The late spring evening extracted lights from the twilight on Ninth
Avenue, like some pacing conjurer producing tiny, molten rabbits from
his trailing, unseen sleeves. Blanche walked along the street, on her
way home from the cafeteria, and her high heels scuffed on the dirty
cement sidewalk with a weary evenness. It was all right to say that
sitting on a stool all day rested your legs, but the energy that went
from your arms and head drew its penalty from all of your body. That
cafeteria was finally “getting on her nerves”--the place had changed
proprietors a few weeks before, and the new owner, a furtive-faced man
of thirty, who considered himself to be an invincible Don Juan, always
hovered about Blanche’s stand as much as he could and continually
touched her in ways that made it hard for her to conceal her ire. She
had run out of all of her tactfully laughing withdrawals, and momentary
submissions when the gesture was not “too raw,” and the situation had
reached a straining-point. It would not have been so bad if he had been
good-looking, or if he had sought to lavish gifts upon her, but here he
was a man with a long nose and a spindly body, making advances to her
because she was an employee of his at twenty-three a week--the nerve of
him! She would quit the place to-morrow if he tried another thing.
A year had passed since her last spring night with Campbell at The
Golden Mill, and she was now a little over twenty-one. Her figure had
grown less bottom-heavy, and her bosom had curved out a bit, and her
face was more resolved and inquiring beneath the many ignorances that
still remained. A deeper, half hopeless question had crept into her
bluish-gray eyes--an untutored I’d-like-to-know-what-it’s-all-about
look--and her wide lips had come together more closely and lost some
of their loose thoughtlessness. Very dimly, she had even commenced
to see flaws and credulities in her hitherto uninspected family,
especially in her father and her brother Harry, whose endless strut
and domineering words had become more of a palpable bluff to her. Yet,
at the same time, she still accepted her environs without much anger
or revolt, because, after all, they were real, and near-at-hand, and
seemingly permanent, and because they still held nightly escapes, and
laughing conquests at parties, and dance halls, and cabarets. The
only one possibility of a change was marriage, and she dreaded this
loophole because it meant being tied down to one man and losing the
delicious sense of juggling several men to the stress of her whims. At
times she toyed with the dream of becoming the mistress of a wealthy
and at least endurable man--plenty of women “got away with it,” and
what was hindering her?--but it never more than flitted through her
mind because her life had always pounded into her the fact that a girl
had to be “respectable” at all costs, had to cling to an indignant
pose of keeping men at arm’s length, so that she could look the
world in the face with the glad knowledge that it was unaware of her
“personal” relentings and sins. Otherwise, the girl definitely cut
herself off from all safeguards and reassurances, and was regarded with
contemptuous smiles, and lightly spoken of. Again, Blanche had just
insight enough to see what the outcome might be if she lived with such
a man or allowed him to maintain an apartment for her--to see a hint
of the querulous boredoms and the eventual separation that would ensue
unless she was really “crazy” about the man. Of course, she merely
translated it into the statement that she was not “cut out” for such a
life.
During the past year, Campbell had been away twice on long vaudeville
tours, and while he was in New York, her refusals to succumb to him had
piqued him to a point where he called her up at much longer intervals.
What the devil--he wasn’t so “hard up” that he had to chase after a
cafeteria cashier who was probably merely intent on getting a “good
time” out of him. He could not quite dismiss her from his mind--she
had a proud twist to her which he liked in spite of himself, and his
vanity always made him believe that he would eventually subdue her--and
the impulse to see her again came back to him during his weariest
moods--after an unusually pronounced jag, for instance, when he was
“sore at the world” and when his head throbbed heavily, for at such
times she always beckoned to him as a fresher and less solved feminine
variation.
Blanche’s attitude toward him had narrowed down to a sentence which
she had once said to herself: “’F he ever asks me to marry him, maybe
I will, maybe, but he’s not going to get me like he does other girls,
not ’f he was the Prince uh Wales himself!” During the past year she
had been more steadily in the company of Rosenberg--he was a necessity
to her because he “knew more” than the other men in her life and could
assist the feeble stirrings and problems that were beginning to spring
up in her mind. He was still unattractive to her in a physical way--a
very bright, good boy, but not the broad-chested, wise and yet tender
man who constituted her hazy ideal--but she had permitted him embraces
of greater intimacy, out of the feeling that it wasn’t right to take so
much from him and give him nothing in return, although she refrained
from any semblance of a full surrender. He frequently loaned her books,
through which she stumbled with amusement and awe--she could not
understand most of what they said (it sure was “bughouse”), but when he
sought to explain it to her it grew a bit clearer, and she had glimpses
of men and women in the novels, who lived more freely and searchingly
than she did, and who saw and spoke of “all sorts of strange things”
that she had never dreamt of--com-plex-es, and inhibishuns, and hunting
for bee-oo-ty, and boldly telling life how double-faced it was, and
living your own life with a laugh at the objections of other people,
and always looking for something that stood behind something else. They
formed themselves into perplexing lures that could never be quite
banished from her mind, and became “stronger” when she was in her
“bluest” moods.
