The fact was that to the Tug & Maul boys the punk sometimes seemed something clean off Division Street, if not out of the world. The only routine work he’d ever performed successfully was the window-peeping routine, conducted between 10 P.M. and midnight of midsummer evenings, which he’d called his ‘scraunching route.’
The scraunching route had had seven stops, each timed for the most rewarding moment and requiring anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour of hanging from a limb, crouched on somebody’s porch or leaning, with a telephone directory underfoot, against a pane whose shade reached only to two inches of the sash.
‘I’ve seen a thing or two in my time,’ he still liked to boast, ‘that was how I found out the best place for wolfin’ ain’t the taverns. It ain’t in dance halls ’r on North Clark on Saturday night. It’s in the front row in Sunday school on Sunday mornin’. Oh yeh, I know a thing or two, I been around.’
The punk knew a thing or two all right. He knew almost everything except how to stay out of jail. For jail was the one place he’d been most around. He’d been around jails so much that, as Violet never wearied of promising him, ‘someday you’ll be in so long you’ll get to thinkin’ you’re the warden.’
It had been Violet who had first diverted him from the scraunching route. He had been boasting, to a small but select circle at the Tug & Maul, of what he’d seen the night before, when Violet, uninvited, had interrupted to observe that if she were his girl friend she’d be so ashamed she wouldn’t be able to hold up her head on a lighted street.
‘’Shamed ’cause a fellow like me is studyin’ to be a Pinkerton?’ He had feigned amazement. ‘Don’t you think I want to make somethin’ of myself? Don’t you think there’s big money in detectin’ things people ’r doin’ when they don’t know anybody’s lookin’? How you suppose Pinkies get trainin’ – in classrooms?’
‘I know you don’t get detective trainin’ doin’ a dry waltz with yourself on somebody else’s fire escape,’ she assured him. ‘If I was your girl friend ’n caught you on my fire escape I’d testify up against you myself, so help me.’
‘If you was my girl friend,’ he whispered in his special inside-info whisper, ‘I wouldn’t be playin’ Pinkie wit’ myself.’
It had begun as simply as that. He’d given up his scraunching route for her. He’d given up almost everything that makes life worth while, it seemed. Everything but stealing dogs and telling lies and keeping one eye peeled for stray change along bar rails.
The bigger the lies he told her the tenderer Violet had felt toward him. The dizzier he appeared the more deeply he’d endeared himself to her warm round arms. ‘He’s not a Polak, he’s not a Hebe, he’s just nobody’s poor sparrow at all – who’s to take care of him if not me?’ She really wondered who.
‘I can’t stand a liar myself,’ Sophie answered that one virtuously.
‘Lies are just a poor man’s pennies,’ Violet told her. ‘Fact is, that’s just how he started out with me – tellin’ lies. I didn’t know him so good then, only from seein’ him by Antek’s ’r standin’ on the corner of Damen ’n Division in them same old baggy pants ’n perfesser’s glasses, holdin’ a dog on a leash ’n both lookin’ like they been in a battle. I didn’t know about his window peepin’ till he starts braggin’ by Antek that time. He was just so afraid he wasn’t good enough for me, that’s all his braggin’ was,’ Violet explained. ‘He didn’t think he was good enough for anybody, he was tryin’ so hard to show he was somebody. So it was up to me to show him he was somebody all by hisself – that’s the first thing a woman got to do for a man.’ N of course there’s no sense tryin’ to prove somethin’ like that standin’ up. The least a girl owes to herself is to be comfortable about it.’
‘It’s what they call syko-ology,’ Sophie informed her loftily.
‘That ain’t what I call it, Sissie. I just call it savin’ poor man’s pennies.’ Cause that’s all his big lies are, Zosh. Just a poor punk’s pennies.’
‘You leave me agasted,’ Sophie told her, knotting her babushka under chin with impatience in every fingertip, ‘I just don’t see how some of you Division Street women live, that’s all.’
‘Well,’ Violet reflected a long minute, ‘I guess it’s like Frankie says: some cats just swing like that, Zosh.’
