Mood Indigo

by Ed Ifkovic

  Color, verve, zing sprang from the splashy billboards with flashing electric lights displaying Planter’s Peanuts’ golden peanuts showering down from the unseen heavens, a little Eskimo Pie boy bowing from the waist, a huge Camel cigarette with a glowing red tip. A burlesque house that promised leggy showgirls. White-jacketed street sweeps pushed brooms as passersby moved around them. And noise—frenetic din from the blasting radio shops, the music vendors. Chop suey joints, corner candy shops, a dime museum, a tobacco shop with a blue-flame gas jet on the counter for smokers to light their cigars. The Big Stem, the locals called it. Hawkers of jazz journals like the Daily News.

  Whenever I moved through these streets, I always felt a tick in my chest: alive, alive.

  But as the cab veered off Broadway, cruised under the calamitous Ninth Avenue El with its fog of cinders clouding our windshield, and inched its way into Hell’s Kitchen, it was as though I’d toppled willy-nilly into the bleak negative of an old daguerreotype. Stolid cold-water tenements and shuttered storefronts, shadowy dullness to the side street, as if a gray shroud settled on the landscape. A grim Hogarth engraving, if you will. A chiaroscuro portrait. As the cab idled at a stoplight, I gazed into a tiny tailor’s shop, a slit-eyed old man in a yarmulke hunched over a table under a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. He glanced out the window and scratched his beard, then dropped his head back to his work. A junk man whipped a lazy horse that blocked our street. A young bootblack waved at us.

  “Here,” I told the driver as we turned onto Eleventh Avenue. “The theater.”

  The Paradise Theater occupied a corner of a weathered four-story brick building. As I stepped out, I looked up the street. A scissors grinder advertised his craft with a handwritten cardboard sign. Next to the theater was a grimy storefront with a makeshift sign over the entrance: Slavonic Fraternal Society. In front, two longshoremen leaned against the plate-glass window, bundled up in burlap coats, cigarettes bobbing in their mouths, slough boy caps pulled tight over foreheads. For a moment they watched me, the tiny lady in the chinchilla coat and ermine muffler, as I paused on the sidewalk, but then, indifferent, they resumed their conversation—a rumble of Slavic tones. Fascinated, I watched, intrusive.

  Across the street was a Salvation Army soup kitchen with a line of men spilling out the front door and extending down the block. The worm that walks like a man—that was how Heywood Brown described such sad lines. So stunning, that lamentable sight. A hiss of steam seeped from the sidewalk grate and one of the men stepped over it, rubbed his palms together, yelled something back to the others in line. A burst of rollicking laughter. An old man in a porkpie hat suddenly danced a nervous gig, while another man clapped.

  The front doors of the Paradise Theater were wide open, despite the stinging cold. A wooden ladder leaned against the brick façade, and a stumpy man in farmer’s dungarees, balancing himself on a top rung, was using a crowbar to twist off the old sign from the marquee, a small wooden sign with peeling gray paint that announced the name of the theater but added: “Nightly Musical Revue!!” Two exclamation points. “All invited.” A carnival sideshow, this place.

  Resting on the sidewalk was a new metal sign, triple the size, glossy and bright, its borders edged with a string of neon lights: Paradise Theater. No other embellishment, no sideshow barker’s entreaty to passing customers. The man on the ladder pulled at the old sign and it creaked, moaned, finally gave way, slipping down. “Watch it, ma’am,” he yelled to me.

  I slipped into the lobby as the sound of hammering echoed in my ears.

  I entered the small space with a phone-booth-sized box-office window that opened into an auditorium of perhaps one hundred seats covered in old crushed burgundy velvet. It reminded me of old-style provincial vaudeville theaters back in Milwaukee or Duluth. Worn, faded, with barely a hint of their splendid history. Flickering gas-lit sconces on the tapestried walls. A surprisingly large stage, the curtain up.

  A man stepped from the wings, his arms cradling a wooden box. He jumped when I cleared my throat. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t see you.” He widened his eyes, looking down at me. “Something I can do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Jackson Roswell.”