Rosenberg had found another girl--a blonde, slim chatterer, who tried
to write poetry between her labors as a stenographer, and worshiped his
“won-der-ful brain,” but although this girl had become his mistress, he
never regarded her with more than a flattered satisfaction and still
saw Blanche once a week. He could not rid himself of the hope that
Blanche might finally love him and marry him, and the other girl’s glib
professions of culture and creative aspiration were never as appealing
as Blanche’s stumbling and honest questions. He saw “something big”
in Blanche and wanted to extract it from her and bask in its warm
emancipations.
* * * * *
When Blanche entered the living-room of her home she found that Harry
and her father were in her bedroom, engaging in a highly secret confab
with another man. Still resenting her day at the cafeteria, and vexed
at this invasion of her private domain, she burst into anger before
Philip and Mabel, who were seated at the table and waiting for the
mother to bring the supper in.
“Say, what right’ve they to go in my room?” she asked. “Think I want
some fella to see my slip-ons ’n’ things hanging around, and maybe
sitting on my bed? I’m not going to stand for it!”
“Hush up, don’t let them hear you,” said Mabel. “I know how you feel,
sure, but then it don’t happen ev’ry night. They got something up their
sleeves, and they don’t even want the resta us to hear about it. I
don’t see why Harry and pa can’t trust their own fam’ly, though.”
“They’re cooking up something about Harry’s next scrap,” said Philip.
“He’s in there with Bill Rainey, and Rainey’s managing this here Young
Thomas, the kid Harry’s gonna fight Friday night.”
“Well, I’ll stand it once, but they’d better not pull it off again,”
Blanche responded, as she removed her hat and her spring coat. “My
room’s my own place and I don’t want any strange men looking it over.”
Her anger had gone down to a quieter sullenness.
“Come on, Blan, get off the high perch,” Philip said. “We’ll all be
rolling in money if the thing comes through.”
“B’lieve me, Harry’s going to get into trouble yet with all this
crooked stuff of his,” Blanche replied. “He can’t even fight on the
level any more.”
“Well, I don’t blame Harry one bit,” Mabel said. “He’s just got to play
the old game, that’s all. He won his las’ bout hands down and they went
and give the verdict to the other fellow.”
“You can’t be a goody-goody and come out on top in this burg,” Philip
said, moodily. “I don’t b’lieve in stealing ’r holding anybody up, but
just the same you’ve got to be as tricky as the other side, I’m telling
you.”
“That’s always the line around here, but I’m not so sure about it,”
Blanche answered. “There’s plenty of people that get by ’cause they can
do things better’n other people--’cause they’ve got brains in their
heads and not a lotta excuses. ’F ev’rybody was dishonest all the
time, they couldn’t make jails large enough to hold ’em. I’m getting
tired of all this fake and fake and fake around here. It looks like a
bum excuse to me.”
“Since when’ve you become so up’n the air?” asked Mabel. “You’ve been
listenin’ some more to your Rosinburgs, ’n Smiths, ’n all the resta
them--fellas that walk round without a cent in their pockets, ’n’ tell
you how stra-aight they are, ’n’ talk like they owned the earth. They
give me a pain in the back. Harry’s tryin’ to make some real money so
we c’n all move outa this shack here, but _you_ never give him any
credit.”
“Have it your own way,” Blanche replied, with a light disgust. “You
won’t talk like that ’f the p’lice ever come up here looking for him.”
“That’s what I’m always afraid of,” said the mother, who had come in
from the kitchen. “I get turribul dreams all the time, turribul, an’ I
c’n always see your father an’ Harry sittin’ in jail. I’ve always said
it’s no use bein’ dishonest, no use. It’s not the right way uh actin’,
it’s not, an’ you always get punished for it. I’d much rather live just
like we are, plain an’ decint-like, an’ not be worryin’ all the time.”
“I know how you feel ’bout it, ma,” said Blanche, patting her mother’s
shoulder and stroking her hair, “but there’s no use in saying anything.
Try and tell something to Harry and pa--just try!”
“Aw, ma, don’t be so foolish,” Mabel said, with affection and
condescending pity mingled, as she pinched her mother’s cheek. “’F
you went round like I do, an’ saw what was goin’ on, you wouldn’t be
so worried. Why, there’s fellas gettin’ away with murder all the time,
an’ nobody touches them. Big ones, too, the bigges’ they’ve got in this
burg.”
