“Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow.”

There was a moment of silence when fourteen-year-old Joey Harris continued to finish his closing lines as the brother, Tom, in Tennessee Williams’s play, “The Glass Menagerie.” It was the first scripts-down run-through of a children’s Christmas season production of the play at the Pasadena Playhouse. The players were expected already to know their lines, and, professional actors all, despite their tender ages, they did.

The theater put on a children’s production of some play—usually an offbeat one like this one for the occasion—during the holiday season, using child movie, television, and commercial actors in adult roles. This year it was “The Glass Menagerie,” Tennessee Williams’s breakout Broadway hit ostensibly about a delicate and crippled, in more ways than one, St. Louis girl in trying to deal with the world outside her flat, that had originally been staged ten years previously, in 1944. Gideon Hunter had been brought in as guest director of the production, and, as he was considered the consummate expert on all things Tennessee Williams, it was natural that he selected a Williams play to produce.

The timing for the playhouse’s children’s production coincided with the Christmas breaks in Los Angeles area schools and holiday filming blackouts in the industry’s schedule. All of the children were professional actors, actively working in the industry, as well as going to school. It was prestigious and good for their careers, though, to be selected to play in the Pasadena Playhouse productions.

Joey Harris, who was playing Tom in this production, was particularly pleased to have been cast as Tom, because he idolized everything Tennessee Williams, who had come to his attention because Joey’s mother, Irene, had brought him out here to “make it big in pictures” from Knoxville, Tennessee. Joey’s father hadn’t come back from World War Two, and Irene was the proverbial fussy stage mother, willing to turn a blind eye to whatever Joey had to do to progress in the business. Although an actor now, Joey wanted to be a playwright and screenplay writer in the worst way—and he was willing to do anything required to get there. He had already proven that.

The silence was broken by loud, rhythmic clapping from the play’s director, Gideon Hunter, who stood from his chair in the middle of an otherwise empty seating area. A few beats later the stage hands and other cast members added their applause.

“Bravo, Joey,” Hunter boomed out. “You have it already. We could go on tonight. That raps it up for tonight, players. You have all learned your lines well. This will be a memorable Christmas production. The parents or agents for the cast are in the lobby, waiting to take you home—all but for you, Joey. I need to consult with you in my office, please. I phoned your mother to let her know I would make sure you got home.”

As the others headed for the lobby, Hunter came up onto the stage and guided Tom to the back, which led to the stairs to the office area above. As soon as they had cleared the back curtains, Hunter placed the palm of a hand on the small of Joey’s back to guide him further. Joey didn’t shy away from the touch. Although old—in his mid-fifties—Hunter was a handsome man, elegantly turned out, and quite fit for a man his age. Joey didn’t mind this much. He would have done anything to get into this play. He’d heard Hunter was directing it because he knew Tennessee Williams personally. And it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done for his agent, Alex Miranda, to have gotten this far.

“I got you the part, Joey,” Alex had said. “But understand that Hunter, the director, is queer and horny for boys. You’ll have to take his cock.”

That was nothing new for Joey. He had had to take Alex Miranda’s cock to get signed on with the agent in the first place. Good-looking and willing fourteen-year-old boys were premium commodities in the hedonist and gay world of Los Angeles in the mid-fifties.

“Don’t be shy, Joey. Come on over and sit next to me on this sofa. I understand that you a devoted fan of Tennessee Williams and his work. I thought we could talk a bit about that.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Joey sat at the other end of the sofa from the stage director, although Hunter was sitting more toward the middle of the couch than the other end. He’d taken the jacket off he’d worn in the theater.

“Oh, let’s not be formal. You can call me Gideon.”

“Yes, thank you ... Gideon. I’ve heard you know Tennessee Williams.”

“More than know him. I mentored him. I was instrumental in getting him recognized. I could do the same for you. I have a season in New York next year. You read Tom’s part in this play beautifully, and I’ve followed your work in the ‘All for the Family’ sitcom. You are a natural actor.”

So, here it comes, Joey thought. I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. He steeled himself. He had been in Hollywood long enough to know how this worked.

“But I understand you really want to become a playwright,” Hunter continued.

“Yes, sir. A playwright—like Tennessee Williams.”

“You dominated in the play out there on the stage today.”

“Thank you, sir ... Gideon.”

“You know this play isn’t really about what it seems, don’t you? It isn’t really about the delicate sister, Laura, who couldn’t cope with the world. It was really about Tom, the brother, the part you play.”

“Yes, I gathered that,” Joey answered.

“Smart boy—and that Tom is just a substitute. This is an autobiographical work. Tom is really Tennessee Williams himself.”

“Is he? I sort of wondered. I certainly felt a connection with the playwright as I was learning the lines.”

“Williams gives it away. Tennessee Williams isn’t his real name, you know. His real name is Thomas Lanier Williams, and I go back with him to that time.”

“Thomas who?” Joey asked, stunned. His illusion was shattering. There had been a connection to that name. This was such a fake town, Joey thought, bitterly.

“Thomas Lanier. I knew him when. I discovered him and mentored him. I was teaching drama in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1928, when he was fourteen. I was doing a Christmas play, Gian Carlo Menotti’s ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors.’ We needed a young actor and singer to play Amahl, and Thomas was cast. He was an angel—sweet, beautiful, perfectly formed at fourteen—just like you. And he played the part magnificently—just as you will render the part of Tom in this play.”

“Columbus, Mississippi?” Joey asked.

“Yes. That’s where he was born and raised.”

“Not Tennessee?”

“Oh, lord, no, not Tennessee.” The glass of Joey’s illusions was exploding, flying off everywhere in a tingling sound.

“I took him under my wing. We became quite intimate, quite intimate indeed,” Hunter prattled on. He paused here, though, to check Joey out to see if he’d gotten what Hunter was saying concerning his relationship with Tennessee Williams. Joey’s eyes looked glazed over, though, so Hunter couldn’t be sure Joey understood. No matter, however. Joey was obviously a smart—street smarts—boy. Alex had assured the director the boy took cock. Hunter would assume there was no problem with that. He was an angel. Delectable. Hunter could hardly keep his hands off him.

“I trained him in acting, which he took to famously, although he said he really wanted to write—that he felt trapped in Columbus and wanted experiences to write. I helped him with the experiences, and he began to write. I could see where his passion was. Well, most of it.” Hunter paused to give a little laugh and to look at Joey. The boy was beginning to refocus on what the director was saying.

“I got him into the writing program at Iowa University and eventually a writing award from the Group Theatre for four one-act plays. At my recommendation, John Gassner gave him a scholarship to the advanced playwrights’ seminar at the New School for Social Research and he was on his way.”

“He doesn’t come from Tennessee?” Joey asked in a far-away voice.

“You could say I made him.” Hunter paused to give a small laugh at his unintentional pun. “Well, yes, I certainly made Tennessee Williams. But you could say that I gave him a leg up in the business. Stage craft can be so cruel, you know, if you don’t have friends who pull you up and you don’t show their appreciation for them. I could help you just as I’ve helped Williams. You would be a smash hit in New York.”

He had scooted closer to Joey and had an arm around the boy’s shoulders. All it took was for joey to turn his face to the man.

“Would you like help with your career, Joey? In exchange for a bit of appreciation and intimacy.”

Joey said, “Yes.” He turned his face to Hunter and received the kiss and the fondling hands roaming over his body, pausing long enough for Hunter to unbutton and flare his own shirt. His torso was hard and muscular for a man his age. He took one of Joey’s hands and pressed it to his chest. Joey left it there, his fingers playing in salt-and-pepper, curly chest hair.