Coming of Age
By: Brock Archer
(© 2020 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

barcher@tickiestories.us

Chapter 30
Show Time

Saturday was the big day. Maria told us that we could take our mothers sightseeing as long as we didn’t overdo it. We had a late lunch because we wouldn’t get to eat again until after the show. Maria pronounced Troy ready for his TV debut but cautioned him to save his voice for that evening.

At La Scala, where the show was being broadcast from, Troy waited in the green room with Maria and Armando, who would also be on the show. Our mothers sat in the front row along with Johnny, Mike, Rob, and me, and right behind us were Guiseppe, Troy’s language teacher, who had also become a good friend, as well as the four members of The Outlaws.

After a brief musical introduction, the announcer called Silvana’s name, the curtains opened, and she walked out to the center of the stage. As the music and the applause subsided, she announced that “we have a spectacular show for you tonight. We have an amazing lineup of guests who are going to help us explore the intersections of sports and the arts. My first guest tonight is none other than Alessandro Del Piero.” That came as a shock to most of us since he had said nothing about being on the show.

After Silvana went through Alessandro’s qualifications as a soccer star as well as a singer, she then named Maria Bianchi as another of the night’s guests with appropriate praise. “We also have with us tonight,” she said, “perhaps the world’s greatest photographer, Armando.” The naming of each guest was met with strong audience applause. Silvana then stated that the audience would see the debut of the new Internet sensation, Troy Mazure, which just about burst the amps with audience applause and shouts of “Troy! Troy! Troy!” When Silvana was finally able to regain control of her show, she explained that Maria and Armando both had a hand in discovering this new phenom and would tell us how they had done it. “As if that weren’t enough,” said Silvana, “we have some big, big surprises on tonight’s show, so let’s get started.”

With a little “walking music,” Silvana strode over to her Johnny Carson-style desk, sat down, and introduced Alessandro as her first guest of the evening. Alessandro first talked about his soccer career and then about his albums before announcing that he was working on a new album to be released next year. Silvana mentioned Troy, and Alessandro confirmed that he had just met Troy two days before and was very pleased to announce that Troy had agreed to record a duet with him for his new album, which drew huge applause from the audience.

Silvana then told the audience that it was time to meet the woman who had discovered this amazing new talent. Introduced as an old friend and frequent guest, Maria looked positively angelic in her white chiffon dress with black pearls and matching earrings. Silvana asked Maria to explain how she had discovered Troy, and Maria told the story of how she had gone to Texas to visit her boyfriend.

“Wait,” said Silvana. “Is that your boyfriend sitting in the front row?” with the camera pivoting to zoom in on Mike. “So, Mike Murphy, famous American football player, world-renowned model, and the sexiest man alive is your boyfriend?”

“Yes, I do believe that he plays football now and then,” Maria joked and then added coyly, “but he does have other talents as well.” The audience snickered, Mom blushed, Dad tried in vain to suppress a devilishly prideful smirk, and Mike pretended not to have the slightest idea what she was referring to, which just endeared him to the audience even more.

Maria then went on to tell how she had heard Troy sing in his high school’s annual spring concert and had completely stolen the show.

Silvana then told the audience that Troy was not only an amazing singer but that he was starting his own career as a model and that he had been discovered in that capacity by none other than Armando, who took his cue and entered through the curtain.

Armando explained that he had done a shoot with Mike in Hawaii where he discovered Mike’s younger brother, Rick, and his friend Johnny. Before he could proceed, Silvana stopped him and singled out the two of us in the audience before revealing that she had seen some photographs of the young men in question. So, as Armando continued his tale, pictures of Mike, Johnny, and me flashed on the screen, some showing us well dressed next to luxury sports cars and some showing us in underwear and swimsuits, which drew gasps, cheers, and whistles from the audience. I felt very self-conscious at that point, but Mike told me just to go with it, so I did.

Armando continued to tell how he had met Troy when he came to the Andersen’s house to photograph Johnny and me, and as he talked, the screen showed photographs of the three of us in tuxedos, business suits, and close-ups. Armando then described photographing the three of us at his studio in Rome. “And that’s when you filmed Troy singing ‘O Sole Mio,’ right?” And with that segue, she showed a short clip of the video. “Oh, but why watch the video” she asked, “when you can see and hear the real thing?”

Troy emerged from behind the curtains wearing a black-on-black jacquard tuxedo. From the way his package bulged out, I could tell that he was wearing one of those pairs of underwear with the built in C-ring.

In lieu of the standard stiff shirt, he wore a white silk form-fitting pullover that highlighted his rippling abs when he unbuttoned the coat. The deep V-neck featured a red-and-silver brocade strip trimming the Mandarin collar and plunging neckline, which accentuated the cleavage between his hairy, muscular pecs and pointed like Cupid’s arrow toward his family jewels.