It was Violet who’d gotten Sparrow right side up the time he was put on probation ‘just for settin’ in a corner drinkin’ a couple beers. Some fella come in pertendin’ like he’s drunk, buys me a couple cheap shots ’n says there’s guys followin’ him, they’re after his watch, would I hold it for him. I got such a honest puss. So I done the guy the favor ’n sure enough, one more shot ’n the bum starts to holler somebody copped his watch.
‘It all just goes to show you, don’t try to do too much for people or you’ll wind up in the short end of the funnel. It’s my one big weakness, helpin’ guys who can’t help theirselves.’
‘Yeh,’ Violet reminded him dryly, ‘I guess you thrun the pop bottle through Widow Wieczorek’s window that time just to let in a little air too. You know,’ she added before he could answer, ‘it ain’t that I love you so much, it’s more that I’m sorry for you because your mind is so weak.’
‘I see what you mean,’ Sparrow decided, ‘I’m the first person you ever met with a mind weaker than yours – is that it?’
‘Not entirely. What I really like about you is you’re so mercenary.’
‘And what I really like about you is that if you had a hummingbird’s brains you’d fly backerds,’ the punk forgave her for everything she’d done for him.
She’d kept him out of trouble then until he’d slipped on the ice one January night and that had been the worst rap of all. The sidewalk was like the dance floor at Guyman’s Paradise, anyone could have fallen. And have one elbow go through a window. A jewelry-store window. In the dark a thing like that could happen to a Park District policeman.
Frankie had gotten Zygmunt to put in the fix, the charge had been changed to drunk and disorderly, and Sparrow had gotten two years probation. But it had cost Violet one hundred silver dollars of old Stash’s money. So the least the punk could do for her, he felt, was to stay out of further trouble.
The only time in those whole two years that the police had persecuted him was when he’d taken a short cut on his way to putting a potted geranium on his mother’s grave.
He had to take a short cut through an alley toward the florist’s when the squadrol slid up beside him. All they wanted to know, after he’d explained his business, was how he expected any florist to be open at 4 A.M.
‘Why, that’s the oney time to buy geran’ums – right before sunup. You see,’ he explained easily, ‘it’s a night-bloomin’ geran’um I got to have, it’s what Mother always liked best.’
That might have stopped them if it hadn’t been for the bathtub on his back. Sure enough, they noticed it. Chicago cops are pretty sharp about bathtubs being carried through alleys piggyback at 4 A.M. Though the punk himself didn’t see anything particularly out of the way. ‘A little clumsy for carryin’ geran’ums,’ he conceded to the aces, setting the tub down to light the butt of a dead cigar with a borrowed match, ‘but when I seen it layin’ there in the middle of the alley the first thing I tawt was somebody better get that tub out of the way before Szalapski the Milkman’s horse breaks a leg over it in the dark. That’s Szalapski from Nort’western Dairy – not that Szalapski I Fix Fenders – it ain’t that the horse don’t know the stops by hisself it’s just that he don’t see so good no more – not like that good old Rumdum the Pedigreed Square-snapper – that’s my blood-type Polish Airedale, he don’t get along so good wit’ Owner’s deafy-dumb cat – say, you fellows want to buy a dog?’
A few other items were missing from the plumber’s. In fact the faster he talked the more the squad found missing. What worried them most was the flashlight and crowbar, they seemed to think the punk had something to do with those too. But the plumber dropped charges when Violet t
ook care of him and Stash did without Polish sausage at all for a while.
The court put it down as malicious mischief and Sparrow had gone away for thirty days.
The day the wagon took Sparrow out to Twenty-eighth and California Violet got roaring drunk in the Tug & Maul. And, as always when she had too much, upbraided all the males in sight just for being males. She wasn’t going to live with old Stash another day, she told the house. ‘Or any other of you godamned hairy-ass morphodyke booze bums who think a girl got to be grateful when her old man brings home bargains from Nostriewicz’s Hi-Klass Bakery – they ain’t even got good freshy stuff by Nostriewicz ’n here he comes bringin’ me the day-olds that’s a day old when they’re freshy even ’n tells me I should sew buttons on his pants ’n sell the zippers to Efjievicz the Tailor because all the young guys are bringin’ Efjievicz pants to take off the buttons ’n put on zippers ’n Efjievicz don’t have enough zippers ’n Stash is too old for a zipper anyhow, it’s just for young guys in a big hurry, he ain’t never in a hurry for nothin’ but bargains by Nostriewicz no more – he’s tellin’ me.’
