Ham by Sam Harris Read Free Book Online

toy plastic ball and pins. And the people came! It was a tremendous success—the applause of nine or ten adults bouncing off the cinder block walls sounded like my idea of Carnegie Hall.
    My appetite had been whetted and the neighborhood kids on my block were too small in number for the kinds of spectacles I was envisioning. I wanted more! But how?
    The answer came one day in second grade. A classmate, Jennifer, was—well, she was fat. Undeniably and inarguably fat by anyone’s standards, though today she would be considered merely plump. She preferred plaid tunic dresses with wide pilgrim collars and plastic belts to accentuate her waistline, and wore egg-shaped glasses to accentuate her egg-shaped face and egg-shaped body. Our classmates, being seven years old and therefore cruel or honest or some combination of the two, ridiculed poor Jennifer without pause.
    One day, when we were learning how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, our teacher, Mrs. Maule, who knew that Jennifer was an exceptionally gifted artist, asked her to illustrate the process on the blackboard, handing her a box of colored chalks that had been purchased for this very occasion.
    It took a half an hour at least, which is like three days in kid time—but we watched as Jennifer painstakingly drew the caterpillar on a leaf, the caterpillar in a cocoon, and the beautiful butterfly emerging. Restless and bored at first, the class was slowly captivated by her skillful hand and careful eye as she shadowed and detailed, bringing the metamorphosis to life. I exchanged looks with Mrs. Maule, realizing what she had planned. Jennifer was the butterfly. A plaid, egg-shaped butterfly. She had a talent we didn’t possess and, therefore, was special. She was still fat. But talented and fat was much better than just fat. We never looked at her the same way again.
    Seeing this as an extraordinarily intuitive and caring act, and realizing that Mrs. Maule was dedicated to recognizing our individual gifts, I decided business was at hand. I asked her if I could use some class time and perhaps recess time and perhaps lunch time and perhaps before and after school time to direct a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. She gave me the thumbs-up and told me she’d suspected something like this was coming when, a month before at show-and-tell, whereas most kids had brought a terrarium or their favorite toy truck, I had taken the words much more literally. For the “show” part, I performed the Act I finale quintet from West Side Story. For “tell,” I explained how all the songs fit together in counterpoint, leaving the characters conflicted at curtain.
    My script, which I’d typed on our manual Smith Corona at home after memorizing the TV movie, was ready and I began auditions the next day.
    I had no desire to be in the show. Prince Charming was a dull and thankless part and my plate was full, trying to figure out how to make the switch from Cinderella’s peasant rags to her ball gown with the wave of a wand and no time for a costume change. I solved the problem by double casting Cinderella. Teri Mullins was my best friend and bore a striking resemblance to Benjamin Franklin, so she was cast as the plain one. Cheri Craddock was the pretty one, though less talented (a combination I found to be true more often than not later in my career). When the Fairy Godmother cast her spell, all I had to do was flick the classroom lights off and on to create a very slow but dazzling strobe effect, while plain Cinderella spun off as pretty Cinderella spun on. It was as if the Fairy Godmother had granted her a wardrobe upgrade and plastic surgery.
    I cast Lance Cheney as Prince Charming. He was dashingly handsome and probably my first crush. More thrilling was the fact that he was one of the few kids in our class whose parents were really and truly divorced. It was exotic and dangerous. His mother was beautiful, independent, and