Captain Warren told us what they were talking about, the two Jews yelling back and forth at one another: the shark-faced man on the dangling ladder that looked like a cobweb, the other one in the car; the fence, the end of the field, coming closer.
“Come on!” the man in the car shouted.
“What did they pay?”
“Jump!”
“If they didn’t pay that hundred, I won’t do it.”
Then the airplane zoomed, roaring, the dangling figure on the gossamer ladder swinging beneath it. It circled the field twice while the man got the car into position again. Again the car started down the field; again the airplane came down with its wild, circular-saw drone which died into a splutter as the ladder and the clinging man swung up to the car from behind; again we heard the two puny voices shrieking at one another with a quality at once ludicrous and horrible: the one coming out of the very air itself, shrieking about something sweated out of the earth and without value anywhere else:
“How much did you say?”
“Jump!”
“What? How much did they pay?”
“Nothing! Jump!”
“Nothing?” the man on the ladder wailed in a fading, outraged shriek. “Nothing?” Again the airplane was dragging the ladder irrevocably past the car, approaching the end of the field, the fences, the long barn with its rotting roof. Suddenly we saw Captain Warren beside us; he was using words we had never heard him use.
“He’s got the stick between his knees,” Captain Warren said. “Exalted suzerain of mankind; saccharine and sacred symbol of eternal rest.” We had forgot about the pilot, the man still in the airplane. We saw the airplane, tilted upward, the pilot standing upright in the back seat, leaning over the side and shaking both hands at the man on the ladder. We could hear him yelling now as again the man on the ladder was dragged over the car and past it, shrieking:
“I won’t do it! I won’t do it!” He was still shrieking when the airplane zoomed; we saw him, a diminishing and shrieking spot against the sky above the long roof of the barn: “I won’t do it! I won’t do it!” Before, when the speck left the airplane, falling, to be snubbed up by the ladder, we knew that it was a living man; again, when the speck left the ladder, falling, we knew that it was a living man, and we knew that there was no ladder to snub him up now. We saw him falling against the cold, empty January sky until the silhouette of the barn absorbed him; even from here, his attitude froglike, outraged, implacable. From somewhere in the crowd a woman screamed, though the sound was blotted out by the sound of the airplane. It reared skyward with its wild, tearing noise, the empty ladder swept backward beneath it. The sound of the engine was like a groan, a groan of relief and despair.
IV
Captain Warren told us in the barber shop on that Saturday night.
“Did he really jump off, onto that barn?” we asked him.
“Yes. He jumped. He wasn’t thinking about being killed, or even hurt. That’s why he wasn’t hurt. He was too mad, too in a hurry to receive justice. He couldn’t wait to fly back down. Providence knew that he was too busy and that he deserved justice, so Providence put that barn there with the rotting roof. He wasn’t even thinking about hitting the barn; if he’d tried to, let go of his belief in a cosmic balance to bother about landing, he would have missed the barn and killed himself.”
It didn’t hurt him at all, save for a long scratch on his face that bled a lot, and his overcoat was torn completely down the back, as though the tear down the back of the helmet had run on down the overcoat. He came out of the barn running before we got to it. He hobbled right among us, with his bloody face, his arms waving, his coat dangling from either shoulder.
“Where is that secretary?” he said.
“What secretary?”
“That American Legion secretary.” He went on, limping fast, toward where a crowd stood about three women who had fainted. “You said you would pay a hundred dollars to see me swap to that car. We pay rent on the car and all, and now you would—”
“You got sixty dollars,” some one said.
The man looked at him. “Sixty? I said one hundred. When you would let me believe it was one hundred and it was just sixty; you would see me risk my life for sixty dollars.…” The airplane was down; none of us were aware of it until the pilot sprang suddenly upon the man who limped. He jerked the man around and knocked him down before we could grasp the pilot. We held the pilot, struggling, crying, the tears streaking his dirty, unshaven face. Captain Warren was suddenly there, holding the pilot.
