Moloch: Or, This Gentile World

  He says: ‘Hadn’t you better let me take care of this till the morning?’ Pretty decent of him, hah? ‘Aw, hell,’ I says, ‘that’s just a piece of easy change I picked up in a poker game this afternoon. Easy come, easy go, you know.’ And I slipped him a friendly smile.... Well, he paid me out in fives and tens, and there were a lot of singles, too, I recall. To me it felt like a helluva big wad—big enough to choke a horse, as they say. We had another drink on the house, and then I lit out. Boy, what a load-on!”

  He lit another cigarette: a Mecca. They were better than Turkish Trophies, Stanley declared.

  “When I got outside the joint the first thing I saw was an old-fashioned horse cab with a big Sambo perched on top of the thingamajig and a long whip in his hand that would cut a boxcar in two. ‘Hey, buddy!’ I called. ‘Come ‘ere. Drive this gentleman to Coney Island!’ He pretended not to hear me, but I ran after the bloody gig and jumped in. How the hell I managed it I don’t know … just to show this bozo I meant business I shoved a couple of Hoya de Monterez through the little box at the top and repeated: ‘Coney Island, Sambo All aboard for Dreamland!’

  We started off at a trot. In a few minutes I was sound asleep. When I woke up I was still in dreamland. ‘Dis yeah’s Coney Island, boss,’ the nigger kept repeating, as though I were going to argue the point with him…. So it was, b’Jesus! We were on Surf Avenue, and a big mob milling around on the sidewalks. I gave the cabby a five-spot and told him to keep the change. Then I takes a look around me. Cripes, the place was one big razzle-dazzle! I was still under the weather, but what you’d call awry-eyed. I felt bully … wanted to tell the whole cock-eyed world to blow up and bust.… Now that I had arrived, I wondered what the hell to do with myself. I guess I was standing there half an hour—maybe it was five minutes (time didn’t mean a damned thing to me)—when a dizzy blonde with a sailor hat grabs me by the elbow and says: ‘Lonesome, honey?’ My first impulse was to sock her in the eye, but she kept on talking so quietly and gently (and she was nothing but a bum) that before I realized what was what we were ambling down Surf Avenue together, arm in arm, as though we were on a honeymoon. ‘Let’s go somewheres and talk this over,’ I suggested. Seeing as how she had hooked on to me so cleverly it was rather embarrassing to try and give her the slip right there in that big crowd. You can never tell what a moll like that may be up to. She might take it into her head to say I had insulted her. I wasn’t taking any chances … not in my condition. She said she knew a nice quiet little place not far away, so I let her steer me.

  “Two minutes later we were sitting inside a swell cafe with a sprinkle of soft lights and rubber-heeled waiters gliding around with heavy silver trays. There was more crystal than you could shake a stick at. Even the saltcellars glittered as if they had been polished especially for us. … I wasn’t slow in noticing that someone had set a big bottle of wine in front of us … yellow wine, tasted like cheap champagne. ‘How did that get here?’ I had sense enough to inquire. ‘Why, honey, you ordered that. Dear me, what a weak memory you have!’ I bawled her out good and plenty. ‘Weak memory hell! You’re a god-damned liar,’ I shouted…. ‘I never ordered a toothpick.’ ‘Easy, honey, easy,’ she smiled. ‘You don’t want to be carried out, do you?’ There was such a mean emphasis to her words that I piped down at once, and decided to act like a good sport—until I got my bearings, at least. After all, what was a bottle of wine? Shoot another five: that was the way I looked at it. … Well, to make a long story short, I shot the other ninety-five. Some more wine, a shore dinner, champagne and cognac, a box of good cigars for the doorman, a few toys for some sick relative she mentioned, and a little change for herself so as she wouldn’t starve to death in the morning. Man, I never thought a hundred dollars could go so fast!

  “But that was only the beginning of my troubles…. When I got back to my own neighborhood in the morning I was ashamed to go home. So I went into a saloon on the corner and tried to brace myself up. I was determined, one way or another, to get to Washington and see Secretary Daniels.... But it was no go. I couldn’t for the life of me think of a way to raise the carfare, let alone the incidental expenses. Would you believe it, I hung around that saloon for three days, making short trips at intervals to borrow a few bucks from this fellow and that in the neighborhood. All the time, too, I wondered what the hell my wife would be thinking. It got so that I grew afraid to look at a newspaper for fear there would be headlines about me.... On the afternoon of the third day who did I see coming into the joint but a lad from the Navy Yard. Jesus! I wanted to pass out! ‘Well, Stanley, old boy,’ he chirps up. ‘what the hell’s come over you?’ I must say he acted pretty decent about it. I was so damned mortified I couldn’t get a word out.... ‘Look here, you,’ he said all of a sudden, and all the friendliness went out of his voice, ‘I’ll give you until tomorrow morning to get on the train and present that petition.’ He didn’t have to tell me twice. I knew he didn’t mean maybe. Believe me, I sobered up presto! Fifteen minutes later I was down at my aunt’s house; twenty-five minutes later I left my aunt’s house with seventy-five bucks in my jeans. I didn’t look for no saloon, neither, I’m tellin’ you. I bought a clean shirt, got my suit pressed while I waited in my BVD’s, and went straight to the depot. … I was in my berth and asleep before the train pulled out.”

