Anything Goes

by Richard S. Wheeler

  She smiled, captured a breath, and tried again, this time landing heavily on a note, until it died. She seemed utterly bewildered. How could this be? She peered right and left, and offstage, and there was no help. She smiled helplessly, cleared her throat, and tackled her opening of “Blue Eyes” once again, only to have it strangle in her mouth. She seemed utterly befuddled.

  Beausoleil was just as befuddled, but he was a veteran at rescuing beached acts, and hastened out, blinded by light.

  “A bit of laryngitis, is it?”

  She nodded.

  “We’ll see if things clear up. Ladies and gents, our beloved Miss Markey is out of voice, at least for the moment. This is most regrettable, but can’t be helped. We hope our favorite singer will be fine for the next act.”

  But she was shaking her head.

  “We’ll count on it,” he said.

  That crowd slowly absorbed it. They wouldn’t be hearing their favorite, Miss Mary Mabel Markey. Not this afternoon. The miners stirred, restless, uncertain about something. Mary Mabel bowed, meandered offstage, in no hurry, and with no particular concern about all of this. He glanced her way, puzzled, wondering who to run next. Probably the tap dancers. The show needed something lively just then, something to wipe away this odd interlude.

  And then some fellow out in the house was talking. He stood up.

  “You mind if I come up there? We have a little something for the lady,” he said.

  “After the show, sir. Time to roll out the next act.”

  “It’s a gift for Miss Markey, sir. We came here to present her with something. It’s gotta be now, or we’ll lose our chance.”

  August Beausoleil was flexible. You had to be flexible, sometimes bending backward, to run a variety show. He’d always argued that every town had a surprise waiting for him. And so he waved the man forward, with a flourish, and then hastened backstage to find Mary Mabel, who was standing numbly in the wings. There was something plenty strange about her.

  “Come,” he said.

  She strode out obediently, ahead of him, and won a lively round of applause, even as the miner, a black-bearded fellow, clambered up a stair to the boards.

  He was carrying a little white box, and seemed perfectly at home on the bright side of the lights.

  Beausoleil steadied Mary Mabel Markey, who seemed as slippery as soft butter, and steered her around so she was facing the gent.

  He grinned, nodded to some of his friends out there, and plunged in:

  “Ma’am, me and my crew, we got to thinking that you’re the girl we’d like have serenade us. We saw your picture in The Police Gazette, and one of us heard you in St. Louis, and said you’re a nightingale, and you can sing for us any time. Anyway, we’ve decided you’re The Montana Nugget, meaning no offense of course, and we got together to give you a nugget, one of the biggest ever hauled out of the ground around here. This one’s over an ounce, and it’s all for you.”

  He handed her the box. His crew cheered. The rest clapped. She slowly undid a blue ribbon, pulled open the pasteboard, and spotted an irregular blob of native gold.

  She smiled, lifted up the shining gold for all to see, and then planted a big smack of a kiss squarely on his hairy lips. And she added another and a big squeeze for good measure. And one more to make the point.

  “You’re my boy,” she said, in a voice bordering on basso.

  Beausoleil shook the man’s hand. “And your name, sir?”

  “Aw, just call me Fandango.”

  “All right, Fandango, you’ve brought blessings to Miss Markey, and pleasure to the Follies. We all thank you. What a fine audience! Montana takes the cake.”

  Fandango retreated to to his seat, Beausoleil welcomed Wayne Windsor, and hastened to the wing, looking for Mary Mabel. He found her meandering back toward the Green Room, and steered her in. They were alone, with just one lamp lit.

  She plunked herself in a chair.

  “What’s the story?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’ll get past it,” she muttered, still basso.

  “Your throat?”

  “The cough syrup. And the pill.”

  “Show me.”

  She found a handbag and handed it to him. He opened it, found the brown bottle of Williams’ New England Cough Syrup, and the pasteboard box of tablets. The labels didn’t say much, but he didn’t need to learn what he already knew.

  “We’ll sub for the evening show, and your second act,” he said.

  Then she was crying. He knelt beside her, pulled her close, gently wiped her flushed face, ran a hand through her uncombed hair, and kissed her softly on her forehead.

  “You’re my star, and you always will be,” he said.

  “I was born that way.”

