The Lost Weekend (11 page)

He couldn’t make up his mind, then, who he wanted to play. In the middle of a Debussy prelude he dragged out the album of Medtner, and before he got the first record out of its envelope he remembered a Schubert
adagio
that was certainly, God, the greatest moment in all music. But it wasn’t when he played it. Somehow it seemed oddly trite, oddly undeveloped, not rich in
any way, not remotely satisfying like the one and only Beethoven. He went back to the Schnabel albums of the great Thirty-Two and turned the volume-button up full.

Let the ladies in the front apartment pound on the wall and complain of the noise (noise!), let their dog Sophie bark her silly head off, this was Music! Just when was it Beethoven had gone deaf—before, or after, this particular opus-number? He reached for the Grove Dictionary and became absorbed at once in the description of the great Rasoumovsky household. Lord what a subject for a book. Or a play; a great play! Suddenly he was very hungry.

Christ why wouldn’t he be? Wasn’t it noon? The little eight-day traveling clock and the generous Dutchman said it was. No wonder. Besides, as far as he could remember, he hadn’t eaten a thing all day yesterday, after his breakfast with Wick. Ordinarily he never thought of food when he was drinking. Now it was different; he hadn’t been drinking enough, yet; he wasn’t tight at all, not really; how could he be, if he was thinking of food? His stomach was beginning to need it. Why not? If he knew himself, he certainly didn’t eat last night at Jack’s, certainly didn’t order anything to eat there. Jack’s—

He grabbed up his hat and coat. He’d go out and get himself a sandwich or two at the delicatessen, bring them back here and finish the bottle after he ate. There was a good pint left. Yes, he ought to do that. The food would help counteract the drink, keep him fit and upright for the rest of the day, fortify him enough to carry on and enjoy the whole afternoon and night. He carefully counted his money all over again, and went out.

It was a wonderful day, oh wonderful! Cool and clear, my lord you could see way to the rivers at both ends of the street, October was certainly the best damned month of the year no question about it. Especially early in the month, right now, this very week, today! He almost felt like dropping in on somebody he knew, finding out how they were. Oh-oh, forget that. He knew better
than to make any calls, even on the telephone. What the hell was he trying to do, spoil everything? let everybody know he was on the loose again? invite them to step in and ruin the whole weekend? Let them leave him alone! He was all right, perfectly able to handle himself, behaving just like anybody else, he meant to stay this way too, wasn’t he on his way to buy food for Christ sake? Could they ask for any better assurance than that? Did he ever buy food when he was drinking? Certainly not, they knew that as well as he did, he was sober as a Lackawanna judge.

He knew better than to go to the good delicatessen at 56th. He still owed Mr. Schultz ten dollars he’d borrowed in the summer. Or did he? Maybe Wick had paid it back; anyway he couldn’t remember. No use taking a chance. He turned south to go to the one at 54th.

He passed the Select. My God, Garbo! In
Camille
no less. This was luck. He stopped and looked at the stills tacked up on a board outside. There was the one on her knees before M. Duval (but not on her knees to him!); there was the one in the theater-box, smiling under raised opera-glasses as she first found Armand in the crowd below; and of course there was the unforgettable picture of Marguerite in death, the fabulous face looking already cold, white, more poetic and elusive than ever. What a performance that had been. Amid all the vulgarity of that garish noisy movie, how she had stood out, so right in every move and gesture, in every inflexion and emphasis of the thrilling voice (that last long scene, whispered throughout), in every wonderful expression of the wonderful face. Strange and moving the indescribable rueful melancholy she cast over the entire film—the acting art at its very purest, surely. He slid his quarter under the glass window of the box office and went in.

“Smoking?”

“Upstairs.”

He went up the ramp into a dark smelly corridor but he scarcely noticed the smell. He was thinking of the time he had
first read in the paper that Garbo was to do
Camille
and how he had said to himself: “God damn it, why do they have to put her in
Camille
of all things! Hasn’t it been done to death by every throbbing female who ever fancied herself an actress?” And how, when he finally saw it some weeks ago, he saw how she had made it completely her own, played the hackneyed role as if it had never been played before—and as far as he was concerned, that was the end of the Camilles: it had been done for good and all as it could never be done again. He turned at the end of the corridor and came out into the upstairs balcony.

