The Golden Globe

"All right. Maybe I'm pushing too hard. We'll resume tomorrow."

"You didn't hear me. I quit."

"You quit."

"You want me to spell it for you? I quit the swordsmanship lessons. I quit Romeo. I quit Shakespeare. I quit acting. I quit."

Valentine turned away and his body sagged. He rubbed his forehead with one hand. He sighed deeply. It was silent-movie acting, every move deliberate and exaggerated. Sparky studied Valentine's back. He imagined pulling the sword from the stage and thrusting it between the shoulder blades.

No. That wasn't the way.

Valentine turned around.

"You quit. Just like that. Suddenly twenty years of—"

"Twenty-nine years. I'm twenty-nine. You've been teaching me since I was in the cradle."

Valentine laughed.

"Make it thirty, son. Count the nine months in the womb."

"In those thirty years," Sparky said, unperturbed, "there is one thing you never did. One thing you neglected."

"And what would that be?"

"You never asked me what I wanted to do."

Valentine laughed. He made a grand sweeping gesture with his sword, and a courtly bow.

"So, my son, tell me. What do you want to do with your life?"

"I don't know," Sparky admitted. "I've never had time to think about it. You never gave me any time."

"Go on. This is fascinating."

"You never asked me anything. Your plans were always 'our' plans, but I was never consulted."

"You are a child."

"I was never a child. I never had a chance to be one. I was a pretty fair performing monkey, though. 'Put a dime in the cup, folks. Watch little Ke

"Do you believe that's how I thought of you?"

"No. No, I don't, Father. I think you thought of me, still think of me, as an extension of yourself. Any glory I earn is your glory."

Once more, Valentine laughed. But he sobered quickly, and looked intently into his son's eyes.

"No, my son. It's much more than that. You are me."

"In your mind, maybe. Up until today, maybe. But I've had enough, Father. I quit. I'm going to walk out of here, and from this moment on I make my own decisions."

Valentine looked into his son's eyes, and they did not waver. At last, almost apologetically, he sighed deeply and spread his hands.

"I simply can't allow that."

"You'll have to stop me."

"I will, son. I will."

Sparky stood his ground. The sword still swayed slightly between them, a steel gauntlet, an intolerable challenge.

"Now take your weapon, and take your position. We still have ten minutes of lesson to get through."

"I won't."

"Then I'll cut you down where you stand. Defend yourself, sir!"

Valentine raised his sword and began walking slowly toward his son. The blade hissed through the air, once, twice. Then a quiet, mild voice came from the wings.

"All right, that's enough of that, Mr. Valentine. Not one more step."

Sparky and Valentine both jerked in surprise, and turned to see a tall, lanky form walk slowly from behind the curtain. He wore a beige, wide-brimmed felt Stetson, a homespun blue shirt and leather vest, and baggy gray pants. His boots were dusty and broken in. Strapped low around his waist was a gunbelt and holsters, and in them could be seen the butts of two revolvers.

"Who the hell are you?" Valentine thundered.

"Elwood, stay out of this," Sparky said.

"My name is Tom Destry, Mr. Valentine. I'm a friend of—"

"You look just like Jimmy Stewart."

"I've been told that. Don't know the gentleman. Sparky and I go way back, though. Clear back to his first day at the studio."

"My son's name is Ke

Elwood shook his head. "Not right now, it isn't. You see, Mr. Valentine, right about then, that first day when you left him alone all day while you were off on your audition, or whatever it was, your boy needed a friend. And that's what I've been to him, as well as I can be."

"Elwood, please..."

"Sparky, somebody has to do this."

They made a rough triangle, the three of them. Sparky mostly looking down at the floor, darting quick glances from one man to the other. Elwood stood at his ease, his hands dangling at his sides. Valentine could not stand still. He paced, two steps to the right, three steps back, in no pattern. His eyes blazed, and they never wavered from Elwood.

"Who is this man, Ke

"This is Elwood P. Dowd, Father. He's my friend."

"Elwood P.—" Valentine cut a quick glance at his son, then looked back at Elwood, threw his head back, and roared with laughter.

"Well, Mr. Dowd, it's a pleasure, sir. I feel like I've known you all my life. And Ke

He dropped his arm, looked sadly at his son, and shook his head.

"Your friend is a nut, Ke

"The drink is milk, sir, and the name is still Destry."

"Or Stewart. Tell me, Jimmy, if you're here as a tough guy of some sort, why not that marshal, Guthrie McCabe, in Two Rode Together? Or that outlaw in Bandolero!—what was his name... Mace Bishop. Or even that lawyer fella, Ransom Stoddard, the one who shot Liberty Valance. What's the matter, tenderfoot? Law books no damn good? Is that why you're packing?"

Elwood/Tom seemed bemused by the speech. He looked at Sparky.

"You told me he had a photographic memory for plots and cast lists," he said. "I don't know if I'da remembered all of those m'self."

"Dramatis personae," Valentine said. "That's the term we actors use."

"Meaning I'm not one," Destry said. "No, I don't reckon I am, sir, not of your caliber, certainly. You can mock me all you want, Mr. Valentine. I can take it. It's the boy over there who can't take it anymore. I know everything about you there is to know, sir. Every small-minded deed, every slight you've ever given him. Every blow you've ever landed."

"I'm his teacher," Valentine growled.

"And a good one, too, so far as that goes. If all a teacher's for is to develop a skill, why, you're a darn good one. But I happen to think being a teacher, and a father, means a lot more than that, Mr. Valentine. And by that standard, you've completely failed him. He lives in fear of you. He's a man's size, but he's still a boy when he faces you. You won't let him go, and he can't break away from you."

Valentine looked astonished.

"And why would he want to? He and I are joined at the hip, sir. It has always been that way, and it will always remain so. We are united by our art, something a pathetic gesticulator like yourself could never understand, and by something a great deal deeper than that. Ke

Sparky, his clothing tattered and soaked in blood, swayed and thought once more that he would pass out. He looked helplessly from his father to Elwood, and back again.