Bombs away!
*****
Once in a Lifetime
Part 15: The Stranger
by Kim McFarland
*****
During intermission the Muppets got ready for the second act. Props and scenery from the first act were stashed out of the way, and the items they would need were set out. Kermit met Scooter at the backstage right desk, where the ascended go-fer was intent on a clipboard and his tablet. Seeing green out of the corner of his eye, Scooter looked up. "Hi, Boss."
"How's it looking?"
"It's good. We're on schedule. Want to look over the set?"
"Sure." Kermit had it memorized, but he wanted to glance at it anyway. Scooter handed him the tablet.
Rowlf ambled over and asked, "Think you'll need me?"
Kermit replied, "It doesn't look like it. But you never know."
"Gotcha. I'll be hanging out," the dog said.
They had spent all week scrambling to get the acts for tonight's show, and somehow Gonzo and Rowlf, two of the mainstays of the Muppets, didn't get parts, Kermit mused. It was weird how that turned out.
*
The girls were hanging around backstage left with Miss Piggy. She would prefer to be on the right, where all the action was, but the
Teeny Weeny Queenies camera crew needed room, and tonight they would run the risk of being flattened by any number of hazards. Piggy might entertain fantasies of ridding herself of their annoying presence that way, but if she wrecked the show then the girls would lose their spotlight. At first she would have happily deep-sixed
Teeny Weeny Queenies to get herself free of the burden her agent had inflicted on her. Now…well, she still hated the show and everybody who made it, but the kids were all right. This was their chance to prove that they were more than dolls, and she meant to let 'em take it as far as they could.
Janken was one of the few Muppets who didn't have scenery, costume changes, or props to worry about. As long as his console turned on and an up-to-date list of cues was pinned to the board he had everything he needed. The extra camera and sound crew was crowding him a little, but at least they had their cameras pointed away from him.
Miss Piggy and the girls were in costume. The girls looked like they had raided the wardrobe department, which was not far from the truth. Miss Piggy was in a robe, her hair up, her makeup minimal, as if she had been too distracted to get into costume. However, the effect was far from sloppy; she had composed her ensemble as meticulously as if she were going to pose for a magazine spread.
The camera crew filmed their backstage powwow. However, the director doubted she would use the footage. They were there to film
Teeny Weeny Queenies, not "Backstage at
The Muppet Show." It was in their contract that they would film this thing according to Miss Piggy's specifications, but nothing said that they had to use it.
Backstage, the speaker announced, "Sixty seconds 'til act two! Places, everyone!" Again Miss Piggy wished she were on the other side, where the fun was, but she needed to be with the girls, and she expected that they'd do better at the less-chaotic side of the theater. They needed to be psyched up, not psyched out.
Gonzo said to Billie, "Want to watch the show from out there?" He pointed at the audience.
"Yeah. Let's go," she chirped back.
*
The curtains went up to the spirited strains of the Toreador Song from Bizet's
Carmen, revealing a man in a red ringmaster's suit with a wide ruffle collar. By his sides were a pair of large buckets. Gonzo and Billie quietly looked for some free seats in the "gods," the back of the balcony, where they would not be noticed.
Lew Zealand reached for one of the fish tails sticking out of the buckets. The water in the bucket splattered the stage, but it did keep the fish comfortable. He drew an arm back, then flung it forward, releasing the fish with a smart snap of the wrist. It flew out over the audience, its silver scales shining in the spotlights. Then it curved around in an arc and came right back to him. He reached out, and it smacked into the palm of his hand.
He dropped the first fish into a water bucket to refresh itself and grabbed another. He threw it, and it too arced out into the theater, arcing so low over the audience's heads that people ducked out of the way. But they didn't have to; the fish knew their role: out and back, dodging obstacles like tall hats or hairstyles. When that one returned, he threw the next two, each at an angle, toward the back corners of the theater house. Their paths curved, and when they crossed they passed so close that one fish's fin touched the other's. The audience wouldn't notice, of course, but Lew did, and he would compliment them on the maneuver afterward. Artists like to be recognized.
*
Sitting on Gonzo's lap, Billie watched, eyes wide. She had watched Lew rehearse a hundred times. She had seen him training the fish. She had even watched his act from the wings. But it was still exciting to see it from up here! Back there it was just the thing he did. Here it was
neat!