“Stop it!” he said. “Stop it!”
The pilot ceased. He stared at Captain Warren, then he slumped and sat on the ground in his thin, dirty garment, with his unshaven face, dirty, gaunt, with his sick eyes, crying. “Go away,” Captain Warren said. “Let him alone for a minute.”
We went away, back to the other man, the one who limped. They had lifted him and he drew the two halves of his overcoat forward and looked at them. Then he said: “I want some chewing gum.”
Some one gave him a stick. Another offered him a cigarette. “Thanks,” he said. “I don’t burn up no money. I ain’t got enough of it yet.” He put the gum into his mouth. “You would take advantage of me. If you thought I would risk my life for sixty dollars, you fool yourself.”
“Give him the rest of it,” some one said. “Here’s my share.”
The limping man did not look around. “Make it up to a hundred, and I will swap to the car like on the handbill,” he said.
Somewhere a woman screamed behind him. She began to laugh and to cry at the same time. “Don’t …” she said, laughing and crying at the same time. “Don’t let …” until they led her away. Still the limping man had not moved. He wiped his face on his cuff and he was looking at his bloody sleeve when Captain Warren came up.
“How much is he short?” Warren said. They told Warren. He took out some money and gave it to the limping man.
“You want I should swap to the car?” he said.
“No,” Warren said. “You get that crate out of here quick as you can.”
“Well, that’s your business,” the limping man said. “I got witnesses I offered to swap.” He moved; we made way and watched him, in his severed and dangling overcoat, approach the airplane. It was on the runway, the engine running. The third man was already in the front seat. We watched the limping man crawl terrifically in beside him. They sat there, looking forward.
The pilot began to get up. Warren was standing beside him. “Ground it,” Warren said. “You are coming home with me.”
“I guess we’d better get on,” the pilot said. He did not look at Warren. Then he put out his hand. “Well …” he said.
Warren did not take his hand. “You come on home with me,” he said.
“Who’d take care of that bastard?”
“Who wants to?”
“I’ll get him right, some day. Where I can beat hell out of him.”
“Jock,” Warren said.
“No,” the other said.
“Have you got an overcoat?”
“Sure I have.”
“You’re a liar.” Warren began to pull off his overcoat.
“No,” the other said; “I don’t need it.” He went on toward the machine. “See you some time,” he said over his shoulder. We watched him get in, heard the airplane come to life, come alive. It passed us, already off the ground. The pilot jerked his hand once, stiffly; the two heads in the front seat did not turn nor move. Then it was gone, the sound was gone.
Warren turned. “What about that car they rented?” he said.
“He give me a quarter to take it back to town,” a boy said.
“Can you drive it?”
“Yes, sir. I drove it out here. I showed him where to rent it.”
“The one that jumped?”
“Yes, sir.” The boy looked a little aside. “Only I’m a little scared to take it back. I don’t reckon you could come with me.”
“Why, sc
ared?” Warren said.
“That fellow never paid nothing down on it, like Mr. Harris wanted. He told Mr. Harris he might not use it, but if he did use it in his show, he would pay Mr. Harris twenty dollars for it instead of ten like Mr. Harris wanted. He told me to take it back and tell Mr. Harris he never used the car. And I don’t know if Mr. Harris will like it. He might get mad.”
1929
Uncle Bud and the Three Madams
The tables had been moved to one end of the dance floor. On each one was a black table-cloth. The curtains were still drawn; a thick, salmon-colored light fell through them. Just beneath the orchestra platform the coffin sat. It was an expensive one: black, with silver fittings, the trestles hidden by a mass of flowers. In wreaths and crosses and other shapes of ceremonial mortality, the mass appeared to break in a symbolical wave over the bier and on upon the platform and the piano, the scent of them thickly oppressive.
The proprietor of the place moved about among the tables, speaking to the arrivals as they entered and found seats. The Negro waiters, in black shirts beneath their starched jackets, were already moving in and out with glasses and bottles of ginger ale. They moved with swaggering and decorous repression; already the scene was vivid, with a hushed, macabre air a little febrile.
