Anything Goes

by Richard S. Wheeler

  There were some chuckles out there. This audience had gotten its money’s worth. Beausoleil watched Mrs. McGivers, just offstage, empty the cups, slide the coins into a pocket, and go back for an encore, which was strictly calypso, restoring the tropics to Helena’s Ming Opera House once again.

  “Wasn’t that fun! That was the famous Mrs. McGivers and her Monkey Band. Let’s tell the world about her talented act.” He waited for the final ripple of applause. “And now, my friends, the woman you’ve been waiting for, the one, the only, the celebrated Mary Mabel Markey.”

  She swept in, her posture erect, her shoulders thrown back to make her look a little more svelte. She had started to sag, but now, in the limelight, she exuded a brassy command of the whole world.

  The audience clapped, glad to see the star of the show, the legend, the top-billed singer, with her accompanist, who played a flute. And then an odd thing struck Beausoleil. His star seemed distraught. Maybe that wasn’t the word. He had no word for it, but she was taut and uncomfortable, this woman who was totally at ease singing in any place, for any group. It passed, but when she launched her first song, to the counterpoint of the flute, it wasn’t as serene as usual. He couldn’t say what was ailing, only that even though she seemed the same as ever, she wasn’t. And listening carefully, he decided her voice was troubled. He suspected that two decades of singing on a stage, or maybe a street corner, had coarsened her vocal cords. He didn’t know. But something wasn’t right.

  She sang a ballad about mothers, and another about sweethearts, and a final one about courage, and when she was finished, she bowed, and the audience clapped politely, and that was the heart of it. Polite clapping.

  It troubled him more than he cared to admit. He was suddenly worried about her; she was the most stable person in the company. She was the one he could count on in any emergency. If half the acts took sick, she could fill the bill. But there she was, a shadow over her as she slipped into the wing. He caught her hand, and she pulled it away. There was no encore.

  It was just a passing moment. She’d be fine. But it would not vanish from his mind, even as he strode out to introduce the final act before intermission, which was Wayne Windsor, The Profile.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the king of comedy, the legendary Wayne Windsor,” he said, hastening the show along to cover the odd mood left by Mary Mabel Markey.

  The Profile trotted out, bowed to the right audience and the left audience to give everyone a fine view of his noble brow and jut jaw, and then addressed the multitude:

  “Now, I have it from the local paper, the excellent Herald, that there’s some people of the better class in town. That’s good news. I should like to meet you. Are there any people of the better class out there? Please wave a hand, and maybe we can all gather right here, in front of the footlights.”

  Beausoleil did not spot any waving hands out there. It was going to be a good evening. The Profile would say kind things about the better class. Some smiles were already building up.

  “Surely,” he said, “there are some better-class people in Helena. I’d be disappointed if there is not one person in this beautiful city who is not of the better class.”

  There sure was a lot of silence out there.

  “Actually, the paper got it right. There is one person of the better class in Helena. Can you guess who?” He paused. “I’ll give you a hint.” He pointed a finger at himself.

  The crowd laughed. Windsor smiled, and posed for a Napoleonic moment.

  “Now I reached this status by inventing a form of accounting, a method widely used to keep the ledgers of both government and commerce. This accounting has a new feature, which directs one percent of all revenue into a certain charity, with offices in Kentucky, Argentina, and Australia, as well as the Principality of Monaco.…”

  The audience had settled down to some good times, and was listening sharply for heresies and scandals. The Profile was doling out scandals slowly, making sure to shift his feet, giving the lucky listeners another view of his visage.

  Beausoleil hurried to the Green Room looking for Mary Mabel, and found her alone, staring sternly at the wall. He knew better than to ask if she was ill.

  “I’ll sub LaVerne Wildroot for the last,” he said.

  “You will not.”

  “She won’t hold a candle to you; it’s just that you need a break.”

  “I don’t need a break, and if you sub her, you can put me on the next train to New York.”

  “You’re a little out of breath.”

