Friendships Like Flowers

Friendships Like Flowers                            by E. Ray Morse

         John Herlihy stood at the edge of the stage, the only sign of human life at the off-off-Broadway venue, the Vineyard Theater. Onstage, a single Ghost Light illuminated Herlihy’s lean body, casting a shadow with hands in pockets and a steady straight mid-Western posture. Glancing down and out at the empty, burgundy-colored seats, Herlihy drew in a deep breath. The stale flavor of lamp-heated dust and stage make-up traveled through his nostrils and into his mouth. He loved it.

He loved all of it in the lead-up to the previous evening’s opening night of his first produced play, Temperature Gauge: the sweat and handwringing, the painstaking rehearsals with chattering off-stage between Herlihy and his play’s director, Calvin Morley, and their constant discussions on what was working during rehearsal and what was not. Herlihy did not have a dime to show for it. For his three-and-a-half years of studying and apprenticing under stalwart theater teacher and playwright Peter Traynor, for hustling amongst the underground theater elite, for all the steps he took to get to the Vineyard Theater the morning after opening night, there were scant financial rewards along his path. But he loved it.

Staring out into the rows of empty seats and picturing how they were filled to near capacity the night before, he did not give money another thought. Just fifteen hours previous, his written words were in actors’ mouths and butts were in the seats. These seats held a paying audience last night, he marveled. An audience paid their own money to see my play.

It was real.

Finally, after months and months of working on his play with his mentor and friend, Peter Traynor, after all the late-night coffee-infused sessions of writing and consulting with Peter, it was real. After all his visits to Peter’s apartment and phone conversations with Peter advising Herlihy on everything from style (“Please, oh please, Johnny, stop wearing that wretched grey wool tweed ivy cap…you look like a pretentious golfer…”) and social circles (“Don’t listen to any of these so-called theater people…they don’t know anything…”), it was real. And after Peter attending, under duress, one of Herlihy’s dress rehearsals and giving him notes under the director’s nose, notes leading to more protracted discussions and rewriting and recasting, it was real.

Gazing into the Vineyard Theater’s abandoned audience from the now-vacant stage, Herlihy recognized what it meant to author a produced play. There was no disputing that Temperature Gauge, his heartfelt expression of young male existential angst, had opened.

         His cell phone timer buzzed. 11:40 am. The night before, Herlihy programmed his alarm to ring when the newspapers and local theater publications hit the newsstands two blocks from Peter Traynor’s apartment, the published make-or-break barometers of Temperature Gauge’s opening night critical reception.

As Herlihy turned off the alarm, Peter’s foreboding voice came to him: “Don’t read your reviews, luv. They will just screw you up. For years I read my reviews. So much vitriol, so much poison. I have no stomach for it anymore. I simply cannot do it.”

         I have the stomach for it, Herlihy told himself. He was not without some trepidation, not without doubt that reading opening night reviews for his first produced play would “screw you up.” But Herlihy resolved to do it anyway. He needed to read the reviews. He needed to sit and drink coffee and read the reviews with Peter, his friend.

         Herlihy tapped his knuckles on the screen door of Peter’s 12^th Street brownstone.

Peter answered, sleep in his eyes, his long bathroom robe tied in a double-knot at his waist. “Johnny…darling….”

         “Hi, Peter.” Herlihy hauled folds of newsprint under his arm. “The reviews are in.”

         “Oh, shit, darling.” Peter kissed each of Herlihy’s cheeks. He peered down as if Herlihy was carrying radioactive bricks from Chernobyl. “Be careful with those.”

         “I know, Peter, I know.” Herlihy imitated Peter’s high sweet cadence. “’Stay away from the reviews… They will screw you up…The critics don’t know a thing about good theater….”

         “They don’t, luv. They don’t.”

         “But Peter…I have to read them. With you.”

         “I know you’re excited….” Peter beamed with admiration. “My young playwright, so impassioned, so full of verve....” His smile faded. “But this is not something to share…This is something to avoid.”

         Herlihy brought the newspapers up to eye level. “I’m not going to avoid them. I need to know. I need to know where I stand. Where the play stands.”

         “Listen…Johnny…why don’t you have someone else read them and just tell you what they say?”

         “No. I want us to do this. You helped me, nurtured me and my play. These are our reviews.”

         Peter sighed. “Well. Okay. At least we will suffer together.”

         Anticipating such a reaction, Herlihy laughed.

Peter led his pupil inside, and Herlihy followed him into his narrow kitchen area.

