Manhattan Transfer

  After the rain outdoors the plastery backstage smell was pungent in their nostrils. Ellen hung the wet raincoat on the back of the door and put her umbrella in a corner of the dressing room where a little puddle began to spread from it. ‘And all I could think of,’ she was saying in a low voice to Stan who followed her staggering, ‘was a funny song somebody’d told me when I was a little girl about: And the only man who survived the flood was longlegged Jack of the Isthmus.’

  ‘God I dont see why people have children. It’s an admission of defeat. Procreation is the admission of an incomplete organism. Procreation is an admission of defeat.’

  ‘Stan for Heaven’s sake dont shout, you’ll shock the stagehands … I oughtnt to have let you come. You know the way people gossip round a theater.’

  ‘I’ll be quiet just like a lil mouse… Just let me wait till Milly comes to dress you. Seeing you dress is my only remaining pleasure… I admit that as an organism I’m incomplete.’

  ‘You wont be an organism of any kind if you dont sober up.’

  ‘I’m going to drink… I’m going to drink till when I cut myself whiskey runs out. What’s the good of blood when you can have whiskey?’

  ‘Oh Stan.’

  ‘The only thing an incomplete organism can do is drink… You complete beautiful organisms dont need to drink… I’m going to lie down and go byby.’

  ‘Dont Stan for Heaven’s sake. If you go and pass out here I’ll never forgive you.’

  There was a soft doubleknock at the door. ‘Come in Milly.’ Milly was a small wrinklefaced woman with black eyes. A touch of negro blood made her purplegray lips thick, gave a lividness to her very white skin.

  ‘It’s eight fifteen dear,’ she said as she bustled in. She gave a quick look at Stan and turned to Ellen with a little wry frown.

  ‘Stan you’ve got to go away… I’ll meet you at the Beaux Arts or anywhere you like afterwards.’

  ‘I want to go byby.’

  Sitting in front of the mirror at her dressingtable Ellen was wiping cold cream off her face with quick dabs of a little towel. From her makeup box a smell of greasepaint and cocoabutter melted fatly through the room.

  ‘I dont know what to do with him tonight,’ she whispered to Milly as she slipped off her dress. ‘Oh I wish he would stop drinking.’

  ‘I’d put him in the shower and turn cold water on him deary.’

  ‘How’s the house tonight Milly?’

  ‘Pretty thin Miss Elaine.’

  ‘I guess it’s the bad weather… I’m going to be terrible.’

  ‘Dont let him get you worked up deary. Men aint worth it.’

  ‘I want to go byby.’ Stan was swaying and frowning in the center of the room. ‘Miss Elaine I’ll put him in the bathroom; nobody’ll notice him there.’

  ‘That’s it, let him go to sleep in the bathtub.’

  ‘Ellie I’ll go byby in the bathtub.’

  The two women pushed him into the bathroom. He flopped limply into the tub, and lay there asleep with his feet in the air and his head on the faucets. Milly was making little rapid clucking noises with her tongue.

  ‘He’s like a sleepy baby when he’s like this,’ whispered Ellen softly. She stuck the folded bathmat under his head and brushed the sweaty hair off his forehead. He was hardly breathing. She leaned and kissed his eyelids very softly.

  ‘Miss Elaine you must hurry… curtain’s ringing up.’

  ‘Look quick am I all right?’

  ‘Pretty as a picture… Lord love you dear.’

  Ellen ran down the stairs and round to the wings, stood there, panting with terror as if she had just missed being run over by an automobile grabbed the musicroll she had to go on with from the property man, got her cue and walked on into the glare.

  ‘How do you do it Elaine?’ Harry Goldweiser was saying, shaking his calf’s head from the chair behind her. She could see him in the mirror as she took her makeup off. A taller man with gray eyes and eyebrows stood beside him. ‘You remember when they first cast you for the part I said to Mr Fallik, Sol she cant do it, didnt I Sol?’

  ‘Sure you did Harry.’

  ‘I thought that no girl so young and beautiful could put, you know… put the passion and terror into it, do you understand?… Sol and I were out front for that scene in the last act.’

  ‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ groaned Mr Fallik. ‘Tell us how you do it Elaine.’

