“Everything’s lovely, Charley, except this light hurts my eyes.”
When he switched off the lights the window was brightblue. The lights and shadows of the taxis moving up and down the snowy street and the glare from the stores opposite made shifting orange oblongs on the ceiling. “Oh, it’s wonderful here,” said Doris. “Look how oldtimy the street looks with all the ruts in the snow.”
Charley kept refilling the oldfashioneds with whiskey. He got her to take her dress off. “You know you told me about how dresses cost money.” “Oh, you big silly. . . . Charley, do you like me a little bit?” “What’s the use of talking . . . I’m absolutely cuckoo about you . . . you know I want us to be always together. I want us to get mar—” “Don’t spoil everything, this is so lovely, I never thought anything could be like this. . . . Charley, you’re taking precautions, aren’t you?” “Sure thing,” said Charley through clenched teeth and went to his bureau for a condom.
At seven o’clock she got dressed in a hurry, said she had a dinner engagement and would be horribly late. Charley took her down and put her in a taxi. “Now, darling,” he said, “we won’t talk about what I said. We’ll just do it.” Walking back up the steep creaky stairs he could taste her mouth, her hair, his head was bursting with the perfume she used. A chilly bitter feeling was getting hold of him, like the feeling of seasickness. “Oh, Christ,” he said aloud and threw himself face down on the windowseat.
The apartment and Taki and the bootlegger and the payments on his car and the flowers he sent Doris every day all ran into more money than he expected every month. As soon as he made a deposit in the bank he drew it out again. He owned a lot of stock but it wasn’t paying dividends. At Christmas he had to borrow five hundred bucks from Joe Askew to buy Doris a present. She’d told him he mustn’t give her jewelry, so he asked Taki what he thought would be a suitable present for a very rich and beautiful young lady and Taki had said a silk kimono was very suitable, so Charley went out and bought her a mandarincoat. Doris made a funny face when she saw it, but she kissed him with a little quick peck in the corner of the mouth, because they were at her mother’s, and said in a singsongy tone, “Oh, what a sweet boy.”
Mrs. Humphries had asked him for Christmas dinner. The house smelt of tinsel and greens, there was a lot of tissuepaper and litter on the chairs. The cocktails were weak and everybody stood around, Nat and Sally Benton, and some nephews and nieces of Mrs. Humphries’, and her sister Eliza who was very deaf, and George Duquesne who would talk of nothing but wintersports, waiting for the midafternoon dinner to be announced. People seemed sour and embarrassed, except Ollie Taylor who was just home from Italy full of the Christmas spirit. He spent most of the time out in the pantry with his coat off manufacturing what he called an oldtime Christmas punch. He was so busy at it that it was hard to get him to the table for dinner. Charley had to spend all his time taking care of him and never got a word with Doris all day. After dinner and the Christmas punch he had to take Ollie back to his club. Ollie was absolutely blotto and huddled fat and whitefaced in the taxi, bubbling “Damn good Christmas” over and over again.
When he’d put Ollie in the hands of the doorman Charley couldn’t decide whether to go back to the Humphries’ where he’d be sure to find Doris and George with their heads together over some damnfool game or other or to go up to the Askews’ as he’d promised to. Bill Cermak had asked him out to take a look at the bohunks in Jamaica but he guessed it wouldn’t be the thing, he’d said. Charley said sure he’d come, anyplace to get away from the stuffedshirts. From the Penn station he sent a wire wishing the Askews a Merry Christmas. Sure the Askews would understand he had to spend his Christmas with Doris. On the empty train to Jamaica he got to worrying about Doris, maybe he oughtn’t to have left her with that guy.
Out in Jamaica Bill Cermak and his wife and their elderly inlaws and friends were all tickled and a little bit fussed by Charley’s turning up. It was a small frame house with a green papertile roof in a block of identical little houses with every other roof red and every other roof green. Mrs. Cermak was a stout blonde a little fuddled from the big dinner and the wine that had brought brightred spots to her cheeks. She made Charley eat some of the turkey and the plum-pudding they’d just taken off the table. Then they made hot wine with cloves in it and Bill played tunes on the pianoaccordion while everybody danced and the kids yelled and beat on drums and got underfoot.
