An American Love Story by Rona Jaffe Read Free Book Online Page A

love to see him,” she said. “When is it?”
    “Tonight.”
    “It’s wonderful the way you always give me so much notice,” Susan said, which of course meant yes.
    The nightclub in New Haven was small and dark, with black velvet walls, and it was nearly full. They ordered drinks and Seltzer looked at his watch. “Son of a bitch is late again,” he said.
    “Isn’t it nice the way our agents talk about us behind our backs,” Dana murmured.
    Then Gabe Gideon came running into the spotlight on the tiny stage. He was younger than Susan had expected, with a boyish exuberance; slim, lithe and medium sized, blond curly hair, an altarboy’s face, black Nehru jacket and jeans. He had a midwestern accent, and looked as if he’d grown up somewhere like Ohio, with a basketball hoop on the back of his parents’ garage door, and had been devastated when he didn’t grow tall enough to make the team.
    “This is the Beelzebub of the bars?” she whispered.
    “Wait,” Seltzer said.
    In the next five minutes Gabe Gideon must have said “fuck” twenty times. He had also mentioned every bodily protuberance and orifice in the terms usually reserved for rest room graffiti, insulted everything people continued to hold sacred, and seemed to want to overthrow the world. But somehow Susan didn’t find him repulsive, or even annoying. He was very funny, he was obviously an enemy of hypocrisy, and she thought he was right. At the end of twenty minutes the entire audience was in his hand, even the ones who were shocked, except for one elderly couple who had walked out.
    Then Gideon said, “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” and walked off the stage.
    “Son of a bitch!” Seltzer said.
    “What’s he doing?” Susan asked.
    “Son of a bitch.”
    “He’s taking drugs,” Dana said calmly. “He’ll be back.” Seltzer’s face was purple.
    “In the middle of a show?”
    “Actually,” Dana said, “nobody really knows. It could just be one of the crazy things he does.”
    “If he goes to jail again I’m leaving him there,” Seltzer said.
    The minutes crawled by, and no one seemed to know what todo. Then Gideon came back, looking happy and relaxed, and went on with his monologue. He was a little looser and wilder now; there was an air of euphoria, as if this time he might just for the fun of it go too far and say something that would pull everything down around him. Susan was relieved when the first show was finally over without disaster.
    They went to his dressing room during the intermission, and Seltzer introduced them. Gideon had his black jacket off and was wearing a white T-shirt; he looked more than ever like that nice blond kid from the Midwest, but now he no longer looked happy; he seemed rather damp and sad.
    “Hey, man, guess what,” he said to Seltzer, to all of them really, “it’s my birthday today.”
    “I didn’t know that,” Seltzer said.
    “And I’m all alone. I have no one to celebrate my birthday with.”
    “You have us,” Susan said. The words just came out of her mouth. She didn’t even know this man, and he was a cult figure, which should have been intimidating, but she felt so sorry for him, he seemed so lonely and gentle, and nobody should ever have to be alone on his birthday. “We’ll go out and have a party for you afterward. Ice cream, and cake with candles on it, and champagne.” She looked at the others. “Right?”
    “Right!” they all said in unison. Gabe Gideon smiled at her.
    “Tell me your name again,” he said.
    The second show was exactly as Susan had been warned it was. This time the club was packed. It was the late show that the true fans liked; the one where Gabe Gideon could at last detonate and sail off into orbit. If he had been obscene and outrageous the first time, this time he was bizarre. Sometimes he didn’t even make sense. When he did, he was devastating. More people were walking out, some were cheering, and some were just sitting there in shock. For once