Velouté and Garçon’s Curtain Call

The cigar smoke-filled stage reverberated with applause as the gaslights flickered and the thick burgundy velvet curtain descended Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom in the autumn of 1907. A thunderous ovation erupted from the packed house, “Velouté and Garçon! Velouté and Garçon!” the adoring crowd chanted, their cheers echoing off the gilded proscenium. Onstage, the tall, elegant Mr. Velouté, impeccably dressed in his black tailcoat, rose slowly from the gold leafed wooden chair and bowed deeply, his arm draped around the diminutive Pierre Garçon, the small figure perched upon his knee, his marionette's limbs dangling. Pierre's painted eyes gleamed under the gaslights, his tiny voice still ringing with the night's final jest: “As Diogenes said, “I am a citizen of the world” - but even cosmopolites must watch their step in this crooked city!”

Pierre had been in rare form that night. “As the great Socrates declared,” the puppet had piped in a shrill, lively voice, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing!” Which is why I, Pierre Garçon, know everything about nothing - especially these vaudeville bookings!”

Laughter had rolled through the ballroom like waves on Lake Michigan.

Backstage, the cheers faded. Stooped, limping from arthritis and scoliosis, he hoisted the massive suitcase onto his shoulder. This was his world: threadbare clothes, letters from strangers, newspaper clippings, laudanum for the pain, and the fragile puppet nestled inside like a sleeping child. “Time to go, my friend,” he muttered through gritted teeth, the weight grinding into his twisted spine. He slipped out a side door into the windy chill night, hailing a yellow jack to Union Station. It all would culminate with the final grand performance in San Francisco. But first there was the engagement at the “High Chaparral Theater” in Denver, to be greeted two nights later with Wild West fanfare.

The train to Denver was packed with immigrants, salesmen and dusty ranchers crammed into wooden benches. The journey was grueling; the battered leather suitcase clutched in his gnarled hands, too big to wedge between his knees. The sweat beading on his forehead despite the draft, as the locomotive chugged west through endless prairies. Each mile sent jolts of agony through his twisted spine and inflamed joints, cruel companions on this endless road. He sipped from his flask, timing the elixir to numb the pain. The suitcase, heavy with a lifetime of toil, contained his entire existence: his traveling companion, a change of clothes and philosophical tomes. The journey blurred onward, logging the frayed suitcase mile after mile. His limp worsened, each bone rattling a vibration of fire in his bones. Through Omaha and North Platte the train shook, reeking of coal smoke.

Finally Denver. After a sleepless night on the rails, he arrived at the modest hotel, “The Rocky Top Inn”, two blocks from the “High Chapparal” Theater. A bundle of fan mail awaited as he sat on the edge of the bed, reading by the dim glow of an oil lamp. “Dear Mr. Velouté,” one letter gushed, “You are so handsome, dashing and debonair and your puppet Pierre is a marvel! How does such a tiny marionette spout such clever Greek wisdom?” Another praised the ventriloquist’s skill in making the doll seem so alive. He smiled faintly, the pain in his back a constant reminder of the toll this life exacted.

The performance at the “High Chapparal” was another triumph. Once more, the audience saw only the elegant Mr. Velouté with the diminutive sagacious Pierre Garçon upon his lap. “Plato warned us that the unexamined life is not worth living, Well, I’ve examined my life and let me tell you…it’s mostly noisy trains and bad hotel coffee!” the puppet quipped to howls of laughter.

"Now Monsieur Garcon, do you find the Rockies to your liking?"

Quoting Heraclitus “No man steps in the same river twice, but in Denver, it's the same whiskey every time!” as they roared with laughter.

After the final bow, between sips from a tiny flask, the performer limped back to the hotel, hauling the massive suitcase once more. His breath came in short gasps; the scoliosis curved his body like a question mark that no ancient sage could answer. Fan mail piled up at the hotel, letters from schoolteachers and miners, praising the duo's wit. He read them alone in his dim room, the suitcase open like a coffin. “They love you, Pierre,” he whispered, folding a note from a little girl: Garçon is so wise! Tell him to visit us in Salt Lake City!

The journey was now a fast-paced sluggish crawl. Logging the hefty suitcase mile after mile, His limp worsened, each step a death sentence for his bones. Through Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Reno. Fan letters chased them, “Pierre's proverbs saved my soul” Newspapers and critics announced their arrival.

The Embarcadero Theater in San Francisco loomed, playbills ablaze: “Velouté and Garçon - Final West Coast Spectacle!” The city by the bay buzzed with excitement for the duo on that highly anticipated night. More fan letters piled up at the hotel desk upon their entrance, praise for Velouté's mastery and Garçon’s philosophical jests. He dragged the huge burdensome case up the hotel stairs, collapsing onto the bed. Pain clawed his chest; he clutched a letter, the last one: “Who pulls your strings, little sage?”

But that night, in the quiet of his room overlooking the foggy Embarcadero, he could go no further. The pain in his body and soul had become too great. He opened the enormous suitcase for the last time, carefully arranging the large wooden form of Mr. Velouté in the chair by the window. With trembling effort, Pierre Garçon, the midget, climbed into the dummy’s lap, just as the act demanded, though no audience ever knew or watched this final curtain call. The little philosopher finally spoke his last proverb. “One final thought, old friend,” he whispered hoarsely. “As Aristotle might say, happiness depends on leisure - but mine has all been spent hauling you from town to town.”

Dawn broke that morning as the suitcase lay open in the room. The manager and house maids found the room silent and the tall wooden and paper mâché Mr. Velouté staring blankly out of his chair out the window, eyes glassy, wooden flesh cold, his long-twisted frame unfurled from the suitcase like unfashionable luggage. The ventriloquist, Pierre Garçon, lay motionless. A shadow perhaps, who though aching, had unpacked away his puppet for good.

The Embarcadero Theater had waited in vain for Velouté and Garçon, the truth as crooked as the spine that bore it. The suitcase, heavy as sin itself, contained Pierre Garçon's entire existence: Loneliness, letters from strangers, philosophical tomes, his flask and a laudanum bottle now empty by the bed.