This Month's Story
It was a big meeting as such meetings go and by the end of the third day, most of us wanted to get away without hearing the word ‘ocean’ mentioned again.
Still there was another day to go and in small groups we separated to visit various watering holes and restaurants to gird ourselves for the next day’s talks.
I had already given my paper and felt relieved that it had been well received and that the questions that followed my presentation made sense and that I had answered them without a feeling of spouting balderdash.
There were four of us in our group and since the conference was in Houston, just 100 miles south of where I went to graduate school, I was familiar with the area enough to suggest that we drive south toward Galveston. There were a lot of good restaurants along the high rise highway that made up the southern road. I felt we should find at least one good steak place that would satisfy our needs.
We did find one and settled down to a Texas meal of steak, potatoes and good conversation. We had barely noticed a billboard in front of the restaurant that proclaimed there would be an act featuring the unique talents of Ms Emily and her companion, Don Philip. So when the MC stepped onto the small raised stage and announced the act, we were taken by surprise.
It turned out that the show wasn’t too bad and we enjoyed ourselves. Ms. Emily and her companion Don Philip presented a rather bawdy act. Ms Emily was a ventriloquist and a darn good one. Don Philip was a life size dummy that stood beside Ms Emily so that it appeared that there were two people on the stage standing close to one another. You could only see one of Don Philip’s legs but she made that one leg move as there really were two people standing there.
Ms. Emily would carry on a conversation and Don Philip would answer her with a randy remark. It soon became apparent that the only remarks that Don Pedro made were made with the purpose of getting into Ms. Emily pants. Ms. Emily, with amazing patience, would ignore Don Pedro’s ribald remarks and the results were an amazingly confusing yet amusing dialogue.
My friends thought she was hilarious and when she was through with her act, they applauded like mad.
I didn’t. I sat there staring at the empty stage.
I haven’t the best memory in the world and things do happen that I forget before I finish my coffee, but what we had just seen was not foreign to me. My friend sitting next to me noticed something was wrong and turned to me.
“Paul, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Have them hold my dessert. I’ll be right back.”
With that I left the room and headed backstage where she had disappeared.
There I found someone walking down the hall and I stopped and asked him which door was Ms. Emily’s room. He pointed to the room on his right.
I went over to it, hesitated for a moment, and then knocked.
The door was opened by Ms. Emily herself. She looked older than she did on the stage. She still wore part of her costume on and I could see Don Pedro farther back in the room draped on a chair, his one leg hanging over the back.
“Yes?”
“Ma’am, you don’t know me. I’m sorry to bother you like this, but did you ever play The Hollywood Burlesque Theatre in San Diego?”
“Why yes! I did! But that was years ago.”
“Ma’am, I think I saw you there a couple of times when I was stationed at the Naval Station in 1948.
“My Lord! How old are you? Come in. Come in. I have some ice tea in the refrigerator and I think it’s still cold. That was so long ago!”
“I’d love to, Ma’am but I’m out front with some friends having dinner and I saw your act, and well, I thought maybe, they don’t know I’m back here, I would like to invite you to join us for supper. It would be my pleasure.”
She stared at me for a long second and then said, “What’s your name?”
“Paul.”
“Why thank you, Paul. It would be a pleasure. Give me a minute to change and I will come out and join you.”
With that I left her and went back and rejoined my colleagues at our table. They hadn’t even noticed I was gone.
Suddenly, one of them looked up and let out an exclamation. Ms. Emily had come out from backstage, very nicely dressed. I jumped up and grabbing a chair from a nearby empty table, placed it beside mine. The four other men had also jumped up and when she sat down on the preferred chair, they settled slowly back down on theirs.
I introduced Ms Emily as an old friend of mine to each of the astonished men at the table. I then said, she was going to join us for supper.
Well it would take a long time to tell what happened next. But slowly the sudden appearance of Ms. Emily evolved into a gathering of friends. She had wonderful stories to tell about the old Burlesque. It turned none of the men had not even been in a Burlesque Theatre; nor had any idea of what one was like. She told stories that reflected on the changes that had taken place in the shows and interposed her description with wonderful stories of the acts and the people that had been in the old shows.
I even told my favorite:
Scene: Beach Boardwalk. Enter Comic One and Two with balloons
Comic One: You’ll make a million dollars! All you have to yell is yell ‘Rubber Balloons’. People will come and buy them and you’ll be rich.
Comic Two: Like this, ‘Rubber Balloons!’
Comic One: That’s right only louder!
Comic Two: RUBBER BALLOONS! RUBBER BALLOONS!
Comic One: That’s right! Keep it up, we’ll be rich!
Comic One exit stage right.
Enter stage left. Beautiful young woman who walks/saunters pass Comic Two. Woman suddenly faints and crowd quickly gathers.
Member of crowd: What should we do?
Comic Two: RUBBER BALLOONS! RUBBER BALLOONS!
Curtain.
Most of the men just gaped at me. No one laughed.
I sat there in the silence and finally stuttered: “You had to be there. It’s really funny when told right.”
Well the evening ended on just the right note; Ms. Emily gave me a kiss on the cheek and went backstage. We drove back to the convention hotel. We all agreed that the evening had been perfect.
The next day I was particularly delighted in hearing several rehashes of the stories Ms. Emily told us.
I even heard someone recite my
‘RUBBER BALLOONS!’
