Anything Goes

by Richard S. Wheeler

  That was it. He wandered off to talk to Maguire. She stood there, in the spotlight, feeling two things at once. She seemed to be soaring, and she felt crushed, and she couldn’t reconcile the two.

  Charles wouldn’t be in the audience that evening. She wouldn’t be singing for him. She wouldn’t have his assurance. If she failed, there’d be no hug, no arm around the shoulder. Now she was in the troupe. She was a performer. She had crossed some sort of bridge. She realized, suddenly, that show business could be the loneliest profession, and sometimes the loneliest moment of all would arrive when she was surrounded by well-wishing people, and a warm audience, and a happy manager.

  The Wildroot girls were annoyed by an addition in their crowded room. It meant they would all be sleeping two to a bed, and any disturbance in the night would keep them all awake. But they were veteran troupers, and would joke it away.

  “How’d it go?” asked LaVerne, the one who seemed most caring, even if she was a rival with a singing act of her own.

  “I don’t think Mr. Beausoleil was very happy,” she said.

  “They’re all like that, sweetheart. It’s not the managers and coaches and any of us you should worry about. It’s the crowd. It’s those folding-money folks who lay out the moolah, come in out of the cold, and sit down and want you to give them something good, something that they enjoy, in the bright lights. You pay no attention to us, to me, to the owners. Just ignore us. Go ring their bells. You listen to the crowd. You listen to their clapping. You listen to their smile. Yeah, sweetheart, listen to that. When they’re smiling, the sound is different. When they ain’t smiling, you’ll hear something else. And sweetheart, don’t give up after one bad show. It’s a big ladder, and not very many climb to the top. Keep trying. Keep working new stuff. But if you get a few rungs up, that’s fine. We’re out here on a rinky-dink tour, not big time. No big-timers do Montana. This is the end of the earth. Beausoleil couldn’t afford them. He can barely afford our two-bit sisters act. But now you’re in the business, and you’ll have a good time—mostly.”

  22

  WAYNE WINDSOR watched dourly from the wing. Harry the Juggler was tossing teacups and saucers in perfect form, a blizzard of pottery flying in perfect arches. The audience was rapt. Harry was doing things people had never seen and could hardly imagine.

  The opera house was full. That spate of publicity had filled it. Windsor had read the articles grimly, aware that Butte was rubbing it in. He was in a foul mood, and August Beausoleil, dressed in his majordomo tuxedo, was eyeing him carefully. Windsor was not beyond causing trouble, and took some pride in it.

  His lips and cheeks were swollen, his tongue bore some lacerations, and his noble visage was in ruins. The latter, more than his inability to enunciate clearly, was what kept him in the gloom offstage.

  He envied Harry the Juggler, who needed only to smile, gesture, and plunge in. The man was actually billed this time as Harry Wojtucek, The Exhibitionist Extravaganza. He spoke enough English, after Polish, or whatever, to get along, but he remained a mystery to the company, and chose his own lonely ways. Harry didn’t need to say a word. Harry could mesmerize audiences with the dash and daring of his skills. Wayne was always a little contemptuous of all that. Wayne Windsor had to go out twice an evening, fathom his audience, tickle their humor, and adapt his monologues to all sorts of conditions. Now that took mental skill. That took finesse far beyond what Harry the Juggler possessed. It was another case of the gifted American standing above the crowd.

  Wayne wearied of it. Wearied of being in shadows, ignored, distrusted, and even laughed at by the company. He knew they were laughing. He truly did have a noble visage, a stunning profile, but no one much cared, and a few rubes were ready to make fun of him. The Wildroot Sisters were ready; silent acts were followed by noisy ones. And after that, who knows? This was an odd show, patched together. Maybe that girl in white, the one Charles Pomerantz wanted to bed badly enough to turn himself into a sucker. The girl who was standing rigidly in the shadows, far from anyone.

  Beausoleil turned to the girl in white next. He was dealing with a cheerful crowd, but a quiet one. Nothing had ignited them this eve. Windsor watched the majordomo stride out to the spotlit center, peer out to the crowd, and lift his top hat.