Gonzo was impressed. Lew was keeping four fish going at a time, throwing them out in pairs, dropping the returning fish into the water and retrieving fresh ones without breaking rhythm. It was like juggling boomerangs! Wet, cold, slippery boomerangs.
Billie said quietly to him, "That's wow!"
Gonzo replied, "Yep."
A fish, the very last to be thrown, heard a familiar voice. It changed course, heading for that voice instead of the figure in the spotlight.
The next moment Gonzo was knocked back in his seat by a ballistic fish.
The music reached its final chord. Lew held out a hand for the last fish. After a moment, he looked around. Where was it?
There was a fish flopping around on the floor front of Billie. She giggled. It was funny because she didn't expect it and she knew it didn't hurt Daddy. He was hard to hurt! Gonzo picked up the fish and whispered urgently to it, "You're supposed to return to Lew, not me! G'wan back." Holding the fish by the tail, he flung it back toward the stage.
Lew, not knowing where the fish had ended up, ended by looking out into the audience imploringly and making a telephone gesture with one hand. Then he picked up the buckets and headed offstage. He was halfway there when a fish smacked into the side of his head, then fell neatly into the bucket.
The audience laughed. The curtains closed, and the screen on the side of the stage lit up again. Heads turned. In the audience, Ed listened to another scene describing the Muppets' increasingly chaotic attempt at a sideline babysitting service. The babies were treating the rats like toys and nearly smothering them with affection, and ominous noises were coming from Miss Piggy's dressing room. It finished with Kermit escaping from the situation to go out on stage. And the real Kermit, looking as if his nerves were rubbed raw, came out and introduced Fozzie's monologue. He started to go back, then apparently thought again and exited on the other side.
As Fozzie took his place on the stage, Kermit asked Janken, "How's it going?"
Janken replied, "Just fine! I've got a camera on the audience, and they're watching the videos and laughing at the right places."
"Great." Kermit went over to where Miss Piggy and the girls were sitting on some crates, waiting for their time. He had to grin at Miss Piggy's look; from a distance she appeared to be a wreck from being slowly driven out of her wits by a half-dozen conniving brats. However, she managed to make herself look attractive at the same time. The makeup was minimal and her hairstyle was askew, but both flatteringly so. He said, "It's just about time for your number, girls. You're going to be great."
Piggy said, "Of
course they will. I taught them, didn't I?"
His expression changed to one of worry.
"What did you teach them?"
The girls giggled. Kermit chuckled; of course he had been joking. "Well, break a leg! Which, by the way, is something you should never say to Gonzo. He'll take it as a challenge." He went to the crossing passage.
Scooter met him on the other side. He was assisting the babies, which were crawling onstage, one by one, and interfering with Fozzie's monologue by claiming him as their teddy bear. One had somehow climbed to his shoulder and was holding him around the head and chewing on his ear. Fozzie was gamely trying to salvage his act, and Statler and Waldorf were trying their best to sink it.
Scooter, seeing Kermit, asked, "Are Piggy and the girls ready?"
"Yep. They're waiting for their cue."
"Great. The show's on schedule, won't need to add or cut anything. So far," he added quickly. He was not superstitious, but he knew better than to tempt fate.
Fozzie finished his act and made his way offstage, his usual vaudevillian exit hampered by infants who, though they could not walk, could climb a bear. Once offstage Fozzie said to the babies, "Hey, you guys were really great! We were killin' 'em out there!" Still in character, they answered in a chorus of baby talk.
Sweetums said, "C'mon kids, back to Uncle Sweetums."
He tried to free Fozzie from captivity, but the babies clung tight, exclaiming, "Teddy bear!" Some threatened to cry.
Fozzie, surprised, said, "Well…okay." There were worse things to do between acts than be an ursine jungle gym. He sat down and said, "Wanna hear a funny story?"
The babies nodded and babbled. He said, "Well, there were these two polar bears on an ice floe…"
Sweetums listened as Fozzie told of how the floe cracked in two and drifted apart, separating the bears, who pined for each other. He drew it out, turning what might have been a short anecdote into a long, winding tale. As he did, the babies began to yawn, and their eyes drifted shut. As he felt their grip on his fur loosening he gently lifted them from their perches, one by one, and transferred them to Sweetums. "How about that. It works as well on them as it did on me. Ma used to tell me that one when she put me to bed," Fozzie remarked.
He started to get up, and Sweetums said, "Wait!"
"Huh?"