When Charley said he had to go Bill walked to the station with him. “Say, boss, we sure do appreciate your comin’ out,” began Bill. “Hell, I ain’t no boss,” said Charley. “I belong with the mechanics . . . don’t I, Bill? You and me, Bill, the mechanics against the world . . . and when I get married you’re comin’ to play that damned accordeen of yours at the weddin’. . . get me, Bill . . . it may not be so long.” Bill screwed up his face and rubbed his long crooked nose. “Women is fine once you got ’em pinned down, boss, but when they ain’t pinned down they’re hell.” “I got her pinned down, I got her pinned down all right so she’s got to marry me to make an honest man of me.” “Thataboy,” said Bill Cermak. They stood laughing and shaking hands on the drafty station platform till the Manhattan train came in.
During the automobile show Nat called up one day to say Farrell who ran the Tern outfit was in town and wanted to see Charley and Charley told Nat to bring him around for a cocktail in the afternoon. This time he got Taki to stay.
James Yardly Farrell was a roundfaced man with sandygray hair and a round bald head. When he came in the door he began shouting, “Where is he? Where is he?” “Here he is,” said Nat Benton, laughing. Farrell pumped Charley’s hand. “So this is the guy with the knowhow, is it? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for months . . . ask Nat if I haven’t made his life miserable. . . . Look here, how about coming out to Detroit . . . Long Is land City’s no place for a guy like you. We need your know how out there . . . and what we need we’re ready to pay for.”
Charley turned red. “I’m pretty well off where I am, Mr. Farrell.”
“How much do you make?”
“Oh, enough for a young feller.”
“We’ll talk about that . . . but don’t forget that in a new industry like ours the setup changes fast. . . . We got to keep our eyes openor we’ll get left. . . . Well, we’ll let it drop for the time being. . . . But I can tell you one thing, Anderson, I’m not going to stand by and see this industry ruined by being broken up in a lot of little onehorse units all cutting each other’s throats. Don’t you think it’s better for us to sit around the table and cut the cake in a spirit of friendship and mutual service, and I tell you, young man, it’s going to be a whale of a big cake.” He let his voice drop to a whisper.
Taki, with his yellow face drawn into a thin diplomatic smile, came around with a tray of bacardi cocktails. “No, thanks, I don’t drink,” said Farrell. “Are you a bachelor, Mr. Anderson?”
“Well, something like that. . . . I don’t guess I’ll stay that way long.”
“You’d like it out in Detroit, honestly. . . . Benton tells me you’re from Minnesota.”
“Well, I was born in North Dakota.” Charley talked over his shoulder to the Jap. “Taki, Mr. Benton wants another drink.”
“We got a nice sociable crowd out there,” said Farrell.
After they’d gone Charley called up Doris and asked her right out if she’d like to live in Detroit after they were married. She gave a thin shriek at the other end of the line. “What a dreadful idea . . . and who said anything about that dreadful . . . you know, state . . . I don’t like even to mention the horrid word. . . . Don’t you think we’ve had fun in New York this winter?” “Sure,” answered Charley. “I guess I’d be all right here if . . . things were different. . . . I thought maybe you’d like a change, that’s all. . . . I had an offer from a concern out there, see.” “Now, Charley, you must promise not to mention anything so silly again.” “Sure . . . if you’ll have dinner with me tomorrow night.” “Darling
, tomorrow I couldn’t.” “How about Saturday then?” “All right, I’ll break an engagement. Maybe you can come by for me at Carnegie Hall after the concert.” “I’ll even go to the damn concert if you like.” “Oh, no, Mother’s asked a lot of old ladies.” She was talking fast, her voice twanging in the receiver. “There won’t be any room in the box. You wait for me at the little tearoom, the Russian place where you waited and got so cross the time before.” “All right, anyplace. . . . Say, you don’t know how I miss you when you’re not with me.” “Do you? Oh, Charley, you’re a dear.” She rang off.
Charley put the receiver down and let himself slump back in his chair. He couldn’t help feeling all of a tremble when he talked to her on the telephone. “Hey, Taki, bring me that bottle of scotch. . . . Say, tell me, Taki,” Charley went on, pouring himself a stiff drink, “in your country . . . is it so damn difficult for a guy to get married?” The Jap smiled and made a little bow. “In my country everything much more difficult.”
