12
My Life in the Theater
Of the six productions of
West Side Story
in which I appeared
between the ages of 9 and 17,
each time I was cast
as a Shark.
We Hebrew kids
were always cast as Sharks.
& the truth is
we liked it that way.
The Sharks dressed better,
danced better,
& fought better
than their pasty-faced rivals
with whom they shared the neighborhood.
The Sharks had style,
a delinquent touch of class,
& we second or third generation
home-landers kind of liked
that fresh-off-the-boat feeling.
A link somehow to our own
faded Ellis Island legacy
or the turf battles
we had taken a pass on
in the Sinai;
& besides,
if bland as a daffodil
Richard Beymer
had what it took to
be the poster boy for
the Jets,
then that was simply a tribe
for which we had no desire
to spill blood.
The highlight of my career
was my role as the lead in
A Streetcar Named Desire
at Camp Hess Kramer,
in August of 1971.
I was the greatest 14 year-old
Stanley Kowalski
to ever burn the boards
at Jewish Summer Camp;
playing euphorically to the back row,
buzzed and slurring perfectly on Reds
& the glow from a post dress rehearsal
hand-job from Miriam Arshawsky
(the grand niece of 40’s band leader Artie Shaw)
who stared as Blanche DuBois.
I was a tiger on the loose,
a sexual terrorist,
a brute who bore forward the truth,
ravishing the tender, the sensitive, and the delicate;
a symphony for the cruel, the callous, the strong;
crushing the wings of a poor cracked butterfly
Take a look at yourself here in a worn-out Mardi Gras outfit,
rented for 50 cents from some rag-picker.
And with a crazy crown on.
o you know that I've been on to you from the start,
and not once did you pull the wool over this boy's eyes?
You come in here and you sprinkle the place with powder
and you spray perfume and you stick a paper lantern over the light bulb
and, lo and behold, the place has turned to Egypt
and you are the Queen of the Nile,
sitting on your throne, swilling down my liquor.
And do you know what I say?
Ha ha!
Do you hear me?
Ha ha ha!
I was the satire that closes
on Saturday night
minutes after the lights dim,
and the Sabbath
draws its final curtain.
You should have seen me,
I was brilliant.
No really, I was.
David Smith's newest collection, White Time, is available from Off Beat Pulp. You should purchase one for yourself, and one for your children. His other books include Closer to Jesus and Rockets Redglare - The Handsome Duke Deal & Kid Mingo Letters. The broadside of his epic poem, "Genocide Sutra" is an underground classic. His work has appeared in numerous broadsides, anthologies, magazines and all over the damn Internet. A bartender in the classic style, he can pour a Nicky Finn that will destroy your genetic code and complicate your life.
