The Fires of Spring

  “Hello, Dave,” she said prosaically.

  “Mona!” he cried in confused emotion. It was unbelievable, seeing her in his hallway. She wore a beret and a soiled blouse. She had on well-tailored slacks and a man’s belt. She wore saddle shoes and rolled-down brown socks. She had no make-up on and seemed pallid. She was thinner than before and somewhat unkempt.

  “I got to have a place to stay,” she said directly. “I’m broke.”

  “Where’s Cyril?” David asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “We washed up months ago,” she said. “Company folded.”

  “Well, come in.”

  Mona paused in the doorway and surveyed his room. “Not much of a dump,” she said.

  “I’m out of work,” he explained.

  A look of anguish came into Mona’s face. “Oh, hell!” she cried. “Don’t anybody have a job?”

  “I’ll put you up, somehow,” he said.

  “You’ve got to stake me!” she pleaded.

  “I’ll find some place to sleep …” he began. But when he said this a look of horror came into Mona’s face. She had intended coming as a queen to dispense her favors, but she saw that David could not consider such an arrangement. Her shoulders sagged and she went to his mirror. There she saw her stringy hair, the greasy beret and the unwashed blouse. Her face was a mask, still beautiful, but her eyes were sunken. Not even her perfect breasts showed to advantage, and she saw how wretched she had become.

  “I have a hot lead on a picture,” she said. Then she pointed at herself in the mirror. “I got to find a place to repair that,” she said with a tone of disgust.

  “You can stay here,” David said. He went downstairs to Mom’s sitting room. “I feel like a damned fool,” he began, apologetically.

  Mom interrupted him. “I always figure a man has an inalienable right to make a horse’s ass of himself once a year. I figure that’s the actress you told me about.”

  “That’s Mona Meigs,” David said.

  “And she wants a room. And she has no money. I’m the last person in the world’s got a right to give anybody advice, considerin’ the clown I’ve been. But if I was you, Dave, I’d tell her to haul tail out.”

  “How could I do that?” David asked.

  “OK. You’d share your last dime with her. So we’ll do it this way. You can have that room. She can have it. Or you and she can have it together.”

  “Can I sleep in the restaurant?”

  “The fire inspector says no! No more bums sleepin’ down there.”

  “I’ll take her junk upstairs,” David said. “I’ll find a place to stay somewhere.”

  “Dave,” Mom said quietly, “you’re usin’ up this year’s quota. You’re bein’ a prime, A-1 Kansas City horse’s ass.”

  “I said that first,” David replied. He climbed back to his room and reported, “Mom says you can stay here for a while.”

  “What about you?” Mona asked.

  “I’ll find a place somewhere.”

  Mona pulled off her beret and tossed it onto the bed. She ruffed out her hair and combed it with her fingers. “I suppose the john’s out in the hall?” she queried distastefully.

  “That’s right,” David answered and went downstairs.

  He left the restaurant and went to a bench in Washington Square. On the opposite side he could see Alison’s house, a handsome red-brick structure with clean white trim. It looked like its inhabitant, and David thought how different Alison was from Mona in her present condition. He recalled how Mona had been offended when he had said that he would not stay with her, and her brash assumption that he would still want to love her infuriated him. Mona was cheap and tough and he wanted nothing to do with her. Inwardly, he admitted that he was glad she looked so drab, because that fortified his resolution.

  But the more he thought of her, lying on his bed, the more excited he became. “I better go see Alison,” he finally decided. Against his own judgment he crossed the Square to her cold, white building and rang her bell. When the door clicked he hurried up the carpeted stairs.

  Alison waited at the top, but when she saw who it was she cried, “Oh, it’s Dave. I don’t want to see you.” She retreated into her room and slammed the door. In the quiet and thickly carpeted hallway David banged on the door and cried, “Alison! I’ve got to talk with you. Mona Meigs came back.”

  “How dandy!” came the bright young voice from behind the door.

  “Could she stay with you? For a while?”

  “What’s the matter with her fancy actor?”