On his head, he wore a black cowboy hat with a black silk band around the crown. He simultaneously projected the formality one would expect at La Scala with the sex appeal of a country-rock star. He looked so fucking hot that I wanted to storm the stage and ravage him right there on national television—and I’m quite sure that I was not alone in that thought.

The music started, and Troy sang three or four bars of the song before Silvana interrupted. “Wait, wait,” she said. “In the video you were serenading a lovely young lady, were you not?” Troy acknowledged that he was, so Silvana pulled out a card and called the name of Ciara D’Amico, a teenager in the audience who shrieked at the sound of her name. When Silvana failed to coax her down to the stage, Troy walked out and offered his hand to lead her to the stage, where the crew had placed a stool for her to sit on.

Silvana cued the music again, and once again, she interrupted after Troy had sung just three or four bars. “You know,” she told Troy, “we believe in equality on this show, so it would only be fair to have you serenade a young man as well as a young woman,” and she called the name Victor Forte, a handsome young man about Troy’s age who needed no coaxing. He sprang from his seat and sprinted to the stage even before the stage crew could bring out another stool.

Troy made a show of asking Silvana if he could “finally” sing now, and it suddenly hit me why he had spent so much time rehearsing with Maria for the show. This whole scene, though it all seemed totally unscripted and extemporaneous, had actually been thoroughly rehearsed.

Troy sang the first verse of “O Sole Mio” in traditional Italian directly to Ciara. Many people in the audience sang along silently and fell in love with the handsome young rising star. As Troy serenaded Ciara, he pulled from his coat pocket a silk scarf that matched the brocade design on his shirt and draped it across her body and face before finally tying it loosely around her neck.

At the end of the first verse, the band stopped abruptly and then launched into a high-speed rock version that Troy sang in English to Victor. As he sang, he danced seductively around Victor, running his hands from Victor’s knees up to his thighs, which left Victor panting for more. Troy yanked Victor’s legs apart and vibrated between them. As he swung around Victor, he shimmied against his body and ended up behind him, sliding his hands over his captive’s shoulders, across his chest, and down to his waist. Troy purred in Victor’s ear and ruffled his hair before removing his cowboy hat to place it on Victor’s head. At the end of that verse, Troy snatched the hat off of Victor’s head and tossed it into his lap, which was a very clever maneuver since Victor looked like he was about to spooge through his pants on national television.

Troy alternated this pattern between Ciara and Victor, in Italian and English (and occasionally in French or Spanish) until he came to a rapid-fire, tongue-twisting finish that evoked memories of “Largo al factotum” from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville or Twista’s “Overnight Celebrity.”

At the completion of the song, the studio audience roared their approval as Troy kissed Ciara and Victor both on the cheek and whispered something to each of them. Ciara and Victor offered the scarf and hat back to Troy, but he insisted that they keep the souvenirs. He then led the two star-struck assistants to the front row and asked Johnny and me to escort them back to their seats.

Silvana met Troy center stage and invited him back to the couch next to her desk. Troy greeted Alessandro, Maria, and Armando before sitting down. As Silvana asked him about his background and his recent experiences as a singer and model, Troy responded like a pro, not only answering the questions, but drawing the audience into the interaction, just as he had done at Gay Pride.

“Well,” said Silvana, “I could sit here and listen to you talk in that devastatingly sexy voice all evening, but I think our audience wants to hear you sing again,” and the audience erupted with their approval.

“I would love to,” said Troy, “but I also know that the audience is dying to hear Maria, so with your permission, I would like to ask her to join me in singing ‘All I Ask of You’ from Phantom of the Opera.” And with that, Troy took Maria’s hand and led her center stage, where they killed it with their rendition.

Following the song and after Maria and Troy had re-taken their seats on the couch, Silvana began asking Troy about school, football, and his friends. “I think our audience would like to meet these friends of yours,” said Silvana, much to my shock and Johnny’s, “and while we’re at it, Maria, why don’t we bring that gorgeous boyfriend of yours up here as well.” So, with the audience’s unrelenting prodding, Mike, Johnny, and I went up and took seats on stools that had been set up behind the sofa.

Silvana took note of how nattily dressed we were and asked us to tell “who we were wearing,” which was our cue to plug the designers who had loaned Armando the suits for us to wear. Later, our mothers would do the same for their dresses.

“Don’t be fooled by the ugly jock faces,” teased Troy. “They are much more than just three dumb jocks.”

Silvana took that as her cue and questioned me about my goals of becoming a writer. She asked who my favorite writers were, so I named Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw as my favorite playwrights, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney as my favorite poets, and Jonathan Swift as my favorite satirist along with several contemporary writers.

“Not James Joyce?” asked Silvana.

“He can be very challenging,” I said.

“He?” interjected Johnny. “Joyce is a guy?”

