Anything Goes

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “We’ll have a sellout,” Maguire said. “Nine hundred advance, and the rest being picked up right now.” He led her to the arch and drew the curtain aside. The house was starting to fill up. Miners, but more. Wives and children, old men, and plenty who didn’t look Irish at all, because Butte was Cornish and Italian and Slavic and Norwegian and Russian and Spanish and Greek.

  “Good crowd, since it’s snowing.”

  “Snowing?”

  “All the time, all winter, in Butte.”

  “We were lucky to get in, then.”

  “It was close.”

  Then, somehow, it was curtain time, and the house lights dimmed, and the footlights cranked up, and the spotlights threw their beams, and there was August Beausoleil, all gotten up in his tux and bib, striding out there, welcoming the crowd, urging them to enjoy the show, and enjoy the famous Wildroot Sisters, and their medley.

  The curtain flew upward, and the gals plunged in, bright and saucy, with plenty of flounce.

  The Butte crowd enjoyed them, and enjoyed the acts, and laughed at The Profile, and clicked right into the tap dancing, and howled at Mrs. McGivers and her Monkey Band, when the unruly little devils went into their anarchist mode. It was a grand show, and Butte was a grand city, and they were in the grandest opera house in the region.

  “And now, the one you’ve been waiting for, the lady who gets a hundred proposals a day, the one, the only Mary Mabel Markey,” August was saying.

  Her heart tripped. That was a new one, a hundred proposals a day. She glided out, feeling the spotlights, feeling a thousand gazes watching her, the blue velvet, the smiling Irish eyes. All that warmth made her dizzy.

  She welcomed them, and told them she would sing for the best audience ever, and then, in the hush, sang “Your Big Blue Eyes.” She was in fine voice, and her honey spilled over the footlights, and when she was done, there was a pause, and an affectionate swell of happiness, just as John Maguire had predicted. She waited for that outpouring to ebb, and then sang “The Cradle Song,” and again her people sitting in row after row loved it, and she was dizzy with love, and she volunteered a third song this opening in Butte, “The Ribbon on My Finger.” Oh, yes, they loved that, too, and everything was perfect, and the world whirled.

  She bowed, and the world turned white, brighter than limelight, brighter than sunlight, and she felt herself floating, carried up through the flies, out into the snowy heaven, into the blinding white until she could see no more.

  13

  THE HEADLINES said it all that afternoon: “Markey’s Finale”; “Singer Dies”; “First Act, Last Act.” The newsboys hawking their two-cent tabloids on the corners put it in their own vernacular: “Croaks on Stage,” one was yelling. “Read all about it.”

  For August Beausoleil, it was a moment of anguish, one he foresaw, and one he was helpless to stop. Mary Mabel Markey had simply dropped dead. One moment she was concluding an oddly tremulous act, the next, she toppled, slowly, flailing, to the boards, convulsed twice, and lay still. He knew in a paralyzed moment that she was gone, that her heart had quit.

  Strangely, his first thought was to forgive her. Those in the wings watched, galvanized by the moment, unsure of what to do. He knew.

  “Drop the olio,” he said. The olio was a canvas backdrop that lowered downstage, permitting olio acts to perform in front of it while scenes were changed upstage. After a long moment, the tan curtain descended, even as a first stirring of the audience caught and spread.

  His performers rushed to the fallen singer, turned her onto her back, sought life, and stared helplessly. She was gone. The clock was ticking. Harry the Juggler was patting her, pumping her, but life had fled.

  There was a terrible instinct in August to continue the show, keep it rolling. Just a seizure, folks, and here’s the Marbury Trio. But he could not. These people had just witnessed death. His people were huddled over Mary Mabel Markey, staring at him, waiting for something, and that something was up to him. Even John Maguire, restless in the wing, waited for him. And so did his colleague, Charles Pomerantz. All waiting for him.

  In his gray tuxedo, stiff bib at the neck, he stepped into the bright glare of the footlights, and walked to the center of the stage.

