I got a job with the TRIUMPH THEATER under unusual circumstances last November. I was walking past the theater a few days after the elections and I noticed that the "Eye" (I) and the "Aitch" (H) in the first word had been removed by some miscreant so it became the TR UMP THEATER. I stopped my trek and went in to advise the manager about this mysterious Scrabble. When he followed me out to view the changes it was a Eureka moment for him. "No wonder there has been a drop in audience and all kinds of vandalism!" I restored the sign for him and it was a relief for the manager as things returned to normal.
I was responsible for several dozen chores. Carrying the luggage of visiting showmen was one. I was carrying a big "steamer" trunk with a decal on the side that spelled out in three inch high white letters, “The Maestro and Mickey”. I guessed it wasn’t clothes I was carrying for some guy, it was props for the show . I had seen the posters in the lobby for several weeks that on February 9th, The Maestro and Mickey were playing in the theater.
The posters advised about the "greatest ventriloquist in the world" and his puppet, with names the same as on the case I carried. The trunk owner, a tall guy in a black tux and stove-pipe hat, I assumed was the ventriloquist and I assumed that the "steamer" trunk included the puppet. It was a good thing I didn’t have any bets placed on that and shift from my normal, lucrative habit of betting on horses!
When I put down the the trunk I noticed that the trunk had a grill over one end. I guessed that there were going to be a magician's pigeons or rabbits in the trunk; I hoped it wasn’t a snake. A week ago a scary snake had escaped from some act and it required a lot of cleaning up after the scared patrons.
The February 9th show, after a brief start-up act, was announced as the Maestro and Mickey Show. I had carried a pair of stools on-stage but they were empty for five minutes as the audience started to wonder what was the delay. Finally the house lights dimmed and the Maestro came out carrying the puppet everyone figured was Mickey. Mickey had a carry-handle on his back and the Maestro carried him like a piece of luggage to one of the stools and put Mickey on it. Mickey perched there with his head hanging down while the Maestro sat on the other stool about five feet away.
The Maestro greeted the audience in a sort of weird baritone voice and he waved his hand toward Mickey who then sat up straight and started opening and closing his mouth ... but no sound came out. When everyone looked back to the Maestro he was behind a cloud of cigar smoke from an immense Cuban Corona he was puffing. Everyone laughed because it was obvious that Maestro couldn’t talk for Mickey and actively smoke that cigar.
Mickey was finally heard: “Don’t laugh at that damn fool! His cigars smell like ....I’ll say "a wet dog", so I don’t offend any ladies. It is my hardest job trying to teach him to have some manners, he just doesn’t learn. He is a damn good ventriloquist though.”
The audience was dumbfounded because while Mickey ranted on about the Maestro’s bad habits the Maestro had his mouth full of the cigar and then a whiskey flask. At first there was a uniform crooning of “How the devil..” from the audience and then a series of loud discussions as different groups raised their voices about how the Maestro’s mouth was either full of cigar or his lips were clamped shut.
“Be quiet" yelled Mickey! The Maestro didn’t seem to be drawing a breath or paying much attention while Mickey’s eyes seemed to sparkle in anger so they looked like the glass marbles everyone assumed they were. His face didn’t turn red in anger, it looked like the solid, white-painted plaster everyone assumed it to be. Although his mouth moved up and down his lips remained rigid and no one could see a tongue of any kind. While Mickey ranted on about how rude the Maestro was, the Maestro was busy blowing rings of cigar smoke across the stage. The audience could see how perfectly shaped the rings were as they drifted into the beams of the spot lights.
Mickey had little lights in his bow tie that everyone in the audience figured were changing in brightness to mimic the amplitude and tone of his voice. It was easy to imagine that Mickey was some kind of robot.
Mickey shut-up for a while and the Maestro started to whistle Beethoven’s Fifth but the music was still going when Mickey started up again. The whistling and the ranting were both going for a while and then Maestro stopped and ground out his cigar and lit another.
Mickey’s discussion had turned political and he started to discuss a particular politician. Some people in the audience had voted for that politician and although they regretted having done so, they wouldn’t admit they were sorry. It was a bitter pill for them to find they were starting to agree with criticisms of some damn robot that seemed to have a mind of its own. A couple dozen folks who had voted against that particular politician cried and another vomited because that damn robot was talking sense while they reflected that millions of citizens had voted for the rascal politician.
Mickey and the Maestro finally began to start telling jokes and eventually the laughter became infectious and the political brain-worms rested for the night.
The end of the act caused total silence and the audience realized how easy it was to be fooled. Mickey jumped down from his stool, tore open his shirt to reveal a hairy chested small man who went over to the Maestro and threw a switch that caused the tall figure to fold into a pile on the floor. Mickey called for a dolly and the Maestro was loaded on and taken off stage while Mickey took a few bows.
I was the one that trundled the dolly away and probably the only one besides Mickey who saw that the Maestro was a very limber human. Later, when Mickey and I wheeled the big steamer trunk,with a grill at one end and the “The Maestro and Mickey” decal on its side, out to a taxi, no one guessed there was a man folded up inside the trunk.
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