All that, what I’ve just been telling you, was in the last part of November. When the first of December came, it crossed my mind it was funny no bills had been forwarded to me. On the third I found out why. When I came downstairs in the morning and crossed the lobby, the clerk called me and he had my check in his hand, the one I had given him for my next month’s room rent. It had bounced. I blinked at it, and I knew then why there hadn’t been any bills. Doris was paying her own bills. The money was in a joint account, in her name and mine, and she had drawn every cent of it out, started an account somewhere else, and there I was. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that she would do it. It never entered my head.
I said there must be some mistake, and I would see him that afternoon. I went out, and hustled over to Newark, and borrowed $300 from a manufacturer of power shovels we had done some business with. I got back just in time to get in the bank, so I could cover that check before they closed, then went back and told the clerk it was all right, I had drawn on the wrong account, and he could put it through. I went up to my suite and counted my money. I had $75 over what I had deposited in the bank, and $7 over that. My expenses, over the $170 a month I was paying for the suite, were about $50 a week, not counting club dues and other things I couldn’t stave off very long. I was just about a week and a half from the boneyard, and I began to feel it again, that thick rage against Doris and the way she treated me. It would suit her fine, I knew, to have me coming on my knees to her, begging for money, and then give me a song and dance about how she had the children to think of, and send me out with the $12 she could spare from the crumbs she was saving for the household. I didn’t have to be told how that would go. I walked around the suite, and after a while something in me clicked. I knew I’d never go to her if I starved first. I began to think about Horn and his $150 a night.
Next day he called up. “Mr. Borland?”
“Yes?”
“This is Bert Horn again. Remember?”
“Oh yeah. How are you?”
“All right. Listen, my other tenor got to town last night. Fact of the matter, I stole him off Rossi and that was what I was doing in Pittsburgh. Guy by the name of Parma. You know him?”
“Yeah, I sang with him. Tell him I said hello.”
“I will, and he said to tell you hello. Listen, if you’re as good as he says you are, I might raise that offer. I might up the ante to $200.”
“Well now you’re talking. Come on over.”
He came, and looked me over again, and the place over again, and then he laughed and shook his head. “Well, if you’re a singer you’re the funniest-looking thing in the way of a singer that I ever saw. No offense, but I swear to God you don’t look it.”.
“You play?”
“Some kind of way, yes.”
“Come on up.”
I took him up on the third floor, where the piano was, and opened the windows, and shoved the Traviata aria in front of him. He played it and I sang it. When I got through he nodded. “I guess they weren’t kidding me.”
We went down again, and he got down to cases. “All right, how many roles do you know?”
“Three.”
“… Just three.”
“Marcel, Germont, and Rigoletto. I sang one other role, but it was a pinch-hitting job, and I wouldn’t know it now if I heard it.”
“What role was it?”
“Wagner in Faust. I don’t sing French, but they let me do it in Italian. They shoved it at me in the morning, I sang it that afternoon, and I had forgotten it by night.”
That made the same impression on him it had on the others. An opera impresario, he’s a little like a baseball manager. He knows all about smoke. He gets that every day. But a guy that can come out of the bull-pen and finish a ball game, that’s different. When he heard that, he quit worrying, and began to lay it out what I’d have to do. The hitch came over the guarantee. With just those three operas, he couldn’t make it three times a week, because they weren’t giving Traviata on a weekly schedule. He wanted me to get up Trovatore, Lucia, and Aida, and then later Don Giovanni, and they would revive it if they thought I was right for it. I said I couldn’t get up that many roles by the end of the winter if I had to sing three times a week too. So then he had a different idea. “All right, we’ll say Lucia and Trovatore, but get Pagliacci up by next week, and then we can put you on three times. You see, ham-and-eggs is once a week too, and—”
“… What is?”
“Ham and eggs. Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, the double bill. Pagliacci you can get up quick. After the prologue, which I suppose you know, you have almost nothing to do, just two real scenes, not over ten minutes of actual singing altogether. Then we can—”
“Oh. All right then.”