He groped his way to a seat near the front. He still couldn’t see but nothing was familiar—there was no music, none of the familiar dialogue he knew so well, nor the voice. He stared at the screen. Two men in drab cotton jumpers sat at a wooden table peeling potatoes. They couldn’t talk because a man with a rifle stood behind them, but one was trying to indicate to the other that a note had been dropped somewhere among the potato peelings.

Damn it to hell, a prison picture, a gangster movie or something Double-feature? Why hadn’t he found that out before he came in, then made sure which one was on? Wouldn’t that happen, just as he was all set to enjoy Garbo? He hated prison movies and he knew only too damned well why. Every time he saw a movie about a prison, a guy behind bars, the death cell, he knew that one day he was going to be right there, in that same spot. Melodrama!—but he couldn’t shake the feeling nevertheless. He fidgeted throughout such films, looked away for whole sequences, tried to think of other things, and very often had to get up and leave.

The scene had changed. A crowd of people, mostly women, waiting for big iron gates to open. Visiting day. An attendant approached, cranked up the gates, and the crowd surged in.

Now the camera concentrated on a surly good-looking girl. She was shown walking along a corridor toward the narrow entrance to the visitors’ room. She wore a beret and a polo coat,
both hands in her pockets. Her face was expressionless. Two guards watched her coming toward them. One glanced at the other. Suddenly, just as she came up to the door, a loud stinging bell rang out in a frenzy of alarm. The girl stopped dead in her tracks, still expressionless. One of the guards smiled, turned off a tiny switch in the wall, and the bell ceased. “Okay,” he said, holding out his hand, “give us the rod.” She looked up at him without expression. “You’ve just passed through the metal-detector beam,” he said quietly; “we know you’ve got a gun on you.” Without a word she reached in her pocket and drew out a small automatic. She handed it to the guard. “Okay, you can go in now.” And expressionless still, she passed on in.

He was getting uneasier by the minute. He knew he had reason to fear. The foolish psychiatrist had once told him something that stuck in his mind and would probably stick there forever and ever (not that he ever thought of it, except times like now): The alcoholic, to get liquor, will do everything that the drug-addict will do to get drugs, everything but one: and that is murder. Cut off from drink, he’ll lie to get it, beg, plead, wheedle, borrow, steal, rob—all the crimes in the catalogue. But he won’t kill for it. That’s the difference between the drunk and the drug-addict. But the
only
one.

Maybe.

Was he supposed to have found consolation and comfort in this dictum? He didn’t. The foolish psychiatrist had been too often wrong. Besides,
he
knew the alcoholic from the inside. He knew (not the other) to what lengths the drinker will go to get that desperately needed drink the morning after. Or that is (and this was worse) he
didn’t
know to what lengths he would go. If he knew, he could say then how right or how wrong the foolish psychiatrist had been, how safe he himself was, and what chances he had of not ending up in just such a place as this on the screen, the screen that he couldn’t look at, now, no not another minute. He slumped down in his chair, put his hand over his eyes, and
tried to doze off. Maybe he could sleep until the opening music of
Camille
, the
Traviata
theme, told him Garbo was on.…

A burst of machine-guns knocked him nearly out of his seat. Jesus Christ what was going on—where the hell was he! He gripped the two arms of his chair and stared.

The screen was exploding in noise. Bells rang, sirens screamed to a pitch never heard before, the night was blasted with gun-fire.
Dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut
. Searchlights swept the dark yard back and forth, moved along the walls, finally found the two potato-peelers where they crouched against the gate like snarling animals, frozen in the glare.

Had he been asleep? How long? There was a large illuminated clock at the right of the screen advertising some neighborhood jeweler; it was two-fifteen. Lord this couldn’t last much longer, Garbo would be on any minute. But suddenly he couldn’t wait, either. Not even if this was the final sequence of the film. One of the men now lay face down in the dirt, the other clutched his side and writhed and grinned in pain. He grabbed up his hat and left.

He stopped in at the bar next door and bought a drink.

“Hi, Jack,” the bartender said.

