R ain hit the broad Mt. Olympus windows as I ran past Bertha sitting in the empty coat check booth, knitting. She waved as I dashed by. No matter how sweetly she smiled at me I always felt she was conjuring up some secret plot to sink me. Besides, she had to be at least thirty, by now. Why wasn’t she married with a bunch of kids and home watching them, instead of me? That by itself was suspicious.
I hid in my office with a quick slam of my door. Wouldn’t that make her finally get my message after all these years? I threw my briefcase onto the top of my desk and snapped it open, took out a steno pad.
Sitting, I scribbled thoughts on a blank page. We were saving by not buying costumes. We could get Max’s guys to do over the basement that was a falling down mess into a respectable green room. Maybe they’d even paint it green. We could probably even store costumes down there in between shows. To keep them safe we should have lockers with big locks. We could never forget what kinda neighborhood The Haven was in.
I worked the numbers out on my Mt. Olympus adding machine. According to my figures, if we included the money left over from the Mabel Mercer show budget… Not much PR was needed for that since gay guys whispered it among themselves and became our major source of gratis advertising. This new show, though, this female imitator show, was gonna need a lot of PR with expert people. I was gonna have to hire a PR man who really knew his way around New York, Long Island, New Jersey and it’d be good to throw in Connecticut too. Whatever guy we got wasn’t gonna be cheap.
Lucille stuck her head in my office. “Al. there’s someone—well, someone, I think, who’s here to see you. She wouldn’t tell me her name.”
“Oh, yeah, good.” I said, stretching. “Have her come in.” I was relieved to come away from my figuring.
“That’s the problem. She won’t come in. Giorgio’s been out there holding the door trying to coerce her for quite a while and it’s almost break time, but she just stands there looking up.”
I grabbed my umbrella and hurried to the club entrance. I didn’t want Max discovering one of my ‘bar friends’ causing a scene outside our premises.
When I got outside Janet was, indeed, as Lucille described, standing in front of the building looking up. Her arms were outstretched. She wore a flower print day dress and her army jacket. Giorgio, in his blue and red uniform, held an umbrella over her, which meant he was getting wet. “Please, Missy, may I help? This-a way. Come-a this-a way.” His arm swept through the air toward the door he held open for her.
“It’s okay, Giorgio, why don’t you go take a break. I’m gonna talk to my friend.”
“Yes, sure, Missy Al.” Then he realized he held the umbrella over Janet’s head. “Oh, I…”
“That’s okay, Giorgio, I have an umbrella.”
I stood under the awning avoiding the rain while I reached out with my umbrella trying to cover Janet. The rain dripped through Janet’s hair and face. “Janet, what’s the matter? Why don’t you come inside? You’re getting wet.”
Still with her head up looking toward the top of the building, she said, “I love the rain, don’t you?”
“I guess. Why don’t you come inside?”
“I never been inside a big club before. I read about them, though. They’re fancy. Is this one fancy?”
“Depends on the time of day. Daytime is less fancy than nighttime. Why don’t you come in and see what you think?”
“I can do that?”
“Sure. I invited you.”
“And that man that got mad at Deb won’t get mad at me.”
“No. I’ll tell him to shut up if he does,”
“You’d say that to him? For me?”
“Sure.”
She lowered her arms and head and smiled, “Let’s go in.”
“It’s not very magical now.” I told her as we headed toward my office. “All the special lights are turned off.”
“Will they be turned on later tonight?”
“No. We’ve cut back on how many shows we do a week.”
“Look! Look at them.” She shuffled past me over the rug right up to our Greek statues that towered over the ringside tables and the fountain that was turned off; the water in the ‘lake’ lay still. Her hair and dress were wet, but that did not seem to bother her.
“Beautiful,” she said. “Deb told me about those two. And I read about them before Deb told me.”
“They’re pretty much our claim to fame.” I looked at my watch. “We have time before the show. Come to my office. I’ll get you a towel.”
“What for?”
“You’re wet.”
She looked down at herself and as if just noticing it said, “Oh, yeah.”
I got her army jacket off her and laid it on the windowsill near the radiator. Then I wrapped her in a bath towel that I had in my locker. She wasn’t all that wet. From where she’d been standing outside the awning had blocked the worst of the rain. Wrapped in the towel over her dress, she stood like a soldier next to my desk.
