WANTED: Tall, good-looking men for the stage. Must be well dressed.
Apply at stage door of ---- Theater at ten A.M.
There is a certain amount of irony in the above, such as for instance,
“Tall, good-looking”; “must be well dressed”; and the man who appears in
the side street in the vicinity of the stage door at about half-past
nine in the morning knows this, for he wrote the advertisement himself.
He is a thick man, with a red beard trimmed in the form of a blunt
wedge, and cut away from around his mouth as a hedge is cut from a gate.
He is a man with a cool green eye, immobile face, and distant manner. A
man who walks slowly, is introspective, gloomy; who carries a big stick
like Javert’s cudgel and studies the pavement like a man of large
affairs. He has the manner of a general waiting to review his army,
which he expects to find decimated and run down at the heel. He wears a
derby hat slightly broken at the crown, a little shiny on the edges; an
overcoat with a collar somewhat frayed; boots that are rather
square-toed and vulgar.
This combination of shabbiness and thoughtfulness lends him an
appearance of sorrow--simple and primitive in the light of his red
beard--as if he were telling himself and would like to tell the world:
Here is a man of immense capabilities, fated to deal in small and
absolutely rotten potatoes.
In twos and threes some men begin to come in sight from the direction of
Sixth and Seventh Avenues. They sidle into the street that runs by the
stage door; some of them cast at Red Beard a look of recognition and a
half-nod, to which he is profoundly indifferent. Others fix their gaze
upon the legend over the door as children stare at the entrance of a
circus tent.
Little by little the straggling and deliberate comers make a scattered
crowd. The catchings of the advertisement agglomerate and blacken the
middle of the street.
They stand stock still. As a concourse of men they are, all in all,
voiceless and apathetic; before the momentary flurry of some traffic in
the street they are brushed aside as dry leaves. There is a shuffling of
feet on the asphalt as of dry leaves hurried along by the wind.
There seems to be an understanding among these men, as if this were not
their first venture in such an enterprise. And there seems to be an
understanding between them and the man with the cane: he appears, by the
casual oblique glance, by the turned shoulder, to know them, where they
came from, what he can do with them; and to feel the indifference of the
dealer for his stock-in-trade. He wrote the ad. Here are the men. It is
the same as ordering coal and seeing it dumped upon the sidewalk.
The scattered crowd had become a mob, a quiet mob that pushes gently,
elbows itself without offence, waits.
Tall? Well-dressed? There are tall men, but their heads move in a sea of
men that are short, men that are stooped. There may be well-dressed men,
but they are hidden among men with shabby clothes. They are of all ages,
but of the same condition. There may be seen gray heads, like patches of
white wool in a flock of black sheep.
From a distance this small mass of humanity, held in abeyance by a
single purpose, appears to be wholly silent, its attention, if not its
glance, controlled by the simple potency of the stage door; but coming
closer one may hear sounds that are words gutturally spoken, and a
desultory murmur that resolves itself into a dialogue of many parts. Is
there any stratum of society that does not have its shop talk? In every
one, its atoms, akin, are stretching back and forth those little
tentacles of question and answer, of seeking to know, of seeking to
tell, that hold them together.
“Wher’ wus you last week?”
“T’ Newark wit’ Mantell.”
“Any good?”
“Nix. Rotten. One night y’ play an’ th’ next y’ don’t an’ y’ gotta....”
“How many do they want here?”
“I dunno, it’s a rotten bizness; not’ing in this bizness no more. I’m
goin’ t’....”
“Hey, y’ rummy, git offa my foot. Whaddaya t’ink I yam?”
A sinister sort of meekness controls these men; holds men patient who
are hard of face; docile who seem to be cut for any sort of business;
pathetically anxious who seem to be cast for any rough hazard.
These are the men who may be seen on park benches; at saloon corners;
who accost passers in the name of charity; who carry restaurant signs;
who may be seen every morning at newspaper offices eagerly scanning the
want columns; who carry a newspaper as if it were something precious;
who hurry along with a sidelong gait; whose shoes make a sliding noise
on the pavement.
