“Why do you hate me?”

“Because you ask questions like why do you hate me.”

I didn’t know how else to answer Sherman .  Whatever I chose wouldn’t be satisfactory.  Why else would he have asked me those same five words half a dozen times already this rehearsal?

Speaking of things I don’t know, I have no clue what made me think I could pull this off.  Does anyone believe in the power of community theater anymore?  Did anyone ever?

I had Red’s vote of confidence, but I’d married his daughter – he always gave me more credit than I deserved.  Now retired and living off too much money (a problem I was destined to never share), he spent his time inventing ways to spend his pension.  I told him we needed a new car.  Not new new, but a different car – new to us.  Macy and I wanted to move out of our rapidly dilapidating rental house and we could use some help with a down payment on a starter house. 

I replayed the circumstances that got me here.  As I did, I yearned for a better back story.

Red wasn’t the quickest guy on the planet.  Conversely, since retiring, he may have been the slowest man on earth behind the wheel of a car.  Horns blared.  The “Jesus handles” over the passenger window had grooves from my grip.  I bypassed subtlety much like the semis bypassed us on the highway.  “Red,” I said, “Don’t worry about me.  I’ll find a job.  We need cash for a vehicle, since my Neon’s dying.”

He slowed the Chrysler, unable to simultaneously process my statement and the road.  He removed his trusty yellow pencil from behind his ear, scratched the point against the liver spot atop his scalp.  I tried to ignore the itch-a-sketch as he asked, “What color is your parachute?”

Red and his frigging books.  I knew where Macy got her inspiration to read, but there was a point when people needed to talk with actual people instead of regurgitating “valuable insights and life lessons” from bestselling authors.  Besides, it was rude to kick a man when he was down.  I’d put in eight hard years for Thompson Design – it wasn’t my fault everyone thought they could do everything on their own computers now.  Photoshop, my butt!

“Red,” he said.  It took me an instant to realize he was answering his inquisition rather than repeating his name.  His trains of thought rarely reached their destinations.

The rest of the drive was silent, save the obscenities yelled at us by other drivers.  Once we reached his house, I spared myself from conversation by cranking SportsCenter to a volume level which negated the need for Red’s hearing aid.  Unfazed, he removed the aforementioned career-changing book and a drawing pad from a drawer.  “If you could do anything you wanted, regardless of finances or other worldly responsibility, what would you do?”

Star in a porno?  Probably not the answer he was looking for.  I scaled back my response to something that almost resembled porn movies.  “I dunno.  Act, maybe?”

“If it’s your dream job, there shouldn’t be any maybe about it.  Is acting what you want to do?”

I remembered watching an interview with another Hollywood B-lister (one of the Coreys, maybe) (no, not maybe – probably) who snidely peered into the camera and recited, “What I really want to do is direct.”  How cliché.  Why not?  I repeated those words to my father-in-law.

He scritched the inside of a nostril, then jotted something in his notebook.  While it was encouraging to see the pencils used properly, I reminded myself never to borrow one from him.

Three days later, I arrived home after grocery shopping to find Red’s car blocking my driveway.  Parallel parking was for suckers and driving instructors, he claimed.  Apparently, using my driveway was for specialized audiences as well.

I parked out front and lugged too many sacks into the kitchen.  There, Macy and her folks surrounded the kitchen table, examining something in Red’s book.  They slammed the cover when I approached – what was this, some kind of intervention?  Uninterested, I emptied the plastic bags and dismissed myself to the living room. 

“Honey?  Could you come in here?”

Nertz.  I clicked off the tube and braced myself for unwanted advice.  Maybe we should move in with her folks until I could find a reliable job.  Maybe I should take better care of myself –  lose some weight, back off the beer – to show potential employers what a quality individual I was.  Oh jeez – what if Macy was pregnant?

Red greeted me in the kitchen with a proud handshake and a Budweiser.  Oh mercy.  I wasn’t ready to evolve from a couple into a family.  He guided me into a seat at the table, where Rhonda and Macy took turns patting each others’ hands assuredly.  Steadying myself, I jumped the gun.  “Nathan Michael or Corinne Bailey.” 

Macy shook her head, confused.  “What?”

I explained, “If it’s a boy, Nathan.  Otherwise, Corinne.”

