The Performer
by lark
“He is ready for you now, Frank”, Darlene indicated as she put down the receiver and was immediately distracted by a couple of newcomers that had just come in through the door. I thought the matter unfortunate. I still had a couple of things to ask her before I met with Rankine, but there was no helping it, Rankine would not wait forever.
“How ya doing kid?” Rankine was still looking at some ledgers when I walked into his office. It was a much dingier office than any other agent’s that I had been to, but Rankine’s was the only one that I had been able to visit more than once. “You know, the usual” I responded. Rankine winced at that but not by much for which I was grateful, atleast for today. I sat down on the only free visiting chair in the room, the other had books piled up on it. Mine was flimsy, the other looked sturdier, maybe that was why. Rankine had been watching me, I surmised as I turned my full attention to him.
“Alright kid, I got about twenty minutes till I have to shoot off for my other appointment, make it quick”. Quick, he says, but how to begin. “You know, Rank, talk around the town is that they are going to shoot more talkies like The Jazz Singer. I heard from Boyd that RKO has ripped out all their old movie setups and are putting in the gadgets for talkies now, even Sam says the same.” I had been gripping my tattered hat quite firmly to stop my hands from shaking, but I could contain myself no longer, “What is the talk among you guys? Surely, the studios are not giving up on movies, they have got so many stars and crew and stuff already on them, and those new gadgets surely cost pretty high. They can’t just rip everything mid-production and start again, that would be stupid, right, Rank?”
Rankine was looking at me with what was undisguised pity in his eyes. “I suppose I can have an early sifter or two”, he said, grabbing a bottle within his reach, pulling free the cork and pouring it in two relatively dusty glasses. “Go on then”, he said pushing a glass towards me. “To stills and movies.” He downed his drink in one, as did I, the result was unremarkable, there was more water than spirit in the damn thing. “You heard right, talkies are the future of the studios. But you don’t need me to tell you that, look at how mad people are for those damned things. Six talkies they have released in the past year, and what, forty movies? Fifty? They used to do eighty just a couple of years back. I got so many new clients knocking on my door, we all do, us agents, those studios want new things now, like diction and singing and poise. Good looks and a solid build are only half the requirement now”, he eyed me as he finished his second drink.
My heart had dropped out way before Rankine had stopped speaking, so it was some time before I thought to stammer a follow-up question, “So, d-does that mean our ag- agreement…”. “I’m sorry, kid, I like you, and I like Estelle, but you must have known what’s what. You got the looks and you got the presence, alright, but you sound like one of them damned androids they are shooting over at Warners.”
It was dusk by the time Estelle and I started our performance in our little haven on the boardwalk. It was a retelling of King Solomon and Queen Sheeba based on the movie of that same name released last year. As we writhed, clasped and embraced in our shortened piece of about half an hour, with Mark, our violinist, evoking and propounding the mood, I felt again that the audience could feel our love, though this time there was a paltry audience as a witness to our magic. “The crowd’s getting thinner”, Mark observed when we were divvying up our takings for the day. “That’s okay, Frank’s been talking to an agent”, Estelle chimed in. I smiled at her and did not respond.
Later, when we were in bed, I asked Estelle. “Remember that time, love, when we first met.” Of course, how can I ever forget, you were Romeo and I, Juliet, in that silly play that the old fraud had organised. Oh, how wonderful that play was! Everybody had looked so excited.” Her memory was a bit different than mine; I remembered an audience that had hung on to our every scene as if it were a vision from God himself. Rankine had been in that audience, and he had approached me after, though his manners had cooled immediately on hearing my voice. He had tentatively been on-board again when I had pointed out that I needn’t talk in the picture, only move my lips, and the cue cards would handle the rest, like what the orchestra had managed to convey in our play. I had met other agents of course after, or more accurately, they had met me, organising meetings from their side. With Ziegler and Katana, a love affair between Hun and Han, Estelle and I had worked magic with our street performances. To a Rose from a Dandy had bombed at the box office, but our street version had prompted a small article in the Times itself.
In all that time, I took part in many different movie interpretations with different street actors, but the results were always less than satisfactory, I could never create the magic that I did with Estelle.
With her, I knew always, that our movement together was magic to the crowd, with the others, I just felt like a graceless and gormless freak. I could not obviously perform in plays with my voice, though Estelle had managed to obtain a part or two. In the one play that Estelle and I were in together, I, as the mute seaman, and she as the port side wench, our chemistry must have sparked off the fire that burned the place down the day after. Business from our street hustle had been profitable as we had been charging a quarter of the admission price at the cinemas, but then talkies had arrived, and the people had no longer wanted a mime interpretation as before with musical cues. Movies were a dying business and we were the useless tick on that bloating corpse, obviously having no hope to match the talkies.
Estelle left some time after that, she had gone on to Los Angeles to become a proper actress, promising to send for me as soon as she had enough money saved. Without her, my magic could not be replicated. In the meantime, to keep myself employed, I learned the useful skill of slipping on a banana peel, the crowd usually laughed extra hard at that owing to my bulk. I also became the go-to actor if they required someone in the stockade, or if they required a lumbering giant to act the maniac. I was encouraged to grow my hair and beard and to keep it messy to appear wild and dangerous.
I signed up for Vaudeville classes in the new year, its 1929, things can only look up from here, but I can say with excitement, I remain a part of show business.