I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [72]
Everyone traveled with a wardrobe trunk. Tours averaged from three and a half to six months, and in many places you couldn’t buy soap, makeup, or toilet paper, so the trunks served as storage for haberdashery, groceries, hardware, and apothecary needs. In addition, we all had a large, black, metal case to carry makeup, dancing shoes, and assorted practice clothes. These, the company transported for us. Our personal suitcases, we lugged around ourselves. Between cities, the company usually booked a couple of railroad cars, generally added to the back of the train, and those trips sometimes lasted as long as eighteen or nineteen hours. We brought our own food on board and shared lavish, wine-sodden feasts during these trips, while playing continual games of poker, canasta, bridge, or assorted word games.
Upon arrival, being at the back of the train, the dancers found themselves miles from the entrance to a terminal, where the taxis and buses were. No porters around, no pushcarts, and, back then, no wheels on your luggage, so all of us, exhausted, dragged our own suitcases—except Janie. She would manage, somehow, to get her enormous suitcase, bigger than herself, off the train and onto the platform. Then, she would pose, and wait. With a helpless, bewildered look on her face, and her lascivious curves, she didn’t wait long. A honey trap! The siren soon drew Romeos vying for the privilege of carrying her suitcase. As the commedia dell’arte scene unfolded, the rest of us would stand around to enjoy. A handsome and vigorous Italian swain would approach. “Oh! Signorina! Per favore …” Another would shove him aside. “No, no, permette, I would be honored, cara signorina!” Beaming to Janie, and sometimes adding a gallant bow, the most aggressive would finally seize the suitcase, then blanch. In her suitcase, besides her library, Janie kept several iron exercise weights and a pair of iron shoes that she wore around her hotel room, explaining to her roommate, “Oh, they strengthen the quadriceps and slim the gluteus maximus.” Romeo, macho and determined, would crouch down, grit his teeth, and manhandle the burden to his shoulder, then stagger all the way down the platform, following Janie’s swaying buttocks to the taxi stand. The other suitors scattered, breathing sighs of relief.
If we were crossing a border and had to go through customs, an even better scene ensued, for Janie was a sure thing to have her bags searched. When the iron shoes were revealed, the customs agent would usually call out, “Hey, Giuseppe, vedere! Look!” Then, as her other treasures were revealed, more and more Marios, Carlos, and Giovannis would rush over. What, besides the barbells and iron shoes, emerged from Janie’s bag? Well, besides the assortment of reading material, there were wheels of brie and other assorted cheeses wrapped in panties; zucchini, broccoli, and artichokes tucked into bras, shoes, and sweaters; and many a stocking leg stuffed with fruits and nuts. Ah, Janie, with your goofy and passionate nature how bizarre you were, and how much fun. She was our company mascot.
Janie left the company after a few years. We heard she had gotten married, and, rumor had it, in the Dominican Republic, wearing a topless wedding gown. Years later, a story circulated that Janie was living in Mexico and had adopted the unwanted babies of various prostitutes. There was even the suggestion that the babies had come from Janie’s own establishment. I met her again in Sun Valley, Idaho, about twenty years ago. She was married and proud to tell me that she had put several of her adopted children through college. (The following year, I heard—read—she had been arrested. It seemed she lost her temper in a fight with