  “Did you make your speech?” cried Prigozi and Moloch in unison.

  “Did I? You should have been there It was all impromptu, but it went over big. I forgot all about Pontius Pilate and the Bellerophon; I forgot everything I had once memorized.... When I walked in and told the Secretary who I was and where I came from, he gave me a peach of a reception. I must say he treated me like a prince. No ceremony … not a bit of it. The first thing he did was to hand me a fat cigar. Then he tells me to sit down and make myself comfortable. I was still a bit shaky, kind o’ rocky, you know, and almost afraid to put the cigar in my mouth for fear it would fall out.... ‘Mr. Daniels,’ I commenced—but he wouldn’t hear of me starting right in that way. He made me sit there for a while and chat with him. I guess we talked about nine hundred different things … everything but increases. Then, when he saw I was feeling easy, and had lost my stage fright, he says: ‘Now, my young man, just what brought you down here to see me?’ When he said that, I let him have it—the whole works—straight from the shoulder; no filigree, no fussing and fuming, no fireworks à la Daniel Webster. Just plain dollars and cents When I get through, he stands up and grabs my hand (with some warmth, I thought). ‘Mr. Miravaki,’ he says (funny how he remembered my name!), ‘let me congratulate you. You’re a credit to the service. A clean, intelligent, level-headed young man, yes sir! You may depend upon me—I certainly shall see to it that this petition is heeded.’… I took the next train back, and soon after we got what we asked for.… And that’s that!

  10

  ONE BALMY EVENING AFTER THE OTHERS HAD GONE, Dave and Moloch were going over the slate together. It was about six-thirty and Dave was complaining of being hungry. His having an empty feeling in his breadbasket was just force of habit. Dave was the sort of gink, as we have hinted before, who did everything on time.

  “Take it easy,” said Moloch. “We have loads of time.”

  “I know, but I want to get it off my mind.”

  “Get what off your mind?”

  “The chow,” said Dave.

  Moloch condescended to humor him. After all, it was Dave’s party.

  “I think we’re gonna have a great time,” said Dave shortly.

  “Say, what are these bimbos like? You haven’t told me a damned thing about them yet.”

  “Grade A, take it from me,” and Dave chuckled. “I got pretty good judgment, you know.”

  “What nationality?”

  Dave shrugged his stomach. “Search me! What’s the diff? You’ll get plenty of excitement.”

  “That’s fine, Dave, but how about the lingo? Do they talk United States?”

  “Betcha life. Good as me.”
>
  While Moloch reflected on this happy circumstance, Dave went to the rear to clean his flask. He was back in a jiffy, beaming with satisfaction.

  “Smell this!” He held the flask under Moloch’s nose.

  “How about a little snifter right now, Dave?”

  “Anything you say, D. M.”

  “Atta boy, Dave. Remember now, don’t mister me tonight. We’re old pals from the car barn. You worked the rear end, and I was up front.”

  Dave cackled. “Gee, you think up some funny ones,” he laughed, pouring out a stiff hooker.

  They took a drink and looked cheerful. Dave commenced to show signs of extreme thought. You could always tell when that happened by the way he wrinkled his brow.

  “What’s eatin’ you now?” said Moloch.

  “I was just thinkin’....”

  “Yeah, I noticed that.”

  “No kiddin’, D. M. Here’s what I was wonderin’ about. If we’re gonna pull this motorman-and-conductor gag, you’ll have to cut out the big words. You know what I mean?”

  Moloch smiled. “I thought of that long ago, Dave. What are we talkin’ now? Ain’t this good enough for them?”

  “Sure! I’ll tell the world,” said Dave, looking more like a Billikin than ever. “But c’n you keep it up?

  “Just keep the flask replenished and …”

  “Opp, bopp . .. there you go!”

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “You just got off a fifty-cent word.”

  “Jesus, did I? Say, you’re on to me, ain’t you? Step on me if

  I make another crack like that, will you?”

  “Supposin’ I’m in the next room mushin’ it up?”

  “I never thought of that. Dave, you’re a hot sketch, on the level. You certainly think fast.... How about another little drink?”

  “No, save it, I wanta feed my face.”

  They got up and put out the lights. Then they went around the corner to a German beer saloon to get some pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut.

  “Let’s order a big stein of beer,” suggested Moloch. “Somehow this rye don’t quench your thirst.”

  ”You order one,” said Dave. “I can’t mix no drinks. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Forget it. Have one on me. It won’t hurt you this once. You’re as healthy as a pig. Come on, none of your shenanigans.”