“So a girl is otherwise?” Rhonda air-quoted the last word.

Was there ever a time Rhonda didn’t want to battle?  She had an uncanny ability to turn everything I said into an insult.  Even on the rare occasion she didn’t, I heard her words in that vein.  If I said it was pretty outside, she’d twist it into me ditching job interviews to shoot a round of golf.  If I invited her for dinner, she’d insist on supplying the main dish and drone about how hard she worked to prepare it.  It was almost a game for me, learning how she could spin everything.  She should’ve gone into politics.

Macy held a hand over her bosom.  “I’m not pregnant, Steve.”

I reassessed.  Red gave me a beer, so they weren’t concerned about my drinking.  (Unless this was a test, in which case I was happy to fail six or seven times.)  There was no junior en route.  I searched my mind for a good reason why we couldn’t live in their basement.

“Son, I have a proposal for you.”

Red twisted an eraser in his ear, again reminding me why I always used pens.  “I would like to hire you.”

“But you’re retired.”

Forty-one years of driving for UPS provided Red’s pear-shaped physique.  It also left too much time for a brain his size to use. 

“I know you like acting, Steve.  And you have really good stage presence.  So I was going to hire you to be in my play.  But...”  He trailed off, unloading passengers from this mental train.  Too nervous Rhonda would shush me if I interrupted, I opted to wait this one out.  When Macy tapped his book, the steam engine puffed again. 

“You said you wanted to direct.  I can always find actors, but I don’t know anybody who directs.  So that would be perfect.  What do you say?”

“Direct what? 

“My play.”

“Red?  Since when do you have a play?”

“I’d be the producer, of course.  That’s right, isn’t it?  Producers are the guys who fund the project and have final say?”

“Go back a step, Red.  You have a play?”

“Most of one,” he grinned.  “I have all the characters and the first two acts, as well as an outline for the final bit.  I could probably use some help.”

I surveyed the faces of the women.  Macy’s was recognizable: let Dad down easy.  Rhonda’s was even easier: crush my husband and I will destroy you.

“I don’t know, Red.  You’re familiar with the expression about working for friends or family?”

He showed more teeth.  “I’ll let you drive a company car.”

He pointed toward the driveway.  Rhonda’s gasp would have been inaudible to anyone who didn’t delight in her agony as much as I did. 

“I did some research and most community theater projects take about two months.  I figure that would give you until the beginning of September.  Put it on Labor Day weekend.  For those two months, I’d be willing to pay you five thousand dollars.”

I sat back in my chair and nodded to the beat of Macy’s tapping foot.  “You’re serious?”

“Serious as a heart attack.”

Now both women were angry at me.  As if I brought up the heart attack.  As if the work of producing a play would cause Red to have another?  Macy’s expression calmed as I said, “I couldn’t.”  Somehow, that made Rhonda angrier.  Whatever.  I could have answered “fish sticks” and pissed her off.

“Six thousand,” he offered.

Though I’d never considered myself an expert negotiator, I’d earned myself a potential thousand bucks by rejecting an offer I could easily refuse.  The next word out of my mouth surprised everyone in the kitchen, even me.  “Ten.”

Red set his locomotive moving.  “I mentioned the car, right?”

Rhonda butted in: “I can’t believe you’d take advantage of an old man like that!  Poor Red.”

I couldn’t believe an old man wouldn’t be offended by a patronizing nag like her.  For that matter, this entire meeting was unbelievable.  “No” wouldn’t suffice without an explanation.  I feigned contemplation until Rhonda opened her mouth to speak.  I cleared my throat to cut her off, then waited again.  After three more rounds of I-have-nothing-to-say-but-I-sure-don’t-want-to-hear-your-voice (one of our most popular games), I reached my verdict.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Red.  You and I see things differently, and if I was going to direct, I’d need certain provisions to be met.  Final edit on the script, casting decisions.  How are you going to audition on such short notice?  And what about a venue?  Two months is no time at all.  Really, there’s too much to do.”

Our eyes locked.  “Ten?” he asked.

“Ten,” I reiterated.  “For two months work.  If it runs over that, we’ll need to renegotiate.”

“If that’s the case,” he said, drawing himself a graphite scar along his chin, “We’d better get started.”