The barflies applauded timidly, they felt she deserved applause.
‘He’s tellin’ me he’s not so young no more. Godamnit, am I married ’r ain’t I?’ she demanded to know, steadying herself against the bar.
‘Don’t sound like you are,’ Meter Reader, with the holes in his cap and whisky in his hand, felt obliged to reply.
‘That’s just your opinion,’ Violet almost blasted him off the stool. ‘Who ast your dirty opinion anyhow? Who you think you’re tellin’ what to do? Who you married to?’ She sized him up with growing contempt. ‘Hell, you’re in worse shape than my old man – you’re married to your dirty fist, that’s who you’re married to – where you get off anyhow tellin’ other people what to do ’n how to live? Ever try mindin’ your own business, you moldy-lookin’ sandlot spigotheaded bakebrain? I’ll use your dirty skull for a bar towel, you tellin’ me what to do ’n what not to do ’n all that kapustka—’ Violet wasn’t big, but she looked big enough to do it – at such moments the helmet of her hennaed hair and the wide-set gray eyes flared with a single flame. Meter Reader took up his glass quietly and retired to the rear of the bar. Meter Reader was saving himself for the exigencies of his coaching position with the Endless Belt & Leather Invincibles.
That thirty days had taught the punk a lesson. It had made him feel badly, costing Violet all that money. Every time she’d had enough saved to divorce Old Man she’d have to spend it putting in the fix for him. He’d brooded about it the whole thirty days, and made up his mind that the first thing he’d do when he got out would be to steal the divorce money for her.
He’d picked on Gold’s Department Store when a goodly crowd was there.
Sparrow had been stealing odds and ends off Gold’s counters since he was in short pants. He knew that the only gun in the store was an ancient cow pistol carried by the old man who runs the freight elevator. The elevator man is even older than old Gold; all he does is lean against the shaft, half asleep all day. It’s like a pension.
Sparrow had felt that if he could get the gun off the old man without getting himself shot straight through the head the rest should be fairly easy. He began drinking on the notion next door to Gold’s and, as the afternoon wore on, the more natural the notion had appeared. He wasn’t able to understand why he hadn’t thought of it long before.
But when he’d shuffled out of the bar and had seen how swiftly the long street was darkening, he’d gone cold sober with the recollection of his recent thirty-day stretch and had had to return, in a hurry, to the bar.
He’d gotten drunk all over again on Vi’s credit, which was good so long as Stash held down his icehouse job. But by nine o’clock the credit gave out and he’d been brooding on the idea so long he couldn’t back out. To falter would have been to reneg on Frankie as well as on Violet, he felt. Both had done so much for him – and what had he ever done for either? Nothing. Not a thing. He never did anything for his friends but use up their credit and get them in trouble. He’d do something big for them all. Right now.
So shuffled, cap yanked low, straight down the middle aisle – Ladies’ Hose and Fancy Footwear – to the freight elevator where the ancient house dick lounged in dreams of long-lost daily doubles. Sparrow shoved his combination flashlight pencil into the small of the old man’s back, grabbed the gun, shoved him into the lift and snarled just like Edward G. Robinson, ‘Into the basement wit’ the rest of the rats – copper.’
His glasses had clouded up, but he heard the door of the lift crash shut and the cables whining downward and the dozen-odd customers began turning slowly toward him like people in a slow-motion movie. In that moment he saw himself through all their eyes: a cardboard cowboy in horn-rimmed spectacles waving an oversized cow gun. He heard his own shrill voice carried away down endless nylon aisles on the scudding of the overhead fans.
‘Face the waw-awls, everybody!’
He saw them turning, by ones and twos, old Gold with a steel washboard under his arm and the cashier’s face white as a split apple against the parched black line of her brows just as she took a header and he hollered, ‘Leave her lay! She oney fainted!’
