James Burke - Half of Paradise

“I ain’t got the job yet.”

“You ain’t seen the other people that’s going to be out there. There’s one fellow that beats on a washboard while he plays the harmonica. You ain’t got to worry about the job.”

They left the dressing room and went back to stand in the wings. Troy was onstage with the band, waiting for the curtain to open. Seth smoked a cigarette, then went onstage and picked up his banjo and adjusted the microphone. He smiled out at the crowd as the curtain opened.

“A great big howdy, friends and neighbors,” he said. “This is Seth Milton. Tonight we’re going to have some of your favorite artists from the field of country and western music, along with some of the best in local talent. The contest is going to start directly, but first me and the boys is going to pick and sing some of your favorite tunes. This show is being put on by Mr. V. L. Hunnicut of the Louisiana Jubilee, who has encouraged so much young talent and brought some of the major stars of country music into the national spotlight. Also I want to tell you about the big one hundred page color picture book that we have on sale at the entrance. It contains one hundred actual color photographs of your favorite country singers, ready to cut out and put on the wall at home. This big color picture book is selling for the low figure of two dollars and fifty cents, and if you ain’t got the money on you, you can put in your order and it will be sent to you collect. The pages is in bright glossy color, and when you’re listening over the radio to your favorite country entertainer you can look up his picture in the bigprint table of contents and it’s just like he’s in the room with you.

“Now, I want you to meet somebody that many of you already know. He’s one of the best guitar pickers in the field, and he’s just put out two new records. Come on up here, brother Troy.”

J.P. stood in the wings and listened to Troy sing and the applause afterwards. Then the brunette came on and sang “I Want to Be in My Savior’s Arms,” and he looked at her short-cut hair and Irish peasant face and her abnormally large breasts. She had a slender waist, flat stomach, and wide hips. He thought about laying her, and then he thought about going to a whorehouse later in the evening with Seth. He hoped he could get the job and the advance on his salary. It had taken all his money to come to town and enter the show, and it had been three weeks since he had slept with a woman; if he lost the contest he would have to hitchhike back home, and it would be another month before he could afford Miss Sara’s house out in the country.

The band left the stage, and the contest started. The man with the harmonica and washboard went on first. He held the harmonica in his mouth with his lips and played while he beat out the rhythm on the metal ripples in the washboard with his knuckles.

Three others went on, and it was J.P.’s turn. He walked out on the stage from the wings with his guitar. The lights were hot in his face. The audience was a dark, indistinct mass behind the lights. He sang “Good-Night, Irene,” which had been Leadbelly’s theme song.

The crowd liked him and they applauded until he sang it again. They were still applauding when he left the stage.

J.P. propped the guitar against one of the sets and wiped the perspiration off his forehead on his coat sleeve.

“You got on my suit,” Troy said.

“You can have it back. It don’t fit me, nohow.”

“I told him to take the suit,” Hunnicut said.

“I had it cleaned yesterday. He got sweat on the sleeve.”

“Take the goddamn thing back, mister. I didn’t want it in the first place.”

“Take it easy, Winfield. You did fine tonight.”

“Do I get a job with you?”

“You haven’t won the contest yet.”

“Seth said I already had the job.”

“All right, you’re working for me.”

J.P. took a crumpled one-dollar bill out of his pocket and gave it to Troy.

“This will pay for the goddamn cleaning,” he said.

“Where are you going?” Hunnicut said.

“To get my clothes.”

He went to Troy’s dressing room and changed into his Sears, Roebuck suit. After all the contestants had gone on, Hunnicut announced that the winner was J.P. Winfield, who would soon be appearing on the Louisiana Jubilee with the rest of the band. J.P. combed his hair in the mirror and clipped the comb inside his shirt pocket. He left Troy’s sports suit unfolded on top of the chair. He rolled a cigarette and walked back to the wings where Hunnicut, Troy,

Seth, and the brunette were talking. The auditorium had cleared.

“You ain’t met April yet,” Seth said.

J.P. looked at her.

“This is April Brien,” Seth said.

“Glad to meet you,” she said. Her eyes moved up and down him. Her peasant Irish face had a dull expression to it.

“Evening,” he said.

“April does all the spirituals in the show,” Seth said. He put his hand on the small of her back and let his fingers touch her rump.

“Cut it out,” she said.

He gave her a pat.

“Lay off it,” Troy said.

Seth winked at J.P.

“Come in the office,” Hunnicut said. “I got a contract for you to sign.”

They went into Hunnicut’s office, which he had rented with the auditorium. His white linen suit was soiled and dampened. The candy-striped necktie was pulled loose from his collar, and the great weight of his stomach hung over his trousers.

“I start you on a straight salary at three hundred and fifty a month,” he said, “plus any commissions we make off records and special appearances. This contract says that I’m your manager and agent, and I take twelve percent of your earnings. We’ll see how you do, and later on maybe we can work out a pay increase.”

“You take a commission off the same salary you give me?”

“That’s right. But I’m the man that schedules all your appearances, and if you’ve got the right stuff I can push you right up to the top. I put a lot of people on the Nashville Barn Dance.”

“How about an advance? That was my last dollar I give to that fellow for his suit.”

Hunnicut took a black square billfold out of the inside pocket of his coat. He flipped it open flat on the desk and counted out several bills.

“Here’s fifty dollars. Will that do?”

“That’ll do just fine.”

That night he and Seth went to a juke joint and got drunk and picked up two prostitutes. They spent the night in an apartment next door to the bar, and J.P. awoke in the morning with a hangover and looked at the woman beside him in the light and wished he had stayed sober the night before. He put on his clothes and counted the money in his wallet. He couldn’t find his clip-on bow tie, then he saw the prostitute sleeping on it, and he pulled it out from under her leg and left the room and caught a taxi to his hotel.

He bought a new suit and a new pair of shoes and gave his old clothes to the porter. He checked out of the hotel and walked down the street, holding the guitar case by its leather handle. He thought about the long bus ride ahead with the band through the sun-baked, red clay country of north Louisiana. He thought about the money he would make singing, three times the amount he made as a sharecropper back home. And Hunnicut had said that he might go up to the Nashville Barn Dance. The sun was very hot, and he had to squint his eyes in the white glare off the pavement. It would be a long trip in the summer heat.