  “I don’t know. They broke up.” There was a long silence and finally the door opened slightly. Alison peered through the chink and David said with appalling frankness. “I don’t want to fool around with Mona. Seeing her made me know how much I need you.”

  The intensity of this statement made Alison catch her breath, and she admitted David into her room, but when he tried to kiss her, she pushed him away. “Now we start all that again,” she groaned.

  She sat David on her expensive davenport and he tried not to study the room like a peasant, but it impressed him. He looked away from the rich furnishings to where Alison sat primly in a Chippendale chair. “I can’t throw Mona out,” he pleaded.

  “I know you can’t,” Alison agreed. “In a way, I admire you.” Then, suddenly, words bubbled forth and she said, “The crowd I have to go with make me sick, Dave. They’re so phony! The people they make jokes about are twice as good as they are.”

  “Then why do you bother with them?” David asked.

  “Because … Well, it’s my job.” The barrenness of this reply shocked David and he betrayed his disappointment.

  “I didn’t think you were the one who compromised,” he said. “I do, but …”

  “I don’t compromise!” she said defiantly. “I study them like guinea pigs. You’ll see them in my book. It’s almost done.” Then her tone became icy again and she inquired, “What have you accomplished?”

  “Not much,” he admitted. “I got fired as you predicted. I’ve done some sketches.”

  “Sketches!” the slim girl exploded, jumping to her feet. “You’re starving in an attic and all you do is sketches! Dave,” she pleaded, bending down and placing her hands in his, “believe me! I’ll upset heaven and hell at Fashion to make them take articles from you. Do us something flashy or woman stuff …” Then she saw that she was using the wrong words. Angrily she turned from him and walked toward the window, but she stopped and stood with her hands upon her finely tailored hips.

  “You may not believe it from things I’ve done to you, Dave, but you’re terribly important to me. You were the first intelligent person to tell me I could be a writer. I wish … I wish to God we had been meant for each other. Because for all your dreaming nonsense, I can respect you. But I’m going to be a writer. You watch! I’ll never let anything interrupt, and when we’re old people, we’ll meet and talk about it while we sit in the sun.”

  She held out her beautiful hands, but David kept his in his lap. He sensed that this was the last time he would ever talk with Alison. He said, “I’ve walked the streets with my heart pounding for you, Alison. I know you’re not tough. I know it’s a pose, because I know how scared you are down inside that you won’t be first rate. And how do I know? Because I feel the same doubts.” His voice grew intense, and he said, “I shall write good books, too. They’re bursting within me. I can see whole sections written out in my mind …” The fury of words was on him and he paced nervously. “I’ll write as I never dreamed of writing before. I’m going to drag experience right into …”

  “Have you actually written any of it yet?” Alison asked quietly.

  “As I said, some sketches.”

  “And from that you can be sure?”

  “Yes,” David said.

  “Well, I’ll pray for you,” Alison concluded. She allowed him to kiss her good-bye, the last kiss they would ever know, and for a moment he thought: “She’s a warm, human p
erson, after all.” Thus encouraged, he asked impulsively, “Could you possibly lend Mona a hundred dollars?”

  But as he looked into her bright face, her eyes grew remorselessly hard. “No,” she said, and she closed the door forever.

  He returned to Mom Beckett’s, where he slipped into the restaurant and propositioned Claude. “How about letting me sleep on chairs for a couple of nights?” he begged.

  The poet bit his lip for a moment and said, “You know Mom’s been having trouble with the inspectors.” But that night he arranged a rickety bed upon which David slept for five successive nights. In the daytime he worked feverishly at Claude’s typewriter, banging out a Fashion story about the Taos Indians. He built a hard and glossy patina into the words, and at last his pages had the tight and stylized Fashion quality. When it was done he took it uptown himself and asked the girl at the desk to deliver it to Miss Webster.

  But he was so tired that next morning he overslept and Mom found him sprawled on the chairs, his mouth dirty with the smell of stale tobacco smoke. “Ain’t he one hell of a sight?” Mom asked the poet as she surveyed the sleeping form. She kicked one of the chairs and bellowed, “Hey! You! I gave strict orders for bums to sleep outside.” Then, when David rubbed his eyes, she threw up her hands in mock horror and screamed, “My God! It’s Harper!”