Leaning across the counter he banged the cash drawer open and saw bills stacked there just for Sparrow. Tens and twenties and singles and fives rubbing rawly against the icy sweat of his palm – and the shining dimes and quarters in the last drawer over! He reached so far he tottered, the liquor came up in his throat and his lips moved with whisky or greed; heard a quarter go tinkling along the floor toward Fancy Footwear and followed it anxiously, a dozen pairs of eyes following it with him, to a rack bearing spring topcoats. Pocketed the lucky quarter, pulled the flashiest coat of all off the rack and was struggling into it when old Gold’s nose appeared above the cosmetics counter between two jars of cold cream, the washboard glinted one moment as it trembled in his hand and the momentum of his swing carried him half across the counter, sent the cold cream jars and a stack of blue-boxed Kotex into the aisle as the board caught Sparrow spam behind the left ear.
He went down as if he’d been shot; the cow gun went clattering down those endless nylon aisles.
Half the crowd began shoving the other half aside for the distinction of being the first to sit on the gangster while others bound him with clotheslines and a couple cooler heads used the excitement to snatch such small items as happened to be lying loose and near at hand. In the haste of binding the punk old Gold became securely tied to him; the punk reared his head groggily to protest something or other and someone promptly banged him back to sleep with that same washboard. When the aces arrived old Gold was still trying to free himself.
In front of the store half the neighborhood waited to see who the cops would bring out this time. They came out carrying something that looked like a giant beehive with old Gold in tow. For all you could see of Sparrow in the yards of clothesline circling him from forehead to ankles was the point of his pale nose sticking out of the coils. The aces shoved old Gold into the wagon with him – if he wasn’t an accomplice what was he doing tied up with a gangster?
Some gangster. At the Saloon Street Station it took the officers ten minutes to unwind the punk and ten more to loosen old Gold. Sparrow sat up blinking, looking for his glasses, and Sergeant Kvorka immediately poured a bucket of ice water on the punk’s head so he could see more clearly.
The first person he’d recognized was Violet. He blinked up at her with his shortsighted eyes, waiting resignedly for her to explain this caper to him. ‘Well?’ the punk demanded.
‘Ask him what he thought he was trying to do,’ the bewildered aces urged her. They wanted to know too.
‘I went in there to try on a topcoat,’ he explained haughtily, without taking those accusing eyes off her, ‘because I wanted to look nice just for you. I took the gun off that old man ’cause he got a old grudge against me. I was gonna give it back to him right after I paid for
the coat. But when I had it on, all of a sudden they wouldn’t give me a chance to pay for a thing, just like they been layin’ for me all along. You know as well as I do, honey, I’m not the kind goes around tryin’ to get somethin’ fer nothin’.’
The aces looked at Violet and Violet looked at the aces.
‘We’ll have to get another kind of lawyer now,’ she sighed. ‘Here goes the divorce again. It looks like the oney honeymoon you ’n me’ll ever have’ll be in the Bridewell.’
‘I’ll defend myself,’ Sparrow announced, ‘it was self-defense. That makes it false arrest.’ He just couldn’t get that false arrest notion out of his offbalanced skull.
‘If you don’t button up I’ll sue you for breach of promise even if I am married,’ she threatened him, getting angry with him at last. ‘You’re goin’ to cop a plea ’n get paroled to me – if I ain’t gonna be your wife I’ll just be your dirty guardian.’ Abruptly her anger turned to tears and he’d never seen her cry before. ‘Then I can arrest you myself when you get out of line – I’ll arrest you every night just to keep the aces from doin’ it.’
‘I’ll have to look up the law on that,’ he dismissed her. ‘I don’t think they got me yet.’
They hadn’t. The two analysts who questioned him at Central Police turned in reports at such variance that Zygmunt was able to put in the fix with almost no trouble at all.
Violet had to pay Zygmunt off in installments, out of Stash’s hoarded checks. Every time she’d get the Prospector paid off she’d have to start chiseling on Old Husband again. It made her pretty mad at Old Husband sometimes.
Just the way he kept hanging on, month after month, was enough to wear away any woman’s patience. ‘I wouldn’t mind his hangin’ on to me if it meant anythin’,’ she complained to Sophie, ‘but I don’t have to tell you it don’t mean a thing, the shape he’s in.’