Now and then, meeting me accidentally, he’d say: “Why don’t we go to the theater? I hear there’s a good play on at the Orpheum.” We’d get to the theater a half-hour late, stay a few minutes, then rush out as if the very atmosphere were poisonous. “That’s five bucks gone to hell,” he’d say. “How much have you on you, Hen? Oh shit, don’t bother to look, I know the answer. When will you ever have any money in your pocket?” Then he’d steer me to a bar up some dismal side street, a bar where he knew the proprietor or the waiter or someone, and he’d try to borrow a few dollars; if he couldn’t get the money he’d make them stand us treat for a few rounds. “Have you got a nickel at least?” he’d ask petulantly. “I want to phone that little bastard Woodruff—he owes me a few bucks. I don’t care if he’s in bed or not. We’ll take a taxi and make him pay for it, what say?” He’d make one telephone call after another. Finally he’d think of some girl he had thrown over years ago, some good-natured slob, as he put it, who would be only too glad to see him again. “We’ll have a few drinks and beat it. Maybe I can make a touch. But don’t start any funny work—she’s always getting over the clap.” Thus the night would pass, running from place to place, getting nowhere, getting tired, getting crotchety, getting disgusted. Eventually we would wind up in Greenpoint, at his parents’ home, where there was sure to be some beer on the ice. It had to be filched stealthily, noiselessly, because he was always on the outs with his old man, or else with his ma, sometimes with the whole family. “They don’t have much love for you, Henry, I don’t mind telling you. I don’t know why it is, but they’ve got it in for you. I guess that business with the widow was just too much for them. To say nothing of that dose of clap you used to brag about.”
Though he had left home years ago, his room was always there for him, exactly as he had left it, which is to say, in thorough disorder and smelling as if a corpse were rotting in it. “You’d think they’d have the decency to clean it up occasionally, wouldn’t you?” he’d say, throwing open the windows. “I suppose they’re still trying to teach me a lesson, the damned idiots. You know, Henry, no one could have more stupid parents than you and me. No wonder we don’t get anywhere. We got off to a bad start.” After rummaging around a bit he’d add: “I suppose I could clean it up myself, but I never get round to it. I guess I am a lazy son of a bitch. Just the same.…” And he’d trail off with oaths and curses.
Over a bottle of beer.… “Do you remember, Hen, when we put that advertising campaign over for your old man? Right in this room, wasn’t it? Imagine, writing a thousand letters by hand! But we had a good time, didn’t we? I can still see all those bottles standing on the floor beside us. We must have consumed a truckload of beer. We never got paid for the job, either—that’s what I can’t forget. Jesus, I can see what a chip off the old block you are! Never a cent on you. By the way, how is the old boy these days? Has he still the same twelve customers—or have they all died off? What a goofy business that was! I’m glad my old man was nothing but an ironmonger. Wonder how we’ll wind up, eh? You’ll probably be begging in the street in your old age. Your old man had some pride, but you, Jesus, you haven’t an ounce of pride, faith, loyalty or anything, as far as I can see. Just day by day, that’s it, eh Hen? What a life!”
He could ramble on this way indefinitely. Even when we turned in, the lights out, the covers over our heads, he would carry on. Often he lay in bed with a cigar in his mouth and a beer bottle in his hand, talking, talking, flitting from memory to memory, like the ghost of a butterfly.
“Don’t you ever brush your teeth?” I would ask. He liked such interruptions.
“Hell no! I used to, Hen, but it’s too much bother. They’ll fall out anyway some day.”
“But don’t you have a bad taste in your mouth?”
“Of course I do. Terrible! But I’m used to it.” (Chuckling softly to himself.) “Sometimes it’s so bad I can hardly stand it myself. Now and then I’ve had a girl remind me of it. That makes you feel a bit ashamed, of course. But you get over it. You’ve got to keep their minds concentrated on the other thing. Once you get it in, it doesn’t matter what your breath smells like. Right?”
Lighting his stale cigar and sitting bolt upright… “What does bother me, though, I’ll tell you honestly, is to have a dirty crotch. I don’t know, Hen, but I have the bad habit of wearing my shorts until they fall off. You know how often I take a bath! Once in a blue moon.” He chuckled. “I guess I don’t know how to wipe my ass. There’s always something clinging to the short hairs—dilberries, I guess. Sometimes I clip them off with the scissors.”
