Manhattan Transfer (21 page)

‘I’ll tell yer Jim it’s Irene Castle that makes the hit wid me… To see her dance the onestep juss makes me hear angels hummin.’

‘Naw she’s too skinny.’

‘But she’s made the biggest hit ever been made on Broadway.’

Ellen got off the car and walked east along the desolate empty pavements of 105th Street. A fetor of mattresses and sleep seeped out from the blocks of narrow-windowed houses. Along the gutters garbagecans stank sourly. In the shadow of a doorway a man and girl swayed tightly clamped in each other’s arms. Saying good night. Ellen smiled happily. Greatest hit on Broadway. The words were an elevator carrying her up dizzily, up into some stately height where electric light signs crackled scarlet and gold and green,
where were bright roofgardens that smelled of orchids, and the slow throb of a tango danced in a goldgreen dress with Stan while handclapping of millions beat in gusts like a hailstorm about them. Greatest hit on Broadway.

She was walking up the scaling white stairs. Before the door marked Sunderland a feeling of sick disgust suddenly choked her. She stood a long time her heart pounding with the key poised before the lock. Then with a jerk she pushed the key in the lock and opened the door.

‘Strange fish, Jimmy, strange fish.’ Herf and Ruth Prynne sat giggling over plates of paté in the innermost corner of a clattery lowceilinged restaurant. ‘All the ham actors in the world seem to eat here.’

‘All the ham actors in the world live up at Mrs Sunderland’s.’

‘What’s the latest news from the Balkans?’

‘Balkans is right…’

Beyond Ruth’s black straw hat with red poppies round the crown Jimmy looked at the packed tables where faces decomposed into a graygreen blur. Two sallow hawkfaced waiters elbowed their way through the seesawing chatter of talk. Ruth was looking at him with dilated laughing eyes while she bit at a stalk of celery.

‘Whee I feel so drunk,’ she was spluttering. ‘It went straight to my head… Isnt it terrible?’

‘Well what were these shocking goingson at 105th Street?’

‘O you missed it. It was a shriek… Everybody was out in the hall, Mrs Sunderland with her hair in curlpapers, and Cassie was crying and Tony Hunter was standing in his door in pink pyjamas…’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Just a juvenile… But Jimmy I must have told you about Tony Hunter. Peculiar poissons Jimmy, peculiar poissons.’

Jimmy felt himself blushing, he bent over his place. ‘Oh is that’s what’s his trouble?’ he said stiffly.

‘Now you’re shocked, Jimmy; admit that you’re shocked.’

‘No I’m not; go ahead, spill the dirt.’

‘Oh Jimmy you’re such a shriek… Well Cassie was sobbing and the little dog was barking, and the invisible Costello was yelling Police and fainting into the arms of an unknown man in a
dress suit. And Jojo was brandishing a revolver, a little nickel one, may have been a waterpistol for all I know… The only person who looked in their right senses was Elaine Oglethorpe… You know the titianhaired vision that so impressed your infant mind.’

‘Honestly Ruth my infant mind wasnt as impressed as all that.’

‘Well at last the Ogle got tired of his big scene and cried out in ringing tones, Disarm me or I shall kill this woman. And Tony Hunter grabbed the pistol and took it into his room. Then Elaine Oglethorpe made a little bow as if she were taking a curtaincall, said Well goodnight everybody, and ducked into her room cool as a cucumber… Can you picture it?’ Ruth suddenly lowered her voice, ‘But everybody in the restaurant is listening to us… And really I think its very disgusting. But the worst is yet to come. After the Ogle had banged on the door a couple of times and not gotten any answer he went up to Tony and rolling his eyes like Forbes Robertson in Hamlet put his arm round him and said Tony can a broken man crave asylum in your room for the night… Honestly I was just so shocked.’

‘Is Oglethorpe that way too?’

Ruth nodded several times.

‘Then why did she marry him?’

‘Why that girl’d marry a trolleycar if she thought she could get anything by it.’

‘Ruth honestly I think you’ve got the whole thing sized up wrong.’

‘Jimmy you’re too innocent to live. But let me finish the tragic tale… After those two had disappeared and locked the door behind them the most awful powwow you’ve ever imagined went on in the hall. Of course Cassie had been having hysterics all along just to add to the excitement. When I came back from getting her some sweet spirits of ammonia in the bathroom I found the court in session. It was a shriek. Miss Costello wanted the Oglethorpes thrown out at dawn and said she’d leave if they didn’t and Mrs Sunderland kept moaning that in thirty years of theatrical experience she’d never seen a scene like that, and the man in the dress suit who was Benjamin Arden… you know he played a character part in Honeysuckle Jim… said he thought people like Tony Hunter ought to be in jail. When I went to bed it was still going on.
Do you wonder that I slept late after all that and kept you waiting, poor child, an hour in the Times Drug Store?’

