From Time to Time (31 page)

"Oh, there's worse than that, the new man said; then Dolores interrupted to introduce us. His name was Al, and he'd never heard of Tessie and Ted. He sat down beside Dolores, and continued his story. "You know Noble and Henson? Songs and crossfire? They all nodded, murmuring x'es. "Well, I saw Pat last week at the Hoffman House. He's not working now, but he says they're booked. Well, Pat says last summer he was offered the Orpheum Circuit for the team at a salary of two hundred per week. He was to sign the contract next day. Well, he told people about it, and that night he runs into a fellow name of Burt Bender; you know him? Nobody seemed to. Maude Boothe came out in a dark blue bathrobe and slippers; she sat down opposite Dolores and Al. "Well, said Al, "Burt was the male member of another team not quite as good as Noble and Henson.

"I remember them, Maude said. "Played with them once in San Francisco.

"Well, Burt meets Pat Henson, and came in like a million dollars. Says, What do you think of Beck: wants me to sign for the Orpheum at two hundred and fifty. I been fighting him for the other fifty for six months.' " Two very tin\' women, not quite dwarfs, came out, and sat down next to Maude. I'd become aware that, two houses to the west, a similar gathering had formed; and several more across the street. "Well, Pat said that after this gink left, he thought about that for the rest of the evening. Here's The Benders, not as good as they were and everyone knew it. But the Orph Circuit offers them fifty bucks more! The street before us stood empty, motionless; not a car had passed since I'd come here, and none were parked in the entire block. "So Pat talks the whole thing over with his partner, and next day they turn down the Orpheum Circuit at two hundred. Well, thex laid off all winter, and he spent his savings. This last spring Pat finds out what happened. Somebody told Burt Bender about Pat's offer, and Burt hotfoots it over to the Orpheum booking office. He tells the Orpheum he and his partner will work for one fifty. So they took him and his partner stead of Noble and Henson. Burt sax's he's been layin' for that guy ever since.

Maude Boothc said, "Anybody ever hear of an act Tessie and Ted? Si down there is looking for them. The two tiny women thought, then shook their heads. "Well, stick around, Maude said to me. "Eventually somebodv'll know. Later Maude told me who everyone out here was. Al and Dolores were married, and had an act together: they were magnificent dancers, the tango especially. They were on at the Victoria. Upstairs they had a year-old baby, and Dolores always sat where she could hear it if it cried. The two tiny women were twins, though not identical, born in Toledo to a pair of English music hall performers in the States on a tour, who never went home. Their twins became teenagers, and their parents taught and rehearsed them in the act they still used-the act was their inheritance. In it, one of them, heavily rouged and powdered, acted as a ventriloquist's dummy for the other. Presently the dummy would rebel, and they'd trade places: audiences loved that, it was the high point of their act. They'd sing a little then, dance a little, not badly but not especially well. Didn't matter because audiences always took them to their hearts, and the pair was always booked, and always in big time. They were shy, never went out, at ease only with vaudevillians. Old John was long retired. Like many vaudevillians, though by no means all, Maude told me later, he'd saved money, owned property, had several bank accounts: for safety. And a diamond ring he could hock if he had to. He lived in theatrical boarding houses like this one, moving occasionally for a change or because he got mad at somebody. Everything tangible he owned was in his old dome-topped trunk, professionally lettered with his name and his agent's address. Ben was a fairly new arrival and Maude didn't know much about him. "Yet, she added, smiling. She thought he had or once had had a family somewhere. There were other boarders, either up in their rooms or not at home. Nothing about herself.

Ben spoke up, surprising everyone a little, I thought. "Something worse than stealing a booking. Or even an act, he said. "Anyone ever hear of Saner and Kraut?

"I think maybe I did, said old John. From other front stoops up and down the quiet street-no cars yet, not a one-quiet laughter and voices From somewhere across the street, piano music from an open window. "Saner and Kraut were strictly small-time, Ben said. "German comedians: the little derbies, the padded stomachs, the awful accents, the pratfalls. Small small-time.

Across the street a woman's voice joined the piano notes, and she sang, as we all paused to listen, "When the town is fast asleep

And it's midnight in the sky . . . That's the time the festive Chink . . . starts to wink his other eye . . . Starts to wink his dreamy eye. Lazily you'll hear him sigh, Chinatown, my Chinatown, when the lights are low . .

