As I sat there ruminating, it occurred to me that at one time or another almost every Hindu I had known had lent me money. Always touching little sums extracted from battered-looking purses. There was one item, I noticed, for four dollars and seventy-five cents. Due Ali Khan, a Parsee, who had the habit of writing me extraordinary letters, giving his observations of conditions in the telegraph business as well as his impressions of the municipality in general. He had a beautiful hand and used a pompous language. If it was not Christ’s teachings, or the saying of the Buddha, which he quoted (for my edification), it was a matter of fact suggestion that I write the Mayor and order him to have the street numbers on all houses illuminated at night. It would make it easier for night messengers to find street addresses, he thought.
To the credit of one, “Al Jolson,” as we called him, there was a total of sixteen dollars. I had fallen into the bad habit of touching him for a buck every time I ran into him on the street. I did it primarily because it made him so intensely happy to accommodate me with this little offering each time we met. The penalty I had to pay was to stand and listen to him while he hummed a new tune he had composed. Over a hundred of his ditties were floating around among the publishers of Tin Pan Alley. Now and then, on amateur nights, he appeared before the footlights in some neighborhood theater. His favorite song was “Avalon,” which he would sing straight or in falsetto, as you wished. Once, when I was entertaining a friend of mine—in “Little Hungary”—I had to call for a messenger to bring me some cash. It was “Al Jolson” who brought it. Thoughtlessly I invited him to sit down and have a drink with us. After a few words he asked if he might try out one of his songs. I thought he meant that he would hum it to us, but no, before I could stop him he was on his feet in the center of the floor, his cap in one hand and a glass in the other, singing at the top of his lungs. The patrons of course were highly amused. The song over, he went from table to table with cap in hand soliciting coins. Then he sat down and offered to buy us drinks. Finding this impossible, he slyly slipped me a couple of bills under the table. “Your percentage,” he whispered.
The man I already owed a considerable sum to was my Uncle Dave. Several hundred dollars it was, to be augmented as time went on. This Dave Leonard had married my father’s sister. He had been a baker for years and then, after losing two fingers, had decided to try something else. Though a born American, a Yankee to boot, he had had no education whatever. He couldn’t even write his own name. But what a man! What a heart! I used to lie in wait for Dave outside the Ziegfeld Follies Theatre. He had become a ticket speculator, a racket that netted him several hundred a week—and without much fuss or bother. If he wasn’t at the Follies he was at the Hippodrome or at the Met. As I say, I used to hang around outside these places, waiting to catch him during a lull. Dave had only to see me coming and his hand would be in his pocket, ready to flash the roll. It was an enormous wad he carried on him. He’d peel off fifty for me just as easily as ten. Never batted an eye, never asked me what I needed the money for. “See me any time,” he’d say, “you know where to find me.” Or else: “Stick around a while and we’ll have a bite to eat.” Or—“Would you like to see the show tonight? I’ll have a ticket up front for you, it’s an off night.”
A regal guy, Dave. I used to bless his soul every time I parted from him.… When I told him one day that I was writing he became thoroughly excited. To Dave it was like saying—“I’m going to become a magician!” His reverence for language was typical of the illiterate man. But there was more than this behind his enthusiasm. Dave understood me, understood that I was different from the rest of the family, and he approved of it. He reminded me touchingly of how I used to play the piano, what an artist I was. His daughter whom I had given lessons to, was now an accomplished pianist. He was stunned to learn that I no longer played. If I wanted a piano he would get me one—he knew where to pick one up cheap. “Just say the word, Henry!” And then he would cross-examine me about the art of writing. Did one have to think it all out beforehand or did one just make it up as one went along? Of course, one had to be a good speller, he supposed. And one had to keep up with newspapers, eh? It was his idea that a writer had to be thoroughly informed—about everything under the sun. But the thought he loved to dwell on most was that one day he would see my name in print, either in a newspaper, a magazine, or on a book cover. “I suppose it’s hard to write a book,” he would muse. “It must be hard to remember what you wrote a week ago, no? And all those characters! What do you do, keep a list of them in front of you?” And then he would ask my opinion of certain writers he had heard about. Or of some famous columnist who was rolling in money. “That’s the thing, Henry… if you could only be a columnist, or a correspondent.” Anyway, he was wishing me well. He was sure I’d make the grade. I had a lot on the ball, and so forth. “You’re sure now that that’s enough?” (Refering to the bill he had handed me.) “Well, if you run short come back tomorrow. I’m not worrying about it, you know.” And then, as an afterthought—“Listen, can you spare a moment? I want you to meet one of my pals. He’s dying to shake hands with you. He used to work on a newspaper once.”
Thinking about Dave and his utter goodness it came to me that I hadn’t seen my cousin Gene for a long, long time. All I knew about him was that he had moved from Yorkville some years ago and was now living on Long Island with his two sons who were growing up.
I wrote him a postcard, saying I’d like to see him again, and asked where we might meet. He wrote back immediately, suggesting an elevated station near the end of the line.
