important things to do, but I’d been in earlier to see that my interns were on task, and I wanted to make sure Peter was ready and calm. The Berghoff was right around the corner, and I knew neither of us would get a chance to eat the shrimp and strawberries at the reception. He’d been down two weeks earlier to record at the studio, and I’d been relieved how good he was, at least without an audience. I’d invited him over then for dinner with Carlos, who was still hanging around to see what further damage he could inflict on my psyche, but Peter had an audition in Milwaukee with the Kinnikinnick Players for
Night of January 16th
. He hadn’t gotten the part.
Tonight Peter looked skinnier and pale and had a soft stubble he might have been growing for insulation, the way he sat there in his coat and hat, his jaw shaking against the cold. To put it delicately, he looked like a few friends I had in the early 1990s who are not with us anymore. I got the waitress to bring us some tea as soon as we sat down. He held the cup, letting it warm his hands, but didn’t drink any. It was all over the news that the Berghoff would be closing in a couple of months. We’d stood outside in the cold for forty minutes just to get a table. People around us were taking pictures, touching the menus as if they were the faces of dying lovers.
“I went to your shrink,” he said. “Twice. You didn’t tell me she was beautiful. Like Juliette Binoche. And we’re
very
hopeful.” He was warming up enough to lay his woolly hat on the table.
“Great,” I said. I couldn’t keep from staring at his brow and cheekbones, which stuck out sharply from his face, his skin stretched over them, shiny and translucent. He went on and on about the therapy, about opening himself up to pain, about locating his core. I barely listened.
There’s one thing I still remember him saying, though. At one point he put down his fork and he leaned across to me, as if I had all the answers. “I mean, why do I even feel this need to
act
? It’s weird, right? We’re living in this terrible world with wars and broken hearts and starvation, but some of us are compelled to make art, like that’s supposed to help anything. It’s a disease, Drew. Don’t you remember how it felt, when we were sitting there obsessed with finding ourselves in the orchestra? It was awful. Only you grew out of it, and I didn’t. Or maybe I just finally did, last year. Like I was cured and cursed all in one moment. I mean, what if the universe decided it was done using me?”
I shook my head. “I can’t imagine you as anything other than an actor.”
“Right. Right. I know. But how can it be who I am if it’s not what I do?”
We left it rhetorical and continued eating.
“So, how’s Carlos?” he asked once we’d ordered dessert.
It was too late in the meal, and he was too far behind on the story. “Not great, but you know,” I said, confident he didn’t care enough to press further. “He’s gotten into jazz lately.” To be safe, though, I changed the subject. “So, I had a dream about the Berghoff last night. I was running around downtown, trying to give everyone vitamin shots because of this disease I’d exposed them to. For some reason it was a battle zone, with tanks in the streets, and wild animals. And if people didn’t get these shots they were going to die. I had to find everyone I ever slept with and get them to come to the Berghoff to get this shot. So I’m knocking on doors, but people have moved, and by the time I find Carlos he tells me he won’t take the shot, he’d rather die. He’s lying there in the snow, dying, and he goes, ‘You can’t save them all, Drew.’ And I woke up screaming. I mean, what the hell
is
that?”
“Dreams don’t mean anything,” he said. “I used to believe they did, but they really don’t. Random synapses.” As I signed the bill, he dug into his apple tart like someone just rescued from the wilderness, his eyes
Night of January 16th
. He hadn’t gotten the part.
Tonight Peter looked skinnier and pale and had a soft stubble he might have been growing for insulation, the way he sat there in his coat and hat, his jaw shaking against the cold. To put it delicately, he looked like a few friends I had in the early 1990s who are not with us anymore. I got the waitress to bring us some tea as soon as we sat down. He held the cup, letting it warm his hands, but didn’t drink any. It was all over the news that the Berghoff would be closing in a couple of months. We’d stood outside in the cold for forty minutes just to get a table. People around us were taking pictures, touching the menus as if they were the faces of dying lovers.
“I went to your shrink,” he said. “Twice. You didn’t tell me she was beautiful. Like Juliette Binoche. And we’re
very
hopeful.” He was warming up enough to lay his woolly hat on the table.
“Great,” I said. I couldn’t keep from staring at his brow and cheekbones, which stuck out sharply from his face, his skin stretched over them, shiny and translucent. He went on and on about the therapy, about opening himself up to pain, about locating his core. I barely listened.
There’s one thing I still remember him saying, though. At one point he put down his fork and he leaned across to me, as if I had all the answers. “I mean, why do I even feel this need to
act
? It’s weird, right? We’re living in this terrible world with wars and broken hearts and starvation, but some of us are compelled to make art, like that’s supposed to help anything. It’s a disease, Drew. Don’t you remember how it felt, when we were sitting there obsessed with finding ourselves in the orchestra? It was awful. Only you grew out of it, and I didn’t. Or maybe I just finally did, last year. Like I was cured and cursed all in one moment. I mean, what if the universe decided it was done using me?”
I shook my head. “I can’t imagine you as anything other than an actor.”
“Right. Right. I know. But how can it be who I am if it’s not what I do?”
We left it rhetorical and continued eating.
“So, how’s Carlos?” he asked once we’d ordered dessert.
It was too late in the meal, and he was too far behind on the story. “Not great, but you know,” I said, confident he didn’t care enough to press further. “He’s gotten into jazz lately.” To be safe, though, I changed the subject. “So, I had a dream about the Berghoff last night. I was running around downtown, trying to give everyone vitamin shots because of this disease I’d exposed them to. For some reason it was a battle zone, with tanks in the streets, and wild animals. And if people didn’t get these shots they were going to die. I had to find everyone I ever slept with and get them to come to the Berghoff to get this shot. So I’m knocking on doors, but people have moved, and by the time I find Carlos he tells me he won’t take the shot, he’d rather die. He’s lying there in the snow, dying, and he goes, ‘You can’t save them all, Drew.’ And I woke up screaming. I mean, what the hell
is
that?”
“Dreams don’t mean anything,” he said. “I used to believe they did, but they really don’t. Random synapses.” As I signed the bill, he dug into his apple tart like someone just rescued from the wilderness, his eyes
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