“Well, I think ma’s right, in a way,” said Philip, cautiously, “but
she don’t know what Harry’s up against. You can’t be straight in this
scrapping game.”
“It’s I that always tried to raise all of you to be honest an’
good--it’s no fault uh mine, it’s not,” his mother said, mournfully, as
she returned to the kitchen.
The door of Blanche’s room opened and the two Palmers emerged with
Rainey, the rival manager. Rainey was a tall, beefy man with a paunch,
who wore an immaculate suit of brown checks and sported a gray derby
hat and a heavy gold chain on his white linen vest. He was almost
totally bald, and his smoothly ruddy face had the look of a politician
who had just kissed an unusually homely infant, in the interest of his
election. He uttered a few brightly bovine compliments to the women and
then departed, after a last whispered talk with the father outside of
the apartment door.
“Say, what’s the idea of keepin’ us outside?” asked Mabel, peevishly,
after her father had returned. “You oughta know we’re safe, you ought.”
“What you don’t know won’t hurt you none,” her father answered, rubbing
a finger over his thick lips. “Anybody’ll start blabbin’ when he gets a
little booze in him--’specially a woman.”
“Aw, we know what it’s all about,” said Philip. “They’re pointing
Thomas f’r a go with the champion, and Harry’s one guy _he_ can’t beat,
an’ he knows it. What’s Rainey going to hand out f’r Harry’s putting
the wraps on, that’s what I’d like to know.”
“Listen, talk about somethin’ else,” Harry said, surlily.
He was a bit ashamed of his rôle in the affair--not from a sense of
guilt but because it was a refutation of his two-fisted supremacy--and
a bit childishly fearful that the “frame-up” would be discovered if any
one, even a member of his family, conversed on the subject.
“You people sure hate to mind your own business,” he went on.
“That’s right, lay off,” said the father. “We’ll be havin’ thousands
nex’ week, ’f ev’rythin’ goes right--I’ll tell yuh that much--but I
don’t want none of yuh to start blah-blahin’ all over the place. You
girls wanna keep a close mouth, d’yuh hear me?”
“Oh, hush up, you never give us a chance to say anythin’--you’re always
gabbin’ yourself,” Mabel said, petulantly, as she went into her room.
“I’ll bet both of you get into a peck of trouble before you’re
through, but it’s not my funeral,” said Blanche, in a spirit of weary
indifference.
“Stop croakin’ all the time, will yuh,” answered Harry. “You talk like
you was anxious f’r us to get in bad, you do.”
“Oh, let’s drop it--you never pay any attention to what I say,” she
replied. “I’m just looking on--don’t mind me.”
“Well, see that yuh don’t do nothin’ but look,” her father admonished.
“You’ve been havin’ too damn much to say, these days.”
Blanche repressed her irritation and retired to prepare for her night’s
engagement. She was to meet a boy named Fred Roper at the corner drug
store, and hints of coming gayety strove to dispel her darker feelings.
She’d get away from her family some time, even if she had to wind up
by marrying a hunchback with one eye, never fear, but in the meantime
there was nothing that she could do. Almost unconsciously, she had
begun to classify the members of her family in general ways that were
far from complimentary. Her mother was a weak, abused woman; her father
was brainless, and conceited, and bossy; Harry was an ill-tempered
bully and gangster; Mabel thought of nothing but deceiving men and
landing a wealthy one; and Phil was afraid of his shadow, and never
taking sides. Still, they were _her_ family, and it was necessary to
“stick up” for them--a great deal to other people and even a little
to herself--and in spite of their faults they _did_ love each other,
and they _were_ generous to each other, and, after all, they were no
worse than most of the people in the world, as far as she could see.
She would always be loyal to them, sure, but she did want to get off by
herself, and be independent, and not bear the brunt of their orders,
and displeasures, and knaveries, and to achieve this she would probably
have to pay the penalty of marrying some man whom she did not love, but
who could comfortably provide for her. What could she do herself--she
had no particular talent or ability (she was getting wise to that),
and it seemed to be a toss-up between working like a Turk and doing
more as she pleased in a home of her own. She would never accept any
large sums of money from her family, even if her brother’s dishonest
schemes should succeed, because she would never be able to feel right
about it--she didn’t want money that was “dirty” and not her own.