Still running on … “We should have come home early and had a good talk, instead of running around that way. What’s the matter with me, do you suppose? I’ve been chasing around like this since I was a kid. Sometimes I get so feverish I think I’ve got St. Vitus’ dance. It gives me the jitters. I tell you, I can tremble like a dipso. Now and then I stutter too. That scares the shit out of me.… How about some more beer?”
“Let’s sleep, for Christ’s sake!”
“Why, Hen? You’ll sleep a long time when you’re dead.”
“Save something for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow! Did you ever think, Henry, that there may be no tomorrow? You may die in your sleep—ever think of that?”
“So what?”
“Well, think of all you’d be missing.”
“I won’t miss a damned thing,” I said irritably. “All I ask is a good ten hours’ sleep—and a good breakfast when I wake up! Did you ever think of breakfast in heaven?”
“There you go—thinking of breakfast already. And who’s to buy it, tell me that?”
“We’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
Silence for a while.
“I say, Hen, just how much have you in your pocket? Tell me, will you, I’m curious.”
“I don’t know… fifteen or twenty cents maybe.”
“You’re sure it’s not thirty-five?”
“It could be. Why? Do you want to borrow some?”
“Borrow from you? Christ no! You’re a pauper. No, Hen, I was just curious, like I said. You start out with fifteen or twenty cents in your pocket—and not a wrinkle in your brow. You bump into someone—like me, for instance—and you go to the theater, you drink, you take taxis, you make telephone calls.…”
“So what?”
“And it never disturbs you.… I’m not speaking for myself, Hen. But supposing it were someone else?”
“What a thing to worry about!”
“I suppose it’s all a matter of temperament. If it were me, I’d be miserable.”
“You like to feel miserable.”
“I guess you’re right there. I must have been born that way.”
“And you’ll die that way.”
He coughed violently, then reached for a box of cigars. “What about a cigar, Hen? They’re a bit dry but they’re Havanas.”
“You’re mad. I’m going to sleep. Good night!”
“O.K. You don’t mind if I read a while, do you?” He held up a few large pages torn from the dictionary. My eyes were closed, I was almost out, but I could hear him droning away.
“I’m on page 1504 now,” he was saying. “The unabridged. Mandelic. What a word! If I live to be another Methuselah maybe I’ll make use of a word like that sometime. Are you asleep? It’s queer, though, what you do retain out of all this shit and verbiage. Sometimes the simplest words are the strangest. A word like corpse, for instance. Cadaver is natural and easy, but corpse! Or take Easter—I’ll bet you never thought where that comes from. English is a crazy language, do you know that? Imagine words like Michaelmas and Whitsuntide—or wassail or syndrome or nautch or whangdoodle. Wait a minute, here’s a funnier one—prepollent. Or parlous—isn’t that a strange one? Or take acne or cirrhosis—it’s hard to imagine anyone inventing words like that, what? Language is sheer mystery. The more etymological I get the less I know. Are you awake? Listen, Hen, you were always a stickler fo
r words. I’m surprised you haven’t read the dictionary through yet. Or have you? I know you tried to read the Bible through. The dictionary’s more fun, I think. It’s even crazier than the Bible.… You know, just to look at some words, just to roll them around in your mouth, makes you feel good. Here’s a few offhand—old favorites: anacoluthon, sesquipedalian, apotheosis, which, by the way, you always mispronounce. It’s apotheosis. Some mean exactly what they look like or how they sound: gimcrack, thingamajig, socdolager, gazabo, yammer. The Engles and the Jutes were responsible for the worst ones, I guess. Did you ever have a look at a Swedish book? There’s a mad language for you! And to think we once talked that way.… Listen, I don’t want to keep you awake all night. Forget it! I have to do this every night because I promised myself I would. It won’t get me anywhere, I know that god-damn well. But there’s one thing about this job, Hen—when I’m through I’m through. Yes sir! When I finish a page I wipe my ass with it. How do you like that? It’s like putting Finis to a book.…”
12
It doesn’t take long for the speakeasy to become a sort of private club and recreation center. On the kitchen wall is a long list of names. Beside the names is chalked up the sums owed us by our friends, our only steady customers.
