of his fingers were sore. The office smelled stalely of paste and
manifests and men in shirtsleeves. Through the open window he could see
a piece of the dun wall of an airshaft and a man with a green eyeshade
staring vacantly out of a window. The towheaded officeboy set a note
on the corner of his desk: Mr. Pollock will see you at 5:10. A hard
lump caught in his throat; he’s going to fire me. His fingers started
tapping again:
From Glasgow, Dutch steamer Delft, Captain Tromp; 200
bales, 123 boxes, 14 kegs....
Joe Harland roamed about the Battery till he found an empty seat on
a bench, then he let himself flop into it. The sun was drowning in
tumultuous saffron steam behind Jersey. Well that’s over. He sat a
long while staring at the sunset like at a picture in a dentist’s
waiting room. Great whorls of smoke from a passing tug curled up black
and scarlet against it. He sat staring at the sunset, waiting. That’s
eighteen dollars and fifty cents I had before, less six dollars for the
room, one dollar and eighty-four cents for laundry, and four dollars
and fifty cents I owe Charley, makes seven dollars and eighty-four
cents, eleven dollars and eighty four cents, twelve dollars and
thirty-four cents from eighteen dollars and fifty cents leaves me
six dollars and sixteen cents, three days to find another job if I
go without drinks. O God wont my luck ever turn; used to have good
enough luck in the old days. His knees were trembling, there was a sick
burning in the pit of his stomach.
A fine mess you’ve made of your life Joseph Harland. Forty-five and no
friends and not a cent to bless yourself with.
The sail of a catboat was a crimson triangle when it luffed a few feet
from the concrete walk. A young man and a young girl ducked together as
the slender boom swung across. They both were bronzed with the sun and
had yellow weather bleached hair. Joe Harland gnawed his lip to keep
back the tears as the catboat shrank into the ruddy murk of the bay. By
God I need a drink.
“Aint it a croime? Aint it a croime?” The man in the seat to the left
of him began to say over and over again. Joe Harland turned his head;
the man had a red puckered face and silver hair. He held the dramatic
section of the paper taut between two grimy flippers. “Them young
actresses all dressed naked like that.... Why cant they let you alone.”
“Dont you like to see their pictures in the papers?”
“Why cant they let you alone I say.... If you aint got no work and you
aint got no money, what’s the good of em I say?”
“Well lots of people like to see their pictures in the paper. Used to
myself in the old days.”
“Used to be work in the old days.... You aint got no job now?” he
growled savagely. Joe Harland shook his head. “Well what the hell?
They ought to leave you alone oughtn’t they? Wont be no jobs till snow
shoveling begins.”
“What’ll you do till then?”
The old man didnt answer. He bent over the paper again screwing up his
eyes and muttering. “All dressed naked, it’s a croime I’m tellin yez.”
Joe Harland got to his feet and walked away.
It was almost dark; his knees were stiff from sitting still so long. As
he walked wearily he could feel his potbelly cramped by his tight belt.
Poor old warhorse you need a couple of drinks to think about things.
A mottled beery smell came out through swinging doors. Inside the
barkeep’s face was like a russet apple on a snug mahogany shelf.
“Gimme a shot of rye.” The whiskey stung his throat hot and fragrant.