  Before I could finish, he pointed toward the ceiling but didn’t answer me. Silently, still pointing upward, he walked down the stairs and stood a few feet away from me.

  “Kent LaSalle here.” A quick smile, an exaggerated half-bow. “Ah, Miss Edna Ferber.”

  Surprised, I smiled back. “You know me?”

  “I read Theater World. Stage. You—George Kaufman.”

  “Yes, we’re jointed at the hip.”

  A wide, wonderful smile. “I’d say the funny bone—wherever that part of the anatomy is located. You could be joined with a lot of other lesser forms of mankind.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “There is that, sir.”

  He laughed out loud, rocking back and forth, though what I’d said didn’t warrant such hilarity. But I’d long learned that folks exaggerated their most basic reactions when dealing with famous people—as myself. The laughter too long and uproarious, the stares too intense, facile agreement with every remark uttered.

  He gave me another half-bow accompanied by a hand flourish he’d obviously appropriated from a Valentino movie.

  Probably in his late sixties, maybe older, the man seemed an old veteran of the stage, probably a vaudeville trooper who’d played backwater towns like Kalamazoo, Michigan, or Dubuque, Iowa. A circuit I knew—and loved. He was tall, stringy, with a drawn Lincolnesque face, almost a horse face, with skimpy white hair that needed a barber’s shears. He wore a cultivated handlebar moustache, the edges tipped up and shellacked. But his eyes caught me, held me: piercing cobalt blue, made more striking in such a withered, pale face. He folded his arms over his chest, showing arthritic hands, fingers twisted.

  “Upstairs.” He pointed again. “His apartment is a floor above us. Or he’s out on an errand. He’s never away for very long. His heart ticks in these rooms.” He chuckled. “We got a new sign going up.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “Depression and Herbert Hoover, be damned.”

  “Flush times in a time of despair?”

  He eyed me curiously. “The second coming of theater on skid-row Eleventh Avenue.”

  “Mr. Roswell is in the money?”

  He didn’t answer at first. Then, his arm stretching out over the battered seating. “New seats to be installed. The glorious Roxy will have nothing on us.”

  “You don’t sound happy about it, Mr. LaSalle.”

  “It don’t matter when the house seats stay empty.”

  “Well, after the Crash, all theaters…”

  He cut me off. “Look. I play character parts, Miss Ferber. I deliver a tired Shakespearean soliloquy, rewritten with a comic edge.” His voice got stentorian. “Toupee or not toupee.” He shuddered. “It would be even sadder if there was someone in the audience to moan at that line. Throw rotten apples.” He sneered. “Of course, if someone had an apple, they’d eat it.”

  “And yet you have a new sign, new seats.”

  He performed a silent drum roll. “Belinda Ross. That’s why you’re here. Of course.” He swung around and pointed up at the stage. “Here is where the darling of the Great White Way began her ascent into the heavens.”

  “I’ve seen her onstage, Mr. LaSalle. Exciting. Talented, almost surprisingly so. A sweet voice.”

  He rushed his response. “And a sweet girl, really. Ambitious as all get out—Lord, you could see the hunger in her eyes—but every two-bit actor that gets off a bus from the provinces is ambitious. You have to be to make it here. It’s no crime.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I was once guilty of such vanity.”

  I smiled back at him. “I sense a ‘but’ in your words.”

  He drew back. “Did you ever read Frankenstein?” he asked
suddenly.

  “Mary Shelley. Of course.”

  A chuckle. “No one else has, but that’s beside the point. Talented girl, yes, and sweet. But cagey, her eye always out that door, her eyes looking eastward to Broadway. Not a crime, as I said. More like the pretty monster forged by the demonic scientist.” He contorted his face, deepened his voice. “Ah, Dr. Frankenstein, what have you created?” He waved his hand absently in the air.

  “But why Frankenstein? I’m not following this.”

  He spat out the words. “Jackson Roswell. The doctor of black arts.”

  “Her brother? Yet you work for him, no?”

  He pulled out his pockets, and shrugged. “Pittance in a time of despair, if I can play off your words.” A deep sigh. “I shouldn’t complain. Her dollar bills and her current paramour Dougie’s generous checks—they keep us afloat.” A wry smile. “You did see that garish sign going up on the marquee?”