  The makeup came off black and pink on the cloth. Milly moved discreetly about the background hanging up dresses.

  ‘Do you know who it was who coached me up on that scene? John Oglethorpe. It’s amazing the ideas he has about acting.’

  ‘Yes it’s a shame he’s so lazy… He’d be a very valuable actor.’

  ‘It’s not exactly laziness…’ Ellen shook down her hair and twisted it in a coil in her two hands. She saw Harry Goldweiser nudge Mr Fallik.

  ‘Beautiful isn’t it?’

  ‘How’s Red Red Rose going?’

  ‘Oh dont ask me Elaine. Played exclusively to the ushers last week, do you understand? I dont see why it dont go, it’s catchy… Mae Merrill has a pretty figure. Oh, the show business has all gone to hell.’

  Ellen put the last bronze pin in the copper coil of her hair. She tossed her chin up. ‘I’d like to try something like that.’

  ‘But one thing at a time my dear young lady; we’ve just barely got you started as an emotional actress.’

  ‘I hate it; it’s all false. Sometimes I want to run down to the foots and tell the audience, go home you damn fools. This is a rotten show and a lot of fake acting and you ought to know it. In a musical show you could be sincere.’

  ‘Didnt I tell ye she was nuts Sol? Didnt I tell ye she was nuts?’

  ‘I’ll use some of that little speech in my publicity next week… I can work it in fine.’

  ‘You cant have her crabbin the show.’

  ‘Not but I can work it in in that column about aspirations of celebrities… You know, this guy is President of the Zozodont Company and would rather have been a fireman and another would rather have been a keeper at the Zoo… Great human interest stuff.’

  ‘You can tell them Mr Fallik that I think the woman’s place is in the home… for the feebleminded.’

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ laughed Harry Goldweiser showing the gold teeth in the sides of his mouth. ‘But I know you could dance and sing with the best of em, Elaine.’

  ‘Wasnt I in the chorus for two years before I married Oglethorpe?’

  ‘You must have started in the cradle,’ said Mr Fallik leering under his gray lashes.

  ‘Well I must ask you gentlemen to get out of here a minute while I change. I’m all wringing wet every night after that last act.’

  ‘We got to get along anyway… do you understand?… Mind if I use your bathroom a sec?’

  Milly stood in front of the bathroom door. Ellen caught the jetty glance of her eyes far apart in her blank white face. ‘I’m afraid you cant Harry, it’s out of order.’

  ‘I’ll go over to Charley’s… I’ll tell Thompson to have a plumber come and look at it… Well good night kid. Be good.’

  ‘Good night Miss Oglethorpe,’ said Mr Fallik creakily, ‘and if you cant be good be careful.’ Milly closed the door after them.

  ‘Whee, that’s a relief,’ cried Ellen and stretched out her arms.

  ‘I tell you I was scared deary… Dont you ever let any feller like that come to the theater with ye. I’ve seen many a good trouper ruined by things like that. I’m tellin ye because I’m fond of you Miss Elaine, an I’m old an I know about the showbusiness.’

  ‘Of course you are Milly, and you’re quite right too… Lets see if we can wake him up.’

  ‘My God Milly, look at that.’

  Stan was lying as they had left him in the bathtub full of water. The tail of his coat and one hand were floating on top of the water. ‘Get up out of there Stan you idiot… He might catch his death. You fool, you fool.’ Ellen took him by the hair
and shook his head from side to side.

  ‘Ooch that hurts,’ he moaned in a sleepy child’s voice.

  ‘Get up out of there Stan… You’re soaked.’

  He threw back his head and his eyes snapped open. ‘Why so I am.’ He raised himself with his hands on the sides of the tub and stood swaying, dripping into the water that was yellow from his clothes and shoes, braying his loud laugh. Ellen leaned against the bathroom door laughing with her eyes full of tears.

  ‘You cant get mad at him Milly, that’s what makes him so exasperating. Oh what are we going to do?’

  ‘Lucky he wasnt drownded… Give me your papers and pocketbook sir. I’ll try and dry em with a towel,’ said Milly.

  ‘But you cant go past the doorman like that… even if we wring you out… Stan you’ve got to take off all your clothes and put on a dress of mine. Then you can wear my rain cape and we can whisk into a taxicab and take you home… What do you think Milly?’

