Cursed

So we (“we” being me, Special K, and AS) took a road trip up to Troy, NY to see the lovely Miss M performing with the Bakerloo Theatre Project, as she has done for the past two years, this marking her third. They focus on classics, performing a play by Shakespeare and one other from another playwright. This season they’re calling it the Cursed Season – performing Macbeth and The Imaginary Invalid, a play by Moliere that he was performing in when he died. Both are considered to be spectacularly unlucky plays and have a long history of misfortune befalling the actors and companies who perform them. Macbeth is considered so unlucky that some very superstitious actors won't refer to it by name, and simply call it "The Scottish Play". I’m generally not one for superstition and the like, so I was simply looking forward to a good evening of performances.

We arrived Friday night after a long-ish, but uneventful, drive up to Troy, NY; home of my father’s alma mater, and also home of the company, who is using one of their spaces for their performances. We checked in to our hotel and went out to Brown’s, a local brew pub. Troy used to be an old mill town that definitely had the air taken out of its tires quite a while ago, but there are efforts underway to revitalize it. Brown’s is one of those cool, hip, popular places that is helping Troy make a comeback – there are actually several lovely restaurants in the area.

After dinner we headed over to another restaurant where the cast after-party was going to be held, since we arrived on opening night. We met up with Miss M and had an absolutely lovely time meeting people, re-meeting people we had met last year, and catching up with each other. For being plunked in the middle of a very deep estrogen pool, Special K did well for himself, listening amiably to the chatter of people who have known each other so long that we can finish each other’s sentences (and often did that weekend) and speak in shorthand.

He and I started to fade a little early, so we headed back to the hotel and fell asleep.

The next morning, we met up with Brunette and her Special Someone who came to join us in supporting Miss M. We all had a lovely morning at Miss M’s apartment, munching on banana bread and catching up, before dropping her off at rehearsal. K and I had to actually get cleaned up and ready for our day, so we headed back, letting AS catch up with Brunette and SS. We went to the lovely Illium Café for lunch, where we had a delicious lunch and got to hear all about rehearsals for The Imaginary Invalid which opens this week. Our time with Miss M was over too soon, sadly, and we dropped her off for her afternoon rehearsals and decided to go check out Saratoga Springs, as we’d heard that it’s a lovely place. Fortunately for us, since the numbering of exits on I-87 was confusing me, SS has a GPS unit in his car which directed us to Saratoga Springs. We walked around the lovely little town for a bit, Brunette and I advised AS on some lovely sandals to wear to a wedding she’s going to next weekend, and we stopped at Cold Stone Creamery to get some ice cream on the way back. Not really a good idea for my tummy, but still so tasty.

We met Miss M and went to dinner at an Irish-Mexican place called Jose Malone’s, and here’s where our evening began to go awry… She needed to be at the theater for her call at 7 pm, so we went to dinner around 5:30, thinking that would allow ample time, since it only took about 10 minutes or less to get from anywhere in Troy to anywhere else in Troy. At least, the parts we were interested in. We ordered some chips and salsa to wile away the minutes, as well as some blue cornbread, which was delicious. But that came and went, and we waited. And waited. Eventually, AS got up to say that we were in a hurry and ask if there was some reason for the hold up. They said that they had a very large party in the back that had caused the kitchen to back up, but they would try to move our orders out. Now, we all agreed that this was a perfectly reasonable excuse, but for us to have to ask, instead of having them tell us, was the part we took issue with.

Harrumph.

However, they did bring Miss M’s food out quickly thereafter, and the rest came trickling to the table over the next 15 minutes or so. Unfortunately, they were a little too quick with AS’s food, as it wasn’t cooked all the way. We handed Miss M the keys to Whitey, our 2000 Pontiac Grand Am, and she and AS were off, as K and I stayed with Brunette and SS and we all finished our dinner. While my entrée was quite tasty, others seemed to be underwhelmed, and overall we felt that the wait wasn’t worth it in the end, unfortunately. It’s too bad, because the menu was creative and looked interesting, it just didn’t quite deliver.

We went back to the hotel to change, and headed straight to the theater, where AS was waiting, tickets in hand. The performance of Macbeth was superb. Very inventive and creepy and creative, and quite in line with what we’ve come to expect from Bakerloo – they don’t disappoint. And fortunately, they have been gaining in popularity in the Capital Region (as the Albany-Troy-Schenectady Tri-Cities Region is also known), so these intelligent adaptations are starting to receive some good recognition.

After the show, we retired with Miss M and the cast and crew to the campus pub, where beers were ridiculously cheap (after paying $2.50 for her Magic Hat #9, AS exclaimed “I love it here!”), and the company was exceedingly pleasant. After an hour or two of happily and contentedly chatting, we decided to head for the car and call it a night. Strolling toward the parking lot along the quiet street, we suddenly heard an engine rev into overdrive and someone give a rebel yell as a dark SUV tore down the street. None of us really knew quite what was going on, until we realized that one of us had been pelted with raw eggs – which are quite painful when launched from a fast-moving vehicle, I might add. The costume designer, a lovely guy with a very slender build, wearing a pink ballerina t-shirt, took off after them on foot, but couldn’t catch them. He came back and after ascertaining that everyone was okay, took a long, thoughtful drag on his cigarette before saying “I’d like to slash their #*&@! tires open…”

We bundled everyone into the car (Brunette and SS had left earlier), and went back to Miss M’s summer quarters, then Special K and I set off for the hotel. Coming to a stoplight, we saw a dark SUV with all the windows rolled down, jammed with people, and with a passenger holding something suspiciously egg-shaped in his hand. As we turned the corner I said “I think that was them”, and he said “Yeah. Me, too. Want to follow them?” to which I responded “yes”. So Whitey executed a quick turn in the middle of the street and we went back to the light, only to see that they had gone.

