Read Online A Free State by Tom Piazza - Free Book Online

could settle the details afterward. His presence and virtuosity would make the case for him.
    There was another question, as well, that lurked underneath these. My years in the circus had trained me not to press an individual about his background—one’s talent and willingness to work were one’s passport. But this was not the circus. I was the proprietor, and I had the welfare of the troupe and its members’ livelihoods to answer for. I knew nothing at all about the fellow, except that he was a masterful musician and performer. And I was not sure that I wanted to know more. There was certainly the possibility that he was a criminal, or a runaway. Yet it was unlikely that a criminal or runaway would present himself for daily public scrutiny on the streets, much less on the stage of a theater. There was something about him that did not conform to any template I had encountered. But by the time these thoughts had formed themselves, I had already determined to stow them. We needed something new, and this would be something new. It involved a risk I felt we needed to run.
    I wrestled with the question of how to tell Mulligan, and I wrestled more, and finally I decided not to tell him at all. I decided that I would introduce Henry to the troupe as a Mexican. His skin was light enough for this to be plausible. I had heard Henry do his pidgin Spanish voice, which I thought was good enough to fool anyone who didn’t speak the language. I doubted that Mulligan, or anyone else in the troupe, knew Spanish. I would say that I had heard him playing on the street—that much was true enough—and had managed to convey to him my interest through sign language and a few Spanish phrases I had picked up in the circus.
    It was an outlandish story, admittedly. But there was no question about our increasingly desperate situation as atroupe; Henry, in whatever guise, would inject new and necessary energy into our presentation and, I would gamble, attract fresh customers. I had no doubt that he would know what to do on a stage. I envisioned him in the old-style Sweeney type of costume—a phantasm of the earlier type of minstrel—a brilliant rustic among the mock sophisticates. If we could settle on the best way of introducing him, and then turn him loose, I was sure that he would be a sensation. And if we maintained the fiction that he was Mexican, then we could, if worse came to worst, claim ignorance that he was a Negro. We could remand him to the fates, if it came to that.
    Armed with my provisional plan, I took Mulligan aside during the next afternoon’s specialty audition—dog tricks, this time. A half-dozen terriers, arrayed in a line, trained to bark out the rhythm of a handful of songs—“Old Folks at Home,” “Oh, Susannah,” and some others, disfigured more or less beyond recognition.
    â€œWhy do we need him?” was Mulligan’s first, and understandable, response when I presented the idea to him.
    â€œWe need something,” I said. “We need to set ourselves apart again. We are sinking. How many yodelers and bird trainers can we present?” I looked up at the stage, where Birch was cleaning up after a mess one of the dogs had bestowed upon our boards. “Or dog acts.”
    â€œAnd why won’t he do a formal audition?”
    â€œHe is very shy, and embarrassed about his bad English. And anyway, he has auditioned for me, in effect. I’ll vouch for him.”
    â€œAnd he will black up?”
    â€œTo be sure,” I said, keeping my face as blank as possible.
    â€œAnd one song only?”
    â€œCorrect.”
    Mulligan, watching my reactions, frowned and said, “Why the mystery, James?”
    â€œI can’t tell you more. I have reasons.”
    I watched him weigh the costs and benefits of pressing the point. “How would we introduce him?”
    â€œI would think in the second half . . .”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œ.