  Milly was rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she wrung out Stan’s coat. In the washbasin she had piled the soppy remains of a pocketbook, a pad, pencils, a jacknife, two rolls of film, a flask.

  ‘I wanted a bath anyway,’ said Stan.

  ‘Oh I could beat you. Well you’re sober at least.’

  ‘Sober as a penguin.’

  ‘Well you’ve got to dress up in my clothes that’s all…’

  ‘I cant wear girl’s clothes.’

  ‘You’ve got to… You havent even got a raincoat to cover that mess. If you dont I’ll lock you up in the bathroom and leave you.’

  ‘All right Ellie… Honest I’m terribly sorry.’

  Milly was wrapping the clothes in newspaper after wringing them out in the bathtub. Stan looked at himself in the mirror. ‘Gosh I’m an indecent sight in this dress… Ish gebibble.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything so disgusting looking… No you look very sweet, a little tough perhaps… Now for God’s sake keep your face towards me when you go past old Barney.’

  ‘My shoes are all squudgy.’

  ‘It cant be helped… Thank Heaven I had this cape here Milly you’re an angel to clear up all this mess.’

  ‘Good night deary, and remember what I said… I’m tellin ye that’s all…’

  ‘Stan take little steps and if we meet anybody go right on and jump in a taxi… You can get away with anything if you do it quick enough.’ Ellen’s hands were trembling as they came down the steps. She tucked one in under Stan’s elbow and began talking in a low chatty voice… ‘You see dear, daddy came round to see the show two or three nights ago and he was shocked to death. He said he thought a girl demeaned herself showing her feelings like that before a lot of people… Isn’t it killing?… Still he was impressed by the writeups the Herald and World gave me Sunday… Goodnight Barney, nasty night… My God… Here’s a taxi, get in. Where are you going?’ Out of the dark of the taxi, out of his long face muffled in the blue hood, his eyes were so bright black they frightened her like coming suddenly on a deep pit in the dark.

  ‘All right we’ll go to my house. Might as well be hanged for a sheep… Driver please go to Bank Street. The taxi started. They were jolting through the crisscross planes of red light, green light, yellow light beaded with lettering of Broadway. Suddenly Stan leaned over her and kissed her hard very quickly on the mouth.

  ‘Stan you’ve got to stop drinking. It’s getting beyond a joke.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t things get beyond a joke? You’re getting beyond a joke and I dont complain.’

  ‘But darling you’ll kill yourself.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Oh I dont understand you Stan.’

  ‘I dont understood you Ellie, but I love you very… exordinately much.’ There was a broken tremor in his very low voice that stunned her with happiness.

  Ellen paid the taxi. Siren throbbing in an upward shriek that burst and trailed in a dull wail down the street, a fire engine went by red and gleaming, then a hookandladder with bell clanging.

  ‘Let’s go to the fire Ellie.’

  ‘With you in those clothes… We’ll do no such thing.’

  He followed her silent into the house and up the stairs. Her long room was cool and fresh smelling.

  ‘Ellie you’re not sore at me?’

  ‘Of course not idiot child.’

  She undid the sodden bundle of his clothes and took them into the kitchenette to dry beside the gas stove. The sound of the phonograph playing He’s a devil in his own home town called her back. Stan had taken off the dress. He was dancing round with a chair for a partner, her blue padded dressingown flying out from his thin hairy legs.

  ‘Oh Stan you precious idiot.’

  He put down the chair and came towards her brown and male and lean in the silly dressingown. The phonograph came to the end of the tune and the record went on rasping round and round.

  5 Went to the Animals’ Fair

  Red light. Bell.

  A block deep four ranks of cars wait at the grade crossing, fenders in taillights, mudguards scraping mudguards, motors purring hot, exhausts reeking, cars from Babylon and Jamaica, cars from Montauk, Port Jefferson, Patchogue, limousines from Long Beach, Far Rockaway, roadsters from Great Neck… cars full of asters and wet bathingsuits, sunsinged necks, mouths sticky from sodas and hotdawgs… cars dusted with pollen of ragweed and goldenrod.