“Sit.”
“Here, okay?”
“Yeah. In the chair.” She plopped herself down onto the chair as if all the air had gone outta her.
I got up and closed the door and sat down behind my desk. “Janet, you okay? You feel comfortable?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m only gonna tell you this because you’re my assistant, but it isn’t for anyone else’s ears. Just us. Okay?”
“Oh, gosh, Al, don’t tell me.”
“Why?”
“What if I forget and tell someone? You shouldn’t trust me that much.”
“But I do. I have to trust someone with this. Please Janet. You’re my assistant. I can’t bear this alone. If I don’t tell someone it makes me feel dishonest.”
“Okay, okay, I can do it. I can.” She quickly crossed herself. “Okay. Hit me with it.”
“You’re Catholic?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes? You can do that?”
“I do.”
“Oh. Well, here goes.”
“My mother would kill me if she knew I crossed myself. That was my father’s thing to do, but then he ran away. Still, it seems to me that when something really bad comes up the best thing to be is Catholic.”
“Oh. Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Now I’m gonna tell ya what I can’t tell no one else. Ready?”
She sat up straighter in her chair. “Yes.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Of course, you do. You’re the boss.”
“But I don’t know how to be the boss for this show.”
“Stop it. Of course, you do. You’ve been running The Haven for years. That’s why you’re boss.”
“What I did all those years was contact the talent we wanted to hire, arrange for the PR and hire someone to do it. I kept track of the designers, made sure contracts were signed, stuff like that. On the side I had clients whose careers I managed.”
“What’s different now?
“I never raised all the money for a show. Max did most of that for both The Mt. Olympus and The Haven.”
She whistled through her teeth. “Oh, wow.”
“The hardest part of my job used to be getting the “star” to make time for our club in his or her schedule and that was usually done through an agent. Oh, and also accommodating the quirks of each individual star so they stayed ‘happy’ throughout their gig.”
“Is it that different now besides raising the money?”
“Yeah. There’s no star.”
“Lady Day! She’s the star.”
“No one’s ever heard of her, Janet! You think she can sell a show? Who is she? I’m putting this whole thing together top to bottom. If I hire a director and a writer we’ll hardly have any money left for the show. I’m gonna have to do both jobs and I don’t know anything about either one! Not in any depth. This show’s gonna be a mess. The reviews are gonna be horrible and nobody’s gonna come. What the hell am I gonna do?”
Janet jumped to her feet and yelled, “HEY! CALM DOWN! NOW!” She sounded like a deranged nightmare third grade teacher. The firmness of her demand knocked the wind right outta me. When the air came back into my lungs, I was breathing almost normally. She stood over me patting my back. “You can do this. You’ve been around people who do these kinda jobs for years. You must know people who do this work.”
“Of course, I do. But I can’t ask them to do it for free and I don’t have the money to pay them. That’s the point!”
“You got enough money for lunch?”
“Lunch? Of course. Things aren’t that bad.”
“Invite your friends to lunch. One at a time. First, tell them how much you admire their work. Then ask them about their jobs. You ‘oo’ and ‘ah’ over them to keep them going. Then rush home as fast as you can and write down everything you can remember.”
“That’s not bad. Yeah, I could do that. And the first person I’m gonna take out is—you .”
“Me? I don’t know nothin’. And this is dinner time. Costs too much. Only do lunches. You’re on a budget. Now let’s go.”
Janet dropped the towel on the chair, shook her head to fluff up her hair. I looked in the mirror, took my comb from my purse, gave my hair a few swipes and grabbed my coat.
* * *
Janet and I ended up having a coupla burgers at Grant’s a few doors down from the Mt. Olympus before we took the subway down to the Moroccan Village—Research. She thought if I was gonna pay it had to be really, really cheap. “Save your money,” she kept saying. She made me a wreck. Made me remember back to my days with Mom and Dad always counting every penny. I sure didn’t want to go back to those days. Oh, well, Grant’s wasn’t so bad. I didn’t mind standing while I ate. Well—not much. They have tall tables, but no chairs. And it wasn’t so bad that some customers kept falling into our table and falling asleep on top of it. We just had to give them a little push and they’d fall right off. Then there was the smell of those funny cigarettes and the matter of our shoes sticking to the floor, but it wasn’t so bad. Really. As long as I never have to go back there.