  “Ladies and gents, a new voice, the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard, a young lady I’m proud to present to you, as a farewell gift, the one, the only Ginger!”

  He paused there, awaiting her, and she finally strode out, smoothing her dress as she went.

  He nodded and left. She bowed, deep and long, and smiled. She had borrowed Joseph, on his accordion, and he struck a tentative note. And then the lively “Cielito Lindo,” a bright tune up from the lands below the border. She sang well. Windsor watched, fascinated. She received polite applause, and he knew why. She wasn’t connecting. In vaudeville, you play your audience, you nearly reach out and touch those people. Her voice sailed straight over their heads, and died at the farthest walls.

  Two more ballads, same response. Not bad. She really did have a sweet voice, and a discipline rarely seen on the variety stage. Not bad at all, just not a success, and not really vaudeville. For her, it had been another recital.

  But Beausoleil had filled some time, kept his patched-up show out there, in the limelight, everyone digging deep to entertain this Butte crowd. Windsor watched the girl, wondering if she could read the performance, and decided she could. She left the stage quietly, even as Beausoleil led the crowd through a final round of applause. And then she was alone again, hugging the dark, while the rest of the crowd steered away from her because that was plainly what she wanted.

  “The one, the only Wildroot Sisters,” the majordomo was saying.

  Windsor headed her way. “Good start, sweetheart. You’ll get the hang of it soon.”

  “I forgot to sing to the gent in the fifth row,” she said, smiling suddenly. “The bald gent with the big wife wearing fake pearls.”

  “Yeah, I try to talk to the wiseacre in the seventh row, the guy who’s going to head for the saloon and tell the town my act was lousy.” He had trouble saying that, but it didn’t matter. This was whisper time, with the three girls out there, getting primed to wail away.

  “It’s not like I thought it would be.”

  “It’s better, sweetheart. Wait until you connect. Wait until that guy in the fifth starts nodding or grinning or mouthing words, until his wife elbows him and the couple behind him catch the fever.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I’d thought of a perfect high C, or a slight pause, or a gentle fade, or making sure I didn’t betray the composer.”

  “You’ve been trained, right?”

  She seemed to freeze up a moment, and then nodded.

  “Throw it out. Make use of it, but throw it out. Next time you sing a song, put a stamp on it. It’ll be yours more than whoever wrote it.”

  “That would be—a sacrilege,” she said.

  “Then commit sacrilege.”

  He swore she turned pale, there in the shadows, as she absorbed that, while the sisters out front were doing a high step. She smiled, excused herself, and headed toward the safety of the Green Room.

  She’d never make it. She should go back to giving recitals at tea parties. They came, they went, they had a round or two on-stage, and they disappeared. He’d seen a thousand, each hopeful, each with stars in her eyes or a smile on his lips, and they didn’t pass muster, and after a few tries, they knew it. And left the stage.

  Windsor listened a while. The audience wasn’t exactly giving the Wildroot girls the big huzzah, either, but they were professionals, and they could even turn an act around in the middle, picking up a better beat.

  Beausoleil didn’t look happy. But this was the last shot in Butte. What did it matter. Openings, those counted.

  Windsor found himself itching to escape. They wouldn’t use him this eve. He thought of Butte, raw, cruel, teeming with ruffians who had muscle and no brains, and not enough
schooling to fill a third-grade classroom. He pulled a coat over himself, slid out the stage door, and into a black night while arctic winds caught his sore cheeks and tugged at his bowler.

  Any saloon would do. No one knew him. A drink or two or three would comfort him. He needed several to quiet the pain. And he could watch the animals, watch them sip ale and tell stories. He drifted upslope and east, and found himself at the edge of the commercial district, staring into a well-lit eatery. It looked to be crowded, the patrons all male. He suddenly realized he was starved. He had eaten little; his lacerated tongue and lips and mouth simply hurt too much. But now a ravenous need propelled him into the warmth and cheer.

  These were rough men, ruddy, and cheerful. And he didn’t understand a word they were saying. It seemed to be English, but he swore it was some dialect beyond his fathoming, with broad yeowls and mews and barks. But the fragrance of food caught him squarely. These men were mostly buying a single product, a warm pastry served in a paper wrapper. The customers collected one, sat down at trestle tables, and devoured the fragrant thing, eating it straight out of the paper.

