The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (92 page)

I hadn’t spanked him since he was seven years old. Now that he was a tall fifteen-year-old the temptation to slap the water out of him was almost irresistible.

John Killens was expectedly sympathetic and, unfortunately, unhelpful. “You’ve got a theater and no cash, a cause and no play. Yep. Your work is cut out for you. Good luck. Keep trying.”

Time and need had me in their clutches. Entertainers who had been contacted were calling Hugh or Godfrey every day; they in turn, telephoned me, asking when we could start auditions. I wasn’t working, so at fifteen Guy was the only breadwinner. His money provided food, and John and Grace lent me money for rent so that I didn’t have to touch my small savings account. I needed the American Guild of Variety Artists scale I would receive once the play was on.

Desperation had triumphed the day Godfrey stopped by my house. He had dropped off a fare in the next block and decided to ring my bell and see if I was in.

When I opened the door and saw his face, I started crying. He stepped into the foyer and took me in his arms.

“I’ve had women scream when they saw me, and some broads laugh when I come up on them all of a sudden, but I never had anybody break down and start crying.” He was patting my shoulder. “You’re a first, baby. I appreciate what you’re doing. You’re a first. Cry on. Cry your heart out. I’m enjoying this.”

I had to laugh.

“No, keep on crying. I’ll write you down in my diary. I’ve heard of women who cry when a man leaves, but you cry when …”

Laughter defeated my tears. I led him into the living room and went to the kitchen for coffee. I washed my face and composed myself. The tears had been as much a surprise to me as they were to Godfrey.

“Godfrey, I can’t write the play. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Well, hell, you start with Act I, Scene I, same way Shakespeare started.”

My throat hurt and tears began to well up behind my eyes.

“I can’t write the damn thing. I’ve agreed to do something I can’t do.”

“Well, don’t do it, then. Nobody’s going to die if you don’t write the
damn play. Fact is, it might be better if you didn’t write a word. There’s a lot of people who would be grateful not to have to sit through one more bad play. Personally, I wish a lot of playwrights would have said just what you said. ‘I can’t write the damn thing.’ ” He laughed at himself.

“But what can we do? The SCLC is waiting. Art D’Lugoff is waiting. Hugh and the entertainers are ready. And I’m the bottleneck.”

He drank the coffee and thought for a minute. “We’ll let the entertainers do their acts. Most of them have been out of work so long, they’ll jump quicker than a country girl at a hoedown. You don’t have to write a play. If you’ve got a skit or two, you can give it to them. We’ll do a cabaret kind of thing. That’s all.”

When I realized that Godfrey’s idea was workable, the burden of tension left my body and for the first time in weeks I relaxed and my brain started to function.

“We could ask them for songs and dances and turns particularly black.”

“The old Apollo routines. Something like Redd Foxx and Slappy White. You know: ‘I’m Fox’ and the other one says, ‘I’m White,’ then Foxx answers, ‘You’re either a fool or you’re color blind.’ ”

The ideas were springing. There was no reason to worry. We would have a show. We would raise money. The reputation I didn’t even have was not going to be ruined.

Godfrey looked at his watch. “Gotta go. Some fool without a dime in his pocket is waiting to get me to take him to the Bronx.” He got up. “This stop was okay. I helped a damsel in distress. Maybe my next fare will pay me in Canadian dimes.”

We stood at the door and I looked at the rusted and dented taxi, illegally parked in front of my house.

“You could have got a ticket.”

He said, “That would have been the only thing given to me today. You’re okay now. We’ve got a show. A cabaret.” He had the taxi door open.

I shouted, “We’ll call it ‘Cabaret for Freedom.’ O.K.?”

“Yeah, that sounds serious. Entertaining and serious. Just what we ought to be. See you.”

Straight out of the movies. We were the talented unknowns, who with only our good hearts, and those of our friends, would create a show which professional producers would envy. Our success would change the hearts of the narrow-minded and make us famous. We would liberate the race from bondage or maybe we would just go on and save the entire world.

At dress rehearsal, Guy and Chuck sat with me in the shadows of the Village Gate. Singers and dancers moved across the stage, making themselves familiar with the boards, and the microphone. Godfrey stood under the lights near the stage, and Hugh Hurd sat in the rear, clothed in the importance of being the director.