However, since they were only a block or two from the place where we first got egged, I figured that they were targeting that particular strip, and would be back. So we started to circle. Special K had been awfully quiet, mostly because he was pissed off, and I think it felt good to both of us to feel like we were doing something. At last, after about 15 minutes, we saw them heading toward us, and Whitey did another quick turn in the middle of the street. We saw a few more eggs launched from the car, and pulled up behind them at a stoplight. I took down their license plate number as they sped off into the distance, and called Miss M with it, as members of her company had been targeted multiple times in the last few weeks.

So although it didn’t feel quite as good as if I’d watched them get tied down and slapped by a bunch of little girls, there was something very satisfying about hearing Miss M tell me that they’d called the police who said they would comb the area.

Two words for you, kids – “assault” and “vandalism”. And “bastard people”, even though that makes it four. In any case, I have no way of knowing whether or not anything happened to them, but in my head, they ended up crying for their parents to come get them out of jail that night. Little shits.

The next morning, we found out that Brunette and SS had also gotten nailed, so they were happy to hear that they were reported to the police.

We had a nice, though all-too-brief, morning with Miss M before she had to leave for rehearsal and we had to leave for home. The trip was pleasant and uneventful, despite some freakishly heavy rains, until somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Whitey died on us. Just lost power. We coasted over to the side of the road and the car fell silent. K popped the hood and went out to look as long-haul trucks zoomed past us, and AS and I looked at each other with a feeling of “oh, crap” in the air.

He got back in the car, Whitey eventually started back up under protest, and we took off, until he lost power again shortly thereafter. I have to give credit to K, because as much as I know he was stressed out, he remained calm and rational, which is more than I would have done – there would have been much yelling and cursing. K decided that it might be something to do with the cruise control, since it died right after he turned it on the second time. We got the engine running and we set off and made it for about another 45 minutes or so, then Whitey gave it up again. Although we were closer to home than we were an hour before that, we were still a couple hundred miles from home, and not feeling too good about our prospects. We gave it a couple minutes, and once again Whitey roared to life, although under protest. So, keeping all electronics off (meaning 4/60 air conditioning and no music) since we suspected a bad power coil or a bad alternator and in our heads, this seemed like a way not to exacerbate the problem.

We kept going, chatting to pass the time and prove that we were definitely not thinking about what would happen if we got stranded, as we were choosing to be optimistic. Well, K was choosing to be the strong, silent type, and AS and I were chatting about anything and everything. Finally, we felt like we were within striking distance of our home, when outside of Gettysburg, PA, Whitey died again. And there we were, as he refused to come back to life. I called my parents to let them know that we might need an emergency pick-up, and K called our insurance company to get the car towed.

As we were sitting there, a very nice man stopped his truck and came over to look. He didn’t have the tools or equipment to help us, but he said that he also suspected the power coil and said that he was sorry not to be able to help. I thanked him for stopping and taking the time to offer, and he went on his way. I jogged down the road to see the mile marker closest to us, so that we could tell the insurance company. After I got back we tried Whitey one more time, and that engine miraculously turned on one more time. We got back in the car, and drove slowly and carefully south, hoping to make it to our house. My parents called us back and asked us to stop at their house, since it was on our way home, so that we could borrow my dad’s car for a few days while we took care of whatever ailed Whitey. We were grateful for the offer, so we did, indeed, head their way. We made it all the way there, and upon entering were greeted with hugs, air conditioning, and an offer of cold drinks and dinner, which we also gratefully accepted.

My mom is an excellent cook, if I may say so, and we all hungrily devoured the plates of spaghetti that she prepared for us. We sat and chatted for a bit after dinner, then ambled to the door, pulled Whitey into their garage, and set off in my dad’s car to drop AS off at home, and collapse into bed.

By the time I crawled into bed, I was exhausted. Special K put his arm across my stomach, and as we started to drift off to sleep, said “um…what’s that?” I felt where his hand was, and felt something rough that I peeled off my skin. Then I had a very unpleasant thought flash through my head and I turned on the light.

It was a tick.

I have never been so skeeved out in my life, and I immediately bolted out of bed and commenced prancing around like a high-strung thoroughbred, saying such useful things as “EEEEEWWWWW! GETRIDOFITANDKILLITNOW!!!!!”

Not my finest moment, to be sure. K managed to find another one on my hip, then I inspected him and after finding nothing, we called it a night. I would shudder every so often thinking about it, I just couldn't get it out of my head. As he drifted off to sleep, he said “See, Honey? If I hadn’t been groping you, we would never have found the little suckers.” I patted his head and thanked him for his vigilance as I closed my eyes on a very strange weekend.

I blame the Scottish play.