He dragged his pipe out of the pocket of his cardigan, stuffed it with Prince Albert, and fired it up.
“You know, we actually used to do something like that down to the Grange. The show was calledJodie Jamboree.Not since the late forties, though. Folks got a little embarrassed by it, although no one ever came right out and said so. And vaudeville wasn’t what we called it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was a minstrel show, George. All the cowboys and farmhands joined in. They wore blackface, sang and danced, told jokes in what they imagined was a Negro dialect. More or less based onAmos ’n Andy.”
I began to laugh. “Did anyone play the banjo?”
“As a matter of fact, on a couple of occasions our current principal did.”
“Ellenplayed thebanjoin aminstrelshow?”
“Careful, you’re starting to speak in iambic pentameter. That can lead to delusions of grandeur, pard.”
I leaned forward. “Tell me one of the jokes.”
Deke cleared his throat, and began speaking in two deep voices.
“Say dere, Brother Tambo, what did you buy dat jar of Vaseline fo’?
“Well I b’leeves it was fo’ty-nine cent!”
He looked at me expectantly, and I realized that had been the punchline.
“Did they laugh?” I almost feared the answer.
“Split their guts and hollered for more. You heard those jokes around the square for weeks after.” He looked at me solemnly, but his eyes were twinkling like Christmas lights. “We’re a small town. Our needs when it comes to humor are quite humble. Our idea of Rabelaisian wit is a blind feller slipping on a banana peel.”
I sat thinking. The western came back on, but Deke seemed to have lost interest in it. He was watching me.
“That stuff could still work,” I said.
“George, that stuff always does.”
“It wouldn’t need to be funny black fellers, either.”
“Couldn’t do it that way anymore, anyway,” he said. “Maybe in Louisiana or Alabama, but not on the way to Austin, which the folks at theSlimes Heraldcall Comsymp City. And you wouldn’t want to, would you?”
“No. Call me a bleeding-heart, but I find the idea repulsive. And why bother? Corny jokes… boys in big old suits with padded shoulders instead of cornpone overalls… girls in knee-high flapper dresses with lots of fringes… I’d love to see what Mike Coslaw could do with a comedy skit….”
“Oh, he’d kill it,” Deke said, as if that were a foregone conclusion. “Pretty good idea. Too bad you don’t have time to try it out.”
I started to say something, but then another of those lightning flashes hit me. It was just as bright as the one that had lit up my brain when Ivy Templeton had said that her neighbors across the street could see into her living room.
“George? Your mouth is open. The view is good but not appetizing.”
“I could make time,” I said. “If you could talk Ellie Dockerty into one condition.”
He got up and snapped off the TV without a single glance, although the fighting between Duke Wayne and the PawneeNation had now reached the critical point, with Fort Hollywood burning merry hell in the background. “Name it.”
I named it, then said, “I’ve got to talk to Sadie. Right now.”
6
She was solemn at first. Then she began to smile. The smile became a grin. And when I told her the idea that had come to me at the end of my conversation with Deke, she threw her arms around me. But that wasn’t good enough for her, so she climbed until she could wrap her legs around me, as well. There was no broom between us that day.
“It’s brilliant! You’re a genius! Will you write the script?”