Jay “Flash” Riley started his comedy routine. His face and body jumped and skittered and his eyes opened and shut in rhythm; his lines were funny and unexpected, so the boys beside me howled in appreciation. Later a female singer, Leontyne Watts, sang a sultry, moaning song for a man loved and lost, and I identified with her song.

Although I had not really loved and lost, I was lonely and even missed the pedestrian love affair I left in Los Angeles. Godfrey and I were being molded into a friendship which had no room for romance. John Killens was concretely married; John Clarke had another interest and was, in any case, too hard for my liking. Sylvester Leeks had hugged me often, but never asked for my phone number. If I had the chance, I could moan some salty songs. I had been living with empty arms and rocks in my bed. I was only saved from utter abstinence by accidentally running into a musician who remembered me from my touring days. He lived on the Upper West Side and, once a week, I would visit his studio apartment. Because of the late hours of his job, he slept until after two. He told me he preferred me to catch him as he was waking. It kept him from having to make up the sofa twice and take two showers in the same day. I always left satisfied, so I was glad to oblige. We were not only not in love and just slightly in like, our weekly ferocious rendezvous stopped just short of doing each other bodily harm.

On opening night, customers took every seat in the cavernous Village Gate. The Harlem Writers Guild members, their families and friends had arrived, and after wishing me luck, took seats near the stage. I imagined them, after the house lights dimmed, taking copious and critical notes in the dark. John and Grace Killens filled tables with their famous friends. Sidney and Juanita Poitier and Danny Barajanos, Lorraine Hansberry, Bob Nemiroff, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, an editor from the
Amsterdam News
, New York’s black newspaper, a Brooklyn lawyer and a few politicians from Harlem.

Backstage the cast assembled, nervous over the presence of celebrities and excited with the expected opening night jitters. Bayard Rustin spoke to the performers in his tight, clipped voice, explaining the importance of the project and thanking them for their art and generosity. Godfrey made jokes about the opportunity to work, to be paid, and to do some good, all at the same time. I quoted Martin Luther King, “Truth dashed to earth shall rise again,” and then Hugh Hurd asked us to leave so that he could give his cast a last-minute pep talk.

The show began and the performers, illuminated with the spirit, hit the stage and blazed. Comfortable with the material of their own routines, comedians made the audience howl with pleasure and singers delighted the listeners with familiar romantic songs. The revue, which is what the show had become, moved quickly until a scene from Langston Hughes’s
The Emperor of Haiti
brought the first note of seriousness. Hugh Hurd, playing the title role, reminded us all that although as black people we had a dignity and a love of life, those qualities had to be defended constantly.

Orson Bean, the only white actor in the cast, shuffled up to the microphone and began what at first seemed a rambling remembrance. In minutes, the audience caught his point and laughed in appreciation. Leontyne Watts sang a cappella, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless
Child,” and everyone knew that the words meant that oppression had made orphans of black Americans and forced us to live as misfits in the very land we had helped to build.

The entire cast stood in a straight line and sang “Lift every voice and sing …”

The audience stood in support and respect. Those who knew the lyrics joined in, building and filling the air with the song often called “The Negro National Anthem.”

After the third bow, Godfrey hugged me and whispered, “We’ve got a hit. A hit, damn, a hit.”

Hugh Hurd said, “He’s standing up out there.”

Godfrey said, “Hell, man, everybody who’s got feet is standing up.”

Hugh said, “Aw, man. I know that. I mean Sidney. Sidney Poitier is standing up on the table.” A few of us rushed to the sidelines, but were unable to see through the crush of people still crowding toward the stage.

The next afternoon, Levison, Godfrey, Hugh, Jack Murray and I met in Art D’Lugoff’s office. We sat tall on the dilapidated chairs, proud of the success of Cabaret for Freedom.

Art said that not only could we use his night club without charge for five weeks, he would make his mailing list available. Stanley accepted the offer but said unfortunately there was no one in the SCLC office to take advantage of it. The small paid staff was swamped with organizational work, sending out direct-mail appeals, and promoting appearances of visiting Southern ministers. That was unfortunate because the mailing list included people out in Long Island and up in New Rochelle. People who wouldn’t ordinarily hear of our revue, but who would support it and maybe even make contributions to SCLC if they could be contacted. Godfrey, Hugh and I looked at each other. Three white men were willing to lay themselves out for our cause and all I was ready to do was sing and dance, or at best, encourage others to sing and dance. The situation was too historic for my taste. My people had used music to soothe slavery’s torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom.