  The comedy ended when the door opened and a little man in uniform cried with great satisfaction, “Ah-ha! Just as I thought! Sleeping customers in the restaurant.”

  “You pismire!” Mom shouted. “You get the hell out of this restaurant!” She started to throw a coffee cup at the little fellow when Claude interrupted her.

  The inspector grinned triumphantly and announced, “This time it’s going to be a fine!” Mom broke loose from Claude’s restraint and leaped at the little man, who ducked out, chuckling to himself.

  “Now see what you done!” Mom exploded at David. She would have berated him further but a stentorian voice outside was shouting, “Is this Mom Beckett’s?” She left David and thrust her head out the door. “Who’n hell you think it is?” The loud voice cried back, “But they told me Mom Beckett was an ugly old bag! You’re beautiful!”

  “It’s Jensen!” Dave cried, and he brushed past Mom and into the broad arms of the Wild Man. The big football player clapped David on the back and barged into the restaurant. “Some joint!” he said approvingly. He lifted Mom in the air and gave her a kiss. “You’re even prettier than Dave said,” he joked.

  “A big boy like you better have a drink!” Mom proposed.

  “And I could use one. Even this early.” The Wild Man tossed off a beer and a gin and then took David out into Washington Square.

  “What’s up?” David asked.

  “Cyril Hargreaves. He’s very sick.”

  “In New York?”

  “Yes. You see, I wanted to help him, but …”

  “I don’t have a job either,” David said.

  “Times are sure tough,” Jensen said. “What Cyril needs most is somebody to sit with him.” The wonderful color in Jensen’s face was gone and he seemed worn with the troubles of his times. “You see, Dave, the old boy is dyin’. Alone.”

  He led David to a dingy house on West Forty-eighth Street and then climbed four flights of narrow stairs. In a room with no curtains and a single forty-watt bulb they found the old actor. Cyril was thin, very gray, and he was visibly dying. When David entered Cyril nodded and allowed his leonine head to fall upon the pillow. His mouth hung open. He had not been shaved for two days, and saliva dripped from his beard.

  “Let him sleep,” the Wild Man said. “He may recognize you later.”

  “What’s he got?” David asked in a whisper.

  “Pneumonia and old age.”

  “Has he had a doctor?”

  “Equity sent one. I had no dough.” The Wild Man explained the medicines and added, “You take over, I been here two days.”

  “Where you living?” David asked.

  “Here and there,” the Wild Man replied. The two friends looked at each other and said no more. While Jensen checked the medicine David looked at the sick man. Tears came into his eyes and he wanted to wipe them away, but he was ashamed to do so while Jensen remained. Cyril Hargreaves, the proud man! Lying in a grimy white bed. The blankets were thin and had been soiled for years. In lusher days lovers had come to this room and had wrapped themselves in those blankets. About the old actor’s face the edges of the blankets were frayed, and they formed a gruesome shroud for the greatness that had once moved that wasted body.

  “This is awful!” David muttered.

  “Oh, he had a pretty good life,” the Wild Man mused. “I’m going now. I can hardly keep my eyes open. But I’d give my last buck to get my hands on that bitch Mona Meigs.”

  David controlled his face. “She missing?” he inquired.

  “Yep. They hit hard times, and as soon as the dough was gone, she high-tailed it out. I saw her the other day. She wouldn’t come up to see him. She looked like hell. Ran away from me.”

  “You get some sleep,” David said.

  “You were in love with her, weren’t you?” Jensen asked at the door.

  “Who?”

  “Mona. She sure looks like hell now.” The Wild Man shook his head and left.

  At dusk Cyril awoke. The newspaper shielding the light had slipped away, and a yellow glare filled his gaunt face. He did not recognize David but called him a stumbling “Mr. J’ns’n.” He hawked and huffed, as in the old days, and said graciously, “I believe I have some med’sin due me. And I’m afraid the lamp needs some adjustment.” He took the medicine and made a wry face. “The theatre has had a very bad season, Mr. J’ns’n. Things … have … been … very … slow … indeed.”