Her mood was unduly reckless as she walked down Ninth Avenue to meet
her “boy-friend,” for she had a reaction to “forget the whole thing”
for the night, at least. In her light brown coat, thinly trimmed with
cheap white rabbit-fur at the bottom and top, and her short black and
lavender crêpe-de-chine dress, and the round, gray hat snugly fitting
over her bobbed hair, she had the self-contained, jauntily ordinary
look of scores of other girls tripping down the street. Her escort of
the evening, Fred Roper, was a pimply-faced, stocky youth, with sandy
hair and lascivious eyes. He dressed in expensive gray-checked suits,
and wore a narrow-brimmed, black derby hat, and regarded himself as one
of the Beau Brummells of the neighborhood. He worked on and off as a
clerk in a Ninth Avenue cigar store, but his main passion and source
of revenue was playing the races, and his financial state varied from
hundreds of dollars on one week to being “broke” and borrowing money
on the next. On this night he had “cleaned up” on a ten-to-one shot at
Belmont Park, and he had the truculent swagger of the successful and
not yet hardened gambler, who feels that he is the darling of chance
and need only lift a finger to cow anything in the world. Blanche
considered him to be an aimless fool--one of the hordes of bozoes who
were always trying to get something for nothing--but since he was
willing to spend money freely for her entertainment, she saw no reason
for refusing to accompany him now and then. Also, he was a good dancer,
and so far had never sought to do more than kiss her--a contact which
always had to be endured as a payment for your evening’s fun. She knew,
of course, that he was “laying for her,” and would sooner or later
attempt to seduce her, but that was the element of lurking risk that
prevented such occurrences from becoming too stale and peaceful--it
gave you the watchful tingle, and the sought-after feeling, that
established your feminine importance, even though you disdained the man
in question and had no intention of responding to him.
“’Lo, Blanche, how’s the girlie?” he asked, when she had walked up to
him at the drug-store entrance.
“Fine as silk,” she answered.
They stepped to the curb-stone and looked for an empty taxicab among
those that rolled by.
“What d’you wanna do to-night?” he asked.
“Well, let’s see, I guess I’d better leave you car-fare,” said Blanche,
impudently.
“I can’t laugh to-night, my lip hurts,” he responded. “I raked in a
coupla hundred on the fifth race to-day, so don’t let that part of it
worry you none.”
“How about a show, and then the Breauville afterwards?” asked Blanche.
“You’re on,” he replied. “You’ll meet a lotta guys before you find
one’s loose as I am, girlie.”
“I know--you’re a peach, Fred,” she answered, putting a note of
cajoling praise in her voice.
They rode in a cab to a Broadway theater, where he purchased the
best orchestra seats. The show was one of those musical revues--“The
Strolling Models of 1925”--where fully endowed, and slenderly
semi-chubby, chorus girls revealed everything except the extreme middle
portion of their anatomies, and pranced and kicked about the stage,
with a manufactured blitheness and a perfect cohesion; and where male
and female dancers pounded, leapt, and whirled, like inhumanly nimble
and secretly bored manikins; and where the scenes were rococo or
minutely simple--multicolored Chinese scenes, Oriental harem scenes,
streets on the Bowery, Russian peasant festivals; and where the music
and songs were either sweetly languorous or full of a rattling,
tattling sensuality. The music had a precarious charm, a charm that
could not bear much reiteration but just failed to be obvious at a
first hearing.
Blanche sat, transported, and sorry that she had to return to her
partner between the scenes. This was the life--throwing up your head
and winking an eye at all invitations, like you had a first mortgage
on the earth! She envied the girls on the stage, even though she knew
something of the labors and uncertainties attached to their profession.
How she wished that she, too, could do something different, and get
applauded for it, and lose the buried sense that often recurred to her.
After the show she went with Roper to the Club Breauville, a private
hang-out off upper Broadway. The place was plastered with frescoes
and decorations in gilt, red, and purple, and had a jazz-orchestra
of ten men. It prided itself upon its air of gleeful informality--a
spirit of natural good-fellowship--although you divined that all of
the uproar was doing its best to hide the passage of money, and a
less humorous sensual game. Theatrical celebrities were hailed at the
tables and asked to make speeches, or give impromptu performances,
and people spoke to each other without an introduction, and a stout
hostess in a black and silver jet evening gown wandered among the
tables and made witty remarks to everybody, and never lost her
“I’m-doing-it-to-keep-you-amused” mien. As Blanche and Roper followed
the head waiter to a table, the hostess, who had chemically yellowed,
abundant hair, and a round, fake-babyish face, was bandying words with
a group of tall, rakish men in tuxedoes.
“D’you hear the latest?” she asked. “They’re going to give all the
chorines a machine and a diamond bracelet to keep them honest.”
“Rockefeller’s donating a million to the cause.”
“Pass that pipe around and we’ll all take a whiff,” answered one of the
men.
“I’ll give you the needle instead--I sold the pipe to a stock-broker
this morning,” she answered.
The man laughed at this jibe at their profession, and the hostess
turned to another table.
