The Iceman Cometh (8 page)

you, Harry?

HOPE

Preoccupied with his own thought
.

Eh? Sure. Big Bill was a good friend of mine. I had plenty of friends high up in those days. Still could have if I wanted to go out and see them. Sure, I gave you a letter. I said you was white. What the hell of it?

JOE

To
CAPTAIN LEWIS
who has relapsed into a sleepy daze and is listening to him with an absurd strained attention without comprehending a word
.

Dere. You see, Captain. I went to see de Chief, shakin’ in my boots, and dere he is sittin’ behind a big desk, lookin’ as big as a freight train. He don’t look up. He keeps me waitin’ and waitin’, and after ’bout an hour, seems like to me, he says slow and quiet like dere wasn’t no harm in him, “You want to open a gamblin’ joint, does you, Joe?” But he don’t give me no time to answer. He jumps up, lookin’ as big as two freight trains, and he pounds his fist like a ham on de desk, and he shouts, “You black son of a bitch, Harry says you’re white and you better be white or dere’s a little iron room up de river waitin’ for you!” Den he sits down and says quiet again, “All right. You can open. Git de hell outa here!” So I opens, and he finds out I’se white, sure ’nuff, ’cause I run wide open for years and pays my sugar on de dot, and de cops and I is friends.

He chuckles with pride
.

Dem old days! Many’s de night I come in here. Dis was a first-class hangout for sports in dem days. Good whiskey, fifteen cents, two for two bits. I t’rows down a fifty-dollar bill like it was trash paper and says, “Drink it up, boys, I don’t want no change.” Ain’t dat right, Harry?

HOPE

Caustically
.

Yes, and bejees, if I ever seen you throw fifty cents on the bar now, I’d know I had delirium tremens! You’ve told that story ten million times and if I have to hear it again, that’ll give me D.T.s anyway!

JOE

Chuckling
.

Gittin’ drunk every day for twenty years ain’t give you de Brooklyn boys. You needn’t be scared of me!

LEWIS

Suddenly turns and beams
on
HOPE
.

Thank you, Harry, old chum. I will have a drink, now you mention it, seeing it’s so near your birthday.

The others laugh
.

HOPE

Puts his hand to his ear
—
angrily
.

What’s that? I can’t hear you.

LEWIS

Sadly
.

No, I fancied you wouldn’t.

HOPE

I don’t have to hear, bejees! Booze is the only thing you ever talk about!

LEWIS

Sadly
.

True. Yet there was a time when my conversation was more comprehensive. But as I became burdened with years, it seemed rather pointless to discuss my other subject.

HOPE

You can’t joke with me! How much room rent do you owe me, tell me that?

lewis Sorry. Adding has always baffled me. Subtraction is my forte.

HOPE

Snarling
.

Arrh! Think you’re funny! Captain, bejees! Showing off your wounds! Put on your clothes, for Christ’s sake! This ain’t no Turkish bath! Lousy Limey army! Took ’em years to lick a gang of Dutch hayseeds!

WETJOEN

Dot’s right, Harry. Gif him hell!

HOPE

No lip out of you, neither, you Dutch spinach! General, hell! Salvation Army, that’s what you’d ought t’been General in! Bragging what a shot you were, and, bejees, you missed him! And he missed you, that’s just as bad! And now the two of you bum on me!

Threateningly
.

But you’ve broke the camel’s back this time, bejees! You pay up tomorrow or out you go!

LEWIS

Earnestly
.

My dear fellow, I give you my word of honor as an officer and a

gentleman, you shall be paid tomorrow.

WETJOEN

Ve swear it, Harry! Tomorrow vidout fail!

MCGLOIN

A twinkle in his eye
.

There you are, Harry. Sure, what could be fairer?

MOSHER

With a wink at

MCGLOIN
.

Yes, you can’t ask more than that, Harry. A promise is a promise—

as I’ve often discovered.

HOPE

Turns on them
.

I mean the both of you, too! An old grafting flatfoot and a circus bunco steerer! Fine company for me, bejees! Couple of con men living in my flat since Christ knows when! Getting fat as hogs, too! And you ain’t even got the decency to get me upstairs where I got a good bed! Let me sleep on a chair like a bum! Kept me down here waitin’ for Hickey to show up, hoping I’d blow you to more drinks!

MCGLOIN

Ed and I did our damnedest to get you up, didn’t we, Ed?

MOSHER

We did. But you said you couldn’t bear the flat because it was one of those nights when memory brought poor old Bessie back to you.

HOPE

His face instantly becoming long and sad and sentimental
—
mournfully
. Yes, that’s right, boys. I remember now. I could almost see her in every room just as she used to be—and it’s twenty years since she—
His throat and eyes fill up. A suitable sentimental hush falls on the room
.

LARRY

In a sardonic whisper to
PARRITT
.

Isn’t a pipe dream of yesterday a touching thing? By all accounts, Bessie nagged the hell out of him.

JIMMY

Who has been dreaming, a look of prim resolution on his face, speaks aloud to himself
.

No more of this sitting around and loafing. Time I took hold of myself. I must have my shoes soled and heeled and shined first thing tomorrow morning. A general spruce-up. I want to have a well-groomed appearance when I—

His voice fades out as he stares in front of him. No one pays any attention to him except
LARRY
and
PARRITT
.

LARRY

As before, in a sardonic aside to
PARRITT
.

The tomorrow movement is a sad and beautiful thing, too!

MCGLOIN

With a huge sentimental sigh
—
and a calcu
la
ting look
at
hope.
Poor old Bessie! You don’t find her like in these days. A sweeter woman never drew breath.

