OCR Text |
Show FICTION CORNER I I BACK SEAT SAX I XVV v Ry CATHERINE BARRETT out there. Charley's playln" his piece. I stand there and go through the motions. First thing I know I find myself lookin' down at that audience. You know, it's funny, but that's the first time I ever saw the people peo-ple in an audience. It ain't an octopus octo-pus any more. It's fellows and girls, and women that look like the woman that runs the restaurant restau-rant where I eat, or the one who sits across the way on the bus. And what do you think I see. Why, right there In the front row is Vingie. With a grin all the way across her little pink face. And clear in the back is Marge, and she's watchin' me so hard her eyes are round and shiny. Well, sir, my chest begins working work-ing again and I can breathe. My lips unfreeze. In a minute I'm standing there as easy as can be. Boy, is that a swell feeling! Like sprouting wings. I'm still feeling like a bird on the loose when the show's over and Marge comes back. She rushes right over to me, "Joe," she says first time she's ever called me Joe. "Joe, you were wonderful. I knew you could do it." And she takes my arm and bugs it to her. "Honey," I says to her, "you're not going to marry Charley, are you?" "Well, I don't know," she says. "I could calm him down a little. And if he had a wife to see that he got started to work on time. . . ." It gets me worried, see, and I begin to think that I want to get married to Marge so bad that maybe may-be now I could handle a solo spot and not go twitchy and muff it. So I ask Jake Little to give me a try. And he does, on one of the matinees. mati-nees. Do I go over big? No, I sit back there and I don't look at the audience audi-ence but 1 know it's out front. All them eyes. I begin to sweat and my mouth goes to jumping. I signal sig-nal Jake and he gets Charley to take over. I don't even ask Marge to let me take her home, I just go on to my own place. And I think about j I llv Jf??i MY NAME is Joe. but the fellows fel-lows In the orchestra call me Bunny. They're nice fellows all right and they don't do it to hurt my feelings, but I'm scared of audiences, audi-ences, see, and every time I get up in front of one my mouth starts to twitch and it makes my nose wiggle like a rabbit's. I've seen myself in a mirror and I got to admit ad-mit if I was one of the fellows I'd be calling me Bunny, too. You get what I mean. Nine years I've been in Jake Little's orchestra playing the sax ! and the bassoon. First wewent all over the country but now we've got a neat little spot in Hollywood. Jake likes me and he thinks I play the sweetest sax he ever heard, but a long time ago he quit passing me solo parts because sure as I ever got up where I faced an audience I'd get nervous and my darned mouth would start twitching and well, there I was. I've had to sit back and watch plenty of other fellows come and go, getting the solos, getting the hands, getting the raises in pay, and getting new and bigger contracts con-tracts some place else. Now it's I Charley Welch. I play better'n he does oh, that ain't bragging even Charley'll tell ! you that. Only Charley's got the personality. And he's good looking. And Marge likes him. That's the rub. Marge is head usher here at the Zenobia. One of those cute little flashy-eyed girls in the satin uniforms. uni-forms. You've seen 'em. Brass buttons down the front and swallowtails swallow-tails over their tight blue satin pants. You wouldn't think to look at Marge that she's like she is. Practical and hard working. She's had a' tough time, see. She's twenty-two but you'd never guess it. And she's got a kid five years old. The cutest little trick you ever saw. Vingie. Vingie likes me too. "Why do they call you Bunny?" she says to me, and she looks at my ears like she thinks maybe they'll grow up out of my hair. "Because I'm a rabbit, see," I tell her. Only I'm looking at her mother. Marge frowns and then she says, "That's what makes me so mad at you. Why do you let yourself be a rabbit?" Marge is like that. What she don't want to be, she won't let herself her-self be. Marge got married when she was sixteen to some rich folks' kid. He run out on her before Vingie was born and ever since Marge has taken care of herself. She's got a nice Little apartment and she dresses Vingie up clean and cute. Oh I tell you, Marge is smart. She's too good for me. She ought to have a fellow that could do a lot for her. She says to me, "If you were only the sort who'd ever get ahead." And she looks at me cross. "I like you, Bunny," she'll, say "better than any fellow I ever knew, but I don't want to get married mar-ried to a backseat sax player who'll never be anything else." Charley Welch has been making a play for Marge. I like Charley, only he's the darnedest guy about getting to work on time. Always the last one. Skating across the stage and freezing into position the very second the curtain starts up. We've kept telling him some time he'll miss it. He laughs and says he'll commence starting earlier. But he never does. "Charley's fun," Marge says to me. "And he'll get ahead too." " 'Joe,' she says, 'you were wonderful. I knew you could do it.' Vingie was there, too, dancing around and clapping hands." Charley probably taking her home in his roadster. Charley'll laugh and say, "That poor Bunny." Then comes the matinee when Charley don't show. His seat's empty and Jake is gettin' nervous and the fellows are saying like they always do, "Don't worry, he'll be here." But he don't come, and the buzzer sounds . . . and Jake makes me come up and take Charley's place. He looks down at me like he's sore and he says, "You'll do the solo. Get it?" So I'm stuck with it. And I tell myself, all right, you got to. You ain't going to be a rabbit all your life. Think of Vingie. And remember, remem-ber, Marge is out there. I ain't begun to twitch because I got my lips held so tight they're moving my teeth back into my mouth. T KNOW the part all right. I al-1 al-1 ways know all the parts. And I can play 'em like a million dollars at home. I can even play 'em for Marge. It's the audience that gets me. All them eyes. Okey, I tell myself, you do it this time, or you're through. And I mean through. f My time comes and I stand up. I start lifting my sax. I'm not twitching. twitch-ing. . . . But my lips has frozen solid over my teeth. I try, and get out of breath and my chest collapses. col-lapses. But my sax is up. The cue comes. And the sweetest music I ever heard comes floating in from the wings. I look quick sideways. Charley's Right behind her is Vingie and she's saying, "I saw you, I saw you," and dancing around and clapping clap-ping her hands. Well, if I'm still a bird, I'm a dead one. All that swell feeling is gone. One thing I've never done is lie. I've been told I'm too dumb to lie. Well, maybe. But still I don't lie. Only so help me if I didn't want to then. But I said, "It wasn't me. Honey. Charley was playing from the wings." So I tell her how it all was. She looks at me and her eyes get shiny, and I've never seen her mouth so soft. "And you carried right on," she said, and her voice sounded like it does when she talks to Vingie just before Vingie goes to sleep. "That was cute of you, Joe," she says. And she takes hold of my arm again and says, "I promised Vingie Vin-gie you'd take us out for a bite of dinner. Will you?" Just then Charley goes by. "Hello, Charley," Marge says, and turns her back on him, plain as day. I'm beginning to see how much I owe the guy and I says "Thanks, Charley," and he just shakes his hands above his head and grins and keeps going. And Marge just says, "Come on, Vingie," and holds out her hand. Vingie frowns a little. "Can't I walk on the other side and hold Joe's hand?" So she does. That night Marge put her hands on my shoulders and says: "Joe, I think you're going places." Then she leans against me and puts her face into my coat. "Will you take me with you?" she says. And there's Vingie dancing around us clapping her hands, and saying, "Me, too, Joey, me, tool" |