There Should Have Been Castles

by Herman Raucher

  “Forever.”

  “That’s a good deal.”

  “Think so?”

  “Yeah. How many great restaurants are there in this town?”

  “Well, let’s see. There’s the Balinese Room at the Blackstone, the Camelia House at the Drake, the Beach Walk at the Edgewater. There’s my room at the LaSalle.”

  “Sneaky.”

  “There’s Le Boeuf, L’Aiglon, the Cameo, Citro’s, Henrici’s.” Johnny Farrar would bear watching.

  We opened the next night at the Empire Room. Jane Morgan was just great—a great singer, a great lady. And she did it the hard way, having to go to Paris to become a star as an American then returning to America as the French hit of Broadway. All through rehearsals she had been very supportive. She could see how nervous we were and she did everything she could to lessen our anxiety. Marty Kerman, the MC, introduced her, and the show was on.

  Jane sang in French and in English. Then Ricky Davis regaled the audience with thrice-warmed-over yoks, and then the Pickering Trio was on.

  And we were damned good. Eddie O’Neal gave “Sing” such a beat that it was all the audience could do to keep from jumping up and dancing with us. We followed “Sing” with “Blue Heaven” with Richie tapping like Astaire, all loose and flowing, and me and Florrie as the two sexiest pussycats what ever slunk over a back fence. And we finished with “Georgia Brown” with me coming in on the middle of it and the audience falling off their chairs. It couldn’t have worked better. The applause was a cannonade and was still firing after five salvoes. Even when we were in our dressing rooms we could still hear the applause, and only after Jane came on to do her closing numbers did it stop, that nice lady telling the audience that it was our first nightclub appearance and that, if we didn’t cut it out, she’d have to go back to Paris and get some new material.

  There were flowers from Johnny—a dozen red roses—and I could feel Florrie’s eyes on the back of my head. Though she had no special affection for Ben, she saw him as my fella, and me as his girl. It upset her to think that maybe I was playing it a little loose, especially since, in all the time I’d known her, and despite that foul mouth of hers, she had always been faithful to Monty. Florrie believed in one-to-one relationships but rather than butt in with one of her patented caustic comments, she just went to sleep on the dressing room cot until the second show. The note on Johnny’s roses read:

  “Le Petit Gourmet, Imperial House, Fritzel’s, the Cape Cod Room, and my room at the LaSalle”

  —Good show—

  Johnny

  I got one of the boys to put the roses in water and stuffed Johnny’s note in my bag because somehow it seemed incriminating. And I got an old flash: There was Florrie, thinking the worst of me, as had my father, my sister, and my teachers, and all I had done was to have dinner with a man whom I was rebuffing at every turn. So why the Scarlet Letter, gang? Why the heavy silence? In any case I didn’t want to discuss it, especially not with Florrie who was already fast asleep.

  The second show went as well as the first, “Jet” working as beautifully as had “Georgia Brown.” And when I got back to the dressing room there were another dozen roses from Johnny, this time yellow. And this time Florrie felt compelled to comment on it.

  “Next time, fuck a diamond miner instead of a florist and we can quit showbiz and open a Tiffany’s.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “I know it’s not. I share your room, remember? I know where you are every minute of the fucking day.”

  “Then don’t be so nasty. Nothing’s happening.”

  “Something is happening. You just don’t seem to know it. He’s got your panties halfway down. Can’t you feel the breeze?”

  “I’m in love with Ben.”

  “Yeah? Then pull up your bloomers, kid, because in Chicago you could get pneumonia.”

  Richie came in, filled with admiration and compliments. The two closing numbers were paying off in more ways than one. The press, it seems, was fascinated with the way our act was constructed, the interchangeable ending seeming to them to be so original as to be worthy of all the newsprint they could give it.

  Richie left and Johnny appeared, knocking on the opened door and offering us a lift back to our hotel. Florrie demurred, saying she’d rather walk because a girl could get pneumonia in a cab if she didn’t keep her legs crossed. Then she walked out.

  “She doesn’t like me,” said Johnny.

  “You could have sent her some roses, too.”

  “I did. They’re in your room, addressed to her.”

