“Bert,” said Pops, “come up here and have a drink with me.” Bert looked nervously from one white face at the bar to another, and replied, “Think I better stay down here, Mr. Joe.”
“All right,” said Pops, picking up his glass, “then I’ll have to come down there to you.”
BUSTER KEATON
Lying in bed, and staring out of the window at the Massachusetts moon with a light buzzing in his head, he thinks now of Mr. Joe making his point, and the looks on the faces of the men in the bar as their curling tongues licked the foamy beer from their thick mustaches. What kind of a place is this Boston? What kind of a place is this America? His father can’t decide whether to stay on in New York or return to California, and he seems to have lost his way, and it occurs to Bert that maybe he should just take his parents back to the Bahamas. Back to a place where his father has always insisted that a man can walk tall and feel the sun on his skin, and a lightness to his step, and be free to raise his family. He thinks of Mr. Joe, and those kids of his. Mr. Joe doesn’t suffer any foolishness from them, which means that eventually they’ll do just fine, but right now they’re struggling. However, he knows that this is not his business. Never any sleep in this Boston. Without his wife. Without George, who he imagines is sitting in New York with Aida to comfort him. When he returns to New York he will go straight to George, even though Aida seems to distrust him. Although he believes that he has done nothing to offend George’s wife, he imagines that her dislike of him has its origins in her own fears that she might once again lose George, but this time not to another woman. Back in New York he will visit with his partner and rehearse his solo act. Then he will sit with Mother, and then he will rehearse his new act some more. He has original songs and perhaps his New York audience will appreciate him more than the citizens of this moonlit Boston, Massachusetts.
Three new songs and “Nobody,” with a bit of talk worked in between tunes, make up Williams’ single speciality. Both songs and talk were highly amusing. Williams was never funnier. “That’s Plenty” made a capital opening song. There followed a few minutes of talk adapted from his part of “Skunton” in “Bandana Land.” Even without a foil in his partner, George Walker, Williams’ stupid darkey was a scream. His second song failed to keep up the fast pace, but he picked up speed with a song about a dispute as to the naming of a baby, Williams’ suggestion being something like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Booker T., and a lot more, until it was learned that the baby was a girl. The discussion ends when the mother announces Carrie Jones as the name. “Nobody” served admirably as an encore, and Williams had to repeat his inimitable “loose dance” several times before they would let him go.
VARIETY, MAY 1909
Aida tells me that my husband must be having a gay old time up there on stage by himself, milking all the applause, never a thought in his head for poor George, never a mention of him in his newspaper interviews and articles. But somewhere inside of her she knows that this is false. My husband is the type of man who has respect for everybody, and he carries a deep love for his partner. George does not truly understand what is going on about him, but Aida says that he is hurt. She claims that she can see it in his eyes. An embittered Aida snaps that it is bad enough George knowing that he is not out there onstage with Bert, but to hear that his partner is having a fine time without him is paining her husband’s soul. Aida says she knows that this is how poor George feels, even though George has not actually said anything to her. The truth is George has not actually said anything to anybody for quite some time.
In July 1909, the New York Age announced the unthinkable. The Williams and Walker Company, having temporarily lost Mr. Walker to illness, had apparently now lost Mrs. Aida Walker. Mr. Williams sighed deeply as he recalled Aida’s less than harmonious departure. According to the press reports, Mrs. Walker and the management had not been able to agree on several items in her contract. However, it was evident to everybody that this was only half the story.
My George tried all his life to maintain some dignity and I’m not about to let him down. Not at this stage of his life, when he needs my help. I don’t see none of his gentleman friends around here paying him no attention, now that he isn’t fun-loving, happy-go-lucky, champagne-drinking, cigar-smoking George. My George isn’t a saint, and in his time he’s done me wrong and hurt me like all men seem to feel it’s their God-given right to hurt a woman who loves them. Don’t make no sense, we know that, but sometimes men don’t make sense. But look at George now. Things are not sitting too well with my George, but he ain’t complaining, he’s just doing his best to get to the next day with a little dignity, and I’m doing my best to help him. Bert is sending over money, and he’s being fair in this respect, but there’s something about the way in which he’s polishing up his career that doesn’t sit right with me, so I say let him be the famous Negro headliner if that’s what he wants to be. I’m happy to let him have his name in lights, happy to let him be the biggest colored star in America, and I will stay here and look after my George, who, Bert aside, nobody else chooses to visit. Rumor has it that Bert’s new show, Mr. Lode of Koal, is nearly ready to open, but who ever thinks about George Walker anymore? George Walker? Why that man’s just fallen clean off the map. No Frogs meetings, no Marshall’s, no theater, no gallivanting around, just George and myself in 107 West 132nd Street keeping each other company. Just George and myself, and nobody else.
