Caryl Phillips - Dancing In The Dark

“Bon Bon Buddy” by Walker went unusually well.

NEW YORK SUN

Bon Bon Buddy, the chocolate drop, dat’s me,

Bon Bon Buddy, is all that I want to be;

I’ve gained no fame, but ain’t ashamed

I’m satisfied with my nickname,

Bon Bon Buddy, the chocolate drop, dat’s me.

He looks at George and can see that it is happening again. Something is wrong with George, but his partner is not talking to him about it. Once again, George is forgetting his lines.

Bon Bon Buddy, the chocolate drop, dat’s me,

Bon Bon Buddy …

He wants to ask him, George, why are you looking at me like this? Staring at me as though you have seen a ghost. It is the third prompt that George has taken tonight, and his dancing is entirely graceless. He wants to ask his partner what he can do to help, but instead he looks on helplessly as George begins now to mutter the lyrics to himself.

I’ve gained no fame, but I ain’t ashamed

I’m satisfied …

George?

But George is not listening. George is gazing into the middle distance as though he can see something that nobody else can see. I take his arm and make like it is part of the show. I pretend that I am taking pity on this poor deluded colored man dressed up as though he owns half the known world, and as I begin to guide George off the stage I try to create some humor. We both stumble for I have to show them that it does not matter how uppity a colored man chooses to dress, he will always be little more than some bumbling fool with no idea of how to control himself. Initially the audience is not sure what is happening, but they soon gain confidence and laughter ensues. I start to hurry now for George’s whole weight is upon me and he is not stepping anymore, and I am dragging him like I am toting a large sack of potatoes. Somehow it does not seem right that we still have to be in the act, and then I see Aida waiting anxiously in the wings with a look on her face that suggests that she is about to scream. She reaches out her hands to help for I am struggling now as George has lost consciousness. As the stage manager brings down the curtain we are deafened by a storm of applause from the audience, who demand more.

I lay my partner down backstage and feel for his pulse, which, although weak, seems to obey a steady beat. However, before I can do anything further for George I have to remove my face. The stage manager has already called for the doctor, and Aida is propping up her husband’s head, and so I excuse myself. I’ll be back, Aida. I am unsure if she can hear me, but as I move off I notice that the stage manager is following me into the corridor. Mr. Williams? I turn and face the young man. Miss Tanguay. Before she left she asked if you’d let her know how things are. The stage manager pauses. With Mr. Walker, that is.

I look apprehensively into the mirror and make sure that I have removed every last trace of makeup, and only now do I carefully wash my hands and face. There is an impatient knocking at my dressing room door but I wait until I have toweled off before opening the door. A distraught Aida stands before me and I step to one side so that she can enter. She sits and looks around, and then she lowers her eyes. I know that despite her distress she has waited and given me time to make myself presentable. She looks up now and informs me that a worried-looking doctor is examining George, and he has just suggested to her that George is losing his health. It is difficult to know what to say in reply, so I say nothing, knowing that Aida must now find the courage to continue. She threads her hands together. What’s the matter with him, Bert? George must have spoken to you about it. I asked the doctor but he said that as yet he doesn’t know, but he was lying to me, wasn’t he? I’m George’s wife, and I’ve got a right to know. It ain’t right that after all these years I should still be feeling that others know more about my husband than I do. I look directly at Aida, feeling the sting of her veiled accusation, but I remain as mystified about George’s condition as she appears to be. This is his health, Bert, and it’s important and I have to know. I understand, I say, but the doctor is the man best qualified to answer your questions. Aida lowers her eyes and begins to silently sob. I look away.

According to Mr. Williams they were in Boston one night, and George Walker was performing “Bon Bon Buddy” when suddenly he began to drone out the lyrics in a thick-lipped manner. Apparently some of the cast members smiled because, to begin with, they believed that Mr. Walker was improvising a new gag, but Mr. Williams knew differently. It was only later that he, and the rest of the company, learned just how ill Mr. Walker was. In fact, he had actually suffered a stroke.

Aida continues to sob, but both she and Bert know that George will still insist on performing every night in Bandana Land . However, despite the optimistic bulletin that the Williams and Walker company will undoubtedly send out to the press in the morning, it is clear to Bert that George’s health is beginning rapidly to deteriorate. The following week Bert instructs the costume department to prepare a George Walker outfit for Aida so that she can deputize in the event of another serious collapse of her husband’s health.

At every theater on the road, George’s dressing room is decorated with a huge display of roses, but there is never a card and Aida never quizzes her husband as to their origin.

In a rooming house in Chicago, a few days before Christmas, I sit downstairs with my wife and listen to Aida, who is upstairs singing gentle lullabies to her fragile George. She sings as though serenading a child, and her sweet notes float through the paperthin walls and then down through the wooden floors, and while one might have ordinarily regarded this as some kind of disturbance, Mother and I just sit and listen, transfixed by the beauty of Aida’s waiflike voice. The next morning, after breakfast, Aida wraps George in a blanket and props him up on a chair with a pad and a pen set neatly before him. A newspaper has commissioned George to write the story of his life, and despite his increasing frailty, George’s pen seems to have found wings. For short periods of time it flies back and forth across the page making short, spasmodic movements, and then the pen comes to rest and George looks all about himself, suddenly ashamed that he is no longer able to dress a point or two above the height of fashion. And then, as though keen to expel this sad reality from his mind, his pen finds life and begins again to dart across the page.

Our payroll is about $2,300 a week. Do you know what that means? Take your pencils and figure how many families could be supported comfortably on that. Then look at the talent, the many-sided talent we are employing and encouraging. Add to this what we contribute to maintain the standing of the race in the estimation of the lighter majority. Now, do you see us in the light of a race institution? That is what we aspire to be, and if we ever attain our ambition, I earnestly hope and honestly believe that our children, that are to be, will say a good word in their day for Bert and me and them.

GEORGE WALKER

George gave his final performance in Louisville, Kentucky, in February 1909, but George Walker was no longer George Walker. No amount of business could disguise the fact that the man onstage with me was a mere shadow of the same man who had stood by my side for sixteen years. The real George Walker had left the theatrical stage a long time ago, but at least officially, Williams and Walker came to an end on that night in Louisville, Kentucky — a long way from the Barbary Coast, a long way from Broadway, a long way from Buckingham Palace. Williams and Walker died onstage in Louisville, Kentucky, in February 1909, but the public were informed that it would only be a matter of time before George Walker returned. Aida now donned the special George Walker costume and sang “Bon Bon Buddy,” but she understood the truth. The doctor had explained, albeit in painful detail.