The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [29]
He drank the coffee and thought for a minute. “We'll let the entertainers do their acts. Most of them have been out of work so long, they'll jump quicker than a country girl at a hoedown. You don't have to write a play. If you've got a skit or two, you can give it to them. We'll do a cabaret kind of thing. That's all.”
When I realized that Godfrey's idea was workable, the burden of tension left my body and for the first time in weeks I relaxed and my brain started to function.
“We could ask them for songs and dances and turns particularly black.”
“The old Apollo routines. Something like Redd Foxx and Slappy White. You know: ‘I'm Fox’ and the other one says, ‘I'm White,’ then Foxx answers, ‘You're either a fool or you're color blind.’”
The ideas were springing. There was no reason to worry. We would have a show. We would raise money. The reputation I didn't even have was not going to be ruined.
Godfrey looked at his watch. “Gotta go. Some fool without a dime in his pocket is waiting to get me to take him to the Bronx.” He got up. “This stop was okay. I helped a damsel in distress. Maybe my next fare will pay me in Canadian dimes.”
We stood at the door and I looked at the rusted and dented taxi, illegally parked in front of my house.
“You could have got a ticket.”
He said, “That would have been the only thing given to me today. You're okay now. We've got a show. A cabaret.” He had the taxi door open.
I shouted, “We'll call it ‘Cabaret for Freedom.’ O.K.?”
“Yeah, that sounds serious. Entertaining and serious. Just what we ought to be. See you.”
Straight out of the movies. We were the talented unknowns, who with only our good hearts, and those of our friends, would create a show which professional producers would envy. Our success would change the hearts of the narrow-minded and make us famous. We would liberate the race from bondage or maybe we would just go on and save the entire world.
At dress rehearsal, Guy and Chuck sat with me in the shadows of the Village Gate. Singers and dancers moved across the stage, making themselves familiar with the boards, and the microphone. Godfrey stood under the lights near the stage, and Hugh Hurd sat in the rear, clothed in the importance of being the director.
Jay “Flash” Riley started his comedy routine. His face and body jumped and skittered and his eyes opened and shut in rhythm; his lines were funny and unexpected, so the boys beside me howled in appreciation. Later a female singer, Leontyne Watts, sang a sultry, moaning song for a man loved and lost, and I identified with her song.
Although I had not really loved and lost, I was lonely and even missed the pedestrian love affair I left in Los Angeles. Godfrey and I were being molded into a friendship which had no room for romance. John Killens was concretely married; John Clarke had another interest and was, in any case, too hard for my liking. Sylvester Leeks had hugged me often, but never asked for my phone number. If I had the chance, I could moan some salty songs. I had been living with empty arms and rocks in my bed. I was only saved from utter abstinence by accidentally running into a musician who remembered me from my touring days. He lived on the Upper West Side and, once a week, I would visit his studio apartment. Because of the late hours of his job, he slept until after two. He told me he preferred me to catch him as he was waking. It kept him from having to make up the sofa twice and take two showers in the same day. I always left satisfied, so I was glad to oblige. We were not only not in love and just slightly in like, our weekly ferocious rendezvous stopped just short of doing each other bodily harm.
CHAPTER 5
On opening night, customers took every seat in the cavernous Village Gate. The Harlem Writers Guild members, their families and friends had arrived, and after wishing me luck, took seats near the stage. I imagined them, after the house lights dimmed, taking copious and critical notes in the dark. John and Grace Killens