Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story (2 page)

Now Tiny is four. (If he’s wearing a button, change it to
AGE: 4
.
) The carriage is wheeled offstage, and Mom and Dad return carrying a pew-like bench. They sit down on it, with Tiny in the middle. The chorus arranges itself behind them, in the formation of a church choir.

Tiny looks a little uncomfortable between his parents.

TINY:

It wasn’t very long before my parents introduced me to their religion. I was four, so I didn’t know there was any possibility of questioning it. Plus, I wanted so much to fit in. I know that’s the story of our whole lives, but it all starts here. More than anything else, we want to fit into our own families.

DAD:

Son, it’s very important to me that you take this seriously.

TINY:

Yes, Dad.

MOM:

It’s not to be questioned. This is how we were raised, and it’s how we are going to raise you. It is
very
important to us.

TINY:

I understand, Mom.

MOM
AND DAD:

Good.

The music for
“RELIGION”
should be . . . well . . . religious. Hymnlike and intense, as if sung by a true church choir. It must be sung very seriously, as if we’re in a house of worship. I mean, not in a
Sister Act,
gospel-choir sense—these are
NOT
nuns led by Whoopi Goldberg. They are from Illinois. And not the gospel parts of Illinois. We are deep in the suburbs here.

Tiny looks slightly uncomfortable in the pew.

[“RELIGION”]

DAD, MOM, AND CHORUS:

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

is our day

for religion.

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

we congregate

and pray.

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

is a

visitation.

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

Every Sunday

we watch

them play.

A television is wheeled out in front of the Cooper family. Dad turns it on. They are basked in the glow of the game. All the chorus members take out Chicago Bears banners and foam #1 fingers and begin to wave them in a synchronized, still church-like way.

As the song goes on, we should see Tiny getting more and more into it.

DAD, MOM, AND CHORUS:

Hail Mary

Hail Mary

Hail Mary . . .

Pass!

Godspeed

Godspeed

Godspeed . . .

To the end zone!

(Hymnlike, the chorus now splits into men and women, echoing each other.)

WOMEN:

Remember the Super Bowl Shuffle.

MEN:

Remember the Super Bowl Shuffle.

WOMEN:

In this land of plenty—

MEN:

In this land of plenty—

WOMEN:

—we won Super Bowl Twenty.

MEN:

—we won Super Bowl Twenty.

WOMEN AND MEN TOGETHER
(
in crescendo
):

Ditka!

Ditka!

Ditka!

(For those of you who prefer to avoid sports at all costs, Mike Ditka was not only a player when the Chicago Bears won the national championship in 1963, he was the head coach when they won in 1985. This is like Bernadette Peters winning a Tony for
Song & Dance
in 1985 and then coming back in 2007 and winning for directing a revival of it. Which didn’t happen, but I wish it had.)

As Mom, Dad, and the chorus silently cheer on the Bears, Tiny speaks from the bench (aka our den’s lime-green couch):

TINY:

I fell into my parents’ religion not because it was required, not because they forced me into it, but because they invited me in and showed me the beauty of it, the faith it required, the devotion a person could give to something outside of himself. During that magical stretch from September to January, we would enclose ourselves in game time, watching the intricate, spontaneous choreography of each face-off, either on television or in the stadium itself. Only a nonbeliever looks at football and sees brute strength. A believer can see all of the layers—the strategy, the teamwork, the individual personalities clicking together. You can only control the game so much from the bleachers, so loving this game means having to give yourself up to the unpredictable, the unknowable. Your heart is bruised with every loss, but it’s never broken. You sing with invincible joy at every win, but you’re still vulnerable when the next game comes. My parents taught me all this, sometimes by telling me, but mostly by example.

Tiny now joins in with the song.

TINY, DAD, MOM, AND CHORUS:

In the cold,

in the wind,

we’ll be there for you.

Your agony,

your ecstasy,

we will feel it.

For four whole hours

there will be no other cares.

Just the sound of the play-by-play

of what happens to our Bears!

DAD (TO TINY
):

You throw the ball and hope.

TINY
(
repeating, learning
):

You throw the ball and hope.

DAD (TO TINY
):

You catch the ball and run.