We took the BMT down to West Fourth and walked over to 8th Street. The rain had completely stopped, and we only got wet when a small breeze shook the tree leaves and drops landed on our heads.
“Have you seen Buddy Kent’s act before,” I asked Janet as we walked down Sixth Avenue before turning onto Eighth.
“No,” Janet said. “I heard of Buddy Kent, but never saw her. But a girl impressionist? That’s new to me.”
“Oh, they exist.” I told her. “Not as many as men, but they have a whole crew of them over at Club 82. That’s who waits on the tables; they wear tuxedos. Some of them also sing in the chorus on stage. And then there are male imitators like Blackie Dennis…”
“I saw a picture of her. Wow!”
I laughed. “I thought you didn’t notice those things.”
“Oh, well,” she looked down at the sidewalk, embarrassed. Her head popped up. “Where are you gonna get all those tuxedos?”
I stopped walking. “I don’t know. Won’t the girls have their own?”
“I doubt many girls have their own tuxedo.”
“Butches, don’t? Doesn’t Freddie own one.”
“How would she afford that?”
“You’re right. I’m gonna have to buy them. I didn’t think about that. It’s not in my budget.”
“Don’t worry. It’s gonna be okay.”
“You’re right,” I said. “This is gonna be one terrific show. We just gotta keep reading the book.”
“What book?”
We went through the Moroccan Village entrance and took our place on a short line.
“I know! On the audition form we’ll ask if they have a tuxedo. Then we’ll cast the ones who do. What do ya think?”
Janet shook her head. “Bad idea, Al.”
“Yeah? Yeah, I s’pose you’re right.”
“Tell me about the book I’m s’posed to read.”
“Later. I wanted to tell you about another group I saw. The Jewel Box Revue is a group of men who travel around the country doing shows. They call themselves female mimics, but last year they added a new cast member, a woman who impersonates a man. So now they tour the country as ‘twenty-five men and a girl.’ The audience has to figure out who the real girl is, but she’s so good hardly anyone can. She starts off as the emcee, introducing the show. Then during the show, she sings, and she sounds so much like a man that everyone thinks she is. And she’s a Negro!”
“No! Really? Negros can do that kinda entertainment?”
“Well, she sure can. But they’ve got a few other negros in the cast too and a coupla Orientals and one American Indian.”
“Jeepers! What a strange cast.”
“The show’s terrific. If they come to the city, we’ll go and see them.”
The maitre’d came up to us. Of course, she wore a black tuxedo with sharp creases in her pants. She led the way, passed the bar on the left and down the center that was lined on both sides with small round tables covered with white lacey tablecloths. Each table had four chairs. She showed us to our table, fourth one from front. The waiter took away the extra two. I’d considered getting a front row table, but then I looked at our budget. Fourth table in the middle row wasn’t bad.
The maître d’ laid a program on the table and left. Quickly another waiter also in a tuxedo came to take our drink order. “Nothing for me,” Janet said.
“You sure? The Haven’s paying. We’re here doing research.”
“I’m trying to cut back.”
“Oh. Okay. A coke?”
“Sure, thanks.”
If you change your mind about getting something stronger let me know. Bring me a brandy and soda please.”
“For tonight’s show Buddy’s being featured with Kicky Hall’s Review.” I told Janet. “The Moroccan Club invited Kicky Hall’s Review to entertain for the next two weeks. Now remember, we’re here tonight for research. We have to notice the types of skits they do and how they’re staged. You have your memo pad ready for taking notes?” I looked around the club noticing the carefully placed flowering plants. “This club will never be competition for our show—not with their lesbian focus, but we can still get ideas. I like the plants.”
More customers were starting to fill the place and the noise level was going up. Some of the entering patrons appeared to be lesbian friendship groups. Others arrived in pairs and as soon as they were seated some held hands under the table; some truly bold girls held hands on top of the table.