  “Come out for the curtain call,” he said.

  “I’m so dizzy.”

  She seemed almost inert as he held her, and he wondered if she would ever grace his stage again. He could feel it, something ebbing within her. He wondered how ill she was, and how deeply the pain ran through her body.

  “Wayne’s winding up,” he said. “You rest.”

  He trotted upstairs, and found Windsor showing his right and left profiles to all those miners. He had managed to win them over, and now they were chuckling regularly. He was still mining the Herald story.

  Ethel Wildroot aimed straight at him, and it was too late for him to escape.

  “She was drunk!” Ethel yelled.

  Beausoleil thrust a finger to his lips. Talk in the wings was forbidden during the silent acts; you could whisper something during the musical ones. Yelling was a felony.

  “Drunk as a skunk,” she added, deliberately loud enough to reach the first few rows.

  Beausoleil shook his head, and grabbed her elbow, and steered her away, finally reaching a rear corner of the commodious backstage.

  “No, she wasn’t. She’s sick.”

  “Sick, my eye. Why are you covering up?”

  She still was loud enough to disturb Windsor’s act, so he just pressed a finger to his lips, and to hers.

  That turned her into a hissing teakettle.

  “The woman’s an old drunk,” she whispered, loud enough to rattle windows. “I don’t know why you put up with it. Treating you that way. Her voice’s gone to seed, and the way she abuses it, it’s done. She’s a has-been. Yet you stick with her, mollycoddle her. What’s the matter with you? There’s talent, there’s good voices, there’s people like LaVerne, ready to step up, to fill the stage and shine, but you stick with that derelict.”

  “Later,” he said softly. “Not now. You’re out of line.”

  “You don’t even give LaVerne a chance. She could turn this around. She could knock all those miners out of their heads.”

  “That isn’t what we have in mind, Ethel,” he said, softly enough so maybe she would get the message. He could hear Windsor winding up. It was odd how rhythm played a role in his monologues, and the faster the laughs lapped each other, the closer he was to finishing.

  “Gotta go,” he said, abandoning her. But she boiled right along beside him.

  “That whole business. She doesn’t have laryngitis. She has whiskey-itis. And it’s wrecked her voice. And you pay her three times more than she’s worth. She’s thirty-nine!”

  “Ethel—stop.”

  She smiled suddenly and patted his arm. “You know what you’re doing,” she said.

  9

  ETHEL WILDROOT was elated. LaVerne would do a solo at last. Ethel discovered LaVerne in the Green Room, playing solitaire.

  “Get ready. You’ll sub for Mary Mabel second act.”

  “Who says?”

  “He’s got no choice. You get yourself gingered up and be ready.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said Mary Mabel’s sick, and if she’s better, she’ll go on. Actually, she’s drunk.”

  “I haven’t done the songs in days.”

  Ethel glared at her. “Now’s your chance.”

&
nbsp; “I should be happy?”

  That was the trouble with LaVerne. She didn’t come from theater family. Not like Ethel’s daughters. Marge and Cookie looked too much like their father, the comedian Wally Wildroot, which was why Ethel brought her niece LaVerne into the act. LaVerne actually looked like Ethel herself, halfway pretty. Marge and Cookie had inherited all the wrong features, and they weren’t going anywhere in vaudeville. Rotten Wally Wildroot had sired two jut-jawed girls with bad voices that were beyond redemption, even though Ethel had paid for lessons. They were doomed to be blues singers in Memphis, but Ethel wasn’t ready to tell them that. Not yet. They had bad teeth, too. LaVerne could sing when she felt like it, but she didn’t care if the audience was ten people or two hundred. It sure was hard to create a good act.

  “What’ll you sing?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “You’ll sing ‘Waltz Me Tonight,’ and ‘Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-Dee-Ay.’ And for an encore, ‘Warm My Hand.’”

  “All right,” LaVerne said, and returned to her cards.

  “LaVerne, I’ve brought you into the act, and given you top billing. You owe me a performance that they won’t forget. This afternoon. Now. Get ready.”

  “Sure, Ethel.”

  “I’ll get you more money. You’ll reach the top. All I’ll want is an agency fee.”

  “Sure, Ethel.”

  “The second act’s coming right up. Shouldn’t you be talking to the music?”