  “We grieve Miss Markey,” he said. “This show is over. We will honor your ticket stubs at a special matinee tomorrow. We will cancel tonight’s show in honor of our beloved Mary Mabel Markey, and will honor tickets at a future show. Thank you, good people, for coming this afternoon.”

  The audience sat, restless, unable to begin its exit.

  John Maguire stepped into the light.

  “My friends, I will be at the box office to refund the price of your tickets,” he said.

  The two of them hastened offstage, even as the shocked audience stirred. August knew he had done the right thing. If he had tried to keep the show going, his performers would have faltered, and the audience would have ached.

  “There will be very few refunds,” Maguire said.

  But August was already absorbed with the things he must do. First, to arrange her burial, to deal with any officials, to find her relatives, if any. Death brought sudden tasks. It all fell upon him. And he still had to keep the show going, keep his company afloat, fill those seats or perish.

  There, backstage, the Wildroot Sisters stared, frightened. Mrs. McGivers sat beside Mary Mabel Markey, holding the dead woman’s hand. Ethel Wildroot, on her knees, stared, looking for signs of life. Wayne Windsor sat beside the singer, patting her occasionally, as if to wish her back to life. Others—musicians, stage hands, performers—all watched desolately, deep in their own thoughts. Mary Mabel Markey’s white face, distorted when she fell, now had slipped into serenity. Her wrinkles somehow vanished. August thought that she had run her course, had succeeded, and was content even as her spirit drifted away.

  A whiskery doctor with a Gladstone bag appeared, knelt beside the fallen, and listened with a stethoscope, and shook his head.

  “Mr. Maguire got me,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do. She was gone even before she fell down. I’m so sorry. I don’t think it could have been prevented.”

  He stood.

  Two burly men in dark suits appeared. “Brogan Mortuary,” one said.

  Maguire had been busy. Beausoleil was grateful. It was Maguire’s city, and he knew what to do. They all watched silently as the mortuary men lifted Mary Mabel Markey into an ebony handcart and wheeled her away. The stage, lit only with one overhead lamp, was gray.

  Then it was all back to August.

  “No show tonight,” he said. “Matinee tomorrow, and the evening show. We may make other changes in the schedule. I want to honor our great lady. But I don’t yet know how, or about a funeral, or any of that. You’re free this evening.”

  “August,” Mrs. McGivers said, “God bless you.”

  That was it. Somehow her benediction completed the moment. The knots of people gradually abandoned the boards, and vanished into the late afternoon.

  Charles Pomerantz corralled him. “We should talk to the papers,” he said.

  “And say what?”

  “That Mary Mabel Markey could hardly wait to play Butte,” he said.

  “You know what, Charles? That’s exactly right. Play Butte, almost a home to her. Her town. Play Butte, no matter how she hurt.”

  August had the sense that there were things undone, decisions looming, but for the moment he couldn’t think of any. He found John Maguire sitting quietly in the box office, and paused to thank him for the arrangements.

  “No one wanted a refund, August. Not one,” Maguire said.

  “We’re doing a matinee tomorrow, and the rest, I don’t know. What would you say?”

  “Extend here. I’m dark for three days after you’ve booked me.” He smiled wryly. “You have a publicity bonanza.”

  “I hadn’t quite thought of it that way,” he said. “But Mary Mabel would like it. She loved Butte. Charles and I are off to talk to the papers.�
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  “There’s the Daily Post, the Evening News, the Inter-Mountain, the Miner, the Montana Standard, and the Reveille, which is an obnoxious rag. Each copper king has one or two.”

  “Any to start with?”

  Maguire smiled. “Get their slant, and use it.” He added that they were clustered a couple of blocks south, gaudy rivals, keeping a sharp eye on one another.

  The two principals of the company headed into a wintry evening with overcast skies and icy knives of snow in the wind

  “You can handle this, August? I’m off to Philipsburg tomorrow, but I can hold off a day.”

  “We’ve both been around the block,” Beausoleil said. “There’s a hole in the show, and you’ll need to patch the playbills.”

  “Just some white paper. Unless you’ve got something up your sleeve.”

