But now, as always, she caught them nodding, feet tapping, shoulders swaying. It always was like that. She finished the jig.
“There now,” she said. “I’m Irish, and I’ll sing a medley, every one of them learned from my ma. She died of the lung disease long ago, and left one thing behind. The songs of the old country.”
She sang once again, needing no backup, no instrument, just a cappella to half a dozen working men—hod carriers, dustmen, who knows? Her voice was untrained and hadn’t changed in all the years she had sung on street corners. She sang without elegance, no vibrato, no finesse, no punctuation to catch a breath. That voice had never been shaped by a maestro in a music academy, but it was sweet, and better still, it was earnest; more than sincere, it was honest and true. She sang the way her mother did, daughter emulating mother, and she saw that they liked that, and even Mark, the saloonkeeper, liked it and allowed a small smile to lift the corners of his mustache.
When she had finished she let silence settle.
“It’s my pleasure,” she said, not defining just what pleased her. “The sheet music sells for fifty cents, and I will sign each one.”
First one old bloke ambled over and laid out two quarters. She lacked a pen, but she had a good pencil, and she signed the name that the customers knew. Little did they know that she was Mona and that she was an O’Malley, and some of them, if they listened closely, could name the county where she was born. Then the next one bought, and another, and she sold five in all, with one sour holdout.
“I’ll give you a kiss instead,” she said, and planted a kiss on the old duffer’s dandruff-caked brow.
She hadn’t changed at all. She was the ten-year-old girl with the cup.
4
AT NOON, August Beausoleil pounced on the Independent, only to find that the paper had pounced on him. He found no review, but on the front page was a lengthy article, or rather, an outburst. A deacon in a local congregation had not liked the show, and had voiced his complaints to a friendly reporter, who had written them up and added the weight of the paper’s concurring opinion to them.
The show, it said, was an affront to decency. And morals. Most especially, a certain act featuring monkeys.
The act featured certain musical material from the tropics, with morally objectionable rhythms and offensive appeal to the baser instincts of the sort not on display in more northerly climes. That it had a corrupting influence on the audience is beyond cavil. What started as stern rectitude in the silent viewers soon turned into lax and ludicrous amusement as the ugly little beasts, devoid of human dignity and spirit, began to maul melody and inject anarchy into the proceedings.
That for starters. But the deacon and the paper were not content to trash Mrs. McGivers.
The songs rendered by the opening act, known as the Wildroot Sisters, were not of the sort to elevate moral and ethical sensibility, but to debase both singer and listener. The catchy rhythms were quite the opposite of what might be rendered by a trained and spiritual church choir, offering melodic praise to the Almighty.
Neither did the operators of the show escape.
The very name of this abomination, at the Ming Opera House, The Beausoleil Brothers Follies, tells the entire tale. It is an effort to Frenchify and Latinize good American tastes, and as such it subverts all the efforts of the Founding Fathers, guided by their respective congregations, to create a nation that would truly be The City on the Hill.
Wayne Windsor didn’t escape, either.
There was a monologue, rendered by a vain eccentric who would turn from one side to the other, which lacked both humor and grace, and poked ridicule at the better classes of people, the empire builders who are subduing this continent and turning it into something close to paradise. The callow, shallow fellow doesn’t hold a candle to the builders of the Republic.
And one of the early acts, The Marbury Trio, who performed with metal taps on their shoes as they did complex routines while dressed in tuxedos and silk top hats, came in for some of the worst of the assault.
To put a woman in men’s clothing, with two men beside her, and have her do pirouettes and rattle the boards with the metal on her feet, debased not only the woman who was subject to such public gaze, but also the audience, unused to seeing such coarse violations of whatever is sweet and retiring and fair in American womanhood.
The piece recommended that the show fold and depart the precincts at once, or failing that, that no one should purchase a ticket, and in any case the chief of police should be on hand at all performances to step in and cover wanton dancers and issue summons for all infractions.
