Broadway
by Albert Russo
Across the road, I had to
stick out my pretty lil face every five minutes,
on account that Bonka wanted to make sure I wasn’t
being kidnapped or drugged.
“Don’t be afraid
to use your whistle,” he repeated. I uh uh
hemmed to appease him, but between you and me, I’d
never do a thing so lewd-i-crass in
front of people who might think I’d run away
from the looney bin or a youth penitentiary.
I brought my uncle some
warm papaya milkshake, yuck, it looked and
smelled awful, like cat vomit. it’s supposed
to be good for the digestion, like them anti-fart
pills he takes after he’s overindulged at a
delicatessen restaurant, stuffing himself with
strawberries and fresh cream ... yum-yum, or with
cheese cake, so smooth and buttery ... double yum-yum.
I wanted so much to see The
Lion King , but it was sold out weeks in
advance, so we went for My Fair Lady
instead, which was staged for the first time half
a century ago and which my uncle had already seen
at least three times. Apparently that was the
best choice available, my foot and three toes is
what I say.
The neons of Times Square
began to light up, playing their fantastic
animated games a little before night fell. I
thought I was in the middle of an electric
rainbow gone berserk, spilling its colors all
over me; my skin would turn now green, now orange,
now blue, now violet and I felt like I had
stardust on my eyelids. There’s no getting
away, even in the worst blizzard, this city doesn’t
look real and you’d expect King Kong to jump
in any moment from a skyscraper and mix with the
crowd. In Paris, such wild images never even
brush my mind, it’s too orderly - ‘Cartesian’
is the filltisoftickle word.
If you didn’t know it
already, I can’t stand opera, with all the
bawling and yelling them tenors and sopranos do
while they thrust their arms and their bazooms at
each other like they’re having an epileptic
fit, which is everything my uncle loooves. If I
don’t put a stop to it, he might spend hours
listening to the likes of Madama Fiddlesticks
or to the Butcher of Seville on his
old pickup and drive me bonkers - he still has no
CD player, for crying out loud. I was afraid My
Fair Lady would be in the same vein. My
apprehensions grew the minute we got inside the
theater. It had velvet-lined balconies that
bulged like obese cows, chandeliers, weighing two
tons each, gilt decorations that almost blinded
me, the glare was so strong, all of this topped
by a mammoth alcoholic - bucolic ha! - fresco
painted over the ceiling. You don’t cross
the Atlantic to find the same old stuff you can
get in Europe a thousandfold, shucks. This is
supposed to be the oldest and most historic
theater on Broadway. I too will sound historic
when I reach 90.
Excerpt
8 from ZAPINETTE GOES TO NEW YORK by Albert Russo
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