TINY
(
repeating, learning
):

You catch the ball and run.

MOM AND CHORUS:

As you gather on the field,

we will gather in our homes.

And we will pray.

Yes, we will pray.

(TINY AND DAD JOIN IN.)

Every Sunday!

Every Sunday!

Every Sunday!

And sometimes Monday!

Try as hard as you can to convey what it’s like to be together on a Sunday with your family, watching the Big Game. This might seem like a superficial number in the overall context of Tiny Cooper’s life, but I assure you that it is not. The purity of his parents’ belief—even if it’s in the name of football—is one of the guiding lights for Tiny, and enables him to do all of the things he’s about to do. He won’t grow up to be a Bear himself (well, not in a football sense), and in truth, as his musical pursuits take hold, there will be Sundays when he will skip watching the game because of a badly timed matinee. But still he’s taking the energy that was generated in these early days and using it to find his own religion, which will serve him well, even if at times it’s confusing beyond belief.

Tiny’s parents don’t know it and will never understand it, but they’re his role models.

The chorus members leave the stage, with Tiny remaining on the bench, still flanked by his parents.

TINY:

My parents kept me sheltered, protecting me from the haters that were out there in the world. I was my mom and dad’s favorite thing, and this was always clear to me. But the older I got, they couldn’t be there all the time.

DAD:

I have meetings.

MOM:

So many meetings interceding. I have functions.

DAD:

So many functions we can’t function.

MOM:

We’re committed to commitments.

DAD:

So committed to commitments.

On the bench, Mom and Dad start to pull away, doing other things. Tiny changes his button so it reads
AGE: 5
.

TINY:

Because of my size, everyone always thought I was older than I really was. The kindergarten teacher actually tried to turn me away on the first day of school. She probably would’ve served me a vodka tonic if I’d asked for one. But even though my body had grown, my heart and my mind were still the age they were supposed to be. And as my parents drifted further and further away, other people came into my life.

Mom and Dad leave the bench.
LYNDA
appears in the wings. She is dressed like a very cool, down-to-earth sixteen-year-old girl.

TINY:

The first close relationship I had with anyone outside my family was with Lynda, my lesbian babysitter. I have no idea if my parents knew she was lesbian or not. I have no idea if
I
knew what that meant at the time. All I knew was that I
worshipped
Lynda. To me, she was everything that adulthood stood for . . . making phone calls, knowing what was on TV,
driving a car.
To me, sixteen seemed like the
height
of adulthood. And every now and then, Lynda would let me get close to it, to see what it was really like.

LYNDA:

Who’s my favorite guy?

TINY:

I am!

LYNDA:

And who will you never date?

TINY:

Jerks and assholes!

LYNDA:

That’s right.

Lynda sits down next to Tiny on the bench. Even though Tiny sees her as being effortlessly old, she’s really just a sixteen-year-old girl dealing with everyone’s shit, including her own. The time she spends with Tiny is her escape from the outside world, and she wants to teach him a few things about life before she inevitably leaves him for Oberlin.

“THE BALLAD OF THE LESBIAN BABYSITTER”
is vulnerable and wistful, as if Joni Mitchell herself had come over for ten dollars an hour to share some world-weary wisdom with her big, gay babysittee.

Bonus points if you can find an actress for Lynda who has hair long enough to sit on. She was that awesome.

Cue music.

[“THE BALLAD OF THE LESBIAN BABYSITTER”]

LYNDA:

Come over here

and give me a hug

because my soul’s been treated

like a threadbare rug.

Me and Heather

were meant to be forever,

but now she’s into leather

and Red Bull dykes

who keep her out all night.

TINY:

Is there anything I can do?

LYNDA:

Just rub my shoulder

because I’m feeling so much older.

Rub my back

and drain me of the black that’s left

when a relationship ends.

He rubs her back.

Now hand me my sketchbook

so I can use this pain

to pull my hopes

back out of the drain.

Watch carefully, Tiny,

how to disable your rage

by unleashing it onto

an empty page.

TINY
(
to audience
):

It didn’t matter that I was five—

I saw her pain come alive.

Just like a sorcerer

fighting a deadly foe,

she met it eye to eye

and wouldn’t let go.