Beausoleil sighed. The show was a long way from Manhattan. For decades, variety shows had been somewhat racy, or deliberately offensive, often mocking anything that might be considered traditional. But in the early eighties, a New Yorker, Tony Pastor, had cleaned it up. He was the godfather of vaudeville, and every show he put together was considered suitable for any viewer. That careful approach had been picked up by Keith and Albee as they built their vaudeville circuits. They enforced the rules relentlessly. An act that violated certain standards got pitched out.
This wasn’t a Keith circuit show, and Beausoleil had no contractual arrangements with the kings of vaudeville, so he and Pomerantz were free to assemble whatever acts appealed to them and to their audiences. Maybe someday the vaudeville magnates would swallow all the small shows like his, but not yet. There was plenty of room in vaudeville.
He read the material once again, and liked it. He’d sell out tonight, and for the rest of the run. He couldn’t have written a better review.
“Boy,” he said to the kid hawking the papers. “Here’s two bucks. Put a paper in every saloon and barbershop in the gulch, and keep a dime.”
“Holy cats,” the kid said, staring at the two greenbacks.
“I’ll take another,” Beausoleil said, and hurried toward the hotel, hoping to catch most of the acts.
He was lucky. There in the lobby stood Delilah Marbury.
“Get a load of this. Do your worst,” he said.
“Skirts or pants?’
“Show some leg,” he said.
“You worship the golden calf,” she said.
“Mainly yours. And whatever else is attached.”
“So does my husband.”
“Which one?”
She laughed. The act was new, and tap dancing was new, and some people thought it should be done in blackface. In all of variety there were only a few tap acts, and he had wanted to try one out. He soon discovered that these people were dancers, day and night, cold and hot, and a stage was nothing but an excuse to tap and click and drag a foot and rattle the boards. He hadn’t made up his mind about them. He usually ran them third, between two stronger acts. This was their first tour. The three were from Memphis, where they had picked up the motions and the rhythms on the waterfront. They made a good olio act, and that was proving handy whenever he was having a tough time with sick performers, or boozy or hungover ones. But the jury was out on the Marburys.
“August, we’ve got a new routine, and tonight’s the right time to try it. I’ll be in a skirt.”
“Wear a tutu,” he said.
“If you post bail, I will.”
“Delilah, don’t let them slow you down. Don’t let me slow you down. If you’ve got something to give to those people out there, they’ll know it and they’ll buy it, and they’ll clap, and I’ll back you. I like talent. I like whatever it is that catches people in their seats and brings them to life, and brings them to cheering for you. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I’m looking for. It’s not just the show, it’s the magic. It’s what makes some acts grand, and some acts flop. If you’ve got it, you’ve got me every step of the way.”
She gazed at him, almost like a frightened doe. “I guess we’ll find out,” she said. “We’re going to tap a love story.”
Tap dance a love story. What would it be? A triangle, the three of them tapping away?
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br /> “The hall might be empty tonight.”
“We’ll see about Helena,” she said. “Maybe there’s a lesson or two in an empty hall.”
He liked that.
He returned to sunlight and headed up the slope on Broadway, looking for city hall and the coppers. He didn’t know the name of the chief, but he would learn it. He found the place, most of a square block set aside for local government but not yet built up.
The top constable was named Will Riley, and he was in, chewing on some junior constable for something or other. August never caught what.
But in a moment he was free.
August pierced the cigar smoke–coated room, and offered a hand to a man who had been feasting too much and too long and now had trouble holding his trousers up.
“August Beausoleil, sir. I own the show.”
The top cop grunted, licked his lips, and waited.
“I thought you and the missus might enjoy the show, so I brought you some tickets. Front-center, third row, best in the house, perfect for variety. You get to look up every nostril.”
He laid a pair of green tickets on the battered desk.
Riley eyed the tickets and grunted. He studied Beausoleil a little, and smiled.
“We’ll be there. Behave yourself.”
That was all there was to it.
“If you want two more, for tomorrow, matinee or evening, let me know,” Beausoleil said. “Courtesy of the whole troupe.”
