Paved with Good Intentions

Bartholomew brought the hat around back once the show was over. He had passed it around as he always did, but the last few nights, it just didn’t fill.

“A couple notes is all we got.”

“A couple? There were at least forty men out there.”

“And how many of them were laughing, Jack?”

When he said that, I realized it weren’t many. The people there in that mining town were positively prickly, but I thought I had won them over with my antics. The Bacchian Boast, Pontius in Paradise, and The Zenith of Zeus. These were all shows I developed specifically for them. “So what are you thinking, Bart? Time to find a new town?”

“I think it’s time for you to find a new act. Or I’m done promoting you.”

“You can’t mean-”

“This ain’t no charity, Jack. I bring out the audiences, you’re meant to bring out the money. If you can’t, I’ll find someone who will.”

With that ominous blade hanging over my neck, I went out for a stroll. It was a chilly night. The sort of kind that makes your hairs stand on edge, but that don’t quite burn the way real cold can.

I was seeking inspiration from the constellations as I so often did, but taking in all that beauty above, I began to feel as though I wasn’t worthy of it. I couldn’t even make a few roughnecks laugh, let alone cry. That celestial stage of the heavens wasn’t for me at all. I needed something more worldly.

So I turned back to see what the locals were doing. A few were urinating in the streets. More still, I could hear were inside the saloon. Many others must have been fast asleep, it was late. I continued on, past the rest and relaxation areas and towards the mine itself.

It was a hellish creation. Jagged edges all around, bits of industry everywhere you looked, it gave me the willies. I was just about ready to head back, the night being a bust, when a lone figure wandered out of the mouth of the mine.

I was awestruck. What did I see there at the precipice of the underworld? A negro illuminated by moonbeams. I had been under the assumption that there were no negros in town. Were they kept hidden? Did they only work at night?

“Excuse me, good fellow.” I came to him. “Who might you be?”

He stood in a crooked way with his hands on his hips. “The foreman. Now what in tarnation are you doing wandering around my mine?” A negro foreman? This was the first I’d heard of that.

“Just out for a stroll. I’m Jack Jolly, perhaps you’ve seen my shows down at the-”

“I don’t watch that bunk.” Quite a rude negro as well.

“Well sir, I’ll gladly sidestep your slight if you were to answer a question for me. Would you mind doing that?”

“Depends, I suppose. Shoot it on over.”

“Well, if you don’t mind me asking, how did a negro such as yourself find himself as a foreman in a white mining town?”

The fellow was silent, and then he spoke, “Did you just call me a nigger?”

“Beg pardon?”

“You’re fresh, aren’t you? Think because you can sing and dance that you can come on down and insult us working folk.”

“No, I-”

He grabbed me by the collar and threw me to the ground.

I tried to stand up, but he pummeled me, again and again. I considered that perhaps I deserved it, having offended his delicate Nubian sensibilities, but there with his face so close to mine, I realized my mistake. With straight hair and a thin nose, this was no negro, but a Southerner covered in soot!

As I took my beating and considered my crimes, I had an epiphany. How thin was that line between man and mongrel. If all it took to mistake one for another was a lack of clarity, were we really so far removed?

I had it then, right there in my head, the show I was meant to perform. After all, what had the Bard said? “With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come!” Yes, let them come, and perhaps let them go as well! I knew what I must do to heal the divide.

The next night, there in my dressing room, I cast aside the red and white face paint, and brought out the boot polish. Generously lathering it on my face, I stood before the mirror and saw the negro within us all.

With a spring in my step, I went out and gave the show of a lifetime. Singing, dancing, skits of all sorts! I made them laugh, I made them howl, but I never made them cry.

“It’s completely filled!” After it was done Bartholomew came around back with his hat nearly bursting at the seams. “I don’t even know how much this is!”

“I suppose you’d like to keep me on then?”

“Of course! This was something else.”

“Yes, I suppose it was. Shame it didn’t work.”

“What’s that you say?”

“It didn’t work. It was a failure.”

Bartholomew lost his grin. “You call this a failure?” As he shook the hat, bills fluttered out and drifted down to the floor.

“What did they do during the eulogy?”

“The eulogy?

“The monologue, Bart. The Eulogy of the Slave.”

“Oh, you mean the tomatoes. Well that just means they were engaged. They really bought the character, Jack. They were laughing the whole time. Don’t act like you’ve never had a tomato thrown in your face before.”

“That part wasn’t a joke.”

“Say again?”

“They weren’t supposed to laugh at the end. The whole point was to show how similar we are.”

“How similar who is?”

“Negros, Jack. We’re just like them.”

Bart stopped still for a moment, then let out the biggest laugh he’d ever had.

“That’s it, I’ve had enough. I’m going back East, Bart! They’ll understand what I’m doing in New York. They’ll appreciate it there.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious. That crowd out there was looking at me like I was an animal!”

“You were pretending to be a nigger. What did you expect?”   

“Empathy, Bart. I expected empathy.”

There came another belly laugh from Bartholomew.

So I packed up my bags and took my share of the earnings. I had a purpose now, to head East and perform my new show for people who could comprehend it. Good, kind, and compassionate folk. They would understand. For this new form was surely destined to bring all of God’s creatures together.