The audience gasped at his apparent stupidity, and the other half cracked up at his feigned ignorance.

“OK,” said Troy, “so two of them are not just dumb jocks,” which drew more laughter from the audience, and in no time, we were right into our usual form, completely forgetting that we were on a live national television show.

“So, you’re not into the arts?” Silvana asked Johnny.

“Actually,” said Johnny, “as I am sure you know, there has been a very long history of interplay between sports and the arts. All one has to do is to look at the sculptures of the Olympic athletes in Greece. Most people don’t realize it, but when the Modern Olympics were initiated in 1896, medals were awarded for painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music, along with those for the athletic competitions. For the first 40 years, a total of 151 medals were awarded to entries in the fine arts.”

Johnny had wrapped Silvana and the entire audience around his little finger.

“But you don’t have to go all the way to Greece to see the influence of sports on the arts. Just go to the Museo del Settecento Veneziano in Venice (The Museum of the Venetian Eighteenth Century) and take a look at Tiepolo’s Pulcinella and the Tumblers or Umberto Boccioni’s Dynamism of a Cyclist in the Guggenheim Collection.”

Everyone was mesmerized, including me.

“Not only do sports influence the arts, but the arts influence sports,” he continued. “Knute Rockne got the idea for the Notre Dame shift from watching the dancers in a burlesque show, athletes everywhere use music to help them focus, and what better amalgamation of sports and art is there than figure skating?”

I had the feeling that Johnny was just getting started.

“Oh, my,” said Silvana. “Much more than a dumb jock indeed. We must have you come back and devote an entire show to this topic. Would you please do that?” Johnny agreed that he would, and the audience applauded their approval.

“So,” she asked in a quick change of topic, “which one of you is the best football player?” Without skipping a beat all of us replied in unison, “Alessandro,” which caught the soccer player by surprise and endeared the Italian audience to us forever.

Silvana said that she could easily see why Maria and Armando had been so taken with the four of us, and she said, “Armando, I believe you were about to tell us about your new project.”

“Si,” said Armando, and as he began to describe his Men of the World project, the screen showed examples of photographs to be included in the new compilation. Close-up face shots alternated with full-body nudes of men from around the world, and the final picture was of Troy posing in all his natural glory.

The camera alternated quickly between that photo and shots of Troy’s mom sitting in the front row. Silvana grabbed a hand mic and walked toward Mrs. Mazure and asked her, “How do you feel seeing this picture of your son broadcast across Italy on nationwide television?”

Mrs. Mazure took a moment to collect herself and then said, “I feel as proud today as I did the day the doctor placed him in my arms for the first time.” Half of the audience was almost moved to tears.

“You have a beautiful son,” said Silvana, “and Armando has done him as much justice as any artist possibly could.” Addressing the audience, she continued, “Earlier, I referred to Mike Murphy as “the sexiest man in the world. Sorry Mike,” she said, “but I think you’ve got three very strong competitors for that title here.”

Music from the band cut into the mood and cued Silvana. “Before we run out of time,” she told the audience, “how about one more song from Troy and Maria?” and the audience cheered.

As the stage crew placed two stools again center stage, the band continued to play the intro to Lonestar’s “Amazed,” and Maria took Mike by the hand and led him to one of the stools as Troy took my hand and led me to the other. I don’t know about Mike, but I was taken completely by surprise.

The band repeated the intro until we were in place, and then Maria sang the first verse to Mike with Johnny occasionally providing harmony. Then, Troy sang the second verse to me with Maria backing him up. They sang the third verse together and started to do the same with the fourth verse, but when they got to the second line, “I’m so in love with you,” Troy got down on one knee and took my breath away. As he continued to serenade me, Maria faded back and left the spotlight to Troy, who, in turn, reflected it onto me as he finished the song. He left me on the verge of tears and the audience in dead silence. Mike broke the trance by clapping slowly, and then everyone else slowly joined in, crescendoing to a thunderous standing ovation.

As all the guests got up from their seats and gathered around us, Silvana announced that she had one last surprise for everyone, and on that cue, out walked Ben Cohen to uproarious applause. Ben greeted everyone and said that he had just invited Alessandro and Troy to participate in a fundraising concert he was putting together and that he hoped to convince Mike and Troy to pose for his fundraising calendar, much to the audience’s pleasure. Troy grabbed the opportunity to plug Ben’s foundation and urge everyone to support it. Silvana thanked Ben for coming and then thanked her other guests as the music took us out.

As everyone congratulated Troy on his incredible debut, Mike put his arm around my shoulders and spoke softly into my ear, “That’s a remarkable man you’ve got there.”

“Yes, I know,” I said.

“If you don’t hurry up and ask him to marry you,” he prodded, “I will.”

To be continued...

Posted: 05/28/2021