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Show 187 "My buddy." He looked at me funny. "Could you introduce me?" "Sure. Any time." "Buddy," he said, and put his arm around my shoulder. I couldn't get more tickets to see it again, they were sold out, so Ben and I went over so we could be around when the second performance ended. But when we got to Mandel Hall the play had ended early and the audience, mostly, had gone home. The police had busted it. We found Amelia in the C Shop with others of the cast, out of costume, drinking coffee and talking excitedly about censorship and a police state. I introduced her to Ben but she hardly acknowledged it, all wrought up about Freedom. Then the cops left and we went back into the hall to the stage where the play's director and Ezra Posner were talking about the cops. For the rest of us they acted out the interview, Ez taking the role of the lieutenant from the vice squad. Director: You're going to haul me in? Lieutenant: Naw, we don't want you. We want the foul-mouthed shit who wrote this fucking garbage. Dir: His name is on the playbill. If you can read. Lieut: Yeah? What kinda name is that? Some kinda foreigner? A Red? Dir: A Greek. Lieut: That figures. That his last name or his first? Dir: Joe Aristophanes. We call him Ari. Lieut: Yeah? (He writes it all down.) OK, what's his address? Dir: I don't know. I think somewhere on the Near North Side. Lieut: Up with those other perverts, huh? We'll put out a dragnet. Dir: He might have left town. He care to opening night but I think he left for New York. |