  “Just tell him.”

  The music was any of several people in the show. The Wildroots borrowed an accordionist or a fiddler, or sometimes a clarinetist, and gave him a couple of dollars.

  “I’ll get Willie,” Ethel said. Willie made music for the tap dancers.

  LaVerne was no Mary Mabel Markey. She needed backup. Ethel hastened to the stage door, where Willie usually smoked cheroots and watched the pedestrians during matinees, and there he was, fingers stained brown, sucking a fat nickel cigar.

  “LaVerne’s subbing for Mary Mabel, so be ready,” she said.

  “It’s LaVerne’s big chance,” Willie said.

  “It’s only a matinee, Willie.”

  Willie smiled. “Have her show some ankle.”

  “You would say that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Bunch of miners out there.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. She’d advise LaVerne to appeal to the male animal.

  “Vaudeville’s elevated and spiritual,” she said.

  Willie grinned maliciously.

  The second act rolled along, the Helena afternoon bright and chill. Harry the Juggler put on a good show, but nothing compared to a sword swallower. There were only a handful of those, and they all played the big circuits back east. Imagine slowly lowering a double-edged sword, right to the hilt, down your gullet. People always waited for the sword swallower to eviscerate himself. But so did they wait for Harry to behead himself with those flying scimitars, and that was almost as good.

  She had seen Harry lose a scimitar only once, when a gust of air hit a playhouse back in St. Louis, pushed open a double door, sending a gale straight across the stage. It also blew out some footlights. Harry had picked up the scimitar, smiled, and did the deal all over. Except for the missing finger, Harry was unbloodied even after a dozen years in variety shows. But he was so quiet that some people thought a stray knife had cut out his tongue.

  The miners clapped politely, and Beausoleil introduced the tap dancers again, and the trio did that strange loose-jointed clatter that Ethel couldn’t call a dance, and couldn’t call gymnastics, and probably came out of some plantation somewhere down south. Oh, well. Vaudeville was always trying out new acts, and sometimes one clicked. Not this one, though. Ethel knew it was doomed. Tap dancing was a passing novelty, and there wasn’t enough to it to catch an audience.

  LaVerne stood quietly in the wings. She had on a short green skirt and scooped blouse, mostly because Ethel had told her to wear that outfit. Willie’s accordion sagged across his belly.

  Beausoleil trotted into the bright light.

  “And now, ladies and gents, something special. Mary Mabel Markey, once again.”

  It was as if an anarchist had thrown a bomb under the duke’s carriage.

  “Mary Mabel Markey, the world’s sweetheart, is going to hum her songs tonight, gents and ladies. You know the words. She knows the words, but they’re locked up in her throat this rare afternoon. So may I present, the world’s sweetheart, Mary Mabel Markey.”

  Mary Mabel swirled out of nowhere, head to toe in pale blue velvet, with only a strand of pearls to relieve the sky blue gown.

  She would hum, sore-throated, a capella.

  And she did. She started softly, so softly the audience strained to hear her, but slowly Mary Mabel Markey triumphed over lyrics, and let melody steal her act, melody rising from her throat, low and soft as velvet, sweet as whispered love.

  The effect was unearthly. Ethel was enthralled, in spite of a wish to tear the opera house to pieces. Mary Mabel swayed softly, small and vulnerable, yet powerful and sweet. Not a word was spoken. Her lips never formed them, but only formed a soft aperture. When she finished, and the opera house was caught in quiet, she bowed. And her audience leapt up and cheered.

  LaVerne, across the stage in the opposite wing, stared. The accordionist yawned.

  Mary Mabel started another, soft as a lullaby, her throaty voice rising from some new place in her body, almost down in her stomach. It never broke. It had innocence in it, somehow transforming Mary Mabel Markey into a woman waiting for her lover. Beausoleil watched from the wing. The other acts, drawn to this phenomenon, were watching too, the Green Room abandoned. And then when it was done, Mary Mabel took her sky-blue bow, and bowed again, and vanished.

  It was not a tumultuous applause, but one suited to the mood, warm and polite and affectionate. Somehow, Mary Mabel Markey had triumphed over her sore throat. She disappeared, not pausing to stand offstage, gone for the rest of the matinee.