  “What do you expect? Helena’s not sea level.”

  “Yes, and Butte’s much higher. You might have a bad time of it. You’ll be up a mile, I understand.”

  “I will be out front, singing, every day, every performance.”

  “Mabel, you’ll have top billing on this show. You don’t need to worry. I’m giving you a break. You’re worn-out. There’s some young talent that can fill in.”

  “I am who I am. I am no one else. I have been the same all my life. I sang on street corners, and I’ll sing until I can’t. And when I can’t you can put a yellow rose on my coffin.”

  He knew he had to ask the hard question. “All right, Mabel, but what if you can’t sing well? Bad tonsils. Nothing comes out.”

  “Not sing well? That will be the day I die.”

  She sat there glaring, as granitic and unmoving as Gibraltar. He reached across, plucked up her icy hand, and squeezed it. She didn’t respond.

  He hurried up to the wings, wondering how the monologue was progressing. One thing about Wayne Windsor: every night was different, and sometimes there were a few jokers in his deck. He peered out from the edge of the arch, and saw exactly what he hoped. This crowd was devouring every word, sometimes anticipating Windsor ahead of his punch lines. The various acts hung around in the wings, just to scoop up whatever he was dishing out. He offered fresh talk in a show loaded with routine.

  And there was Ethel Wildroot, over in the opposite wing watching The Profile. August Beausoleil sometimes wondered if the old gal had set her cap for the man. She rarely missed an act. August made his way behind a rear curtain, found her listening raptly, and summoned her back into the darkness.

  “I may need the new act,” he said. “Is LaVerne ready?”

  “But you’ve given me no notice!”

  “It may not happen. Mary Mabel’s sick. Or at least she’s off her form. I want to be ready.”

  “I’ll go tell LaVerne and the accordion.”

  “Ethel. I’m not saying it’ll happen. It’s to be ready. Clear?”

  “You could make it happen. You’re the boss.”

  “I respect my talent, Ethel. Try to, anyway. All these years, I’ve respected my talent.”

  She glared. “Well, make up your mind. If I tell the girl she should be ready, then she’s going on, whether or not Mary Mabel quits on you.”

  He took a chance. “Then don’t tell LaVerne anything, Ethel. Mary Mabel’s an old trouper, and she can put the sun into a new orbit.”

  “She can’t stop old age,” Ethel said.

  “Well,” said Wayne Windsor, winding it up. “I will go forth and tell the world that there’s no one of the better class in Helena, Montana.”

  People chuckled, and then clapped. Windsor awarded them with both profiles.

  6

  MRS. MCGIVERS sat comfortably in the wing, watching the second act. Unlike most of the performers, who retreated to the Green Room or out the side door for some air, she preferred to watch the performers. Sometimes it was instructive. More often, she caught mistakes and blunders and had something to enjoy.

  Her act would be on soon, and she and Joseph would do things a little differently. He would use a guitar, and the Monkey Band would be racier than the first act. She was very good at undulating to Caribbean rhythms. And the end of the act would be anarchy when the monkeys took over.

  Just now, though, the Marbury Trio was leading off, a sudden switch by August Beauso
leil. He sometimes did that, when he was not entirely confident the variety show was doing well. One indicator was empty seats. If people returned after the break, that was a good sign. If some had abandoned the theater, that wasn’t so good. But Mrs. McGivers’ own peeks upon the sea of faces had led her to believe they had a happy crowd that cold Helena evening.

  But now the audience was quiet. The tap dancers were tapping, a fiddle was making music, and the routine was going well. This time, though, Delilah was in a tuxedo and pants, like her two dancing partners, and all three had a gold-knobbed walking stick they used as a baton, and sometimes to punctuate a musical verse with a rap on the boards.

  Mrs. McGivers thought it was just fine. Three great dancers doing great footwork, the taps clicking and rattling out into the dark, beyond the limelight. But not even the perfection of the act, the astonishing footwork, toe and heel tapping, the rattle of taps on boards, was loosening up the crowd for the second act.