Joe Harland stood in his hall bedroom with his hands in his pockets staring at the picture of The Stag at Bay that hung crooked in the middle of the verdegris wall that hemmed in the shaky iron bed. His clawcold fingers moved restlessly in the bottoms of his trousers pockets. He was talking aloud in a low even voice: ‘Oh, it’s all luck you know, but that’s the last time I try the Merivales. Emily’d have given it to me if it hadn’t been for that damned old tightwad. Got a soft spot in her heart Emily has. But none of em seem to realize that these things aren’t always a man’s own fault. It’s luck that’s all it is, and Lord knows they used to eat out of my hand in the old days.’ His rising voice grated on his ears. He pressed his lips together. You’re getting batty old man. He stepped back and forth in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. Three steps. Three steps. He went to the washstand and drank out of the pitcher. The water tasted of rank wood and sloppails. He spat the last mouthful back. I need a good tenderloin steak not water. He pounded his clenched fists together. I got to do something. I got to do something.

He put on his overcoat to hide the rip in the seat of his trousers. The frayed sleeves tickled his wrists. The dark stairs creaked. He was so weak he kept grabbing the rail for fear of falling. The old woman pounced out of a door on him in the lower hall. The rat had squirmed sideways on her head as if trying to escape from under the thin gray pompadour.

‘Meester Harland how about you pay me tree veeks rent?’

‘I’m just on my way out to cash a check now, Mrs Budkowitz. You’ve been so kind about this little matter… And perhaps it will interest you to know that I have the promise, no I may say the certainty of a very good position beginning Monday.’

‘I vait tree veeks… I not vait any more.’

‘But my dear lady I assure you upon my honor as a gentleman…’

Mrs Budkowitz began to jerk her shoulders about. Her voice rose thin and wailing like the sound of a peanut wagon. ‘You pay me tat fifteen dollar or I rent te room to somebody else.’

‘I’ll pay you this very evening.’

‘Vat time?’

‘Six o’clock.’

‘Allright. Plis you give me key.’

‘But I cant do that. Suppose I was late?’

‘Tat’s vy I vant te key. I’m trough vit vaiting.’

‘All right take the key… I hope you understand that after this insulting behavior it will be impossible for me to remain longer under your roof.’

Mrs Budkowitz laughed hoarsely. ‘Allright ven you pay me fifteen dollar you can take avay your grip.’ He put the two keys tied together with string into her gray hand and slammed the door and strode down the street.

At the corner of Third Avenue he stopped and stood shivering in the hot afternoon sunlight, sweat running down behind his ears. He was too weak to swear. Jagged oblongs of harsh sound broke one after another over his head as an elevated past over. Trucks grated by along the avenue raising a dust that smelled of gasoline and trampled horsedung. The dead air stank of stores and lunchrooms. He began walking slowly uptown towards Fourteenth Street. At a corner a crinkly warm smell of cigars stopped him like a hand on his shoulder. He stood a while looking in the little shop watching the slim stained fingers of the cigarroller shuffle the brittle outside leaves of tobacco. Remembering Romeo and Juliet Arguelles Morales he sniffed deeply. The slick tearing of tinfoil, the careful slipping off of the band, the tiny ivory penknife for the end that slit delicately as flesh, the smell of the wax match, the long inhaling of bitter crinkled deep sweet smoke. And now sir about this little matter of the new Northern Pacific bond issue… He clenched his fists in the clammy pockets of his raincoat. Take my key would she the old harridan? I’ll show her, damn it. Joe Harland may be down and out but he’s got his pride yet.

He walked west along Fourteenth and without stopping to think and lose his nerve went down into a small basement stationery store, strode through unsteadily to the back, and stood swaying in the doorway of a little office where sat at a rolltop desk a blueeyed baldheaded fat man.

‘Hello Felsius,’ croaked Harland.

The fat man got to his feet bewildered. ‘God it aint Mr Harland is it?’

‘Joe Harland himself Felsius… er somewhat the worse for wear.’ A titter died in his throat.

‘Well I’ll be… Sit right down Mr Harland.’

‘Thank you Felsius… Felsius I’m down and out.’

‘It must be five years since I’ve seen you Mr Harland.’

