Chapter Twenty-Two #2
As Mazelle immersed herself in the thirty skits of music and comedy, many of them outrageous, she laughed until her belly hurt.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” appeared on the stage as a plantation set for a song called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin Is a Drive-In Now,” transforming it into a Negro diner to remake the tired old stereotype.
Comedian Wonderful Smith was a sensation with only a prop telephone: “Hello, operator, give me long distance, please—Washington, D.C.,” he started.
“I’d like to talk to my commander in chief, the president of the United States.
Just charge it to the New Deal.” The audience gushed with laughter.
She heard Mantan Moreland laughing behind her as Smith politely quizzed the imaginary President Roosevelt with probing questions in a clever routine Mazelle would never forget.
As funny as Jump for Joy was, she heard the buried anger that echoed her own in the lyrics.
In the title song, “Jump for Joy,” the choir promised the time for picking cotton was over and the slave-chasing hounds were dead.
In a truly shocking song called “Passport to Georgia,” Negroes fleeing racial violence in the South sang about moving to cities “where the signs read ‘Out to lunch’ / not ‘Out to lynch.’ ” Some people in the audience gasped.
(Later, she would hear that the song was cut from the show because of death threats.)
“We better get out of here ’fore we all get arrested!” Mantan Moreland joked behind her, and everyone near them laughed too, including Mickey Rooney.
That stage felt like power, shining such a clarifying spotlight on hard truths that even some Negroes had trouble putting into words.
As the night went on, the old feeling of magic crept back over Mazelle.
These performers were all Negroes, but without the distortions of rolling eyes and plantation dialect.
The elaborate Mayan calendar on the auditorium’s ceiling had flung Mazelle into her future—her people’s future—if only for a glimpse.
Mazelle had felt lost since she played a comic teacher in Harlem High Jinx with Dark Dream Pictures the year before, such a great opportunity morphing to such a painful disappointment.
Her role as a demure schoolteacher in eyeglasses who did unexpected sight gags and pratfalls had been her most authentic yet, and it produced her best review—from actor and journalist Clarence Muse, who was often so critical of Negro actors’ roles.
She’d memorized his words she kept framed on her bedroom wall: “Mazelle Washington has blossomed into a mature comic actress since she played the stereotypical ‘Little Mazy’ in Li’l Gumshoes—and this reviewer hopes her star turn in Harlem High Jinx, a picture with a modern feeling that does not rely upon the tired old minstrel humor, will help audiences overlook the poor production quality.
We may be watching the birth of a new kind of Negro movie star. ”
A new kind of Negro movie star!
But Harlem High Jinx had not made her a star.
Far from it. The sets had been cheaper than in her Li’l Gumshoes days, with poor lighting and sound, and she had been paid only fifty dollars, half of what she’d been promised.
All of that would have been worth it if it had changed her life—but she hadn’t gotten any offers, probably because the independent film had played in so few theaters.
Just last month, one Negro producer wouldn’t even give Mazelle a screen test, she suspected, solely because she was so dark.
Mazelle had hoped to map a career like Mantan Moreland, who did both high-paying comic Hollywood pictures and independent race pictures with better roles. But so far, she was doing neither.
As a result, her parents were pressuring her to take a job working with Mother for the Shaws, the family in Beverly Hills, where Mother ran the catering for their large society parties.
Mazelle cried herself to sleep just thinking about it.
Scout had taught her exactly how special she was since she was seven years old—so how could she end up working in a kitchen?
Something is going to happen tonight, Mazelle thought as the audience rose to its feet to applaud the players after the revue ended. She did not get many premonitions these days, but her bones quivered with the certainty that her life was about to change. She would will it to reality!
Would Richard propose to her? His face grinning at her from the band pit surely looked like a man in love.
Or maybe he would introduce her to Duke Ellington again and she could convince him to let her join the cast?
Would she work up the nerve to approach nearby Mickey Rooney, who was around her age and no doubt had the power to help her?
She had heard whispers that Charlie Chaplin might be somewhere in the audience.
Could she find Chaplin and spark a reunion even though Scout was long gone?
Mazelle’s mind churned with possibilities.
As soon as the curtain fell, as if on cue, she heard a man behind her calling her name.
