Tales From Gavagan's Bar (24 page)

             
It wasn't very much. When my ring was answered by a chap about the same age as the night clerk, with a thin fringe of red whisker around his chin, I told him I wanted a newspaper and asked what the hotel charged for lunch.

             
He said: "Oh, we have the American plan here. You'll find it quite a bit different than in England, Mr. Titus."

             
I said: "England?" rather stupidly.

             
He smiled. "You mustn't think we Americans are rubes, Mr. Titus. Mr. Baker, the night clerk, told me you were an English millionaire."

             
I said: "Oh, all right. Bring me a bottle of whiskey along with the food," and recklessly handed him one of my remaining quarters. My spirits took a jump. I had noticed what seemed to me a slight accent in the voice of the night clerk, and now in this chap's. They had apparently caught the difference in my speech, and between the clothes and the quarter tips, it caused them to set me down as an eccentric
and wealthy Britisher. If I didn't push matters too far, this would be a big help.

             
The bellboy was back in a few minutes with a tray that held enough food to give a lion indigestion—a cut of roast beef, a cold chicken, a big slab of cheese, bread, and a whole pie, beside a pot of chocolate and my bottle of whiskey. I sat down in front of them with my newspaper. The date was 1859, and the headlines spoke of things like ATTACK ON COLONEL HOFFMAN'S ESCORT BY THE INDIANS, and the Sickles trial with ARGUMENT ON ADMITTING EVIDENCE OF ADULTERY. I also remember something about a DISTRESSING CALAMITY AT HOBOKEN.

             
After I had eaten as much as my stomach would stand for, I got the whiskey open and tried a snort. Man, that was strong stuff! Nothing like your modern blends, but pure corn that went down my throat like a torchlight procession. I sat there with it all afternoon, nursing it along, reading my newspaper, and occasionally taking a bite to eat. But I still wanted to get back, and, though it didn't seem quite so important any more, from time to time I'd give a thought to that problem, too.

             
By and by it began to get twilight outside, and from the window I saw a lamplighter coming along the street. He had to stop once for one of those queer, high-seated cabs, and I had an inspiration. I rang for the bellboy and told him I wanted a cab—not any cab, but one that would take me to Gavagan's Bar. He trotted off and must have been gone half an hour. When he came back, he looked a little anxious.

             
He said: "There's only one driver who says he thinks he knows where it is, sir. But he says it's over on the East Side."

             
"What of it?" I said.

             
"There are a good many blood-tubs around that section of town at night, Mr. Titus."

             
"Oh, I don't think they'll bother me," I said, principally because anything was better than sitting there, and picked up what was left of my bottle of whiskey.

             
The cab driver was certainly a character to make one think twice, and not in the least like my driver of the night before
,
as I had hoped. As he leaned down from that little seat in the back, I saw he had a broad, heavy face with red blotches on it. He said: "So you're the English lord that wants a place called Gavagan's?"

             
I said I was and got in. It had begun to rain by this time, and it was very dark. There was no one on the street, and as we went along, it got still darker, because my driver was taking me into a section where the street lights were farther apart. We were in a tough section of town, all right; I heard a scream come out of one house, and we kept passing saloons.

             
Finally, he pulled up at one of these places. "Here we are, lord," he said. "That will be twenty-five cents."

             
It didn't look the least like Gavagan's to me; but I got out, handed him the quarter, and stepped up to the door, thinking that if one transformation scene had been worked on me, this might be the occasion for another. As soon as I opened the door I saw my mistake.

             
There were three or four roughs drinking at the bar, who looked around as I came in. "Here he is, boys," said one of them, "Come on." He picked up some kind of cudgel that had been lying on the bar and started for me.

             
I slammed the door and ran, with them bursting out behind me. I don't know where I was and didn't know in what direction I was going. But I cut around corners a couple of times, gained on them, and after a while lost the sound of feet in the rear. The sidewalks were made of wood planks when there were any, and they were in bad condition. I stumbled several times, and I don't know how long I walked that way before I saw another cab standing at a corner under a street light. The driver's face was muffled up to his plug hat.

             
When I said: "Is this cab taken?" he merely shook his head. I got in. "Where to, sir?" he said.

             
I said: "Hotel—no, take me to Gavagan's Bar." And that's all the story. Here I am.

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Titus finished his Brandy Smash and his eyes suddenly focussed on the leaf-a-day calendar behind the bar. "Holy
smoke!" he said. "Is that the right date?" "It certainly is," said Mr. Cohan.

             
"Then I've spent over a week on that day back in
1859.
I'v
e got to do some telephoning quick."

             
He was back from the booths in a couple of minutes. "My family's all right," he said, "though they did have Missing Persons looking for me. But Morrie Rath hasn't been home. I guess he hasn't got back from the Lonergan Building in the future yet."