“Oh! Oh! My notebook! My notebook!” Janet rummaged through her purse. “Uh, it’s… I know I had it, Al. I brought it with me. Honest!” She rummaged more, taking wrinkled papers outta her purse and laying them on the table. “I remember putting it—it somewhere. When I left my apartment this morning and…”
“Here.” I handed her an extra notebook with a pen that’d I picked up when I was in Woolworth’s that afternoon. “Now, let’s get this mess cleared away, but don’t lose that.”
“I won’t. She stuffed the rumpled paper back into her purse.”
The house lights went down, and the stage lights up. A rousing line of girls dressed as sailors came onto the stage singing and dancing. One cast member entered as a real girl, delicate with a sweet smile. In song and dance the sailor wooed her and fought with another sailor for her favors. Finally, one of the sailors won the lady and flowers came from the rafters covering the stage.
Next a solo singer, a woman dressed in a suit and tie, her hair slicked back in an ivy league hair cut entered and sang a love song to the one that got away.
After another rousing musical number and a few solos, Buddy Kent, the star attraction of the evening sauntered out in her tuxedo, top hat and cane singing, “I’m in the Mood for Love.” I thought it was strange that she was billed in the program as Bubbles Kent instead of Buddy. She had a delightfully mellow voice that easily passed for male. The girls in this sold-out audience sat on the edge of their seats leaning toward the stage drinking in every movement, every sound that came from this attractive butch. Frank Sinatra had nothing on Buddy that night.
She stepped down from the stage and moved in and out of the tables singing into the mic, almost swallowing it. The girls twisted in their chairs following her. She glided into the Eddie Fisher version of “Hold me.” The audience sighed. She stopped and looked into the faces of the particularly vulnerable-looking young women and sang right to them. Many giggles, much sighing and near fainting until she returned to the stage to finish the song with a rousing, “Everything I Have is Yours, My life, My All.” With the final note sung, the audience with a loud swish of silk, satin, chiffon and the new rayon and polyester, no cotton for this special evening, this mostly female audience jumped to its feet, with loud clapping and cheering. Such a lovely array of plaids and polka dots.
Buddy took a quick bow and singled the audience to sit; she wasn’t finished with us yet. She fixed the microphone in its holder and stepped back with both arms outstretched to the audience. We had become her lover. A record played the opening as she sensuously walked toward the mic. The music pulsated and so did Buddy’s hips as she held onto the mic. The sound of that new hit maker Elvis Presley burst onto the stage and Buddy lip synched to “Heartbreak Hotel.” She tossed off her top hat and danced around the mic as if it was her partner. The audience cheered.
As Buddy sang and wiggled, she reached beyond her tuxedo coat and somehow pulled her pants off in one move. She stood there in black lacy ladies’ underpants. The audience gasped, then laughed, then applauded, a few fainted.
She continued to sing and dance, and slowly removed her tuxedo jacket, letting it slip from her shoulders, then her arms, then to the floor. She spun around and kicked the jacket out of her way, while she roughly whisked her bow tie off her neck. At first, she teased the girls in the audience with the tie, pretending she was about to throw it to them, but then crinkling it back into her hand. Finally, when they’d given up, she threw it into the center of them all. Girls jumped over tables and chairs trying to retrieve it. They pushed, punched, knocked each other outta the away, anything to grab their souvenir. One girl snatched it from under the table, slammed her head into the underside of the table and crawled to her feet, holding it above her head yelling, “I got it, I got it!” It could’ve turned into a riot, but miraculously it didn’t Buddy or Bubbles—I guess this stripper dance was what turned her into Bubbles—had unbuttoned her shirt, pulling the audience’s eyes in a new direction She lifted one side of her blouse away from her chest, revealing a black lacy bra. The audience was crazed with begging her to take the whole shirt off, but she closed up the one side and opened the other. I thought we was going to have to cart some of these girls out on stretchers. Actually, I was feeling a little of the sizzle myself. Janet sat frozen, not moving.
When ‘Bubbles’ came to the very end she threw the whole shirt off and stood center stage in just bra and underpants. She did a deep bow and skipped around the stage gathering up her clothing and went off. She dashed back on stage in a bathrobe, took another bow to a crowd that adored her, threw kisses and ran off again. There was a lot of applause trying to bring her back, but she didn’t come back, so finally her fans gave up and started toward the exit.