Drawing the girls who always hurt her,

sketching the loves as they’d desert her.

All the drama became less troubled

once the hard words had been inked and

bubbled.

LYNDA (TO TINY
):

Look forward to the moment

when it all falls apart.

Look forward to the moment

when you must rearrange your heart.

It might feel like the end of the world—

but it’s the beginning of your art.

Lynda sketches during an instrumental, then puts down the book, sighs, and sings the next verse to Tiny.

LYNDA:

Come over here

and give me a peck

because my faith in people’s

a miserable wreck.

He kisses her cheek.

Me and Leigh

were meant to be,

but now she wants to flee

into the arms of a maître d’

at a boulangerie—

and she doesn’t even like

to French.

TINY:

Is there anything I can do?

LYNDA:

Just rub my feet,

ease my defeat.

Rub my neck

so I’m no longer the speck that remains

when a relationship ends.

Now hand me my sketchbook

so I can use this pain

to pull my hopes

back out of the drain.

Watch carefully, Tiny,

how to disable your rage

by unleashing it onto

an empty page.

Are you listening?

TINY:

I am listening.

LYNDA:

Are you watching?

TINY:

I am watching.

LYNDA AND TINY:

Look forward to the moment

when it all falls apart.

Look forward to the moment

when you must rearrange your heart.

It might feel like the end of the world

but it’s the beginning of your art.

Lynda rips out a page and gives it to Tiny, who folds it carefully and keeps it. (He still has it.)

The song ends, but the advice continues. (He still remembers it.)

LYNDA:

Don’t get trapped into thinking people are halves instead of wholes.

TINY:

People are halves?

LYNDA:

They’re not trying to sell you on it yet, but believe me, they will. The idea that two is the ideal, and that one is only good as half of two. You are not a half, and you should never treat someone else like a half. Agreed?

TINY:

Agreed!

She hugs him. End scene.

As the stage goes dark (and the scenery is changed), Tiny steps forward, again in the spotlight.

TINY:

Having a babysitter and two parents in your corner is great—but what I really wanted was a best friend. I had plenty of friends—there was no shortage of birthday party invitations in
my
cubbyhole—but I had yet to find my co-conspirator, my co-adventurer, the right-hand man who I’d give my left arm for.

And then Phil Wrayson came into my life.

Now, I’m sure that I joined Pee Wee League because I wanted to play baseball. But soon I found that the best part of Pee Wee League wasn’t the playing—it was all the time when we weren’t playing, when we were just hanging around in the dugout or on the field. Phil Wrayson and I went to school together, but it wasn’t really until Pee Wee League that we got to know each other.

At this point, a kid dressed as a batboy should walk out and give Tiny a baseball cap and a button that reads
AGE: 8.

When the lights rise on the stage, it’s been turned into a dugout. Right now the only kid sitting there is
PHIL WRAYSON
, deep in thought. An open book is in front of him, although he’s not reading it. All the other players are on the field.

Physically, there’s nothing remarkable about Phil Wrayson. He’s cute, but there’s nothing striking about his cuteness. You can imagine hundreds of other guys who are just as cute. The thing about Phil is that he’s a really good guy. I know that’s hard to show onstage, but there’s something about his goodness that needs to be conveyed. Again, it isn’t striking—a guy who advertises his own goodness is just another kind of asshole. The goodness is just a part of who Phil is. He doesn’t even realize it.

The cadences of
“HEY, WHATCHA DOING?”
are very much the cadences of two eight-year-old boys—even if the vocabulary level may admittedly be heightened here for dramatic/comedic (cometic? dramedic?) effect. Tiny is trying his darnedest to start a musical conversation with Phil, but at first, Phil’s not into it. Luckily, Tiny’s persistent—like Angel in
Rent
, but without the cross-dressing and the specter of AIDS hovering over everything. By the end of the song, Tiny and Phil are friends.

[“HEY, WHATCHA DOING?”]

TINY
(
sung cheerily
):

Hey, whatcha doing?!?

PHIL
(
spoken, not looking up
):

Not much.