  Cain and Abel sat beside her, leashed, watching the tapping, which was new to them. They were imitating what they saw on-stage, making their monkey feet go, swaying the way Delilah swayed.

  Messing with other people’s acts was taboo, but Mrs. McGivers didn’t care. There had never been a rule that contained her for long. She turned the capuchin monkeys loose.

  “Go wiggle your butts,” she said.

  The little devils could hardly believe their good fortune. They eyed her, eyed the trio in the spotlight, and sprang out. The dancers, to their credit, didn’t falter. The monkeys leaped right in and imitated the trio, while a ripple of delight rolled back through rows of seats. It took a moment for those at the back of the opera house to catch on. In the bright light were five, two monkeys and three tap dancers, all rat-tat-tatting along. Delilah, never one to miss a chance, handed her black walking stick to Cain, who went into paroxysms of joy, hammering the boards in perfect rhythm as the fiddler speeded up the game.

  Now the crowd was undulant, whispering, tapping feet, and pointing. Cain and Abel were so integrated into the line of dancers that they seemed a part of the act, as if it had been rehearsed that way from the start. But it hadn’t.

  “What’s this?” asked Beausoleil.

  “A little pepper,” Mrs. McGivers said.

  “They got loose, eh?”

  “Smart little devils,” she said, which won an arched eyebrow from him.

  He watched the tap dancers bow and exit, tapping their way off the stage, led by a pair of delinquent primates. Then, as the clapping subsided, he hastened out to introduce the next act, which was Wayne Windsor, doing another monologue.

  Delilah Marbury stormed straight at Mrs. McGivers, who sat quietly.

  “You ruined it. You wrecked the act.”

  “Probably needed wrecking, girl.”

  “We’re dancers. Not some Punch-and-Judy show. Don’t ever do that again.”

  “You have a good act, sweetheart. Just needs a little spice.”

  “Spice! We’re dancing, and that’s all we do. And we’re good at it. I’m going to have it out with August.”

  “Guess you will, sweetheart. And don’t be surprised by what he says.”

  Out front, the boss was introducing the next act. “And now, for your delectation, the finest comic in the country, the one, the only Wayne Windsor!”

  The finest comic in the country hastened out for his second appearance, caught the light, allowed it to shine upon his left profile, and then his right, and smiled.

  “I certainly enjoy Helena, Montana,” he began. “It has great newspapers. I’m especially taken with the Herald. I was talking to one of its reporters a while ago, and I said, ‘Sir, what are your qualifications? What makes you a good reporter?’ And he eyed me sternly and he said, ‘A quart a day.’ Now I immediately knew I was in elevated company…”

  Beausoleil returned, unbuttoned his tuxedo, and stood, listening.

  You never knew about Windsor. Once in a while he caused a ruckus. Mrs. McGivers had seen moments when the audience was ready to lynch him. The man was a phenomenon. He did have a standard routine, but most of the time he improvised, somehow coming up with good quips and funny anecdotes that had a local flavor. He was superb at his craft, which was tickling the funny bone of audiences wherever the show performed.

  When there was music out front, people in the wings could talk a little, but not when there was a monologuist or a silent animal act. So she sat and watched and listened, as interested in Beausoleil’s responses as in the performance. And in truth, the boss was listening carefully, because Windsor was on perilous ground. Reporters got the last word.

  “I asked this fellow what a reporter’s job is, and he said a really good reporter hunts around for the truth and then hides it. I said, ‘How do you hide it,’ and he said, ‘By printing it on the front page, where no one believes it.’”

  That seemed to evoke a chuckle. Windsor decided that his other side needed exposure to the limelight, so he shifted and let the white glare fall upon the left-side view, with the high brow, fine long nose without a wart, and jut jaw tapering into a handsome neck.

