Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(74)

EDWARD: Then tell me. Tell me how it works, and I’ll let you go.

(ANDREW enters STAGE RIGHT, freezing when he see CLAIRE and EDWARD. Unnoticed, ANDREW hangs back, watching. EDWARD strikes CLAIRE. CLAIRE doesn’t react. He knocks her down, pinning her, and puts his hands around her throat.)

God, this is shit. The whole thing is shit. It isn’t enough. It doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t make up for the fact that “Andrew” just stood there and did nothing. I stood in the hall and listened to them yell, and then when I finally got up the courage to go into the room, I froze instead of helping Clara. Not that she seemed to need my help. Speaking of which, what about the birds? How the hell do I stage the birds? No one would believe it. I don’t believe it, and I was there. The room filling up with beaks and feathers and wings. Hundreds of birds coming out of nowhere while Clara lay there, and Richard throttled her, and I did nothing.

What the hell am I doing, writing this thing? Shit.


SUICIDE ATTEMPT THWARTED AT THE VICTORY THEATER!

Herald Star—April 19, 1955

Betsy Trimingham, Arts & Culture

There is a hero in our midst, dear readers. One, it seems, who has been hiding in plain sight at the Victory Theater. For months now, the theater scene has been buzzing with speculation over the Victory’s latest production, all of which is being kept strictly under wraps.

Last night, however, one cat escaped the bag. Owen Covington, son of late theater owner Richard Covington, prevented an unknown woman from leaping to her death from the theater’s roof. As it so happens, not only is young Mr. Covington a hero, he is the author of Raymond Barrow’s mysterious new play.

Although he declined to comment upon his heroic actions, I was able to unearth one piece of information at least. Owen Covington’s play, scheduled to open at the Victory later this year, is titled The Secret of Flight.

As for the young woman whose life Mr. Covington saved, could she be a member of the cast? Has Raymond Barrow unearthed the next darling of the theater scene? Or is she merely some poor seamstress working behind the scenes? More scandalously, could she be Raymond Barrow’s lover? The only clue Mr. Covington provided during my repeated requests for comment was an unwitting one. He said, and I quote: Clara is none of your business.

Who is Clara? Rest assured, dear readers, I intend to find out!


Personal Correspondence





Raymond Barrow


December 20, 2012

Dear Will,

Here I am, at it again. The old fool with his pen and paper. Did you know they reopened the Victory Theater earlier this month? Not the Victory Theater, of course, a new one with the same name where the old one burned. They wanted me to be on their godforsaken Board of Trustees or some bullshit. I almost wish I’d taken the meeting in person just to see the look on their bootlicking, obsequious little faces when I said no.

God, I’m an ass, Will. I was an ass back in the day, and I’m an ass now, just a donkey of a different color, as they say.

Maybe it’s the new theater that has me dredging up all these memories. It’s like poking an old wound, though there were some good times mixed in with the bad. There was Clara. And of course, there was you. If you could have seen . . . Well, it doesn’t matter. I cocked it all up in the end.

I was so excited when Owen Covington brought me the script of his new play. He was a virtual unknown, this snot-nosed kid who couldn’t hold his liquor, but God help me, I thought he would save my career. Old money and all that. I didn’t know his family had fallen into ruin. His father murdered, his uncle a suicide. All their lovely money pissed away. I should have done my research, but live and learn.

The whole thing was a disaster from beginning to end. Even before Clara, before . . . The press was at my throat from the get-go, desperate to see me fail. Then goddamn Owen Covington goes and tries to kill himself. Like nephew like uncle, I suppose.

Clara saved his life. She stopped him from jumping off the Victory’s roof, though the newspapers reported it the other way around. Made Covington out to be a hero. What was that horrid woman’s name? Betty? Betsy Trimblesomething? She was the one who gave you that absolutely scathing review as my leading man in Onward to Victory! God I hated her.

But there I go, rambling. I was telling you about Owen and Clara. After she saved him, Clara told me how much she wanted to let Owen jump. She showed me her palms. They were all cut up where she dug her nails in trying to stop herself from grabbing him. But she couldn’t. She told me she couldn’t help saving Owen, no matter how much she hated his family.

That was the closest she ever came to telling me anything about herself. Of course, I knew bits and pieces from Owen, not that I believed half of it. But then here was Clara, someone I trusted, saying the same thing. She said she’d known Owen as a child, that she’d been his nanny, and he was the only good thing to come out of the Covington family.

I asked her what the hell she was talking about, she and Owen looked exactly the same age. I thought maybe she’d finally open up all the way, maybe I’d finally get the truth out of her. Hell, I’d have settled for knowing her real name because I’m sure as shit it wasn’t Clara Hill.

Instead of answering, Clara pointed out a flock of starlings. We were up on the roof of the theater, smoking, the way you and I used to do after rehearsals. That was the first place you kissed me. Do you remember? I was certain my mouth would taste like ash and whatever rotgut we were drinking and you’d be disgusted, but you weren’t.