MOSHER

In a sim
il
ar calculating mood
.

Good old Bess. A man couldn’t want a better sister than she was to me.

HOPE

Mournfully
.

Twenty years, and I’ve never set foot out of this house since the day I buried her. Didn’t have the heart. Once she’d gone, I didn’t give a damn for anything. I lost all my ambition. Without her, nothing seemed worth the trouble. You remember, Ed, you, too, Mac—the boys was going to nominate me for Alderman. It was all fixed. Bessie wanted it and she was so proud. But when she was taken, I told them, “No, boys, I can’t do it. I simply haven’t the heart. I’m through.” I would have won the election easy, too.

He says this a bit defiantly
.

Oh, I know there was jealous wise guys said the boys was giving me the nomination because they knew they couldn’t win that year in this ward. But that’s a damned lie! I knew every man, woman and child in the ward, almost. Bessie made me make friends with everyone, helped me remember all their names. I’d have been elected easy.

MCGLOIN

You would, Harry. It was a sure thing.

MOSHER

A dead cinch, Harry. Everyone knows that.

HOPE

Sure they do. But after Bessie died, I didn’t have the heart. Still, I know while she’d appreciate my grief, she wouldn’t want it to keep me cooped up in here all my life. So I’ve made up my mind I’ll go out soon. Take a walk around the ward, see all the friends I used to know, get together with the boys and maybe tell ’em I’ll let ’em deal me a hand in their game again. Yes, bejees, I’ll do it. My birthday, tomorrow, that’d be the right time to turn over a new leaf. Sixty. That ain’t too old.

MCGLOIN

F
la
tteringly
.

It’s the prime of life, Harry.

MOSHER

Wonderful thing about you, Harry, you keep young as you ever was.

JIMMY

Dreaming aloud again
.

Get my things from the laundry. They must still have them. Clean collar and shirt. If I wash the ones I’ve got on any more, they’ll fall apart. Socks, too. I want to make a good appearance. I met Dick Trumbull on the street a year or two ago. He said, “Jimmy, the publicity department’s never been the same since you got—resigned. It’s dead as hell.” I said, “I know. I’ve heard rumors the management were at their wits’ end and would be only too glad to have me run it for them again. I think all I’d have to do would be go and see them and they’d offer me the position. Don’t you think so, Dick?” He said, “Sure, they would, Jimmy. Only take my advice and wait a while until business conditions are better. Then you can strike them for a bigger salary than you got before, do you see?” I said, “Yes, I do see, Dick, and many thanks for the tip.” Well, conditions must be better by this time. All I have to do is get fixed up with a decent front tomorrow, and it’s as good as done.

HOPE

Glances at
jimmy
with a condescending affectionate pity
—
in a hushed voice
.

Poor Jimmy’s off on his pipe dream again. Bejees, he takes the cake!

This is too much for
LARRY.
He cannot restrain a sardonic guffaw. But no one pays any attention to him
.

LEWIS

Opens his eyes, which are drowsing again
—
dreamily to
wetjoen.
I’m sorry we had to postpone our trip again this April, Piet. I hoped the blasted old estate would be settled up by then. The damned lawyers can’t hold up the settlement much longer. We’ll make it next year, even if we have to work and earn our passage money, eh? You’ll stay with me at the old place as long as you like, then you can take the
Union Castle
from Southhampton to Cape Town.

Sentimentally, with real yearning
.

England in April. I want you to see that, Piet. The old veldt has its points, I’ll admit, but it isn’t home—especially home in April.

WETJOEN

Blinks drowsily at him
—
dreamily
.

Ja, Cecil, I know how beautiful it must be, from all you tell me many times. I vill enjoy it. But I shall enjoy more ven I am home, too. The veldt, ja! You could put England on it, and it would look like a farmer’s small garden. Py Gott, there is space to be free, the air like vine is, you don’t need booze to be drunk! My relations vill so surprised be. They vill not know me, it is so many years. Dey vill be so glad I haf come home at last.

JOE

Dreamily
.

I’ll make my stake and get my new gamblin’ house open before you boys leave. You got to come to de openin’. I’ll treat you white. If you’re broke, I’ll stake you to buck any game you chooses. If you wins, dat’s velvet for you. If you loses, it don’t count. Can’t treat you no whiter dan dat, can I?

HOPE

Again with condescending pity
.

Bejees, Jimmy’s started them off smoking the same hop.

But the three are finished, their eyes closed again in sleep or a drowse
.

LARRY

Aloud to himself—in his comically tense, crazy whisper
.

Be God, this bughouse will drive me stark, raving loony yet!

HOPE

Turns on him with fuming suspicion
. What? What d’you say?

LARRY

P
la
catingly
.

Nothing, Harry. I had a crazy thought in my head.

HOPE

Irascibly
.

Crazy is right! Yah! The old wise guy! Wise, hell! A damned old fool Anarchist I-Won’t-Worker! I’m sick of you and Hugo, too. Bejees, you’ll pay up tomorrow, or I’ll start a Harry Hope Revolution! I’ll tie a dispossess bomb to your tails that’ll blow you out in the street! Bejees, I’ll make your Movement move!

The witticism delights him and he bursts into a shrill cackle. At once
MCGIOIN
and
MOSHER
guffaw enthusiastically
.

MOSHER

Flatteringly
.

Harry, you sure say the funniest things!

He reaches on the tab
le
as if he expected a glass to be there
—
then starts with well-acted surprise
.

Hell, where’s my drink? That Rocky is too damned fast cleaning tables. Why, I’d only taken one sip of it.