Roberto and George Inness sometimes come to fence in the afternoon. If not, O’Mara, Ned and I play chess in the back room near the window. Should an important client, like Mathias, turn up, we duck through the window into the back yard, hop the fence and out into the next street through a narrow lane, Occasionally Rothermel comes for a couple of hours in the late afternoon, to talk to Mona privately. He pays her ten or twenty dollars for the privilege.
If it’s an off night, we drive the paying customers out early, put the tables together, and settle down to play ping pong. We hold regular tournament bouts. Cold snacks in between of course. Always washed down with beer, gin or wine. If we run out of liquor we go to Allen Street for sacramental wine. Usually the “championship matches” are between Arthur Raymond and myself. We run up fantastic scores. In the end I usually throw the game to him because he’s such a hard loser.… Always daybreak before we turn in.
One evening Rothermel turns up with several of his bosom pals from the Jersey swamps. All judges and politicians. They order the best of everything of course.
Everything was going smoothly until Tony Maurer turned up with a beautiful model. For some reason Rothermel instantly took a violent dislike to him, partly because his hair was cropped close, partly because, in Rothermel’s opinion, he was too glib. I happened to be serving Tony Maurer when Rothermel left his table in the backroom, determined to pick a quarrel. He was already quite crocked, to be sure. A nasty bird, even when sober. I stood to one side for a while, observing with admiration the cool way in which Tony Maurer parried Rothermel’s thrusts. But when the latter grew outrageously insulting I decided it was time to intervene.
“You’d better get back to your table,” I said quietly and firmly.
“Who are you?” he snarled.
Boiling inside but outwardly cool as a cucumber, I said: “Me? I’m the boss here.”
Rothermel sniffed and snorted. I took him by the arm and turned him round, in the direction of the other room. “Don’t manhandle me!” he yelled.
Fortunately at this juncture his friends came to my rescue. They dragged him back to the other room, as if he were a sack of wood. Then they returned to make apologies to Tony Maurer and to Mona.
“We’ll get them all out of here soon,” I whispered to Tony Maurer.
“Please don’t!” he begged. “I can handle the situation. I’m used to it, you know. He thinks I’m a Hun, that’s what bothers him. Sit down a moment, won’t you? Have a drink. You mustn’t let things disturb you.” Here he tailed off into a long anecdote about his experience during the war—first as an intelligence officer, then as a spy. As I listened to him I could hear Rothermel’s voice rising higher and shriller. It sounded as if he were having the tantrums. I signaled to Ned and O’Mara to quiet him.
Suddenly I heard him scream: “Mona! Mona! Where is that bitch? I’ll fuck her yet, by Christ!”
I rushed to his table and shook him, none too gently. I looked quickly at his friends to see if they were going to make trouble. They seemed embarrassed and disconcerted.
“We’ll have to get him out of here,” I explained.
“Certainly,” said one of them. “Why don’t you call a cab and send him home? He’s a disgrace.”
Ned, O’Mara and myself bundled him into his overcoat and pushed him out into the street. A light sleet had fallen; it was now covered with a thin coat of snow. Rothermel was unable to stand without support. While Ned went in search of a cab, O’Mara and I half-dragged, half-shoved him towards the corner. He was fuming and cussing; he was particularly venomous towards me, naturally. In the scramble he lost his hat. “You don’t need a hat,” said O’Mara. “We’ll use it to piss in.” Rothermel was now blind with rage. He tried to unhitch his arms in order to take a swing at us, but we held him tightly. Suddenly and instinctively we both let go at once. Rothermel stood swaying lightly, not daring to make a move for fear his legs would give way. We retreated a few steps and then, moved by a common impulse, we began dancing around him like goats, making faces at him, taunting him, thumbing our noses, scratching our behinds like monkeys, capering and cavorting like zanies. The poor bugger was beside himself. He was actually bellowing now. Fortunately the street was deserted. Finally he could stand it no longer. He made a lunge for us, lost his footing and slid into the gutter. We picked him up, stood him safely on the sidewalk, and repeated our antics, this time to the tune of a little ditty in which we made shameful use of his name.
