I reached Times Square here; that’s Seventh Avenue where the horse is trotting out, Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre over on the corner. This was vaudeville, I found out. Standing in the lobby I read: 17 Big-Star Acts. William Rock & Maude Fulton in their entirely new Satirical Protean Musical Revue with Co. of 12 . . . Walter C. Kelly, “The Virginia Judge” . . . Arthur Dunn & Marion Murray in “Two Feet from Happiness” . . . The Three Keatons, the Tumblebug Family, with a family photograph, a smiling very young Buster in the middle. Seventeen big acts: Lane & O’Donnel, Comedy Skit . . . Van Hoven, the Dippy, Mad Musician . . . Palfrey, Barton and Brown (the tumbling law firm?). But Tessie and Ted? Nope.
So I wandered around, into and out of the West Forty-second Street theaters, like these. . . . Checked with a stage manager (the little fat one). Nothing.
Then on down this famous Broadway of theaters: the New Amsterdam, Liberty, New York, Empire, Criterion, Lyceum, Knickerbocker, Garrick, Hudson, Harris, Gaiety, Park, Fulton, George M. Cohan, Grand, Wallack’s, Fifth Avenue, Winter Garden, Maxine Elliott’s, Playhouse, Broadway, Casino, Lyric, Herald Square, Lew Fields . . . and more. A sophisticated Broadway of world-famous Rector’s and Shanley’s. Of opulent hotels: the Normandie, Marlborough, Knickerbocker . . . But now also this leisurely daytime street of corner loafers and the Horatio Alger shoeshine boy. A street of barbershops, pool halls, and (I heard the sudden hollow clatter of wooden pins from somewhere) bowling alleys. And a street of sidewalk fruit stands, and even a movie house. No fake glamour or glitz, but an almost homely street, this easy, comfortable daytime Broadway. I climbed a few steps of a lowered fire escape to take this. Across the street there, the Knickerbocker Theatre where tomorrow The Greyhound would open . . . where tomorrow the Dove Lady would walk by—right there, right across the street. And standing on the walk to stare after her would be Z. Who next day would write a letter to say so. And which I had already read.
But Tessie and Ted? I walked on, clear down to Twenty-eighth Street here, the end of the theatrical district. Checked out Daly’s. And Joe Weber’s next door. And—my last hope—Proctor’s Fifth Avenue Theatre down at the end of the block there. No Tessie and Ted, but . . . there was the Dove Lady.
Listed along with the others on the vaudeville bill, her photo on a big lobby easel, a bird on each shoulder, she smiling out at the world; a good friendly face. And Madam Zelda, the world-renowned mind reader, and six other acts. I stood there at the Dove Lady’s photo, bemused, thinking that just maybe Rube was right: Here the connections still existed. Here the people of Rube’s handful of old dead letters still lived. Was I really in some odd way going to find the lost people I was hunting?
Yes, damn it, yes, if not here, then somewhere—and it occurred to me that there was one last place to hunt. And back at the hotel I bought a copy of Variety, took it up to my room, and, shoes off, lay back against the headboard, and found . . . twenty fine trained roosters. Found Deas, Reed and Deas. Found Nadje. Found—could it be—Ed Wynn’s mother? Found this—as it seemed to me—sad and forlorn pair. Found endless vaudeville acts, large and small, including a monkey man. What’s that? And if you were a first-class monkey man, would your mother be proud? Surely Mrs. Kuhn was proud of her three boys and their clever way with words. I lay on my bed looking through column after column of ads like these—some big, some small—wondering who these people were, these monkey men, double-voiced people, and White Kuhns.
Well, they were people with problems, just like the rest of us, problems that sometimes showed up in their ads. This inimitable trio seemed to be having trouble with imitators. Even world-renowned Eva Tanguay had problems. Just like me. Through page after page, column upon column of ads like these, not a word of Tessie and Ted.
17
IN MY HOTEL ROOM in the morning, walking across the carpet buttoning my shirt, I stopped at the window to see what was going on outside today. Nothing much, the usual, except . . . were the pedestrians across the street moving a little more quickly? Yes. Then a group of three boys, heading west, came running, passing the other pedestrians, and I finished with my shirt, grabbed a jacket, and went downstairs to stand on the curb staring toward Columbus Circle three blocks to the west. Lot of people over there, mostly men, all turning north into Central Park West, all in a hurry.
“What’s going on?” said the Jotta Girl at my elbow.
“Don’t know.”
“Well, let’s go see!” She took my arm, and we stepped down off the curb to cross. Then I gripped her elbow, holding her back; an open roadster was tootling along toward us from the east just a shade too fast—a dark green beauty, windshield folded flat down on the hood—but it slowed and stopped beside us. “Going to see knobby shoes?” the driver said—to both of us, I guess, but looking at the Jotta Girl. He was maybe thirty-five, hatless, wearing a heavy black turtleneck. “Well, hop in!” Hands on his big wooden steering wheel, his idling engine going chunka-chunka, chunka-chunka, he sat grinning at us, open and friendly, nodding at the seat beside him.
I said, “Well . . .” but the Jotta Girl said, “Sure. Thanks!” We walked around the back of the car; two enormous spare tires lay flat, strapped to the back. He’d leaned across to open the door for us, and for some reason I got in first, surprising the Jotta Girl a little, and me too. She pulled the door closed, he shoved the shift lever, a heavy rod with a grip handle that rose straight up from the wooden floor, and we rolled on, keeping to the car tracks for a smooth ride. Suddenly I felt good; this was a fine day, the windshield folded flat down on the long hinged hood, the air gentle on our faces. Our driver sat glancing up at the sky, almost sniffing the air, then turned toward us with a big smile and said, “Looks like old knobby picked a good day.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but the Jotta Girl said, “I’m worried about him.”
“Well, he’s not worried, you can bet your boots.” Our driver grinned at her. “My name’s Coffyn,” he said then, “Frank Coffyn,” and the Jotta Girl, sounding surprised and delighted, said, “The aviator?” and he nodded, looking pleased. We told him our names; then the Jotta Girl sat sneaking little looks at him. He had a longish thin face, dark blondish hair, and—no, he wasn’t wearing it long, I saw, just needed a haircut. The wind was ruffling his hair, and when he sort of smoothed it back, the Jotta Girl said, “I expect your hair is permanently windblown from flying so much.”
“Yep.” He leaned forward to smile across me at her. “Used to be curly, but years of flying straightened it out.” I could tell he’d used the line before, but she laughed.