Next day when Charley got back from the plant he found a wire from Doris saying Saturday absolutely impossible. “Damn the bitch,” he said aloud. All evening he kept calling up on the phone and leaving messages, but she was never in. He got to hate the feel of the damn mouthpiece against his lips. Saturday he couldn’t get anyword to her either. Sunday morning he got Mrs. Humphries on the phone. The cold creaky oldwoman’s voice shrieked that Doris had suddenly gone to Southampton for the weekend. “I know she’ll come back with a dreadful cold,” Mrs. Humphries added. “Weekends in this weather.” “Well, goodby, Mrs. Humphries,” said Charley and rang off. Monday morning when Taki brought him a letter in Doris’s hand, a big blue envelope that smelt of her perfume, the minute he opened it he knew before he read it what it would say.
CHARLEY DEAR,
You are such a dear and I’m so fond of you and do so want you for a friend [underlined]. You know the silly life I lead, right now I’m on the most preposterous weekend and I’ve told everybody I have a splitting headache and have gone to bed just to write to you. But, Charley, please forget all about weddings and things like that. The very idea makes me physically sick and besides I’ve promised George I’d marry him in June and the Duquesnes have a publicrelations counsel—isn’t it just too silly—but his business is to keep the Duquesnes popular with the public and he’s given the whole story to the press, how I was courted among the Scotch moors and in the old medieval abbey and everything. And that’s why I’m in such a hurry to write to you, Charley darling, because you’re the best friend [twice underlined] I’ve got and the only one who lives in the real world of business and production and labor and everything like that, which I’d so love to belong to, and I wanted you to know first thing. Oh, Charley darling, please don’t think horrid things about me.
Your loving friend [three times underlined]
D
Be a good boy and burn up this letter, won’t you?
The buzzer was rattling. It was the boy from the garage with his car. Charley got on his hat and coat and went downstairs. He got in and drove out to Long Island City, walked up the rubbertreaded steps to his office, sat down at his desk, rustled papers, talked to Stauch over the phone, lunched in the employees’ lunchroom with Joe Askew, dictated letters to the new towhaired stenographer and suddenly it was six o’clock and he was jockeying his way through the traffic home.
Crossing the bridge he had an impulse to give a wrench to the wheel and step on the gas, but the damn car wouldn’t clear the rail anyway, it would just make a nasty scrapheap of piledup traffic and trucks.
He didn’t want to go home or to the speakeasy he and Doris had been having dinner in several times a week all winter, so he turned down Third Avenue. Maybe he’d run into somebody at Julius’s. He stood up at the bar. He didn’t want to drink any more than he wanted to do anything else. A few raw shots of rye made him feel better. To hell with her. Nothing like a few drinks. He was alone, he had money on him, he could do any goddam thing in the world.
Next to Charley at the bar stood a couple of fattish dowdylooking women. They were with a redfaced man who was pretty drunk already. The women were talking about clothes and the man was telling about Belleau Wood. Right away he and Charley were old buddies from the A.E.F. “The name is De Vries. Profession . . . bonvivant,” said the man and tugged at the two women until they faced around towards Charley. He put his arms around them with a flourish and shouted, “Meet the wife.”
They had drinks on Belleau Wood, the Argonne, the St. Mihiel salient, and the battle of Paree. The women said goodness, how they wanted to go to Hoboken to the hofbrau. Charley said he’d take them all in his car. They sobered up a little and were pretty quiet crossing on the ferry. At the restaurant in the chilly dark Hoboken street they couldn’t get anything but beer. After they’d finished supper De Vries said he knew a place where they could get real liquor. They circled round blocks and blocks and ended in a dump in Union City. When they’d drunk enough to start them doing squaredances the women said wouldn’t it be wonderful to go to Harlem. This time the ferry didn’t sober them up so much because they had a bottle of scotch with them. In Harlem they were thrown out of a dancehall and at last landed in a nightclub. The bonvivant fell down the redcarpeted stairs and Charley had a time laughing that off with the management. They ate fried chicken and drank some terrible gin the colored waiter sent out for, and danced. Charley kept thinking how beautifully he was dancing. He couldn’t make out why he didn’t have any luck picking up any of the highyallers.