  “Jesus, you are so goddamned sneaky.”

  “Hungry? Want to eat?”

  “No. I just want to get some sleep. Also, I want to call Ben.”

  “Why tell me?”

  “I wanted you to know, that’s all.”

  “That you love Ben?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know you do. But what does it have to do with the price of tomatoes?”

  “I’m not a tomato.”

  “Sorry. Poor choice of word.”

  “Freudian slip.”

  “Bullshit. Come on, I’ve got a cab waiting.”

  A cab ride from the Palmer House to the Morrison is over before it starts. And it leaves very little time for chit-chat. Aware of that, Johnny got immediately to the point.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow. San Francisco.”

  “Oh?”

  “Should’ve gone yesterday but I wanted to see your opening night. You were marvelous.”

  “Worth your having stayed over?”

  “Absolutely. But I don’t know when I’ll be seeing you again—if ever.”

  “Sneaky.”

  “My bag is in the trunk of this cab and after I drop you off, I’m on my way to the airport. Plane leaves in less than an hour.”

  “Oh.”

  “So I hope you’re satisfied. Or would relieved be a better word?”

  “Disappointed would be the best word.”

  “Who knows—maybe we’ll bump into each other in Siam.”

  “We don’t play there till next year. Burma, Malaya, Siam—all the big eastern cities.”

  “I’ll miss you, okay?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “There’s been a tentative agreement on a divorce. Don’t say anything, it’s not required. Just know that the next time we meet, I’ll be out of it.” He pulled me over and kissed me, so suddenly that who knew what. We never said good-bye—but then, we’d never really said hello. The whole thing had a middle. No beginning, no end, just this little middle. Johnny Farrar, who had put the ball in my court and left it there, had gone. What would I do with the ball? Drop back and punt.

  The cab pulled away and I felt stupid and incomplete, like I almost had had the answer to some big important question but hadn’t raised my hand to volunteer.

  Florrie, still walking, had yet to get back to the Morrison, so, up in the room, I phoned Ben. It was two thirty A.M., Chicago time—which meant that it was three thirty A.M. in New York. Fuck it. Wake up, Ben, for I have things to tell you.

  We gabbed forever. It must have cost a fortune but it was worth it. I had spoken with Ben and my love for him was reaffirmed and never-ending. As nice and as provocative as Johnny Farrar had been, he was no longer a factor in my life, just a neat breeze that had blown by and flattered me and picked me up and given my ego a nice ride. And when Florrie walked in, I told her that her worries were over, that I loved Ben Webber and always would, and what did she think of that?

  Of that she thought nothing because all she could see were the two dozen red and yellow roses from Johnny, addressed to her, and with a properly tidy card attached:

  Applause it pours,

  Torrents for Florence.

  Love, Johnny

  Florrie harrumphed. “My name’s Flora not Florence.”

  “Florrie!” I was aghast at her insensitivity.

  “He took the easy way out. All he could rhyme with Flora would
be schnorer, the fink.”

  “Florrie, don’t you like the roses?”

  “What’d you do, bring ’em back with you from the dressing room and stick a new card on ’em?”

  “You dummy! They’re for you!”

  “From Johnny?”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “Because he wanted you to have them! Because he knew that both our fellas weren’t here and that—”

  “Wrong. Because he’s still pulling down your bloomers.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!”

  “When the fuck are you gonna learn?”

  “He left tonight, you jerk. I’m never going to see him again.”

  “Oh, you’ll see him again.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. No one who is not going to see you again ever sends four dozen roses—unless the reason he’s not gonna see you again is that you’re dead—and in that case he sends you lilies.”

  “You’re a goddamned cynic, you know that?”

  “Yeah, baby, you got it. A guy is marking you with his scent, staking out his claim on you and I’m a cynic. Well, do you know what you are?”

  “No, but I think I’m about to hear.”

  “You’re fair game, baby.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that it’s open season on your box and this is only Chicago. We’ve still got Cleveland and Pittsburgh and St. Louis. By the time you’re finished with this tour, you’ll have twenty-three Johnny Farrars, fourteen Irving Friedmans, eleven Terry O’Rourkes and six or seven Nick Pasquales. They’re gonna flock to you like bees, baby, because the word is out that you’re packin’ the pollen!”