  “What’ll she be, boyo?”

  “That,” he said, lacking a name.

  The server wrapped one up, handed it to him, and muttered a price, some amount he couldn’t understand.

  “Two-bits,” said the customer behind him. “Beef pasty, a quarter.”

  Windsor paid.

  “New here, eh? These are Cornishmen, and their English is so thick you need to slice it with a knife.”

  “I hope I can eat this. I need something soft,” Windsor said.

  “Half the miners in Butte lack most of their teeth,” the man said, as he picked up his own pasty. “Have a seat, and I’ll tell you a little about this town.”

  They found room at the trestle table, and settled on its bench. Windsor bit gingerly into the hot pastry, and was rewarded with some tasty, soft mixture within, mostly beef that had been reduced to small pieces.

  “Your first one? It’s cubed beef, onions, and potatoes, baked in a pastry shell. Miners love them, take them into the pits, call them ‘letters from home.’ They’re a filling meal, no fork needed, usually still warm in their lunch buckets. And a Cornish delicacy.”

  Windsor swallowed gingerly, having no trouble working the tasty food past all his wounds.

  “Good,” Windsor said.

  “Lots of Cornish here, sir. They were miners in Cornwall, had the knowledge to help over here. They’re often shift bosses, or people with special skills, putting all they know to work.”

  The pasty filling was warm and fragrant, and slid down easily. Windsor thought he might like a little more spice, but this was a good hearty meal, and he was filling his empty stomach with little bits of pasty.

  “We’ve got all sorts flooding in. Norwegians, Finns, they’re the ones to work with wood, and they do the timbering of the mines, employing skills they seem to have been born with. Seems like just about every corner of Europe is sending people here, each with a specialty.”

  “And you, sir?”

  “Shift foreman, actually German.”

  “You’d come here into a workingman’s restaurant?”

  The German stared at him. “In Butte, sir, everyone’s a workingman. Including the owners.”

  “But there’s no plates and napkins and silverware and all. Why come here when you can enjoy better?”

  The foreman eyed Windsor, somehow assessing him, and smiled, a recognition.

  Windsor was suddenly aware of his battered face, the notoriety, the papers, and knew he’d been found out.

  “And all you get along?” he asked.

  “No. The Irish jump the Cousin Jacks; the Cornish wreck dago restaurants; the wops bust every mug in an Irish saloon; the bohunks heckle the norskies, and once in a while someone gets hurt. Like you. It’s a matter of national pride.”

  “What are Cousin Jacks?”

  “Cornishmen. Half of them are Jack, so that’s the name for them all.”

  Windsor watched the foreman polish off his pasty and wipe his hands on the paper.

  “I saw your act,” the man said. “The best was when you were mimicking the immigrants, when you had Norwegians trying to talk to Hungarians in rough English, and everyone got a little crazy.”

  “That didn’t bother you?”

  “Windsor, that’s Butte humor.”

  “I thought you kill each other when you can.”

  “That’s in between laughing at each other.”

  “Then why did the Irish do this to me?” Windsor pointed at his bruises.

  “You’ve got to understand the rough humor here. If you’d just laughed, they’d have bought you a mug of ale.”

  “But they were going to take me into the pits.”

  “Just to see you soak your pants, my boy. All you had to do was grin back. Now, it’s getting on to shift time, and I’m heading toward the Anaconda to put in my hours. Want to come along? See how it is, a thousand feet down, and hot as the tropics?”

  “Sir, I’d be scared.”

  “Well, fella, I’d be scared standing up in front of an audience and spinning out jokes and stories. I think I’d be the one staining my britches, my friend. Whenever I tell a joke I forget the finish, and feel like an idiot. It’s what you’re used to, and what you can bear. I couldn’t stand it, myself.”

  The gent clamped a shapeless fedora over his head, headed into the night, and left Wayne Windsor sitting alone at the bench, contemplating a world he little understood, but had suddenly started to appreciate.