Makes a man of me that does. Without drinking the chaser he walked
over to the free lunch and ate a ham sandwich and an olive. “Let’s
have another rye Charley. That’s the stuff to make a man of you. I
been laying off it too much, that’s what’s the matter with me. You
wouldnt think it to look at me now, would you friend, but they used to
call me the Wizard of Wall Street which is only another illustration
of the peculiar predominance of luck in human affairs.... Yes sir
with pleasure. Well, here’s health and long life and to hell with the
jinx.... Hah makes a man of you ... Well I suppose there’s not one of
you gentlemen here who hasnt at some time or other taken a plunger, and
how many of you hasnt come back sadder and wiser. Another illustration
of the peculiar predominance of luck in human affairs. But not so
with me; gentlemen for ten years I played the market, for ten years I
didn’t have a ticker ribbon out of my hand day or night, and in ten
years I only took a cropper three times, till the last time. Gentlemen
I’m going to tell you a secret. I’m going to tell you a very important
secret.... Charley give these very good friends of mine another round,
my treat, and have a nip yourself.... My, that tickles her in the
right place.... Gentlemen just another illustration of the peculiar
predominance of luck in human affairs. Gentlemen the secret of my
luck ... this is exact I assure you; you can verify it yourselves in
newspaper articles, magazines, speeches, lectures delivered in those
days; a man, and a dirty blackguard he turned out to be eventually,
even wrote a detective story about me called the Secret of Success,
which you can find in the New York Public Library if you care to look
the matter up.... The secret of my success was ... and when you hear
it you’ll laugh among yourselves and say Joe Harland’s drunk, Joe
Harland’s an old fool.... Yes you will.... For ten years I’m telling
you I traded on margins, I bought outright, I covered on stocks I’d
never even heard the name of and every time I cleaned up. I piled up
money. I had four banks in the palm of my hand. I began eating my way
into sugar and gutta percha, but in that I was before my time.... But
you’re getting nervous to know my secret, you think you could use
it.... Well you couldnt.... It was a blue silk crocheted necktie that
my mother made for me when I was a little boy.... Dont you laugh, God
damn you.... No I’m not starting anything. Just another illustration of
the peculiar predominance of luck. The day I chipped in with another
fellow to spread a thousand dollars over some Louisville and Nashville
on margin I wore that necktie. Soared twentyfive points in twentyfive
minutes. That was the beginning. Then gradually I began to notice that
the times I didnt wear that necktie were the times I lost money. It got
so old and ragged I tried carrying it in my pocket. Didnt do any good.
I had to wear it, do you understand?... The rest is the old old story
gentlemen.... There was a girl, God damn her and I loved her. I wanted
to show her that there was nothing in the world I wouldnt do for her
so I gave it to her. I pretended it was a joke and laughed it off, ha
ha ha. She said, Why it’s no good, it’s all worn out, and she threw it
in the fire.... Only another illustration.... Friend you wouldn’t set
me up to another drink would you? I find myself unexpectedly out of
funds this afternoon.... I thank you sir.... Ah that puts ginger in you
again.”
* * * * *
In the crammed subway car the messenger boy was pressed up against
the back of a tall blond woman who smelled of Mary Garden. Elbows,
packages, shoulders, buttocks, jiggled closer with every lurch of the
screeching express. His sweaty Western Union cap was knocked onto the
side of his head. If I could have a dame like dat, a dame like dat’d
be wort havin de train stalled, de lights go out, de train wrecked. I
could have her if I had de noive an de jack. As the train slowed up
she fell against him, he closed his eyes, didnt breathe, his nose was
mashed against her neck. The train stopped. He was carried in a rush of
people out the door.
Dizzy he staggered up into the air and the blinking blocks of lights.
Upper Broadway was full of people. Sailors lounged in twos and threes
at the corner of Ninetysixth. He ate a ham and a leberwurst sandwich in
a delicatessen store. The woman behind the counter had buttercolored
hair like the girl in the subway but she was fatter and older. Still
chewing the crust of the last sandwich he went up in the elevator to
the Japanese Garden. He sat thinking a while with the flicker of the
screen in his eyes. Jeze dey’ll tink it funny to see a messengerboy up
here in dis suit. I better get de hell outa here. I’ll go deliver my
telegrams.
He tightened his belt as he walked down the stairs. Then he slouched
up Broadway to 105th Street and east towards Columbus Avenue, noting
doors, fire escapes, windows, cornices, carefully as he went. Dis is
de joint. The only lights were on the second floor. He rang the second
floor bell. The doorcatch clicked. He ran up the stairs. A woman with
weedy hair and a face red from leaning over the stove poked her head
out.
“Telegram for Santiono.”
“No such name here.”
“Sorry maam I musta rung de wrong bell.”
Door slammed in his nose. His sallow sagging face tightened up all of
a sudden. He ran lightly on tiptoe up the stairs to the top landing
then up the little ladder to a trapdoor. The bolt ground as he slid it
back. He caught in his breath. Once on the cindergritty roof he let
the trapdoor back softly into place. Chimneys stood up in alert ranks
all about him, black against the glare from the streets. Crouching
he stepped gingerly to the rear edge of the house, let himself down
from the gutter to the fire escape. His foot grazed a flowerpot as
he landed. Everything dark. Crawled through a window into a stuffy
womansmelling room, slid a hand under the pillow of an unmade bed,
along a bureau, spilled some facepowder, in tiny jerks pulled open
the drawer, a watch, ran a pin into his finger, a brooch, something
that crinkled in the back corner; bills, a roll of bills. Getaway, no
chances tonight. Down the fire escape to the next floor. No light.