The archway to the dice-room was draped in black. A black pall lay upon the crap-table, upon which the overflow of floral shapes was beginning to accumulate. People entered steadily, men in dark suits of decorous restraint, others in the light, bright shades of spring, increasing the atmosphere of macabre paradox. The women—the younger ones—wore bright colors also, in hats and scarves; the older ones in sober gray and black and navy blue, and glittering with diamonds: matronly figures resembling housewives on a Sunday afternoon excursion.
The room began to hum with shrill, hushed talk. The waiters moved here and there with high, precarious trays, their white jackets and black shirts resembling photograph negatives. The proprietor went from table to table with his bald head, a huge diamond in his black cravat, followed by the bouncer, a thick, muscle-bound, bullet-headed man who appeared to be on the point of bursting out of his dinner-jacket through the rear, like a cocoon.
In a private dining-room, on a table draped in black, sat a huge bowl of punch floating with ice and sliced fruit. Beside it leaned a fat man in a shapeless greenish suit, from the sleeves of which dirty cuffs fell upon hands rimmed with black nails. The soiled collar was wilted about his neck in limp folds, knotted by a greasy black tie with an imitation ruby stud. His face gleamed with moisture and he adjured the throng about the bowl in a harsh voice:
“Come on, folks. It’s on Gene. It don’t cost you nothing. Step up and drink. There wasn’t never a better boy walked than Red.” They drank and fell back, replaced by others with extended cups. From time to time a waiter entered with ice and fruit and dumped them into the bowl; from a suitcase under the table Gene drew fresh bottles and decanted them into the bowl; then, proprietorial, adjurant, sweating, he resumed his harsh monologue, mopping his face on his sleeve. “Come on, folks. It’s all on Gene. I ain’t nothing but a bootlegger, but he never had a better friend than me. Step up and drink, folks. There’s more where that come from.”
From the dance hall came a strain of music. The people entered and found seats. On the platform was the orchestra from a downtown hotel, in dinner coats. The proprietor and a second man were conferring with the leader.
“Let them play jazz,” the second man said. “Never nobody liked dancing no better than Red.”
“No, no,” the proprietor said. “Time Gene gets them all ginned up on free whiskey, they’ll start dancing. It’ll look bad.”
“How about the ‘Blue Danube’?” the leader said.
“No, no; don’t play no blues, I tell you,” the proprietor said. “There’s a dead man in that bier.”
“That’s not blues,” the leader said.
“What is it?” the second man said.
“A waltz. Strauss.”
“A wop?” the second man said. “Like hell. Red was an American. You may not be, but he was. Don’t you know anything American? Play ‘I Can’t Give You Anything but Love.’ He always liked that.”
“And get them all to dancing?” the proprietor said. He glanced back at the tables, where the women were beginning to talk a little shrilly. “You better start off with ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ ” he said, “and sober them up some. I told Gene it was risky about that punch, starting it so soon. My suggestion was to wait until we started back to town. But I might have knowed somebody’d have to turn it into a carnival. Better start off solemn and keep it up until I give you the sign.”
“Red wouldn’t like it solemn,” the second man said. “And you know it.”
“Let him go somewheres else, then,” the proprietor said. “I just done this as an accommodation. I ain’t running no funeral parlor.”
The orchestra played “Nearer, My God, To Thee.” The audience grew quiet. A woman in a red dress came in the door unsteadily. “Whoopee,” she said, “so long, Red. He’ll be in hell before I could even reach Little Rock.”
“Shhhhhhhh!” voices said. She fell into a seat. Gene came to the door and stood there until the music stopped.
“Come on, folks,” he shouted, jerking his arms in a fat, sweeping gesture, “come and get it. It’s on Gene. I don’t want a dry throat or eye in this place in ten minutes.” Those at the rear moved toward the door. The proprietor sprang to his feet and jerked his hand at the orchestra. The cornetist rose and played “In That Haven of Rest” in solo, but the crowd at the back of the room continued to dwindle through the door where Gene stood waving his arm. Two middle-aged women were weeping quietly beneath flowered hats.