Champagne was sold at fifteen dollars a bottle, and Roper spent his
money lavishly, in the effort to impress Blanche. When the second
bottle came she drank sparingly--you grew too darn careless if you
drank too much, and then you frankly “bawled out” the fellow with you,
or let him take too many liberties. Sometimes the matter passed out of
your control and you became merrily hazy about everything, but you had
to fight against such an ending. Roper drank freely and passed into an
inebriated condition that was sullen and hilarious at different times.
This girl would have to be good to him to-night--he had played around
with her long enough--but he would have to laugh it off for a few
hours, until his chance came.
As they rode away in a cab, he kissed her, and she made no
remonstrances. It was all part of the system--a kiss or two at the
start of the evening, and allowing the man to hug you a little too
closely sometimes, while you were dancing, and then some more kisses
during the ride home, with a few “Don’t, please don’ts” thrown in to
provide the proper touch of objection. Then Roper became more daringly
insistent, and she spoke indignantly over an inner sigh. Here it was
again, the old finale.
“You musn’t do that to me,” she said. “I don’t like you well enough
for that, Fred. I mean it. I’m not a bad sport, and I’m willing to go
so far, but I won’t give in to a fellow ’less I really care for him.
That’s the way I’m made.”
Roper’s drunkenness gave him an irresistible anger--if this girl
thought he was a “sucker” he’d soon correct her.
“You’re gonna come across with me,” he said. “I’m jes’ as good’s any
other fellow, ’n’ I’ve been treatin’ you white, an’ you know it. What’s
the idea, stringin’ me along like this?”
“’F you can’t talk decent to me I’ll leave the cab,” she replied,
really aggravated this time. “I never promised you anything, and ’f you
wanted to take me out, that was up to you.”
For a moment, caution contended against Roper’s drunkenness.
“Aw, can’t you be nice to me?” he asked, trying to resume his
overtures. “You know I’m crazy ’bout you, you know that.”
“I can’t be like you want me to,” she answered, as she pushed him away.
This time, a rage took full possession of his muddled head.
“Suppose I stop the cab an’ let you get out,” he said. “You’re too damn
stuck-up to suit me, an’ I won’t stand f’r any more of it, see? You’re
nothin’ but a lousy gold-digger, you are!”
A cool sneer rose up within Blanche--she’d “call his bluff” this time,
and show him that he couldn’t insult _her_ with impunity. She tapped
on the glass panel and stopped the cab. Roper tried to detain her, but
she shook off his hands and stepped out to the pavement. The cab driver
looked on with a quizzical ennui--this thing happened in his cab at
least once every night.
“C’m on back, Blanche, I’ll be good,” Roper cried, but she ignored him
and strode down the street.
He followed her in the cab to the next corner, repeating his entreaties
and not quite daring to leap after her, but the presence of an
inquisitive policeman caused him to abandon the chase, with a final
oath. As she walked home, Blanche had a feeling of relief and of
self-reproach. She had taught this fellow a lesson, but what was the
sense of such happenings? She couldn’t dismiss a twinge of guilt at
having taken his entertainment and then rejected him, but what could a
girl do--sit at home all the time and watch the walls? Oh, darn, it was
all a mess, all right.
On the following morning at the cafeteria, she had a heavy head and
a scarcely veiled sulkiness. If Harrison, the proprietor, started
anything now, she’d have to quit her job--it was about time that men
found out that they couldn’t treat her as though she were a bag of
oatmeal! Nothing occurred until the middle of the afternoon, when
Harrison, a tall, thin man with a long nose and blinking eyes beneath
his curly brown hair, hung around her desk.
“Wanna go somewheres to-night?” he asked.
“No, thanks, I’ve got ’n engagement,” she replied, trying to make her
voice a little cordial.
“Say, you’re always turnin’ me down,” he said. “What’s the matter,
don’t I look good to you?”
“Oh, you’re all right,” she answered, “but I can’t help it ’f I’m
usually dated up. There’s a lot of men in this town, you’d be
surprised, and there’s only seven days in the week, y’ know.”
“Don’t stall around so much,” he said. “Come on, let’s go to a show
to-night, what do you say? You know you like me, Blanche, sure you do.
You just wanted to see how often I’d ask you, that’s it.”
He accompanied his words by placing a hand upon one of her hips, and
this time her endurance fled.
“I’m leaving to-night--you’ll have to find another cashier,” she said,
coolly. “Try all of this stuff on some other girl and see how she likes
it.”
He looked at her for a moment, with a heavy incredulity, and then broke
into wrath--this girl thought she was better than he was, eh?
“You can’t leave too soon to suit me,” he said. “You act like you was
Queen of Hoboken, ’r something like that! I’ll pay you off to-night,
and good riddance!”