I had fully intended to take with me a good package of groceries and some wine, but the best I could do on setting out to meet him was to rake up a little change, just about enough to get there and back. If he’s working, thought I to myself, he can’t be so terribly hard up. At the last minute I tried to borrow a dollar from the blind newspaperman at Borough Hall, but in vain.
It was something of a shock I experienced when I saw Gene standing on the platform with his little lunch box in his hand. His hair had already turned gray. He wore a pair of patched trousers, a thick sweater, and a peak cap. His smile, however, was radiant, his handclasp warm. In greeting me his voice trembled. It was still that deep, warm voice which he had even as a boy.
We stood there gazing into each other’s eyes for a minute or two. Then he said, in that old Yorkville accent: “You look fine, Henry.”
“You look good yourself,” said I, “only a little thinner.”
“I’m getting old,” said Gene, and he removed his cap to show me how bald he was getting.
“Nonsense,” I said, “you’re only in your thirties. Why, you’re still a youngster.”
“No,” he replied, “I’ve lost my pep. I’ve had a hard time of it, Henry.”
That’s how it began. I realized at once that he was telling me the truth. He was always candid, frank, sincere.
We marched down the elevated stairs into the middle of nowhere. Such a Godforsaken spot it was; something told me it would become more so as we journeyed onward.
I got it slowly, piecemeal, more and more heartrending as the story progressed. To begin with, he was only working two or three days a week. Nobody wanted beautiful pipe cases any more. It was his father who had found a place for him in the factory. (Ages ago, it seemed.) His father hadn’t believed in wasting time getting an education. I didn’t need to be reminded of what a boor his father was: always sitting around in his red flannel undershirt, winter or summer, with a can of beer in front of him. One of those thick Germans who would never change.
Gene had married, two children had been born, and then, while the kids were still little tots, his wife had died of cancer, a painful, lingering death. He had used up all his savings and gone deep into debt. They had only been in the country, as he called it, a few months when his wife died. It was just at this time that they laid him off at the factory. He had tried raising tropical fish but it was no go. The trouble was that he had to find w
ork he could do at home because there was no one to look after the kids. He did the cooking, the washing, the mending, the ironing, everything. He was alone, terribly alone. He never got over the loss of his wife whom he had loved dearly.
All this as we wended our way to his house. He hadn’t yet asked me a thing about myself, so absorbed was he in the narration of his miseries. When we got off the bus, finally, there was a long walk through dingy suburban streets to what looked like a vacant lot, at the very end of which stood his little shack, shabby, woebegone, exactly like the dwellings of the poor white in the deep South. A few flowers were struggling desperately to maintain life outside the front door. They looked pathetic. We walked in and were greeted by his sons, two good-looking youngsters who seemed somewhat undernourished. Quiet, grave lads, strangely somber and reserved. I had never seen them before. I felt more than ever ashamed of myself for not bringing something.
I felt I had to say something to clear myself.
“You don’t have to tell me,” said Gene. “I know what it’s like.”
“But we’re not always broke,” I said. “Listen, I’m going to come again soon, very soon, I promise you. And I’ll bring my wife along next time.
“Don’t talk about it,” said Gene. “I’m so glad you came. We have some lentil soup on the stove, and we have some bread. We won’t go hungry.”
He began again—about the days when they didn’t have a crumb to eat, when he had grown so desperate that he had gone to his neighbors and begged for a little food—just for the children.
“But Dave would have helped you, I’m sure,” I said. “Why didn’t you ask him for money?”
He looked pained. “You know how it is. You don’t like to borrow from your relatives.”
“But Dave isn’t just a relative.”
“I know, Henry, but I don’t like to ask for help. I’d rather starve. If it weren’t for the kids I guess I would have starved.”
While we were talking the kids had slipped out, to return in a few minutes with some cabbage leaves, celery and radishes.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Gene, admonishing them gently.
“What did they do?” I asked.
“Oh, they filched those things from a neighbor of ours who’s away.”
“Good for them!” I said. “Damn it, Gene, they’ve got the right idea. Listen, you’re too modest, or too proud. I don’t know which.” I apologized at once. How could I berate him for his simple virtues? He was the essence of kindness, gentleness, true humility. Every word he uttered had a golden ring. He never blamed anybody, nor life either. He spoke as if it were all an accident, part of his private destiny, and not to be questioned.
“Maybe they could dig up a little wine too,” I said, half in joke, half in earnest.
“I forgot all about that,” said Gene blushingly. “We’ve got a little wine in the cellar. It’s homemade wine… elderberry… can you drink it? I’ve been saving it for just such an occasion.”
The boys had already slipped downstairs. They were becoming more expansive with each sally. “They’re fine boys, Gene,” I said. “What are they going to do when they grow up?”
“They won’t go into the factory, that’s one thing I know. I’m going to try to send them to college. I think it’s important to have a good education. Little Arthur, the youngest one, he wants to become a doctor. The big fellow is a wild one; he wants to go West and become a cowboy. But he’ll get over that soon, I guess. They read these silly Westerns, you know.”
Suddenly it occurred to him to ask if I didn’t have a child.