Another window open. Takin candy from a baby. Same room, smelling of
dogs and incense, some kind of dope. He could see himself faintly,
fumbling, in the glass of the bureau, put his hand into a pot of cold
cream, wiped it off on his pants. Hell. Something fluffysoft shot with
a yell from under his feet. He stood trembling in the middle of the
narrow room. The little dog was yapping loud in a corner.
The room swung into light. A girl stood in the open door, pointing a
revolver at him. There was a man behind her.
“What are you doing? Why it’s a Western Union boy....” The light was a
coppery tangle about her hair, picked out her body under the red silk
kimono. The young man was wiry and brown in his unbuttoned shirt. “Well
what are you doing in that room?”
“Please maam it was hunger brought me to it, hunger an my poor ole
muder starvin.”
“Isnt that wonderful Stan? He’s a burglar.” She brandished the
revolver. “Come on out in the hall.”
“Yes miss anythin you say miss, but dont give me up to de bulls. Tink o
de ole muder starvin her heart out.”
“All right but if you took anything you must give it back.”
“Honest I didn’t have a chanct.”
Stan flopped into a chair laughing and laughing. “Ellie you take the
cake.... Wouldnt a thought you could do it.”
“Well didnt I play this scene in stock all last summer?... Give up your
gun.”
“No miss I wouldn’t carry no gun.”
“Well I dont believe you but I guess I’ll let you go.”
“Gawd bless you miss.”
“But you must make some money as a messengerboy.”
“I was fired last week miss, it’s only hunger made me take to it.”
Stan got to his feet. “Let’s give him a dollar an tell him to get the
hell out of here.”
When he was outside the door she held out the dollarbill to him.
“Jez you’re white,” he said choking. He grabbed the hand with the bill
in it and kissed it; leaning over her hand kissing it wetly he caught
a glimpse of her body under the arm in the drooping red silk sleeve.
As he walked, still trembling, down the stairs, he looked back and
saw the man and the girl standing side by side with their arms around
each other watching him. His eyes were full of tears. He stuffed the
dollarbill into his pocket.
Kid if you keep on bein a softie about women you’re goin to find
yourself in dat lil summer hotel up de river.... Pretty soft though.
Whistling under his breath he walked to the L and took an uptown train.
Now and then he put his hand over his back pocket to feel the roll of
bills. He ran up to the third floor of an apartmenthouse that smelled
of fried fish and coal gas, and rang three times at a grimy glass door.
After a pause he knocked softly.
“Zat you Moike?” came faintly the whine of a woman’s voice.
“No it’s Nicky Schatz.”
A sharpfaced woman with henna hair opened the door. She had on a fur
coat over frilly lace underclothes.
“Howsa boy?”
“Jeze a swell dame caught me when I was tidying up a little job and
whatjer tink she done?” He followed the woman, talking excitedly, into
a dining room with peeling walls. On the table were used glasses and a
bottle of Green River whiskey. “She gave me a dollar an tole me to be a
good little boy.”
“The hell she did?”
“Here’s a watch.”
“It’s an Ingersoll, I dont call ’at a watch.”
“Well set yer lamps on dis.” He pulled out the roll of bills. “Aint dat
a wad o lettuce?... Got in himmel, dey’s tousands.”
“Lemme see.” She grabbed the bills out of his hand, her eyes popping.
“Hay ye’re cookoo kid.” She threw the roll on the floor and wrung her
hands with a swaying Jewish gesture. “Oyoy it’s stage money. It’s stage
money ye simple saphead, you goddam ...”
* * * * *
Giggling they sat side by side on the edge of the bed. Through the
stuffy smell of the room full of little silky bits of clothing falling
off chairs a fading freshness came from a bunch of yellow roses on the
bureau. Their arms tightened round each other’s shoulders; suddenly
he wrenched himself away and leaned over her to kiss her mouth. “Some
burglar,” he said breathlessly.