Janet rose from her seat without saying a word; she joined the line of girls waiting to leave the place. “Janet?” I said. “But she didn’t respond. “Janet. We really should stay and meet some of the people who put this together. We need to learn. Janet, did you hear me?”
“I can’t, Al. You stay. I gotta go.”
“I’m not gonna leave you. You don’t look good. I’ll take the subway with you and make sure you get home.”
“I know how to get home. You need to stay here for the sake of the show.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No! Don’t!” she shouted and proceeded to push girls outta the way as she hurried toward the exit and out.
I pushed past the crowd, getting nasty comments, until I was out too. I looked down Eighth Street for Janet. The Village Barn was letting out hordes of laughing people, the many restaurants on Eighth Street were letting out and letting in masses of customers. I couldn’t see Janet in the mob.
“You’re Al Huffman, aren’t you?” A man said from behind me.
“Huh? What?”
“We have an appointment, don’t we? I’m Kicky Hall. You wanted to know something about…”
“Huh? Yeah, I do. Very much. Only something’s come up. Can we reschedule? My friend, uh… I gotta go. I loved your show. I’ll call you.”
* * *
“Janet!” I banged on her door. “Let me in!”
“Go away!”
“Just tell me what’s wrong. Then I’ll go.”
She was silent. I banged as hard as I could. “Janet, please.”
“What are you doing, Al?” Freddie said, comin’ outta her apartment, scratching her fly-away just- woke-up pompadour. She wore a tee-shirt and striped men’s pajamas tied at the waist with a rope. “You trying to wake up the whole building. That could be dangerous.”
“Your sister,” I whispered. “Something’s wrong. We went to a club tonight. We were doing research for the show we’re putting up and…”
“You went to the Moroccan Village. I know. Janet told me you were going there. Buddy Kent as Bubbles. I’ve seen that show. Hot stuff. Probably too hot for Janet.”
“I didn’t wanna do anything to hurt her.”
“Ah, ya didn’t.” Freddie knocked lightly on Janet’s door. “Hey, Janet it’s me. Let me in.
The door opened a few inches, and Freddie grabbed it. I stood waiting to go in with her, but Freddie, half in the door and half out turned to me, “Nah, Al, not this time. This one’s my job. Don’t worry about it she’ll be okay.
She slipped inside. I heard her say as she closed the door. “Hey Jan, whatcha been up to now? Scarin’ poor Al? Big Sis is here to take care of you.”
But Freddie’s Janet’s younger sister.
* * *
Dear Marty,
I got in touch with Kitt Russell. You know the director-producer at Club 82, and he invited me to lunch. Well, actually, he didn’t invite me. I’d only tell you because I know I can trust you to keep this to yourself. I invited him to lunch. Of course, it was shocking for him to receive such an invitation from a woman, and I was scared to death to even say it, but he works with cross-dressers and is one himself, so he was fascinated rather than scandalized. He said yes as long as I let him pay.
Isn’t that wonderful? I have such a nice memory of Club 181. Of course, that’s gone now, but I loved going there with you and watching the female and male impersonators. Remember that waiter, who was really girl, she tried to pick me up and scared me half to death. Quite a time we had. Remember one of Juliana’s ex’s, Andy, a cross dressing woman who sang the night we were there. You probably don’t remember. You had your eye on that guy at the end of the bar. Andy was good, real good. As good as Frank Sinatra. Too bad she wasn’t a real man. I could’ve gotten her work.
I hope everything’s great with you. WRITE!!
With love,
Al
Al!
Be careful. Oh, gosh you must’ve read what happened over there. The syndicate runs it, but that’s not the worse. Stay away from a particular wife. You can look it up. Her husband had Stephen Franse whacked. You must’ve read about it that grizzly thing. Please watch yourself. Running to an audition now. Write. Let me know you’re okay.
Marty
I folded his letter in half, considering his words. Well, yeah, I had read about Vito Genovese trying to stop his wife, Anna, who was rumored to be a gay girl, from talking to the Feds. He got Stephen Franse, who was the front a few years ago for Club 181. They found poor Franse all shot-up and squished into the back of his car. I knew about that. That’s the way the business is. Nothing to be done about it. You work around it or else you can’t be in this business. I didn’t know Marty was so innocent about these things. That’s kinda sweet. Makes me wanna take care of him.