“’F I had your conceit I’d think I was a queen, all right,” she
replied, as she went on punching the register.
“You give me a pain,” he retorted, as he walked away.
She looked after him with an immense relief. Thank the Lord, this was
over at last.
As she walked to her home that night, she felt an emboldened mood, as
though she had asserted herself for the first time in her life. When
she broke the news to Mabel, who was sitting in the living-room, her
sister was sympathetic.
“You’re a darn sight better off away from that place,” Mabel said.
“Stop workin’ for a while an’ just step out, Blan. You’ve got a rest
comin’ to you.”
“I’ll say I have,” answered Blanche.
For the next week Blanche hung around the apartment, and enjoyed the
luxury of rising at ten in the morning and losing the old feeling of
drowsy, meek bondage, and went to moving-picture theaters or read
some of Rosenberg’s books during the afternoon, and romped about with
men every other night, but at the end of the week, the relish in her
freedom disappeared, and a nervous weariness took its place. She wanted
to be doing something again, and to feel that she was earning the
right to her nightly pleasures, and to rid herself of the sense that
she “didn’t amount to anything” and was just hugging her bed to forget
about it. To be sure, work was disagreeable and often exhausting, but
if you had no other gifts, what else could you do? That phrase that
Rosenberg was always using--“expressing yourself”--it kind of got under
your skin. Why couldn’t she write things, or be an actress, or learn
something and teach it to other people, like the men and women whom she
read of in the borrowed novels? Well, maybe she would some day, if she
ever found out just how to go about it. She was still a mere girl and
she didn’t intend to be kept down forever. In the meantime, working
could prevent her from getting “too blue” about everything--a brisk
distraction which was the only one within her reach.
She secured a position in a beauty parlor, giving “waves” to the hair
of young women fidgeting over their allurements, and _passé_ women
rescuing the vanished or vanishing charm, and on the evening of her
first working day she met Rosenberg at their usual street-corner
rendezvous.
“Let’s just have a talk and not go anywheres to-night,” she said, as
they walked down the glittering hardness of Forty-second Street.
“I’m with you,” he answered, with an elation upon his narrow face.
When a girl didn’t want you to spend anything on her, and yet desired
to be with you, it was an exquisitely promising sign, and perhaps
Blanche had begun to fall in love with him. They sat on one of the
stone benches in front of the Public Library building and beneath one
of the huge carved lions that guard its portals, and they looked out
at Fifth Avenue, with its endless stream of crawling, shiny, smoothly
soulless automobiles and busses.
“Look at all those machines, going somewhere and nowhere at the same
time,” he said, dreamily. “Don’t they all look important though, all
rolling along in two directions, and still they’re just filled with all
kinds of people hunting for an evening’s fun, that’s all.”
“S’pose they are, what of it?” she asked. “You’ve got to get some
amusement outa life, haven’t you?”
“Oh, if that’s all you’re after then you’re just like an animal,” he
answered, importantly. “D’you know, sometimes I wonder why people have
heads--they hardly ever use them.”
“Well, I don’t know--I’ve been using my head some lately but I don’t
seem to be getting anywheres,” she said, dully.
“Maybe you don’t see where you ought to go,” he replied.
“I cert’nly don’t,” she responded. “’Less a girl knows how to do
something big, she hasn’t got a chance. Gee, I wish I was clever and
could put it over, like some girls do.”
“Why don’t you try to write, or go to school and study something?” he
asked. “You’ve got it in you, Blanche, I know you have, but you just
don’t believe in yourself.”
“Me--write?” she queried, with a laugh. “Don’t be foolish, Lou. I can’t
even spell most words straight!”
“You could, ’f you put yourself to it,” he answered. “Piles of times
you say something with a lot of meaning to it, piles of times, but you
don’t know what’s in you, Blanche. You need to be pushed along and to
get some confidence in yourself.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t like to believe you, huh?” she asked, wistfully.
“I feel like I could do things when you talk to me, Lou, and then
afterwards it all goes away.”
They were silent for a while, and then she said: “Oh, let’s forget
about it. We’re sitting here like a couple of dopes and letting off a
lot of easy talking. Talking, that’s about all I’m good for, I guess.
Let’s take a bus ride and see the Avenue.”
They boarded one of the green, lumbering busses and sat on the
uncovered top. He curved an arm around her waist, and she made no
objections. He had a peaceful, heartening influence on her, and she
wondered whether it might not be best to marry him, in spite of the
fact that he was physically negative to her. He might help her to make
something out of herself. But no, it never worked out. You had to be
thrilled and light-headed and upside-down when a man touched you, and
if you weren’t, you’d soon get tired of having him near you, no matter
how much you liked to hear him talk, and how encouraging he was.