“Stan ...”
“Ellie.”
“I thought it might be Jojo;” she managed to force a whisper through a
tight throat. “It’ll be just like him to come sneaking around.”
“Ellie I don’t understand how you can live with him among all these
people. You’re so lovely. I just dont see you in all this.”
“It was easy enough before I met you.... And honestly Jojo’s all right.
He’s just a peculiar very unhappy person.”
“But you’re out of another world old kid.... You ought to live on top
of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry
blossoms.”
“Stan your back’s brown all the way down.”
“That’s swimming.”
“So soon?”
“I guess most of it’s left over from last summer.”
“You’re the fortunate youth all right. I never learned how to swim
properly.”
“I’ll teach you.... Look next Sunday bright and early we’ll hop into
Dingo and go down to Long Beach. Way down at the end there’s never
anybody.... You dont even have to wear a bathingsuit.”
“I like the way you’re so lean and hard Stan.... Jojo’s white and
flabby almost like a woman.”
“For crissake don’t talk about him now.”
Stan stood with his legs apart buttoning his shirt. “Look Ellie let’s
beat it out an have a drink.... God I’d hate to run into somebody now
an have to talk lies to ’em.... I bet I’d crown ’em with a chair.”
“We’ve got time. Nobody ever comes home here before twelve.... I’m just
here myself because I’ve got a sick headache.”
“Ellie, d’you like your sick headache?”
“I’m crazy about it Stan.”
“I guess that Western Union burglar knew that.... Gosh.... Burglary,
adultery, sneaking down fireescapes, cattreading along gutters. Judas
it’s a great life.”
Ellen gripped his hand hard as they came down the stairs stepping
together. In front of the letterboxes in the shabby hallway he grabbed
her suddenly by the shoulders and pressed her head back and kissed her.
Hardly breathing they floated down the street toward Broadway. He had
his hand under her arm, she squeezed it tight against her ribs with
her elbow. Aloof, as if looking through thick glass into an aquarium,
she watched faces, fruit in storewindows, cans of vegetables, jars of
olives, redhotpokerplants in a florist’s, newspapers, electric signs
drifting by. When they passed cross-streets a puff of air came in
her face off the river. Sudden jetbright glances of eyes under straw
hats, attitudes of chins, thin lips, pouting lips, Cupid’s bows,
hungry shadow under cheekbones, faces of girls and young men nuzzled
fluttering against her like moths as she walked with her stride even to
his through the tingling yellow night.
Somewhere they sat down at a table. An orchestra throbbed. “No Stan I
cant drink anything.... You go ahead.”
“But Ellie, arent you feeling swell like I am?”
“Sweller.... I just couldnt stand feeling any better.... I couldnt
keep my mind on a glass long enough to drink it.” She winced under the
brightness of his eyes.
Stan was bubbling drunk. “I wish earth had thy body as fruit to eat,”
he kept repeating. Ellen was all the time twisting about bits of
rubbery cold Welsh rabbit with her fork. She had started to drop with a
lurching drop like a rollercoaster’s into shuddering pits of misery. In
a square place in the middle of the floor four couples were dancing the
tango. She got to her feet.
“Stan I’m going home. I’ve got to get up early and rehearse all day.
Call me up at twelve at the theater.”
He nodded and poured himself another highball. She stood behind his
chair a second looking down at his long head of close ruffled hair.
He was spouting verses softly to himself. “Saw the white implacable
Aphrodite, damn fine. Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandaled,
Jiminy.... Shine as fire of sunset on western waters. Saw the reluctant
... goddam fine sapphics.”
Once out on Broadway again she felt very merry. She stood in the
middle of the street waiting for the uptown car. An occasional taxi
whizzed by her. From the river on the warm wind came the long moan of
a steamboat whistle. In the pit inside her thousands of gnomes were
building tall brittle glittering towers. The car swooped ringing along
the rails, stopped. As she climbed in she remembered swooningly the
smell of Stan’s body sweating in her arms. She let herself drop into
a seat, biting her lips to keep from crying out. God it’s terrible to
be in love. Opposite two men with chinless bluefish faces were talking
hilariously, slapping fat knees.
“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 plate. “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 Olgethorpe.... 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?”