Down the street under the nearest streetlamp, a pair of men in street clothes stood practicing a balancing act, one on the other's shoulders. "But Saner and Kraut wanted to move up, Ben said, "so they bought a new act. A lot better stuff than anything they had. They rehearsed it, tried it out, and got booked. A boy came noisily down the center of the street on a contraption made from a two-by-four, roller-skate wheels nailed to each end, a box nailed upright to the front, a tin can "headlight nailed to that. One foot on the two-by-four, he pushed himself along with the other. He stopped to watch the balancing act. ". . . almond eyes of brown. Hearts seem light and life seems bright, in dreamy Chinatown...

"I was on the same bill they were, Ben went on. "At the Adelphi? In Guthrie?

Al said, "Guthrie next week, and I don't drink.

"I never played Guthrie, but I played Norman, said Dolores. "Before we were married, I was booked in Cleburne, Texas, by Swor Brothers of Dallas. I took the week for less money than I'd been receiving on account of it was a short jump. I was led to believe it was a week stand, and I got there to be informed by the manager that he only played acts three days, and that he had an agreement with the agent not to pay transportation on split weeks. And three days was a split week. Dolores never stopped knitting. "So I paid my transportation, and after the three days I worked the rest of the week in Gainesville. For the next week I accepted booking by phone for Norman, Oklahoma, and was told that the contract would be mailed to me there. On arrival I found the house was booked by Jack Dickey, and no contracts. I went to my hotel, and immediately phoned Swor Brothers, but they refused to talk to me. A barefooted boy of ten or eleven walked by, looking inquiringly at our stoop, and John beckoned him over. He gave the boy some money, so did Ben, and Al got up and walked into the house. "Went to the Western Union office, Dolores said, "and wired them, requesting an answer. It was ignored. Al came out with a large, shiny metal bucket, came down the steps, and handed it to the boy, gave some money, change, to John, and the boy left. "So I think artists working Texas and Oklahoma better watch out with these agents. They don't look out after your interests, and the truth ain't in them. You have trouble in Guthrie?

"No, it was okay, Ben said. "The Adelphi's okay.

I waited; no one said anything. Down the street, the acrobats finished their practicing, walking back to their stoop, the kid on the skate-wheel contraption scooting on, wheels grinding. I worked up my nerve, and said, "What happened with Saner and Kraut?

"Well, they were on maybe number four spot, and I saw them come out early, in costume, all ready, and they stood waiting in the wings watching. Opening act was a juggling team, I think, and then for some reason, some booking mixup maybe-nothing to do about it, you have to fill the bill-on comes another comedy team. From one of the stoops across the street, a young man of maybe twenty came angling across the street toward us. "Hey there, Dippy. He stopped before us, smiling at the general murmur of greeting. "Evening, folks. This was Van Hoven, I learned, The Dippy, Mad Musician.

"You seen the beer boy, eh? said John.

"Sure. Dippy grinned, and sat down beside Ben. "Don't let me interrupt.

"Well, this other comedy team walks on, right past Saner and Kraut, and they're dressed the same! Looks like two pairs of twins! They go on, and do the same act! Word for word, joke for joke, same knockabouts, everything! The guy sold the same act to the both of them.

The others nodded, saying, "Yeah, or, "Wouldn't you know and the like. After a little time I said, "Well . . . what happened? To Saner and Kraut?

"Oh, said Ben, voice surprised at the question, "they were canned. On the spot. They were no use now. Had to borrow money to get out of town. We all gave them what we could.

Across the street, "Chinatown ended. A pause, then piano and the same young voice began: "Honey, honey, can't you hear? Funny, funny music, dear. . . Ain't the funny strain goin' to your brain? Like a bottle of wine, fine. Hon', hon', hon', take a chance! One, one, one! One little dance! Can't you see them all swaying up the hall? Let's be gettin' in line! Then the familiar chorus:

"Everybody's doin' it, doin' it! Doin' what? Turkey Trot! And Maude groaned, and said, "Everybody's overdoin' it.

A middle-aged woman came out of the house and sat down on the step just below Maude, and Maude leaned forward, murmuring something to her. Then she called to me. "Si, this is Madam Zelda, Mind Reader. That's Simon Morley. She never heard of Tessie and Ted either.