  August Beausoleil looked pensive. He was thinking about all this. They all were. But finally, after an unduly long pause, he headed into the white light, nodded at the miners, and very quietly introduced Wayne Windsor, The Profile.

  “I’m the two-spot following the Queen of Hearts,” Windsor said.

  Ethel listened a bit, curious about the miners out there, wondering whether they would simply shut out Windsor, but he soon was digging up chuckles. Windsor had his own gifts.

  “Be ready,” Beausoleil said.

  “LaVerne?”

  “You’ve been asking.”

  He was shuffling the acts again. She hastened to the Green Room, found LaVerne at her solitaire, bullied her to the stage, and collected Willie from the alley behind the opera house.

  “Ladies and gents, something special now, direct from Brooklyn, New York, the Miners’ Heartthrob, LaVerne LaTour. Welcome Miss LaTour.”

  “The what?” Ethel asked, pushing her niece into the limelight. She heard scattered applause as LaVerne stumbled out, smiled, waited for Willie to crank up his squeeze box; then she bowed, did a little pirouette, and plunged into “Waltz Me Tonight.”

  She wasn’t half bad. She kicked up a little, displayed that slim ankle, worked at seducing the crowd, and sailed through without winning any hearts. She knew it, and worked harder at “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-Dee-Ay,” which somehow didn’t work on this crowd, either.

  Ethel watched, revelation opening her mind, aware that this niece of hers lacked talent, would never have talent, and no amount of rehearsal and revamping the act would give her talent. She was adequate as one of the Wildroot Sisters, buried in three-part harmony, but not solo.

  Ethel glanced at Beausoleil, who stared impassively. The impresario had seen plenty of nondescript acts come and go, and this one just went and wouldn’t return.

  He smiled at Ethel, and that smile spoke a million words.

  There was no encore. LaVerne could read applause as well as anyone. She and Willie retreated to the
wings, and Beausoleil trotted out.

  “Give that lady a big hand,” he said. “LaVerne LaTour. The Brooklyn siren.”

  The crowd didn’t.

  It was odd how careers ended in vaudeville. One day you’re on, in the white light, the next day you’re barely someone’s recollection.

  LaVerne looked relieved.

  Mrs. McGivers and her Monkey Band were out there, and the crowd was already buzzing with delight at the sight of the capuchin monkeys in gold-and-red uniforms. Suddenly the whole stage was tropical. That was the thing about Mrs. McGivers. The audience just knew it was about to have some fun.

  Ethel caught up with LaVerne, who was returning to her card game.

  “He shouldn’t have put you so close to Mary Mabel,” Ethel said.

  “I can figure it out as well as anyone,” LaVerne said. “So quit knocking me.”

  That’s how the new act vanished. Not a word of rebuke, not a word of regret. In truth, LaVerne didn’t really care. But Ethel cared. The Wildroot Sisters act didn’t earn much; it had to feed three singers and their manager. And pay a musician. LaVerne wasn’t a bit disappointed, but Ethel was.

  She rebuked herself for luring her niece into the business. The girl would have been happier living in prosaic wedlock and motherhood somewhere, rather than on the circuit. And this tour had barely started.

  Ethel heard the raucous sounds of the Monkey Band, the erratic cymbals, the crazy drumming, the rowdy Mrs. McGivers. That was a good act; vaguely scandalous, though it was hard to say why. It was Mrs. McGivers herself who oozed impropriety of some sort, looking loose and wicked.

  Ethel remembered when she and Wally Wildroot were an act. He was a mean comedian, the sort who jabbed and sneered and stabbed. And she was his foil. She in her blond wig. He would ask a question, she would reply, and he would have fun at her expense. She played the dumb blond lady, and he played the superior sophisticate. That was okay, but what wasn’t so much fun was the offstage relationship, which was no different from what went on in front of those heckling audiences. After two baby girls and years of abuse and comedy that wore thinner and thinner, she had quit the act cold. She walked out. And it turned out his act was no good alone, without some female to ridicule, and he hated her for it. They never bothered with a divorce, just drifted this way and that, and he disappeared. Last she knew, he was in New Orleans in some steamy dive, making a two-bit living. And she had put together the Wildroot Sisters, which barely survived, even in two-bit shows like this one.