"What happened to the bears? I wanna hear the rest of the story!"
"Oh? Sure! Well, one day, one of the bears saw something on the horizon, a little bump like an island. It got closer and closer, and it wasn't an island at all, it was the other half of the ice floe with the other bear! The first bear couldn't wait any longer. He dove into the water and swam to the other ice floe as fast as he could! And when he pulled himself out of the icy water, you know what the other bear did?"
"No!"
"She ran away, shouting, 'Radio! Radio!' Get it?
Radio! Aaaah!"
The bear and the ogre laughed for half a minute. Then Sweetums said, "I don't get it."
Surprised, Fozzie said, "You don't?"
"Nope."
Fozzie sat down again, his chin in his hand. "Neither do I."
*
A little later, Miss Piggy and the girls were backstage right. The curtains had not closed in front of the set of the last act, but the lights had dimmed so as not to compete with the cutscene being shown on the other side of the wall. The audio was playing through the speaker on that side so Piggy and the girls would be able to hear their cue. They didn't need to see the video; having recently filmed it and then watched it again several times, they could see it in their minds: they had been pestering and annoying Miss Piggy, and flattering her just when she was about to lose it; they had finally pushed her too far, and she chased them out of her dressing room with dire threats. On the screen they ran toward the stage. Backstage, the real Miss Piggy let fly with a shriek of rage as the girls raced onto the stage, which lit up again as the image on the screen faded. They dodged behind props and scenery and peeped out, looking back toward the left. One, a puppy, said to a bird, "You shouldn't have taken that feather boa!"
The bird flipped the edge of a white boa that was so luxuriously thick it threatened to hide her face over her shoulder. "It doesn't have her name on it."
*
Ed, in the audience, listened as the girls griped about how bored they were, in direct contradiction to the cutscenes, and what a terrible babysitter Miss Piggy was, then segued into a song from
Annie. They had changed the lyrics, however, to fit their complaints and their determination to raise Cain. In the middle of the song each of the girls had a short solo. He did not recognize any of their voices; they must be new to the cast rather than Whatnots dressed as children. He laughed with the rest of the audience as one of them did a ridiculously over-the-top impression of Miss Piggy. He imagined Miss Piggy doing a slow burn offstage.
At the end of the song Miss Piggy stormed out and snarled, "Do I hear happiness out here?!"
The girls replied in sugary tones, "We love you, Miss Piggy!"
They flocked around her, fawning sweetly. The bird lifted the boa onto her shoulders and said, "I'm so sorry I borrowed this, Miss Piggy. I thought it would make me as beautiful as you. I was wrong. You're
much more beautiful!" The other girls chorused agreement.
Piggy, startled, said, "Well…in that case,
moi will forget about it this time. Come along, dears."
She herded the girls offstage. The bird hung back, and when the rest were gone she grinned wickedly at the audience, tossed her hair the way Miss Piggy did, then strutted offstage, wiggling her hips in an exaggerated imitation of the diva.
Once offstage, Miss Piggy said, "You knocked 'em dead! I knew you could do it!" She knelt, and the girls gathered around her for a group hug.
The
Teeny Weeny Queenies crew, filming from a somewhat safe spot out of the main flow of action, filmed the scene. The director, her expression neutral, didn't bother to make a note. There was nothing worth writing down.
*
The rest of the show proceeded smoothly, at least as far as any Muppet production ever did. The girls were as keyed-up after taking their bows at the end as they had been about their song. They hadn't rehearsed that, and nobody had thought to tell them about it; it was just assumed that of they'd been in the show they would take a bow afterward. But they had gone on with Miss Piggy and did what she did, and people clapped for them. It was like they were stars!
Afterward, the crew packed up their equipment, and Miss Piggy escorted the girls back to the limousines. She blew kisses to them, saying, "Bye-bye! I'll see you tomorrow! Bye-bye!" The girls waved back through the car windows as the vehicles pulled away.
When she turned back, Kermit was there. He said, "It looked like you all had a really good time."
"Yes, we did. Kermit, I'm glad I had to do this show after all. I thought I was going to hate it, but those girls…"
He took her hand. "I know," he said gently.
She looked at him, a soft expression on her face. He could see that she had really lost herself in this project. And it looked as if she was laying some old, bad memories to rest. "I'm glad you're doing this too," he told her in a low voice.