Every morning I wake up and stare at my George and I want to cry. At sunrise I watch him open his eyes like a newborn infant. Why should a man suffer the indignity of beginning to drift over to the other side when all else about him still seems fine and whole? The doctor says he should go to a sanitarium, where they can take proper care of him and give him treatments, whatever the hell that might mean, but the problem is the doctor doesn’t seem to understand that this is George Walker, not some half-drunk, gone crazy, low-billing comedian. This is George Walker facing another day locked up in the prison of himself. My George isn’t going anywhere. His career isn’t going anywhere. I know this new day that’s just broken must look better for Bert, and I just wish I could find it in my being to be happy for him.
During the nights George sometimes finds it difficult to breathe. I don’t get much sleep for I have to make sure that everything is comfortable for my husband, and I often try and transfer warmth into his body by pushing up tight against him and this way I can at least feel as though I am passing back some of my own life into him. In the morning I strip off his clothes and gently bathe him, and then I towel him dry, delicately dabbing the droplets of water from his skin. He stares at me as though begging me to explain just what is happening to him.
In August 1909, Mr. Williams’s new production, Mr. Lode of Koal, was announced, a show over which Mr. Williams was to have equal shares and “exclusive control of the stage management” of the play together with an unreliable producer called F. Ray Comstock. A suddenly animated Mr. Williams recalled that from the beginning this Mr. Comstock seemed to have some financial and communication difficulties, and as a result the rehearsal period turned out to be one of great stress for everybody concerned, particularly Mr. Williams, who, already a prodigious consumer, admitted that he sought solace by drinking and smoking even more than usual.
Even though the old contract had not yet expired …I would agree [to Mr. Bert Williams’s demands] that in case the said George W. Walker became well again, that he could come into the play and could take part in the contract as though he were a party thereto.
F. RAY COMSTOCK, 1909
People tell me that in his new show, Bert takes out time to poke fun at my Salome dance in Bandana Land, but I don’t believe Bert would do something like this. Especially not with George ailing so badly. Bert would never put “comic business” before decency and respect.
Bert Williams dances that Williams comedy dance as only Bert Williams can dance it. He danced with three or four girls looking for Hoola. All girls are veiled.… Big Smok
e unveils the last girl he dances with and finds to his disgust that it is a man.
INDIANAPOLIS FREEMAN
Mr. Lode of Koal finally opened in New York on November 1st, 1909, at a theatre on Columbus Circle. The truth is, this was not the most prestigious of New York’s theatres, and it was not even on Broadway, but it mattered little. The show lasted for only a very poor forty performances, the highlight being, for Mr. Williams, the surprise thirty-fifth birthday party that the cast held for him, his birthday being on November 12th. He confessed to me that it genuinely shocked him that anybody even knew his birthday, let alone remembered to celebrate it, but the fact was his mind was elsewhere. For some weeks now he had been secretly coughing up blood into his handkerchiefs and hiding them from everybody except his doctor, to whom he admitted that his lungs felt as though they were filled with tar.
The members of the company surprised him by making a number of birthday presents; the female members giving him a gold-headed umbrella and the men a beautiful vase. Refreshments were served on the stage, and several short presentation speeches were made; the comedian replying by saying, “Believe me, I highly appreciate the consideration you have shown, but as I am no speaker, I will close, for that’s a plenty.”
NEW YORK AGE
If I can’t talk to my Bert, and if my own son can’t talk to me, then maybe it’s time to go home. Maybe it’s time to leave my son in the fast grip of this country to which he appears to have mortgaged his soul, and head home. When the boy’s mother comes back from California I’ll maybe put this to her as a suggestion.
Every week he sends my husband a part of his money, and he still comes to visit. He sits quietly with George, but I can see it in Bert’s big mournful eyes that we are losing him to something else. All of us, not just George and myself, all of us are losing slow-moving, slow-drawling Bert. It’s in his eyes.
I could see that Mr. Williams was growing tired, and I knew that soon I would have to leave. Most of the newspaper reports of this period summarized Mr. Williams as a great American comedian, but of only one style of work. That of an old-time darky, with his humor divided into three easily identifiable classes: grotesque dancing; an original method of walking; and droll voice-work. Listening to his quiet accent, and witnessing his gentlemanly manners, I couldn’t help but wonder just how American Mr. Williams felt.
BELIEVE ME
From Mr. Lode of Koal
But believe me, I’m getting tired of always being de dab
Days worked on me so faithfully
’Til I’se wore most to a rub
You all have heard about dat straw
That broke de camel’s back
Well a bubble added to my load
Would shelly make mine crack
But believe me.
A question being asked by many is whether George Walker… is greatly missed.… When Bert Williams made his initial appearance in the first act, the writer at once thought of Walker, as he had been seeing the two make their first appearance together for years. But the writers [of the new show] have so constructed the piece that as the moments fly, Bert Williams… proves that he is capable of starring alone successfully.
NEW YORK AGE
As he leaves I want to ask Bert to please stay away and not cause my husband so much distress. Not cause us all so much distress, looking at us with his charity eyes. But I say nothing. It is sometimes difficult to decide which of the two of them is in greater pain.