  Green light. Motors race, gears screech into first. The cars space out, flow in a long ribbon along the ghostly cement road, between blackwindowed blocks of concrete factories, between bright slabbed colors of signboards towards the glow over the city that stands up incredibly into the night sky like the glow of a great lit tent, like the yellow tall bulk of a tentshow.

  Sarajevo, the word stuck in her throat when she tried to say it…

  ‘It’s terrible to think of, terrible,’ George Baldwin was groaning. ‘The Street’ll go plumb to hell… They’ll close the Stock Exchange, only thing to do.’

  ‘And I’ve never been to Europe either… A war must be an extraordinary thing to see.’ Ellen in her blue velvet dress with a buff cloak over it leaned back against the cushions of the taxi that whirred smoothly under them. ‘I always think of history as lithographs in a schoolbook, generals making proclamations, little tiny figures running across fields with their arms spread out, facsimiles of signatures.’ Cones of light cutting into cones of light along the hot humming roadside, headlights splashing trees, houses, billboards, telegraph poles with broad brushes of whitewash. The taxi made a half turn and stopped in front of a roadhouse that oozed pink light and ragtime through every chink.

  ‘Big crowd tonight,’ said the taximan to Baldwin when he paid him.

  ‘I wonder why,’ asked Ellen.

  ‘De Canarsie moider has sumpen to do wid it I guess.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Sumpen terrible. I seen it.’

  ‘You saw the murder?’

  ‘I didn’t see him do it. I seen de bodies laid out stiff before dey took em to de morgue. Us kids used to call de guy Santa Claus cause he had white whiskers… Knowed him since I was a little feller.’ The cars behind were honking and rasping their klaxons. ‘I better git a move on… Good night lady.’

  The red hallway smelt of lobster and steamed clams and cocktails.

  ‘Why hello Gus!… Elaine let me introduce Mr and Mrs McNiel… This is Miss Oglethorpe.’ Ellen shook the big hand of a rednecked snubnosed man and the small precisely gloved hand of his wife. ‘Gus I’ll see you before we go…’

  Ellen was following the headwaiter’s swallowtails along the edge of the dancefloor. They sat at a table beside the wall. The music was playing Everybody’s Doing It. Baldwin hummed it as he hung over her a second arranging the wrap on the back of her chair.

  ‘Elaine you are the loveliest person…’ he began as he sat down opposite her. ‘It seems so horrible. I dont see how it’s possible.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This war. I cant think of anything else.’


  ‘I can…’ She kept her eyes on the menu. ‘Did you notice those two people I introduced to you?’

  ‘Yes. Is that the NcNiel whose name is in the paper all the time? Some row about a builders’ strike and the Interborough bond issue.’

  ‘It’s all politics. I bet he’s glad of the war, poor old Gus. It’ll do one thing, it’ll keep that row off the front page… I’ll tell you about him in a minute… I dont suppose you like steamed clams do you? They are very good here.’

  ‘George I adore steamed clams.’

  ‘Then we’ll have a regular old fashioned Long Island shore dinner. What do you think of that?’ Laying her gloves away on the edge of the table her hand brushed against the vase of rusty red and yellow roses. A shower of faded petals fluttered onto her hand, her gloves, the table. She shook them off her hands.

  ‘And do have him take these wretched roses away George… I hate faded flowers.’

  Steam from the plated bowl of clams uncoiled in the rosy glow from the lampshade. Baldwin watched her fingers, pink and limber, pulling the clams by their long necks out of their shells, dipping them in melted butter, and popping them dripping in her mouth. She was deep in eating clams. He sighed. ‘Elaine… I’m a very unhappy man… Seeing Gus McNiel’s wife. It’s the first time in years. Think of it I was crazy in love with her and now I cant remember what her first name was… Funny isn’t it? Things had been extremely slow ever since I had set up in practice for myself. It was a rash thing to do, as I was only two years out of lawschool and had no money to run on. I was rash in those days. I’d decided that if I didn’t get a case that day I’d chuck everything and go back to a clerkship. I went out for a walk to clear my head and saw a freightcar shunting down Eleventh Avenue run into a milkwagon. It was a horrid mess and when we’d picked the fellow up I said to myself I’d get him his rightful damages or bankrupt myself in the attempt. I won his case and that brought me to the notice of various people downtown, and that started him on his career and me on mine.’