  He lapsed into a coma and for one frantic moment David thought he had died. But when the breathing seemed to have stopped completely, the old voice said, “I’ll take a little nap.” David pulled the worn blankets about the foam-flecked beard.

  This was the end of the artist! This was how artists and poets and actors and novelists died! In a lonely room, with rented furniture and a shaky bed. This was the echo of applause, the true face when the masking was ended. Bitterly, and without comprehension, David recalled the endless towns Cyril Hargreaves must have played in his long career. Now they were shadows, and the laughter had ceased. He was dying in a dirty room on West Forty-eighth Street.

  For a moment David’s consuming preoccupation with experience came back and he remembered the night he had lain in the truck while Vito and the Wild Man had gone inside for hot dogs. That same feeling of infinite remoteness now attacked him, and he knew that whether he willed it or not, his avaricious mind was noting each shred of the raveled blanket exactly as it had recorded sounds on that distant night, or as it had studied the light falling across barren bricks outside his window.

  Hargreaves moved, but David’s mind continued to note the peculiar shape the blankets took as they rested upon the dying man. And the four bottles, they could be described like this: “Near the curve of the scarred bedstead rose four bottles like the pediment of a Greek temple.” David blinked his eyes. “For God’s sake!” he cried at his mind. “Stop! Stop!”

  The night wore on, and the room became familiar. David studied the way in which the wallpaper was soiled. Some man with much pomade had often sat in that chair with his feet upon the bed, resting his greasy hair upon the wall. Over there a man—perhaps the same one—had blown his nose with his finger, and again the wall was stained. He was not frightened by these things. He did not fear that he himself might one day die in such a room, for he knew that he was as deeply committed to the world of art as Cyril Hargreaves had been. This barren room with its obscene stains might be the end of the artist, but it would never be the end of art. He remembered consolingly a long-forgotten name he had seen scrawled upon a rafter, God alone knew where: “Robert Mantell. Hamlet. February 3, 1907.”

  At four o’clock the dying man awoke and imm
ediately recognized David. “Mr. Harper!” he called feebly. “It’s so very good of you to visit with me!” He extended a thin, worn hand in exactly the gracious manner he would have used had David been visiting him in an expensive suite. Yet his quick mind saw that David was shocked by the quality of the hand, and he laughed, “So much can happen in two years.” He lay back and smiled at his visitor. “I’ve seen several of my old friends,” he said, mentioning names David did not know. “But one person has been much in my mind. What happened to Miss Emma Clews?”

  “I don’t know,” David said.

  “I’ve been chuckling over her superb performance … What were we playing, Mr. Harper?”

  They recalled events from that last Chautauqua. “We were fortunate to share that final tour,” the old actor said. “I would not have missed it. Is it day or night?”

  “It’s day,” David replied. “It’s dawn.”

  “Could I prevail upon you …” He fell back. A very thin finger rubbed his chin and he said, “… Yesterday I could not shave. I have a feeling that Miss Meigs may call today. Could I prevail upon you to help me?”

  The process was almost unbearable. David held the old man up, a bundle of tired bones held tenuously together by will and undead tissues. He felt as if he were being dragged against his will into the stratagems of death. For a moment he thought that he would be sick, like the old women in the poorhouse, but Lord Cyril rubbed the fresh cheeks and said, “It’s a superb feeling, to be fresh shaven. I have a decided presentiment that Miss Meigs will call today.”

  At eight Jensen banged noisily into the room and cried, “If it was summer, Cyril, we’d go out to a ball game.” Then he whispered to David, “Get some sleep and come on back about six. He’ll die for sure tonight.”

  Tired, and with sand in his eyes, David rushed to his room, where Mona still lay in bed. She had cold cream on her face and her hair was in curlers. She had been sleeping in her underwear. “What brings you here?” she asked.