  Suddenly a side door swung open, a shaft of light illuminated the dark theater, and a woman bustled in. She’d obviously been listening because she was laughing as she spoke to us, though there was nothing funny about that sardonic, cautionary laugh. “Kent, you old coot. Blather and nonsense, really. You know, Miss Ferber, Kent once acted with Edwin Booth. Or was it John Wilkes Booth? Or Benedict Arnold in his younger days? His stories of his triumphs date back to Bunker Hill.”

  Kent scowled and leaned into me. “Always ready to make a stage entrance, but always to no applause. Miss Ferber, doubtless you don’t know Millie Glass, our faded ingénue who still can don a pinafore and talk like an awestruck farm girl gaping at a rainbow and wondering how to buy one.”

  Millie listened to this run of talk with a bemused eye, then roared in a thick whiskey voice. “At least I have all my teeth, dear Kent. Those wooden ones you stole from George Washington.”

  He broke her off. “Eavesdropping again, dear Millie?”

  She approached us and stuck out her hand. “Miss Ferber, a pleasure.”

  I nodded back at her. “Longtime friends, the two of you?”

  “Kent and I have traveled the boards since creation. We’ve seen each other without makeup—or without the stage personas we created to keep the world away. Of course, we detest each other. He knows my vices, I barely tolerate his.”

  Kent was fussing. “Stop performing, Millie.”

  “What else do I have left?”

  A thirtyish woman, slightly plump, but still insisting she look as young as possible. She wore a bobbed Anita Loos haircut, out of fashion but probably hers for life. Tired eyes, grayish. A small mouth, exaggerated now by a smear of dark crimson lipstick. Her hair was dyed platinum blond, but, offstage, was now pulled away from her forehead, bunched in back by a black, oversized ribbon. When she threw back her head, a dramatic gesture she did repeatedly, I saw that she’d once been a beauty—the delicate line of her chin, the soft cheekbones, the almond eyes, pixie ears.

  “I’m waiting to see Jackson Roswell,” I said into the silence.

  A sarcastic hiss. “You mean you’re not one of the stage-door Johnnies come to worship at the altar of Belinda’s nativity?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Do you know how many such souls we turn away, scatter to the winds?”

  “She is the shining light of the moment.”

  She barked at me, “For the moment.”

  “I take it you weren’t fond of her, Miss Glass?”

  She debated what to say, glancing over her shoulder toward the doorway. “I’m not fond of anyone, Miss Ferber, though these days Jackson has discovered my charms. I’ve scraped my way into the bowels of this hole in the wall. Jackson needs me as much as I need him. Together we have plans—his passion, mine. I’m sure you know how acting gets into the bloodstream—the rhythm of the stage.” She smiled broadly. “As for Belinda—I knew her as Linda Roswell, fresh in this city—I mentored her.”

  Kent scoffed, “And you tell everyone how you paid a price for that.”

  “What price?” I asked disingenuously.

  Millie narrowed her eyes. “I actually liked her—fresh, funny, clever really. A real gem of talent, undiscovered. Unlike Jackson who lives and breathes theater but can’t say a line that’s authentic. He needs me. I guess I already said that, right? It needs repeating—especially to him. Anyway, I liked her, taught her makeup, to carry herself in a certain way.”

  I drummed my finger on my lips. “But success spoiled her?”

  She shouted a line. “Unforgiving. Once a student realizes she is brighter, more talented than the instructor, she can go this way or that. One path leads to humility. The other to arrogance.”

  “And I take it Belinda chose to lord it over you.”

  She nodded furiously.

  Kent spoke up. “You’re exaggerating, Millie.” He looked at me. “Miss Ferber, Millie—is acting a part here. And not a major role, really. Millie, the walk-on. Belinda is temperamental, yes, but kind…”

  “Baloney, you fool. Men get weak around her.”

  “I liked her.”

  “Lord, she even betrayed Jackson, who orchestrated her success on Broadway. He called the shots. The girl would betray God if it could get her a starring role in heaven.” She looked up to the ceiling. “The two of them living above us, like in the heavens. Brother and sister. The royal couple.”