The cab pulled up and we bundled him in. We told the driver that he had the D.T.’s, gave him a phony address in Hoboken, and waved good-bye. When we returned his friends thanked us and apologized all over again. “He belongs in the asylum,” said one of them. With that he ordered a round of drinks and insisted on buying us steak sandwiches. “If you ever have any trouble with the flat-footed guys, just call on us,” said the bald-headed politician. He handed me his card. Then he suggested the name of a bootlegger from whom we could get credit, if we ever needed credit. And so we had a second round and a third round, always of the best Scotch, which could have been horse piss for all I cared about it.
Shortly after they left, Arthur Raymond fell into a violent quarrel with some young chap whom I had never seen before, insisting that the latter had insulted Mona. Duffy was the lad’s name. Seemed like a decent chap, even if a little under the weather. “He’ll have to apologize publicly,” Arthur Raymond kept insisting. Duffy thought this a great joke. At last Arthur Raymond could stand it no longer. He got up, twisted Duffy’s arm, and threw him on the floor. Then he sat on Duffy’s chest and banged his head against the floor. “Will you or won’t you?” he repeated, banging the poor fellow’s head mercilessly. At last Duffy mumbled a thick apology and Arthur Raymond lifted him to his feet. There was a dead silence, an unpleasant one for Arthur Raymond. Duffy searched for his coat and hat, paid his bill, and left—without a word. Arthur Raymond sat alone at his table, head down, looking glum and shamefaced. In a few moments he got up and stalked out.
It was not until a few nights later, when he showed up with a pair of black eyes, that we learned that Duffy had waited for him outside and given him a good beating. Oddly enough, Arthur Raymond appeared to be happy over the trouncing he had received. It turned out that after the fracas Duffy and he had become good friends. With his usual false modesty he added that he had been somewhat at a disadvantage, always was when it came to fisticuffs, because he couldn’t afford to ruin his hands. Anyway, it was the first time in his life that he had taken a beating. It had given him a thrill. With a touch of malice he concluded: “Everybody seems to be happy about it. Maybe I deserved it.”
“Maybe it will teach you to mind your own business,” said Mona.
Arthur Raymond ma
de no reply.
“And when are you going to pay your bill?” she added.
To everyone’s astonishment, Arthur Raymond replied: “How much is it?” Fishing into his pocket he brought up a roll of bills and peeled off the amount due.
“Didn’t expect that, did you?” he said, looking around like a bantam cock. He got up, went to the kitchen, and crossed his name off the list.
“And now I’ve got another surprise for you,” he said, requesting that drinks be served all around. “A month from today I’m giving a concert. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, Prokofieff and Stravinsky. You’re all invited to come—it’s on me. My last appearance, so to say. After that I’m going to work for the Communist Party. And I don’t care what happens to my hands. I’m through with this sort of life. I’m going to do something constructive. Yes sir!” and he banged his fist on the table. “From now on I disown you all.”
As he sailed out he turned round to deliver this: “Don’t forget the concert! I’ll send you seats up front.”
From the time that Arthur Raymond delivered himself of this declaration things took a definite turn for the worse. All our creditors seemed to descend on us at once, and not only the creditors but the police and the lawyer whom Maude had engaged to collect the back alimony. It would begin, in the early morning with the iceman pounding furiously on our door and we pretending to be sound asleep or out. Afternoons, it would be the grocer, the delicatessen man or one of the bootleggers rapping on the front window. In the evening, trying to pass himself off as a client, would come a process server or a plain-clothes man. Finally the landlord began to dun us for the rent, threatening to haul us to court if we didn’t pay up. It was enough to give one the jitters. Sometimes we felt so done up that we would close the joint and go to a movie.
One night the old trio—Osiecki, O’Shaughnessy and Andrews—arrived with three girls from the Follies. This was towards midnight and they were already lit up like ocean liners. It was one of those nights when just our intimate friends were on hand. The Follies girls, beautiful, brittle, and extraordinarily vulgar, insisted on putting the tables together so that they could dance on the table tops, do the split, and that sort of thing. Osiecki, imagining himself to be a Cossack, kept spinning like a top, to our utter amazement. Hadn’t improved a whit in the interim, of course. But he was jollier than usual, and for some queer reason fancied himself to be an acrobat. After a few chairs had been broken and some crockery smashed, it was suddenly decided that we all go to Harlem. Mona, Osiecki and I got into a cab with Spud Jason and his Alameda who was carrying on her lap a mangy little dog called Fifi. By the time we reached Harlem it had peed over everyone. Finally Alameda peed in her pants from excitement.