  Maybe he’d be healed up by the time they opened in Philipsburg, a booming mining town a little ways away. Another pasty, and some more good company, and Windsor would be ready to go once again.

  23

  THE BUTTE box office wasn’t bad. August Beausoleil sat with the opera house owner in John Maguire’s dim-lit office, counting out the singles and two-spots and change. There was hardly a fiver or a ten in the lot.

  This final night they had filled most of the seats; another seventy would have packed the house.

  “Pretty good,” said Maguire.

  “Nothing to complain about. Are we even?”

  “Far as I know. You want to stow it in the safe?”

  The troupe wouldn’t be leaving Butte until mid-morning. “Best place,” August said.

  “You’ll be the first road company to play Philipsburg,” Maguire said. “Let me know how it went.”

  “Three-hundred-fifty seats; matinee and evening.”

  He and Maguire knew the Follies would need to fill the house both performances to come out ahead. And there would have to be no surprises. That was the thing with a touring company: no matter how carefully you worked out the arrangements, the acts, the accommodations, the travel, there always were surprises. And the only thing between you and disaster sometimes was the cash box.

  “Enjoy Butte?” Maguire asked.

  “Not enough people speak English.”

  Maguire smiled. “They know how to count. And miners make a good day wage, usually three and a half. And they spend it.”

  They did spend it. Unlike people in a farming town. There was a lot of cash circulating in Butte. And miners were not the sort to save and scrimp.

  “August, I’m pleased you booked the house.” The natty Maguire, in his dove-gray waistcoat and tailored coat, offered a hand, and Beausoleil took it.

  “You helped us through some troubles, John.”

  “That’s the biz,” Maguire said. He slid the cash box into a small safe and spun the dial.

  The house was dark, save for a single lamp high up. Beausoleil was feeling that odd loneliness he always experienced upon finishing an engagement. No sooner did he have a relationship with a town than he was torn from it. He couldn’t explain it, and it made no sense. The next town would probably be better. The future was always better than the past.

  Out on the cold reaches of Broadway, he discovered Mrs. McGivers waiting patie
ntly for him. “Caught you. You’re not going to bed yet. The night’s halfway along.”

  “Mrs. McGivers—I’m worn.”

  “We have business. And I’m buying you a drink and a supper.”

  She stood there, formidable, the wind whipping her thin coat, the monkey nowhere in sight. He knew what the business was. Her act had been a disaster this eve; it never caught the crowd, people yawned. Ethel Wildroot and what’s-his-name were no substitute for the monkeys, and messed it up. Calypso had an odd beat, an odd secondary syncopation, and this evening nothing worked. It hurt just to watch the disaster unfold on his stage. She was going to apologize, or maybe propose changes, or who knows?

  “Okay. We don’t have to get up early,” he said. “Ten o’clock at the station.”

  She steered him south, the wind at their backs, while the commercial district faded into nondescript two-story shops, and then into something else entirely. She was taking him straight into the district. Butte’s bordellos were famous and sprawled over several square blocks, and did a booming trade with a few thousand miners on the loose, shift after shift. He eyed the area curiously. Lamplight from windows spilled on the cobbled street. Which street, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. She steered him past hurdy-gurdies, noisy saloons, dark and quiet buildings with a single lamp at the door. There were few pedestrians, all male, braving the night air eddying off the peaks above Butte.

  “Here,” she said. “Number fifty-two.”

  She opened upon a well-lit saloon, with a small stage, and an adjoining eatery to the left. And a stairway along one wall, leading upward to whatever was going on up there in Butte, Montana, in November, 1896.

  The bar was doing a trade; keeps in soiled aprons were serving up what probably was rotgut. But these precincts were not all male. Here and there were gaudy serving girls, in wrappers, who seemed available for anything a customer desired.

  “We’ll eat,” Mrs. McGivers said.

  “I could use a bite.”

  “They serve stew out of a pot, two-bits, and drinks are one bit.”

  He knew the stew would be bland, and without flavor, but it would do on a cold night. Butte’s food matched its weather, he had discovered. A lady with peroxide hair, in a blue kimono that hung loose, took their order, and brought him a bourbon.