"Kermie…"
After a pause, they leaned forward just a little and kissed briefly. Then they turned and walked back to the theater. Kermit put an arm around her waist. "Piggy, the way you were with those girls, it kind of made me think…y'know, I bet you really would make a good, um, ah-" he stammered.
"A good what?" she asked.
"A good babysitter," he finished.
"Hiiii-
yah!" she said without making a move to clobber him.
*
Back in the theater, Scooter went to backstage left. Janken's console was locked but not powered down, and he was nowhere to be seen, not even in the flyspace. Scooter bet he knew where the Fraggle was. He sat in the chair, took out his tablet, opened an app, and changed the settings on a video. A confirmation screen came up, and he paused and let out a breath before hitting the submit button. Then he copied an URL and opened up his E-mail. He addressed a letter it to all of the Muppets plus his sister, and typed, "This is nothing you don't already know, but I wanted to show it to you, my friends and family, before posting it for all the world to see." He pasted in the URL and tapped the "send" button.
A few minutes later Janken returned. He said, "Hi, Scooter. I was talking to Ed."
"Oh, how'd he like it?"
"He thought the screen stuff was really cool. Like watching it on TV, he said."
"Great! That's what we were shooting for. Hopefully it'll get some positive buzz going. We need it."
"Why?"
"Gagagate, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Heh. I forgot."
"Brother. C'mon, shut down your station and let's go."
"Okay." Janken unlocked it with a password, then said, "Hang on, I got an E-mail." He read it, then smiled at Scooter. Scooter smiled back.
*
By the time the Electric Mayhem bus returned to the boarding house, most of the Muppets had seen Scooter's video. Many of them had cell phones, and those who didn't watched it on their friends' devices. It made Scooter terribly self-conscious, hearing his own voice speak at low volume from a bunch of different directions. Janken put his arm around his shoulders reassuringly. Scooter murmured to him, "I wish I'd waited 'til we got home."
They went inside. Some went straight to the kitchen; the backstage eatery was never open after a show. Others, tired after the show or wanting some quality time alone with a deck of cards, went up to their rooms. Janice laid a hand on Scooter's shoulder and said, "Wow, that video was so
deep. Like, you told us what you are and all, but I had no idea how it
felt."
Scooter replied, "Thanks. That's how it used to feel. It's a lot better now."
Rowlf said, "I wish I'd known before, when you were havin' trouble."
Gonzo added, "Yeah."
Scooter chuckled ruefully. "I wish I'd had the guts to say something then."
Sam the Eagle said, "What I don't understand is why, instead of going through all that angst, didn't you try to
do something about it?"
Startled, Scooter said, "What do you mean?"
The Eagle folded his wings across his chest. "You stated that you were unhappy being…what you are. If you didn't like it, why didn't you change it?"
"Hey, he's h'okay, h'okay?"
"Most
absitively uncopacetic."
"Bawk bawk bawk! B'gark bawk!"
Scooter turned and raised his voice over the babble. "Hey! He asked
me." Turning back to Sam, who looked slightly stunned, he said, "Sam, being gay isn't something you can change. There is no cure because there's nothing to cure. It isn't a disease, it's just the way some people are."
The eagle replied, "Nonsense. Here in America one can make whatever one wants of oneself if you're determined enough! There is therapy available, you know."
Scooter shook his head. "Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Those organizations that say they straighten people out, do you know what they do? They teach you to be afraid of, to hate what you are. To believe it's so terrible to be gay that you'll lie to others, to yourself, so you can pretend you're not 'one of
those.
' For a lot of people it doesn't work at all, or it only makes them suffer more. I need that like I need a hole in the head."
"You keep insisting that you cannot change. Did you even
try?" Sam demanded.
"No, I didn't. And that's mostly because of this guy." He took Janken's hand. "I found out when I fell in love with him. It felt like I'd finally found something I didn't know was missing. It was one of the very best things that ever happened to me. I'd be nuts to put myself through heck just so I could lose him." Scooter said earnestly, "Plus, think about it, Sam. Nobody gets a choice. Do you think I went, 'Hmm, I can live a normal life, or I can have people think I'm weird, even sick, and give me grief because of something that has nothing to do with them? Yeah, gimme that!' I never decided to be gay. Did you decide to be straight?"
"Yes!" Sam snapped.
There was a startled silence. Sam cleared his throat, then said, "Scooter, I am not asking you to change now. You have obviously made your peace. I was referring only to your past."
"I get it. No problem," Scooter replied.