Oh sure. This was the one he’d been in before. The guy must be feeling better, he actually spoke. To hell with him. He drank the drink and looked around.

The
News
was still on the counter. Somebody had been reading the Broadway column. He read it too. “Eileen Dorrit, who has a lake named after her in Argentina, is about to leave the Follies chorus at the behest of her mother.… What prominent Park Avenue matron is about to change her coutouriere because she doesn’t like her face—or because Mr. B. does?…” A hell of a way to earn a living and if the guy must use French why the hell doesn’t he learn how to spell it?

This was no place to hang around in. What did it offer? Sam’s was better. Sam was better too. He paid and left.

Sam was a philosopher but he didn’t feel like talking philosophy today. He wanted to see Gloria. “Where’s Gloria?”

“Ladies’ room.”

“God, I didn’t know this place
had
a ladies’ room.”

“Why not? What’ll it be? Rye?”

“And White Rock. Some ice.”

“My, that isn’t like you, Mr. Birnam. You always take it straight.”

“I feel like spreading it out a little today.”

Sam was a nice guy but he’d never forget how mad he got once. He had been desperate for a drink and hadn’t a nickel. He thought he’d try something new, something he’d never tried before. He came in here and ordered a drink, stood around as casually as he could, and drank it. Took his time so it would look all right. Then he ordered another. Sam served him, of course, and poured him still another, then several others, for more than an hour. They chatted pleasantly about one thing and another, Don all the time wondering how Sam was going to take it. He didn’t feel like making up some story like “Well, what do you know, look here, I haven’t got my wallet with me, I just changed my clothes an hour ago and must have forgotten it.” That was too damned mean, somehow; it left Sam obliged to believe him. Finally he said, right in the middle of one of Sam’s stories that he wasn’t paying any attention to, “Listen, Sam. I can’t pay you today.” Sam looked at him as if he didn’t quite hear right. “I haven’t any money on me. I’ll come in and pay you tomorrow. Or anyway as soon as I can.” Then Sam began. Gave him a long song-&-dance about Christ almighty didn’t you know that you can’t do that, the bar business was stricter than cash-&-carry, it had to be, now what in Christ’s name was
he
going to do, why the hell did you order drinks you didn’t have the money to pay for, a fine kind of trick to play on a guy, what was the boss going to say, sure you were sorry but did that make it right, did that replace the money he’d have to pay now out of his own pocket? … Don hadn’t gone
back to Sam’s for a good while, after that; but when he did, and paid, everything was all right. Except from then on, Don always made a point of paying after the first drink, just to show Sam he had it. He bought another drink now and paid for it.

Gloria was being a hell of a time in the ladies’ room. Probably fixing her face and hair all over again. He was beginning to get impatient for her. He studied Sam across the bar. Funny how some people ran so true to type. If you cast Sam as a bartender in a play, the knowing critic would say, “Come now, that’s going too far, being too obvious, why don’t you use a little imagination?” Sam was so Irish-looking that he looked like a cartoon. Only thing wrong about him was his name. He ought to have been called Mike, or Paddy. Hey, who wasn’t using imagination now?

Now he was feeling just swell.
This
was the way to be. Relaxed and calm and warm inside, warm toward all the world. Thoroughly at home and at ease in yourself. What a boon liquor could be when you used it right. He was being the very soul of propriety; temperate, controlled, very gentlemanlike in fact. The drinks were hardly affecting him at all. He could even speed things up a little. Might as well get
some
lift out of the afternoon, specially when you’d had such a slow start. He told Sam to pour him another.

Sam must have seen he was in money. He slid the bottle across the bar to let him help himself.

Gloria came out, her copper-satin dress shining in the dark back part of the room. She looked as pretty as a picture. Her orange-colored hair was as lively and vivid as her dress; she was color itself; yet with all that, there was something pathetic about her. Infinitely touching. Child of nature, so unnatural.… “Gloria! Good afternoon!”

She came up to the bar. “Oh. I’m
okay
today. Is that it?”

“What do you mean ‘today’? You’re one hundred per cent with me, you know that. Always were. Let me buy you a drink.”

“Maybe I need it.”