  The limelight flickered a bit. It was achieved by training a hot flame upon a block of quicklime, which threw out the eerie light that performers loved. In Windsor’s case, he somehow became incandescent himself, throwing brightness out upon his rapt listeners. It was some trick, and sure wasn’t anything she had picked up in the tropics. Some performers had all the luck, and he was one of them. Audiences enjoyed him even if they didn’t love him. His comments were usually barbed, and while that evoked a few laughs, it sometimes evoked some rotten tomatoes. Either was just fine.

  She saw the juggler waiting his turn. If juggling baseballs and cups and saucers was entertaining, the next stint with sharp blades would be riveting. How he managed to keep those knives and scimitars in the air at once, without cutting his hand off, was something of a mystery, though once he said that the knives were heavily leaded to the exact weight of the big scimitars, so he didn’t have to vary the throw. One of these days, a scimitar would crash down on his neck like a guillotine, and that would be the end of the act. The audiences always hoped to see it, but he disappointed them. She scarcely knew him. He ghosted about, not really part of the company, and barely making friends.

  Meanwhile, The Profile was having a fine time. “So I asked this reporter from the Herald, I say, ‘Who edits your stuff? Who decides what goes on the page? Who corrects it?’ And he says, ‘The advertisers do.’ He says, ‘Peruna Tonic wields the blue pencil.’ He says that the editor whom every reporter dreads is Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing. She wants to get the yellow out of every story, and make it perfect blue-white, with no yellow tint anywhere. ‘I tell you,’ says he, ‘there’s no editor in the business like Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing.’”

  She heard an appreciative chuckle. The Profile was steadily scoring, pushing back against the local paper. Even as Delilah Marbury had gotten back into her tuxedo and pants just to affront the paper, so was The Profile nibbling away at the paper. And it wouldn’t stop there. The whole vaudeville company would, in its own way, even the score.

  The boss was enjoying it. A show that fights back is a show that gets itself an audience, and if Wayne Windsor wanted to even things up with the Herald, that was just fine.

  When Windsor was done tickling their funny bones, he awarded them with left and right profiles, and trotted off. A fine round of applause lured him back for a bow, a quick right and left, and then he was done.

  “Now how about that, ladies and gents? The incomparable Wayne Windsor,” said Beausoleil. “And now, the one you’ve been waiting for: the world’s finest juggler, straight from Vienna, Harry Drogomeister. Please welcome the one, the only man who will put himself in harm’s way to show you his unparalleled skills.”

  Harry trotted out, armed with a lot of blades, including steel knives with heavy handles, and scimitars, curved swords with slasher edges on the interior curve, useful for beheadings. He didn’t spe
ak much English, so he simply bowed, this way, that way, accepting the ovation, and then he picked up the knives, two lethal weapons, and casually flipped one upward, and another, and another, deftly catching each as it descended, his hand clasping the handles, never touching the blades, faster and faster, until the limelight glittered off of flying steel. Then he caught them, set them down, and picked up a scimitar, ugly, sinister, menacing. He slashed air with it a few times, ran a finger along its wicked edge, and finally pitched it upward, where it rotated slowly before descending blade-first, and the juggler caught the handle and sent it looping up again.

  The audience was rapt. What reckless thing were they seeing?

  He added a second, each one requiring that it be caught by the handle and deftly tossed upward. People studied his hands, looking for missing digits and scars, but they saw none, or at least none was visible across the footlights. He whirled his swords faster and faster, making the loop smaller, a prodigy of deft maneuvering, and then collected the scimitars and bowed.

  But he was not done. His next feat was almost beyond imagining. He started with the knives, adding them one by one, and slowly added the scimitars until he was juggling six deadly instruments, each one treacherous, each one requiring the most delicate propulsion. How he did it no one knew, but it always impressed Mrs. McGivers as something that required voodoo. It was simply beyond human sensibility.

  But there he was, out there, in front of hundreds of people, some of whom hoped to see a disaster, while others feverishly prayed that the juggler would not shed gouting red blood all over the stage.