“I’ll take care of it.” I spoke with authority.

Stanley allowed a little surprise into his voice. “Are you volunteering? We can’t afford to pay a salary, you know.”

Hugh said, “I’ll help any way I can.” He understood that we just couldn’t let the white men be the only contributors.

Godfrey smiled. “And, you know, me too.”

Jack said, “You’ll have to draft a release and you can type it on stencils. We’ve got a mimeograph machine in the office.”

Stanley continued, “We can provide paper and envelopes, but you’ll have to address the envelopes by hand. Some of the money you’ve already made can be used for postage. We can’t use the franking machine for your project, I’m sorry, but we’ll be glad to help you.”

I had no idea of how to work a mimeograph machine, nor did I know what a stencil or franker was. The only thing I had understood, and which I knew I could do was address envelopes by hand. Again, and as damn usual, I had opened my mouth a little too wide.

Art shook hands and told me to pick up the mailing list the next day at a midtown address.

Outside in the afternoon sunshine, Stanley and Jack thanked us all again, and said they’d see me the next day. They hailed a taxi.

Godfrey, Hugh and I went to a bar across the street. Hugh said, “You were right, girl. I was proud of you and you know I meant what I said. I’ll be up there to help whenever I can.”

“Yeah.” Godfrey paid for the drinks. “But you got to understand. I’m not going to address no envelopes. If I did, my handwriting is so bad, the post office would send the mail to the Library of Congress for framing and posterity. I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go. I’ll help you stuff the envelopes and I’ll come over to your house and have dinner.”

I told them I had never worked a mimeograph machine. Hugh asked if I could type a stencil. When I admitted that my two-finger typing had been limited to an occasional letter, they looked at me with wry alarm.

“You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve. You volunteered to ‘take care of
it’ and you don’t know shit.” Hugh spoke more with admiration than anger.

“She knows she’s got to do it. Come hell or the Great Wall of China. She’s got to do it. I’m betting on you, kid.” Godfrey called out to the bartender, “Play it again, Sam. For my buddies and me.”

I wrote a simple announcement of Cabaret for Freedom listing the actors, the producers and the director. The mimeograph machine was much simpler than I expected. I took Guy to the office with me the first day, and he explained how the machine worked. The stencils were a little more complicated, but after a while, I realized that all I had to do was take my time, admittedly a lot of time, typing the script. Soon Godfrey was taking hundreds of envelopes to the morning and afternoon post.

The Village Gate filled to capacity to see our revue. The actors were happy and after they were paid, some took bills from their pockets, offering the money to the SCLC.

“Did a gig last week. King needs this five dollars more than I do.”

“I put my money where my mouth is. It’s not much but …”

Time, opportunity and devotion were in joint. Black actors, bent under the burden of unemployment and a dreary image of cinematic and stage Uncle Tom characterizations, had the chance to refute the reflection and at the same time, work toward the end of discrimination.

After Cabaret for Freedom, they would all be employed by suddenly aware and respectful producers. After Martin Luther King won freedom for us all, they would be paid honorable salaries and would gain the media coverage that their talents deserved.

“Give me that check. I’m going to sign it over to the SCLC. I’m sticking this week.”

It was the awakening summer of 1960 and the entire country was in labor. Something wonderful was about to be born, and we were all going to be good parents to the welcome child. Its name was Freedom.

Then, too soon, summer and the revue closed. The performers went back to the elevator-operating or waiting-on-tables jobs they had
interrupted. A few returned to unemployment or welfare lines. No one was hired as a leading actor in a major dramatic company nor as a supporting actor in a small ensemble, or even as a chorus member in an Off-Off-Broadway show. Godfrey was still driving his beat-up cab, Hugh continued to work split shifts in his family’s liquor stores, and I was broke again. I had learned how to work office machines, and how to hold a group of fractious talented people together, but a whole summer was gone; I was out of work and Guy needed school clothes.