Next morning he woke up in a room in a hotel. He looked around. No, there wasn’t any woman in the bed. Except that his head ached and his ears were burning, he felt good. Stomach all right. For a moment he thought he’d just landed from France. Then he thought of the Packard, where the hell had he left it? He reached for the phone. “Say, what hotel is this?” It was the McAlpin, goodmorning. He remembered Joe Turbino’s number and phoned him to ask what the best thing for a hangover was. When he was through phoning he didn’t feel so good. His mouth tasted like the floor of a chickencoop. He went back to sleep. The phone woke him. “A gentleman to see you.” Then he remembered all about Doris. The guy from Turbino’s brought a bottle of scotch. Charley took a drink of it straight, drank a lot of icewater, took a bath, ordered up some breakfast. But it was time to go out to lunch. He put the bottle of scotch in his overcoat pocket and went round to Frank and Joe’s for a cocktail.
That night he took a taxi up to Harlem. He went from joint to joint dancing with the highyallers. He got in a fight in a breakfastclub. It was day when he found himself in another taxi going downtown to Mrs. Darling’s. He didn’t have any money to pay the taximan and the man insisted on going up in the elevator while he got the money. There was nobody in the apartment but the colored maid and she shelled out five dollars. She tried to get Charley to lie down but he wanted to write her out a check. He could sign his name all right but he couldn’t sign it on the check. The maid tried to get him to take a bath and go to bed. She said he had blood all over his shirt.
He felt fine and was all cleaned up, had been asleep in a barberchair while the barber shaved him and put an icebag on his black eye, and he had gone back to Frank and Joe’s for a pickup when there was Nat Benton. Good old Nat was worried asking him about his black eye and he was showing Nat where he’d skinned his knuckles on the guy, but Nat kept talking about the business and Askew-Merritt and Standard Airparts and said Charley’d be out on the sidewalk if it wasn’t for him. They had some drinks but Nat kept talking about buttermilk and wanted Charley to come around to the hotel and meet Farrell. Farrell thought Charley was about the best guy in the world, and Farrell was the coming man in the industry, you could bet your bottom dollar on Farrell. And right away there was Farrell and Charley was showing him his knuckle and telling him he’d socked the guy in that lousy pokergame and how he’d have cleaned ’em all up if somebody hadn’t batted him back of the ear with a stocking full of sand. Detroit, sure. He was ready
to go to Detroit any time, Detroit or anywhere else. Goddam it, a guy don’t like to stay in a town where he’s just been rolled. And that damn highyaller had his pocketbook with all his addresses in it. Papers? Sure. Sign anythin’ you like, anythin’ Nat says. Stock, sure. Swop every last share. What the hell would a guy want stock for in a plant in a town where he’d been rolled in a clipjoint. Detroit, sure, right away. Nat, call a taxi, we’re goin’ to Detroit.
Then they were back at the apartment and Taki was chattering and Nat attended to everything and Farrell was saying, “I’d hate to see the other guy’s eye,” and Charley could sign his name all right this time. First time he signed it on the table but then he got it on the contract, and Nat fixed it all up about swapping his Askew-Merritt stock for Tern stock and then Nat and Farrell said Charley must be sleepy and Taki kept squeaking about how he had to take right away a hot bath.
Charley woke up the next morning feeling sober and dead like a stiff laid out for the undertaker. Taki brought him orangejuice but he threw it right up again. He dropped back on the pillow. He’d told Taki not to let anybody in, but there was Joe Askew standing at the foot of the bed. Joe looked paler than usual and had a worried frown like at the office, and was pulling at his thin blond mustache. He didn’t smile. “How are you coming?” he said.
“Soso,” said Charley.
“So it’s the Tern outfit, is it?”
“Joe, I can’t stay in New York now. I’m through with this burg.”
“Through with a lot of other things, it looks like to me.”
“Joe, honest I wouldn’ta done it if I hadn’t had to get out of this town . . . and I put as much into this as you did, some people think a little more.”
Joe’s thin lips were clamped firmly together. He started to say something, stopped himself and walked stiffly out of the room.