It feels like the song is over. The shortest song in the history of friendship. Phil starts to read the book in front of him, a little embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming. Tiny tries again.

TINY
(
sung
):

Hey, whatcha reading?

PHIL
(
spoken
):

I’m reading about snakes.

He holds up the book. It’s about snakes. Again, it seems like the song will end here. But Tiny persists.

TINY
(
sung
):

Hey, what’s it saying?

PHIL
(
spoken
):

About snakes?

TINY
(
sung
):

Yeah, about snakes. Tell me everything I’ve

always wanted to know about snakes but was

afraid to ask!

PHIL
(
spoken
):

Well . . . a lot of them are poisonous.

TINY
(
sung
):

And?

PHIL
(
spoken, warming up
):

The longest one ever in captivity was Medusa, a

twenty-five-foot python.

TINY
(
sung
):

And?

PHIL
(
sung
):

And Medusa’s diet included rabbits, hogs, and

deer!

TINY
(
beaming, and loudly sung
):

That’s the coolest thing I ever did hear!

Phil seems surprised by this sudden burst of friendship. At this point, the other team members, all in uniform, come back and mill around. Phil’s book disappears, and a notebook appears. The other team members leave, and Phil opens up the notebook.

All dialogue is sung from here on in, until end of song.

TINY:

Hey, whatcha doing?

PHIL:

I’m trying to get through math.

TINY:

Math was invented by a psychopath.

PHIL:

A psychopath who never takes a bath.

TINY:

A stinky, smelly psychopath—

that’s who invented math.

Both boys are very proud of themselves and their repartee. But now there’s an awkward pause. Until Phil unexpectedly (to both of them) jumps in.

PHIL:

Hey, whatcha doing?

TINY:

Just thinking, you know.

PHIL:

I know what it’s like to be thinking.

TINY:

I’ll be standing in the outfield, staring at the sky . . .

PHIL
:

. . . but what I’m really seeing are the thoughts

that travel by.

TINY:

I pretend the clouds are in a soap opera . . .

PHIL:

I make friends with blades of grass.

TINY:

There are clouds in love, clouds in lust . . .

PHIL:

I’m afraid the coach will kick my ass.

Singing this line makes Phil downcast, and Tiny notices. The other players return, and again the stage is full with the comings and goings. Tiny steps downstage to address the audience.

TINY
(
spoken
):

Phil became a decent first baseman. I found that my talents at basketball and football—two sports that appreciate size—were not transferable to the baseball diamond. Very quickly, I held the league record for being hit by pitches.

Nothing can cement a friendship like a common enemy. And in Little League we found that in a certain Fascist-forward despot named Coach Frye. I haven’t changed his name, because I would love to see Coach Frye try to sue me. Bring it on, Coach Frye. There’s not a jury in the world that enjoyed gym class.

Tiny sits down on the bench, itchy and restless. The other teammates sit on the bench, too.

COACH FRYE
comes out. He’s ugly and out of shape. You know those gym teachers who force you to do ten thousand sit-ups even though they themselves haven’t seen the lower half of their body in twenty years? The ones who blow their whistles like they’re the master and you’re the dogs? Yeah, that’s him.

COACH FRYE
(
spoken
):

Alright, you pansies. I don’t want you to sissy up the field, understood? This isn’t a
softball
team—I want you unloading
artillery
out there. Billy, you’re up.

One of the boys leaves the bench and goes offstage. The kids’ eyes follow him. They start to cheer him on.

COACH FRYE
(
yelling
):

Come on, Billy! Did your mom teach you how to hold a bat? This isn’t
gardening
. Wait for your pitch and
don’t just stand there
.

Then Tiny’s cheer drowns out all the others.

TINY
(
exaggeratedly effeminate, even flirtatious
):

Hey, batta batta. THWING, batta batta!

BULLY PLAYER #1:

Idiot.
Our guy
is batting. You’re distracting him!

PHIL
(
coming to Tiny’s defense
):

Tiny’s rubber. You’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off him and sticks to you.

BULLY PLAYER #2:

Tiny’s gay.

COACH FRYE:

Hey! HEY! No insulting teammates.

PHIL
(
valiantly
):

It’s not an insult. It’s just a thing. Like, some people are gay. Some people have blue eyes.