“I bet,” Riley said.
Beausoleil headed for fresh air, but then realized he was next door to the Lewis and Clark County Attorney. So he entered.
The gent was as skinny as a weasel, but mostly bald.
“Beausoleil, here, sir. I run the show at the opera house. A quick question. Is there some ordinance or local law I should know about?”
“Ask me after you’ve broken it.”
“We want to give people a show they’ll all enjoy. Especially women.”
The skinny man yawned. “Good afternoon,” he said.
“Would you like a couple of tickets?”
“I knew it. Soon as you walked in. You’re here to grease the skids.”
“Thought you might enjoy the show. We’re proud of it. There’s something for everyone in it.”
“Time is precious, sir, and I don’t squander it on entertainment.”
“You have a list of the pertinent ordinances?”
“In the ledger.” He jerked a thumb toward a gray ledger book. It was thick. The city fathers had been busy.
It wasn’t hard to see where this was headed.
Beausoleil lifted his hat and headed for the pebbled glass door. The man stared, measuring the impresario for a black-and-white–striped costume. Walking through that door into the hall was like stepping out of a bat cave.
You never knew what you’d find when you and your company hit a town. The chill weather brought bold blue skies and a pine perfume off the mountains. There was an early dusting of snow up high, making the world virgin. He liked Helena as a place to visit but he’d never live there.
He’d done what he could. It was up to the acts now. The newspaper assault had made the rounds by now, and everyone in the company knew that there might be trouble. Some places didn’t like to be entertained. Or they thought anyone in show business rose straight out of some devil’s lair. But sometimes it was the reverse: show people sensed a holier-than-thou town and resented it. And their resentment showed up in the acts, no matter how professional they were. Some things couldn’t be hidden. Beausoleil had occasionally gotten rid of an act because there was something about it that caused trouble. Sometimes nothing more than an attitude. Something that was a little like spitting on an audience. Take this, you rummies. Like it or leave.
But that was rare. More common was simply that each venue was different. Some acts played well in some towns and not others. Some acts bombed in a town that enjoyed variety and welcomed any company that rolled in. What prompted these shifting welcomes was a great mystery, and August Beausoleil had tried out every theory he could come up with, without getting anywhere. Running a road company was largely guesswork and instinct. But there was one thing he could always do: stay alert and try to head off trouble.
He stopped at Ball’s Drug Store to see how advance sales were going, and wasn’t surprised to learn that ninety reserved seats for the night’s show had been sold, and more for the matinee and finale. Maybe his instinct was right: that newspaper piece had stirred things up.
As the day faded and the lamps of evening were lit, Beausoleil found himself in an anxious mood, which was unusual. He was a veteran showman, a veteran with road shows, and he usually took trouble with aplomb. But not this evening. There was nothing but a hostile, even nasty, newspaper piece between him and an ordinary show night, but somehow this article, with its brooding menace, threatened him, threatened the show, threatened trouble of a legal and political sort, trouble that could mean jail and fines and ruin.
He ate lightly, a bowl of soup, and could stomach no more. At the opera house he found the acts were tense and silent. So the newspaper assault had affected his people the same way. As showtime approached, it became plain that the evening would be a sellout. Crowds waited their turn at the ticket window, plunking down dollars, picking up green tickets, entering the quiet opera house a block above Last Chance Gulch.
He stirred through his people, who were dressed and waiting, ready for the curtain to sail into the flies and the Follies to begin.
“We’re going to be just fine, just fine,” he said. “A grand crowd. Enjoy yourselves.”
A few grinned. Others didn’t.
“We’ll bail you out,” he said.
Only Mary Mabel Markey smiled. She looked like a woman who had just been shrived.
5
SHOWTIME. AS always, seven minutes after the appointed hour. The limelight was lit, casting brilliant white illumination across the center of the stage, creating an anticipation of good things to come.
