Chapter One: The Accident Chapter One THE ACCIDENT CARDBOARD VILLAGE. That's what the kids at school call my neighborhood. I hate that name, coined by a child poet to describe the tar shingles that cover our small houses, built fast and cheap on concrete slabs with no basements to protect us from tornadoes in Oak Park, Michigan, the poor enclave in a rising Jewish suburb just north of Detroit. It's the neighborhood where the parents have less: less money, less education, less stability. And the kids are deemed less: less smart, less cooperative, less likely to succeed. On the first day of middle school, my new locker mate looks over at me and asks, "You live in The Village?" I freeze. My heart speeds up. Blood pumps to my head and ears. "What?" "Cardboard Village," he says. Caught, as if I'm in trouble, I blurt out one syllable. "Yep." "What's it like?" he asks. "What's what like?" I act like I don't know what he's talking about. "You know, tornadoes. Where do you hide? You're kind of like the little pig in the house made of straw." I don't have an answer. I don't want to hide. I want to escape the neighborhood that makes me ashamed. I want to escape the poverty that entraps me and my dark, dour family. Mom frowns, Dad erupts, and my fourteen-year-old older sister, Laurie, hides in her bedroom smoking cigarettes. They all fit together. They are tall and heavy; I'm paper-thin. They have dark hair and eyes; I'm blond-haired and blue-eyed. I'm the adopted son who looks and acts different. While they watch Detroit Lions football games, I write plays and make paper cutouts of trees and leaves and sunbursts to tape to my wall. I'm the answer to the Sesame Street quiz, "One of these things is not like the other." And yet. I'm also the favorite. The light of the family. The boy everyone wants to be with even when I don't want to be with them. JUMP BACK TO JUNE 1974. I'm nine years old. "Wanna serve some papers?" asks my dad. We have just finished dinner with Mom and Laurie. It is still light outside on this late spring night. I do not want to go with my dad to serve papers, but I'm afraid to hurt his feelings. "Um, I think I need to get ready for school tomorrow." It's a lame excuse and doesn't stop him. "Come on, keep me company, it's only two papers," he says. "Go with your father," says Mom. "Keep him company." "Sure," I say. We walk to the side drive, cracked like a broken plate, with weeds invading, and open the doors to his Ford LTD station wagon, bought used a couple years ago. I get in the passenger seat, pushing aside dirty napkins and an empty quart of buttermilk from Guernsey Farms, his favorite roadside dairy stand. He can drink a quart of buttermilk a day. "Just throw that stuff on the floor," says Dad as he drops his weight onto the front seat, which bounces the car toward him like a rowboat about to tip. Dad is a giant next to my small nine-year-old body--he's six-foot-three and 250 pounds. His sword-like eyebrows burn red and the curly crimson hair on his head is receding, but still forms its own burning bush. He's an enormous man, whose size provides safety and entertainment. There is a picture in our small family collection of my sister and me on his shoulders, visiting the zebras at the Detroit Zoo. I love this photograph. Riding his shoulders is also the best vantage point for watching the annual Hudson's Thanksgiving Day Parade. His height lets me soar over the other onlookers, and his expansive shoulders and hands warm my legs and feet. His enormity can also terrify because when this giant loses his temper, he is like another tornado from which we cannot hide. He backs down the driveway, swerves around the small island in front of our house, and heads toward Detroit. Driving in the car with Dad, I look straight ahead or out my window, and try not to wince or make funny sounds as he bounds through the streets as if they are his own personal highways. Making a left turn is a game of chicken. For the passenger sitting closest to the oncoming car, it is a terrifying death sport. "So, what's happening, son?" "School's out in two weeks," I say. "Looking forward to summer?" "Sort of," I say. I like school more than summer vacation. It's more fun than being at home. "Where we going tonight?" I ask. "Let's see here," he says, looking down and taking out of his large brown folder a white summons that is attached to a legal complaint. I shouldn't have asked. He pays more attention to the paper than the road. "We need to get this guy. I've had no luck. He's never home when I show up." "What's the deal?" I ask. "It says here he owes a year of child support. Here, take a look at the complaint." I like reading the complaints. "It says this guy left town for a year and tried to pass for dead," I say. "A man who treats his children like that should be in jail," he says. "Well, I guess they found him," I say. "And now we're gonna get him." We're driving on Eight Mile Road, the dividing line between Detroit and the suburbs. The businesses change as we move east through the city. Dress shops and cleaners give way to boarded-up storefronts. "So, what's happening, son?" Dad asks. He already asked that question. But he doesn't remember. "School's out in two weeks," I say. "What are you doing this summer?" Same question he just asked. "Going to day camp with Bruce, and we're playing T-ball," I say. "I loved going to B'nai B'rith camp when I was a kid," he says. A guy pulls into our lane, cutting off Dad. "What the fuck?" He steps on the gas pedal and swerves into the lane next to the other car. "Roll down your window," he says to me. "What?" I can hear him, but I don't want to roll down my window. "Roll down your window," he says. I do what I am told. "Hey! Asshole! Learn how to drive," shouts Dad. "Kiss my ass," says the other driver as he gives Dad the finger. He roars away. I can see Dad revving up, about to start chasing him, but then he changes his mind and slows down. "Sorry about that," he says. Some silence. The neighborhood changes again. It becomes middle class, but there are no bagel factories or kosher delicatessens, just lots of liquor stores and churches. This is the East Side, which is 100 percent gentile, while we are from the West Side, which is more Jewish. We arrive at a white brick ranch house with a bow window in the front. The grass is unmown and has a lot of dandelions coming up, kind of like our house. There are no bushes or flowers around the edges. All the windows are covered with bedsheets of different colors and patterns. Dad parks on the street in front, takes out the paper, and opens his door. "Stay put, son, I'll be right back." I watch him walk toward the front door, the summons in his back pocket. Some process servers carry handguns, but Dad doesn't believe in guns. I'm not even allowed to play with toy guns. He doesn't need one though. He walks fearlessly through life. He is a Jewish Paul Bunyan, in search of deadbeat dads, prospective divorcees, and delinquent mortgage holders--the kind of people who don't want to see a giant walking up their driveway with a legal-size paper in his hand. He reaches the door and rings the bell. Stands there. No answer. He knocks on the door. Hard. No answer. He peers in the living room window. No luck. He returns to the door, banging his hand over and over. I start to worry. Why isn't he giving up? He starts banging on the glass of the window, as if he might break it. Finally, the door opens a crack. He is talking to someone, a woman. She is wearing a long yellow T-shirt like a dress and looks like he woke her up. She is shaking her head no, but he won't leave. A man comes around the side of the house--he is short and pudgy. He is wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. His belly hangs over his waistband. Dad sees him. The man starts running a little. Dad paces after him. Though Dad doesn't run, his legs are very long, and he quickly catches up with the guy and puts his hand on his shoulder to stop him. He starts talking to the guy and I roll my window down a little so I can hear what they are saying. "Sorry, that's not me," says the man. "I think it is," says Dad. "I have your photo." A man from the house next door opens his door and comes out to his porch. "Hey, leave him alone," says the neighbor. "Is this your next-door neighbor, Bill McBride?" says Dad. "None of your business," says the neighbor. The man tries to walk away. Dad grabs him by the arm. "That's assault," says the man. He doesn't put up a fight with this process server who stands many inches over his head. Dad tucks the summons under the man's shirt. "Mr. McBride, my name is Mark Seller. I've been appointed by the court to serve you this summons. Please read it carefully and show up on your appointed court date." Excerpted from Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir by Jeffrey Seller All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