That last night on stage I was lost, but I hope that people will forgive me. At times I made some sense, but at other moments I watched the rest of the cast watching me and I knew that they were baffled. But now I am gone. Out of sight. On my way back to Lawrence, Kansas, a place I hardly remember for I left there as a young boy and suffered endless humiliations on my way to the west coast. In California I nearly starved to death in the streets, singing and dancing and begging people for money, and then I stole a banjo. The face of the man I took it from is a sleeping face. Did I really steal a banjo from a sleeping man? But I could play the instrument, and owning a banjo made it easier to loiter on the street corners and try to earn pennies from passersby who felt sorry for me. Easier than it was to beg the managers of the various theaters for work. All the way from Kansas and I had been reduced to a banjo-stealing, banjo-playing beggar. I know full well that what I did was wrong. I should ask Aida to find this man, and we should buy him a silver banjo to express our gratitude. Does he know that it was George Walker who survived because of his banjo? I will talk to Aida of the banjo.
Aida, why do you sit looking at me so? When I talk to you of the banjo that I found on the streets of San Francisco do you understand what it is that I am talking about? I can see that you are trying to follow my words, but it is difficult for you, isn’t it? What do you want from me? A confession that I truly did taste every woman that crossed my path? That I suffer from a touch of Jack Johnson fever? I am no saint, Aida. I lived my life recklessly and I know that being reduced to this state is part of the price that I am paying. Forgive me my weaknesses, and forgive me if I hurt you. That is all I can ask of you, dear wife. Sit here with me in the darkness as I journey back to my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, by way of the streets of San Francisco. I am not ashamed of where I am from. Sit here with me while I return to my childhood in Kansas territory.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and the bedclothes are somewhat tousled and things are not as they should be, but always my wife is lying next to me, keeping me warm. Dawn is painful. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, watching light bleed slowly across it, watching the day reach out and paint this small room a brighter hue. From ceiling to floor a new day has arrived, but without help I cannot rise to meet it. I never hear about her anymore, and there is nobody I might ask. Does she remember? I imagine that she is still scandalizing the New York theater world and a weak smile creases my lips, but the smile does not have the strength to travel across my face, and the greater portion of the smile remains lodged in my heart.
Mr. Comstock decides to close the show, but it is the theater manager who informs me. Mr. Comstock has not the courage or the decency to approach me directly with this sad news, and I therefore have to give this regrettable information to my company. They are devastated, but I have little choice but to agree with Comstock and attempt to recoup some of my losses. The newspapers are terse with their reporting. “Mr. Lode of Koal closes early in New York, and early on the road.” I am left with a mass of obligations, and no money, and a mountain of debts that will take me at least one successful season to pay off. Reluctantly, I make my arrangements to return to vaudeville.
My husband cannot properly manage his company business without the help of George Walker. In the past he entrusted much of Williams and Walker’s affairs to his partner, and now, without George, he is in disrepair, a plight that distresses him for it suggests a lack of decorum. But what can he do? He must at least try to be responsible, but it is written on his face that this situation is an intolerable burden and he is drinking and smoking and coughing more than ever.
Mr. Williams told me that for over a week he carried about a contract to play [over] the Moss Stoll circuit abroad at a salary of $1,ooo a week; the contract called for four consecutive weeks, with an option to increase the time to twenty weeks, if agreeable to all concerned. All Mr. Williams had to do was attach his signature to the contract and take passage for London, where he would open in one of the big variety halls.
The contract arrived a week ago, but I have no desire to return to England. Not without George. In fact, without George I have no desire.
The beer and whiskey stand before him, large and small, sweet and sour, and he sips one and then the other, and then leans back and closes his eyes for he is suffering bad weather in his mind. Mr. Florenz Ziegfeld has made him a generous offer that will solve many things, but Bert knows that it will also mean trouble. A lawsuit from Comstock, who still imagines him to be under contract, and then the hostile attitude of
the white players in the Follies company. He will, of course, also have to contend with the disappointment of his own people, who will not take kindly to his abandoning the world of colored theater. He opens his eyes and notices a layer of dust on the old bottles that stand behind the bar. He is fully aware of the low regard in which a minority of colored people hold him. Since Jack Johnson became the heavyweight champion of the world, race pride has been rising everywhere, and these days some Negroes look askance at him. It is difficult being Bert Williams today, and because he has an offer from Florenz Ziegfeld there are those who will think that everything must be fine and dandy for him. They will assume that he cannot possibly have a care in the world, but colored show business is at a low ebb, and he knows that at the moment it is better to join a large white show than to star in a colored troupe, particularly so as he is now attempting to work without the business brain of George Walker. Mr. Ziegfeld offered him a leathery hand to shake and seal the deal and ensure that he joins a cast of 125 as the only Negro, supported by an orchestra of forty-two, with sixty Follies girls, and the opportunity to play small parts in a variety of sketches to an extremely well heeled audience. For his initial season in the Follies of 1910, Mr. Ziegfeld will bill him as “The Blackbird with Songs.” He drinks his beer. His critics, white and colored, should try making capital humor out of one day in his shoes. He takes a cautious sip of his whiskey, then tips it up and drains the glass. They should try spending one day in his shoes, but he is not complaining. He knows that he does not have the right to complain.
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