These are men unshaven of face, pallid of complexion. Some of them wear
overcoats turned up at the collar, sagging at the skirt with a rag-tag
of frayed lining showing; bulging at the pocket with some unimaginable
personal freight. Some of them wear no overcoats, some no vests, others
no collars. Some, with short, shrunken trousers, show bare red ankles.
There are trousers that have settled into fixed folds about the shoes
as if they had not been doffed or pulled up for some nights. The feet
point out at a loutish angle, or point in pigeonwise. There are flat
feet, feet broken at the instep, spread out like a duck’s--oozing damp,
hideous and evidently filthy, stub-ended, low in the instep, too large.
They shift, shuffle, and twist about like wounded and helpless members.
The hands that go with them are red and dirty; they are rubbed against
trousers impotently, for want of something better to do. These men stand
with their necks habitually drawn into their collars, their shoulders
hunched. They have an unhealthy color and they speak in voices coarsened
by whiskey and by the weather. They crane at the door like beggars
waiting for a handout.
It is ten o’clock. Red Beard has forsaken the sidewalk and is standing
on a box or something at the stage door, looking at the findings of his
advertisement. He scowls heavily and appears to be disgusted with what
he sees.
The crowd edges closer. Those on the outside push those within. The
crowd becomes a pack. Necks crane upward. A hoarse voice meant to be
jocular wheezes:
“Hey, bo, y’ want me, don’t y’s? Ain’t I t’ cheese?”
A laugh swells up, but dies instantly before the sardonic sneer under
Red Beard’s hedge. Someone says: “Huh, wot ’d’yu’s t’ink you are, a
primy donny star?”
Red Beard’s jaw moves and he is heard to mutter:
“Gawd, what a rotten bunch!”
A uniform pushing and shoving begins. A clownish, uncouth eagerness
manifests itself and animates the crowd. It is as if they were
scrambling for apples. The scuffling of feet sounds like an unrhythmic
dance. On the outside gaunt, bent legs push to get in. On the inside, in
the middle of the jam, scrawny necks stretch up, heads stare.
A hoarse clacking murmur, resembling more than anything else the
quacking of geese going to water, is evidence of a certain sort of talk
going on within the confines of the crowd. It runs in a monotone and
reveals no anger, no impatience, none of the mob frenzy that might be
expected here. A futile eagerness!
Already the man on the box has begun to exercise his authority. He holds
in his hand a card which he consults with knitted brows, and from which
his glance shoots quickly, like an accusation, at the men. He points at
one man in the thick of the press.
“You there,” he says, “you wop wit’ t’ dent in your nose, I want youse.”
As the lucky one shoves forward the crowd is forced apart as logs are
pried apart by a canthook.
“Youse guys stand back,” bawls Red Beard. The stage door is opened by
someone whose face shows through the dirty glass and the first super
fights his way within.
Red Beard’s club-like finger is periodically brandished at the pack; his
voice of brass names some candidate by any ill-favored mark he can see,
and that one is cut out as a steer is cut out of the herd.
It seems that some definite program is being followed: some planned
chiaroscuro of the stage is being sketched in: broad shoulders and tall
frames are at a premium, but shrunk figures, hairy faces and loutish
manners are nailed by the Captain of this peculiar industry; old men
with long beards have their innings.
The crowd imperceptibly draws together at the edges as the middle is
gutted and the ill-hued flowers of the flock are plucked.
At last some at the outside begin to straggle from the press. They light
cigarettes which hang like appendages from their lips; some of them
whistle; some dance a tentative hop. Thus they make light of their
bootless quest “for a job.”
Suddenly the man on the box waves his hand and says: “That’s all; youse
guys come back here tomorry morning,” hops from his perch and disappears
within the theater.
The largest number of those who came are still on the street.
Collectively they present the appearance of a dog licking his chops
after some morsel snatched away. They gape at the door closed in their
faces as if someone had gone inside with something that belonged to
them.
There is some hesitation, some loafing about, then a policeman bears
down and waves his club. The black knot untangles itself, tailing out
into a long string that drags its length in two directions, towards the
two avenues, thins more, parts in the middle and disappears. No face
shows more than passing disappointment--little has been lost. Some
whistle, others call to each other, empty phrases are bandied about by
tongues that have lost the gift of tongues.
The scuffling of their feet more or less in unison sounds like a rope
dragging.