BADASS WOMEN IN HISTORY SERIES
The Bitter Defeat Of Maya Angelou
Just when Maya seized upon an opportunity, it was cruelly snatched away and she was thrown back to square one, part 7.
Joining the Army had been a bust.
Being an entrepreneur as an owner-operator of a brothel had been a bust.
Living in the Deep South as a young black woman had been a bust.
It seemed that everywhere she went and whatever she put her mind to do, mighty forces were fighting her and preventing her from success which was always out of reach and beyond her grasp.
Today, we might even say that the universe was trying to tell her something. Close friends and family at the time would have told her that god was trying to get her attention.
Back home again
She found herself back at her mother’s house and back at square one, beset on every side with unrealized dreams and unfulfilled ambitions. How many failures could a single mother endure? It wasn’t for lack of personal drive that she failed. It wasn’t for lack of setting goals, courage, or daring. What was it? What was the common denominator or connecting tissue?
Providing for her son hinged on her success. Maya watched her younger brother Bailey as life and hope slowly drained from his eyes and seeped from his mind. Her brother had been there for almost everything and saw firsthand what Maya had gone through. Life in America for a young black man had its pitfalls and hazards and heartbreaking tragedies until it piled on and on and eventually broke him.
Both Bailey and Maya began to sadly drift apart with fewer things in common. It became a sad existence. After her rejection from the Army, Maya fell back into what she was familiar with: waitressing.
Opportunity knocking
She took a job as a swing shift waitress at the Chicken Shack, where the lobby record player blasted all the latest hits. Maya found that smoking grass kept her relaxed and at ease and found a supplier at a neighboring restaurant. She began to enjoy life again.
She met a woman at a record shop who knew someone who was into dance and needed another female partner to complete his act and got his contact information. The young man, R. L. Poole from Chicago, who did rhythm tap dance, was attempting to put together a traveling dance act.
Ho ho ho ho.
You don’t say?
Oh, really now!
Was this another opportunity or just another cruel joke from the universe?
She decided right then and there that this was going to be her big break. She had been waiting for this moment, and she wasn’t going to let it slip by her, so she invited him over to her mother’s house for an audition. She had been a cook, waitress, madam, bus girl, so… of course she was a dancer.
This was do-or-die time for Maya. She was only going to get one shot at this, so she really laid on the bullshit with a very wide shovel.
Being noticed
As he sat at the kitchen table, she practically floated to the coffee machine and glided smoothly back with a cup of coffee, giving Poole a wide-angled panoramic view of her profile and toned legs.
She informed him that she had studied modern ballet and “Theory of Dance" making it sound like Advanced Thermonuclear Propulsion. It wasn’t all total lies as she did get some introductory dance experience at the California Labor School, which her attendance at got her blacklisted from the military, but it damn well was going to pay off here.
As Poole questioned her about her dancing experience, her hopes began to fade. She had no tap dancing experience, no jazz, no acrobatics, not much to bring to the table, and he began to look more and more crestfallen.
Maya was not about to let this chance slip through her finger. Piss on that! She stood up in front of him and slowly lowered herself to the floor in the splits… in a straight skirt.
She raised her arms in a grace-like ballet pose as the hem of her skirt caught her mid-thigh and stopped her descent. As her triangled balance began to teeter, she quickly reached down and jerked up her skirt to allow her pelvis to free-fall to the floor.
She hadn’t considered the small space with which she had to work with. One foot went under the gas pipe to the gas heater that ran up the wall and the other foot got caught between the legs of the heavy oak table.
She felt the hem of her skirt give way with a loud rip as her pelvis came to a stop on the kitchen floor. She was practically pinned and felt as if she had been crucified to the linoleum.
Disastrous audition
The show must go on so she didn’t let on that she was in trouble by maintaining her pose while humming a little snatch of some random song. R. L. looked down on her from his chair with pity and incredulity. This was not the audition he had prepared for.
Maya wasn’t about to admit defeat and that she was in dire straits, but as she tried to lift off of the floor, her foot dislodged the gas pipe from the heater with a loud hiss so R. L. had to step over her to free her foot and reconnect the pipe before the entire kitchen filled with gas. This was the strangest audition by far.
Once her foot was free, all Maya could do was roll onto her stomach, smack her fists against the floor, and cry her frustration. She was sure she had botched it. After a few awkward moments, R. L. informed her that she had nice legs. The next day he brought her to the rehearsal hall where he began to teach her the ins and outs of his craft of showmanship.
Given a Chance
All was not lost, and she saw a glimmer of hope in getting into show business. She immediately threw herself into practice until her ankles ached. While she worked behind the counter at the Chicken Shack, she would practice alternating and raising herself from one foot to the other to give herself more flexibility.
Eventually, she quit her job at the Shack so they could go full-time booking clubs. Eventually, they started making money and were able to book bigger and bigger venues under the troupe name of Poole and Rita.
The floodlights were blinding, and the applause was exhilarating. Things were looking up, and Maya started to envision herself on Broadway. Everything seemed fine, and life was the cherries until a former lover and dance partner Cotton Candy Adams showed up. She had a Daddy’s little girl look complete with dimples. When she smiled, her eyes shone feverishly while lifeless, and her teeth were rotten. She was a drug addict and R. L. Poole behaved as though he not only wanted to reconcile their relationship but also to renew their dancing partnership again. A knife of betrayal would have been less painful.
Thrown away
Maya looked at the both of them with dismay. She wished them both luck and made her farewells.
Once back at her mother’s house, she could no longer hold back the hot bitter tears of defeat. Her dance career was over before it had begun and every door of opportunity seemed to be slammed shut in her face. When would her big break come? When would success walk up to her and cordially introduce himself? Would she forever be destined for manual labor and menial tasks?
This was beginning to be one failure too many.
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