When they lingered in the hallway of her building, she let his embraces
become more determined, for the first time in many months, moved by
her troubled compassion for him. Then she stopped him, and gave him a
sorrowful look.
“I’d like to love you, Lou--I’m not kidding,” she said.
“Aren’t you a lot nearer to it now than you ever were?” he asked,
eagerly. “Aren’t you?”
“A little bit, maybe,” she answered. “You’re a good boy, Lou, you are,
and I’m always going to be straight with you. I’ll never tell you
nothing but the truth.”
They kissed again, and after they had arranged to meet on the following
Monday he walked down the hallway, wondering whether he should dare to
hope, and hoping in spite of his wondering.
When Blanche returned from her work, on the next evening, she
immediately perceived the downcast looks on the faces of her mother,
Philip, and Mabel, who were seated around the living-room table.
“What’s this, anyway--’n Irish wake?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“I just couldn’t say nothin’ this mornin’, you’d have been that
worried,” her mother replied, dolefully.
“Anyway, don’t you read the papers?” asked Mabel. “They’ve got it on
the second page of the Herald to-night, an’ the Courier, too.”
“Harry’s been called up before the Boxing Commission,” said Philip.
“He and pa went down this afternoon, and we’re expecting them back any
minnit now. There musta been a leak somewhere ’bout that fake scrap he
pulled night before last. They’re after him hot and heavy, and the Club
wouldn’t pay him off to-day, and I think Rainey’s double-crossed him in
the bargain. It looks bad all right for poor Harry!”
“Didn’t I know this was going to happen,” Blanche exclaimed. “I did
think he’d get away with it once ’r twice, though, before they caught
him. You’ve got to have brains ’f you want to be a crook in this world.”
“Oh, stop this I-told-yuh-so line,” answered Mabel. “Harry was only
trying to look out for the rest of us, and I’m darn sorry for him.”
“Well, I’m not,” Blanche replied, determinedly. “He needed something to
take the swelled head out of him, he did, and I’ll say it even ’f he is
my own brother.”
“I only hope it’ll make all of you listen more to your ma,” said Mrs.
Palmer. “There’s never no good in tryin’ to make money dishonest-like.
It’s happy I’ll feel ’f Harry’ll only go to work now, an’ give up alla
that fightin’ and bummin’ around like he does.”
“Well, Harry’s not down yet, I’m saying,” Philip interposed. “B’lieve
me, he’ll fix the guys that did him dirty, and he’ll do a good job of
it, too!”
“Yeh, and get into jail for doing it,” said Blanche, as she walked into
her room.
“Don’t talk like you wished it on him,” Mabel called after her,
irritably.
As Blanche changed to a kimono, she tried to feel sympathetic toward
Harry, but she could not down her sneaking satisfaction at his
misfortune. Somehow, it was difficult to engender affection toward
this rough-neck, never-seeing, cocksure brother of hers. Of course,
a man wasn’t a man unless he used his fists and his voice with a
hard efficiency, but Harry carried his masculinity to an overbearing
extreme, and never paid any attention to your side of the question, and
seemed to have a meanness--a go-to-hell spirit--which could instantly
be awakened by the slightest opposition. His dishonesty didn’t annoy
her particularly, but she disliked the lame excuses that he always
made for it. If he had been an out-and-out hold-up man, she would
have respected him far more. Oh, well, he was her brother after all,
and maybe this happening would make him more subdued and considerate.
Funny, she and her family would be disgraced now, and yet, if he hadn’t
been found out, they’d still be holding their heads high in the air.
“Getting away with it”--that was all people ever seemed to care about.
She heard the voice of her father and brother, and went out to the
living-room. They sat slumped down in chairs, with their hands in
their pockets, and scowled down at the linoleum-covered floor.
“It gets my goat, that bastard on the Commish, Murvaney, tellin’ me
‘Y’r a dis-gra-ace to the ring, Mis-ter Palmer.’ Didn’t he wink his eye
and give Callahan a clean bill when they had all that fuss about the
welter champ fight? Sure he did! I’d like to have the coin they slipped
him f’r that little stunt.”
“What’s the use uh beefin’--we’re in f’r it,” his father answered,
dully.
“What did they do to Harry?” Blanche asked.
“They went an’ barred him from the ring indef’nitely, the skunks,” her
father answered. “Thomas an’ Rainey only got three months, an’ there’s
somethin’ rotten somewhere. ’F we find out they flimflammed us we’ll
make ’em wish they hadn’t! A guy they call Carnavan come down an’ swore
he’d listened to Rainey an’ me fix it all up in the Club on the night
of the fight. I saw him hangin’ around that night, I saw him, but
Rainey said he was a good friend uh his.”
