From Time to Time (22 page)

corner. This was vaudeville, I found out. Standing in the lobby I read: 17 Big-Star Acts. William Rock & Maude Fulton in their entirely new Satirical Protean Musical Revue with Co. of 12 Walter C. Kelly, "The Virginia Judge . . . Arthur Dunn & Marion Murray in "Two Feet from Happiness'~ . . . The Three Kea tons, the Tumblebug Family, with a family photograph, a smiling very voun g Buster in the middle. Seventeen big acts: Lane & O'Donnel, Comedy Skit. . . Van Hoven, the Dippy, Mad Musician . . . Palfrey, Barton and Brown (the tumbling law firm?). But Tessie and Ted? Nope.

So I wandered around, into and out of the West Forty-second Street

theaters, like these. …

Checked with a stage manager (the little fat one). Nothing.

Then on down this famous Broadway of theaters: the New Amsterdam, Liberty, New York, Empire, Criterion, Lyceum, Knickerbocker, Garrick, Hudson, Harris, Gaiety, Park, Fulton, George M. Cohan, Grand, Wallack's, Fifth Avenue, Winter Garden, Maxine Elliott's, Playhouse, Broadway, Casino, Lyric, Herald Square, Lew Fields. . . and more. A sophisticated Broadway of world-famous Rector's and Shanley's. Of opulent hotels: the Normandie, Marlborough, Knickerbocker . . . But now also this leisurely daytime street of corner loafers and the Horatio Alger shoeshine boy.

A street of barbershops, pool halls, and(I heard the sudden hollow clatter of wooden pins from somewhere) Bowling alleys. And a

street of sidewalk fruit stands, and even a movie house. No fake glamour or glitz, but an almost homely street, this easy, comfortable

daytime Broadway. I climbed a few steps of a lowered fire escape to take this. Across the street there, the Knickerbocker

Theatre where tomorrow The Greyhound would open . . . where tomorrow the Dove Lady would walk by-right there, right across the street. And standing on the walk to stare after her would be Z. Who next day would write a letter to say so. And which I had already read.

But Tessie and Ted? I walked on, clear down to Twenty-eighth Street here, the end of the theatrical district. Checked out Daly's.

And Joe Weber's next door. And-my last hope-Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre down at the end of the block there. No Tessie and Ted, but . . . there was the Dove Lady.

Listed along with the others on the Vaudeville bill, her photo on a big lobby easel, a bird on each shoulder, she smiling out at the world; a good friendly face. And Madam Zelda, the world- renowned mind reader, and six other acts. I stood there at the Dove Lady's photo, bemused, thinking that just maybe Rube was right: Here the connections still existed. Here the people of Rube's handful of old dead letters still lived. Was I really in some odd way going to find the lost people I was hunting?

Yes, damn it, yes, if not here, then somewhere-and it occurred to me that there was one last place to hunt. And back at the hotel I bought a copy of Variety, took it up to mv room, and, shoes off, lay back against the headboard, and found . . . twenty fine trained

roosters. Found Deas, Reed and Deas. Found Nadje. Found- could it be-Ed Wynn's mother? Found this-as it seemed to me -sad and forlorn pair. Found endless vaudeville acts, large and small, including a monkey man. What's that? And if you were a

first-class monkey man, would your mother be proud? Surely Mrs. Kuhn was proud of her three boys and their clever way with words.

I lay on my bed looking through column after column of ads like these-some big, some small-wondering who these people were, these monkey men, double-voiced people, and White Kuhns.