“Why are you calling?” That suspicious little voice. He remembered that Tyler was angry with him.
“I wanted to say hello.”
“Then why weren’t you here for my birthday?” Arthur had promised to be in Jerusalem for Tyler’s birthday, but he’d made that promise ten months ago and had frankly forgotten about it until Tyler had called him yesterday. Arthur’s apologies hadn’t landed.
“I can’t be there, buddy. I would if I could. But aren’t you coming to New York soon? Won’t I see you next week?” Tyler had nothing to say to this. “You’re flying to New York tonight, aren’t you?”
“I guess.”
“Did you read those comic books I sent you?”
Tyler didn’t respond. Arthur sat on the sofa, and rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. “Did you like them, Tyler? Those comic books?”
“Yeah.”
“Ten minutes,” the stage manager said at the door.
“Thank you ten. I looked at the comic books,” Arthur said, “but I don’t think I completely understood what they were about. I was hoping maybe you could explain them to me.”
“What about them?”
“Well, tell me about Dr. Eleven.”
“He lives on a space station.”
“Really? A space station?”
“It’s like a planet, but a little planet,” Tyler said. “Actually it’s sort of broken. It went through a wormhole, so it’s hiding in deep space, but its systems were damaged, so on its surface? It’s almost all water.” He was warming to his subject.
“All water!” Arthur raised his head. It had been a mistake to let Tyler get so far away from him, but perhaps the mistake wasn’t unfixable. “So they live in the water, Dr. Eleven and his—his people?”
“They live on islands. They have a city that’s all made of islands. There’s like bridges and boats? But it’s dangerous, because of the seahorses.”
“The seahorses are dangerous?”
“They’re not like the seahorses we saw in the jar in Chinatown that one time. They’re big.”
“How big?”
“Really big. I think they’re really big. They’re these huge—these huge things, and they ride up out of the water and they’ve got eyes like fish, and they’ve got people riding on them, and they want to catch you.”
“What happens if a seahorse catches you?”
“Then it pulls you under,” Tyler said, “and then you belong to the Undersea.”
“The Undersea?”
“It’s an underwater place.” He was talking fast now, caught up. “They’re Dr. Eleven’s enemies, but they’re not really bad. They just want to go home.”
“Buddy,” Arthur said, “Tyler, I want you to know that I love you.”
The silence was so long that he would have thought he’d lost the connection if not for the sound of a passing car. The boy must be standing by an open window.
“You too,” Tyler said. It was difficult to hear him. His voice was so small.
The door to his dressing room opened a crack. “Five minutes,” the stage manager said. Arthur waved in response.
“Buddy,” he said, “I have to go now.”
“Are you doing a movie?”
“Not tonight, buddy. I’m going up onstage.”
“Okay. Bye,” Tyler said.
“Good-bye. I’ll see you in New York next week.” Arthur disconnected and sat alone for a few minutes. He had a hard time meeting his own eyes in the dressing room mirror. He was very tired.
“Places,” the stage manager said.
The set for this production of Lear was magnificent. A high platform had been built at the back of the stage, painted to look like a balcony with elaborate pillars, stone from the front, bare plywood from the back. In the first act, the platform was the study of an aging king, and Arthur had to sit in a purple armchair while the house was filling up, in profile to the audience, holding his crown. A tired king at the end of his reign, perhaps not as sharp as he had been, contemplating a disastrous division of his kingdom.
Below on the main stage, three small girls played a clapping game in soft lighting. At a cue from the stage manager they rose and disappeared backstage left, the house lights dimmed, and this was Arthur’s cue to stand and escape. He made his way into the wings in darkness, his path guided by a stagehand with a flashlight, just as Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund entered stage right.