Sofia's Tune (15 page)

Chapter 16

After seeing Sofia home, Antonio headed up to the theater district. Union Square was busy, the streets bulging with vaudeville performers he had to push through. They were all looking for work and many could do his job. Thankfully the manager at the Roman Athenaeum liked him. Without this employment Antonio might have no extra funds for his savings. First he should give the society housing his uncle a hefty donation. He hadn’t meant to insult them the last time he was there. Without them, Nicco might have been killed out on the streets.

As he neared the entrance of the theater, a man approached them, a manager who had not been there last week when Antonio was hired. He chuckled when he saw Luigi. “The Victor dog, don’t you know. How extraordinary the way he listens to you.”

“Yes, well, not really. Just resembles him.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m the pianist tonight, Antonio Baggio.” He’d been hired for the late, late shows.

The man flipped pages on a clipboard. “Have you been booked by the agency?”

Antonio knew booking agents were everywhere, he’d been approached by quite a few, but the theaters had been moving away from such arrangements, according to Mac and the manager at the Roman he had met last week. “No. Must I be?” Booking agencies required a fee and he didn’t much like dividing his earnings.

The fellow laughed and handed a female dancer a fan as she scooted past them. “I understand Cox booked you. That’s fine, then. Superb.” He leaned in. “The other performers will despise you should they learn you’ve not paid a booking fee, so I should not discuss it if I were you.”

“Very well.”

“What about your dog?”

“Lu? He’ll wait for me like he always does.”

“How incredible. Nice pooch.” The man made kissing sounds. Lu growled and the man jumped back.

Good dog. Keep on letting folks know you can hold your own.

Later, Antonio watched as the theater manager counted out bills and put them in his pay envelope. “It was a good night, son. A packed house.”

Antonio had played a mixture of ragtime and classical. It was a compromise he didn’t mind making. He’d enjoyed it. He’d relished the applause. God was blessing Antonio’s plans at last.

“I…uh…I was wondering. Mr. Cox told me I would work all week. Should I come back the same time tomorrow?”

“No.” He slapped the envelope into Antonio’s hand.

He swallowed hard. “Earlier then? Should I come by and check?”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” He started to turn away. Luigi growled. “Your dog seems a bit aggressive. Move along. Your work is done here.”

Antonio put a hand on the man’s arm. “You didn’t like my playing?”

The man lifted Antonio’s fingers from his navy suit sleeve. “Look, you’re very good. Cox recognized your talent. However, there’s a multitude out there like you.” He smiled. “You’re a good fella. Go down to Longacre Square. Mingle with the performers there. You’ll learn about new opportunities as they come up.”

“But…you see, the Roman Athenaeum is the kind of place where I want—”

“You want, huh? They all want to work here. Just a bit of advice. Take it or leave it.” He bent down to pet Lu who immediately jumped up and stood behind Antonio. “Or, if you want steady work you could go over to 28th Street and work as a song plugger.” The manager shrugged and then disappeared into the long, tenebrous hallway.

Antonio caught a whiff of cigar smoke that nearly choked him. He left the theater thinking about his options. Tin Pan Alley, they called it, the place where sheet music was produced. Antonio cringed to think of working as a plugger, someone who plunked away at a new tune the publisher was pushing to sell. There was no art in that job. No applause or lingering enjoyment by listeners. “Come on, Lu. I need work, so off to Longacre Square we go. We’ll skip Tin Pan Alley for now.” Papà wouldn’t have liked Antonio roaming around the nocturnal city like this, but he wasn’t here now and there was nothing else Antonio knew how to do to pay his rent. His father hadn’t taken anyone’s money. He couldn’t have. There was never any extra. If it weren’t for the mystery of his father being at Cooper Union, Antonio would have dismissed those crazy notes. However, since his father had been there, there was obviously something he kept secret. He glanced at his watch. Still several hours before the bank would open.

Luigi trailed after Antonio as he paced down sidewalks intermittently shadowed by shop awnings. The businesses themselves were locked up tight for the night, but there was plenty of light spilling onto the street from saloons and billiard halls. Men and women wearing stage powdered faces passed him by, accompanied by normally attired folks. Actors and musicians he assumed. This was the part of the city where they lived and lolled while waiting for work. The Beach, some liked to call it, as though waiting around was akin to a holiday. It wasn’t. To be beached meant you were always out here and never inside a theater working.

He drew in a breath and the smells of ale and cigarettes accosted his senses. Pausing to listen to a singer practice an aria, Antonio thought about that moment of quiet before a curtain is lifted, the time when both audience and performers inhale in anticipation. The revelry out here was lacking that sacred moment, that specialness he craved. Why had God teased him by only seeming to answer his prayers?

He continued on. The agents also hung out in this area. Those leeches whose only employment consisted of taking money from starving artists for setting them up with theater managers.

He paused and leaned against a cast iron pillar framing a shop entrance.

“Is that the Victor dog, Nipper?” A man with a cane came trotting up to him from across the street.

“Looks a bit like him, people say.” Antonio replied. “His name is Luigi.”

The man pursed his lips as he stared at the dog. “I thought for a moment, sir, that the dog was looking for a new job.” He laughed and stroked his white beard. “He is about the same size, although his ears are different. Probably his demeanor is what reminds people of that advertisement. Are you looking to get him into an act?”

Lu turned his whole body away from the man and stared at nothing on the wall.

“No, he’s not a vaudeville act, sir. I’m not either.”

“Pity. What are you, then?”

The diamond pin in the man’s lapel told Antonio this was not an ordinary grubbing agent. He was a successful one. How much cut did he take in a deal? “I’m a musician.”

The man groaned. “Accordion? Fiddle? Guitar? Listen, son, there’s not much call for that in today’s theater, not unless you’ve got an animal act to go with it.” He tried to pet Lu, but the dog inched away from him.