  “White paper,” Beausoleil said. “A show without a top act. We’re a week from a replacement. Someone from Chicago if we’re lucky, New York, more likely.”

  “There’s local talent.”

  “Mary Mabel was the draw. They knew her. They lined up to see her.”

  Pomerantz conceded it with a nod.

  They turned into the first paper they came upon, The Standard. Beausoleil was glad to meet a wall of heat after two grim blocks with alpine cold jamming into his flesh.

  He spotted four compositors plucking up type and filling a stick. And two reporters, scribbling on sheets of newsprint. Compositors were wonders. They created lines of type, one letter at a time, working upside down and backwards, then slid the completed line into a form that would print the page. Even more wondrously, reporters and compositors were often one and the same. A man would get the story and then compose it as he plucked up the type.

  But now a redheaded young man in a thick waistcoat rose and headed toward the visitors.

  “We’re from the show,” Beausoleil said. “Would you like something on Mary Mabel Markey?”

  “We’re pushing deadline, but a bit, sure,” the newsman said. “Jake James here.”

  He escorted them to his battered oak desk. “Now then?” he asked.

  Beausoleil made the introductions and then plunged in. “Mary Mabel Markey was our top-billed act, you know. We thought she was marvelous. That voice, that presence. She drew crowds wherever we went, because she was sweet. And tender, like a mother singing a lullaby. And she was Irish, and that’s why she was so eager to play Butte. This was homecoming for Mary Mabel. This was the most important engagement of her life.” He paused. “And at least for one act, she enjoyed the thing she dreamed of, the thing she pined for. Singing in Butte.”

  Pomerantz continued. “We’re in shock, let me tell you. After that olio drop rolled down, the rest of us crowded around her, wishing life into her, holding her hand, but she was gone. There were tears, sir. There was the deepest silence and respect I’ve ever witnessed. We just want you to know, officially, that the principals and the acts here all grieve the greatest lady in American vaudeville.”

  The young man scribbled away for a bit, and then eyed them.

  “Any plans?”

  “We’re working on them,” Beausoleil said. “We’re going to have a funeral. She’s going to be buried right here, in the city she loved. And we’ll put up a stone, knowing all her admirers will be looking for the grave, and we’ll have a funeral in a big place, a place where people can come, which we’ll announce.”

  “What about the show?” James asked.

  “We’re dark tonight, of course. And tomorrow, we’ve scheduled a matinee for those who didn’t get to see an entire show this afternoon. And beyond that, we’re working things out. We’ll extend our stay in Butte for two performances, to be announced.”

  “You think you’ll draw without Mary Mabel Markey?”

  “We think people will flock to the show, just to honor her,” Beausoleil said.

  Jake James grinned suddenly, as if this were some sort of private joke, but he dutifully got it down. “This is a good town to make a buck,” he said.

  “You know what I’d like?” Pomerantz asked. “I’d like people to bring bouquets to put on her grave. Mary Mabel’s spirit would rejoice.”

  Jake James let his pencil hover, and set it down.

  There might not be a story.

  “Mr. James,” Beausoleil said. “Let me tell you a bit about show business. Those of us who survive in the game don’t know from month to month whether we’ve got a job. We ache to see those seats filled, because if they aren’t, we’re done. We ache to entertain, to make people laugh, or smile, or chuckle, because if we don’t, we’re done. If there’s a lot of empty seats, we’re done. Or maybe we just worry ourselves down to nothing. We have bills to pay: hotels, meals, railroads, and rental of halls. And if we don’t pay them, we’re done.

  “So, sir, we do what we can to stir up interest. Mary Mabel Markey really did like Butte, and really did dream of playing here, because Butte’s Irish. We really do want to honor her, because she topped our show, and because we were her friends, and we cared about her. She was always doing things for us. And there were real tears shed among us, when she lay there, on the boards, gone from our lives. And as for a funeral, we want a big one, because we really think she would have wanted a big one, one that people will remember. And the two of us, we own the show, we want her to be celebrated, and we think Butte’s the perfect resting place for her. This is what she would have asked for.