"I'll let Maude know if I do, Madam Zelda said, and I nodded and smiled, thanking her.

The beer boy came walking toward our house, tilted to one side, his arm pulled straight down by the weight of his filled bucket. Dolores went into the house, Ben was digging into his pants pocket, and I stood up quickly, saying, "Let me, and got out a pair of quarters. Ben took the filled bucket; I gave the quarters to the boy, who looked down at them astonished. "Gee! Thanks, mister! ~

Dolores came out carrying a Coca-Cola tray full of assorted glasses, Maude just behind her with cups and a pot of tea on another tray. Then we all sat comfortably leaned back against the stone, sipping. Across the street I saw a boy coming slowly from Eighth Avenue carrying two tin buckets. And over at Eighth saw the corner saloon I thought he'd come from. It was a good moment sitting here sipping beer with these people. The night was turning a little cool, but no one left, and in the easy silence it occurred to me that my morning newspaper had had columns filled with Taft and Roosevelt struggling for the Republican presidential nomination; and other stories on the growing troubles in Europe. But these people sitting out here lived in another world, the only one that mattered. Did they ever vote? I suspected not, and I'd have bet that in the entire house behind us, up in the rooms they lived in, there wasn't a newspaper not called Variety or Billboard.

The easy, lazy, mildly gossipy talk resumed. I heard about a vaudevillian called Sparrow; they all seemed to know or had heard of him. His act was unique. He stood up on the stage and tossed oranges, tomatoes, and other soft fruit out to the audience. Then he'd put a fork in his mouth, and the audience threw all that garbage back at him while he tried to catch it on his fork. He'd miss, and in no time his suit and face were dripping. And always, some of the audience knew his act, and brought along hard stuff like potatoes and turnips and threw them. Threw good, a lot of them, fast, hard, and right at his face. So he had to catch it. On his fork. If he missed, as he sometimes did, too bad; black eve, bloody nose. He carried his own floor cloth, and wore a dress suit made of black and white oilcloth. And when he came off, walking along backstage toward his dressing room, he got a clear path.

Another act was Sherman and Morissey, who did a comic trapeze act in funny costume. What thex did was fall. Off a six-foot- high wire onto the stage. Singly and together. Then they'd get mad, and knock each other around, and fall some more. And the falls were real, no way to fake them. They hurt so much that they couldn't take it for more than eight minutes; the shortest act in vaudeville, Ben said. Back in their dressing room, it was liniment, bandages, and pulling splinters out of each other, getting into shape for the next show.

I must have looked astonished, and Dolores smiled and said, "It's vaudeville, Si. And it's better to be in it than out. That led the talk into failures, people who could no longer get bookings, the worst thing that could happen. A man most of them knew had gradually slipped from medium- to small-time, and then into no bookings at all. Friends had coached him then into being a store- window dummy. He'd stand in store windows, face whitened and rouged, motionless as a real dummy. Then he'd rap on the window at a likely passerby, who would stop to stare, and he'd make a stiff mechanical bow, with a jerky mechanical smile. Then absolutely still and motionless again. People would gather, rapping on the window at him, boys making faces trying to force him to smile, and he'd point to a sign in the window advertising something inside. "It wasn't show business, Al said, "but it was close as he could get, and everyone nodded.

Something strange happened then. Young Van Hoven began to talk, and he went on and on and on, no one interrupting. As well as I can remember, this is what he said. I wouldn't have blamed anyone who got up and left, though no one did, but I listened and could have gone on listening all night long.

"It's hard, he murmured, voice genuinely sympathetic to the ex-vaudevillian store-window dummy. "I was in the show business and I wasnt putting it over either. Misery loves company, so I joined a partner who also didn't have any money. I was broke all winter, and it was one of Chicago's hardest. We roomed in South Clark Street near the alley of the stage door of the old Olympic, and talk about Ding Bat not knowing the family above-it's a joke! (I have no idea what that meant.) "The landlady never saw us, and we never saw her: when you look like we looked, you didn't want to see anyone.

"We rehearsed a burlesque magic act, and put it together in a couple of days in our room by the aid of gaslight. That was the only way you could even find yourself in our room night or and we slept all day to try to forget we ought to eat. Dippy smiled. "Now sometimes when I'm eating big meals I wonder if I'm awake.