A little East of Paris: Theater

Gwain thanked Otis for “keeping an eye on Jana”. Otis mumbled something and went wondering off.

“Did he tell you about his Ph.D. thesis?” Gwain asked Jana.

“Only that he was in Israel for a time” Jana responded.

“It is fascinating work. He is translating the work of Mendel Nun into English and you cannot imagine the number of calls Violet gets asking when Otis can visit their campus and ‘defend’ his work” Gwain said.

“He speaks and reads Hebrew?” Jana asked, a bit surprised.

“You bet. Maybe you didn’t know this, but he is from New York City and majored in Hebrew at The City University of New York. He got 4.0s against some very stiff competition.”

“I bet” Jana said.

Seeing Gwain, various faculty members started drifting over to check-out the newest member of the staff. The rumor mill had been churning and due to recent events he was quite the novelty. Predictably, more than three-quarters of the faculty members were women and they immediately gravitated to Jana. Gwain was taciturn by nature while Jana was quite starved for intellectually stimulating, adult conversation.

The conversation turned, as it always did, to the quality of the incoming students (depressingly low), the impact of technology (reducing the status of professional writers), the job market (getting worse) and the dumbing down of the mass-market (“Classes on Graphic Novels; REALLY?”)

Gwain was old enough to remember when the “horrible” technology was electric typewriters and the "dumbing down of mass-market" was movie scripts.

It took Gwain a few heartbeats to recognize the grizzled, older man who was deftly working his way closer. It was Dean Fuchs!

“Professor McCampbell” Dean Fuchs said, directing his words toward Jana. “I wonder if you can spare your husband. We have need of his special talents on the other side of the barn.”

“Well, that is up to him” Jana said.

“I am going to work on that next” Dean Fuchs said. “But I didn’t want to steal him away if you had need of him.”

“I think I can manage” Jana said with joyful lilt, looking at her audience like a queen holding court.

Turning toward Gwain, Dean Fuchs said “It is my understanding that you have a lot of experience in theatrical productions and that you are a bit of a Civil War buff.”

Once again, Gwain marveled at amount of attention “upper” management paid to the minutia of the people at the working level. When he had been a grad student, he had NO idea of how much time the department heads and deans spent discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses of various students.

On the the other hand, he had published at least one paper a year, even if it was as a minor co-author. And a couple of them had been about the Civil War. It was all a matter of public record and easy enough to retrieve if it was of any interest to somebody.

“I am hardly an expert but I am more than willing to help in any way that I can” Gwain said. How could he say anything else? Jana didn’t need him and it was The DEAN who was asking for “help”.

“Come with me” the Dean commanded him.

Together they walked across the lawn and past the smoker and the tables with all of the food.

Rounding the corner of one of the sheet-metal buildings (which Gwain later learned was called a “Pole barn”) Gwain saw a raised area.

Dr von Tersch was directing a motley crew to keep filling empty milk jugs with water.

“So, what we have here is a simulation of naval battle where a boarding party takes over a ship. If you want, you can think of it as a ship that was running arms through a naval blockade and is being boarded by force from a Naval vessel” the Dean said.

“The first members of the boarding force takes over the wheel-house and a sailor, the actor, crosses from his vessel to this one…” the Dean said, pointing to a rope tied to a truss on the pole barn above the loading dock“...and he lands on the poop-deck overlooking the wheelhouse. From that elevated position he defends the sailor in the wheel-house who is turning into the ship into the wind where it will luff and then be boarded en masse.”

“With me so far?” the Dean asked.

“I guess so…” Gwain said, a bit uncertain where this was all going.

Looking at the trucking bay below the loading dock, Gwain could see milk jugs filled with water and hockey pucks (he later learned that they were called “clay pigeons) that were painted different colors. Crude representations of swords and spears were laid out on the sand and lines ran back to pulleys and thence “back stage”. A rectangle was outlined with lumber and Gwain assumed that was the "wheel-house".

The Dean handed Gwain a script. “We need to make a few dry-runs before we do this for-real. Do you mind reading through the script? I will give you a tap on your shoulder when it is time for you to read the next line.”

It was a bit overwhelming. Gwain looked around and didn’t see any place for an audience but, hey, it was Texas. Maybe they did things differently here.

“OK, we are ready for our first rehearsal” the Dean said. “Let her rip!”

Gwain looked down at his “script” and barked out in his best Shakespearian, stage voice “ORANGE-TWO!”

Looking out at the stage, Gwain saw a spear and a sword rise up next to the milk jugs marked with the orange hockey pucks.

The Dean tapped him on the shoulder after three seconds.

Gwain barked out “GREEN-ONE!”

A short sword popped up next to a milk jug marked with a green hockey puck.

They ran through various scripts three times.

“OK” Dr von Tersch said. “Time to go ‘HOT’.

“Let me remind you, the gun must ALWAYS be pointed in a safe direction. If anybody sees that being violated you are supposed to yell "MUZZLE!".

"Nobody who has had an alcoholic drink today is allowed to touch the firearm."

"Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot."

"When you run the gun dry, put it in the PVC rack and switch to the pike which will be on the left side of the poop-deck. Misses with the gun will be penalized ten seconds. Engaging an opponent with a sword before an opponent with a pike will be penalized by five seconds. Players over the age of forty will not have to swing onto the poop-deck. Any questions?”

Gwain mind echoed “GUN!?!?!?”

Looking over at the rope swing, Gwain saw Otis standing on a short platform. He was wearing a Civil War, full-flap holster on a belt and was holding the rope and waiting for the starting bell.

Then Gwain heard von Tersch on his phone saying "OK, Debbie. Let the guests know that it is going to be noisy for a while.'