly as tender and loving, rather on the raunchy side.

Ricky’s eyes grew heavy as the plot developed in his mind, and he fell asleep, but he knew just where he was going with the plot. The actor and the law student would fall in love. They would live happily ever after. There would have to be a few ruts in the road, like the director trying to seduce the young actor, and the law student getting the wrong idea, but all would be well in the end. Ricky vowed to write the most beautiful love duets, that he possibly could, for the lovers. He wondered if Red would consider doing the part of the ‘older’ man. Except on matinee days, he could still teach. An understudy could do the afternoon performance. Ricky was getting more and more excited. Tunes and lyrics were going through his brain faster than he could process them.

When he got home from promoting his album, he virtually locked himself in his studio when Joey was in school, and when he was studying. Joey studied as much as he could in the school’s library rather than at home. He wanted to disturb Ricky as little as possible. When Joey was home and free, Ricky stopped working. They never neglected each other or their needs.

When most of the score and lyrics were completed, Ricky engaged Red to help him with the book. Then one day, he invited Gary Cutler, the theatrical producer, to his studio for a preview of the show he was writing. Gary listened intently to the voice of Ricky Albert as expressed through his music. When Ricky concluded his demonstration, Gary looked confused.

“The words and the music are beautiful and moving,” he said, “but two guys, really? I don’t know if the world is ready for this stuff.”

“We’ll never know if we don’t try, Gary. Please take a giant step for mankind.”

“Ricky, baby, I have serious concerns, but I’ll tell you what. Many a musical opened off Broadway on a tight budget, in small theaters. They were successful and went on to full blown Broadway productions. We could test the waters in The Village, and see how it goes. At least the work would be seen and reviewed.”

Ricky gave Gary a crushing hug. “You’re very courageous,” he said.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think the score was mesmerizing. Are you sure you won’t change it to a boy and a girl.”

“I’m sure. The lyrics and the book would lose their impact.” Ricky thought about what Red had said about the dialogue of Virginia Woolf.

“OK then. We’ll give it a whirl.”

******

Ricky had to do a lot of begging to get Red to agree to perform as his mentor in the musical.

Ricky lassoed him in when he said, “I want it to be as realistic as possible. I don’t want people to say it’s a day dream, a fairy tale. Fight with me, Red. This is way more than a musical. We’re going to make a statement here.”

Ricky had never had a formal musical education, so he hired one of Broadway’s best to orchestrate his score. Sal Mercuri was excited by the story line. Most Broadway people were gay friendly, if they weren’t gay themselves.

“This should knock their socks, off,” he said. And he went right to work.

Ricky begged a little bit harder, and Red agreed to direct “the bloody thing.” Secretly he was flattered and excited, but he had to take a sabbatical, at least until the show opened. Now he could practice what he preached. The only skeptics were Larry, Arn and John. They were concerned that Ricky would lose his shirt. Whenever they could, Brett and Sven came to the little theater in The Village to watch rehearsals. They were rooting for the home team.

******

In the middle of rehearsal one day, Ricky got a call from his father. “Ricky, there has been a terrible tragedy. Randy was out all night drinking. Early in the morning, driving home, he plowed into a bunch of kids waiting for a school bus. Three of them died at the scene, and one died in the hospital. Six others are badly injured. One of the injured is your Uncle Pedro’s grand son, Johnny. The doctors think he’ll be alright, but he’s in for a lot of surgery and months of physical therapy. It’s terrible.”

“Thank God, Maria didn’t marry that murderer. I’ll come home this weekend, Papa, to visit with my cousins. I want to make sure that they don’t worry about medical expenses.”

“Yes, please, Ricky. That would be nice. Mama has been crying all morning. If she hasn’t heard yet, I’ll tell Maria when she gets home from the community college.”

That night when Ricky told Joey, he pounded the kitchen table and yelled, “I should have killed him when I had the chance. Oh God, please bless those innocent little children!”

“Calm down, honey. Let’s hope they put him away for a very long time.”

Joey broke out laughing. Ricky looked confused. “I’ll bet he gets plenty of action in prison,” Joey couldn’t stop chuckling.

******

Opening night was just a week off. Ricky’s ‘work from his heart’ was debuting in a small theater in Greenwich Village which seated about eighty-five people. Half the theater was reserved for critics, family and friends. The other half sold out in several minutes. Gary chose not to sell tickets beyond opening night…just in case. The orchestra was a modest three piece band plus a piano. When (if) the show got to Broadway, it would boast a full orchestra and lush orchestration.

The show opened to mixed reviews. All the critics praised the score and the acting, but the critics from the more conservative newspapers and radio stations found the book “offensive.”

Nevertheless, word got around, and the show sold out for the first six months. There was a great demand for tickets beyond that, but none had been printed. Instead, Gary decided to bring the musical to Broadway. He leaked the news to the NY Times, and they wrote an article exhibiting genuine excitement. Gary found a suitable venue. The current show was due to close shortly, and he rented it for, “A Different Kind of Love.”

This time the show opened on Broadway to unanimously rave reviews. The once skeptical critics had a change of heart after seeing how popular the musical was. In fact it was becoming a cult musical. Ricky was granting permission to groups across the country, and in England, to produce the show. The show was generating more royalties than he could imagine. He was keeping Arn Lindquist very, very busy.

Ricky had the option of playing the part of the actor for the run of the play, but he knew that eventually he would get bored and want to start another project, either another album or even another concert tour. He needed to do that to keep his blood pumping. Joey loved having Ricky around, but he was willing to face the fact that it was only a matter of time before he would have to give up his lover to his art, once again.

“That’s what happens when you marry a true artist,” he confided one evening to Brett and Sven.

“Don’t you worry that he’ll misbehave on the road?” Brett asked.

“I don’t worry about it at all. I expect that it has happened already, or it will happen sooner or later. But he’ll come home to me. We’re soul mates. We always have been, and we always will be.”

“What about you?” Sven asked, trusting that Joey would know what he meant.

“Ricky gives me permission every time he goes on the road. It hasn’t happened yet, but I never want to say never.”

“Thank God Sven and I are always together,” Brett piped in. “We haven’t had to face that dilemma, and I hope we never do.” He kissed Sven on the lips.

“Would you forgive each other if it happened?”

“No,” they answered in unison, giving Joey a momentary pang of guilt.

That night Joey waited up for Ricky to come home from the theater.

“Anybody call?” Ricky asked as he stripped to take a shower.

“Yeah, Larry. He wants you to call him tomorrow morning. He’s gotten more promoters wanting you to do a tour. He says they are making offers you shouldn’t refuse.”

“Never!” Ricky said.

Joey grabbed hold of the half naked Ricky, and wrapped his arms around him. “Dammit, Ricky, you know you are dying to do another tour, and I want you to do it. I don’t want to stand in your way. I promise to join you on the road at every opportunity. We can be together all summer. I’ll be your number one groupie,” he laughed.

“You’re an angel,” Ricky sighed. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“I’m the lucky one,” Joey said. He began to strip. “Let’s take a shower together, and if you don’t fuck me in the shower, I’ll never speak to you again.”

“Bullshit! I never met a lawyer yet that could keep his mouth shut.”

The love making began even before they stepped under the shower head.