‘A rotten five years it’s been for me… I suppose its all luck. My luck wont ever change on this earth again. Remember when I’d come in from romping with the bulls and raise hell round the office? A pretty good bonus I gave the office force that Christmas.’

‘Indeed it was Mr Harland.’

‘Must be a dull life storekeeping after the Street.’

‘More to my taste Mr Harland, nobody to boss me here.’

‘And how’s the wife and kids?’

‘Fine, fine; the oldest boy’s just out of highschool.’

‘That the one you named for me?’

Felsius nodded. His fingers fat as sausages were tapping uneasily on the edge of the desk.

‘I remember I thought I’d do something for that kid someday. It’s a funny world.’ Harland laughed feebly. He felt a shuddery blackness stealing up behind his head. He clenched his hands round his knee and contracted the muscles of his arms. ‘You see Felsius, it’s this way… I find myself for the moment in a rather embarrassing situation financially… You know how those things are.’ Felsius was staring straight ahead of him into the desk. Beads of sweat were starting out of his bald head. ‘We all have our spell of bad luck dont we? I want to float a very small loan for a few days, just a few dollars, say twentyfive until certain combinations…’

‘Mr Harland I cant do it.’ Felsius got to his feet. ‘I’m sorry but principles is principles… I’ve never borrowed or lent a cent in my life. I’m sure you understand that…’

‘All right, dont say any more.’ Harland got meekly to his feet. ‘Let me have a quarter… I’m not so young as I was and I haven’t eaten for two days,’ he mumbled, looking down at his cracked shoes. He put out his hand to steady himself by the desk.

Felsius moved back against the wall as if to ward off a blow. He held out a fiftycent piece on thick trembling fingers. Harland took it, turned without a word and stumbled out through the shop. Felsius pulled a violet bordered handkerchief out of his pocket, mopped his brow and turned to his letters again.

We take the liberty of calling the trade’s attention to four new superfine Mullen products that we feel the greatest confidence in recommending to our customers as a fresh and absolutely unparalleled departure in the papermanufacturer’s art…

They came out of the movie blinking into bright pools of electric glare. Cassie watched him stand with his feet apart and eyes absorbed lighting a cigar. McAvoy was a stocky man with a beefy neck; he wore a single-button coat, a checked vest and a dogshead pin in his brocade necktie.

‘That was a rotton show or I’m a Dutchman,’ he was growling.

‘But I loved the twavel pictures, Morris, those Swiss peasants dancing; I felt I was wight there.’

‘Damn hot in there… I’d like a drink.’

‘Now Morris you promised,’ she whined.

‘Oh I just meant sodawater, dont get nervous.’ ‘Oh that’d be lovely. I’d just love a soda.’

‘Then we’ll go for a walk in the Park.’

She let the lashes fall over her eyes ‘Allwight Morris,’ she whispered without looking at him. She put her hand a little tremulously through his arm.

‘If only I wasn’t so goddam broke.’

‘I don’t care Morris.’

‘I do by God.’

At Columbus Circle they went into a drugstore. Girls in green, violet, pink summer dresses, young men in straw hats were three deep along the sodafountain. She stood back and admiringly watched him shove his way through. A man was leaning across the table behind her talking to a girl; their faces were hidden by their hatbrims.

‘You juss tie that bull outside, I said to him, then I resigned.’

‘You mean you were fired.’

‘No honest I resigned before he had a chance… He’s a stinker d’you know it? I wont take no more of his lip. When I was walkin outa the office he called after me… Young man lemme tell ye sumpen. You wont never make good till you learn who’s boss around this town, till you learn that it aint you.’

Morris was holding out a vanilla icecream soda to her. ‘Dreamin’ again Cassie; anybody’d think you was a snowbird.’ Smiling bright-eyed, she took the soda; he was drinking coca-cola. ‘Thank you,’
she said. She sucked with pouting lips at a spoonful of icecream. ‘Ou Morris it’s delicious.’

The path between round splashes of arclights ducked into darkness. Through slant lights and nudging shadows came a smell of dusty leaves and trampled grass and occasionally a rift of cool fragrance from damp earth under shrubberies.

‘Oh I love it in the Park,’ chanted Cassie. She stifled a belch. ‘D’you know Morris I oughtnt to have eaten that icecweam. It always gives me gas.’

Morris said nothing. He put his arm round her and held her tight to him so that his thigh rubbed against hers as they walked. ‘Well Pierpont Morgan is dead… I wish he’d left me a couple of million.’