  “I sense things changed.”

  “She’s gone, living in the uppity residence hotel for young women. Elite. And Jackson walks around in shiny Norfolk suits, powder blue, black-and-white fancy shoes.”

  “And jangling coins in his pocket,” Kent added.

  With a glint in her eyes, she said, “And now I live upstairs with Jackson.”

  Kent stepped back, a valedictory wave and a half-bow, but Millie, speaking into his face, mumbled, “Have you seen Chauncey? We’re supposed to rehearse. Has he disappeared again?”

  A low rumble sounded from the back of the theater, a voice shrouded in darkness. “I’m here enjoying the bitchiness of my inferiors.”

  Millie jumped, squirmed, but immediately swore. “You damn fool, Chauncey.”

  A shadowy figure rose from the back of the house, stepped into the dim light. “Nothing like a dark theater to remind you that your life has no meaning.”

  “You’re sneaky,” Millie said, peeved.

  “I was napping until you all began ad-libbing.”

  Kent, already halfway to the door, turned to me. “Miss Ferber, meet Chauncey White, our juvenile in romantic skits as well as the Italian tenor who sings ‘O Sole Mio’ while teetering in a gondola.”

  Chauncey nodded at me but said nothing.

  The youngish man of average height, broad-chested, had a square handsome face and a five o’clock shadow, his shock of blue-black hair worn almost in a pompadour. He was wearing a bulky blue sweater that accented his rugged outdoorsy look.

  Millie sneered, “Ah, Miss Ferber, here’s Belinda’s first discarded flame. Her rehearsal lover, or so the rumors suggested.”

  “Stop that, Millie.” Chauncey sucked in his cheeks. “You know that’s a lie.”

  Kent decided to stay. “Chauncey had a crush on Belinda—when she was still Linda Roswell. But of course all red-blooded men did. Bonny Linda. Unrequited love, which is the worst kind. Mooning over an ice maiden.”

  “Dreamers, the both of you.” Chauncey walked near one of the flickering lights, his face in shadows. “Miss Ferber, we did love scenes onstage, anemic as all get out, Southern belle and Yankee intruder, but that’s all.” His tone reflected bitterness, perhaps. “We liked each other.”

  “Why are you here, Miss Ferber?” Millie asked.

  “To see Jackson.”

  Her voice rose. “Why?”

  “Curiosity.”

  She laughed. “Killed the cat, you know.”

  Kent int
errupted, “Miss Ferber, you must come for one of our performances.”

  Chauncey murmured, “And sit anywhere.”

  Kent was amused. “Like third row center. Jackson told us you sat between Dougie and Noel Coward at Belinda’s show.”

  Chauncey spoke in singsong, “Dougie, Dougie, bags of money.”

  Millie hissed, “We’re trying to keep this theater alive, Chauncey. Me and Jackson.”

  He mimicked her. “‘Me and Jackson.’ Suddenly it’s a joint venture.”

  Kent, in a stage voice, “Did you hear about the two bankers who jumped off the Ritz Tower holding hands? They had a joint account.”

  “That’s not funny,” Millie said.

  Chauncey was gathering his coat and heading back toward the doorway. “The truth of the matter is that Belinda was afraid to look any of us in the face—unless Jackson ordered her to. She was always looking for an escape from this hovel.”

  “Her brother?” I asked.

  Chauncey laughed. “Hey, Jackson was the magician charting the course out there—drawing the map. An X marked the treasure trove. Over there.” He pointed in the direction of Broadway.

  He disappeared out the door, though he stumbled as he came face-to-face with Jackson entering from the lobby. He’d been yelling something to one of the workmen, but stopped when he saw me standing with two of his players. He grumbled to a departing Chauncey, unhappy, “How long has she been here?”

  But as he approached me, his face broke into a wide, manufactured grin. He extended his hand. “Miss Ferber, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “Idle curiosity. Dougie mentioned your theater.”

  He waved his hands around the dark room. “Humble beginnings.”

  “We’ve been spilling the family secrets,” Kent told him.

  Jackson squinted. “Don’t believe a word they’ve told you.”