“You’ll need a coach. I recommend Lorentz. Hugo Lorentz, I’ll give you his address, a good man, works with us, and—”
“You know anybody else?”
“… Well, there’s Siegal. He’s more of a voice teacher, but he knows the routines, and—”
“Fine, I’ll take him. When do we start?”
“Next week. Get Pagliacci up by then, and then later we can work you in on the others. But we want to bring you out in Rigoletto. That makes you important.”
“Nothing I like so well as to be important.”
So by that afternoon I had connected with Siegal, and was back in the same old groove. I found out then how much Cecil had been giving me for nothing. Do you know what that bird took? He charged me $25 an hour, and I had to have him every day. I had to borrow $200 more in Newark, and it was an awful crimp in my $600 a week. But at that, $450 was nothing to be sneezed at.
I asked for a rehearsal on Rigoletto, with three or four of the choristers. In the scene before the courtiers there was some stuff I wanted to do, and I had to make them slam me down so I really hit the deck, so when I came crawling back to them I would really be on my knees. They told me to come over to the theatre. I went up to the third floor and put on an old suit of corduroys I always wore around concrete work, and walked over. That was so I could practice the stage falls. I hadn’t remembered about the Hippodrome, while Horn was talking. I mean, it just sounded like a theatre on Sixth Avenue, and nothing more. So when I went in the stage door and through, the stage caught me by surprise. I don’t know if you were ever back there to see that stage. It would have done pretty good for a railroad station if they laid tracks and put train sheds in, except there would be an awful lot of waste space up top. But did it feaze me? It did not. I was a pro now. I walked to the middle of it, let out a couple of big ones, and it felt pretty good. I stuck out my chest. I thought how I was putting it over on Doris, and how like hell I would come begging her for anything.
The conductor, Gustav Schultz, was at the piano, and we went through it. I think he wanted to look me over. I showed them how I wanted them to heave me, and after a while they got it so it suited me. When we quit, I saw Parma in the wings, and went over and shook hands. “Hello boy, hello, how’s a old kid?”
“Fine. How’s yourself?”
“O. K. Say, is swell, how you do this scene. What da hell? A goddam baritones, run for a bedroom, make little try, audience all a time wonder why he don’t get in. Look like he must be weak. Ought to fight like hell, just like you do’m now, and then pow!—down he go, just like this!”
He threw his shoulder under my belly, and I went head over heels on to the floor. It was one stage fall I didn’t expect. Then he laughed like hell. Singers, they’re a funny breed. They’ve got what you might call a rudimentary sense of humor, in the first place, and they’re awful proud of their muscles, in the second place. They spend half their time telling the conductor they’re going to knock him back into the customers’ laps if he doesn’t quit his cussedness, and I’ll say for them they could do it if they tried. People think they’re a flock of fairies. They’re more like wrestlers. Well, singing doesn’t come from the spirit. It comes from the belly, and it takes plenty of
belly and chest to do it right.
I got up, and laughed, and he and Schultz and I went out and had a drink. He took red wine with seltzer. They don’t drink much, but a wop tenor likes red ink.
The afternoon of the performance I put off lunch till three o’clock, then went out and had a good one. I came back to the office and vocalized my voice. It came up quick, and felt good. I was beginning to get nervous. They all get nervous, but this was different from what I had felt before. It had a little tingle to it. I felt I was good. I walked up to the hotel and it was about half past four. I lay down and got a little sleep.
It seemed funny to be putting the make-up on without Cecil bobbing in to give me the double O, but I got it in place, and put on the funny clothes, and tried my voice. It was still up, and was all right. Horn came in, looked me over, and nodded. “The contracts are ready.”
“You got them with you?”
“My secretary’s bringing them over. I’ll be in with them after the show. How do you feel?”
“I feel all right.”