“Sit,” Peter instructed Herlihy. “I’ll make coffee.”

Herlihy took a seat at Peter’s Formica table, in front of a bone-dry glass vase. Inside the vase slumped a single yellow daffodil.

         “What’s wrong with your flower?” Herlihy smirked.

         Peter scooped coffee grounds. “Oh. That. Nothing’s wrong with it, luv.”

         Herlihy pawed at its sagging petals. “It’s bad luck to have live flowers on stage.”

         “I don’t believe in any of that, Johnny. And you shouldn’t either. Besides, this is my kitchen, not the dramatic stage.”

Herlihy studied the daffodil’s wilting blossom, its brown-black outline. “You need to take care of flowers if you want them to stay alive.”

         “Flowers are like friendships, luv. Once they reach full bloom, it’s all downhill.”

         “Jesus, Peter. That’s bleak.”

         Peter set the pot to brew and took the seat opposite Herlihy. “I’ve been accused of being bleak. ‘Bleak, nihilistic and pretentious,’ according to critics.”

         “A grain of salt, Peter. A big grain of salt.” Herlihy unfolded the newspapers. “Okay…where should we start?”

         “Just pick one. But, Christ, don’t take what they say to heart…”

         “Okay. Here’s Time Out New York…Let’s see… ‘The new off-off-Broadway play, Temperature Gauge, now at the Vineyard Theater, hits all the necessary high-points…top-notch acting…’ blah, blah, blah…’ The production, authored by young playwright John Herlihy, is dark yet moving, a profound recitation of the ills and sins of modern America…’” Herlihy stopped. The newsprint went out of focus. “Peter…I wasn’t expecting such a rave from Time Out….”

         Peter folded his arms. “No. No. Neither did I.” His upper lip curled. “Nice job, darling. But I hate to see what the others say.…”

         Herlihy blinked as if he was summoned from a trance. “Uh, yes. Could be an outlier. Let’s try The Times…”

         “Oh, luv. I don’t want to hear this one. Brutal…they are always brutal to me…”

         “Peter, they might never accept your genius…but you are exactly that. A genius…Okay, The Times…Temperature Gauge…’a crackling tinderbox of electricity, ignited with great skill by playwright John Herlihy…’”

         “The Times…huh…Who’s the reviewer?”

         “Uh…Stanley Munson…”

         “Munson… that hack always raked me over the coals.”

         Herlihy folded The Times, placed it down, and retrieved another section. “Here’s New York Stage Review…”

         “Johnny, they are the worst….” Peter took Herlihy’s hand.

         Herlihy regained momentary focus on the newsprint. “Temperature Gauge, the new dramatic tour-de-force to open at the Vineyard…brilliant new playwright John Herlihy…”

         “Okay, darling. No more. No more…”

         “’…whose talent hints at genius in his depiction of…’”

         “Okay! Enough!” Peter shot up from his chair. “You’re doing this on purpose!”

         “What? Peter, what do you mean?”

         “You’re rubbing my face in it, Herlihy, and I think it’s disgusting! Distasteful…”

         “But Peter. I came here as a friend, a colleague…you’re my mentor, my confidant…”

         “And you had no problem using me for all I had to offer, did you? Well, this is quite enough!”

         “Peter, I wasn’t looking to rub your face in anything. I didn’t even read the reviews until now, didn’t have a clue what was in them….”

         “And now we both know. We both know, and you need to go!” Peter plucked the dying daffodil from the vase, tossing it square in Herlihy’s face. “There’s your flower! Congratulations! Bravo! Now get out!”

         Herlihy sat, stunned. His chest collapsed in on itself.

         “Don’t just sit there, Johnny!” Peter directed an open palm toward the door while shielding his eyes with his other hand. “Please leave….”

         “But, Peter….” Herlihy fought the wad of hurt in his throat. “These are our reviews.”

         “The hell they are! Does it say, ‘Peter and Johnny’? No. It does not. And you know it. You know that these are my enemies. These so-called keepers of cultural excellence, the judges of what is good on the New York stage. Why read this to me? Why force me to hear how much they hate me?”

         “But…it’s not you…”

         “Goodbye, Johnny. Please. Goodbye.”

Herlihy gathered up his reviews and left without a cup of coffee or another spoken word.

He returned to the unoccupied Vineyard Theater and completed his survey of the theater critics. Herlihy read the day-after words of congratulations and praise, some aloud and some in devastated silence, sitting upstage under the Ghost Light while drinking coffee from a single Styrofoam cup.