The day I talked to Miss Garber, went through the audition, and got the part. Eddie, by the way, wasnt upset at all. In fact, I could tell he was actually relieved about the whole thing. When Miss Garber asked him if hed be willing to let me play the role of Tom Thornton, his face sort of relaxed right there and one of his eyes popped back open. "Y-y-yes, a-a-absolutely," he said, stuttering. "I-I-I un-un-uand." It took him practically ten seds to get the words out.
For his generosity, however, Miss Garber gave him the role of the bum, and we knew hed do fairly well in that role. The bum, you see, was pletely mute, but the angel always knew what he was thinking. At one point in the play she has to tell the mute bum that God will always watch out for him because God especially cares for the poor and downtrodden. That was one of the tip-offs to the audiehat shed bee from heaven. Like I said earlier, Hegbert wa to be real clear who offered redemption and salvation, and it certainly wasnt going to be a few rickety ghosts who just popped up out of nowhere.
Rehearsals started the week, and we rehearsed in the classroom, because the Playhouse wouldnt open their doors for us until wed got all the "little bugs" out of our performance. By little bugs, I mean our tendency to actally knock over the props. The props had been made about fifteen years ago, when the play was in its first year, by Toby Bush, a sort of roving handyman who had done a few projects for the Playhouse in the past. He was a roving handyman because he drank beer all day long while he worked, and by about two oclock or so hed really be flying. I guess he couldraight, because hed actally whack his fingers with the hammer at least once a day. Whehat happened, hed throw down the hammer and jump up and down, holding his fingers, cursing everyone from his mother to the devil. When he finally calmed down, hed have another beer to soothe the pain befoing back to work. His knuckles were the size of walnuts, permaly swollen from years of whag, and no one was willing to hire him on a perma basis. The only reason Hegbert had hired him at all was because he was far and away the lowest bidder in town.
But Hegbert wouldnt allow drinking or cursing, and Toby really didnt know how to work within such a striviro. As a result, the work was kind of sloppy, though it wasnt obviht off the bat. After a few years the props began to fall apart, and Hegbert took it upon himself to keep the things together. But while Hegbert was good at thumping the Bible, he wasnt too good at thumping nails, and the props had bent, rusty nails stig out all over, poking through the plywood in so many places that we had to be careful to walk exactly where we were supposed to. If we bumped them the wrong way, wed either cut ourselves or the props would topple over, making little nail holes all over the stage floor. After a couple of years the Playhouse stage had to be resurfaced, and though they couldly close their doors to Hegbert, they made a deal with him to be more careful iure. That meant we had to practi the classroom until wed worked out the "little bugs."
Fortunately Hegbert wasnt involved with the actual produ of the play, because of all his ministering duties. That role fell to Miss Garber, and the first thing she told us to do was to memorize our lines as quickly as possible. We didnt have as much time as was usually allotted for rehearsals because Thanksgiving came on the last poss