  “My goodness, Flora, how you do talk. Tsk-tsk-tsk.”

  “Tsk-tsk-tsk, my ass, baby. No, make that tsk-tsk-tsk, your ass.”

  Whoever’s ass it was that got the tsk-tsk, Florrie wasn’t all that wrong. We played a week in Chicago, during which three other men came at me with a variety of approaches, none of which got any of them past the elevator. I couldn’t keep calling Ben because it was so damned expensive. I mean, with Johnny gone and me turning down dinner invitations, if I wasn’t more frugal, I’d end up owing money instead of banking it. I sent Ben a dopey post card of the Wrigley Building and then went about the business of being a professional dancer. And when we left Chicago we were all feeling pretty good about the way things were going.

  Cleveland was Chicago only spelled differently and not as pretty. We were on the bill at the Landmark with Joe E. Lewis (“America’s most beloved comedian”) and Sophie Tucker (“The Last Of the Red-Hot Mamas”). He was mostly drunk but always funny, singing, “Show me a home where the buffalo roam, and I’ll show you a dirty home.” She no longer sang as well as I’d been led to believe she could. Still, when she belted out “Some Of These Days,” I felt all the magic that had made her famous.

  We played just three days in Cleveland, during which I was hit on by a shoe manufacturer, an optometrist, a trumpet player (in the orchestra), and a descendant of Daniel Boone who, though he wore no coonskin hat, did take dead aim at my ass, grabbing me there with what seemed to be six bear paws. Richie had to call the cops to get him out of the dressing room. Florrie, watching, clucked like a wise old owl and I told her to go fuck herself because my ass was being very tsk-tsked and I didn’t need any cluck-cluck to go with it.

  I called Ben from Cleveland and, because our next stop was Pittsburgh, I asked him if I should look up his family. He said yes but that I shouldn’t go into any great detail about our relationship. Ben told me that “Tony” had gotten three rejections but that he felt he might have a sale at Theatre 60 because they were holding the script for so long. But I could sense that he wasn’t all that confident and that he really didn’t want to talk about it, so rather than make any noises of phony reassurance I let the conversation go quickly to how much we loved each other.

  Before parting, we had joked about resorting to masturbation if the pressure of not seeing each other got to be too much. On the phone we assured each other that it hadn’t come to that as yet but I hoped he was lying because I knew I was. I had done it twice in Chicago and twice in Cleveland and I think Florrie was doing it, too, because there was no other way for either of us to remain all that faithful and still get to sleep. I had always been told that masturbation was sick, evil, and physically destructive. I had also been told that babies came from department stores and that Santa Claus was real—so what was a girl to do? Well, I did what I knew Santa Claus did when out of town on a cold winter’s night and what all those people in department stores did when the demand for babies dropped off and they had to do something with their overtime—I reached down and found myself and took care of myself and got to sleep. And that is why, to this day, I still believe in Santa Claus and have charge accounts at department stores. Fairytales and fingers, and nobody gets hurt.

  We exchanged Cleveland for Pittsburgh—Joe E. Lewis for Jackie Miles, and Sophie Tucker for Beatrice Kaye. Names and faces began to slide around. The orchestra was either Barry Brown or Wally Green and I’m not sure that either of them knew. The club we played was either the Arena or the Premiere Room. All I knew was that the MC’s name was Hayden Shepherd and that he was coming on like War Admiral—not at me, but at Florrie.

  Hayden Shepherd was one of those fat, jovial types who had hit fifty-five and, surprised at still being around after a lifetime of nothingness, began drinking to whatever life he had left. White-haired and peach-cheeked, he floated around backstage like the local hippo. He never shook anyone’s hand but that he didn’t also pound that person on the back, as if he were trying to see if the other person had a weapon or cared to arm wrestle. And he was always laughing, a watery laugh that ended as a wet cough. If he said good morning to you he laughed. If he picked up a phone and said hello he laughed. He pressed Florrie’s titty, said, “Ooh—cute,” and laughed. And when she told him where he could stick his tool, providing it still worked, he laughed. The only thing was, he wasn’t funny. Not to us, at least, and certainly not to Florrie.