  “I know, but…” Nevertheless he drank it.

  They ate hurriedly (from force of habit) and laughed a whole lot doing it. A couple of steins and they were just getting to the right pitch. Dave was chock full of curiosity about the nudes on the wall. “Is thai good art?” he asked in a low voice. “Nix,” said Moloch, but he soon gave up trying to explain his point of view. Why rob Dave of his preconceptions?

  “Whaddaya say we move along, D. M.?”

  “Righto. Where didja say they lived?”

  “Greenpoint.”

  “No? Why didn’t you tell me that before? Holy Good God! Greenpoint!"

  “Whatsa matter? Too far?”

  “No-o-o. I wasn’t thinking of that. .. . Let’s walk across the bridge and get some air.”

  “Do we hafter do that?” said Dave, looking uneasy.

  “Why not? It’ll do you good. What you need is exercise.” He grabbed Dave’s arm and bent over him solicitously. “Let me look at that belly of yours again.” He rubbed the little round paunch vigorously…. “If you don’t watch out, Dave, you’ll be kickin’ off one of these fine days. You’re fallin’ away to a ton, know that?”

  Dave was awfully touchy about his health. Hence the cathartic pills and the liver salts.

  “I try to keep my bowels open,” he offered apologetically.

  ”You try! Did you ever play handball?”

  “Whaddaya want do—kill me off?”

  “What the hell! Wouldn’t you rather kick the bucket than carry that tub around with you for the rest of your natural life?”

  Dave stopped dead and looked up quizzically.

  “Let me ask you, D. M.—are you serious or are you jes’ tryin’ to scare the daylight out o’ me?”

  “Here’s what I think, Dave. You oughta cut out this Christian Science nonsense.”

  Dave looked at him in astonishment. Moloch went on.

  “Those C. C. pills, or whatever the hell you’re taking—they don’t work anymore, don’t you know that? Your bowels are workin’—through suggestion. Keep on takin’ those pills and in six months they’ll be paralyzed.”

  Dave stopped again. “Have a heart, D. M. I’m apt to keel right over here if you go on talkin’ that way Let’s change the subject.”

  They were passing a United Cigar store. Dave dragged Moloch inside, grabbed a handful of Optimos, and pushed them in Moloch’s fist.

  “What the hell, Dave, I won’t smoke all these tonight!”

  “I should worry! Stick ‘em in your pocket. You never know when we might need ‘em.”

  Moloch pretended to be overwhelmed by this show of generosity. He expected Dave to do the honors.

  “Here, smoke one yourself,” he said, trying to shove one in Dave’s trap.

  “Nuthin’ doin’,” said Dave. “Luckies for me … look at me teeth.”

  He displayed an irregular row of stained fangs.

  “Fierce!” Moloch commented and looked away.

  They were walking through City Hall Park. The benches were full of bums parking their fannies after a day of sloth and despair. Some of them were sprawled comfortably on the very steps of the City Hall, a thin layer of newspaper protecting their weak backs. A spanking breeze had set in from the ocean. It wafted a delicious smell of clams and mud.

  Moloch poked his nose up and inhaled a strong dose of ozone.

  “I could go a shore dinner tonight,” he remarked.

  “Geez, you must have a tapeworm,” said Dave.

  “No, I got a feeling of ro-mance,” he answered. “Nothing would suit me better now, Dave, than to sit out on the end of a pier with a stein in my hand and some music playin’ oft’ in the distance, and a lot of little Japanese lanterns swaying up above. …”

  “What brought this on, the beer? You forgot sumpin’ in that cute little picture, didn’tja?”

  “What?”

  “You ain’t fergettin’ the molls, are yuh?”

  Dave scratched his head, pushed his hat comically over one eye, and put on the expression of a man trying to solve a crossword puzzle.

  At the Brooklyn Bridge Dave insisted on boarding a car. It was an open car. They sat up front with the motorman.

  Dave held his hat under his arm. “This breeze is great, ain’t it?” he said as they got to the top of the bridge.

  Moloch was busy peering down through the steel latticework at the swift-running tide below, eddying and swirling in great inky blotches. A tiny tug was dragging a string of towboats up the river.

  “There’s only one Noo York, ain’t there, D. M.?”

  Dave asked this this with his eyes strained toward the Battery. Moloch wondered what kind of impression this awesome panorama inspired in Dave. He looked at him intently. Dave’s fat little rubber neck was still craned toward the towering peaks poking their soft nozzles through the smoke and haze of the peaceful canyons downtown.

  “Didja ever think of taking a Brodie from the Brooklyn Bridge?” asked Moloch.

  “Yeah, I dont think! Did you?”

  “Oh, sometimes.” He let out a delicious yawn, and slouching down in his seat, nonchalantly stuck his gunboats up on the front of the car, which got the motorman’s goat.

  On the other side they jumped off and walked to Borough Hall, where they caught a crosstown car.