“Mazelle! Hey—Mazelle Washington!”
Mazelle whirled around, her face bright with expectation.
Jerry Lorenzo was two rows behind her, waving his hat to catch her eye.
Mazelle’s stomach dropped at the sight of her old producer, whose hairline had receded despite his lingering baby face. Be careful what you wish.
Mazelle turned her back as if she hadn’t seen him.
Two days later, Richard came to Mazelle’s house to formally meet her parents and ask permission to court her, which they all guessed was only a hop away from a proposal.
His baritone speaking voice was music all by itself.
Over lunch of turkey sandwiches cut into small triangles like the ones Mother served to the Shaws, Richard promised that he had enough money saved for frequent visits to Los Angeles, and how he was a good “church boy” who did not live the fast lifestyle of many musicians.
“I’m just gonna ask…” Daddy said. “You’re nearly thirty years old and never married?”
The question was so bold, nearly an accusation of an unspoken vice, that Mazelle’s food nearly caught in her throat.
She was about to apologize to Richard, when he looked at her with dewy brown eyes and said, “Sir, I’ve just been waiting my whole life to meet the right girl.
” He said that too many of his bandmates were caught up in a drinking and womanizing lifestyle, and he craved a wife to return to from the road.
At the word wife, Mazelle felt her chest flutter.
Richard held her hand under the table, and his skin engulfed hers with flames of magnetism.
“Just any wife?” Daddy said, studying Richard’s every word.
“No, sir,” Richard said. “Mazelle is the only girl for me. After a few months of proper courting, she should have a better idea if I’m the fella for her.”
The more Richard said the exact right thing, the less Mother seemed to like him.
Mother barely spoke, doing more listening than talking.
Mother had already told Mazelle that Richard’s age and vocation bothered her.
Mother’s history of working with touring musicians kept half a frown on her face even as she politely poured Richard more lemonade.
Mazelle figured that she and Mother would be arguing later, since Mother obviously thought he was too good to be true.
Her parents would be especially scandalized if they knew that Richard had already taken Mazelle to his room at the Dunbar Hotel, the first man to see her without her clothes—although she still held on to her virginity.
Barely, anyway. His forwardness had made her nervous, the way he’d rubbed himself against her while they were dancing, not hiding his arousal from her on a crowded dance floor.
But even in his bed, he had kept his promise to only rub his body against hers so she would not get pregnant.
Now her excitement as Richard’s fingers entwined hers beneath the table made her wonder how long she could keep her resolve.
The doorbell broke her spell of attraction.
Unannounced visitors were rare, especially on Saturdays.
Mother started to get up to answer, but Daddy insisted despite his gingerly movement now that he was walking with a cane as a man only in his fifties.
Mazelle’s heart ached every time she watched her father fighting through pain, but his biggest fear was feeling useless.
Daddy opened the door, and they all had a clear view through the screen of two white men waiting on the sunporch; one much taller than the other.
The shorter man was Mr. Lorenzo! And he had Mr. Sharpe with him, both wearing formal dark suits as if it were a weekday.
Or a funeral, she thought. They both took off their hats when Daddy opened the screen door.
Mazelle rose to her feet, stunned. In all the years they worked together, Mr. Lorenzo and Mr. Sharpe had never come to her home.
She hadn’t been sure they knew where she lived.
Mazelle was nervous that Mr. Lorenzo would tell her parents how she had rebuffed him at the Mayan Theater, something she had regretted the next day—what if he had wanted to offer her a job?
But seeing him had brought back horrid memories, just as they washed over her now as Daddy invited Mr. Lorenzo and Mr. Sharpe into the house and they all stood in the exact spot where Aunt Ruby had died twisted at the base of the stairs.
“Well, this is certainly a surprise!” Mother said, quickly joining them in the foyer.
“Sorry to barge in like this on a weekend,” Mr. Lorenzo said, “but we were talking on the phone just now about inviting you to come see me and then we said, ‘You know what? Let’s just go pay Mazelle a visit in person.’ That’s how excited we are.”
Mazelle was the last to approach Mr. Lorenzo, embarrassed about ignoring him at Jump for Joy. “Mr. Lorenzo… I’m sorry if I…”