Chapter 5
T he next day I talked to Miss Garber, went through the audition, and got the part. Eddie,
by the way, wasn’t upset at all. In fact, I could tell he was actually relieved about the
whole thing. When Miss Garber asked him if he’d be willing to let me play the role of
Tom Thornton, his face sort of relaxed right there and one of his eyes popped back open.
“Y-y-yes, a-a-absolutely,” he said, stuttering. “I—I—I un-un-understand.” It took him
practically ten seconds to get the words out.
For his generosity, however, Miss Garber gave him the role of the bum, and we knew
he’d do fairly well in that role. The bum, you see, was completely mute, but the angel
always knew what he was thinking. At one point in the play she has to tell the mute bum
that God will always watch out for him because God especially cares for the poor and
downtrodden. That was one of the tip-offs to the audience that she’d been sent from
heaven. Like I said earlier, Hegbert wanted it to be real clear who offered redemption and
salvation, and it certainly wasn’t going to be a few rickety ghosts who just popped up out
of nowhere.
Rehearsals started the next week, and we rehearsed in the classroom, because the
Playhouse wouldn’t open their doors for us until we’d got all the “little bugs” out of our
performance. By little bugs, I mean our tendency to accidentally knock over the props.
The props had been made about fifteen years ago, when the play was in its first year, by
Toby Bush, a sort of roving handyman who had done a few projects for the Playhouse in
the past. He was a roving handyman because he drank beer all day long while he worked,
and by about two o’clock or so he’d really be flying. I guess he couldn’t see straight,
because he’d accidentally whack his fingers with the hammer at least once a day.
Whenever that happened, he’d throw down the hammer and jump up and down, holding
his fingers, cursing everyone from his mother to the devil. When he finally calmed down,
he’d have another beer to soothe the pain before going back to work. His knuckles were
the size of walnuts, permanently swollen from years of whacki ng, and no one was willing
to hire him on a permanent basis. The only reason Hegbert had hired him at all was
because he was far and away the lowest bidder in town.
But Hegbert wouldn’t allow drinking or cursing, and Toby really didn’t know how to
work within such a strict environment. As a result, the work was kind of sloppy, though it
wasn’t obvious right off the bat. After a few years the props began to fall apart, and
Hegbert took it upon himself to keep the things together. But while Hegbert was good at
thumping the Bible, he wasn’t too good at thumping nails, and the props had bent, rusty
nails sticking out all over, poking through the plywood in so many places that we had to
be careful to walk exactly where we were supposed to. If we bumped them the wrong way,
we’d either cut ourselves or the props would topple over, making little nail holes all over
the stage floor. After a couple of years the Playhouse stage had to be resurfaced, and