They surged and clamored about the diminishing bowl. From the dance hall came the rich blare of the cornet. Two soiled young men worked their way toward the table, shouting, “Gangway. Gangway,” monotonously, carrying suitcases. They opened them and set bottles on the table, while Gene, frankly weeping now, opened them and decanted them into the bowl. “Come up, folks. I couldn’t a loved him no better if he’d a been my own son,” he shouted hoarsely, dragging his sleeve across his face.
A waiter edged up to the table with a bowl of ice and fruit and went to put them into the punch bowl. “What the hell you doing?” Gene said, “putting that slop in there? Get to hell away from here.”
“Ra-a-a-a-y-y-y-y!” they shouted, clashing their cups, drowning all save the pantomime as Gene knocked the bowl of fruit from the waiter’s hand and fell again to dumping raw liquor into the bowl, sploshing it into and upon the extended hands and cups. The two youths opened bottles furiously.
As though swept there upon a brassy blare of music the proprietor appeared in the door, his face harried, waving his arms. “Come on, folks,” he shouted, “let’s finish the musical program. It’s costing us money.”
“Hell with it,” they shouted.
“Costing who money?”
“Who cares?”
“Costing who money?”
“Who begrudges it? I’ll pay it. By God, I’ll buy him two funerals.”
“Folks! Folks!” the proprietor shouted. “Don’t you realize there’s a bier in that room?”
“Costing who money?”
“Beer?” Gene said. “Beer?” he said in a broken voice. “Is anybody here trying to insult me by—”
“He begrudges Red the money.”
“Who does?”
“Joe does, the cheap son of a bitch.”
“Is anybody here trying to insult me by—”
“Let’s move the funeral, then. This is not the only place in town.”
“Let’s move Joe.”
“Put the son of a bitch in a coffin. Let’s have two funerals.”
“Beer? Beer? Is somebody—”
“Put the son of a bitch in a coffin. See how he likes it.”
“Put the son of a bitch in a coffin,” the woman in red shrieked. They rushed towar
d the door, where the proprietor stood waving his hands above his head, his voice shrieking out of the uproar before he turned and fled.
In the main room a male quartet engaged from a vaudeville house was singing. They were singing mother songs in close harmony; they sang “Sonny Boy.” The weeping was general among the older women. Waiters were now carrying cups of punch in to them and they sat holding the cups in their fat, ringed hands, crying.
The orchestra played again. The woman in red staggered into the room. “Come on, Joe,” she shouted, “open the game. Get that damn stiff out of here and open the game.” A man tried to hold her; she turned upon him with a burst of filthy language and went on to the shrouded crap table and hurled a wreath to the floor. The proprietor rushed toward her, followed by the bouncer. The proprietor grasped the woman as she lifted another floral piece. The man who had tried to hold her intervened, the woman cursing shrilly and striking at both of them impartially with the wreath. The bouncer caught the man’s arm; he whirled and struck at the bouncer, who knocked him halfway across the room. Three more men entered. The fourth rose from the floor and all four of them rushed at the bouncer.
He felled the first and whirled and sprang with unbelievable celerity, into the main room. The orchestra was playing. It was immediately drowned in a sudden pandemonium of chairs and screams. The bouncer whirled again and met the rush of the four men. They mingled; a second man flew out and skittered along the floor on his back; the bouncer sprang free. Then he whirled and rushed them and in a whirling plunge they bore down upon the bier and crashed into it. The orchestra had ceased and were now climbing onto their chairs, with their instruments. The floral offerings flew; the coffin teetered. “Catch it!” a voice shouted. They sprang forward, but the coffin crashed heavily to the floor, coming open. The corpse tumbled slowly and sedately out and came to rest with its face in the center of a wreath.