  But I enjoyed the spectacle of his puffy passes at Florrie because it gave me the opportunity to go cluck-cluck and tsk-tsk at her. I certainly didn’t think he was anyone that Florrie had to worry about or be on her guard against—and, frankly, neither did she. The truth of it was that she had just wished that the first guy to make a pass at her hadn’t been such a faded fuddy-duddy. She’d much rather it had been some big stud. Not that she’d have done anything about it, but just so’s she could feel properly appreciated. As she put it, “He makes me feel so fucking last resort, like Sophie Tucker had turned him down and it was either me or the knothole.”

  We had begun rehearsing the day we arrived in Pittsburgh and it was all getting very routine and Richie warned us not to let down, not to lose our animation and spontaneity. He was right, of course, and we put ourselves through a very rough rehearsal. The stage was smaller than the other two stages we’d worked on so we didn’t have all that much room to jump around in. Also, I had a feeling that the air-conditioning wasn’t up to snuff and that we might want to kill a few lights during our performances.

  With Richie and Florrie going over “Georgia Brown” and “Jet,” neither of which I ever rehearsed, I slipped out to a phone booth and looked up Ben’s family.

  They were both at home because Ben’s father had a virus and wasn’t working. Ben’s mother answered the phone, saying that any friend of Ben’s would be more than welcome to come by and could I stay for dinner? I thanked her but said I couldn’t possibly because my schedule was so tight but that, yes, tea would be fine, providing she didn’t go to any trouble. I knew as soon as I hung up that I’d be stepping into a hotbed of middle-class mores and that I’d have to watch my language, my cleavage, and the way I moved my ass.

  Later, after a great hot bath, I phoned Ben. He was a little coy at first, kind of holding back, steering the conversation always back to me—what was I doing? how was th
e show going? Had I called his folks? Then, when I finally asked him point blank why the hell he was being so damned cutesy, he told me that Theatre 60 had bought “Tony” and I got so excited, I started jumping up and down like America had won another war. I yelled at him that I knew it would happen, and that I loved him, and that I couldn’t wait to see him again, and that I was masturbating all over the place. We went on and on until we both agreed we were beginning to sound like a couple of simpletons, and so we said goodbye a hundred times, lacing our adieu with kisses, sprinkling it shamelessly with phrases like “until then” and “only you” and “I’ll see you in my dreams—and you’d better be there.”

  I hung up just as Florrie came in, with Hayden Shepherd in hot pursuit, laughing and coughing and generally slobbering his fat way right into the room, refusing to take no for an answer. So I had to line up alongside Florrie, presenting the oaf with a united front, and it still didn’t stop him.

  “Oh, come on, girls,” he laughed. “I’m old enough to be your daddy—both of you. Nothing’s going to happen. All I want is a little affection in my old age.”

  With me beside her, Florrie got brave. “Listen, slobber-puss, if I really balled you you’d be dead in ten minutes and how the hell would I get your carcass out of the bed before the police came in?”

  “Try me,” he laughed.

  I nudged Florrie. “Tell him you have the clap.”

  Hayden laughed, his pudge of a tummy avalanching.

  “Tell him you have syphilis,” I said.

  Hayden laughed again and coughed. Florrie turned on me. “Listen, you’re not helping!”

  “Oh, tsk-tsk,” I said. “And a cluck-cluck.”

  Hayden had his hands on Florrie and so she punched him in the belly. It wasn’t much of a punch and I could see that Florrie wasn’t worth a shit in a fight, so I punched him, also in the belly but with much greater authority, feeling my fist go into the glub almost to my wrists. It was like punching a cushion—and all he did was laugh.

  We tried to push him out of the room but he wouldn’t budge. Again he grabbed Florrie, one hand on each of her tits, and he wouldn’t let go, standing in front of her like he was trying to bring in Albany on his television set. His eyes blinked and ran and his breath stunk of booze, and Florrie just froze where she stood, letting the bastard dial her tits.