August Beausoleil, in his tux and stiff white bib, appeared suddenly, waited for the packed house to quiet, and welcomed these Helena people to the Follies.
“We are delighted to be in this handsome city, among such fine people,” he said. “And now, to open our show, please greet the Wildroot Sisters.”
The curtain flew up, and the limelight caught the girls in bright pastels, crouched together, and then they exploded out and into their first number, a lively heads-up song about big things coming.
August studied this crowd from his perch at the wing, and thought it looked good. Every seat had been sold, and now the crowd was settling in for the evening. In the third row was the police chief, and next to him what appeared to be a twenty-year-old wife, or a mistress or daughter. That was good news. The gals strutted, the accordion wheezed, and the girls won a quiet round of applause from an audience that seemed content enough.
Next was Harry the Juggler, who soon was tossing bowling pins, then tea cups and saucers, then baseballs, and then a mix of them all. Harry’s act was short. People could take only so much tossing, even when the items were likely to break, which is what the audience waited for. He got polite applause. He’d do a second stint in the second act, juggling two knives and two scimitars. He was missing a finger, and August always wondered if that had been a juggling disaster. Harry was a loner, spoke Latvian or something, and sent his pay somewhere.
Next came the Marburys, one of the acts that was criticized in the press for violating womanhood.
“It’s my delight to present, for the first time in the great state of Montana, the tap-dancing Marburys, who will show the world what’s new.”
They tapped out from the wing, Delilah in a calf-length frothy skirt, short by most standards but definitely female attire, and they soon were in an arm-in-arm pirouette, or buck-and-wing. August never knew the terminology, but the trio’s obsession with bright dancing and intricate tapping was captivating the audience. And no one was complaining.
But August Beausoleil had a feel for things, and he knew that this crowd was waiting, and he knew what they were waiting for, and he hoped there wouldn’t be another rotten fruit fight.
She was next. He sprang out into the limelight, feeling the heat of the device, bowed, and waited dramatically until there was deep quiet.
“And now, ladies and gents, one of the great attractions, brought to you from far across the Caribbean seas, in the tropics, in a world that few of us have ever known. The one, the only Mrs. McGivers and her Monkey Band.”
The olio rose on the old gal, with the capuchin monkeys Abel and Cain on cymbals and drum, and her sagging accordionist wheezing his bellows to life. This was what they were waiting for out there, something scandalous. She let them absorb the rhythms, study the cheery little monkeys, and then she began singing, her corpulent body rising and sagging, her melodies hoarse and alien. The cymbals clanged, and the drum got banged, at first in an orderly manner, but the anarchistic monkeys were soon improvising, and leaping up on their seats, their arms gonging and hammering, even as the music became dissonant and at war. It was not a good sale for calypso.
Helena’s theatergoers hardly knew what to make of it. But there was no flying fruit. And he heard an occasional chuckle. They were getting it: this began as languid tropical music, and was turning into anarchy, and that was the fun of it. She was the conductor of the Chaos Symphony. And some of those people were grinning.
Mrs. McGivers stood and swayed, formidable, like a tropical banana queen. The audience began to enjoy it. It didn’t matter what she sang; no one could understand a word of it anyway, and the monkeys were more entertaining than the singer.
And no fruit. No rotten tomatoes.
Then the accordionist switched to a new tune, one Beausoliel hadn’t heard before, a little like an organ grinder’s street corner music, and sure enough, the monkeys pulled out tin cups and leapt into the two aisles, shaking the cups, which had a couple of pennies in them, soliciting coin from the audience. And the gents out there indulged the monkeys and pleased their wives by dropping nickels and dimes and even quarters into the cups, while everywhere people stood or craned necks to watch the rascally little monkeys extract boodle from pockets. And then, as fast as the accordionist had started this monkey business, he switched to another song, new marching orders, and the monkeys bounded for the stage and presented the loaded cups to Mrs. McGivers. She stood, bowed handsomely, accepted the coins like a priestess accepting a sacrament, and made her queenly way offstage.
Anything Goes Page 3
