Deirdre and I took Carrick to a matinee performance of Monty Python's Spamalot at the Samuel Shubert Theater this afternoon. We used to alternate taking her to a Broadway show around her birthday — only one of us at a time because we wanted good tickets but really couldn't afford to buy more than two. I particularly remember Carrick enjoying Guys and Dolls and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, both with Nathan Lane, with me. And I enjoying her enjoying them.
Today, she opened a white three-ring binder on her lap while we waited for the show to begin and worked on her math homework. If you'd told me two years ago that this would be the scene for today — the three of us in row J of a Broadway theater waiting for a Monty Pyton-inspired show to begin — I would not have said "you're crazy," but I would allow that it was not in the realm of improbable. On second thought, doing math homework? You're crazy.
I just looked in my journal to see what was going at that time and the closest direct entry about Carrick was dated July 27, 2003:
Carrick came up to see Duncan in As You Like It. Took train to Yonkers, then came back to house. She pecked me on the cheek when she sat down (we were in the front row).
“Are you staying clean?” I asked.
She nodded her head vigorously, looking straight ahead.
Not likely.
I didn't have much to do with her back at the house, where we had a BBQ with some friends. While I was grilling, she came down and tried to start a conversation in that voice and with that familiarity that usually means that she's looking for something. ("So, howyadoin, Tomas?"). Sure enough, she wanted $5.
“Why should I give you $5?
"For my birthday. Mom gave me groceries; why shouldn't you give me cigarettes?"
I walked away. She remained.
"How about it?"
"No."
I told Dede that I wasn't going to give her any money but that she could do what she wanted.
“Good,” Dede replied.
I did not say goodbye when she took the 7:20. I really do have nothing to say to her. She is a liar and a thief, basically.
As I looked around the theater this afternoon, and listened to the thunderous standing ovation at the end of the performance, I did what I always do at the end of a Broadway musical. I try to imagine my grandparents on stage a hundred years ago, Broadway chorus boy and chorine, basking in the reflected glory and energy of all those applause for the stars. I can't imagine a greater high, transitory as it may be.
I also wondered what their reactions would be to this clever send-up of Broadway musicals, which really haven't changed much in a hundred years. They'd recognize the structure, and even tap their toes to some of the tunes, but the irony would totally baffle them. It is the product of later generations. To paraphrase King Arthur, "Why do they call us the Middle Ages when nothing comes after us yet." The turn-of-the-19th century was a more "innocent time," no doubt, but I'm not one to suggest that it was better.