“Those two guys’ll be in the hospital before the end uh the week,” said
Harry. “Watch what I said.”
“Oh, what good will it do you ’f you beat them up?” asked Blanche. “I
don’t want to rub it in, Harry, but you’ll get into worse trouble than
this, ’f you don’t tone down.”
“Keep your mouth shut, that’s all I want from you,” Harry answered.
“You’re too good to live, you are.”
“Well, I think it’s a darn shame, Harry,” said Mabel, putting an arm
around his shoulders.
He squeezed her chin, and his scowl lessened a bit--he had a “soft
spot” for Mabel. She knew that you couldn’t get along in this world
without being as rotten as the next fellow was, and she appreciated his
generosity and his manly qualities, and knew that he was usually the
victim of bad luck and that he hardly ever received a “square deal.”
Blanche, on the other hand, was a coward, always trying to preach at
him, and she thought that she was better than he was, and she needed to
be “taken down.”
“You’re the one in this fam’ly I’m strong for,” he said to Mabel. “You
c’n have my las’ dime any time you want it!”
“Same here,” Mabel replied. “Blanche is gettin’ too stuck-up these
days, an’ she thinks she knows it all.”
“Well, she’d better lay offa me,” he said, ominously.
“You just can’t stand it when any one tells you you’re wrong,” Blanche
retorted.
“How about me, Harry, you know I’m always with you,” Philip said.
“Oh, you’re all right, but you need more guts,” Harry answered. “You
don’t know enough to go out an’ get what’s comin’ to you.”
“’F I was a scrapper like you, maybe I would,” said Philip. “I don’t
take any sass from anybody ’f I can help it, you know that, Harry.”
“It’s not right f’r you an’ Blanche to be always fightin’ like this,”
said Mrs. Palmer, turning to Harry. “It’s I that wish you’d be nice to
each other, like a brother an’ sister should. I don’t think you done
right, I don’t, but it’s no good pitchin’ into you now. Maybe you’ll
be a good, honest boy from now on, maybe you will.”
“You mean well, ma, but you don’t know what I’m up against,” Harry
answered, as he patted her head in a clumsy, reluctant way.
“You make me sick, Kate,” the father broke in. “Didn’t you an’ me work
hard f’r years, didn’t we, an’ what did we get out of it, what did we
get? Nothin’ but trouble, I’ll say! You an’ Blanche leave Harry alone,
’r you’ll hear from me. He got a bum deal this time, but he’ll be out
on top, ’fore it’s over.”
“Yeh, I’ve got confidence in Harry,” said Philip, giving his brother a
look of respect tempered with more secret annoyance. “He knows how to
handle himself.”
“Well, I don’t want my own boy to get behind the bars, an’ he will ’f
he don’t behave himself more,” Mrs. Palmer said, in a weakly lamenting
voice, as she shuffled back to the kitchen.
Blanche, who had no engagement for the night, went to a neighboring
moving-picture show and saw a film called “Nell of the Yukon,” in
which a dimpled statuesque actress named Dorothy Darling--a lady in
her desperately preserved, early thirties--smiled, and frowned, and
struggled, without subtlety but with much animal abandonment wasted on
the impossible tale. She played the part of a speckled but not quite
approachable dance-hall girl in a mining camp in Alaska, and she was
in love with a handsome young gambler who had incurred the enmity of
the saloon and dance-hall proprietor. Of course, the gambler was
the only honest one in the place, and, of course, he protected her
from the proprietor, whose intentions toward her were, alas, horribly
immoral, and, of course, the gambler was also loved by another jealous
dance-hall girl, who became the tool of the unscrupulous proprietor.
The second girl trapped the gambler in her room and, after he had
gently repulsed her pleadings, delivered him to the ambuscade of the
villainous proprietor and his cohorts. He was about to be slain by this
oddly hesitant and delaying villain when Nell of the Yukon rescued him,
at the head of a band of his mining-camp friends.
As Blanche looked on at the film, she had an excited interest that
sometimes lessened to a sense of the absurd. It _was_ “sort uh silly,”
to be sure, especially that scene where Nell fought against the
proprietor, in her room, and suffered no casualties except the tearing
of the upper part of her waist, and the loosening of her hair. No
girl ever got off that easy when a strapping fellow had her cornered
and was out to do her wrong! But still, the story was a glimpse into
another fabricated world, far more enticing than her own, and in her
eagerness to forget the immediate facts in her life, Blanche devoured
the colossal unreality of the film with only an occasional qualm.
Afterwards, as she walked down Ninth Avenue, she had an odd mood--too
tired to be discontented, and yet carrying the suggestion that life was
purposeless and that there was “nothing much to it.” The mood stayed
with her as she rested prone on the bed in her little room.