...they played Brahms and I played the coat check girl...

The theater was small, too small to his liking.  It stood with a squat facade and although you would expect the incongruity of a larger ceiling, it was laughably small.  The paint was shabby and he knew, by having recently trumped Savannah in growth, the city council were probably already itching to stamp this building out and build something that would overshadow anything in the State.  The orchestra would not rival New York's, and would have been hung had they played this 'well' in Austria.


It sat some two hundred persons.  Thaddeus rolled his eyes where some of the men had to stand.  The box office had oversold the tickets.  He amused himself during their loose rendition of Brahms'  Tragische Ouvertüre by almost talking himself into lifting the front register.  When he was younger, it was so simple as the outside staff was non-existent, either eating dinner or finding a way to listen to the concert themselves.  This piece was new, so there was great interest from the elite and all of Atlanta's finest were assembled tonight.  He calculated some $400 dollars in the register tonight, and almost $20 in the staff's pockets where they already skimmed - overselling tickets never seem to make their way into the books.  The owner would be furious, but would be hard-pressed to prove anything.

The bold glorious intermission occurred and he made all of his mental notations.  The ostentatious rabble of the riche bared their breasts that Thad would have thought himself on the beaches of some Pacific Island shore.  The brown-skinned heathen would scarce wear grass as a dress, by the stereograms he had seen recently at Lord & Taylor.  Here they wore dark silks and velvet taffeta.

Here, on pale bosoms, were the catalog of the jewelry that would be slowly relieved of these ladies in the next year.  There, hanging from button holes, were timepieces that were equally valuable.  The men, typically as young as Thad, were the ones pulling them out more often.  You see, they wanted for them to be admired.  "What's that you say?  Oh, this old thing, man!  Why it is my father's 14k gold Elgin.  Not much too speak of.  It had seen service during the Mexican War.  My father had it on his person as he fought alongside General Scott.  An amazing piece actually!"

I warmly greeted many of the men around the whiskey bar.  All were smiles and gentle nods.  None were prone to conversation.

As the intermission concluded, I hung back and offered my seat to an older gentlemen that wore a British Crimean War medal.  He, hunched with the ravages of time more than war, happily took to it, and I wandered over to the lobby.

I hung back and made eye contact with the coat check girl.  She was a little thing, not yet out of her teens.  It took time to show my interest, and she eventually (invitingly) smiled.  I finished up the cigarette used as a prop to have her look my way and sauntered over.  I lightly smiled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_K%C3%A4sebier

"My what a pretty little thing you are."

"Thank you, sir."

"No sirs, miss...?"

"Minnie...Minnie Houlson."

"Nice to meet you Minnie," he kissed her hand gently.  It was soft, not sullied by time.  He gave her his name and continued his catalog of names and finer things.

"Now that jacket, that looks like a friend of mine from downtown.  Goes by the name of Johnson."

She giggled, "No, that's Hartlet.  January Hartlet."

And the game continued, punctuated by moments of genuine affection, useless trivia, familial names, Brahms, eggs, weather and nothing else.  However, at the end of the forty minutes, when Minnie would be called away by a sullen-in-the-extreme woman by the name of Gertie, Thaddeus had a dozen or more names to tie.  He took out a small notebook and made a furious rout of notes.  They lacked copiousness, but would be later made up for at home.

The concert finished with a flourish, as well as some poorly timed decisions of the brass, that led to the downfall of the strings.  The conductor had stormed off the stage to the delight of the patrons, who cheered anyway.  The symphony was new and its benefactors understood the luxury of time and its eventual riches.

Thaddeus watched the coat check girl from a distance, handing out the coats: Richmond, Parque, de Elyes, Brogue, Latchfield, and so on.  All he had to do was follow the jewelry out the door and into the night.

He also understood the luxury of time and seen tonight that patience was in order.