COACH FRYE:

Shut up, Wrayson.

BULLY #1
(
loud whisper
):

You’re so gay for each other.

PHIL:

We’re not
gay
. We’re
eight
.

BULLY #1:

You want to go to second base . . . WITH TINY.

TINY:

Second base?

Tiny stands up and takes a step downstage, in front of the coach, who seethes.
“SECOND BASE”
is about to begin.

This is Tiny’s number, but everybody’s going to be looking at the boys in uniform. This should be the most homoerotically charged baseball dance number since “I Don’t Dance” in
High School Musical 2
. As Tiny sings, the guys in the chorus—including Phil—pull off a hilariously elaborate old-fashioned, high-stepping, highly choreographed dance, their bats used as canes and their ball caps as top hats. Midway through, half the guys swing their bats toward the heads of half the others, and even though it’s totally faked, when the other boys fall backward dramatically and the music cuts out, the audience is going to gasp. Moments later, they all jump up in a single motion and the song starts up again. (Or, if you can’t do all that, just make it fun.)

At first, Coach is startled. Tiny is taking over his team, winning them over with his song. Once he realizes this, he storms off.

At another point, Billy should probably run back from the batter’s box and join in. We wouldn’t want him to lose out on the fun just because he’s up at bat.

The key thing here is that, as should be obvious from the lyrics, Tiny has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s not identifying as gay to his teammates—he’s just asking a question. And it’s clear that he has no answer. He hasn’t thought about sex much. He’s eight.

[“SECOND BASE”]

TINY:

What’s second base for a gay man?

If you can’t tell me,

I’m hoping somebody can.

When I hit the field,

I want to know where to run.

Don’t want to be tagged out

before the fun’s begun.

What’s second base for a gay man?

Is it tuning in Tokyo?

I can’t see how that would feel good,

but maybe that’s how it should go?

CHORUS:

Hey, batta batta!

Swing, batta batta!

TINY:

Is it spooning or sporking?

Parabulating or torquing?

Hot or cold, fast or slow,

holding close or letting go?

CHORUS:

Hey, batta batta!

Swing, batta batta!

TINY:

Is it carnal or karmic?

Pastoral or tantric?

Is it Ontario or Saskatchewan?

Eyeing Iceland or petting Pakistan?

Send the answer in a bottle

or beam it in from outer space—

just somebody please tell me

how a gay man gets to second base!

Largely instrumental interlude for homoerotic baseball dance number. Containing the refrain:

CHORUS:

Swing low, batta batta,

coming forth to carry us . . .

home!

Swing low, batta batta,

coming forth to carry us . . .

home!

TINY:

Do I glide to second base

or slide in headfirst?

Can I steal when no one’s looking

or is that asking for the worst?

I’ve checked my Bible and skimmed Sedaris.

I’ve even consulted my
Deathly Hallows
.

Please please please—I haven’t been to first yet

but I’d sure like to know what follows!

CHORUS:

Swing low!

Swing hard!

Swing low, batta batta!

Swing hard!

At this rousing finish, the audience will hopefully drown you in thunderous applause. Use this as an interval to clear the stage. Only Tiny remains. He should take his
AGE: 8
button off before he speaks.

TINY:

Even if Phil didn’t have answers to all of my questions, like the location of second base for a gay man, he still became the most important person in my life. In middle school, I ended up punching Coach Frye in the nose in Phil’s defense. Meanwhile, Phil’s defenses of me were a little more . . . subtle.

He was my best friend. But still there were some things we couldn’t talk about.

Phil comes walking out onstage, wearing the clothes of his seventh-grade self. He gives Tiny a badge that says
AGE: 12
.
The following exchange is spoken.

PHIL:

Hey, whatcha doing?

TINY:

Not much, what’re you doing?

PHIL:

Not much. (
Pauses. Looks at Tiny
.) Look, Tiny. If you ever want to talk to me about boy stuff, you know you can, right?

TINY:

Boy stuff? Like snakes and airplanes and war?

PHIL:

No, like . . . boys. Just because I don’t crush that way, it doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it. I mean, I groan about girls to you all the time.