Heads were thrown back and each ego there, except the bartender,
received a charming little thrill.
The beer men wandered to the back of the saloon and dipped into a large
pink hemisphere of cheese. The whisky men suppressed coughs. Jim
tipped his head back about five degrees and inquired, "Is the big
fellow coming 'round to-night?"
"He's due," replied Jack, wiping his bar dry again.
"How's things looking to you?"
"We--ell, there's always a lot of knockers about."
"Yes, 'pikers' like Ben Birch and Coffey Neal, that line up with the
big fellow for ten years and then throw him overnight because he won't
let 'em name the alderman this time. And he always treated 'em right.
Better than me. An' jou ever hear me kicking?"
"Nary once, Jim."
"That's because I am a white man with my friends. But these other
Indians--well," said Jim earnestly, "God knows ingratitude gets my
goat."
Jim Connor was a ward heeler and the big fellow was his ward boss. Jim
was allowed to handle some of the money in his precinct at primaries
and elections; he landed on the public pay-roll now and then; he was
expected to attend funerals, bowling matches, saloons, picnics, cigar
shops and secret society meetings throughout the year; his influence
lay in his strength with the big fellow. Did a storekeeper want an
awning over the sidewalk, or did he not want vigorous building
inspection, if he lived in Jim's precinct, he told Jim, and Jim told
the big fellow, and the big fellow told the alderman, and the alderman
arranged it with his colleagues on a basis of friendship. In return,
the storekeeper voted with the organization, which was the big fellow,
who was thus enabled always to nominate and usually to elect candidates
who would do what he told them. He told them to line up with the
interests who had subscribed to the campaign fund--and he was the
campaign fund. The entire process is pretty well known nowadays
through the efforts of Mr. Lincoln Steffens and his associate
muckrakers.
But there is no immediate cause for alarm; this is not a political
novel.
The clock pointed nearly to seven and Jim, when he saw it, sighed.
That meant unpleasantness. His supper certainly would be cold, but he
wasn't thinking of that. He was thinking of his wife. She was sure to
make him uncomfortable in some way or other, because he had broken his
promise about being home on time. Probably she would be silent. If
there was anything he hated, it was one of her silent spells. Just
"No" and "Yes," and when he asked her what in hell was the matter, she
would say "Nothing."
The trouble was, though, that he always knew what the matter was, even
when she said "Nothing." What devil's power was there in wives,
anyway, that enabled them to hurt by merely not speaking? He had tried
silences on her a lot of times, but they never worked, not once. He
liked the old days better, when she used to scold and plead and weep.
He remembered the first time he had come home drunk, half a dozen years
ago, when he had barely turned from bridegroom to husband. She helped
him that night to undress and to go to bed. And she had done other
things for him, too, that even now he was ashamed to remember. And the
next day she hadn't scolded once, but had fetched him a cup of coffee
in bed as soon as he woke up. It surprised him; overwhelmed him. It
had made him very humble. He had never been so repentant before or
since.
She didn't reproach him that time--not a word. He didn't mean she had
one of her silences--those didn't begin until much later; but she tried
to talk about their usual affairs, as if nothing had happened. And
everything had happened. They both knew that.
It wasn't until the next evening, thirty-six hours later, that he came
home to find her a miserable heap upon the front room sofa, her face
buried. He stood in the middle of the room looking at her helplessly,
his words of greeting cut short. Every now and then her small
shoulders heaved up and he heard her sob. She must have been crying a
long time. He implored her, "Oh, don't, Georgia, don't; please don't;
won't you please not?"
After a little while she stood up and put her arms about him and kissed
him. He had never had such a feeling for her, it seemed to him, not
even when they walked down the aisle together and she leaned on him so
heavily. And then he kissed her solemnly, in a different way than ever
before. He took the pledge that night, and he kept it, too, for a long
time, nearly a year. That was the happy time of his life.
When he did begin again, it was gradually. She knew, after a time, he
wasn't teetotal any more, and she didn't seem to mind so much. He
remembered they talked about it. He explained that he could drink
moderately, that she could trust him now, and mustn't ever be afraid of
any more--accidents. And that very same night he came home drunk.
She cried again, but it wasn't as solemn and as terrible for either of
them as the time before.
There had been other times since, many of them. And she had grown so
cursedly contemptuous and cold. Well--he didn't know that it was
altogether his fault. He had heard that alcoholism was a disease. But
she had said it was a curable disease, and if he couldn't cure it, he
had better die. His own wife had told him that. God knows he had
tried to cure it. He had put every pound he had into the fight; not
once, but a hundred times. He had gone to Father Hervey and taken the
pledge last Easter Day, and--here he was with a whiskey glass in his
hand.
He looked across into the high bar mirror. His eyes were yellow and
his cheeks seemed to sag down. He put his hand to them to touch their
flaccidity. His hair was thinning, there were red patches about his
jaws where veins had broken, and his mouth seemed loose and ill-defined
under the mustache which he wore to conceal it. He frowned fiercely,
thrust his chin forward and gritted his teeth tightly to make of
himself the reflection of a strong man--one who could domineer, like
the big fellow. But it was no use--the mirror gave him back his lie.
The afternoon rush was over, the evening trade had not begun, and the
saloon was empty, save for a group of scat-players at the farther end.
Jim's friends had gone, but he remained behind, in gloomy
self-commiseration, his shoulders propped against the partition which
marked off the cigar stand. He was thinking over his troubles, which
was his commonest way of handling them.
Whoever it was that invented the saying, "Life is just one damned thing
after another"--he knew, he knew. Jim had bought three or four
post-cards variously framing the sentiment and placed them upon his
bureau, side by side, for Georgia to see. It was his criticism of life.
You politicians and publicists, if you want to know what the public
wants, linger at the rack in your corner drug store and look over the
saws and sayings on the post-cards.
Jim hoped that the ones he had picked out would subtly convey to his
wife that all were adrift together upon a most perplexing journey and
that it ill-behooved any of them to--well there was a post-card poem
that just about hit it off--and he put it on the bureau with the others:
"THERE IS SO MUCH BAD IN THE BEST OF US
AND SO MUCH GOOD IN THE WORST OF US,
THAT IT HARDLY BEHOOVES ANY OF US
TO TALK ABOUT THE REST OF US."
But she hadn't taken the least notice. She didn't seem to understand
him at all. Oh, well--women were light creatures of clothes and moods
and two-edged swords for tongues--or deadly silence. What could they
know about the deep springs of life--about how a man felt when in
trouble?
Jim shifted his position slightly, for the hinge was beginning to
trouble his shoulder blade, and fetched a sigh that was almost a moan.
Such had been his life, merely that, and the future looked as bad or
worse. The shilling bar grew a bit misty before him and he knew it
wouldn't take much to make his eyes run over.
"Anything wrong, Jim?" inquired the sympathetic bartender.
"Just a little blue to-night, Jack, that's all."
"Sometimes I get into those spells myself. Hell, ain't they?"