“All new!” Henry shouted to passersby, who looked at him as if he were crazy. “That’s right, folks! Step right up. We know you bore easily. Your shiny playthings lose their luster. Even now, you’re asking yourselves: What’s next? What am I missing? Will this make me important?”
It was all a machine that required constant feeding—Henry hated the machine, and he hated himself for wanting the sort of admiration it promised, as if he had no worth unless someone was there to applaud it.
“Hen!” Theta raced after him in her skimpy dancing costume and no coat. “Hen! Whatsa matter with you? Are you crazy? You just lost your job!”
“I am acutely aware of that fact, dear girl.” Henry tried for humor, but his words were as brittle as damp chalk.
“You gotta apologize to Flo. Tell him you haven’t been sleeping and you lost your head. He’ll take you back.”
Henry’s anger was a live thing, a snake in his hands. How many times had he been forced to choke down how he felt in order to make someone else happy? How many times did he put away his own needs to accommodate somebody else’s? Well, he wouldn’t do it anymore. Not this time. Not over something as important as his music. “Is that what I should do, Theta? Walk in there with my hat in my hand, beg for scraps, pretend I’m nothing, be grateful for what I get? Should I spend my hours swallowing it down every time Herbie’s awful songs get into the show instead of mine? Should I be polite when Wally lets that idiot ruin my song without even asking me what I think?”
“It’s just a matter of time—”
“I. Am tired. Of pretending.” Henry bent his head back. The marquee letters blurred with each blink of his eyes. “They’re never gonna let me in, Theta!” Henry shouted. He was unused to shouting. A lifetime with his father had taught him to hold everything in. But now it tumbled out like the contents of an overstuffed closet. “Don’t you get it? I don’t fit. The songs I want to write aren’t the songs they want to hear. All this time, I’ve been trying to figure out what they want and give it to them. I don’t want to do that anymore, Theta. I want to figure out what I want and write those songs. Songs I care about. And if I’m the only one singing ’em, so be it.” Henry wiped his eyes quickly with the heel of his hand. He tucked his hands under his armpits and turned away from Theta.
“Hen, nobody believes in you more than me. But right now, you gotta have a job. I’m just being honest.”
It was direct, like Theta usually was. That was one of the qualities he had always loved about her. But right now, it infuriated him.
“If that’s true, if we’re just being honest here,” he said, giving honest a bit of snarl, “why don’t you go in and tell Flo all about Memphis? In fact, why don’t you call up the papers and give ’em an exclusive: ‘Fake Russian Royalty in Love with Harlem Poet.’”
For a moment, Theta’s mouth opened just slightly. He’d struck a blow. Wounded her with her own weapon. But then the practiced cool slid down her features like a gate over a closed shop. “We don’t all get to live in dreams, Hen. Some of us gotta live in this world. No matter how unfair.”
With that, she stormed back into the theater, slamming the door behind her.
“Goddamn it,” Henry muttered.
The train started with a jolt, and then it was snaking through the dark miles underground. Henry leaned his head against the window. Had he just walked out on the Follies? He had. Every muscle in his body ached. The taste of blood soured his lips, and he ran a tongue over a chapped mouth. When had he gotten so run-down? He needed more sleep was all. The gentle rocking of the train, the darkness, and the exhaustion made Henry’s eyelids flutter.
His head snapped up. A spot of drool cooled against his chin. He wiped it away, and the matron next to him smiled. “You should get more sleep, young man,” she said kindly.
“I suppose you’re right, ma’am.”
The train stopped suddenly between stations, and Henry sighed as they waited for whatever the trouble was to be cleared. The droning hum of the train crawled up Henry’s spine. It was an odd sound—not really mechanical. More… animal, like a swarm far off in the tunnel. A flicker of movement drew his eye to the train window. The lights inside the train bleached the darkness outside so that, at first, Henry saw only his reflection. He pressed his face against the glass. There was a girl on the other set of tracks. She was crouched down, knees to the sides, arms resting on the tops of her bent legs as if she was ready to spring. In the dim work light, she was nearly gray.