“That was by my other wife,” I said. “A girl.”
He was amazed to learn that I had remarried. Divorce, apparently, was something which never entered his head.
“Does your wife work too?” he asked.
“In a way,” I said. I didn’t know quite how to explain the complexities of our life in a few words.
“I suppose,” he said next, “you’re still in the cement company.”
The cement company! I nearly fell off the chair.
“Why no, Gene,” I said, “I’m a writer now. Didn’t you know that?”
“A writer?” It was his turn to be astonished. His face lit up with pleasure. “It doesn’t really surprise me, though,” he said. “I remember how you used to read to us kids in the old days. We always fell asleep on you, remember?” He paused to reflect, his head bowed, then looked up and remarked: “Of course you had a good education too, didn’t you?” He said it as if he had been an immigrant boy who had been denied the usual privileges of an American.
I tried to explain that I hadn’t gone very far in school, that we were practically in the same boat. In the middle of it I suddenly asked if he ever read any more.
“Oh yes,” he answered brightly. “I read quite a little. Nothing much else to do, you know.” He pointed to the shelf in back of me where his books were lodged. I turned round to glance at the titles: Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, Balzac, Zola.…
“I don’t read any of the modern trash,” he said, answering my unvoiced question.
We sat down to eat. The boys were ravenously hungry. Again I felt a pang of remorse. I realized that had I not been there they would have eaten twice as much. As soon as the soup was finished we tackled the greens. They had no oil, no dressing of any kind, not even mustard. The bread had given out too. I fished in my pocket and dug up a dime, all I had besides the carfare home. “Let them go and get a loaf of bread,” I said.
“It’s not necessary,” said Gene. “They can go without. They’re used to it by now.”
“Come on! I could stand a bit more myself, couldn’t you?”
“But there’s no butter or jam!”
“What’s the difference? We’ll eat it plain. I’ve done that before.”
The kids ducked out to get the bread.
“Jesus,” I said, “you really are down to nothing, aren’t you?”
“This isn’t bad, Henry,” he said. “For a time, you know, we lived on weeds.”
“No, don’t tell me that! It’s preposterous.” I was almost angry with him. “Don’t you know,” I said, “that you don’t have to starve? This country is lousy with food. Gene. I’d go out and beg before I’d eat weeds. Damn it, I never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s different with you,” said Gene. “You’ve knocked around. You’ve been out in the world. I haven’t. I’ve lived like a squirrel in a cage.… Except for that time I worked on the garbage scow.”
“What? The garbage scow? What do you mean by that?”
“I mean just that,” said Gene calmly. “Hauling garbage to Barren Island. It was when my kids were living with my wife’s parents for a time. I had the chance to do something different for a change.… You remember Mr. Kiesling, the alderman, don’t you? He got me the job. I enjoyed it too—while it lasted. Of course the smell was frightful, but you can get used to anything after a while. It paid eighty dollars a month, about twice what I earned in the pipe factory. It was fun too, sailing out into the bay, around the harbor, up and down the rivers. It was the first and only chance I ever had to get out into the world. Once we got lost at sea, during a storm. We drifted around for days. The worst of it was that we ran out of food. Yeah, we were forced to eat garbage. It was quite a wonderful experience. I must say I enjoyed it. Far better than being in a pipe factory. Even if there was a terrible stench.…”
He paused a moment to savor it anew. His best days! Then suddenly he asked me if I had ever read Conrad, Joseph Conrad, who wrote about the sea.
I nodded my head.
“There’s a writer I admire, Henry. If you could ever write a story like him, well.…” He didn’t know what to add to this. “My favorite is The Nigger of the Narcissus. I must have read it at least ten times. Each time it seems better to me.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve read nearly all of Conrad. I agree with you, a wonderful writer.… How about Dostoevski, have
you ever read him?”
No, he hadn’t. Never heard the name before. What was he, a novelist? Sounded like a Polish name to him.
“I’ll send you one of his books,” I said. “It’s called The House of the Dead. By the way,” I added, “I have loads of books. I could send you anything you like, as many as you like. Just tell me what you’d enjoy.”
He said not to bother, he liked reading the same books over and over.
“But wouldn’t you care to know something about other writers too?”
He didn’t think he had the energy to get interested in new writers. But his son, the big lad, he liked to read. Maybe I could send him something.
“What sort of books does he read?”
“He likes the moderns.”
“Like whom?”
“Oh, Hall Caine, Rider Haggard, Henty.…”
“I see. Sure,” I said, “I can send him something interesting.”
“Now the little fellow,” said Gene, “he hardly reads at all. He’s up on science. All he looks at are the scientific magazines. I think he’s cut out to be a doctor. You should see the laboratory he’s rigged up for himself. He’s got everything in there, all cut up and bottled. It stinks in there. But if it makes him happy.…”
“Exactly, Gene. If it makes him happy.”
I stayed on until the last bus. Walking down the dark, mangy street we hardly exchanged a word. As I shook hands with them all I repeated that I would be back soon. “We’ll have a feast next time, eh kids?”