We are all afraid of Five O'clock Shadow. Such fears, indeed, have
become paramount for most of us.
Yuts.
What was Paul's idiom?
Cipher-faces--standing around waiting for somebody to put a minus one
in front of them. Hitler, Stalin, or Huey Long. Zero-pusses, he called
them. Zed-mugs. Neck-heads. Neonightmares. Two-legged negatives.
I shaved, thinking I was positive, anyhow. Wait till they focused their
bright peepers on that biopsy!
I wished I had a little music to cheer up the joint. All I could hear
was passing cargo on Madison Avenue, the elevator ruminating in its
shaft, and some dame in the bathroom above me talking to a little
kid with the motherly tones of a cement mixer. The sweet child was
answering in words I could not distinguish, but it knew how to mix
concrete, too.
Ricky and I haven't owned a radio for years--except one that sneaked
into the house in a record-player and we didn't even notice we had
that, for eight months. A man in this world encounters more than he can
bear of the sort of thing that radio purveys; it is Heaven's own mercy
if he can avoid a part of it. The printed ads and the billboards get
you willy-nilly; and second-class mail is always fooling you. You are
eternally exposed to entertainment by chumps in the flesh.
But when I want a cerebral clyster I want something that won't wash my
brain out. And while I can eat with my mouth I propose to get along
without the nutrient enema. Every orifice to its rightful function, I
say.
But now I wanted music.
So I called Bill-the-bellman again. To think (as you are beginning to
see) is to act, with me. Sometimes. And the Astolat doesn't have what
is correctly called piped radio in its rooms. Bill brought up a machine
with knobs like the eyes of dead fish and an illuminated grin for a
dial--such a grin as may be seen on any alligator lamp.
I spun through about eighteen of my fellow citizens who were uniformly
engaged in lying to the public and finally hit a girl with too much
rosin on her voice, which was what I wanted.
"When a Broadway baby goes to bed
It's early in the morning--"
I did a feather and a few more Peabody steps and a couple of advance
left turns.
The dame put a mute on the bridge of her nose.
Broadway dreamed off to her lullaby.