             
Willison said: "I don't think he'll be back. Did you see this?" He produced from his pocket a newspaper and pointed to a headline. It read:

             
LONERGAN BUILDING NOT TO RISE Commissioner Revokes Permit; Calls it Traffic Hazard PROMOTERS ABANDON PROJECT

-

             
Doc Brenner came in just as Mr. Jeffers was delivering himself explosively.

             
"Psychiatry, phooey!" he said. "Psychology, phooey! Psychoanalysis, phooey! They're a bunch of witch-doctors. All they do is substitute one phony belief for another. It wouldn't do him any good."

             
"That wouldn't do whom any good?" said Doc Brenner. "I will start the evening with a double Manhattan, Mr. Cohan."

             
"Dr. Bronck here," said the stoop-shouldered and tweedy Professor Thott. "Dr. Bronck, meet Doc Brenner. He's a medical man and may be able to put you on to the person you want."

             
Brenner shook hands with a tall man who had a glittering smile, greying hair worn a little longer than normal, a vest edged with white piping, and a pince-nez on a black ribbon. "How do you do?" said this individual in a low tone, and glanced apprehensively over his shoulder toward the back of the room, where two other customers were playing pinochle at a table. In a still lower tone he said: "I fear this young man is right. I doubt whether a psychiatrist would be the right person for my case."

             
"What seems to be the trouble?" asked Brenner, downing his double Manhattan and putting the cherry into his mouth.

             
He addressed Dr. Bronck, but it was Thott who answered. "He has a bad case of zombies."

             
"Zombies?" said Brenner. "Zombies!" said Jeffers.

             
"Only one to a customer," said the bartender, firmly. "I am not forgetting the night that poor young felly, Mr. Murdoch, come in here and I let him have three of them. Him and his dragons!"

             
"It's all right, Mr. Cohan," said Thott. "As a matter of fact, I'll have a Scotch and Soda, myself. We weren't ordering, just discussing real zombies—the un-dead, as they call them in
Dracula."

             
"Is that what they call zombies after, now?" said Mr. Cohan. "Sure, it's a disgraceful thing, putting the name of a corp to good liquor."

             
Brenner cleared his throat, and looked at Dr. Bronck. "Do you see them?" he asked.

             
"No, they see him," said Thott, once more speaking for his acquaintance and, as the latter again looked over his shoulder at the pinochle players: "I suppose I had better tell him about it, Fabian. It might be something that could be cured by a throat operation."

             
Dr. Bronck shuddered; Thott turned to Brenner:

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He's really in a cruel dilemma, since he's a professional lecturer and things have become so bad that he hardly dares raise his voice above a whisper these days. We thought perhaps a psychiatrist—[Jeffers snorted audibly into his beer] —might be able
to resolve the problem by reference to something in his past; but it is equally possible that the question is purely medical. We would value your opinion.

             
I'm sure you must have heard of Dr. Bronck, even if you haven't met him before. No? That's because you're too exclusively a city mouse, Brenner. You should get out into the heart of America sometime, around among the ladies' clubs, and places adult education is conducted on the basis of attending one lecture a week all winter. You will find Dr. Bronck better known there than Albert Einstein, and considerably more intimately. Dr. Bronck is a travel lecturer. Especially with regard to Egypt and the Holy Land, a subject
on which he is uniquely qualified to speak, by reason of having studied for the pastorate of the Dutch Reformed Church in his native Netherlands. Why didn't you go on with it, Fabian?

             
[Dr. Bronck whispered something behind his hand to Thott.]

             
Oh, yes, I remember you telling me now. He felt he could carry a more meaningful message to his audiences, and they would be more interested, if he did it in a secular way. It is his view that when people pay to hear a thing, they will accept it more readily and give it more thought, than when it comes to them, so to speak, as a gift. In fact, one might call Dr. Bronck a secular religious teacher. He is very successful at it, and has been heard by many thousands; I believe that they have frequently been forced to turn people away from his famous
Breakfast in Bethlehem
and the equally praised
Sailing in the Steps of St. Paul.

             
Both these lectures, like others in Dr. Bronck's repertoire, have been given so many times in the course of the thirty years he has been on the platform that his delivery of them has become practically automatic. It is his custom, I understand, not to alter so much as a word. When he returns from one of his summer trips he works up an entirely new lecture for the delectation of those audiences who have already heard his previous list but will not willingly forgo the privilege of having Dr. Bronck with them again.

             
It is thus apparent that the text of what he has to say can in no way be responsible for the extraordinary affliction that has come upon him. Neither can it be his voice alone. Many years ago, at the very outset of his distinguished career, Dr. Bronck underwent a course of instruction at the Delia Crusca Institute of Polyrhythmic Vocal Culture to improve both his speaking voice and his knowledge of English. The tonal habits he acquired at that time have changed only so much as advancing years would allow; when he delivers a lecture, it is identical with the last previous reading of the same text, not only in the words used, but as to gestures, intonations, and pauses. Do I exaggerate, Fabian?