Sam drew himself up. Stiffly he said, "Don't misunderstand me. Despite your 'quirk' you are still a good American. I consider you no weirder than the next person." He looked expressively around the room. "But considering who the next person is…" He turned and walked away.
The Muppets who had witnessed the conversation began muttering in an unfriendly tone. Miss Piggy said, "If he gives you any more guff, I'll knock that beak onto the back of his head."
Scooter replied, raising his voice a little to be heard over the rhubarb, "Really, it's okay. It was a fair question. And the whole point of that video I did was that it's something we can talk about, after all."
*
A little later, Scooter and Janken were in Scooter's room. Most of the other Muppets were downstairs watching TV, playing poker, partying, or jamming. Thankfully, Scooter and Janken could screen out the noise. It was a skill necessary for survival in the boarding house.
Janken said, "You handled Sam really well. I'm kinda surprised you didn't get mad."
Scooter sat on the bed. "You know Sam. He looks down his beak at everybody who doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning and wear star-spangled underwear. But you know how he often calls the rest of us weirdos, freaks, and stuff whenever he gets miffed? Notice he didn't say any of that. I really think he didn't mean to be insulting."
"I guess he was on his best behavior, then."
"Maybe. But I gotta give him credit for at least trying to understand. I can't ask for more than that." Scooter paused thoughtfully, then said, "I'll be back in a minute. Would you do me a favor?"
"Sure. What?"
Scooter handed Janken his tablet. "That video, set it to public, would you?"
Janken smiled. "Sure. Anything else?"
"Nah, that's all."
Scooter left the room, walked down the hall, and tapped on another door. A baritone voice said, "Come in."
Scooter opened the door and looked in. From Sam's expression, the eagle would rather have seen anyone else. Scooter said, "Sam, sorry if I came off a little harsh back there. That was stuff that I'd had in my mind for a long time, and when you asked it all came out."
Sam paused, surprised. Then he said, "Not at all. It was a very informative conversation."
"Good. If there's other stuff you want to talk about, y'know, without everyone else listening, I'm up," Scooter told him.
Sam looked away for a moment. Then he looked back and said, "I have no other 'stuff' to discuss. I believe we covered the subject well enough, thank you."
"Okay. But if anything comes up later…"
*
It was late at night, and Fleet Scribbler, wearing an old T-shirt and shorts, was sitting at his computer, editing an article for tomorrow's issue of
The Daily Scandal. His legwork this week had not paid off, but that didn't worry him. He had a number of articles 'on the spike' for emergencies like this. They were generic stories; he could drop in whatever names were in the news and add in some vague but titillating details, and they were ready to go. The rent would be paid.
He saved the draft; he'd take a break before giving it the final once-over and sending it on. He minimized the word processor and checked his E-mail. Spam, stuff he didn't need to look at right away, and a notice about the latest videos on his subscription list. He opened the last one, hoping there'd be something cool there, or at least cooler than kitty videos. He scrolled down the blurbs and thumbnails, then, surprised, he clicked on one. After a minute of loading and buffering, The video began: "Hi, I'm Scooter. I'm the stage manager for
The Muppet Show. And, as you must've guessed since this is another of those
It Gets Better videos, I'm gay."
Fleet sat back. "It must be my birthday," he murmured.
He watched the video, then replayed it. Then he sat back. No question, forget the boilerplate blabber,
this was his story. The only question was, what angle to take? This could spin in several different directions.
He thought for a few minutes, then opened up his word processor and created a new document. Smirking, he began to type.
****
All named characters except Janken and Ed are copyright © The Muppets Studio, LLC. and are used without permission but with much respect and affection. Ed is a real person, more or less, and thus I suppose he holds his own copyright. He appears here with permission. Janken Fraggle is copyright © Kim McFarland (
negaduck9@aol.com), as is the overall story. Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.
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Christmas Music
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
presented Jimmy Fallon. But I know where you could get a monkey-wrench, jack-hammer, hack-saw and even a drill sergeant to whip your tools into shape.
reports back to Diane how he doesn't understand why the town's named that... Or the invasion of the alien shapeshifter doppelgänger cabbages? Cause frankly, either of those make more sense than the actual Twin Peaks show. Especially when you consider the SNL sketch where they're all saying who the culprit was. Meh, I prefer a good Scooby mystery anyway. *Wanders off to the Ghoul School down in NOLA.