Teatro Degollado. Guadalajara.
And then . . .
I do most of my writing early in the morning, when my energy levels and focus are at their zenith. This morning, however, I have been stalled in writing my final chapter about my time in Mexico because of psychological distractions. This is a recurring state of mind for me. As I review the events of my past I begin to question if any of them really happened at all; that it’s a story I have made up to bypass the shame of admitting to a humdrum and shabby existence. My past must be a continual round of hair raising or zany exploits; otherwise I’m a complete washout, a monumental failure. This state of mind freezes my fingers over the keyboard. Am I just creating and animating a flock of false memories?
My answer to that question varies from day to day, even hour to hour, and is never going to be definitive. The only seeming certainty is that writing is as vital to me as breathing and eating. I must write, or die. And today is NOT a good day to die, Worf.
And then . . .
After our triumph at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara I ran up against a disturbing verity. Namely, men and women come together in a love that often degenerates into war. My parents were a prime example of this, with dad forever escaping the sharp tongue of his spouse by keeping late hours at the Pine Tavern,irresponsibly drinking and playing pinochle, and mom forever referring to dad as “that toad on the stove.” Yet they never separated. When I joined the LDS Church after leaving home for Ringling Brothers I figured I would never have to deal with that kind of emotional fallout again. The fact was, I didn’t take all that much to girls anyways; outside of an occasional hormonal flare up that I quickly doused when I considered how costly it was to woo a modern maiden. In my case, the skinflint won handily over the lover. And I have battled those misogynistic tendencies in myself ever since.
But now I was plunged into the midst of this discord once again. Robin Shaw, Smith’s former girlfriend, a nurse from Ohio, showed up unannounced at our doorstep in Patzcuaro. She had driven an old clunker straight through from Zanesville to ‘reconnect’ with Smith, who seemed perfectly happy, to me, with his current bachelor existence. Smith moved out of our hacienda into an apartment down the street with Robin. He feigned great enthusiasm for her return, but it didn’t fool me. When the two of us rehearsed new routines for the upcoming tour of South America he acted like a newly freed prisoner whose pardon had been revoked. With Robin upon the scene, the comic chemistry between Smith and I quickly diminished, and we were unable to come up with any further pantomimes with real panache. And Robin wanted to join Payasos Educados as a full-fledged performing member, with a full salary -- even though her experience was limited to juggling bedpans at a hospital. This put Smith in an awkward position, and he sweated pea pods trying to figure out how to approach Sigfrido with her veiled ultimatum.
Worse still was the widening breach between Sigfrido and his wife Amel. Amel was American, and pretty ‘hippy-dippy’ in an unfocused, disregarding way. She had no formal training in pantomime, but she, too, had to perform in the troupe. Her ungainly attempts at comedy were painful to watch. I quickly grew to resent how much stage time Sigfrido gave her in our shows. Their son Andres, on the other hand, was a natural born scene stealer -- catching flies with an ease that belied his tender years.
What they fought about and why I no longer recall. Likely there was never any true reason at all -- just the natural bile that built up between two people who never should have been together in the first place. After Guadalajara we continued to tour schools while the paperwork was being completed for our South American tour -- and now each show was preceded by a blazing row between Sigfrido and Amel, with little Andres running to Smith and I in terror until it blew over. These fights never affected Sigfrido’s performance -- he was as brilliant as ever onstage.
Offstage he stopped talking to Amel, and then moved out of their hacienda -- taking a room at the hotel on the Plaza Grande in Patzcuaro. He left her in charge of booking the tour and handling the finances for it. Smith finally asked Sigfrido to give Robin a small part in the show. He slowly shook his head back and forth, but what he said was “Go ahead, Steve -- it cannot make much difference now.”
The English playwright William Congreve first came up with the concept of “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” 220 years ago. He knew what he was talking about. Amel bided her time until the money came through for the tour; then she took every last centavo and vamoosed to parts unknown -- along with Andres. Sigfrido was held accountable for the loss by the Mexican government, and spent the next several years dancing with abogados. With no money for a tour and our Maestro Sigfrido in the legal doldrums, Los Payasos Educados ceased to exist. Steve and Robin drove back to Ohio where he enrolled in an advanced theater class at Kent State, and I flew back to Minneapolis to begin preparing for an LDS mission -- I needed a few years away from the bright lights and heartbreak of show biz. Or so I thought. In less than a year Smith and I would be back together again, doing the advance clowning for Ringling Brothers.
Twenty two years later I ran into Amel in Bangor, Maine. She had a small boatyard where she and a few hippy dippy partners hand crafted wooden skiffs. Andres also worked there. He had grown up an exact duplicate of his father -- the same willowy physique, liquid brown eyes, and shy, engaging, smile.
Amel and I conversed briefly; I had no desire to renew our acquaintance, so I quickly invented some urgent business I needed to attend to. As I turned to walk away she grabbed my arm to whisper in my ear: “He sent men after me, you know. I’m still in hiding. Don’t tell him where I am!”
I promised I would keep her secret. I told Smith about our meeting, but not Sigfrido.
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