  “So, sir, you’re right to think we want to fill our theater seats, and right to think we’re making what we can of this, but that’s not the whole deal. The whole story is that this vaudeville company grieves Mary Mabel Markey. Every one of us has memories, thoughts of Mary Mabel’s many kindnesses and, yes, quirks, the things that make us mortal, stumbling along in a world we don’t always understand. And it’s going to be hard for our players to perform. And Mr. James, you can print up all of this if you want to. I’m talking straight, and you’re welcome to put quotation marks around every word.”

  Jake James stared out the window into the dark November dusk, and nodded.

  “It’s a good story, Mr. Beausoleil, and if I don’t write good stories, I might lose my thirty dollars a week, and if all those people who buy the paper don’t read what I wrote, then I won’t last as the top-billed reporter around here. You’ll see the story in the morning.”

  14

  GINGER POUNCED. She had been waiting in the opera house. When she spotted August Beausoleil, a somber man who seemed to be carrying a heavy load, she addressed him.

  “Mr. Beausoleil,” she said, stepping up. “I would like to audition.”

  He studied her a moment, saw a handsome young woman, and shook his head.

  “I’m Ginger,” she said. “I’ve a trained voice and a good repertoire.”

  He smiled. “Not now,” he said. “I couldn’t be busier. I’m burning up the wires, trying to get some box office.”

  “I sing,” she said.

  “I know you do. My partner told me about it. But Ginger, my dear, even if you sing like a nightingale I wouldn’t hire you. I need more than a singer; I need a draw. I need a name. I need a top-billed show-stopper.”

  “When you’re less busy, sir, may I sing for you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s all a waste of time. I need seasoned people.”

  She felt the tide ebb from her. At least he wasn’t simply brushing her off.

  “I—I have one question. May I sing at Miss Markey’s funeral?”

  That startled him. He smiled. “Look, you go talk to Brophy Mortuary. They’re doing all that. Tell them I said you could sing your song. I don’t know a Catholic funeral from a Hindu one, so I don’t know what they want. But tell them I said it’s okay. Can’t do any harm.”

  He tipped his hat, and hurried off. She stood in the darkness of a wing, a single bulb throwing a little light across a mysterious darkness.

  She paused, studying the great expanse of stage, the curtains that sailed up and
down, the props in the wings, ready to roll out in an instant, the upstage, the downstage, the footlights, the spotlights, the row upon row of stern seats, canted upward to give everyone a view. There was not a soul in any of them.

  She had been nurturing a fantasy: She would sing into the dark theater, unaware that there was an auditor watching from some distant row, and the auditor would stand after she was done, and tell her that she was hired. That it was utterly beautiful.

  But it was only a fantasy. She studied the empty barn of an auditorium, seeing no life at all. But she stood down stage center, and tried an American ballad she loved. She liked being on a grand stage, all those seats, row upon row, fading away into darkness.

  “Oh Shenandoah,

  I long to see you,

  away you rolling river.

  Oh Shenandoah,

  I long to see you,

  away, I’m bound away,

  ’cross the wide Missouri.”

  She liked the silence. Her voice felt silky. She tried another.

  “Oh Shenandoah,

  I love your daughter,

  away, you rolling river—

  Oh Shenandoah,

  I love your daughter,

  away, we’re bound away,

  ’cross the wide Missouri.”

  There was no one to hear her, and that was fine. The opera house itself seemed to welcome her, and tuck her song into its walls, and that was fine. She sang two more verses, and it all was good, and no one heard a word. Then she wrapped her shawl about her, and headed into the blustery November day, and soon found the Brogan Mortuary, where Miss Mary Mabel Markey lay, waiting for the last act.

  The place was quiet, and dark, and smelled of incense. She found a small silvery bell, and rang it. And out of the gloom a bearded man rose up, black as the River Styx.

  “Madam?”

  “Are you Mr. Brogan?”

  “I am. Are you in need?”

  “Mr. Beausoleil suggested that I come. I would like to do a song, ‘Ave Maria,’ at Miss Markey’s rites.”