There came a knock on the door, and a little wop in a derby hat came in and stood beside me where I was at the table and began to talk about how some of my admirers wanted to hear me sing, but their tickets would cost them a lot, and more stuff like that, and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, except it seemed to be some kind of a touch. Horn was behind him. He nodded and held up ten fingers. I got my pocketbook, passed out $10 and the guy left. “What was that?”
“The claque.”
“What’s the claque?”
“A bunch of self-elected noise-makers, that you pay to clap when you sing, and whether they do or not nobody knows. If you don’t pay, they’re supposed to take some terrible revenge, like blowing whistles at you or something like that. Whether they do or not, nobody knows. I generally go along with them, and so do the singers. They’re harmless, just one of those things that opera has like a dog has fleas.”
“There was nothing like that in the American Scala.”
“Maybe they took care of it for you.”
He went, and I wished everything that came up didn’t remind me of Cecil. I knew who had taken care of it all right, without being told. And I knew why. Knowing the applause was paid, or any part of it was paid, would have taken all the fun out of it for me. So it was taken care of. I tried my voice again, then remembered she had told me when it was right to leave it alone. There didn’t seem to be any help for it. Everywhere I turned, she was standing there beside me.
I went down, then walked over and had a look at the calls. Then my heart skipped a beat. On the first two calls at the end of the second act, we were all in it, me, Parma, the Gilda, and the people in the small parts. Then on the next two it was just the Gilda and me. And then it said:
Mr. Borland (If)
I walked out on the stage to get the feel of the set, and the tingle was clear down to my feet. I made up my mind there wasn’t going to be any if about it. I was going to get that call or split my throat.
Parma was right in the Questa o Quella, so Act I got off to a swell start, and they ripped right along with it. I got a hand when I came on, whether it was the claque or the publicity I don’t know, but I don’t think it could have all been claque. There had been a lot of stuff in the papers about me. I was singing under my own name now, and it seemed to strike them as a good story that a big contractor should turn into a singer, but anyway it made me feel good, and I hit it right in the scene with the second baritone, and we got a fine curtain. Hippodrome opera wasn’t like Metropolitan opera. It was 99-cent opera, and that audience acted the way it felt. The second scene of the act went even better. The bass was a pretty good comic, and I fed to him all I could, so we got away with the duet in swell shape. The Gilda was all right in the Caro Nome, not like Cecil, but plenty good. The duets went well, and we got another good curtain, and were on our way.
When it came to the scene before the courtiers, the one I had rehearsed with the choristers, I did it a little different than I had been doing it. I got a break at the start. The Ceprano had one of these small, throaty baritones, and when it came to the place where I was to mock him on Ch’hai di nuovo, buffon, I shot it back to him just the way he had given it to me, and it got a big laugh. I had them then, and I chucked tone quality out the window. The first part of the scene I shouted, talked, and whispered, till I got to the place where they slammed me back on my hunkers. Then I remembered Bohème. I came crawling back, and plucked the hem of Marullo’s doublet, and gave them tears. I sang it dolce, and then some. I opened every spigot there was, and at the end of it I was flat on the floor, hanging on to the high F like my heart would break, and finishing off like I could just barely make myself do it. There wasn’t any pause then. The first “bravo” came like a pistol shot before I even got through, and then they came from all over the house, and the applause in a swelling roar. I lay there, the heart bowed down, for quite a time. There were thousands of them, and it took them longer to quiet down than in other places. The Gilda came running on, then, and we did the duet, and the curtain came down.
Did I get that call? I’m telling you I did. I took the Gilda out twice, and then Parma aimed a kick at me, and then there I was, in front of them all alone, trying to remember how to bow. There’s nothing like it.
I went to my dressing room, walked around, and was so excited I couldn’t even sit down. I wanted to go out there and do it all over again. It didn’t seem two minutes before they called me, and I went down for the last act.