“I am a pianist and an organist up at St. Anthony’s.”

“Well, good evening to you, young man.” The agent marched off, waving to a group of men waiting outside a gentleman’s league.

Antonio looked down at his dog, who whimpered. “He’ll be off smoking cigars in a velvet room and forget about you. Don’t worry. They’ll be no vaudeville act for my dog.”

That sent Lu’s tail wagging.

Antonio and Luigi kept moving down the sidewalk. “We’ll stop into an all-night cafe for coffee and a biscuit, what do you say?”

Antonio had never gone searching for employment before. So far his work had come from referrals and now he realized how much he preferred it that way. He paused to gaze up at an electric sign. Glass bulbs spelled out
New York
in letters that arched like a sun peeking over a horizon. Underneath it spelled
Burlesque Ballet and Varieties
. The architecture of the building resembled a fine theater, but those gaudy light bulb letters suggested otherwise.

The overwhelming thought that he was more out of place here than he’d been on Mulberry Street swam in his mind. Burlesque, from the Italian word
burla,
a parody, a joke. What had he lowered himself to?

He clicked his tongue and Lu jumped up. They approached the massive structure of Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre at the corner of 7th Avenue and 42nd Street. Variety theater was everywhere, and that was good for musicians and actors alike, but the times were changing, or so the newspapers kept saying. Moving pictures would take over someday. Maybe these pictures would swallow up variety shows and burlesque ballets, but not concerts and operas that had been around for centuries. Definitely not. We would always have Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Strauss, and Wagner. So long as there were European opera houses and music academies, there would be music performed in front of audiences. Oh, how he longed to study at Oberlin, where folks understood the beauty of a well-performed piece of music and also the value of a well-rounded education, like Papà had wanted for his only son. Song plugger? Not him.

The Fourteenth Street Theater was probably his best bet. He’d go back and talk to Mac. But first coffee for himself and a treat for his dog. He was near the construction site of the new Times Building. Despite the crowds still on the street, the walkways were dark and treacherous, so he had to pick his way carefully. He lifted Luigi and carried him beyond a pile of lumber and bricks until his feet hit sound pavement again. At the rate they were building in this city, there would be no more room for people.

It was not difficult finding an open cafe in this district of late night theaters and vaudeville, but finding one with an open stool was quite another matter. After placing his dog outside of two cafes and then coming right back out again when he found them too crowded, he finally ducked into a corner cafe called Healy’s and sat on a stool where he could see out the window and keep an eye on Luigi.

He ordered coffee. Putting his elbows on the bar, he closed his eyes. Voices drifted to him from a nearby booth.

“Honestly, Viola, if you take a break from plays now you’ll cost yourself a lot of earnings.”

Plays? He wondered if he was overhearing a conversation with the famous actress Viola Allen. Women weren’t normally admitted in saloons, and this place was more tavern than restaurant. She had to be someone famous to garner such an exception.

He turned just enough to get a glimpse. A man in a striped shirt and suspenders was talking to a woman. She outdid him in elegance, wearing one of those French evening gowns, the kind with flowing, frost-like skirts. The bodice dripped in lace, as did the sleeves.

Distracted by the grumbling in his stomach, he glanced up at the man tending the bar. He should get something more substantial than a biscuit. “Hard boiled egg, please.” It was all he could afford.

The man barely moved.

He had to get something for his dog. “Two, that is. Thank you.” Antonio hoped he had enough in his pocket to cover the bill. No wonder this place had open tables, what with the prices he saw written on a board above the bar.

“If you want a meal, we have a dining room in the back.”

“Uh, no thank you. Just coffee and eggs, please. Do you mind if I have it in here? I can see my dog out there.” The place was virtually empty.

“That will be fine, sir.” He glanced quickly at the lady and then back at Antonio. “She will only be here a moment.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Antonio said.

The barman huffed. “It is not
your
sensibilities I’m concerned with. See that you mind yourself while a woman’s in the room.”

“Of course.” After the man left behind a door, Antonio couldn’t help but observe what was happening nearby. A man approached the booth where the fancy woman sat and she left with him. The other man waited just a moment and then rose to throw some money on the table. He must have felt Antonio staring because he turned to him. “Beautiful but temperamental.”

“Are you an agent for performers, sir?”

The man took the stool next to him and chuckled. “Oh, no. Nothing of the sort. I’m an author, of short stories, but don’t look so worried, son. She’s more likely to show up in one of my tales than you are, or at least her attitude is. Sydney Porter’s the name.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” He wasn’t sure why, but at that moment he remembered Mrs. Adams’s father, the short story writer she’d dedicated her library to. “Have you heard of a man named Marty Gallagher, who wrote under the name Luther Redmond?”

The man smiled and accepted a cup from the waiter although Antonio had not seen him order anything. “Who hasn’t?”

Antonio told him about the charitable library and about Hawkins House.

“I’m all in favor of benefaction, my son. Now tell me your name. What brings you here tonight?”

“Antonio Baggio.” He extended his hand. “I’m a struggling pianist, I’m afraid. Trying to get to Oberlin to continue my studies.”

“Oberlin? That’s in Ohio, right?”

“Yes, have you been there?”

The barman interrupted them to bring Antonio not only his coffee and eggs but toast and sausages, as well.

He held up a hand. “There has been a mistake.”

The waiter smiled for the first time. “Anyone who is a friend of O. Henry is a friend of this establishment. No charge at all.”

Antonio reached for his wallet. “But I must insist. I pay my own way.”

The man seated next to Antonio held up his palm. “Please, it’s my treat for allowing me to bend your ear.”

“Thank you, Mr.…Henry, is it?”