The Gilda and I did the stuff that starts it, and then went off, and Parma had it to himself for the La Donna è Mobile. I think I’ve given you the idea by now that that dumb wop is a pretty good tenor. He knocked them over with it, and by the time the Maddalena came on, and the Gilda and I went out again for the quartet, we were in the homestretch of one of those performances you read about. So the quartet started. Well, you’ve heard the Rigoletto quartet a thousand times, but don’t let anybody tell you it’s a pushover. The first part goes a mile a minute, the second part slower than hell, and if there’s one thing harder to sing than a fast allegro it’s a slow andante, and three times out of five something happens, and many times as you’ve heard it you haven’t often heard it right. But we were right. Parma started it like a breeze, and the Maddalena was right on top of him, and the Gilda and I were right on top of her, and we closed out the allegro with all our cylinders clicking and the show doing seventy. Parma laid it down nice on the andante, and we were right with him, and we brought it home just right. We were right on the end of the stick. Well, that stopped the show too. They clapped, and cheered, and clapped some more, and Schultz threw the stick on me to go on, and a fat chance I could. We had to give them some more. So after about a minute, Schultz played the cue for the andante, and Parma started again.
He started, and the Maddalena came in, and the Gilda came in, and I came in. It seemed to me we got in there with it awful quick, but I was so excited by that time I hardly knew where I was, and I didn’t pay much attention to it. And then all of a sudden I had this awful feeling that something was wrong.
I want you to get it straight now, what happened. The andante is the same old tune, Bella figliav dell’amore, that you’ve heard all your life and could whistle in your sleep. The tenor sings it through once, then he goes up to a high B flat, holds it, comes down again, and sings it over again. The second time he sings it, the contralto comes in, then the soprano, then the baritone, and they’re off into the real quartet. Well, our contralto, the Maddalena, was an old-time operatic hack that had sung it a thousand times, but something got into her, and instead of waiting for Parma to finish that strain once, she came in like she would on the repeat. And she pulled the Gilda in. And the Gilda pulled me in. You remember what I told you about speed? Up there you’ve got no time to think. You hear your cue, and you come in, and God help you if you miss the boat. So there was Parma and there was the orchestra, in one place in the score, an
d there were the Maddalena, the Gilda, and me, in another place in the score, and there was Schultz, trying like a wild man to straighten it out. Not a whisper from the audience, you understand. So long as you keep going, and do your best, they’ll give you a break, and even if you crack up and have to start over they’ll give you a break—so long as you do your best. They all want to laugh, but they won’t—so long as you keep your head down and sock.
But I didn’t know then what was wrong. All I knew was that it was getting sourer by the second, and I started looking around for help. That was all they needed. That one little flash of the white feather, and they let out a roar.
You can think of a lot of things in one beat of music. It flashed through my head I had heard the bird at last. It flashed through my head, in some kind of dumb way, why I had heard it. I turned around and faced them. I must have looked sore. They roared again.
That whole big theatre then was spinning around for me like a cage with a squirrel in it, and me the squirrel. I had to know where I was at. I looked over, and tried to see Parma. And then, brother, and then once more, I committed the cardinal sin of all grand opera. I forgot to watch the conductor. I didn’t know that he had killed his orchestra, killed his singers, brought the whole thing to a stop, and was wigwagging Parma to start it over. And here I came, bellowing out with my part:
Taci e mia saràla cura, la vendetta d’affrettar!
They howled. They let out a shriek you could hear in Harlem. Some egg yelled “Bravo!” A hundred of them yelled “Bravo!” A million of them yelled “Bravo,” and applauded like hell.
I ran.
Next thing I knew, I was by a stairway, holding on to the iron railing, almost twisting it out by the roots trying to keep myself from flying into a million pieces. The Gilda was beside me, yelling at me at the top of her lungs, and don’t think a coloratura soprano can’t put on a nice job of plain and fancy cussing when she gets sore. The stagehands were standing around, looking at me as though I was some leper that they didn’t dare touch. Outside, Schultz was playing the introduction to the stuff between the contralto and the bass. He had had to skip five whole pages. I just stood there, twisting at those iron bars.